DEV Community: Natalie Nelson

Launch: The largest remote tech jobs aggregator 🔥

Natalie Nelson — Wed, 26 May 2021 19:25:15 +0000

Hi, dev.to community!

We've launched the biggest remote tech job aggregator — Bergamot.io today on ProductHunt (support us here).

Why we think that the world needs one more tech remote job aggregator?

None of the job boards aggregates ALL the job posts. Only a few job aggregators scan companies' career pages for job posts. But so many great vacancies and hidden there.

None of the job aggregators has handy and smart filters. For example, I live in Germany — why I still have to run into job posts for US citizens only? That's really a waste of time.

None of the job aggregators provides you with personalized job selection and an opportunity to subscribe to its regular delivery to your email.

What do you think?

Try it and share the feedback, please. That's so important!

7 frustrating insights about dev market now

Natalie Nelson — Tue, 16 Feb 2021 13:43:29 +0000

I've written recently about the job aggregators. Today I've decided to share some of the insights into my job search process.

Your bets are always accepted

We read a lot of reports about salaries. Endless analytics: developers who use React on average get n-thousands a year, engineers who have excellent soft skills earn 5% more. I am so tired of that!

Isn't it frustrating?

And at the end of the day, one and the only important thing is how you present yourself. Everyone lies, refers to reports and articles «how to sell yourself on the interview».

«Of course, I have experience using this framework!»
«Yes, I studied Python once.»
«I easily communicate with the team.»

We see overheated dev market with companies ready to fight for the one with perfect CV and the greenest Github contribution activity.

The market, where no one knows what he/she is really worth.

Skills are not enough

And so far no artificial intelligence and a cunning test task can evaluate them. When you are coding, many factors influence the way you do that: how the task is set, how you interpreted it, whether you had experience with similar tasks, how quickly you can solve it with your stack, how are you generally familiar with the application architecture. Did you get enough sleep, can you ask someone to help you, is the person next to you annoying, etc. Recruiters try to evaluate all this in an interview or two (three, four): and in the end, they check how cool you have pumped the skill «to pass the interview and not screw up».

What do you think? Do you adequately assess your skills? I am not sure that I do, because >>

The winner is the person without imposter syndrome

If you have impostor syndrome and are constantly trying to assess how and for what «price» you are selling yourself, you most likely broke down on the second point.

Due to all what I've listed below, we see that mostly succeed the people who know how to sell themselves. That may be proof of the great soft and hard skillset, but maybe just great acting.

So, if you feel weird every time you have to ask yourself «Am I really worth it?» — congrats! That means you have a high level of emotional intelligence.

The job description is half empty

Recruiters compile job descriptions. They collect some requirements from the tech lead without asking «Why we need that?».

So sometimes the vacancy is just a mix of the most popular technologies. And somewhere awkwardly attributed: «work experience with at least one of the listed frameworks is required». Why?

So every time you should ask once again: why exactly this skill is required? If Javascript and PHP are listed, then — how PHP is used? If React is mentioned, then why Java / Scala / Python is added?

If I don't have am experience working with this specific framework, is the close one relevant? All these details will help you cut out irrelevant job posts right away.

Recruiters fail. And we do too.

When you look for a job you get through multiple stages from «I am the God» to «I am the piece of sh*t». First, everyone outreaches you, calls you for interviews, and when it comes to it, they disappear. I received “organic” feedback after 7 out of 15 interviews.

I've asked for feedback in the other 8 cases, just 3 recruiters answered me and got back with a detailed answer. Of course, I received formal emails with «It was nice to meet you, we'll stay in touch». I am sure — you've received letters like that too.

But I never hesitate to ask for feedback. Okay, you forgot. It sucks. But it's something I need. So I'll go and ask for it. My example:

Hey!
I was at your interview /then/ for the position /title/. I really want to get feedback :) Maybe you forgot? I would like to know what went wrong, and what I should pay attention to?

Job aggregators

Forget about comfortable job search process: you can be either annoyed or miserable.

One and an only nice way to look for a job — find the job aggregator that fits your needs. I found Bergamot (here is my comparison). Good filters, enough fresh posts, two types of email subscription.

Do not disappear for a long time

Suppose you burned out and decided to take the leave - cool. But you took it, and then give it back, please, because the risk of losing even very relative and difficult to evaluate skills is very high. The brain quickly gets used to the good - to the fact that you can not waste energy, but vegetate on Youtube. In my experience, 2 months is the best time to stay and rest. If you have such an opportunity now, go ahead.

Well, sometimes look at the job market, this is a very good practice :)

Which job board/aggregator do you use to track new vacancies? 🔎

Natalie Nelson — Mon, 08 Feb 2021 08:47:22 +0000

So, my top-3 list:
Bergamot
Workaline
RemotelyPeople

10 Biggest Remote Tech Jobs Aggregators Comparison

Natalie Nelson — Tue, 02 Feb 2021 13:35:50 +0000

There is a myriad of articles about where to find remote jobs, particularly in tech. Some of them are outdated and most of them don't provide detailed reviews. So that's why I decided to do my own research. I did a basic search by "React" skill (where possible) and expected to see mostly "Frontend Developer" vacancies.

In order to make it easier and more clear I developed my own points based system. It is based on the parameters that I find most useful for my job search. Here they are:

Number of remote vacancies: 0 (min) - 10 (max);
Recency of vacancies: 0 (min) - 10 (max);
Relevance: 0 (min) - 10 (max);
Search by Skills: 0 - no; 3 - yes;
Search by Titles / Categories: 0 - no 3 - yes;
Location filters : 0 none; 2 - US-only filter; 4 - filter by other locations;
Other filters: 0 (min) - 3 (max)
E-mail subscription: 0 - none, 2 - yes, 4 - personalized:
Extra features: 0 (min) - 5 (max).

And here is the final rating:

Bergamot

Number of remote vacancies: 10 points
3,300+ remote positions found.
Recency of vacancies: 10 points
First hundred vacancies are published within a recent month.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 10 points
All positions are relevant.
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 4 points
It's possible to choose your Citizenship and the system will automatically filter out all non-relevant vacancies.
Other filters: 0 points
E-mail subscription: 4 points
Personalized subscription (filtered by skills, titles) is available.
Extra features: 3 points
There is an AI-search option available: you can search by inserting your Linkedin profile.

TOTAL: 48

Advantages:

Search by multi technologies, titles, citizenship. Smart location filter: Bergamot identifies geo-restrictions for applicants — and is the only aggregator that does it.
Seems to be the largest remote tech jobs aggregator for now (24k+ jobs).
Matches vacancies based on your Linkedin profile — you just paste the link.
Flexible subscription: personal job posts selection in your inbox (you can also subscribe and receive job posts based on your Linkedin profile).
Only real remote positions.

Disadvantages:

Outdated vacancies after the first 10 pages.
Just appeared on the market.

Workline

Number of remote vacancies: 9 points
1,000+ remote positions found
Recency of vacancies: 10 points
Over hundred vacancies published during last month.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 7 points
Lots of non-relevant vacancies like Ruby Developer and/or Mobile Developer.
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 0 points
Other filters: 2 points
E-mail subscription: 4 points
Extra features: 3 points
It's possible to exclude keywords. This is the only website with such an option.

TOTAL: 41 points

Advantages:

Great selection of jobs sorted by date. So it's very easy to find some fresh publications.
Not a bad search algorithm: you can include and exclude some keywords.
Flexible subscription: you can select keywords (include or exclude some) and also sending frequency.

Disadvantages:

Sign up via Facebook is broken. What is it for?
All the job posts I've opened were from Stack Overflow.

RemotelyPeople

Number of remote vacancies: 9 points
1,700+ remote positions found
Recency of vacancies: 10 points
All positions are recently added and updated.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 10 points
All positions are relevant.
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 2 points
Worldwide filter.
Other filters: 1 point
Filter "salary mentioned".
E-mail subscription: 2 points
No additional filters.
Extra features: 0 points

TOTAL: 40 points

Advantages:

Lots of relevant fresh positions.
Good search options.

Disadvantages:

It's not possible to customize email subscriptions.

WeWorkRemotely

Number of remote vacancies: 2 points
52 remote positions found
Recency of vacancies: 10 points
All positions are recently added and updated.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 7 points
Most of the positions are highly relevant, but some include "React Native" (i.e. Mobile Development).
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 4 points
It's possible to filter US/EU and other countries only.
Other filters: 3 points
There are job-type, company and other filters.

E-mail subscription: 2 points
Not possible to personalize based on skills (only by category).
Extra features: 0 points

TOTAL: 34 points

Advantages:

Flexible job search: titles, keywords, job categories, locations, companies, job types.
Jobs for designers, copyrighters, management, finance, sales, etc.
More suitable jobs: you can check related jobs when you read more about some relevant position. Additional information about every company: how many job posts published, where the main office is located, link to company's career page etc.

Disadvantages:

A rather small selection of vacancies. Or they are just hard to find — 428 job posts for developers active now.
A huge (!) number of featured job posts, it really annoyed for me.

RemoteOK

Number of remote vacancies: 2 points
30+ active remote positions found.
Recency of vacancies: 10 points
All positions are recently updated.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 9 points
Most of the positions are highly relevant, but some include *"React Native" (i.e. Mobile Development).
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 2 points
Only "show worldwide" filter available.
Other filters: 0 points
E-mail subscription: 4 points
Extra features: 0 points

TOTAL: 33 points

Advantages:

Wide collection of job posts, not only for developers but also for marketers, designers, customer development specialists.
Subscription: you can subscribe and receive relevant to your search job posts daily or weekly.

Disadvantages:

Awful search feature: it is not possible to use more than one search query filter. For example "React". You can't add any more technologies or titles.
Old job posts in the results: when I've entered "React" and I was mostly offered vacancies that are 3-6 months old already.
Job posts are featured by companies, so usually, you initially see promoted vacancies.

Remote.io

Number of remote vacancies: 6 points
300+ remote positions found
Recency of vacancies: 10 points
All positions have been updated recently.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 6 points
Lots of non-relevant vacancies like Technical Writer and QA Engineer.
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 0 points
Other filters: 0 points
E-mail subscription: 2 points
Only by category.
Extra features: 3 points
Cool section with tools for remote workers and digital nomads.

TOTAL: 33 points

Advantages:

Time zone indicated, but the required citizenship for the application is not.
Salary is displayed for some positions.

Disadvantages:

Keyword search works not so well.
Limited filters.

Findwork

Number of remote vacancies: 6 points
700+ remote positions found.*
Recency of vacancies: 2 points
First position in search result was published 3 months ago and no longer accepting applications.
Relevance: 4 points
Most positions from search result are "React Native" (i.e. Mobile Development), not "React" (i.e. Frontend Development).
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 0 points
Other filters: 3 points
There are lots of different filters, i.e. Employment Type, Source, Funding etc.
E-mail subscription: 4 points
Personalization (filtered by skills, titles) is available also.
Extra features: 3 points
Glassdoor ratings and Crunchbase info is available for some job posts.

TOTAL: 30 points

Advantages:

Cool additional filters: by Glassdoor rating, funding raised, and the number of employees. This is a feature that I really liked.
Login with Google, Github, Linkedin and set up an email subscription (use keywords, type of employment, and frequency).
A selection of similar vacancies is displayed inside each job post.

Disadvantages:

Outdated vacancies published weeks ago.
Poor keyword search.
Not only remote vacancies.

Remotive

Number of remote vacancies: 4 points
130+ active remote positions found
Recency of vacancies: 8 points
Some available vacancies are outdated.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 6 points
A lot of non-relevant positions (e.g. .NET Developer).
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 2 points
US-only filter is available.
Other filters: 0 points
E-mail subscription: 2 points
It's possible to select only category (no other filters) to subscribe.
Extra features: 0 points

TOTAL: 28 points

Advantages:

Very clean and neat interface.
Fast search.

Disadvantages:

Not so many React vacancies available.
Limited filters.

CareerVault

Number of remote vacancies: 5 points
105 remote positions found.
Recency of vacancies: 7 points
Starting from page #3 there are 2-4 months+ old vacancies.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 9 points
Most of the positions are highly relevant, but some include "React Native" (i.e. Mobile Development).
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 0 points
Location filters: 2 points
US-only filter is available.
Other filters: 0 points
E-mail subscription: 0 points
Extra features: 0 points

TOTAL: 26 points

Advantages:

Fresh selection: job posts published just a few hours ago.
Aggregates vacancies from not only from job boards but also from companies' career pages.
Signup (using Google / email) — an opportunity to save some job posts.
Big selection of job posts: 17k+ at the moment.
Only remote job posts.

Disadvantages:

No full-text search;
It's not possible to subscribe to get new vacancies.

NoDesk

Number of remote vacancies: 1 points
Only 16 positions.
Recency of vacancies: 2 points
Not so many recently added vacancies.
Relevance: 9 points
Almost all the positions are relevant.
Search by Skills: 3 points
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 4 points
Other filters: 0 points
E-mail subscription: 2 points
All posts only.
Extra features: 0 points

TOTAL: 24 points

Advantages:

User-friendly interface.

Disadvantages:

Very small number of jobs.
Not so many recently added vacancies.

Meerkad

Number of remote vacancies: 7 points
500+ remote positions found
Recency of vacancies: 5 points
Lots of outdated positions starting from page #2.
Relevance (top 10 search results): 5 points
Most vacancies are React Native ones (i.e. mobile).
Search by Skills: 3 points (but you need to sign-up first)
Search by Titles / Categories: 3 points
Location filters: 0 points
Other filters: 0 points
E-mail subscription: 0 points
Extra features: 0 points

TOTAL: 23 points

Advantages:

None as far that I can see.

Disadvantages:

OMG it requires you to sign up first in order to be able to search and apply for vacancies. No other website does the same.

Please, share your opinion about job aggregators and the way you find some new opportunities.