#254 Strategies and Tactics to Finding Your New Job and Acing the Interviews

Notes:

In 2022, workers in the tech world experienced massive layoffs. Even employees who once held seemingly stable and secure jobs for decades are now anxiously looking for the next vacant position. As our guest for this episode emphasized, “The best time to find a job is when you already have a job.” If the world has taken heed of this simple advice, unemployment rates may not have been as high as they are today.

For episode 254, I interviewed Charlie Gerrior, a sales engineer for a decade and who is considered a leader in the SE world who helps other SEs get to where they want to go. On the show, he shares his best tips and strategies for how SEs who are currently in between jobs could find their next job, or better, their best job.

Key Takeaways:

The characteristics of a great sales engineer
Why sales engineering is a great career
How Charlie got into sales engineering
How Charlie benefited from coaching in getting his first job
What should you do now if you are applying for an SE job
Why the “spray and pray” approach in job search does not work and what you should do instead
The power of getting referrals when looking for a job
How to treat your job search as a sales process
The importance of networking even when you have a job
How to use the BANT (budget, authority, need, timeline) method to qualify a job
Some recent trends on how companies conduct their interviews
How to interview a potential employer while they are also interviewing you
Specific questions to ask a potential employer
Why you should ask your potential employer about the problem they’re trying to solve
Tips on negotiating your initial salary
Why you should take a call from a recruiter every quarter
What a brag sheet is and why you should keep one
How to use other ares of your life to enrich your SE practice

Quotes:

If you find a job you’re interested in, by all means, apply for it. But dig deeper. Try to make a connection there. Try to find someone who can get you kind of ahead of the line. Use your network first. Tap into other resources that might be available to you. That’s going to give you a much better shot than just kind of throwing darts at a map and seeing what sticks. — Charlie Gerrior

See finding a job as a sales process. — Ramzi Marjaba

Connections get you more jobs than a resume. — Ramzi Marjaba

Practice on the jobs that you don’t want so that you can do well on the jobs that you do want. — Ramzi Marjaba

Ask for feedback. Ask for additional preparation sessions. You wouldn’t go into a customer meeting where you were expected to present for an hour-long without getting some feedback from the customer. Even if it’s 15 minutes, and a customer says, here’s what we’re expecting to show, here’s who’s gonna be in the meeting, here’s the question that they might ask. Do the same thing for your interview process. — Charlie Gerrior

So at the minimum, you want the hiring manager to be a good coach. You want them to give you feedback throughout the process—do a demo dry run. But ideally, they’re also a champion, which is to say if it comes down to one or two or three candidates, and you’re one of them, they’re going to stick out their neck for you and make the case for you. — Charlie Gerrior

If you don’t have the technical background, I always teach focus on your impact. — Ramzi Marjaba

If you’re going into a negotiation, know what you want. — Ramzi Marjaba

Salary is important. But there are other things that make up the job offer: the work-life balance, the benefits, the perks, the team, and the product. — Charlie Gerrior

The best time to find a job is when you already have a job. — Charlie Gerrior

Part of what makes SES so interesting is they are kind of a motley crew. There’s just a lot of variation in hobbies and interests. Lean into those and apply what you can from those to your day job. — Charlie Gerrior