How does one get a job?
Specifically, how does one get a job working for a company you want to work for.
I’ve never been in this position. My strategy my whole life is to pick a role, such as sales, and apply to any and every job opening I could find, and learn more about the companies as they responded and asked to interview. So I would usually learn about the company as I was going through the interview process. I then was able to determine what jobs and industries were out there and get a sense of what each paid, and accept the best paying when I felt like it was a good match.
This has lead me to make ever increasing income, but I’ve fallen short of my most ambitious goals of making $500k +.
I’ve also had a very erratic career, which I don’t know serves my career story all that well. I’ve interned selling education books door to door, personal wealth management, and law. I worked part time in college at the medical/healthcare world as research assistants. When I graduated I worked for a healthcare IT consulting company, but it was on the operations team as a financial analyst, so the work was mind numbing and the pay was low. Everyone told me to get into sales, and I saw that salesman were making the best money.
I leveraged my experience selling books door to door for two summers and applied for as many business to business sales jobs I could find. B2B paid the best and California was where the money was. I landed a job working for a Japanese industrial automation company that offered me a position in Nashville and an opportunity to transfer me to California in just a couple years. I was earning a salary of $55k, which was a $20k jump, plus a bonus that brought in anywhere from $2-8k a quarter. My first year I made $63k, and my second $86k. Because I logged 30-50,000 miles on the road, and was reimbursed .55 a mile, that was another 15-25k, not including gas and auto and maintenance expenses.
I got poached by a local distributor/ systems integrator who offered to pay me $175k a year as a 1099 to run a territory. I was not prepared for this responsibility. I struggled to build the business and 16 months later the owner and I agreed that I should find a better fitting job.
At that point I started applying for jobs every day, and on the side was helping a friend build his product design and manufacturing company in California while searching for jobs.
I received a job offer in Washington DC from a multi billion dollar consulting company where I would sell Universities higher education student and course management systems. I forget the total OTC, but it was between $120-150k.
My friend offered to house me and pay me $65k and 10% of his company if I joined him in California.
The lure of the Bay Area with the innovative tech scene was much more attractive, and decided to forgo the consulting route and head to California.
A year a half in I realized my friend didn’t share the same hunger and ambition, and I wasn’t seeing the returns in income, and I was tired of couch surfing. We agreed to part ways and I begin the job search again.
I was hired by another Japanese industrial automation company performing a similar role located in Mountain View, and my pay increased to $120k with a $7k monthly stipend, and on target earning of $175k. Two years later I was promoted with a $140k pay with the $7k stipend, and my on target earnings were $225k. The year I left I had over $100k in bonuses, bringing my pay to close to $260k.
I left to work in management consulting and my pay was $170k with an OTE bonus of $45k. Two years later I received a pay raise to $190k with an OTE of $48k, bringing my total OTE compensation to $238k.
In the Bay Area this is meager pay. With rents between $4,500 to $10,000 for a single family home that I can purchase for $1.2M to $3.5M, this compensation is not competitive for saving and raising a family.
Tech sales pay comparable salaries with much larger bonuses along with equity, bringing on target earnings well beyond $300k, with total compensation often landing between $500k and $1M for high growth or large tech companies.
I need to figure out how to gain access to this network of jobs.
How do I work for the next Google or Amazon or Meta or Slack or Salesforce or any number of these blue chip tech companies?
My current strategy is the following:
- Identify a list of companies led or founded or funded/sponsored by heavily influential people. What is the criteria of these companies?
- Aggregate contacts in the following functions: Human Resources (Talent, Recruiting, etc), Sales/Business Development/Go to Market, executive/senior leadership. Determine who is a mutual connection
- Reach out to any 1st degree connections at these companies and ask for advice/insight.
- Develop an understanding of these companies and markets and organizations.
- Update/ Overhaul resume– tailor / customize
- Write personalized cover letter that introduces myself to these contacts with a compelling biographical story of who I am and why I want to work for the company or their team.
- Write a handwritten notes describing why I’m writing and ask for help or guidance in getting a job.
- Mail the hand written note, cover letter, and resume to these contacts. Follow up every few months with another letter checking in.
I will begin working on this now.
William Dare 