Programming Interviews Exposed: Secrets to Landing Your Next Job, 3rd Edition

Finding and Contacting Companies

The first step to getting a job is to find and make contact with companies you’re interested in working for. Although referrals are the best way to land a job, you can also work with headhunters or contact a company directly.

Finding Companies

You can better target your search if you know which companies you’re most interested in working for. Big companies are easy to find — you can probably name a dozen national and international tech companies off the top of your head. You can identify candidate medium-sized (as well as large) companies through articles in trade and local business press. Many magazines and newspapers regularly compile lists of successful companies and rankings of the best places to work. (Take these rankings with a grain of salt: There’s often a lot of variation in quality of work life across large companies.) Most companies of this size also advertise at least some of their job openings on online job boards; these postings can help you identify companies to investigate even if the specific job posted isn’t right for you.

Small companies, especially early-stage startups, can be much more challenging to find. Often these companies are too small, too new, or too secretive to get much press. They may lack the resources to advertise their openings beyond their own website, which you can’t find unless you know the name of the company. One good way to find these companies is asking friends and acquaintances if they know of startups ...