Job Tips For Geeks The Job Search

Career advice for technology professionals and software engineers

Job seekers of all ages and experience levels benefit from a geek's insider tips in this guide to finding the perfect job. From resumes and interviews to follow-up calls and general etiquette, job hunters learn how to create a positive overall image that ensures success on paper and in person. Basic advice on presenting the appropriate skills for a specific position, weeding out nonjobs, competing with other applicants, and handling salary negotiations gives everyone from recent college graduates to upper-level management the tools to rise above the rest.

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

Winner of the 2003 Financial Times Germany/getAbstract Business & Finance Book Award Leading Geeks challenges the conventional wisdom that leadership methods are universal and gives executives and managers the understanding they need to manage and lead the technologists on whom they have become so dependent. This much-needed book? written in nontechnical language by Paul Glen, a highly acclaimed management consultant? gives clear directions on how to effectively lead these brilliant yet notoriously resistant-to-being-managed knowledge workers. Glen not only provides proven management strategies but also background on why traditional approaches often don't work with geeks. Leading Geeks describes the beliefs and behavior of geeks, their group dynamics, and the unique nature of technical work. It also offers a unique twelve-part model that explains how knowledge workers deliver value to an organization.

At some point in your career, you'll realize there's more to being a software engineer than dealing with code. Is it time to become a manager? Or join a startup? In this insightful and entertaining book, Michael Lopp recalls his own make-or-break moments with Silicon Valley giants such as Apple, Slack, Pinterest, Palantir, Netscape, and Symantec to help you make better, more mindful career decisions. With more than 40 stand-alone stories, Lopp walks through a complete job lifecycle, starting with the interview and ending with the realization that it might be time to move on. You'll learn how to handle baffling circumstances in your job, understand what you want from your career, and discover how to thrive in your workplace. Learn how to navigate areas of your job that don't involve writing code Identify how the aspects you enjoy will affect your next career steps Build and maintain key relationships and interactions within your community Make choices that will help you have a "deliberate career" Recognize what's important to your manager and work on things that matter

Hiring a person for your team is the single most important decision you can make. It has long-lasting impact, whether you are the manager or a team member. Would you like to learn to hire great people? Not sure how? You need this book. Great geeks are not the same as skill-based staff. You need to analyze your culture, determine your problems, define the essentials you need in a candidate, and then you’re off and running. Great geeks adapt their knowledge to your context. One developer or technical manager is not interchangeable with another. Hiring Geeks That Fit takes the guesswork and cost out of hiring.

Are you a technical person, such as a software developer, tester, writer, or project manager? You know that a job search is tough. You have to network, online and in person. You have to customize your resume for each job, so you can showcase your talent. You have to look for a culture that fits you. How do you start? Treat your job hunt like the project it is. Use agile and lean project management approaches that allow you to create a visual system. You'll increase your productivity, track your progress, evaluate your work, gain feedback, and throw out what doesn't work while building on your successes. Learn from your past career to optimize for your next step. Full of tips, stories, and humor, you'll apply practical techniques to take control of the most important project you'll ever work on: find your next best job.

A job-search manual that gives career seekers a systematic, tech-savvy formula to efficiently and effectively target potential employers and secure the essential first interview. The 2-Hour Job Search shows job-seekers how to work smarter (and faster) to secure first interviews. Through a prescriptive approach, Dalton explains how to wade through the Internet’s sea of information and create a job-search system that relies on mainstream technology such as Excel, Google, LinkedIn, and alumni databases to create a list of target employers, contact them, and then secure an interview—with only two hours of effort. Avoiding vague tips like “leverage your contacts,” Dalton tells job-hunters exactly what to do and how to do it. This empowering book focuses on the critical middle phase of the job search and helps readers bring organization to what is all too often an ineffectual and frustrating process.