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Landing a job at a Silicon Valley company is extremely competitive, only the absolute best and most prepared candidates can pull it off. To help you out I asked one of my students Alex to share with you all of his best tips for how to land your dream job in the valley. 

Learn the Interview Process

According to Alex the key to getting a job in Silicon Valley is to ace the interview process. He says that as much as some of the processes can seem tedious, it is what it is. It is how large companies hire, so if you want to land a job you have to learn how to excel during the interview process.

From his experience doing numerous interviews, the usual interview process goes like this:

• The first step after you apply for a job is that a recruiter will call you to do a ‘screen test’ – basically they will ask you some questions to see if you should move onto the next stage.
• The next step is when a hiring manager contacts you to go over your skillset and to give you a coding problem to solve via screen share so they can see how you work. If you pass this test, then they will invite you to do a virtual onsite.
• For the virtual onsite they will make you solve 2 more coding problems. Facebook is known to do 4 tests not 2 since they like engineers who can code fast. If you pass those tests and your code compiles, they will get you to do a system design round. This allows you to show your technical architectural skills so they can see how you go about scaling a website, and deal with things like load balancing, databases, etc. You will sometimes also have to do a ‘behavioral’ round of questions to see if you are the sort of person who can work well with others. You will probably just get asked something along the lines of ‘how did you solve a conflict with a co-worker’ etc.

Be Prepared

Alex recommends that you use Leetcode.com to learn all of the tests that companies give you when you apply for engineering jobs. Every top company like Google and Facebook uses them and you have to pass them to get offered jobs.

He says that you shouldn't apply for jobs until you have practiced doing coding tests on the platform hundreds of times to make sure you are an expert at them.

Some people don’t like doing the practice that is required to pass these tests in the hiring process. The main reason people don’t like them is that they think they are being tested on things that they probably won’t be doing in their day to day jobs, like for example implementing a binary search tree from scratch. Alex says that although this is true, it is what it is. If you want to work for these companies you have to ace the tests.

As annoying as it might seem to have to practice the tests, Alex has found that it will make you a better developer by improving your logic and cognitive thinking skills. It helps you become a better problem solver he says.

Sign Up for LinkedIn Premium

Alex says that you will find a lot of job opportunities on LinkedIn, it is much better than Indeed and other job sites in many ways in his opinion. He says don’t be reluctant to sign up for LinkedIn premium, it is only $39/month and it is a goldmine for getting job leads sent to you. When you have a LinkedIn premium account you show up at the top of search results for certain keywords which means that recruiters see your profile first and often get in touch with you. It is well worth the small monthly fee, especially when you are receiving offers for jobs worth thousands of dollars a month.

Learn to Negotiate

Alex’s final tip is once you start getting job offers, don’t be afraid to negotiate. When he was working at Apple every other engineer on ‘contract’ was getting paid about $60 per hour, but he was getting $85 per hour just because he bothered to negotiate. According to Alex engineers are usually bad at negotiating or avoid it altogether. From the book 'Never Split The Difference' he learned to never be afraid to ask for what you know you are worth.

Alex says that when you apply for jobs in Silicon Valley you ideally want to get 2 or 3 offers from companies. Once this happens, the companies start to bid against each other for your signature. It’s not uncommon for salary offers to go up hundreds of thousands of dollars!

The Bottom Line

Getting a job in Silicon Valley is tough. If you want to increase your chances the best things you can do are learn the interview process, practice doing coding tests, learn how to negotiate and if you want to get more offers pay for LinkedIn premium. These things helped Alex and they can help you too.

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Let’s use this theory as an example:
“This crisis is fake and a setup by [insert scary sounding groups]”

I do not believe this theory in the slightest. Here’s why:

Are the ambulances on my street fake, the ones that pick up my neighbors in silence so people don’t panic, take them to warehouses converted into hospitals and then to overflowing crematoriums?

How many ambulances per day would I need to film with older people being carted off to make sure i’m not imagining things? Or is the invisible and unknowable conspiracy so strong that they are controlling the very nerves that go through my eye holes and into my brain? Are the doctors and $1500/month nurses all in on the conspiracy? What about the bio researchers who have eyes and a voice?

Scientists are peer reviewing studies across continents and are in agreement. But wait, something on tv doesn’t make sense, so that means it’s a giant set up?

What about the families who are losing parents and grandparents? Are they in on the conspiracy? What about the BMI member (an education group I run) who lost his father? Is he hiding something?

The reason I don’t participate in these conspiracy theories is that if you attempt to disprove them, you are contributing to their credibility. It’s incredibly easy to factually disprove a conspiracy theory since they have very little basis in reality. This effort would need to distract someone intelligent and intelligent people are in charge of solutions to the crisis and shouldn’t have to deal with loony conspiracies at the same time.

Furthermore, the burden of proof is on the providers of these theories, and believe me when I say this, I want an equal amount of proof to any theory as I have gotten to what I see is happening. The proof needs to pass every single level before couch theorists should be listened to. Every hoop the current proof had to jump through to be called proof, any new theory proof has to jump through as well.

Finally, I would recommend looking at the data, not the interpretation of the data by media employees or youtube whackos who don’t even know how to draw a cumulative growth chart.

Now let’s get back to business and not this nonsense.

- Aleksander Vitkin

The post My Answer to All the Conspiracy Theorists Who Pop up During Every Crisis appeared first on BusinessMentor.com.

This is what it sounds like when an entrepreneur wants to solve a problem (video).

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I was living nowhere, doing almost nothing and contributing zilch until I discovered my true purpose.

Today, I’m surer than ever that owning a business is the way to dramatically improve your own life and those of people around you.

I learned confidence by doing sales…

and how to prevent over-confidence.

I learned empathy by working with hundreds of people on big ambitious projects…

and how to never assume I know the real truth.

I learned how to be humble after a social media following of over 20000 people got to my head…

but also to never stop growing.

I’ve seen beginners start with no skill and no business.

They then ended up closing deals and delivering projects confidently, so that their clients came back and brought their friends.

I’ve seen 2-year veterans handle crises and come out bigger, better and wealthier.

As for myself, as the sixth-in-a-row record-breaking business year closes, my plan for 2020 is to keep scaling my business and build more long-lasting partnerships.

You too, can grab your success by the non-binary appendages and take things to the next level.

It’s time to plan big and execute like a machine and build a big beautiful business.

– Aleksander Vitkin

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Let’s first take a look at the current state of affairs. How do people currently do networking, and which type of clients do they attract?

Well, the first thing they do is they sense that they need “more” clients. Because more clients = bigger business = more success.

And so they look up which networking events are happening, and then they go to the events, even if they’re not interested in the subject matter, and they go around pitching whomever they can.

Maybe they use some “advanced tactic” like “working the room by connecting pairs of people so that you’re the source of the connection”.

Generally, they’ll accept any client whatsoever. They may pretend to be “selective”, but the actual fact is they’re only “criterion” is that the client can pay.

So, let me ask you… what are the chances that this stale method of client acquisition will “attract ideal clients”. Can you see that outcome ever happening? Probably not.

Let’s rewind all the way back to the beginning because this process is flawed in every way.

Let’s start by talking about what an “ideal client” is. Clearly, this is contextual. It depends on you, your work style, your values, and what would make a client “ideal” for that context.

I can’t really tell you which type of person would be an ideal client for you. I can give you some ideas.

They may be a person who simply says what they want, pays you and stays out of everything else until they say “thank you” when the work is delivered.

They may be a person who has daily calls with you and helps you shape every aspect of the work you create together.

They may have strict deadlines so that you have something motivating you to work fast… or they may be completely flexible and happy for you to work however your creative experience allows.

The point is… you need to really sit down and think about your own type of ideal client. That means asking yourself, “what do I value in a client?”

You may remember clients from your past whom you loved. You may also remember ones from your past whom you hated, and you should think “what’s the opposite of that?”

But you really need to know. If you don’t know exactly what you want, you’re probably not going to get it. NASA got to the moon because they wanted to go to the moon. Trump became president because he wanted to become president. You get that which you want, and you want that which you value.

It may actually take you years to figure out what you value, and that’s ok, even though sooner is better than later. The important thing is that you set a goal to know what you value in a client… your own personal ideal client.

The next step is… how do you go about attracting that ideal client?

Now, I don’t want you to have paralysis of analysis, so don’t dare wait years to figure out how to attract your ideal client. Just start now with as best you know, and continue to develop your ideals over time.

To attract someone, they must be aware of your existence and your message, and they must be able to independently figure out that working with you will help them get what they want better than working with anyone else, of whom they are aware.

So with that in mind, here’s how I’ve been trying to do it.

I’ve been trying to create my content, and my sales videos in a way that speaks directly to my ideal client and lets them know that I genuinely want to work with them.

The old style of marketing is to dazzle your prospects with benefits, but really, that’s something you only need to do when the quality of your product or service is unclear, both in your own mind, and the mind of anyone you tell about it.

At this point, I have enough proof, and enough word of mouth marketing, that people know that what I’m saying is legitimate. Furthermore, I try to explain things very logically, and without hype, so that there is very little question if what I’m saying is “true” or not. To anyone well versed in thinking, it’s simply obvious. Irrational people will refuse to believe everything, including the truth, so I’m not concerned with them at all.

So what I spend my time doing in my content and sales communication, is simply put out a beacon that illuminates the skies for my ideal clients. I explain things how they like to explain things. I identify things how they identify things. I say what I think is good, and what I think is bad, and trust that my ideal client thinks in a similar way. I say how I like my ideal clients to be as people, and trust that when they hear it, they’ll think “finally, someone else”.

Now, what I’ve told you is not at all the best way to get the maximum amount of clients, or the highest paying clients. So it’s up to you what you do with that knowledge. Maybe you’ll strive for a balance at first, while you need quantity and high fees, so that you get clients that are “pretty good”, while still growing your business rapidly. It’s all up to you. You choose who you want to work with, because if you don’t, then someone who you don’t want will choose you.

What are the niches you’re currently selling to? What types of people and way they run their business? Mostly works together with way you want to run your business without having to adjust to each client individually. Figure out that first, including how you want to run your business. Focus on the way people think, behave and act, when you talk to them on the sales calls. Then, next, figure out where these people are and how to notice them through patterns, based on interactions with previous clients. Usually in places you have to pay money to get in, smaller intimate events, with few people selling. Paid industry events. Then a matter of finding sane, rational, logical people to work with, with whom you can build not only a personal relationship, and have a good sense that you can trust them, and maybe start small with small companies, and go to larger corporations, because that’s larger risk.

– Aleksander Vitkin

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I got early access to it, here’s what I’ve found:

1. Facebook
The Good:
– Allows all media
– Direct multimedia chat
– Ownership of groups/pages with many options
– Ability to run ads
– 2.5 billion users apparently

The Bad:
– Ads all over the place
– Addiction optimized
– Ad optimized
– Hard to do anything if you don’t spend money on ads

WikiTribune:
The Good:
– You can build your own sub wikis, which are facebook like groups
– Articles in subwikis can be collaborative
– Content consumption profile is free
Bad
– You need to pay or invite lots of people if you want to use the good publishing functionality
– Only 300k users at time of writing
– Broken site functionality

How should you think and act as a business owner given this new opportunity?

I’d spend 30 minutes a week exploring opportunities on WT.

I’m currently posting stuff that’s doing well on facebook on my subwiki on WT.

If the platform keeps growing and you are getting readers, and others have made it work over the next few weeks, it may be worth investing a bit more time to grow a network and post more content.

Is this a threat? Opportunity? How will the strengths and weaknesses of your business apply to this?

A threat to social media platforms. A very small threat but mostly an opportunity.

I’ve already registered several popular name sub wikis like Business Mentor.

Will business owners be able to destroy this platform too, or is the format invincible?

Perhaps the fact that articles can be collaborative will lead to non-collaborative articles being completely ignored.

It’s unlikely the platform will become successful as it’s super hard to launch a platform.

If it does become successful they will need to figure out a way to make it resistant to marketers.

Marketers ruin everything eventually…

It’s competition for Reddit, Quora, News Outlets and maybe even Facebook.

– Aleksander Vitkin

The post Meet WikiTribune (Facebook’s New Competitor from the Founder of Wikipedia) appeared first on BusinessMentor.com.