TECH CAREERS
Making your application competitive
Get a Referral to Highlight your Application
Job posts get 100s of applications, most are screened out by automatic systems. Of those, many are screened out quickly by recruiters. You must stand out!
See: hundreds of applicants just via LinkedIn (not even MSFT website
Having a referral makes it much more likely your resume will be looked at by a human being. It helps you get into the recruiting funnel. Remember that a referral doesn’t have to come from a college roommate who’s known you for ten years - a LinkedIn intro to someone could be a potential referral if you develop a connection with that person (see below).
Referrals are good for referrers → big tech companies pay $1000+ if you’re hired
Small companies love referrals because they care a lot about the culture of their <1000 person organization.
Some (larger) companies require that referrals come for specific roles. This means that you should send your referrer a Job ID and link
E.g. for this role (https://jobs.careers.microsoft.com/us/en/job/1539288/Senior-Product-Manager) the job id is 1539288
Warning: referrals only help you get through the resume screen but do not guarantee you’ll make it to interviews, and you still must pass interviews like any other candidate.
Referrals are not binary, think of them like a ladder with multiple (unofficial) levels
Level 1: Referral entered in a system (check in the box)
Level 2: Referral with a thoughtful note / letter of advocacy
Level 3: Referral + internal advocacy to recruiters
Level 4: Referral + internal advocacy to recruiters and hiring managers
Note: you really want to be here, with someone expending political capital to bring you into the organization.
When you network with veterans, have a few job IDs in mind that you’d like to target. Show initiative by looking through the careers page before the chat
Warning: be a good “referee”. If you wouldn’t seriously consider an offer from the company or aren’t willing to work hard if you got the job, don’t burn the political capital and reputation of your referrer
If you feel like you are a good fit (with this veteran and those roles), don’t be afraid to ask for a referral
Offer to ghost-write any referral comments
150 words on why should hire you, written in the third person point of view like “NAME is amazing because of XYZ….”
<5 job links from careers page, stack-ranked, where the referrer can prioritize 2-3 based on what they see as best-fit
Here’s one guide to getting referrals at tech companies; and a useful reddit thread
If you have a legit veteran mentor, ask them what interviews are like, maybe ask if they’ll do a mock interview for you
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