Can You Get Hired As A Developer Without Knowing Anyone?

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Hey folks, just driving to work. We're going to go to Reddit for the topic today. This is from Experienced Devs, our favorite subreddit on this channel. Um, this poster was saying um or asking, I guess, is the importance of networking overblown? and their comment was essentially around like I think they said they've been in the industry for like 10 years and um any job that they've gotten has essentially just been they have their resume updated, they send in their application, they get the interview, they do the interview, they get the offer, and they start working. So, um they said I've done no networking at all. So, like just trying to understand like am I the outlier or what? Um, I thought this would be interesting to talk through. Um, and I want to start by saying I don't actually have data. I think uh John Vanir of Latterly IO, if you check out his content, he he usually digs up data to back up like uh claims and stuff.

A lot of what I talk about is uh just from my experience or anecdotes, but like I don't have data to tell like you know if this guy wants to know are you the outlier? There's probably something that John could dig up and would say like yes or no. Uh so I don't know the answer to that. Um, I almost don't think that that actually matters necessarily because I think it's um I don't want to say like this person's question is wrong cuz I think that's like a a rude thing to say, but I don't think it's um I I don't think that the answer to that question is is helpful the way that it's framed. Maybe that's how I would say that. So, I'm glad this person asked the question, but I want to talk about it in different ways.

And you know first thing is that like absolutely like there are people that have gone through their career no focus on networking right they especially depending on when they started get in get a job you know get good uh experience written down on their resume go for the the next one at some point apply like the way that they've written their resume uh aligns with you know what they're looking for in that position they interview well and continue. Um, I mean the other thing we don't know from what this person said is like and for other people I guess is like if you're not networking, you could still absolutely do this, but does it mean that you're you have to do uh a lot of resume volume in terms of applications? Are you going uh to tons and tons of interviews because you're not doing well and then have to like hope that you're getting other interviews lined up?

I should move over lanes here, man. Um like we don't have visibility into that, right? So, um it makes it kind of difficult to answer like should you go do it? Like can you be successful without it? Absolutely. Um would it be more optimal to do some networking? Uh my answer is going to be probably yes. Um but I think people kind of When we talk about networking and applying to jobs and stuff, I think what and I don't blame people. I think a lot of the time people want like the give me the step by step, tell me how it works, like the playbyplay. I I just want to be told what to do so I can go do it and then it's going to happen. And like it just it doesn't work quite like that. Like a lot of things in life don't quite work like that.

Um, like for example, you know, you're people are telling you you're gonna have lead code style questions in your interview. Okay, so I got to go study a thousand lead code problems. And like it's possible that you might get a lead code question that still trips you up. It's totally possible. So, you know, it it there's there not really guarantees even if you're following someone's step-by-step guidance, even if that guidance is really good. So, makes it kind of tricky with this stuff, but in general, I think that you can absolutely have success without uh, you know, trying to network. Um, I just don't think that like it's not advice that I would give to someone at this point. It would be the opposite at this point. So, I'm trying to think for my like my own career, right? Like I got my first job out of university uh at a startup that did not involve networking, right?

Uh technically I was on social media. Someone saw my LinkedIn profile which had just that I was a graduate from the University of Water. I had like literally just graduated but I had my experience on LinkedIn and so they reached out to me. So I maybe you could argue that's networking. Like I passively made myself uh visible online. So arguable, but I would say like no, I didn't actually go form connections and do any outreach or anything like that. That's how I got my first job aside from an internship. That was the worst turn I've ever seen. You're in my lane, sir. Um person turned into the oncoming traffic lane. Very, very smart. uh my second job which is technically Microsoft is my second job outside of university uh I did not network for that right so like I'm two for two uh my internships

were not from networking right they're through applying through the school's uh job board at the University of Wateroo so like technically all of my jobs are not been networking arguably that first full-time job outside of school because of LinkedIn, but I was not going out to like meetups and hackathons and like trying to reach out to people online and doing like these things that myself and a lot of other people would say, "Hey, like go do some of this stuff." Um, and I've got to where I am without it. Different times, right? Different job market, but there I'm also an example of that. It's just I wouldn't I wouldn't give people that guidance when I think that there's ways to do networking that can be beneficial. And that's why I I don't think that the framing of the question that's posted on Reddit is helpful. Like if this person they're saying like am I an outlier?

Like I guess I would just want to say like what does it aside from just being curious like what does it matter? Like if someone said yes or no, like does it change? It doesn't change what I would recommend people do. If he's not the outlier and most people get jobs without networking, great. I would still tell people to go network and why is that? And it it comes down to increasing your surface area for luck. Um, so I just wanted to like kind of reiterate on the on the Reddit post and the way that it's framed. It's like not that it's a not that I think it's a bad question. I just don't think the way it's framed is helpful. I think the topic is helpful, not the way the question is framed. So, okay. So, why network then? And I think a lot of this, like I said, comes down to increasing your surface area for luck.

And this also goes hand inand why I think that some people get kind of frustrated by this because they're like look if I'm going to spend all this time networking and following like the step-by-step process of like reaching out to people like I expect that the results are also systematic and predictable but they're not. And it's also not a quick thing right and like these are things that people want. They want they want the shortest path and they want it to be systematic because they're like, "Look, if I'm going to go do this, I want to do it the most optimal way, right? I don't want to waste my time." And that's a very human thing. I get it. We see this with everything, right? Like people want to people want to lose weight. Okay, what's the quickest way I can do that with the least amount of effort?

People want to get big and strong. Okay, what's the quickest way to do that with the least amount of effort? But the reality is that like stuff takes effort, stuff takes time. And I will often say that like, you know, the shortcut or the only shortcut for a lot of this stuff is just like accepting that there isn't really a shortcut. Information is helpful, but like it's not going to be the thing that just like shortcuts the entire process. So, I do think networking is very valuable. I just think that it's um a little bit misunderstood from a lot of people that are looking for the give me the step by step. I want to do my networking for a week and then, you know, wait for the the jobs to be rolling in. It just doesn't work that way.

Um and so I understand why a lot of people are like, "Well, then I don't want to invest the time into it because it doesn't seem worth it." But I I just I I I cannot recommend to people to skip it because I think that for for everyone, there's probably a loweffort way that they can consider networking that I I think would at least help. And furthermore, for people that are having success landing interviews without networking, like great. Like you're doing something that's working. I'm not here talking to a camera because I have some agenda to try and change what you're doing that's clearly working for you. If it's working for you, hell yeah, keep doing it. Like, I am pumped for you. And if you never network in your life, like that is a-okay by me. As long as you're being successful, I think that's totally awesome.

Like, there's no agenda. So, if you don't network and it's working well for you, hell yeah, man. Like, keep doing that. But for people that are struggling and they're like, I've been blasting resumes. I'm not getting interviews. Like, okay. Like, this is probably the people that are going to benefit from it the most. So I think that like the most important framing that I have with networking, I keep going back to this the statement of like increasing the surface area for luck. And I like that because when we talk like when I use the word luck in that statement, I mean it like I'm not telling you that networking guarantees anything. It doesn't. There's no I can't possibly guarantee that you network with X number of people and you're going to see some type of result. There's probably some stats that that people have collected that say people that network for this long and reach out to this many people statistically have an improved likelihood like or or not.

But there's probably some stats that exist. I don't know what they are, but it's almost like if I told you that if you don't network, you're getting zero additional benefit, but doing some minimal networking purely just adds some additional benefit. If it's low effort, like I don't know, like why wouldn't you just do it? You don't have to. Again, it's like not affecting me at all. like that's totally cool, but I I think that for people that are feeling like they're having challenges with uh with getting interviews, like why why not like consider it? So I wanted to share a couple of examples where um where networking or or you know in this case it's going to be kind of similar um to my first job but my point is like making myself visible uh can look different ways. So one is that like for me as a content creator that's one way that I'm creating visibility for myself.

A side effect of that is like a lot of networking and at some point it becomes less of a side effect and it's like a mutual thing where like I network with other people that are creators or other software engineers um that kind of thing. So they do go hand in hand but you know you could be learning in public is one example um and then you end up forming connections and networking with people this way. You could be going to hackathons and meeting people this way. You can go to meetups that are local and form connections this way. Um there's active things you can do but for me um I still I would say from a networking perspective even as a content creator I don't think from well no let me walk through a couple of examples right like these are the more sort of passive things and I say passive as in like I did work but the the interaction itself was passive.

So, um, for those of you that don't know, cuz you're just showing up on code commute, like my main channel is called Dev Leader. I do a lot of C andnet programming tutorials. Like, so by creating content online, I was able to network with Nick Chapsis, who's one of the biggest YouTubers in the C and.net space. and like I basically landed a job creating courses for him, right? Like I'm one of the authors that he has on his platform for creating C# programming courses, okay? But like that that opportunity would have been impossible without some amount of networking. Now, there might be other authors that are reaching out to him or potential authors reaching out to him saying, "Hey, like I want to make courses or it's through networking with the other authors or because they're posting stuff on social media like I was." And then Nick will network with them and create uh such an opportunity.

But like I have to be honest like that was just increasing the surface area for luck, right? Like I I would love to sit here and tell anyone watching this video like no. Like Nick chose me because I'm the best in the world at it. Nope. Nope. There are tons of people out there that I know are great teachers, right? Excellent programmers. Um, but like I'm also someone that's I'm not trying to say that I'm useless, but like I I basically increase the surface area for luck by engaging on social media, having such an opportunity come up like that's the lucky part and being prepared. So that's the other thing, right? You increase the surface area for luck, but your preparedness is the other factor. If you have zero preparedness and you have lucky situations come up, they're going to start to feel pretty unlucky.

Could you imagine if Nick asked me to go make courses and I was like, I don't know, like, hey man, like I just had a buddy film these YouTube videos of me and like I actually don't know what I'm doing. So like, sorry. Like no, I was prepared because I was making C videos. I was learning about editing. I was going through the whole process, right? I have years and years of experience trying to teach people how to program in C# like I am prepared but then I increase the surface area for luck. Um I think another thing that helped like my current role at Microsoft I switched teams a couple years or just over a year ago now year and a half ago. Yeah, year and a half. And um I think one of the things that helped a lot was that um my manager and skip level manager could see the kind of stuff that I would talk about and focus on as a manager, right?

They knew about me from the organization that I work in, but I was able to increase the service area for luck by talking about all things software engineering from a management perspective. So they had a lot more visibility. So then I got to network with them a bit and then I ended up applying for this position. So that is an example of networking enabling that. Um, there's a couple of other things like I won't get into the details of for a video, but like there are people that I have used to work with, right? And like that's a network effect where they've reached out and they're like, "Hey, could this be something that we pursue?" Like there's a potential opportunity. So all of this saying like you know even though I haven't actively pursued networking for my own individual career like the network effect still plays a big role in a lot of things that I've done.

So an example I'm going to share with you it's oh man I'm this is leaking everywhere. Um, and it's fruit punch, so that's gonna insane. No. Um, I went to, um, Dallas two summers ago. I can't remember now. I went to Dallas for a tech meetup. Literally a meetup, not like a conference. Um, Danny Thompson, who's an awesome content creator and a tech director down there. um reached out to him. I went to go present at one of their meetups. So, you know, paid for my own plane ticket, flew down just like I wanted to do this. I thought it would be awesome. So, and it was a great experience. So, I went to go talk at this meetup and I just want to explain the the the possibility that networking can unlock. Again, luck, increasing the surface area for luck. I had someone who reached out And before the event, I was like, "Oh, you're a speaker.

Cool. Like, it'll be great to meet you there." And then they said, "By the way, like uh I know you flew in. Can I uh I'm going to stop to grab coffee. Do you want a coffee before uh so you have a coffee when you're at the meetup?" And I said, "That would be awesome." Like, "Thank you so much." Very thoughtful, right? So, meet up. So, we're at the meetup. Sorry. Meet up with this person. give my coffee. We're chatting, sitting at the table together. Great. You know, do my do my presentation. Um, and then kind of I'm sitting down at the table for the rest of the presentation. So, we're chatting. Great. You know, it's it's totally informal, just literally getting to know each other, sitting down with other people at this table.

Um, we'd stay connected on LinkedIn and at one point I was like, "Hey, like I need podcast guests." and I said, "Hey, would you like to come on the podcast and talk about uh in particular like communication and software development?" So, that'd be awesome. So, did a podcast episode. She got to talk about different things from, you know, software development perspective with uh relevant to communication, give her perspective on this stuff. And um must have been in the last month, she sent me a message and she said, "I just wanted to thank you so much because someone uh you know an employer had seen the podcast and said that's exactly what we want in someone. We want someone who's focused on communication this way. Uh I think she has a she got offered like a developer relationship role. I think I might have that wrong but one of the focal points was around communication and really that being like a central thing.

So, she said like, you know, thank you so much because like if it wasn't for that podcast opportunity, you know, wouldn't have uh this job opportunity. And that's not to say that she never would have been hired and the only reason she ever got hired is because she did a podcast with me. Not at all. All that I'm saying is that like that was something that she did that uh I don't know like in the grand scheme of things probably relatively low effort. I'm not saying that there's um uh not meaning or like not value put behind it. Like to to go offer to bring someone a coffee, very kind gesture, right? Low effort kind gesture. Great. Um podcast opportunity, right? Like for some people that's high effort because they're not used to doing it. Okay. Not a huge time commitment though. Hourong conversation. Cool. But like in the grand scheme of things like pretty pretty small steps, right?

But we're talking this is over like a year and a bit. So, when I'm saying that people are looking for these like short-term like how do I network and blast out messages to people and connect like just I I don't recommend that. I don't think that that's effective. But I just shared with you an example of someone who kind of stayed at networking over a period of time. And that's one one small story for one person, right? But there's lots of things like this that happen over time. So, I think that if you can find things that feel like they're low effort for you to be networking with people, like lean into that. Absolutely. Um, and for some people that might feel like it's more challenging, right? If you're like, well, I don't want to post on social media. Okay, no worries. You can rule that one out if you really don't want to do it.

I'm not I post on social media because I'm a content creator, but I get it. You know, if you don't want to do that, totally totally fine. But what else, right? If you're like, well, then I don't want to go to meetups. I don't want to go to hackathons. I don't want to post on social media. You got to find something. And I'm not going to tell you what that something is. That's for you to decide. But find something that you can try. If everything feels like, you know, there's no loweffort solution, pick something that's the least amount of effort that you can try and do it a few times. Try to get some consistency with it. And it might be a little bit uncomfortable. And honestly, it's probably only uncomfortable if you never do it. And then it gets more comfortable. So, it'll be fine.

But do that. and do that on top of what you're already doing for refining your resume and applying to jobs and stuff like that. But my point is that if you can find loweffort ways to be doing some amount of networking, you're just increasing your surface area for luck. So why wouldn't you? Right? There's um just to give you an example um I had Hassan Hhabib on my on my podcast the other day. Um like he's someone that like there's a few people on YouTube that I really like to watch cuz I'm like man these people are like they're just awesome. Like everything about them seems awesome and he's one of them. And so it was like really cool to like to have him on the podcast and then we like we got to hang out like cuz he he doesn't live very far from me.

So we went to watch the F1 movie, right? And it's like that's that's a super cool interaction for me. And like now that I've had that experience, I'm like, "Hey, like he's not far. Like I'd like to hang out with them more. He's building software at some point. It would be super cool to build some software with Assad. I don't know if he's interested in that. But like maybe there's a possibility there. I don't know. But like without doing the things that increase the surface area for that luck, it's basically it goes from 0% chance of that ever happening to like that's not outside of the realm of possibility. Like I'm sure if I was like, "Hey, Hassan, like I'm really interested in, you know, being able to to build something with you, like do you have any, you know, is there any space or

like, you know, could could that be a thing?" I don't think that he would be like, "Dude, screw off." I think he would probably be open to the conversation, right? So like that's pretty cool. Um, I just talked to to Derek K Martin who is Code Opinion on social media and he has a YouTube channel is super awesome. Derek is another person. That person was giving me a thumbs up cuz I wanted to hear the car. They were waving their arm at me and I'm like, "What are you doing?" And then they were thumbs uping and then they flashed their lights at me. Yay. Um, so yeah, I got to meet with Derek today and uh on the podcast. And Derek is, like I said, another person that like I really look up to Derek. When you hear me, I told him this on the podcast, like when you hear me say that I am, you know, I want to talk about a topic and try to give you different perspectives on it.

I do that because when I watch Derek talk about things, Derek never gives like a one-sided opinion on things. It's always it depends and here's why. Here's the factors. And like I admire that so much about Derek because I think that not enough people do that. I think it's very easy for people to just be like here's how I like to do things and like end a story like that's it. And I I don't know. I think that's fine for people to share their opinions, but like where that gets kind of scary is like when people translate that into work and it's like we're just doing it this way cuz I like it. It's like ah it's not a really good reason, man. Uh or I do it this way cuz this YouTuber told me it's the best way. Like best way in what situation, right?

Like the the context is missing. So, I got to meet with Derek today and that was like super cool to be able to chat with him and like again like how awesome would it be someday? Like is there an opportunity where I could build software with Derek? I don't know. But like the opportunity before having any connection with him would have been zero. There'd be 0% chance of that happening. But now it's at least potentially non zero. I don't know. I don't even know what that would look like. My point is that through networking at least I'm creating nonzero opportunities and I I think that's super cool. So I just encourage people to do it right in and both of these scenarios I just told you where I'm like, "Hey, I got to meet people that I really look up to.

It's I'm not I'm not even connecting with them because I want something from them." Like I'm not connecting with them because I want to go I'm just giving you examples of it would be cool to build software with them. I'm not it's not why I'm reaching out to them. I'm reaching out to them because the thing I want is for them to share kind of their perspective on things and like I really value that. But I want it to be mutual, right? And I think that's a a key thing that I want to remind folks is like when it comes to networking, like when you go into networking, as in like I I need something from this person. I need this person to do something for me. They need to give me a referral, right? I need to use this person for something. That's where those networking relationships kind of feel kind of crappy and sometimes people feel used from that and people feel like they don't want to give you time.

if you can find ways where it's like it's mutually beneficial. It's like when people ask for mentorship from from different people and it's like I saw someone post about this the other day. It's like look like people who mentor like they love to be able to help, right? But they want to make sure that like they're not wasting their time on you. So if you're just like I have a mentor and then you're like never showing up or like really difficult for them to work with and they're going to be like well why do I want to do this? So, if it's kind of like a two-way street is what I'm getting at. So, um yeah, I don't know. Like I feel like if you can find these loweffort ways to do it, then then you should. And your loweffort compared to someone else's loweffort will look very different, which is something else I just want to remind you, right?

I kind of said that like with the social media versus meetups and stuff. It's going to look different. It's totally fine. But um I would would recommend that people do some amount of it. So that's what I would say to this Redditor. And are you the outlier? I don't know, man. I don't know if it matters. Sorry I don't have your answer, but I think it's valuable to do it. My camera's all screwed up. Here we go. Uh I think that's it, folks. So, thank you so much for watching. I will see you in the next one. But a friendly reminder that if you want questions answered, leave them below in the comments or go to codemute.com. You can submit questions anonymously that way. And there's other YouTube channels. So there's Devleer if you want car.net and AI programming tutorials. There is Devleer path to tech for resume reviews.

You submit your resume, I review it. It's totally free. And then there's the Devleer podcast. So you'll be able to see those interviews I was talking about with this Hanabib Derk Martin and plenty of others. Scott Hansselman, he's on there and uh Sophia Sahiri who is the person I was talking about who just got her job. Um all those podcasts are on the Dev Leader podcast. That's where I do my live streams every Monday 700 p.m. Pacific. They're also recorded. So if you can't make it, but you should. If you can't make it, you can always watch the recording. So thank you so much. See you next time.