So I start at my new job tomorrow. All excited and looking forward to gain some experience at a web agency, working in a team, doing things I love. It still all feels a bit like stepping into the unknown, which is why I chose this photo of a sunset as the image of the day. Tomorrow will be a new and exciting day full of new possibilities and opportunities.
So I am starting a new job tomorrow at Nudge London. Wonder how I got that job? I can tell you that it did not include putting my resume on a trillion job search websites, then sending it out to unsuspecting companies in a hope that they notice me. No instead I got my new job through a combination of factors, including a lot of luck.
Networking
Probably one of the most powerful things anyone can do is networking. And with that I don’t mean social networking, but actual real life face-to-face networking. Attending events, building up a list of people that know you and respect you greatly improves your chances for any possibilities in the future. Also, don’t start with networking when you NEED an opportunity, but do the networking in the good times when you have time and money to spare. With me it was attending all the geek events in London in the last few years, and probably eventually the organising of the London Geek Dinners.
My networking lead to me having loads of people on Facebook, Twitter, etc. So I gave a shout 2 weeks ago that I was looking for a job and quickly got quite a few people forwarding my details all over the place. I eventually got a plug by Mike Butcher from TechCrunch UK to put my resume on their CrunchBoard. Clearly this was mainly a good plug for TechCrunch, but that didn’t matter to me at all.
The ad on the CrunchBoard lead to about 12 emails from companies that where looking for a web dev, after which I had a total of 4 interviews with the ones that fitted my needs. Some of these companies knew me personally, others where attracted to my resume.
Personal Statement
The thing that actually attracted one of the companies that asked me in for an interview was a special part of my resume: the personal statement. My friend Carlo had me add this extra bit to my resume after he read my original version. A personal statement is a little paragraph that explains in human terms what you stand for and what core values you think make you valuable to the employer. Often companies only look at that little paragraph which makes it a very important piece to write.
Luck
I think in the end one of the things you might need is a bit of luck. I had a bit of luck that in this economic down time Mike decided to further promote the TechCrunck UK CrunchBoard, and then that people actually read my CV instead of putting them up on a big pile with all those people from eBay that recently got put on notice.
Cristiano on Tech/Life 
