
Ask HN: What is your favorite place to find work? - mrburton
Do you have a favorite job board?
======
fecak
The problem with job boards is that unless they are rather unknown, everyone
is using them. Applying through boards is essentially like getting into the
back of a line and hoping you get noticed.

When I coach job seekers on finding new work, I typically encourage them to be
careful not to spend too much time on the boards, and instead rely on their
networks/meetups or personal research.

Using LinkedIn to search for open jobs is similar to using any other site, but
it's greatest value is as a research tool.

Say you're a Python programmer in a suburb somewhere and you're looking for a
new gig. If you use LinkedIn to search "Python" and set a geographic
preference, your results will likely be other Python programmers in the area.
Where do they work? Where did they used to work? Sometimes LinkedIn will offer
other profiles in the sidebar ("people also viewed") - click those and see
where they worked. Now you've got a list of companies that have employed
Python devs, so you can do a bit more research to see if they are the type of
place you might want to work - and pay no attention to whether or not they
have any jobs listed on their site.

Once you found some companies that interest you, use LinkedIn to figure out
the best person to reach out to. Might be their CTO if it's a small shop,
could be an internal recruiter or hiring manager for a larger firm. Make the
approach, tell them why you're interested in the company, and make a soft
close to try and get them to agree to a conversation.

~~~
henrik_w
I know LinkedIn isn't particularly popular here at HN, but I think the job
adds I get shown there are quite good. Even if I am not looking for work I get
a sense of what companies there are, and what kind of positions they are
looking to fill.

~~~
fecak
Your mileage will vary on LinkedIn depending on the time you put into
populating your profile.

I have written hundreds of profiles for clients this year - some clients are
more concerned with branding (what does someone feel when they are directed to
the profile or find it on their own) while others are much more concerned with
just being discovered by recruiters, hiring managers, peers, etc. The approach
is quite different, not unlike SEO techniques.

If you're getting good ads, chances are you put some time into your profile
and added skills that help their recommendation algorithm.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
Is linkedin's SEO approach documented anywhere? Something like SEO Site
checkup for linkedin profiles would be pretty cool.

~~~
fecak
There was a great detailed article on it many years ago, but since they've
changed the site I haven't seen a new one. This is about as good as I've seen,
and it's written by them.

[https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/4447/linkedin-...](https://www.linkedin.com/help/linkedin/answer/4447/linkedin-
search-relevance-people-search?lang=en)

------
remotework
Yes. I've spent a lot of time looking at job boards and here are my favorite
ones.

# Design

Authentic Jobs - [https://authenticjobs.com/](https://authenticjobs.com/)

Dribbble - [https://dribbble.com/jobs](https://dribbble.com/jobs)

# Nonprofit

GIIN - [https://jobs.thegiin.org/](https://jobs.thegiin.org/)

Idealist - [https://www.idealist.org/](https://www.idealist.org/)

Next Billion - [https://nextbillion.net/jobs/](https://nextbillion.net/jobs/)

# Remote

NODESK - [https://nodesk.co/remote-jobs/](https://nodesk.co/remote-jobs/)

RemoteOK - [https://remoteok.io/](https://remoteok.io/)

WeWorkRemotely - [https://weworkremotely.com/](https://weworkremotely.com/)

# Startups/Tech

AngelList - [https://angel.co/jobs](https://angel.co/jobs)

Hacker News -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring](https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=whoishiring)

WorkinTech.io - [https://workintech.io/](https://workintech.io/)

~~~
subpixel
If you own one of those job boards, you should be up front about that when
linking to it.

~~~
remotework
I agree, but as that's not the case there was no need for a disclaimer in my
original comment. I just felt like I could contribute to the discussion which
is not often the case here on HN. Hope that's ok.

~~~
kapauldo
Hall monitors everywhere.

------
lipanski
[https://whoishiring.io](https://whoishiring.io) which is basically an
agregator.

I also like the concept around
[https://www.honeypot.io](https://www.honeypot.io) (I think it's only
available in Berlin though). Once you sign up and add your CV, you get a list
of quite detailed offers almost every day, including company name (wow, I
know, crazy) and salary range. You can accept or reject them through the UI,
by just clicking a button. No endless chain of messages to figure out what
company or position you're actually applying for, no horrid misspelling of
your name, no waiting for the recruiter to contact the company and check if
they're actually interested in your skill set - your CV is presented to the
company beforehand so you've already passed their vetting. The one time I
tried, I didn't find a job through Honeypot, but I definitely appreciated the
experience.

~~~
bitL
Honeypot is pushing for lowest possible salaries; they outright reject you for
wanting 100k EUR jobs even if you held such positions before. They are more
like agency for startups wanting cheap labor to quickly burn through. Mind
you, German startups rarely give you equity, bypass labor laws (small sizes),
pay low and expect insane dedication.

~~~
muzani
Besides the equity, that sounds like every other startup around the world.

~~~
bitL
Yes, but regular German companies have a very hard time getting rid of any
employees, whereas for small-sized companies there is much more flexibility.
So you get all drawbacks of US startups, but 0 shot at becoming rich.

------
umbrae
I am certainly biased, but I built a job platform because I felt all the
existing job boards were lacking, called Limbo.

[https://www.limbo.io](https://www.limbo.io)

The long and short of the problem is that great folks are often employed and
finding your next ideal role is too time consuming and emotionally taxing, and
that great folks with diverse backgrounds are unfairly discriminated against
at resume review time. Limbo attempts to solve those problems with an
anonymous job platform.

More on the concepts behind it here:
[https://medium.com/@chrisdary/introducing-limbo-
ddb97a67ff63](https://medium.com/@chrisdary/introducing-limbo-ddb97a67ff63)

~~~
Bromskloss
For someone who is considering posting there, it might be of interest to get
an idea about the likely payoff:

\- How many "reveals" do an average profile get? How many profiles get no
reveals?

\- What kind of businesses typically use your service, and what countries are
they from?

~~~
umbrae
Good questions.

\- In the past month and a half or so since we’ve launched, about 20% of
published profiles have had a reveal request. That varies heavily based on
profile quality, some have gotten 4 in a row.

That said, even though it’ll be pretty low volume it should be very high
signal. Our accept rate is around 70% right now. This is primarily because
people have to pay outright to contact you (excepting the first free one), so
only folks with pretty good matches should be reaching out.

\- Tech only right now and also heavily biased towards US, probably 95% US.
Startups and Agencies have been the primary target and market. You’re less
likely to find a Facebook on Limbo and more likely to find a small team that
is a pretty precise match for you. There are a couple larger companies on
there though, like Mozilla.

------
mitchellst
Not to fanboy, but the "Who is Hiring" thread posted here on hacker news on
the first of each month. In my experience, the rate and speed of responses
from that thread is dramatically higher than anywhere else.

Obviously it's not the UX that makes it shine, but when you're looking for
work, you care about the results. I recommend that thread to anyone who
mentions looking for a tech job.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
I like that thread because you can load the entire thing and look for keywords
relevant to your skillset - comes quite in handy when you work in a more niche
market. I am not currently interested in new work but I always like to see
what is out there to keep a finger on the market movements to see what is
gaining popularity.

~~~
faitswulff
The last Who Is Hiring went on for something like 5 pages, so it was a bit
clunky to search for, in-browser, but the API makes it pretty easy to
scrape/search whatever you like:
[https://github.com/HackerNews/API](https://github.com/HackerNews/API)

------
bkovacev
As chrisked mentioned - definitely my previous clients and friends.

The best long-term contracts I received was through a former colleague,
classmate or a friend. Recently, linkedin provided a steady source of leads
(not talking about recruiters) via niche groups, 2nd/3rd connections etc.

One great site is [https://whoishiring.io](https://whoishiring.io) \- an
amazing job aggregator that parses (in my opinion) the best sites for work.
This eliminates my need to go hunt for jobs on job boards.

Avoid freelance marketplaces like upwork, freelancer and others.

~~~
Bromskloss
> One great site is [https://whoishiring.io](https://whoishiring.io) \- an
> amazing job aggregator that parses (in my opinion) the best sites for work.

It seems to be just for developer jobs, or a I doing something wrong? Will
they go into other fields as well, or is there someone else who is already
doing that?

~~~
xando
You can filter using the category filter. Link bellow is for design jobs.

[https://whoishiring.io/search/39.4871/-110.8740/3?category=d...](https://whoishiring.io/search/39.4871/-110.8740/3?category=design)

Disclaimer: I wrote whoishiring.io, and I'm not doing too good job to present
that other categories ar available (the filter is missing on the index page).
But yes my main focus in the beginning were dev jobs.

~~~
Bromskloss
> You can filter using the category filter. Link bellow is for design jobs.

Right, "developer jobs" wasn't an accurate description. There still seems to
be a narrow focus, though. I mean, what about finance, medicine, chemistry,
carpentry, etc? Is that outside the scope or is it coming?

~~~
xando
I wasn't planning to go that broad, extending this outside IT would need
serious research in HR mechanism for each of those categories. I'm not calming
that that I know HR in IT but this project kind of evolved from my needs.

------
didip
To be honest, the most effective way to get a job is through friends referral.

The 2nd most effective way is to be part of networking event of the company
that you want to work for.

The 3rd best place to get a job is through relevant tech meet up in your area.

Nothing beats direct human connections when it comes to getting a job.

~~~
squid_around
You can also check out tech associations and their job boards. Some of them
are behind a membership/paywall though, but at least then you know they aren't
being bombarded by the masses.

------
IpV8
My secret strategy is to find out what company is responsible for distributing
the tech grants from the state. There is almost always some list of all of the
companies that got money from the state and how much. Find interesting
companies with a fresh budget to build something in your domain and hit their
CTO/whoever with a few line email and a resume. You may get on their radar
before they even finished writing their hiring budget.

~~~
anitil
Smart. I know what I'll be doing the rest of the day

------
s3nnyy
I am running [https://coderfit.com](https://coderfit.com), a tech recruiting
agency doing tech-video interviews, so I am obviously biased in my suggestion:

A possible way is to go through a recruiter. Recruiting agencies add value in
two ways:

1) They prevent that you or the firm fuck up things. This happens more often
than you think, read my draft: "Why software engineers don’t get jobs: Three
horror stories": [https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/why-software-engineers-
dont...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/why-software-engineers-dont-get-
jobs-three-horror-stories-6ce06b93b121)

2) At every given point in time recruiting agencies know which companies in
your city are hiring, which are firing, and which are good places to work.

I just recorded a short video about "how to identify a good tech recruiter
with whom you want to work with" for the HN audience:
[https://youtu.be/z_CC9kHvoIw](https://youtu.be/z_CC9kHvoIw)

The recording is a bit unstructured, so here a summary; A good recruiter
will...

1) at least understand the tech a little bit

2) find out your needs (e.g., do you want to work in an agency or in a
startup? Do you want to work in a big or small firm?)

3) prepare you to avoid pitfalls that are common with the hiring firm

4) repare you to avoid pitfalls that are prevalent with "geeks like you (e.g.,
female programmers often undersell themselves and open source contributors
often don't know the engineering salares in the city.)

5) walk and handhold you to the end and ideally ping you after 3, 6, 12 months
and ask how it is going.

~~~
venturis_voice
Recruiters often get bad press and that's unfair, there's usually a few
unscrupulous people who taint the profession for the rest of us. We're in the
same boat as yourself and find we get loads of positive feedback from
candidates we place.

we like to give something back to our community and clients to through our
tech specialist podcasts. you can listen below

[http://www.venturi-group.com/podcast/promoting-data-
science/](http://www.venturi-group.com/podcast/promoting-data-science/)

------
flarg
I pay the premium fee to LinkedIn and get a small number of lucrative job
offers in my inbox every year, doubled my salary a few months ago!

~~~
wmeredith
How does paying the premium help you get job offers?

~~~
flarg
Your profile is emphasised to recruiters during searches, kind of like a
premium profile in a dating site.

------
henrik_w
The job ads on StackOverflow are quite good. You can search for keywords and
location.

------
asperous
For freelance developers, there's this list:

[https://github.com/engineerapart/TheRemoteFreelancer](https://github.com/engineerapart/TheRemoteFreelancer)

------
veritas3241
I reference this repo frequently [https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-
remote-job](https://github.com/lukasz-madon/awesome-remote-job)

------
AndrewUnmuted
I find that unless you're an entry-level worker, your best means for finding
work will be through the generation of leads.

Generating leads just means putting yourself out there and letting the
opportunities come to you.

There are many, many people who are qualified to perform a job that is posted
on a job board. But if you can enable a company to skip posting to a board at
all, then you and the company in question both win.

------
toomanybeersies
When I most recently looked for a job, I got most of my leads through linkedin
(from recruiters reaching out to me), and from seek.com.au (which is similar
to indeed, I think). I actually got my current role from a recruiter who
reached out to me via seek, since recruiters can search candidates on the
platform.

Seek is also making a new platform called Onploy, which is an inverse job
search platform, where you put your profile on, and companies apply to you. I
wasn't on it long enough to really determine how good it was, but it was a
fairly novel concept.

I think the best way to get to the front of the queue is to actually ring the
recruiters/hiring managers, often there's a phone number on the job listing,
by ringing them, you force them to put your CV at the front of the queue and
look at it.

Maybe it's location though, but I found that I didn't even really have to look
for a job, I was getting contacted by at least one recruiter per day just by
signing up on seek, and from setting linkedin to looking for opportunities.

------
southphillyman
No. Been a couple years but I usually just toss my resume on Dice, wait for a
flood of calls/emails and filter through the trash. I guess I have a "network"
because they certainly contact me when in need but personally I don't feel
comfortable reaching out to people I haven't talked to in a couple of years
just for leads.

------
The_DaveG
My last job came from the Who is Hiring post here. We've hired people off of
here, referral, Reddit (x2), and LinkedIn. I will always suggest reaching out
to people and having a conversation with a place that you want to work and
have a conversation or speak with them directly. All the better if you can get
a referral to them.

------
spurcell93
I work through Toptal. Once you get through their interview process (takes 1
month plus) I've found their team to be very helpful in connecting me to great
clients. I'm in NYC and can live quite comfortably, set my own rates, and get
plenty of full time work.

~~~
convolvatron
after wasting the time to write the sample application, my interviewer refused
to even look at at it. I have seen similar stories posted here. would not
recommend.

~~~
leviathan
Whenever I read a similar story, there always seems to be a piece of
information missing.

Like I'm pretty sure the interviewer wasn't just out to get you and simply
refused to look at your application because that's just how they do things.

~~~
convolvatron
I have no idea what the interviewers motive was. I'm certain he has a
different story. From my perspective he asked me to show certain functionality
and then shouted over me every time I tried. After 30 minutes I hung up.

edit: obviously it wasn't personal, there is no way we had ever crossed paths
before. personally I think had no idea how to conduct a technical interview
and thought he was being tough on me. anyways, its just one experience.
obviously people make it through the procces. I do think they could try to be
a little more responsible given that they just asked for a week of your time

~~~
spurcell93
I can't speak for others but it's been a real pleasure to use them. The
interview was a tad tedious and the project ambiguous. But after that, smooth
sailing.

------
venturis_voice
Just gonna throw our name into the pot, Venturi Ltd recruits for positions in
London, NYC and Germany.

We're IT specialists recruitment agency that specialises in Big Data, Network
& Security, Development and cloud & Infrastructure. [http://www.venturi-
group.com/](http://www.venturi-group.com/)

As some of you might have seen to we also produce tech industry podcasts, we
thought it was a great way to give something back to our great candidates and
clients.

[http://www.venturi-group.com/podcast/promoting-data-
science/](http://www.venturi-group.com/podcast/promoting-data-science/)

------
horsecaptin
Craigslist is fantastic for Bay Area tech jobs.

~~~
horsecaptin
No idea why this was down-voted. I suppose the person disagrees. I have found
a lot of work for many great companies including names that we all know and
respect through Craigslist.

------
lukeHeuer
I built [https://www.stackpair.com](https://www.stackpair.com) because I was
over reading job listings to get an idea of what I'd be working with. It puts
as much info as possible up front about the languages, stack, and tools used
in the position. The search makes finding relevant positions easy, the query
"go remote sf" returns what you'd expect, for instance. I also do a lot to
feature quality opportunities, which traditional job boards can struggle with.

------
chrisked
Not a job board. But I love using my phone and calling folks :)

------
technolo-g
My favorite place is at local Meetups of interest.

------
drinchev
Job boards usually sucks.

Your best job will be when you are passively hired ( saw that you are a
software engineer ). This, you can achieve with spending some time to build a
physical ( go to events ) or virtual network ( LinkedIn ) surrounded by people
that would hire a person like you.

------
weishigoname
LinkedIn is very good place, and hack news' whoshiring is very good place for
remote job.

------
quickthrower2
Current gig was found on Stack Overflow. I'm very happy with it and glad to
get it done without a MITM.

SO is not my favourite necessarily but I definitely checked it regularly. I
found the jobs tended to be slightly lower paid but this was the exception.

------
scardine
Stackoverflow careers[1] is my favorite. Lots of interesting jobs there!

[1] [https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote-developer-
jobs](https://stackoverflow.com/jobs/remote-developer-jobs)

------
peteypao
Hired.com. Love the fact that employers are applying to you. Love the fact
that they're mostly open about their compensation from the get go. And the
extra $2K bonus from Hired doesn't hurt either.

------
aarohmankad
Not a job board, but I've found a great place to find work is at a
conference/event for something you're passionate about.

This could be a technology, language, stack, anything that's cool to you!

------
kingnothing
I just let recruiters reach out to me on LinkedIn or ask my network.

------
joeblau
I've tried to brand myself online so work finds me.

~~~
rhizome
How's that working out for you?

~~~
joeblau
It's actually working out pretty well. I would say I get about 1-5 inbound
weekly requests from companies like Facebook, Snapchat, AirBnB, Apple, etc.
The best part is that recruiters have already done their research for the most
part and my inbound is strictly about iOS development positions. I don't
really get inbound for backend jobs, or anything else that I'm not interested
in.

I would say that it did take me 5+ years to get to this point but anyone can
do it with enough effort.

------
gp141
Disclaimer, I work at SymbaSync!

[http://SymbaSync.com](http://SymbaSync.com) is a platform for developers to
anonymously find their ideal jobs. We match your skills, workplace culture,
salary, location preferences and more with jobs on our system, to ensure that
you only see highly relevant opportunities for you (and you don't have to
submit a new CV/Resume for every job you apply to!).

Currently we have a focus on jobs in the UK as we're based here, but will
hopefully be expanding to other locations soon!

------
johan_larson
At least here in Canada, indeed.com (actually .ca) has noticeably better
selection than LinkedIn and Monster, the sites I've used before.

------
pryelluw
Social media, HN, and tech related Slack communities. It's how I got a great
job in less than a month.

~~~
ioddly
> tech related Slack communities

Any particular ones? So far, Reactiflux is the only one I've found that seems
to have a reasonably active and quality job channel.

------
juancn
Don't you get spammed?

I just stop ignoring recruiters or let some of my friends/network know I'm
looking.

------
sqreept
It's ejobs.ro when in Romania.

------
cdiamand
I think some commonly overlooked spots are:

[https://www.reddit.com/r/forhire/](https://www.reddit.com/r/forhire/)

also

[https://twitter.com/search?q=looking%20for%20a%20freelance%2...](https://twitter.com/search?q=looking%20for%20a%20freelance%20developer&src=typd)

------
Southworth
In the uk www.unicornhunt.io is very popular with startups.

------
meej
I found both my current and previous job via indeed.com.

------
neillyons
If you are in London or New York yunojuno.com is good.

------
d--b
There is only one for finance-related jobs: efinancialcareers.com

Not as good as knowing people, but if you want to work in finance and don't
know anyone, that's a goodbye place to start

------
ediab
LinkedIn seems to work well in London

------
nunez
LinkedIn InMail

------
justboxing
If you are on a Work Visa like H1B or EU Blue Card, most of the job boards
here don't work. That's why I created
[http://www.visaok.in](http://www.visaok.in) to help techies find Work Visa
sponsored Jobs.

Also researched a ton and created Visa Guides for over 25 different countries
including Germany, Mexico, Singapore, United Arab Emirates etc.

You can find these Visa Guides here => [http://www.visaok.in/work-
permit/blog/](http://www.visaok.in/work-permit/blog/)

------
katastic
Wouldn't people with the most experience in "finding" work... also be the
people who have "found" work they didn't like--requiring many job changes?

My job was never listed anywhere. It was purely word-of-mouth that mentioned
the job, and got me hired.

------
ronilan
_Do you have a favorite job board?_

Obviously.

For my job as a snowboard instructor: Burton Process 157 Off-Axis Purepop
Camber.

For my other jobs: Linkedin Easy Apply. It delivered.

~~~
quickthrower2
Very droll

------
gargarplex
[https://codefor.cash](https://codefor.cash) is a search engine I built that
searches __remote, freelance __programming job boards.

