Finding a development job online is great. Its just the job sites which suck. One of these things is not like the other.
Most hiring decisions are made through the informal networks. That has, historically, been one of the great benefits of going to a really good school, because you get to make weak ties with folks who will eventually probably be in a position to help you out (and vice versa). Participation online is a staggeringly good way to make weak ties.
Meanwhile, the "Send out a hundred resumes and then wait by the phone" is jobseeking for the truly clueless (and, sadly relatedly, the entry level -- I swear, there should be a class on this at college). It virtually guarantees that any company putting up a job will get a hundred resumes for it, most of them from people who have no capability to actually do the job. Additionally, all the people who are poor candidates on day N will probably still need jobs on day N+1, and they'll probably still be sending resumes. It doesn't take a genius to predict what this does to your applicant pool after iterating for a while.
I think if you're really good your jobseeking process is less likely to involve seeking out companies and more likely to involve saying "I am available for work" in a semi-public fashion, but that is another discussion altogether.
>I think if you're really good your jobseeking process is less likely to involve seeking out companies and more likely to involve saying "I am available for work" in a semi-public fashion, but that is another discussion altogether.
This is interesting. Do you think one has to have a high-profile outlet to qualify as "really good", and when you say "really good", what kind of percentile are you talking? Do you mean, like, exceedingly better than average, or do you mean "actually" good, instead of one of the mass-resume-senders?
I think I'm an OK programmer in the disciplines I know, but I don't really maintain a blog and as far as I know I don't have a bunch of regular readers of my profile here.
Do you expect every person worthy of hire to be able to just say "I need work" and automatically get offers?
Just for the amusement value [1]: My company is looking for programmers. Or more specifically we are looking for people to work at our office in Cambrigde, UK, of Citrix. Almost everything we do is open source and my very own team is hacking with Ocaml (but the other teams us more `normal' languages).
Please drop me a line if you are interested. My mail is matthias.goergens@gmail.com.
[1] I was going to submit a "Tell HN" or something like this anyway. You can also find some more text on our recent post on the Haskell mailing list (http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.lang.haskell.general/177...).Of course Citrix.com also has some job offers, but like someone said, going directly is better for you, since your CV does not land on a company-wide pile.
P.S. I got my job (and some other interviews) through contacts I made at the ICFP 2009 conference.
The networking thing sucks if you're not really interesting in networking but are fairly good at the actual job you want to get.
Social people who are good at getting recognized and being liked have an advantage. I've seen relatively high profile people not be quite up to their billing, and vice versa. As someone who is quite low-profile, I'm not sure what the solution is short of biting the bullet and putting yourself out there.
Every job I have ever had I have gotten either through personal contacts or by sending my resume to a company that I was interested in. It wasn't that people were doing me favors, its just that it put me in the right place at the right time and that was much more effective than browsing online ads. I have read statistics that say most hires are made through personal contacts, otherwise known as "networking"
Every job but one that I've had I got through personal contacts.
However one of those jobs was through a personal contact I made through being on a Perl website, and another was a personal contact I only maintained through LinkedIn.
There is therefore no conflict between searching for jobs online, and finding jobs using personal contacts. Furthermore if you're looking for a job online, I would suggest focusing on activities that build your personal network. Which means mostly ignoring the job boards (that largely don't work anyways), and doing things like being on local mailing lists, going to local meetups, being on discussion boards, and using tools like LinkedIn to maintain your network.
I was looking for a junior web developer job so I replied to a number of ads on a job board and got several interviews and a really good job at a startup. All my friends there which were on their first job (they weren't many though) did just as I did too.
Then, after I quit to work on my own startup, I got invited several times by those contacts I made while I worked there so I'd say networking is really good for everyone else not looking for a first job.
A couple of years ago I spent a lot of time looking at job boards and craigslist, and the experience was not a delightful one. Finally I found a company that hadn't posted any listings but that I really liked, and just knocked on their door. I actually still work there.
Recently I got How to get the tech job you love by Andy Lester (pragmatic bookshelf). It's a great read whether or not you have a job.
Most hiring decisions are made through the informal networks. That has, historically, been one of the great benefits of going to a really good school, because you get to make weak ties with folks who will eventually probably be in a position to help you out (and vice versa). Participation online is a staggeringly good way to make weak ties.
Meanwhile, the "Send out a hundred resumes and then wait by the phone" is jobseeking for the truly clueless (and, sadly relatedly, the entry level -- I swear, there should be a class on this at college). It virtually guarantees that any company putting up a job will get a hundred resumes for it, most of them from people who have no capability to actually do the job. Additionally, all the people who are poor candidates on day N will probably still need jobs on day N+1, and they'll probably still be sending resumes. It doesn't take a genius to predict what this does to your applicant pool after iterating for a while.
I think if you're really good your jobseeking process is less likely to involve seeking out companies and more likely to involve saying "I am available for work" in a semi-public fashion, but that is another discussion altogether.