This is Why You Can't Get a Programming Job

[music] Hey everybody, my name is Jeffrey Weey and here's what I have for you today. Uh, I blogged about this a little in the past, but you know what? Every single time I'm in the position of needing to hire someone new for Larass, I am once again reminded, and I'll preface this, it's going to sound a little mean. Sorry. I am once again reminded that the huge majority of people have no clue how to get a job. I'm sorry. It is just flatout true. And you know what? Every single person watching this video who has been on the other side of the desk and they are now in charge of filtering through a bunch of job applications, they know precisely what I'm [music] talking about. I've had this exact conversation uh with other business owners over and over and over again. We can all [music] relate to it. All right. So, here's what I find interesting. If I were to let's let's say you've you've never been on the other side of the desk. You're just trying to get a job. Wonderful. If I were to ask you, what do you think some of the the [music] tells are, some of the signs are that might make certain job applications go to the bottom of the stack or even in the trash can and other ones go to the top? You could probably guess pretty accurately. [music] And yet, most people don't take any of that to heart. They don't apply it the next time they um seek out a job. Isn't that interesting? All right, so let's talk about it. [music] Let's go a little further back. When I was a teenager, uh, I had common jobs, right? Part-time jobs after school [music] from 3:00 to 9:00. I was a bus boy at a place called Nashville. I delivered pizza. I worked at a Kinko's. Uh, back in the day, I [music] can just part-time. And back then, if you wanted a job, especially, this was early 2000s. This was a time where if you just wanted a job, maybe if you applied for it, you would almost certainly [music] get it. I don't know. Um, where I lived at the time was one of those situations where it was hard to find people. [music] So, if you wanted to be a bus boy at your local Delhi, then submit a job application, come into the place, talk to the manager, look presentable, speak nicely, and you will almost certainly get [music] the job. And I wonder if a lot of people can relate to that. And they then apply that thinking to every job they ever apply for in [music] the future, maybe. But here's what happens. Once you're not applying for a part-time gig at a restaurant, uh the rules are completely different. Because it turns out, especially with remote work, it's not one person applying for the job. It is potentially a hundred people. All right? And that can be I get it. If you're applying for a job and you know that potentially a 100 people 99 other people are going to apply for this job as well. What is the point right? [music] You have a 1% uh chance of getting the job. It is not worth uh much effort on your part at all. So what people often end up doing is they will take their resume or their CV and they will just litter it. They will submit it here here. They will go to a job board and it doesn't even really matter [music] what the business is. They will find the the contact email address and they will submit that CV. They will paste in a little template paragraph. Um, looking forward to hearing from you. Here is my CV. Let me know if you need anything. Right? And they will submit that to 30 companies with the hope that maybe one of those companies will get back to them. And [music] I get it. This is a strategy. And maybe it works. Maybe you're playing the odds there. If you submit 50 applications, maybe you will get one job. So maybe not a horrible strategy, but it's certainly not a good strategy, [music] and it's certainly not a good way to get the job that you actually want. All right, so here's what we're going to do. We're going to move to the other side of the desk, like I was saying earlier, and we're going to imagine that you're in charge [music] of hiring, right? Here's what they're dealing with. Anytime um a job is available, there's going to be a bunch of applications. could be 10, could be 50, could be hundreds in some cases. Oh, and by the way, I want to preface this. Um, the way you would apply for a job at a small to a medium-siz company is going to be drastically [music] different than if you're applying to Google or Amazon or IBM. Those are completely uh different scenarios with their own systems and levels and interviews. [music] And um I'm not speaking to that. That is a different thing entirely. I'm talking about a a small business, a medium-sized business, maybe [music] for programming, I don't know, 10 developers on the team or less, something along those lines. Okay? So, keep that in mind. Okay? So, anyways, you're now in charge of hiring for this company and let's say 50 job applications [music] come in. All right? You're just a human like anyone else. You get to work on Monday. You open your inbox and you see now 50 emails [music] with job applications. So, what are what are you going to do? you're trying to optimize, right? Like we all are. We got to get through 50 emails this morning. Okay. The first thing you do is look for emails that you can instantly [music] archive, right? That's what we would all do in this scenario. So, this is why so often companies will have some kind of um random request [music] in the job ad. It'll say something like, "Please, I don't know, please reference a dinosaur [music] as part of your job application." or at some point in your application um reference the color purple, [music] right? It really completely random things that maybe are no longer relevant now [music] that people can use AI to submit uh applications, which is a whole which is a whole different situation. But nonetheless, the reason those things are in the job ad, and you can of course guess, [music] is because nobody reads. everyone takes the the stance of I'm just going to litter my application everywhere and then hopefully somebody gets back to [music] me. And you know what? If you're at a company that is not appealing at all. [music] So when I say please reference a purple dinosaur as part of your ad, I'm [music] saying please read the ad. Please know what you're applying for. Please [music] take five minutes and just review what I'm asking for and what we're looking for to see if maybe we are appropriate or not appropriate for you. Reference a dinosaur. Right? So, the very first thing you realize when you add a step like that, [music] and I'm not joking. More than 50% more than half of the applications [music] will not reference the dinosaur. Okay? So, if you're applying for your job, you might be thinking, [music] uh, well, it's stupid. Who cares? I You know what? I'm not a baby. [music] I can submit a job application without referencing a dinosaur. Fine. I get it. But on the other angle, if you can't do the first request, [music] then why would anyone ever want to work with you? Because you know what? We extrapolate. And if I'm a manager and I'm hiring and I think the very first thing I asked you to do, you ignored, that means you [music] either didn't read or you forgot or you skipped over it. Either way, it's [music] bad. So, what do we do with that first 50% of job applications? We reject them [music] or we archive them instantly. All right. So, once again, we're we're humans, right? A manager, a hiring manager, they're still a human and they're still trying to get to inbox zero. That is just a human thing we have in 2025. All right, so we have 50 emails and now we're down to 25. [music] And honestly, usually it's more than 50%. It could be 75%. All right. Next. Some of the applications will reference the dinosaur [music] and nothing else. It will just return to the generic template. Hello. Looking forward to hearing from you. Please see attached for my CV. And my favorite dinosaur is a triceratops. Right. All right. Well, now you and about 20 other people, maybe more, have [music] submitted nearly identical job applications. All right. And this is the thing you're trying to avoid. Do not submit an identical job application. Okay? And what do I mean by identical? Everyone has different experience, [music] right? Yes. But unless your experience is just off the charts, unless your skill level is off the charts, most of them actually look [music] pretty similar. If I open your CV, they all kind of follow a similar shape. Nobody, very few people are, unless you're a designer, very few people are creating a unique um resume at all. They're grabbing some kind of template and their job history looks remarkably similar for the job you're hiring for as you might expect, but still it's remarkably similar. Let me guess, uh before before this, you worked at a place for [music] a span of 1 year to 3 years. And before that you worked somewhere um maybe less prestigious for a span of [music] one to two years. And before that uh maybe you interned somewhere and maybe you're also listing your [music] freelance um company just to pat out your resume if you're a little bit younger. Well, let's list my freelance thing even though it's not quite valid. But you know what? It fills up the sheet of paper. All right. Does this does this sound familiar to you at all? [music] Of course it does. Okay. Fine. So, if you reference the dinosaur and you submit [music] your job application, congratulations. Now, you're in competition with [music] potentially 20 maybe more other people who did effectively the exact same thing. All right. So, now as the hiring manager, I get to go through 20 rs. And you know what? I don't even often go through those either. And by the way, this is not me. This is not me patting myself on the back or knowing any secret information. This is every uh manager or hiring manager I've ever spoken to in [music] my life or as an adult. Okay. So, yes, we might open those resumes and and just check is your work history glowing? Are you submitting samples? [music] And by the way, most people never submit samples of their work. Um but we're just checking to see is there really something off the charts that I need to be [music] aware of? And 99% of the time, no. And usually those can be archived or rejected. [music] Okay. So again, we are just consolidating. We are condensing these down to a handful of applications. We're looking for the ones that were not spanned to us. We're looking for the ones that followed [music] the instructions. We're looking for ones where of course the candidate is qualified. It doesn't matter it how it doesn't matter what you do um and how creative you are with your application if you are not qualified. So yes, we are looking for people who have the required skill set. The next thing we're looking for is can you show me samples of your work? Because as it turns out, just telling uh me or a hiring manager that you worked someplace, it doesn't really do much. Um maybe in the past it was very common to like call your your previous employers and talk with the man. I'm not sure how often that actually [music] happens these days. So instead, if I see that you worked um at place X for 18 months, I don't know if you were a horrible hire. Maybe they thought you were a horrible hireer and you got fired or maybe maybe you phoned it in. I don't know. It doesn't tell me that much. What does tell me quite a bit is seeing actual examples of the things you produced. And it turns out once again, most people, the majority of people do [music] not submit samples. And of course, this is sort of contingent on like if you're applying for a bus boy position, then you're you don't have samples. But you know for for skilled creative work if you're uh applying to become a programmer then I want to see things that you have created. I want to see projects that you are proud of. I want to see something you worked on at your last company and be specific. What were you in charge of? What are you proud of? How long did this take? Give me information. Give me uh some idea as to what I might expect if you joined [music] our company. Right? Show me examples. Show me the examples. Okay, a handful of people do that. So remember, we started with 50 or 100 and in your head you're like, why bother? I have a 1% chance of getting this job and very quickly we cut it down to 50. So then [music] you have, you know, a 2% chance and then we narrowed it down further and it keeps going up. So the point is never fall into the trap of thinking you have a 1% [music] chance of getting a job. No, if you put some effort in, uh, that number goes up dramatically if you follow the steps, right? You listen to the job [music] ad, you submit an application, you provide samples of your work, and then do this. Take a minute and talk to me like a human being as part of your job application. Don't ever, ever, ever paste uh a template uh along with your job submission. Uh if you do anything like [music] um I'm a I'm a fan of this company and I look forward to hearing from you. Please see if you write please see attached as part of your job application, the employer will not please see attached. And I'm sorry again it just [music] sounds harsh. It is flatout true. Your entire goal if you're looking for a job is to stand [music] out. Do something different. And I'm going to give you an example that I've referenced before and it it shocks me to this day how relevant [music] and applicable it is to adult life. Okay. So, when I was a kid, um my family and I, we used to, this was a thing in the '90s, I guess, we would enter these coloring contests and all the places would do it. Like restaurants would do it, libraries would do it. there'd be these coloring contests [music] and the winner would get, you know, a $50 gift card to Target or something like that. Uh, I don't see it as much anymore, but it was a thing and we we would always enter them. It was a thing for us. Anyways, my mom always had this advice where she would say, "Don't just color the picture." And of course, as a little kid, you know, I'm not really thinking about what she's saying very much. But now as an adult, I look back and I realize, "Oh, that is such good advice that applies to literally every single thing you do. Don't just color the picture." All right. So, of course, what was she referencing? She was referencing the fact that when you submit to the coloring contest, you and 99 other children are going to color the picture. And 75 of you are going to color it really nicely. So, how [music] do you pick between 75 really nicely colored pictures? you're going to choose the one that does something a [music] little bit different. So, of course, different in that case would be, I don't know, uh add some texture to it. Embellish it in some way. Uh put something on top, make it 3D, [music] you know, do something that is more than just coloring the picture and you will win. [music] And uh especially my older siblings, um they won so many uh of these coloring contests. We have all these pictures of them and [music] it's because they didn't just color the picture. And it turns out this applies again to every single thing in your life. [music] If you want to get a job, don't just submit the application. You have to do more. Okay. All right. So, what would be an example of not just coloring the picture as part of a job application? And again, maybe you're not going to like this, but it's going to require some time on your part. So, the best job applications I've ever [music] received at Larcast in the last 12 years um came in the form of something custom. And I get it. You might hear this and you're like, "Look, I need a job. I don't have time to spend 10 hours on a job." Fine. [music] And I wish you the best. But if you did spend the 10 hours, the likelihood you're going to get the job increases 10x. Again, it's just true. And maybe it would be better to spend 10 hours on or 20 hours even on one job application for a company you actually want to work at versus submitting 50 job applications and going through every single job portal, submitting the application, all the blah blah blah. Maybe don't do that [music] and instead focus on one or two companies that you think you can actually work for. I promise, [music] I promise, promise, promise it's going to make a difference. Okay. So, yeah, in the context of programming, then I would recommend build [music] a dedicated website. Don't submit a a CV. Um, submit a website. And this website is not just something that you build and then you you modify it and then you um share it with every company. Not then you're just kind of doing the same thing. And trust me, we can tell. Was this uh project he made or this this hello website [music] made for this company or is it just something you built? And then you you you do a copy and replace copy um replace Lariccast with Laravel. Replace Laravel with Stripe. Replace Stripe with you know, you get the idea. It needs to feel unique. It needs to feel like you put a lot of effort into this one application. [music] Cuz here's what happens on the hiring manager's end. They're going to be like, "Well, almost all of these applications didn't do anything. I'm not even sure the majority of these applications know what we do." And I'm not being farfetched there. Most of the job applications don't even know what you do [music] at the company. They just know you're hiring and you popped up on a job board. So, if I see one that followed all the steps [music] and then there's an introductory email and it sounds like a human who is friendly and they actually went to the effort of providing samples of all of their work that is easily linked to that I can review. I don't have to download some zip file [music] and then they also link me to a dedicated website that provides more information about them. [music] And within that website they make, they include details of areas that they feel they can help our organization. Oh my gosh, I'm going to hire them instantly. If they have the skill set, I'm going to hire them instantly. And by the way, that brings me to my last point now, and then we'll wrap up here. [music] I get it. When you need a job, it can be very stressful. It's very um anxietyinducing. [music] I need a job. I need money. I have rent to pay. We all get it. But in your head, you need to be thinking about providing value. And I hate it. You know, like when I hear value, I think we need shareholder value, you know, stuff like that. I get that it's kind of cold and generic, but there's a little bit of truth to it. [music] Your job is to provide value and to take a certain weight off of the managers or the company's shoulders. That's why they're hiring in the first place. [music] Uh, think about it. At the scale of Larcast where we have like seven or eight people, if I hire somebody, it is it is me choosing to make [music] less money. It is my company. We have a certain amount of revenue coming in. If I hire somebody [music] new, I am actively making the decision that I will now make less money in the hopes [music] that it pays off in the end. In the hopes that you provide enough value, you take enough weight off my shoulders that it is worth the exchange. So, never forget that you're not just looking for a job. You are making a trade. I am trading you money and in response, you are taking a certain weight off of my shoulders or you are providing an ability that I do not currently have. It is a trade and you need to make sure that you have something good to trade. All right? So if you apply for a job in your head, be thinking about a weight or a value that you can provide [music] and figure out what that is and tell them because often often when you're in the position of hiring, you are also dealing with the reality that there's a hundred other things at the [music] company that need your attention. And sometimes it's hard to just sit down and take time and write into words what you're looking for. So your job is to figure it out. [music] Learn how you can take this weight off their shoulders and tell them and show them. And you do this as part [music] of your website. So I noticed this on your website wasn't quite right and I took the time to redesign it and you can see that it is significantly better and I think it will convert far more people if you take this shape rather than what you're currently doing right now. Show me examples. Show me a way that you are going to provide [music] value immediately. And once again, just to wrap up right here, I get it. It's more effort than [music] a 10-minute job application. But if you do, I promise, promise, promise you, the likelihood that you will get the job will go through the roof. Tell me what you think.