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Provide Signal

Your #1 job as a job-seeker is to provide signal to potential employers. Signal is the opposite of noise.

  • Noise: Stuff that doesn't matter. For example, the fact that you enjoy walks on the beach, your high-school landscaping job, or how many sisters you have.
  • Signal: Stuff that matters. For example, the fact that your open-source library has 10,000 downloads, that you've been writing Go for 3 years, and that you understand how a cache might make the employer's site faster.

Hiring managers are looking for signal. They're looking for reasons to hire you! They're also looking for reasons not to hire you.

Your goal is to make it as easy as possible for them to find the signal that proves you're a good fit.

Noise (Bad, Don't Do This)

I love to write code and walk my dogs on the beach. I have a passion for JavaScript, SQL, Python, Go, and Ruby, and I love building applications that are user-friendly. I would love to work for your company and make your team a success.

Signal (Good, Do This Instead)

I used to write a lot of JavaScript, but ever since learning Go and building Stackwrapr (a recent personal project in Go) I want to use as much Go as possible in my next full-time role. The telemetry team at SourceChain seems like a perfect fit because I've always thought monitoring and logging creates interesting problems to solve at scale. I even noticed you're using Kubernetes, which I've wanted to have an excuse to use for a while now!

Always Provide Signal

Whether it's your resume, your cover letter, your LinkedIn profile, your GitHub README, or the way you talk about yourself in interviews, always provide signal.

  • Focus on what matters to the potential employer, that is, your technical expertise.
  • Show personality. Humans want to work with humans.
  • Avoid generic statements. If it's something that could apply to anyone, it doesn't provide signal.
  • Be specific. "My cowsay library just hit 435 stars" is better than "I have an open source library that people like".