I worked in Big Tech for years and now help others get jobs. Don't follow these 4 career advice clichés.
Alan Stein
- 51-year-old Alan Stein worked in the corporate world for 25 years at companies including Google and Meta.
- Now, as the CEO of Kadima Careers, he advises against following certain career advice clichés.
- He suggests focusing on referrals rather than creating multiple résumés and posting on LinkedIn.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Alan Stein, CEO of career-accelerating service Kadima Careers. The story has been edited for length and clarity.
After 25 years of working in the corporate world, including at companies like Google, Meta, Salesforce, and American Express, I now help people get jobs at the world's best companies.
My company, Kadima Careers, is a career accelerator. We work for candidates and we help them get better jobs quickly, competently, and with lots more money. We've helped hundreds of people get jobs and negotiate offers.
Last time I checked, there were thousands of career experts on LinkedIn, sometimes, without any verification or certification.
These are some of the pieces of advice that I think you should avoid.
Posting often on LinkedIn
Don't expect that your posting or commenting is going to get you a job. You have to hope that your posts get seen by the right people. It's not easy to do that.
You should definitely keep LinkedIn up to date and make sure you are marketing yourself effectively on there because you will get people to come to your profile. But the way you'll do that is not by posting content but by proactively reaching out to people or people tangential to the people that you want to speak to.
Then, before they meet you, they'll look at your profile and understand that you're a program manager with 12 years of experience or you're a sales executive working at some of the best SaaS companies in the world.
You're wasting your time if the listed salary isn't what you want
You should decline to talk about compensation until after you get the offer.
I've seen so many times that there is flexibility with the compensation, and the best leverage you have as a candidate is after you have the offer. Furthermore, you get more practice. The more practice you get, the better you will become at interviewing — and you might learn things, you might meet people, and there might be other opportunities that pop up along the way.
There are three exceptions, including if you're grossly overpaid.
When I was at Google, sometimes I would just put the number out there to short-circuit things to see if it's not worth my time. Secondly, if they give you a homework assignment to do, you want to make sure it's worth your time.
The third reason is if you have so many interviews that you need to figure out which one to take and which one's going to compensate you if you get to the finish line.
Research the heck out of a company
Some people say you should research the heck out of a company and impress them with all your knowledge and that will lead to an interview. Don't do unsolicited work.
I've interviewed so many people in my time and some people come very well prepared and they've done research. But to put together a project, a presentation, a one-sheeter, a cover letter, or anything that is not asked for doesn't make sense. It might work for small organizations, but the better way is just to connect with the decision-makers at the company.
You should definitely check the company values out, understand the products, and research the role and who you're meeting with. But you don't need to research more than an hour for most interviews about the company. You will be surprised at how little most companies ask about the company itself.
Customize your résumé for every job
There are a couple of times when you want to have two résumés.
If you're going for an individual contributor role and you're going for a manager role, there are some different dynamics you do there. Also, if you have a disparate background and maybe you've done customer success and product management, you might want to have two different résumés.
Also, don't overcomplicate things and think you need to have the right search terms on there for the application tracking software.
Have a strong résumé that reflects your impact and what you've done and uses the right words for your industry — and then keep your résumé.
Your résumé is just table stakes. It's not going to make or break your search. So, focus on getting the referrals. That will get your résumé to the hiring manager.
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