2023 in review: the strategy and criteria behind my first job search

Introduction

I spent 2023 with one goal: getting hired as a backend developer. After a lot of trial and error, I’ve now joined Tripbtoz, a Korean travel startup, as a backend developer.

It was my first job search ever, and it wasn’t easy. This is a look back at what I got wrong along the way, what I used as my criteria, and what I changed.

1. Before graduating: I thought algorithms were enough 🎓

Before I graduated, I had convinced myself that if I just buckled down on the algorithm tests I’d never practiced consistently, landing a job would go smoothly.

Not even close. I like building things and had been coding steadily, but once I was actually on the job market, most of the people around me were more passionate and had studied far more deeply than I had. I found out very quickly that I was short on almost everything, from the portfolio I’d built to CS fundamentals to frameworks.

I applied to a handful of companies before graduating without much thought, and never got past the first round, whether that was the coding test or the resume screen.

2. After graduating: the hardest part was getting no feedback 💬

The hardest thing about job hunting was the lack of feedback. If you know what you’re missing, you can work hard on it. But with nobody telling me where to spend my time, it was really frustrating.

So I went to friends, seniors and mentors and asked for as much feedback as I could get, and luckily a lot of people helped me out.

3. Strategy: three criteria for picking target companies 🎯

It took me a while to realize that job hunting needs a strategy too. To build one, you first have to set a goal and take a cold, honest look at yourself.

I settled on three criteria for target companies:

Criterion	Why
A company with its own product	You grow the most when you experience both building and running a service
Backend development	In the long run, people who dig deep into one field stay competitive
Good people	Good people make a good environment

A company with its own product

I believed I’d grow the most by experiencing both development and operations, so I was set on joining a company that runs its own service. I figured that at a product company I’d also feel what value I was actually delivering to customers.

Of course, the companies Korean developers dream about, like Naver, Kakao, Line, Coupang, Baemin, Daangn and Toss, would be great too. But as long as good people had built a good environment, I didn’t care much about company size. I actually thought startups had a lot going for them compared with big companies, so I applied mostly to startups.

Backend development

Software development makes it relatively easy to switch roles compared with other fields. Still, I thought that in the long run, someone who keeps digging deep into one area would be more competitive. So I aimed for companies where I could do backend work, or at least where backend development was the main job.

Good people

To me, good people at a company are:

• people who actively work on growing their careers
• people who respect their colleagues
• people who are immersed in their work

Honestly, judging any of this before you join is close to impossible.

At first I paid attention to how the interviewers behaved. Then I heard stories from people around me along the lines of “the interviewer who seemed the most off-putting turned out to be the best person on the team once I joined,” and that changed my mind. In the end, I went with my gut on this one.

4. Resume: problem-solving and numbers 📄

After getting rejected at the resume stage over and over, I focused on two things to make my resume more compelling:

• Write up how I solved problems on a blog: I wrote blog posts about problems I ran into while building things and how I solved them, and linked them from my resume.
• Back improvements with numbers: anything I could quantify, I quantified, and put the numbers on my resume.

Wrap-up

• Algorithm tests alone won’t get you hired. Portfolio, CS fundamentals and frameworks all matter.
• The most frustrating thing about job hunting is the lack of feedback. Don’t wait for it; go ask for it.
• Job hunting needs a strategy too. Set a goal and judge yourself honestly first.
• I chose based on product, role and people rather than company size. People are hard to judge before you join, so in the end I trusted my gut.
• A resume persuades with writing that shows how you solve problems, and with numbers.