The painfully shy developer's guide to networking for a better job (2017)

https://www.samjulien.com/shy-dev-networking/

by mooreds • 4 years ago

369 95 4 years ago

samjulien.com

adoxyz• 4 years ago

Awesome tips! Great tactics and action items at the end.

anonu• 4 years ago

Something I've noticed:

introvert != no social skills

I don't think being introverted and lacking social skills equate to each other, as the article alludes to.

ScoobleDoodle• 4 years ago

Agreed. My understanding of introversion is that it takes energy to socialize and an introverted person gains energy with more time alone for things like introspection. That can be independent of social skills and degree of enjoyment from socializing.

Extroverts find socializing energizing. And can find alone time draining.

Of course most people aren't fully in one or the other and some circumstances may change things.

Shyness is more the classification for social wariness which might be coupled with a perception or skills deficit in addition to the negative beliefs or feelings around socializing.

I'm definitely more on the introvert end of things. But after a long time of solitude I get a hankering for socialization and feel energized by interacting with friends and family, up to a certain duration. And then a while after that I can feel overwhelmed or drained and then need to find alone time for myself to recharge.

shrimp_emoji• 4 years ago

Extroverts find socializing energizing. And can find alone time draining.

This sounds insane to me. I'm an introversion solipsist.

Socialization is inherently more demanding. Whole parts of the brain must light up -- reading faces and tone and filtering thoughts and modulating your speech and delivery and listening to others' speech. By physics alone, in the same way that a computer processing some data necessarily consumes more power than a computer doing nothing, socialization must burn more brain calories than not socializing.

After I've socialized a lot, I'm dead tired (and maybe more stressed).

whatshisface• 4 years ago

That's true, but... social skills = practice, and introvert = -practice.

ahmed_ds2• 4 years ago

The most effective way to networking is to have a "networking wingman". Going solo as an introvert sounds pretty easy on paper but you never can do it. You fear that the moment you say "hi" to a group they will roll their eyes because you disrupted their flow. So having a wingman will work miracle.

You can bring a friend or you can chat up someone you are comfortable with and ease them into playing the role of a wingman.

mooreds3• 4 years ago

I actually like the conversational hook. Here's an article I wrote about it from a few years ago https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2019/02/25/use-a-conversa...

But I think the post author does a great job of outlining the whole process. Key points:

   * have fun, try not to put pressure on yourself
   * get into the conversation normally
   * make it about the other person (but not to the point of fanboy/fangirl)
   * keep it short (a few minutes, 10 max)
   * ask if you can follow up
   * if given permission, follow up! (few folks do this, it can really separate you from the pack)

kirso2• 4 years ago

This, I always say pressured networking is like going to a urinal (as a guy) and try hard to squeeze something out. Even if you have a need, a good chance is nothing comes out.

But when you relax, it just flows... like a conversation :)

When you have fun, you are authentic and relaxed, people can read that subconsciously and also relax

Obviously it is not easy to relax, but its possible to train yourself particularly if you understand: When you are scared about what people think of you. Its actually your ego saying that you are somehow important. Its not about you, world doesn't really care and people forget. Once you understand that and do it a few times, you realise even if you get rejected. Nothing happens.

Practical exercise: Go to a Starbucks and when ordering ask for 10% discount. You might be surprised about the results. If they negate and ask why? You just say: because its a wonderful day and you are amazing! Who cares what happens? They want bite your head off and you will realise its not a big deal.

tibbar• 4 years ago

An excellent, thoughtful article. People often don't realize how easy it is to make inroads if you're humble and genuinely interested in the other person. The other day someone cold-emailed me to talk about some old blog post, we had a nice discussion, and then they asked for tips on applying to my employer. And I was happy to give a referral. (Was the person's interest in the blogpost secretly mercenary? Maybe, but it doesn't matter -- they were friendly and respectful, and like most tech companies, we _want_ people to apply.)

neilv• 4 years ago

(Was the person's interest in the blogpost secretly mercenary? Maybe, but it doesn't matter -- they were friendly and respectful, and like most tech companies, we _want_ people to apply.)

It'd matter to me. In some circles it's understood as acceptable in business networking; in other circles, it's insincere and manipulative.

sdoering• 4 years ago

I strongly agree. If I had OPs experience I would have felt manipulated and would not have referred the person.

In the end I think the interpretation of the experience depends on the world view and the view of people.

I don't like people in general. I think (most) people are manipulative, egocentric and in only for themselves. To most people I met I was a means to an end.

So I stop. I try (often failing) to not be - and as far as possible not make myself - a mean to someone's end.

But with different life experiences I could imagine seeing people differently and assuming positive intend. This would ensure a different interpretation of such encounters.

micromacrofoot• 4 years ago

do you ever start liking it?

domnomnom2• 4 years ago

I logged to tell you. Yes! That doesn’t mean getting there will be easy, but you can get to a point where you go after those interactions to seek out other introverts that want to stay away kinda. That’s the hard part if there’s two extroverts someone’s gotta take initiative. I believe in you!

Noumenon72• 4 years ago

Nah, but you may get to the point where you say "This crappy feeling is just how your brain reacts to all networking, even the ones that went really great", so you can discount it somewhat.

aluminum964• 4 years ago

I have lately felt very underpaid, given the current crazy job market for developers. I’m at a FAANG which supposedly pays “market rate,” but it doesn’t seem true in practice. Why play the promo and comp game, spending months or years proving the value of your hard work, when you can just jump ship for an instant level-up?

I basically have a negative incentive to stay, even though I really like my job and I’m pretty good at it. Very frustrating.

manuelmenzella• 4 years ago

I'm curious: have you compared your comp to that of levels.fyi?

aluminum964• 4 years ago

Yeah. It comes in around the 20th percentile, both on levels.fyi and compared to informal internal data.

Edit: I think the reason for this is that I went over a “four-year vesting cliff,” and you really need at least 2 promos to surmount the cliff. Perhaps I’m being sent an implicit message, up or out.

ldjkfkdsjnv• 4 years ago

Yup. There's literally no reason. My manager keeps bringing up the next year of hard work ahead of me to make it to the next level, and it makes me want to puke. I can just leave now for another company to get to that level. But the truth is also that the interviews are tough, leetcoding and system design is not easy without alot of study

mooreds3• 4 years ago

But the truth is also that the interviews are tough, leetcoding and system design is not easy without alot of study

Very true. There is also the fact that when you are in a company, you know the pitfalls and areas to avoid (or at least you might have a chance to do so). When you are moving to a newco, you have less insight (hence the power of the backchannel reference check; good for candidates as well as employers).

That said, the issue of comp not changing without job hopping seems to be a big one. There've been several good discussions here and elsewhere about it. Here's a favorite twitter convo: https://twitter.com/QuinnyPig/status/1484071572314804224

MattGaiser2• 4 years ago

I find the idea of managers still thinking of employees in terms of years to be fascinating.

In Canada at least, 2 years makes you an absolute veteran at many companies.

mattkrause• 4 years ago

It’s interesting how the harrowing interview process resembles an emergent, self-organized form of labor market collusion.

ohyoutravel• 4 years ago

I like the people I work with, they’re very talented and we all get along exceedingly well where we lift each other up by bouncing ideas and having discussions, the job is complex and energizing, the mission is strong and exciting, and I have a ton of autonomy to choose the path forward. I think I make about 85% of market for my job anecdotally, but I wouldn’t leave the above even for 120% market for simply jump ship and “level-up.”

My point is that despite what others in the comment chain state, there are reasons to stay at a place other than simply a little more money, especially when you consider that at our level already puts us deep into the 1% overall.

aluminum964• 4 years ago

I absolutely agree! I love my job, I love my colleagues, and I love being able to work on open source. It’s just really unfortunate that most companies make you “play the game”, instead of just retaining people with actual market comp.

hateful• 4 years ago

As I said right before I left my last job (luckily I've been very fortunate at my current one):

"I love what I do and I love the people I work with - but I didn't come here for love."

creakingstairs2• 4 years ago

I feel you. It has been very frustrating for me too. I was being definitely underpaid and the raises they promised was very low (even when they said I got the highest possible raise). Even though I loved the team and work, I couldn't justify the pay gap so I jumped ship. I immediately got 50% raise by doing this. I really do wish there had been a way to stay because I would have stayed maybe with 30% raise.

outside1234• 4 years ago

Get an offer from another FAANG and then have your current team match it.

I have managed people in your situation and, honestly, nothing makes me happier than being able to match the incoming offer because the internal system makes it impossible for me to do the right thing.

ourmandave• 4 years ago

Tactic 1: Smile and Say Hi

If you're painfully shy, is this even an option you'd try?

reidjs• 4 years ago

Tactic 0, smile and say hi to yourself in the mirror 100x to build up the confidence to do it to someone else

yjftsjthsd-h• 4 years ago

I think you're half joking, but if you have that much difficulty then yes, absolutely unironically practice in whatever is a safe enough environment until you're ready to take on the real world. Practice in a mirror, practice on your family/room-mates if available, watch the interaction in videos, whatever. It's an actual skill, and like any other skill it can be done through sheer massed practice even if you start from virtually zero ability.

eyelidlessness5• 4 years ago

It’s clear to me that the author is introverted as in shy, not introverted as in neurodivergent; there are so many “why don’t you just ____?” and maybe there’s an audience who hasn’t tried that and would adjust well to the advice, but I’m definitely not in that audience.

My advice to anyone who feels the same way: let yourself shine, make the social connections that feel comfortable for you, and… hopefully you’ll have the same privilege I have in being able to stand out just by being your awesome self. The job market is competing for you, not the other way around.

lolinder• 4 years ago

introverted as in shy, not introverted as in neurodivergent

Can you clarify what distinction you're drawing here?

eyelidlessness5• 4 years ago

The difference for me is that I experience social anxiety differently than I experience being inherently a socially square peg in a round hole. A large part of my social experience is that people expect me to be a different person than I am and behave in a different way than I feel comfortable. That’s a very different feeling from how I experience social anxiety or otherwise feel shy. It’s essentially a performance, often called masking, and I have a different (quite a bit less usually) capacity for it than I do all of the challenges of being socially engaged when I’d rather not for my own space.

jsnodlin• 4 years ago

One is enjoys your own company and the other is an excuse because you’re too anxious to socialize but would like to and feel lonely otherwise.

thaumasiotes• 4 years ago

not introverted as in neurodivergent

There is no such concept; introversion-extraversion is a dimension on which people vary.

AnnikaL• 4 years ago

I think they're referring to specific diagnosed conditions like Asperger's, autism, or ADHD, rather than a general concept of variation?

Aeolun• 4 years ago

So, social anxiety? That’s still something (most) people can get over, or at least learn to live with.

eyelidlessness5• 4 years ago

I live with it every day and I’m pretty good with the balance I’ve struck. But no it’s not just social anxiety, it’s a constant pressure to be a person I’m not.

Broken_Hippo• 4 years ago

No, it isn't the same as social anxiety.

I'm a really quiet person. As far as I know, I'm not neurodivergent and would generally be "In normal range". But anxiety isn't really part of it. I mean, of course I get anxious, but that goes away over time.

For example: For a while, I worked in a school cafeteria. I generally helped prep, ran the cash register while talking to the children, and afterwards spent time in the dish room. Nothing special. During the summer, I went to different schools (with a group) to clean classrooms. I talked more during the summer, simply because the job duties made it fairly easy to do while working.

"I've worked with her for months, and this is the most I've heard her talk" "Really? She's still pretty quiet!"

This wasn't anxiety, I just didn't talk much. And this has just been a theme of my life. I'm married to someone who might even have less need for social interaction than I do, and they sometimes remind me to speak up. It just is.

And I've never really felt like it was something that I should get over. Perhaps I've "Learned to live with it", but it really isn't like that because I don't really have an issue with it and it usually doesn't cause issues.

vlunkr• 4 years ago

If you're a painfully shy person, you've probably had the experience when you were young where someone asked you "Why are you so quiet?" and you had no answer for that so you just wanted to die on the spot. That's kind of what this article is like.

I get how to socialize, I just know I'm bad at it, which causes anxiety, which compounds the problem.

I've managed to survive as a developer like this. Like you say, let yourself shine. If you do good work, people will notice, and eventually that will lead to meaningful connections. You have to get out of your comfort zone sometimes, but you don't have to become an extrovert.

eyelidlessness5• 4 years ago

Just want to say I appreciate this and appreciate you sharing it as a response.

mlatu2• 4 years ago

The job market is competing for you

curious take..

notreallyserio• 4 years ago

It's true, especially in software. That's why salaries/TC are going through the roof. This is also why it is fair to expect developers/engineers to push back on unethical practices -- we have a lot more power than a lot of us think.

AndriyKunitsyn• 4 years ago

The author has mentioned that soft skills are skills. Which means that they need to be gradually perfected - you can't learn without trying. But here's what, I think, wasn't stressed enough:

Don't be afraid to fail. You will fail, sometimes. Some people can just have a bad mood. Some are just jerks. And for some, you'll be just "incompatible" to create a meaningful connection. It's okay, you'll have to just accept it and move on.

nepalvibes• 4 years ago

As author mentioned, I always come up with an excuse before the event. This has happened to me several times! After reading this, I realize, it was not just me :)

maheart• 4 years ago

Appreciate the effort the article author put in, but I'll be contrarian here (in the hopes of saving people time) and say that I think this is the wrong approach to take to getting hired (the effort:hire ratio is terrible).

I don't know why, whether it's to be fair or avoid litigation, but in most companies I've worked for or interviewed with, the senior engineers, hiring managers, HR, etc. don't have as much influence over the hiring process as you think. You'll probably still need to go through 5 stages of interviews, including a white-boarding or a take home test. Otherwise you wouldn't have all these "rockstar" programmers on Twitter complaining about the interview process. The best that these "influencers" can do for you, is to tip you off to an opening and maybe help towards the end of the interview process.

The other issue is, how do you know you're betting on the right horse? e.g. is the person that you're getting cozy with really going to help you career? You only have so much time and "connections" to invest.

My advice: instead of going to meet ups, take more interviews and improve your interviewing skills. Instead of spending 2-5 hours/week going to meet ups, take 1 interview instead. Even with no preperation, you'll start to see the pattern in the types of questions people ask. Improve on your answers. Interview again.

onion2k• 4 years ago

The problem the author of the article is writing about is being so shy that you'll never be able to benefit from "practise" interviews. You should really consider whether or not you understand the problem before you attempt to solve it.

This is a big problem with hiring. So many people think hiring is a simple problem that has a simple solution, but you're dealing with humans. There's so much variety in the way people think and act that there won't be a generalized solution. For some, networking outside of interviews so you can get a recommendation is a valid approach.

soheil2• 4 years ago

I think you're confusing what works in theory vs the current state of affairs. At many companies if you speak of "you're dealing with humans" and "way people think and act" in a hiring process you're automatically inviting interpretations that can be used to justify the reason you didn't hire someone was because of discrimination. Simple as that.

If you really want to see change in the world stop preaching truth to believers, but instead root cause the problem and find solutions that address them. In this case, legislation.

ZainRiz• 4 years ago

What you're saying is definitely true for the more mature companies (say, 1000+ employees).

I curious if the author has experience with this working for startups and their ilk, which may not have become large enough to have a proper recruiting division.

The challenge networking potentially solves is getting a recruiter to pay attention to your resume, but from that point on your resume has to be impressive looking enough to get you to the interview room. And unfortunately I know (and helped) a lot of engineers who've done impressive work but didn't know how to put that on paper effectively.

That part takes a whole other skill

jon-wood• 4 years ago

I’ve hired at multiple smaller startups, and the rule has always been that if someone gets referred by an existing member of staff then the referrer isn’t involved in the interview process beyond being a high confidence reference check.

barrkel• 4 years ago

Even at a big company, having someone pushing for you internally makes a difference. Probably not much on the hiring process, but pushing bureaucracy, ensuring a recruiter / coordinator looks at your CV and schedules your interviewers sooner, and so on.

I actually think it's more useful for a different reason: finding out who's doing interesting stuff, knowing where it's worthwhile applying.

soheil2• 4 years ago

Agreed. The advice in the article would work if it was about anything, but getting a job. The skills mentioned could be immensely helpful in building a network of people ("allies"?) for the purpose of getting customers for your startup, meeting other founders and even meeting angels and VCs to fund raise.

Please don't use it to get a job. There are objective criteria that companies would like to think they're using to hire the most qualified candidate (reality is probably very different). That's the best way to assure you don't hire non-performers and avoid the huge liability associated with choosing an arbitrary hiring process in many states.

AtlasBarfed• 4 years ago

#1 thing to do for technical, shy people is ask:

"What tech problems are you solving at work" to various IT people. That will get the ball rolling and you more or less stay in a comfortable subject.

And if in the discussion you demonstrate versant understanding of their intricacies, then that is a big step to getting people to trust you in a future job, because if someone can understand problems and can code, then they are 90% of the way there as a "good hire".

Don't concern yourself with being a know-it-all or having all the solutions, listen, analyze, bounce ideas you think of off of them. Or just learn from a different set of circumstances, tech stack flotsam, management, requirements, and/or philosophy.

Of course the remaining 10% takes the remaining 90% of the time.

spoonjim• 4 years ago

The absolute best way to network as an introvert is to write. If you write something great and promote it on Twitter etc. it can create huge opportunities for you. Articles like this very one are an example.

paxys• 4 years ago

This is probably good general advice for getting comfortable in a crowd and starting conversations, but I doubt such "networking" has as much to do with getting a tech job as people like to think.

In my 2+ decades of experience on both sides of tech recruiting, getting your foot in the door is always the easiest part of the process. Apply online at the company's careers site. Get an existing employee to refer you (literally anyone will be more than happy to do so for the bonus). Message a recruiter on LinkedIn. All of these will get you at least a screening call. From then on 100% of your hiring chances are dependent on your resume and interview performance.

Cthulhu_2• 4 years ago

I do believe there is a nontrivial number of developers that work in a job well below their skill set, who just haven't gone out of their comfort zone to find a new job, or who haven't been discovered yet because they're so insular.

So instead of networking and the like, I'd start a bit earlier even: You don't have to settle for what you have right now. You can do better. An interview is not a job application you have to see through to the end, you don't owe them anything. Know your worth.

mouzogu• 4 years ago

100% of your hiring chances are dependent on your resume and interview performance

Well, I wouldn't say 100%

Lewton• 4 years ago

My personal experience strongly disagrees

I got my current job at a medium sized tech company by being fast tracked without a CV or technical interview

The magic of networking

Edit: ah yeah, and at my previous job I got told at the interview “you’re here despite your cv”

I literally wouldn’t have a career without networking

lordnacho• 4 years ago

Same here.

Out of uni: got lucky with interview (literally a card game where I was dealt good cards).

Next: passed interview, quit after a few weeks for the next thing...

Next: Connection from top job

Next: Connection from previous job

Next: Connection from above

Next: HN

Next: Connection from previous

Next: Recruiter cold called me

I've also referred two people for jobs they got in the past half a year, to connections I made when looking for work.

I also use my connections extensively for technical things. Eg if I have a Terraform question, I have a devops guy who worked for me. If I have a cpp question, there's a couple of other ex staff. If I have a Rust question, there's a guy. Web stuff, there's several.

Build your network, you'll find it both useful and fulfilling.

cushychicken• 4 years ago

From then on 100% of your hiring chances are dependent on your resume and interview performance

Comparing the resume to interview performance is misleading. Interview performance has far more impact than your resume does once you've gotten to the point of talking to actual humans at the hiring company. To illustrate my point: no company would hire someone with perfect qualifications on paper if they were, for example, abrasive or rude in their recruiter calls.

Interview performance is a big deal, and lots of devs don't like to admit this because of how uncomfortable it is. It truly is "performance": you are putting yourself on display for prospective coworkers, and being judged on that display. Nobody likes that feeling.

It's one of the big clashes between tech's meritocracy narrative and the day-to-day realities of workplace culture. It's a persistent belief among tech workers that "if I'm technically good enough or exceptional, anyone will accept me as a coworker". If you're being evaluated by an interview panel, and that panel is composed of people who have to work with you every day, this belief just ain't so.

michaelt• 4 years ago

Interview performance has far more impact than your resume does once you've gotten to the point of talking to actual humans at the hiring company.

Right. But if your resume is rejected at screening, you won't reach that point.

If they only hire people with degree A or B from colleges C, D or E with experience of F and G, you'd better have those on your resume.

dt3ft• 4 years ago

This resonates a lot with me. Very good advice in this article, in fact, this may be life-changing advice right here:

How nice would it be if someone came up to you and just gave you a warm smile, said hello, and asked you a genuine question about yourself? You can be that person for someone!

This right here could do wonders! Try it.

yoda97• 4 years ago

Can I request the creepy version? /jk

minusSeven• 4 years ago

In India the advice that I receive mostly these days is to find someone who works at the company you want to interview at and ask him to refer you. Apparently this is much better method than applying through job portals and linked in.

loudmax• 4 years ago

That sounds like good advice, but not helpful for those who are painfully shy.

The painfully shy developer's guide to networking for a better job (2017)

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