| Without seeing your CV or code examples, it's difficult to tell where the main areas of concern may be. And that's if there are any areas of concern at all, you could just have hit a streak of bad luck. But, I will tell you something I've learned about when selling yourself to potential companies. A while back I ran across a TEDx video titled How Great Leaders Inspire Action given by Simon Sinek.You can watch it at the TED website, but the summary of the talk is "People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it." The idea is what can you do to make the hiring person get excited about you? You're a Java developer - there are a lot of those. You have a lot of experience - so do a lot of other candidates. Education - others have it to. Basically, what makes you a unique and memorable candidate? You even said it yourself - you didn't take the job with the startup because you didn't feel you and the founder were on the same wavelength. Well, that's what the hiring company wants to get from you. They want to know you're on their wavelength. You can't communicate that by telling them what you can do, or how good you are at it. You communicate that you're on the same wavelength by telling them why you do what you do. You have to give them something that gets them excited about you as an individual, something that makes them forget about the other candidates. That's my perspective, and it's worked out fairly well for me. Especially now that I'm a senior developer, I rarely talk about what I do. I've had years of experience, it's just expected at this point that I have the skills. I wouldn't have been so consistently recruited or promoted if I didn't have the skills. That means the skills I have aren't worth talking about at all. On my own site, and how I present myself in general, I don't talk about my capabilities. I talk about the WHY. Note: "to get a paycheck" will not suffice as an answer to why you do what you do. You have to have a real answer for this question, and it is a problem. A lot of people don't know why they do what they do, which is why there are a lot more people who can't figure out how to get to the top. This may even require you figuring out what it is you really want to do, and switching job types or careers completely. Any company that hires someone who just wants to collect a paycheck isn't a company where anyone is going to be happy. You'll just be in a cubicle next to dozens of other unhappy people who only showed up that morning so they can continue to collect their paycheck. |