
Ask HN: How do you find jobs / companies you want to work? - non-entity
I&#x27;ve had multiple people and myself confirm jobs boards mostly suck. They either are cluttered with promoted positions, positions posted by staffing companies, or are niche woth not a lot of options.<p>People have told me the best thing to do is to find companies you want to work for and apply directly to them. Now let&#x27;s say you have a bit of criteria for what you&#x27;d like: How do you go about finding companies that match that criteria?
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probinso
If you're hoping to do cold applications, the primary goal should be to
increase the number of companies that you find interesting/appropriate. You
have to take the Long haul and track every company, not just companies that
have openings for you now.

The biggest tool I use for cold starting lists is 2 identify any company who
sends a speaker to a conference, that presents on a topic you enjoy. the name
of that company should be tracked on a site like LinkedIn. the value in
tracking the company through a site is that small companies change their names
over time, medium sized companies get purchased, those tracking systems will
update for you.

For every company you find, it will become easier to find more once you get
past a threshold.

next is to add companies through your network, this can mean any company that
has an employee from an educational institution that you came through.

I found that regional job listings, and surprisingly Craigslist, have much
higher response rates and real listings then major listing sites.

Finally specialty listings are valuable as well. RemoteML and angel.co are
examples of specialty sites leveraging a smaller community.

Aggregate all of this list of companies 2 a site like LinkedIn. Do this
throughout your entire career without brakes.

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muzani
IMO a job post is the employer's equivalent to a resume. A bad or lazy job
post indicates a low quality company. It's not always a direct indicator but
good signal.

Job posts indicate what the company values. Some might be minimalist. Some
overdo the requirements, this might suggest that they look at weaknesses not
strengths. Some emphasize money a lot. Some get excited about technology,
culture, product. Fund something that fits what you want.

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hbcondo714
[https://www.keyvalues.com/](https://www.keyvalues.com/)

As discussed on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15178283](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15178283)

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winkelwagen
I would recommend mixture of searching companies in field you find
interesting. Look at conferences you would like, and look at their sponsors.
My last job I found was just looking at meetups in the city I wanted to work,
and basically see what companies hosted the meetups.

Also LinkedIn and Glassdoor are pretty decent in my experience.

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non-entity
My problem with LinkedIn is that it seems to show me primarily jobs relat6ed
to to current roles (in terms of title, tech, etc.) I want to pivot away from
that and show all jobs available, not just ones it thinks are relevant to me.

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v_e
My problem with LinkedIn is that it seems to show me primarily jobs relat6ed
to to current roles (in terms of title, tech, etc.) I want to pivot away from
that and show all jobs available, not just ones it thinks are relevant to me.

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JSeymourATL
> Now let's say you have a bit of criteria for what you'd like...

Can you articulate that criteria?

The more specific the better.

That might determine where and how to execute your search.

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non-entity
It's kinda complicated and I don't quite know completely myself. But to start
I prefer companies that:

\- Don't see tech as a cost center or at least dont mind investing in it. i.e.
they arent using years old enterprise software or at least look at modernizing
long term. Working on newer/ bleeding edge tech would be cool though.

\- Work on interesting problems and arent just writing copy / paste CRUD apps
or maintaining legacy apps.

\- Invest in their employees and encourage them to keep on top of their
skillset, etc.

\- Is relatively stable, not an early stage startup.

This is just off the top of my head, I might edit if I think of anything else
in the meantime.

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JSeymourATL
Good list to start your score card.

Here's an idea -- you'll find you THIS company by going to meet-ups,
conferences, & trade shows.

And it might sound cheesy, but actually meeting live human beings in these
settings fosters connection and cool conversations.

Try to be strategic about which events you attend. Often we're comfortable in
our little bubbles.

I attended a ridiculously overpriced conference in Vegas years ago. It's still
paying dividends. Get out there!

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askafriend
You don't know which companies in your respective industry and adjacent
industries are hot right now?

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RosyM83
searching some Hunter corporation and be member at that

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Leary
Crunchbase

