

Ask HN: Is there a "show us your work" for job hunting managers? - mgrapplying

I'm a developer who followed the management track and found myself really enjoying it.  After a few years of managing a decent sized IT department, I'm interested in putting out some feelers and seeing what else the market has available. No gripes with my current employer; I'm primarily looking for something that's more challenging. (A bump in compensation certainly wouldn't hurt either).<p>This is the first time that I'm job hunting as a manager and I'm not sure what's expected of me. One of the things we've always emphasized during the hiring process for developers is the same thing I see a lot here on HN: "We only care about one thing: what have you built and shipped? No resumes needed here, we just want to see what you can do." (From http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2542432)<p>Is there an equivalent for managers? I've really cleaned up my resume and made sure to highlight the things that I've achieved but it feels weird to be job hunting without a portfolio of things to show. Are my personal programming projects still relevant since I'll primarily be looking for a tech management position?<p>Any advice is appreciated.
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amorphid
As a recruiter, I can tell you that screening a manager is difficult. Y'all
are usually good talkers. Good leading indicators to me are prior success,
ability to articulate complex ideas to a lay person, and brevity in
communication. It is also good to stay on top of communication, be patient,
and nice.

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petervandijck
\- Can you build and run a team? Show you've done that (who have you hired,
how have you created a hiring process, how have you created process around
working (agile, ...), etc.. I would want to see a lot of detail around this in
your resume.

\- I don't think code samples are really relevant at this stage.

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mfruhling
Most managerial interviews are based on Behavioral Interviewing. The logic is
that how you behaved in the past is the best predictor of how you will behave
in the future. If you Google, you'll find lots of typical questions. You
should take time to think of specific situations from your past that
demonstrate how you handled certain managerial tasks. You'll also find that
companies will want to know if you are a "strategy" guy or an "implementation"
guy, so it's good to think about what kind of decisions you want to have
responsibility over. I think it's okay to say both, but you will need to back
up your answer and give examples of how you acted in those situations in the
past.

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seanc
I always point to the team's accomplishment and say "We built this", and then
point out the part that I worked on specifically.

People apportion credit to the leadership differently, so there is no shame in
saying "I lead the team that built this thing" and letting the reader decide
how awesome that makes you specifically.

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phektus
On the management level much of the concern will be on your leadership skills
and how you handle projects and the team(s) working on them. So to answer your
question personal programming projects are still relevant, but interviewers
will also be concerned with the business and leadership side of things.

I'm also having the same dilemma since I'll be attending an interview tomorrow
for a tech lead position and the job post was specific about the
functional/business responsibilities.

BTW If you're looking for a place to store your portfolio (or resume, however
you want to call it) properly, here's my project just for that:
<http://www.cvstash.com> It works because that's what I used that resulted in
the call, which, in turn, resulted in tomorrow's interview.

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karmafeeder
I would still list programming projects. It depends on the company culture
though whether they value that geek-cred.

I know as a developer I would feel more comfortable with a boss who can
appreciate abstract concepts like code-quality or stressful working
conditions.

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cdr
A blog would be a very good idea - show what your ideas on management are.
See, for example, Rands in Repose.

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bitsm
Hey, if you're still looking, we're doing early testing on an online portfolio
service that might meet your needs. I'd be glad to send you an invite.

Email me at tim -at- bitsmachine -dot- com

<http://bitsmachine.com>

Example portfolio (mine): <http://timbarkow.bitsm.com>

