The before/after effect of Remote Jobs Braintrust

Hey,

I'm Sergio Pereira, and this is the Remote Work newsletter 👋

Last week I told you why so many employees are escaping their company's return to the office mandates. Most are applying and getting remote jobs.

Today, I'll tell you about the recent success of Cristian, a member of the Remote Jobs Braintrust who went from zero interviews, to having 3 remote offers on the table in just a few weeks. 

What I find especially compelling in this story is the before and after effect that Cristian had as a result of our live sessions. Btw, you can still join for Cohort #3 with a 50% Black Friday discount, and be a part of this community of 60+ people from 26 countries

So, let me tell you about Cristian:

Cristian is a Senior Software Engineer from Peru, who joined Cohort #1 of the Remote Jobs Braintrust. Last week he shared this message in the #share-the-wins Slack channel, when he finally accepted a remote job offer to work with a US company.

While many other people in the community cheered him up and got encouragement. Some of us asked what changed. Why was Cristian unable to get interviews for 3 months, and why did he suddenly start getting interviews and offers in just a few weeks?

Cristian was kind enough to share a detailed before & after:

So, let's dissect what changed so you can also try on your own job search process:

1/ Identify your target role

This is the main topic of Session 1. Just like many other remote job applicants, Cristian was applying to companies at the very top of the market. Those roles are incredibly competitive, and Cristian was consistently getting ghosted, perhaps because his past experience was only in local companies and other applicants would have already US-based experience to showcase, or simply because Cristian was failing to produce an ATS-friendly CV and his application wasn't even getting reviewed, maybe. Anyway, regardless of the actual reason, Cristian was getting very frustrated.

2/ Make job opportunities come to you

This is what Session 3 is all about. With a few simple actions, Cristian created a stream of inbound interview requests, especially using Linkedin. In a matter of 2 weeks he was in 5 interview processes, which obviously increase his chances of getting the job he wants, but most importantly raise morale tremendously. Confidence is the most important currency of the job search process.

3/ Nail the remote interview

This is basically Session 5. As technical profiles our brains work in a very transactional manner, and likely our interviewers' do too, for the same reason. The usual pace of interviews is quite dull, with questions and replies at face value. Cristian learned that there's way more behind each question, and he used each interview question as an opportunity to showcase his relevant experience to the role. Having interviewed 1000+ candidates in my career, I can confirm that this approach will make you stand out too.

4/ Salary negotiation is easier with multiple offers on the table

This is an obvious one, despite our deeper chat about salaries and contracts on Session 6. Receiving 3 different remote offers within the same week is pretty much best case scenario. This is a consequence of the work well done previously, first identifying how to position, then creating inbound channels for that, and finally nailing the interviews. The end of the funnel was bright for Cristian, and we're glad for that outcome.

This is inspiring stuff, and I invited Cristian for an extended interview. This is an extra session for everyone in the Remote Jobs Braintrust community. I'll be interviewing Cristian over a Google Meet, and everyone else in the community is invited to join and to ask questions. The goal is to share the learnings and hopefully inspire everyone else to follow the same footsteps and be the next one to share the wins.

Save the date, the session on Thursday 30/November at 4pm UK time. I've just sent a calendar invite to everyone in the community, and I'll make sure to add the folks from cohort 3 as well, so they can attend live.

If you want to join us there, enrol in the Remote Jobs Braintrust until the 30th and take advantage of the Black Friday discount I'm running until the end of the month. I look forward to seeing you on the live sessions and on Slack.

Thanks for reading this newsletter until the end. You can read all past editions here. Make sure to share the link with your friends and colleagues so they can read it too. 

See you next Friday,

Sergio Pereira, 
Startup CTO & Remote Work Lover