Boost Your Tech Career: More Interviews, Offers, and Higher Pay
Learn strategies to secure more interviews, land job offers, and negotiate higher compensation at top tech companies, elevating your tech career.
This past Tuesday, I held a live event with Alan Stein: How to get more interviews, offers, and compensation at top tech companies.
Alan has 30+ years of experience and has worked at Google, Meta, Salesforce, and more at Director+ levels. Alan is the CEO of Kadima Careers—a program that has helped many engineers land big offers at FAANG and other top tech companies.
It was a pleasure to interview him and now share with you the main takeaways.
We’ll cover:
How to get more interviews
How to get more offers
How to negotiate a higher compensation
Plato Elevate Conference (Partner)
I’m incredibly excited about this conference (and I will be going! I’d love to meet you).
This conference is everything I and this newsletter are about. No-BS, straightforward, real-world advice.
If you’re able to make it, this seems like an amazing place to meet with and learn from top industry experts.
Get 40% off with code ELEVATE2023-JORDAN. Pro tip: Use the code in combination with your L&D budget to go for free.
Note: If you can’t make it, the sessions will be recorded and available online afterward!
🤝 (1) Getting more interviews
Getting referrals
The best strategy for getting more interviews is getting referrals.
You increase your chances from 1% (through direct applying) to about 10-30%.
I get asked for referrals a LOT. Here are the biggest mistakes I see:
Sending a Word Doc (.docx) as your resume. Please, only send PDF.
Why: PDF is a standard format for any machine and looks professional.
Sending a long, 3-5 paragraph message about your experience.
Why: The most valuable thing to the other person is their time. Sending a long message takes from that.
Asking for a referral without sending a resume.
Why: I can’t say I’ll refer you unless I can check your experience. If I need to go back and forth with you to get your resume, again, it takes time, which decreases the chances of a response.
I know as an applicant these might sound like I’m on a high-horse, but I’m just telling you how people who receive these requests think and what is valuable to them.
If you want to increase your chances, you need to take it into account.
So what should you do?
(1) Be direct - Don’t go back and forth 5 times starting with “Hey”, then “How’s it going”, then “What’s your favorite food?”
Send something in this rough format:
- Quick intro and what position you’re interested in
- Why your experience lines up with the position in 1 sentence
- Ask for the referral
- Link to everything and attach resume so they can easily submit the referral.
(2) Build a relationship (if you can) - When someone interacts with my content (comments, likes, etc. on LinkedIn or Substack) I notice. Do this enough over time combined with a no-strings-attached compliment and later on asking for a referral is 10x easier. This is a bit specific to me, but you can think about how you can do similar things with other people. Giving value through compliments is one of the best ways.
Fixing your resume
A recruiter decides on your resume in ~7 seconds.
This is why it’s all about first impressions.
From my experience reviewing 100s of resumes, the 3 biggest things I notice are:
Poor formatting - Stick to the consistent resume formats your recruiter would expect. Don’t make them waste their 7 seconds trying to understand how to read your resume. Also, ALWAYS SEND AND SUBMIT PDF!
For some good templates, check out Pragmatic Engineer Resume Template, my HTML / CSS resume, Career Cup Resume Template, and Alan’s resume templates.
Bullets too long - Try to keep all bullets to 1-2 lines at most.
Example ❌: “Architected a secure and reliable claim system within a team of 4, that stores customer funds and pays out bounties in crypto tokens to participants. The system has processed over $1000+ USD in value. The features included enhancements to the user interface, integrations with third-party services, and improvements to the overall system architecture.”
Why it isn’t great: It’s overly wordy and doesn’t get to the point. It might have taken the recruiter 7 seconds alone to read just this one point.
Improved example ✅: “Architected a secure and reliable claim system with a team of 4 which processed $1000+ USD in value.”
Bullets too short - This is better than bullets being too long, but it lacks depth.
Example ❌: “Built React.js dashboard for pricing page”
Why it isn’t great: It doesn’t say why you built it. What was the impact? Instead, it focuses on the technology. Remember, you are a problem-solver, not just a coder.
Improved example ✅: “Improved customer retention by 35% by rearchitecting the pricing page dashboard.”
To see mine, view it live here: https://jordancutler.net/assets/images/JordanResume.pdf
Note: It’s not perfect. One thing I’d improve is adding more numbers in dollars $.
Applying to A LOT of places
When I joined Gusto as an entry-level SWE, it took me 300+ job applications.
Out of roughly 500 applications across my life, I’ve only had about 5-10 offers.
That’s a 1% success rate.
Many people who aren’t getting jobs tell me they’ve only applied to 30 places.
If you’re only applying to a few places, you need to at least get referrals.
Otherwise, you should be applying to as many places as you can.
For finding places to apply, here are the resources I recommend:
Join sites where companies reach out to you
Find companies through the following sites…
🎉 (2) Getting more offers
The first 5 minutes of any interview
These are the most important minutes in any interview, whether it’s over zoom, the phone, or in person.
The first impression matters and sets the tone for the interview.
30% of interviewers decide within the first 5 minutes.
Here’s how you can increase your chances given this:
Maintain a positive vibe, smile, tone of voice, and sound excited. I recommend recording yourself to confirm this.
How you present yourself matters. This is no different from the old school days of showing up to an interview in a suit-and-tie, but a modern version of that.
Invest in a good mic and quality webcam.
Use a virtual background if you have a lot going on behind you.
Sit at an angle that light shines on your face, not on the back of your neck.
NOTE: I’m not saying this is fair. Just how to take every advantage you can.
Alan suggested checking the interviewers’ LinkedIn profile before the interview and finding anything you can relate to, typically under their Experience, Education, or About section.
Discussing it with Alan, I was initially worried this may be going a bit too far, but thinking about times it’s happened to me, I’ve never been bothered by it. Alan’s point is that it shows you did your research plus makes the interviewer remember you. If you do this, just bring it up casually. “By the way, I saw you went to CMU. I was there from 2015-2019.” Then see how they respond.
Answering behavioral questions the right way
Many folks out there recommend STAR.
STAR is okay. But I really liked Alan’s recommendation of CAR:
Context - Explain the why, who, and you. Explain why you’re doing this thing, who is involved, and your role and responsibility.
Action - Show how you approached it like the level you’re interviewing for.
Result - What was the outcome, metric, or dollars made from your actions.
I prefer this framework over STAR because it divides it into 3 short parts. This prevents you from rambling on too much and sounding too rehearsed.
Keep your answer to 1-3 minutes. Think about your story in 3 main chunks you want to tell, and give just enough detail in each one to get your interviewer’s interest.
Nearly every movie and story follows this framework:
Here’s how that looks applied to software engineer behavioral interviews using CAR.
Here’s an example from my personal experience:
(Context) Working as a Senior Software Engineer on our Design Systems team (my role), there was an org-wide problem of advocating for accessibility but teams not being able to measure it. Because of this, accessibility was too abstract and we couldn’t make a case to leadership it was a problem (why). I worked with our team to get this prioritized as a project so we can get metrics across the org to track accessibility on a team-by-team basis (who).
(Action) We had a dashboard we built awhile ago that measured the performance of each page in the app and gave each team a score based on their performance. I realized we could use this same infrastructure and run accessibility metrics alongside the performance metrics, and tie it to each team. This helped reduce scope by about 3 weeks (showing pragmatism and reducing scope). I found an accessibility checker library we could run, but it was a bit outdated and had some strange incompatibility issues. Using it was challenging. I worked through those through a combination of { insert technical details } (overcoming challenges). After working through those, we finally had the dashboards up and running!
(Result) With the dashboard built, we were able to see how problematic the accessibility issues were across the app, and show leadership where the biggest problems were. This allowed us to get accessibility fixes prioritized across teams and make drastic wins, like a 50% reduction in contrast errors and plenty more (metrics moved).
How to constantly improve
It’s important to remember to get a job, you just need 1 company to give you an offer.
If you improve after every interview, it’s guaranteed you will eventually get a job.
Here are 3 of the best ways to improve after each interview:
Ask for feedback. You won’t get it every time, but when you do, it’ll be worth it
Practice with someone you can get raw, honest feedback from. This might be a close friend, coach, past professor, interview buddy, etc.
When you do practice, record yourself.
Both Alan and I recalled things we were embarrassed by when we did this ourselves. Alan mentioned he noticed himself only using one hand when talking and using a lot of “um’s.” For me, I’ve noticed myself making strange faces that I didn’t realize I was making.
You are your own harshest critic. So don’t skip this step. I promise you.
🥂 (3) Getting higher compensation
We didn’t get a chance to dive too deep into negotiation but here are 2 quick tips:
Giving them information
Understand the recruiter and company likely have more information than you. When you’re asked a question, don’t make this worse by giving away info like your current salary or your expectations.
Instead, turn the tables and ask them how their compensation model works. After letting them explain, be upfront about how you’re expecting higher than the range they provide or say, “I see. That’s really helpful. Let me think on it and get back to you” (and then 99% of the time you don’t need to get back to them).
Understand your leverage
If you have an offer in hand, the company wants you.
You can use that to your advantage in these ways to get a better offer:
Time: Offering to “accept right now” at a certain compensation
“The number I had in mind was closer to $200,000. Do you think we’d be able to bridge that gap? If we could, I’d feel comfortable signing right now.”
Loss: Mentioning you have other upcoming interviews or existing offers.
“I have a few more interviews with Adobe and Pinterest to finish up this week and next week. After I hear back, I think I’d have a bit more clarity. However, I’d love to get your thoughts on if we can get the offer to $200,000. If you think we could get there, I’d be excited to drop the interviews and accept right now.”
“I’d really love to join the team. What’s making the decision difficult is the offer from Google is $60k higher in base compensation. If we can get our offer to $210k across base and equity, I’d be ready to sign.”
Investment: The company benefits from you being more invested.
“I loved meeting the team and I’m excited to bring { skillset that you have that the company is looking for } to the company. I’m the type that intends to stay at a company for multiple years. I also get very passionate on the day-to-day, and I’d like the compensation to reflect that investment. The number I had in mind was $200,000. Do you think we could bridge the gap to that number?”
These are the main things you need to know, but if you’re interested in diving deeper, check my full article on negotiation here (unlocked now for all subscribers).
📖 TL;DR
Getting more interviews
Getting referrals can 10-30x your chances. Do everything you can to get them.
On your resume: Fix poor formatting, bullets that are not descriptive enough, and bullets that are overly wordy. Find the goldilocks point for each line.
You might need to apply to 300+ places. But you only need 1 offer.
Getting more interviews
30% of interviewers decide within the first 5 minutes. Make them count.
Use the CAR framework for behavioral questions and answer like you’re telling a movie in 2.5 minutes. Let your interviewer ask follow-up questions.
Record yourself while practicing. You are your own harshest critic.
Getting higher compensation
Ask the recruiter for information before giving it yourself.
Understand your leverage once you have an offer. The company wants you. Use time, loss, and investment to your advantage.
Note: If you’re looking for a job right now, check part 1 of this post I did 6 months ago. There are even more resources for studying, preparation, and a before & after resume example.
📣 Shoutouts of the week
Wes Kao started a new Substack that I’ve been incredibly impressed with. It has insightful, actionable advice with tons of examples. I’d highly recommend checking out her article, Start right before you get eaten by the bear to drastically improve your communication.
Theo (t3 gg) is one of my favorite software engineering YouTubers. Check him out to learn about more senior topics and stay up-to-date with the industry.
Thank you to Alan for the fun and insightful live event. If you’d like to work with him directly on finding a job, you can use this link. Mention “Jordan Cutler” for a $500 discount.
As always, thank you for reading.
- Jordan
P.S. If you’re interested, I’m accepting the following:
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Love that you emphasized being direct when asking for a referral.
I’ve been asked for a referral many times, and it’s always obvious when someone is asking for one indirectly. A lot of times, I think they feel like they have to ask questions before asking for a referral (like, how is working at X?).
But if the questions are just generic, then it’s a waste of time! I’d rather people ask some specific questions about my work (which is a huge plus!) or just be direct when asking for a referral from the beginning.
Your tips on negotiating with the hiring manager are great. I love thinking about these scenarios like a game of chess. I've found that taking negotiation class on LinkedIn and researching best responses on YouTube have driven my own conversations. Thanks for a great article!