le_douard

Personally I would love to receive something like that message.

I consider (And share in my CV) my stackoverflow, github, and linkedin are good representation of what I can do as a professional and thus I am careful with what I share on those. Meetup might be a stretching it a bit if you also use it for hobbies and you don't like sharing those on your CV.

This guy has done his homework, and has checked a lot of sources to make sure YOU fit the position before contacting you, that takes time and that time is his company's money. So frankly I would take it as a sign of a company that really gives a lot of F*cks about who works for them.

Again depending on how you use Meetup he might have overstepped a bit. For example mentioning your facebook, google+ or others might have been too much for me too.

No books. Download a shit ton of movies/tv series in english and with english subtitle and go through as many as you can.

That's how I got a 980 on my TOEIC. Being actually fluent is more important as you will be able to pass any test out there (so no wasting money on retries).

I will tell you about my story. I am not at 100k but at equivalent given the quantity of free benefits I get in the country I am working in.

I am currently on a job I have taken for Visa and quick Money (mostly visa though). Six months later I had milked all the experience I could get out the tech and people I am working with.

Basically I went from a high accountability role in a startup in Europe where as a Junior coder I was entrusted with big services and decisions (technical decisions) that could undo the company if I messed it up. And now I am doing fairly PAR level corporate internal services in JP company, using "good old" stacks of technologies where the most cutting edge aspect is that we use the latest version of PostgreSQL. I am basically doing undergrad DB 101 data modelling within a team that do not care about the technical quality of its product.

Everyday I dread the boredom I feel at work. And If I didn't commute with my wife (she is the high of my days) every morning I would have probably become a statistic during the rainy season.

On a bright note: I have already found the next thing that looks really interesting, new and well compensated. I am currently shaking off that funk the projects I have been working on have put me in.

It was difficult keeping morale up, I must say that I was on the fringe of depression. I felt exhausted even though all the work my managers could put on me was done, tested and pushed to production before most people were in the office (again: used to start-up pace here), and then you guys (HN) enter my day (at 9 flipping 30 AM) ... I have never been so well informed in my whole life.

I would tend away from anything a third party recruiter send me. Really those guys incentives are not to fit you well, but to throw candidates at their customers and see what sticks to the wall. I've seen that from both sides of those guys (as a candidate and a person selecting candidate for my team).

If it is a HR person from inside the company that contacts me then I would definitely read the offer in details. For me LinkedIn, Emails or SnailMail is the same I can phase out everything if need be.

Something I don't like at all is 3+ interviews. Especially when the first one is just to "present" the offer or the company. That one can be done in conjunction with another (lets say the first technical), or on the phone/skype/hangouts. Don't make me come just for that.

Best job I had got done in one email + one interview with a coding test, and it was a cracking team.

ALSO: PLS understand you can use our online profiles as our CVs stop asking us to come discuss opportunities or to send you another copy! It just proves that you are just spamming from a search result list.