How I get Interviews without applying for jobs

You don't have to get lost in the crowd

Hello there my hungry (for knowledge) subscribers,

We all know that despite the growing need for software engineers, getting a job at any tech firm is hard. Nightmarishly hard. The interviews are confusing with tons of levels and an infinitely large question pool they can ask for. This is why we have this newsletter.

However, most people never even get here. They get rejected by the companies in the resume filtering stage. Of the millions of people that apply to Google, not even 1% make it to the interview stage. This can due to many reasons. ATSs can be brutal, the competition is large, and recruiters don’t even look through your resume properly (which is literally their job). None of this is good for your chances.

HelloFresh is by no means a small company (they’re the largest meal-kit company in the world). This article will work for both large and small companies.

However, this doesn’t have to be the case. There is a way to exponentially your chances of getting the interview. And since you’re a subscriber of this awesome newsletter, once you get your interview, you will get your offer. Here you can see that using the techniques discussed in this article resulting in an Amazon recruiter reaching out.

The method discussed will work to get your interviews at all companies. Unfortunately, the timing here did not work out.

So what is this magic, and how can you start using it? Let’s get into this.

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Leveraging Platforms

Let’s get something straight. There is a huge demand for good developers. Emphasis on the good. This means many things:

1. There are tons of recruiters looking for engineers. They load up their LinkedIn and other hiring platforms to look for the candidates. If there wasn’t a huge demand for software developers, the huge recruiting industry would not exist. Plain and Simple.

2. Companies hate false positives. They would rather not hire someone over hiring a bad developer. This is why they can be so ruthless in their hiring process.

3. The reason you’re not getting interviews is because of the competition in online application. Since there is such a large volume, you will get for very arbitrary reasons, often through no fault of your own.

Now you can make your resumes ATS friendly, try to jump through all the hoops, and get your interview. Or you can play it smart.Use the technique here to skip the line and go to your phone screen/interview.

In case you haven’t worked it out yet, this email/post will cover LinkedIn. LinkedIn is a great tool because so many recruiters/professionals use it to find and connect with professionals. Think of it as a Google for job-search-related activity. Using our LinkedIn effectively, we can rank highly on LinkedIn searches, getting lots of hits and offers. No need to spend money on expensive services and consultants. Let’s cover the various facets of a great LinkedIn profile and how you can make yours amazing. I will be referencing my profile, which can be found here.

Skills and Endorsements

This is definitely the highest ROI move for you to make. For those of you that don’t know, LinkedIn offers all users an option to say that to highlight what skills they are good at. The section should look something like this

This is what the top of my skills section looks like

Select the skills that you have a lot of experience in, and list them. Include Programming Language, Version Control, Frameworks, and skills. Since I work in AI, my skills section is very geared towards Python, AI, Math, and Data Processing. Yours will depend on your field. Once you’ve populated your profile with a lot of relevant skills (try to avoid soft skills), start knocking out the LinkedIn skill assessments for these skills. Do your best since these skills are very important. Doing well will rank you very highly. For example, you can see for the Python assessment, I placed in the top 5% of everyone (3 Million people) who took it. This is the highest percentile achievable, and thanks to this, I get ranked very highly on recruiter searches.

Python isn’t the only skill I got this ranking in. This is one of the reasons I do so well on the search. If you search Devansh on LinkedIn, my profile is at the top.

Along with the skill quizzes, start asking for people in your network for endorsements. This will help you a lot in ranking highly.

Along with the Skills and Endorsements, try to get some recommendations. These look really good and you can always point to them in your interviews.

This is, however, only step 1. It will only allow your profile to start popping up in searches. However, the next step is to ensure that the right people start reaching out to you. This is even more important since recruiters and relevant people only reach out after looking through your profile. Let’s cover how you can take your profile to the next level.

LinkedIn Profile Tips

Let’s knock out the low-hanging fruit first. Get a profile picture, a cover picture, and change your headline to something nice. The first two are easy. There are very good guides online that will show you the details for free, but the basic idea is this:

1. Your Profile Picture should be well-lit, show your face clearly, and be professional. It doesn’t need to be model-tier, just not terrible. So don’t worry if you aren’t blessed with my good looks.

2. Your banner should represent what you are. Mine is a simple black background with my Medium Link, and the text “Machine Learning and Tech, Made Simple for All.”

These will not convince the recruiter to reach out to you. They will just make sure that you aren’t skipped. Next is your tag-line. This is important because it serves two purposes. It boosts your profile and will be what the recruiter sees in their search.

This is the view whenever you search for someone with a particular skill

I see people make the mistake of making their taglines too long. This is a huge mistake and you will be penalized very heavily. Instead, I would suggest keeping it simple with the following template:

Job Title| Some skills you want to highlight.

For example, my header is :

Machine Learning Engineer | Software Engineering, AI, and Computational Math.

This encapsulates what I bring to the table efficiently. Do the same for yourself.

PRO TIP: Having lots of connections, is a good way to rank higher on LinkedIn. However, engaging with your connections is what will really help you take things to the next level.

Along with this, make sure that you always update all your roles on LinkedIn. You can put more detail into each description of the role than on your resume, but remember that putting too much will overwhelm the recruiter. Keep the format of the content points, similar to your resume (task, tech stack, and numeric impact).

Now we’re going to get to the last super impactful part of your profile. And that is your about section. Let’s get into it.

About Section

The about section can be split into multiple sections. Each of these sections builds upon the previous and adds to the reason that the recruiter should reach out to you. Let’s get into it

Elevator Pitch

The first step in your about section should be your elevator pitch. This is a simple encapsulation of your skills along with what you bring to the table. My elevator pitch looks like this:

You always want to end with what value you can provide to the organization

Career Summary

Next, we want to work in our career summary. This will tell the recruiter/viewer what you’ve been doing throughout your career. In the second part of your summary, you want to highlight one or two strengths that you want to stress. Take a look at mine.

Look at how many times I mention Machine Learning in my About.

I’m somebody who values my independence and ability to work on my time very highly. This is why I stress my ability to work independently and experience in end-end machine learning. Based on what you want from your career, this will look different for you. I also stress the diversity of my experiences to encourage different kinds of employers to reach out.

Notable Achievements

You also want to back your statements with tangible results. This is where the next section comes in.

If you want to learn more about Tree Club, follow my IG. Tree Club loves and accepts all.

Where you can, you want to show quantifiable results. I like to end something more lighthearted (but still true, and something I’m proud of!!), hence the tree club.

Skills

This is the purely SEO-focused part of your about section. Fill it up with the skills you want to show up for. You can also use it to show off your diversity. However, in my experience, this is the least important part of the about, and should be done last.

And with that, I will wrap this up. Don’t be afraid to experiment a little with your profiles. What I have provided is just the solid foundation that you can use. Implement the tips I’ve shared in this post/email and you will see lots of recruiter interest in your DMs.

Make sure you share your thoughts on this question/any interesting questions/developments in the comments or through my links. If you liked this post, make sure you tap that heart button and let the world know.

Happy Prep. I’ll see you at your dream job.

The LinkedIn King,

Devansh <3

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