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...