That I don’t have a general answer for. Except for the year before last, it’s been responding to recruiters that reached out to me.
The year before last when I did do targeted outreach, it was because I both had relevant experience in a niche AWS service and I was a major contributor to an open source official “AWS Solution” while I was at AWS that was popular in that niche.
But that trick had a very small window.
So I guess the answer is do something that allows you to stand out from the crowd and then you can do prior outreach and tell them why they should hire you over someone else.
My biggest piece of advice is don’t be a “ticket taker”. Volunteer to lead larger initiatives.
The year before last when I did do targeted outreach, it was because I both had relevant experience in a niche AWS service and I was a major contributor to an open source official “AWS Solution” while I was at AWS that was popular in that niche.
But that trick had a very small window.
So I guess the answer is do something that allows you to stand out from the crowd and then you can do prior outreach and tell them why they should hire you over someone else.
My biggest piece of advice is don’t be a “ticket taker”. Volunteer to lead larger initiatives.