Land the Tech Job You Love (Pragmatic Life) [Paperback]

Andy Lester (Author)

Book Description

Series: Pragmatic Life | Publication Date: July 5, 2009

As a techie, you're a special breed, with special challenges facing you in the job search. Your competition is smart, tech-savvy, and highly resourceful. Expectations among employers are higher. Your competition will run you over if you're not up to the challenge. Land the Tech Job You Love gives you the background, the skills, and the hard-won wisdom to bypass the mistakes of those who don't prepare.

You might not think you need this book. Conventional Wisdom has it that finding a job is simple: send some resumes, go on some interviews, and take the offer that sounds best. But that's only the start. You've got the background and skills to work the Web and other resources that the general job seeker doesn't. This book shows you how to take advantage of those skills or be left behind by competing techies who do.

It all starts with an examination of you, your strengths, and where you want your career to take you. Without a roadmap, you'll wind up in any old job. Life's too short to spend in a job that you don't love. From there, you'll see how to find the job you want that fits you and the employer, using your technical and web savvy to find the hidden jobs that never make it into the classifieds or Monster.

"Marketing" is not a dirty word, and you'll learn how to present yourself, your skills, and your background in the way that shows the hiring company that you're the right person for the job. Create a resume that tosses out conventional wisdom, write cover letters that sell your background, and assemble a portfolio of work that will wow the interviewer.

Social networking has been the darling of the Web in the past few years, but it's no substitute for the sort of personal interaction that makes relationships that help in future careers. As one manager said, "One recommendation is worth a million resumes." This book shows you how to make and maintain the connections that will drive your future career moves.

Land the Tech Job You Love pulls no punches and lays out the details for what gets you an interview, and gets you hired in a job in the technical world that makes you happy.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Andy Lester has been a professional programmer for 18 years and a Perl evangelist for a decade. By day, he manages programmers for Follett Library Resources in McHenry, IL. By night, he spreads the gospel of automated testing and maintains over a dozen CPAN modules. Lester also writes for The Perl Journal, and three of his hacks have been published in Spidering Hacks by O'Reilly.

Product Details

• Paperback: 225 pages
• Publisher: Pragmatic Bookshelf; 1 edition (July 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934356263
• ISBN-13: 978-1934356265
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #279,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #13 in Books > Computers & Technology > Business & Culture > Careers

More About the Author

Andy Lester has developed software for more than twenty years in the business world and on the Web in the open source community. Years of sifting through resumes, interviewing unprepared candidates, and even some unwise career choices of his own have spurred him to write this nontraditional book on the new guidelines for tech job hunting. Andy is an active member of the open source community, and lives in the Chicago area.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Useful Resource, July 1, 2009

By 

Sensibletron - See all my reviews

This review is from: Land the Tech Job You Love (Pragmatic Life) (Paperback)

I'm very happy that I purchased this book. It gives a sensible, clear rundown of the steps to take to put yourself in the best position possible to get the job that you want.

The book touches on finding a job that you actually WANT, preparing your resume and cover letter, researching a company, and the interview process--you know, the stuff that seems incredibly simple until you actually sit down to do it. The advice given is practical and could apply to most fields, although the author does address specific concerns for those applying for tech jobs. I enjoyed the clarity of the author's writing.

My husband's a programmer--I purchased the book with him in mind--and thus far the book has been very helpful in his ongoing job search.

Highly recommended.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable for job seeker AND hiring manager, December 26, 2009

By 

V. M. Brasseur (CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Land the Tech Job You Love (Pragmatic Life) (Paperback)

I read this book from the perspective of a former developer who's now responsible for hiring and managing developers. Having been on both sides of the fence now I feel confident in saying that Andy's written a book that's great for everyone in the tech industry.

The writing here is direct, unintimidating and no-nonsense. Andy knows what geek job seekers need to hear and--more importantly--how to say it so they'll actually listen. At each point he doesn't simply say "do this" but he also includes the oft-overlooked WHY. This sort of insight helps technically-minded folk grok the problem in fullness, allowing them to adapt their approach to the specific company/job at hand rather than simply rattling off canned answers. In essence, he's broken the job-getting process into a set of well-defined use cases, each with fully documented business logic.

As I said, this is a book for everyone. As a hiring manager reading this book I constantly found myself thinking of ways in which my own department/company could improve its own hiring and interviewing processes. After reading this book I now feel better prepared to get the right person for our team. It's very obvious that Andy fully understands the hiring managers' point of view. The first time he said (paraphrased), "The hiring manager WANTS to hire you: interviewing for a position is a pain in the ass that she'd rather be done with" I practically applauded. That sort of perspective is necessary to get the point across to the job seeker that we're all in this together.

In summary, this is a great book, an engaging read and well worth your time to pick up. I believe so fully enough that I've already purchased it for a friend in need of a change of professional venue.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Reading the Book You Love, July 21, 2009

By 

Kevin Gisi (Eau Claire, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Land the Tech Job You Love (Pragmatic Life) (Paperback)

Andy Lester comes at this topic from a unique perspective - that of a manager, and that of a programmer. He's in a unique perspective to discuss both what the programmer is looking for in a position, and what a manager is looking for in an employee.

This book moves step-by-step, beginning with figuring out what you want. From there, you move on to resumes, your online presence, portfolios, job listings, interviews, and keeping on top of your game.

Andy does a great job of covering it all step by step, so that younger coders who may be newer to the process catch all the right information, but in a cheerful and friendly tone that doesn't patronize more experienced professionals for whom some of the content might be a healthy review.

Buy this book. Andy Lester provides useful and practical information, while inspiring confidence and reassuring you that you are quite in control when it comes to the job hunt. Enjoy!