Ask HN: How did you make yourself more marketable?
I'm a full stack engineer. Pretty smart one, but I don't think that's enough to distinguish myself in this market. I'm wondering if anyone here has done things in particular to make yourself more marketable.
One piece of feedback I got from a startup in SF was that my CV was original like it was clearly written by me. They said they're fed up with AI generated CVs and cover letters. That's the only reason the VP of Engineering wanted to interview me.
They didn't think I had a chance, but since I showed respect by taking the time to write my CV and cover letter myself, the least they could do was give me a chance.
I didn't get the job, of course, but the VP sent me a P.S. He said he hoped we could collaborate in the future, and he appreciated the time I put into it. (At first I thought it was a template, but on second thought, I think he was sincere.)
So my two bitcoins for you: be yourself, even if you’re a bit rough right now. You'll get better. People do notice the effort you put into how you present yourself or at least the people I think actually matter to work with and work for.
I don’t know you personally, but I think humility matters a lot. You mentioned that you’re “pretty smart,” and this may very well be true. I’m involved in interviewing at my work, and one thing I’ve learned is that raw intelligence alone isn’t what stands out most.
I consider myself a hard worker, but realistically fairly mediocre in terms of pure skill or ability (and that’s okay, I’m doing fine). What matters more to me is that I’m always trying to learn and grow. I tend to find it offputting when candidates describe themselves as “experts” or “highly skilled” in technologies or languages. It’s possible to be an expert, but usually that comes with very narrow depth. These self-declared experts are often a red flag.
I’ve been coding in C# for nearly 20 years and have been using AWS technologies for nearly a decade, and I still wouldn’t call myself an expert. I find it a bit amusing when self-declared experts cannot confidently explain the inner workings of the garbage collector or the CLR in great detail. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing those things, but declaring yourself an expert sets a high bar that often doesn’t hold up.
Personally, I much prefer candidates who are humble, honest about their strengths and gaps, and clearly motivated to keep learning.
I personally believe that AI is going to render a lot of “outbound” personal marketing obsolete as resumes all start to look the same.
I’ve shifted more towards cultivating relationships with coworkers and using those connections to find work when those coworkers move on. It’s way less effort than trying to generate content and has gotten me two decent jobs since 2023.
I consider myself to be an A- talent. I’m very hardworking but there are much more talented developers than myself looking for work.
I recently won a mid-level contract. The client told me that a key distinguishing factor during the first round of eliminations was that my proposal seemed to be the only one that was uniquely written. All the others were based on feeding the client’s requirements into an AI prompt.
Sorry to disappoint but unless you possess some rare and unique skill in the grand scheme of things you are a commodity.
Business is not your mommy nor a nobel prize committee, it doesn’t care if you are smart or not. It only cares if you can execute your function good enough to justify your salary and get the project out of the door on time.
If 2 candidates are good enough - the cheapest wins.
Therefore there is no point in marketing yourself. Just learn to play by the rules (i.e. how to pass interviews, make up resumes etc) or get unique and extraordinary in your niche.
It cares if your smart. Hence leetcode etc. You need to be practiced for that.
It also helps to be connected to get your CV top of the pile.
Yes most of us are commodities. But in some ways we are not. Two engineers, same creds, one knows someone who works at the company for a warm positive intro. This is not fungible.
> It cares if your smart. Hence leetcode etc. You need to be practiced for that.
It’s not to detect how smart you are. Leetcode screening is passed via memorizing patterns and masturbating for hours on sample tasks. It has nothing to do with smartness nor with real work.
Your assumption is wrong.
Leetcode is to filter in more disciplined and agreeable folks, who are ready to struggle through whatever meaningless bullshit company come up with. Its a loyalty filter mainly.
Originally it was intended to detect geniuses, but this is not relevant for 20 years now.
We are commodities. It doesn’t mean personal contacts don’t matter. Same way as you will likely buy a barrel of oil from someone you know rather than not. But there is no point in systemic markting efforts to promote your specific oil vs others of the same grade.
Yes, but leetcode shows some level of smarts. It is not something most people can do.
Like I guess 5% of the population could actually do well at it given the time, practice and motivation. Might be 75% for programmers, granted. But companies dont want people who are unskilled.
Anyway yes the oil analogy is close but it is more like too many people are selling fools oil, and your oil is real and so you vouch for it. So oil is not fungible and the vouch means alot. But vouched and proven oil as a class is fungible. Almost everyone is fungible, you can find another Steve Jobs (they did, Apple is doing well after all) or PoTUS. Maybe entertainment is the exception e.g. Taylor but even then if the job is to sell music she is fairly fungible. Other singers do that too.
Your generalizing about the fungibility of labor yields nothing. Every
successful hire is a unique mix of right place, right time, right man.
You control what you can.
Most people in the full stack space focus on tech stack bullshit. If you want to stand out focus on something of greater value like transmission engineering, accessibility, service architecture, extreme performance, security.
Be prepared for disappointment though. Many places are not looking for experts or people that stand out. Most places are looking for that common piece that is easily hired and easily fired.
They didn't think I had a chance, but since I showed respect by taking the time to write my CV and cover letter myself, the least they could do was give me a chance.
I didn't get the job, of course, but the VP sent me a P.S. He said he hoped we could collaborate in the future, and he appreciated the time I put into it. (At first I thought it was a template, but on second thought, I think he was sincere.)
So my two bitcoins for you: be yourself, even if you’re a bit rough right now. You'll get better. People do notice the effort you put into how you present yourself or at least the people I think actually matter to work with and work for.
I consider myself a hard worker, but realistically fairly mediocre in terms of pure skill or ability (and that’s okay, I’m doing fine). What matters more to me is that I’m always trying to learn and grow. I tend to find it offputting when candidates describe themselves as “experts” or “highly skilled” in technologies or languages. It’s possible to be an expert, but usually that comes with very narrow depth. These self-declared experts are often a red flag.
I’ve been coding in C# for nearly 20 years and have been using AWS technologies for nearly a decade, and I still wouldn’t call myself an expert. I find it a bit amusing when self-declared experts cannot confidently explain the inner workings of the garbage collector or the CLR in great detail. There’s nothing wrong with not knowing those things, but declaring yourself an expert sets a high bar that often doesn’t hold up.
Personally, I much prefer candidates who are humble, honest about their strengths and gaps, and clearly motivated to keep learning.
I’ve shifted more towards cultivating relationships with coworkers and using those connections to find work when those coworkers move on. It’s way less effort than trying to generate content and has gotten me two decent jobs since 2023.
I consider myself to be an A- talent. I’m very hardworking but there are much more talented developers than myself looking for work.
Business is not your mommy nor a nobel prize committee, it doesn’t care if you are smart or not. It only cares if you can execute your function good enough to justify your salary and get the project out of the door on time.
If 2 candidates are good enough - the cheapest wins.
Therefore there is no point in marketing yourself. Just learn to play by the rules (i.e. how to pass interviews, make up resumes etc) or get unique and extraordinary in your niche.
It cares if your smart. Hence leetcode etc. You need to be practiced for that.
It also helps to be connected to get your CV top of the pile.
Yes most of us are commodities. But in some ways we are not. Two engineers, same creds, one knows someone who works at the company for a warm positive intro. This is not fungible.
It’s not to detect how smart you are. Leetcode screening is passed via memorizing patterns and masturbating for hours on sample tasks. It has nothing to do with smartness nor with real work.
Your assumption is wrong.
Leetcode is to filter in more disciplined and agreeable folks, who are ready to struggle through whatever meaningless bullshit company come up with. Its a loyalty filter mainly.
Originally it was intended to detect geniuses, but this is not relevant for 20 years now.
We are commodities. It doesn’t mean personal contacts don’t matter. Same way as you will likely buy a barrel of oil from someone you know rather than not. But there is no point in systemic markting efforts to promote your specific oil vs others of the same grade.
Like I guess 5% of the population could actually do well at it given the time, practice and motivation. Might be 75% for programmers, granted. But companies dont want people who are unskilled.
Anyway yes the oil analogy is close but it is more like too many people are selling fools oil, and your oil is real and so you vouch for it. So oil is not fungible and the vouch means alot. But vouched and proven oil as a class is fungible. Almost everyone is fungible, you can find another Steve Jobs (they did, Apple is doing well after all) or PoTUS. Maybe entertainment is the exception e.g. Taylor but even then if the job is to sell music she is fairly fungible. Other singers do that too.
Be prepared for disappointment though. Many places are not looking for experts or people that stand out. Most places are looking for that common piece that is easily hired and easily fired.