Was fired a couple of months ago from a job I really loved. Spent some time dicking around with my own startup, also some travelling and spending time with the family.

Was just slightly anxious to start a job hunt

A couple of things I've learned from my job search:

1 - Don't panic.

I've spent some time on r/cscareerquestions and on LinkedIn and this was mostly a waste of time. There always people who says it's over (and in fact these people have been around for years). And even if it was panic and spending time anxiously scrolling through horrors/successes of others never helps

2 - Know what you want.

Previous time I was looking for a job I made a mistake of not preselecting tech stack / field / role I wanted. Ended up getting offers I didn't want. It was scary to do this and I had to reject some lucrative propositions in fields that were not interesting to me. But I think long-term it's the right strategy and I ended up matching with people of similar values and thinking.

3 - Develop your network.

Sounds basic, but all the offers/hr calls I've got were either from friends of friends, or someone I had worked with or people I met at conferences, or direct contacts from HR on LinkedIn.

In practical terms - go see what's happening in IT in your city and visit those events and find ways to have some fun over there (very similar to dating actually! :)). I noticed that people who are too needy at the conferences getting hard time getting good contacts, don't lose your dignity.

Also feel in your LinkedIn with a right information.

I almost didn't try cold applications - had enough horror stories about 600+ people applying for a job opening in an hour. But one cold application did hit back but it was a super aligned job that basically conformed ideally to my previous experience.

4 - Don't cheat or lie

Well, may be it works for some people, but I decided right away that I will not be using AI agents to unrealistically customize my resume, or use AI to cheat during interviews. I think trust and honesty are rare in todays world and if you can stay true you will attract the people who value that.

5 - Don't take a long break from your career

I took almost 6 months of and staff that I was doing cutting edge a year ago is now common place. Use your advantage of having an up-to-date experience. 1-3 months break should be ok.

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From the interview side I noticed a shift:

- most of the calls are just talking with people so be prepared to tell a good story about yourself and be able to connect with a person in a short time. Actually here knowing your values and being truthful really helps.

- interviewers will ghost you. First time I was upset, than stopped caring. Sometimes it's for a reason. I was trying to get a job in UK to relocate to London, and during the calls HR were friendly, but then just stopped contacting me and one time I pressed for it, it turned to be because I needed visa sponsorship. Sometimes it happens for no reason at all - you had a good call and then nothing

- system design interviews have shifted heavily into AI sphere (workflows, agents, evals). May be it was the specific companies I was interviewing for, but 3/3 system design were about that for me. (companies were Perplexity, US biotech startup and a worldwide edtech company)