A day in the life of......at Amazon Web Services

Good day everyone. I'll keep this short so you can focus on the reading I'm sharing. You'll see me sharing more of this blog and it's post as time goes on as our group does like to share.  And in turn, I like to share with the masses to give you an idea of life at Amazon.  Keep in mind, this is just a short blurb to share a little bit about our Dev Support Engineer.  Daily the tasks and responsibilities challenge your skills, creativity, and knowledge. 

Enjoy and have a great day.  BR

http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/02/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-aws-developer-support-engineer.html

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Your job search, my rant.

Hey there folks.  Can you believe we are almost through Q1 of 2010? Q3 for my friends over at Microsoft. Crazy. I feel the need to write this little entry based on what I have seen the first three months of this year.  So those of you seeking a new adventure (work wise that is), this is for you.  By no means is it everything I have encountered, but just a snipit that I hope generates some thought.

The art, science, whatever, of "job hunting" has been going on for a long time and has been done in many ways.  No, no history lesson today as we need to focus on modern day because from what I'm experiencing in my recruiting efforts, people are not being savvy seekers.

I will start by saying, none of this will really be anything new.  So why put it out there?  Because I really want people to be successful in finding  their next great adventure and have the best job seeking experience possible.  And lot's of people are not working their search to the best of their ability.  The Do Nots in your search.

1) If you are applying for jobs online, ie - directly through a company's website, etc., apply for those jobs that best meet your skills and experience.  Yes, I know, it's not always black and white, but be smart about what you apply for.  For example, if you are targeting a Product Manager role, apply for those types of roles and ones similar.  Sometimes companies use different names; Product Manager, Program Manager, Project Manager, Product Marketing Manager, etc.  Don't just apply for titles, but really read over the job description and know what your applying for.  If you apply to 75 jobs at one company ranging from HR assitant to Technical Evangelist, no one is going to look at your resume because we (recruiting, HR, hiring manager, etc) assume that you have no idea what you want to do.

2) Leverage your network.  It will save you time and energy spent on applying online.  Most companies have employee referral programs and people get paid to referral qualified people that get hired.  So if you know somebody at the company, ask them if they would be comfortable referring you.  The saying goes, good people know other good people.  And who better to tell you what they think of where they work, than your friend or associate that works there. 

Now let's say you don't know anyone at the company, but you know someone who know's someone.  Ask if they are comfortable making an introduction to chat as you are interested in the company and possibly a role there and would love to hear what they think about the company and the environment.  

Ok, you don't know anyone who knows anyone.  LinkedIn.  Run a simple search on people that work at that company that are in Human Resources or Recruiting.  Send them a message via linkedin expressing your interest. You don't have to ask them to join your network, you don't know each other yet, but you can show your interest in the company and a position if you have found one that's a match.  Here is where I will say, do not waste people's time though.  If you do not have the background and experience the job/company requires, you may not hear anything.  While people don't mind doing a little career counselling for those making a job change, etc. Recruiting has a job to do.

3) Probably my biggest pet peeve in 2010; Not doing your homework and being prepared for your phone interview(s) and/or formal interviews.  This year I have seen more people sabotage their own search by not being prepared.  Resume looks good, check.  Your friend/associate referred you to the group and the position you interested in, check.  Landed a phone screen with the hiring manager, check.  Hiring manager asked if you checked out the site and what questions you had.Uh oh.  Didn't look at the site before the conversation.  Had no idea what services/products the group had to offer even though a link to the team's page is in the job description, so you didn't have any good questions.  Bad move.

We all know looking for a job takes a lot of time  But if you are serious about making a move, then you should take your job search seriously.  Bring your "A" game and things will go smoother than expected.  Successful phone screen(s) turn into formal interviews.  Successful formal interviews can turn into job offers.  It's hard work and not everyone is a match, but it's worth it for the right role.

There is so much more spinning in my head about people and the job search.  And while this entry might come off as a little rant, I really want you to have a great job seeking experience, a great candidate experience, and find that right role.

Good luck in the search.  Maybe later this week, I share a couple of To Do's in your search. 

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Who am I

Hey there.  My name is Bryan Reichert and I'm a Senior Sourcing Recruiter with Amazon Web Services.  I have been in the recruiting industry for over 12 years which includes time spent both the Agency and Corporate worlds.  While most of my career has been as full life cycle recruiter, over the last handful of years, I have found a strong passion for the Sourcing side.  I know that Sourcing is still really catching on at some companies, and others are finally seeing the value in Name Gen and Research (just to name a couple of things we do), and it's an exciting and challenging part of recruiting.  And while full life cycle Recruiters incorporate sourcing as part of their weekly responsibilities, they can't dedicate enough time and energy towards it because they are managing so many other pieces (ie - manage hiring manager candidate relationships, reporting, etc.). 

 

As a Sourcer, Researcher, or whatever catchy title you want to put on it, we have the time because it is our job and what we love to do.  It's all about leveraging the tools of the trade for candidate generation.

 

For now I will end this intro, but feel free to connect with me for networking or just general conversation.  Below is my linkedin profile as well as contact info.  I look forward to connecting, BR

 

Bryan Reichert
Sr. Sourcing Recruiter
bryrei@amazon.com  | 206.266.9815
www.aws.amazon.com
http://www.linkedin.com/in/bryanreichert
@bryrei on Twitter

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