An excerpt from RenderATL's Culture & Code podcast Episode #9: Hacking the Job Search with Taylor Desseyn(@tdesseyn):

Note: this is a special Render Vault episode featuring @willjohnsonio as host.

Will:
And we'll pull it out five years from now. Yeah. Next thing I kind of want to ask you about, because again, you've talked to a lot of developers-

Taylor:
Yeah.

Will:
... seen a lot of resumes, helped a lot of people through the interview process. So if you had a magic wand and you could wave it for everyone to stop doing this one thing, what would be that one thing that people need to stop doing?

Taylor:
I can only pick one thing?

Will:
You can pick as many as want.

Taylor:
I don't know if this is the most important thing, but this is the thing that I want to get across in this moment. Stop being negative in public.

Will:
Okay.

Taylor:
There's a lot of people out there with a lot of baggages that tweet all the time, that post all the time, mainly tweet, because that's where a lot of the engineering community lives, and that's kind of who I communicate with. There's a lot of people that tweet regularly about how stressed they're at the job search. "Woe is me. Things suck, yada, yada. This manager did this. This hiring sucked." I mean, even the negativity that comes at my tweets. I'm just trying to help people, and I got people coming at me with pitch forks. So I will tell you this, at the end of the day, if you're struggling in the job search, you need to look at yourself. What are you posting online? What's your processes? Right? I see these stories that's like, "500 resumes submitted later, I found a job." Why didn't you stop 250 through and do something different?" Right? So, being negative in public is one. Then also two, I think I would wave... Okay. Okay. This is my answer now. This is my answer.

Will:
All right.

Taylor:
So it's two twofold, twofold, right? That's the first thing. Don't be negative. That's the simple fix, right? The big thing is, we are taught completely backwards on how to do the job search, because you know why, no one's actually teaching, which is why I tried to put out a crap ton of content. If I could have a wand and wave it, I would get everybody to stop applying to job postings with their resumes, and I would start building relationships in the DMs.

Will:
Yep. I agree a thousand percent.

Taylor:
I mean, quite frankly, I think if you're... So people struggle. They're like, "Well, I feel really sleazy. I feel like if I know there's a job at a company and I'm trying to build a relationship with somebody, I feel like I'm just trying to get to the job." And I understand that, but here's the deal. Just try to make friends first and let's see what happens.

Will:
Yeah.

Taylor:
Right? I tell this story all the time. My dad, at the time, he was 55 years old. This was pre-COVID. My dad was able to find a job on LinkedIn in the restaurant industry because he literally kept at it every day, and he didn't apply his resume anywhere. He just tried to build relationships on LinkedIn and his contact book in his phone, contact list. That's it. And so if I could wave a wand, it would be for people to approach the job search about building relationships first, not submitting your resume first.

This was an excerpt from Culture & Code, a podcast brought to you by RenderATL that is focused on leveling up your tech career and exploring new technologies.

You can listen to the full episode and read the complete transcript on our website here.