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So I’m in the process of graduating from a masters program, and getting hired is on everyone’s minds. I walk by colleagues of mine and three computers in a row display Idealist.org (we’re all writers, after all). Turns out tech to help you get hired is also on a lot of startups’ minds, because I saw a lot of that going on at NY Tech Day. All this talk of getting jobs definitely inspired a good ole Queer Your Tech Roundup, so without further ado, I give you a handful of tech solutions for job hunters (and none of this Indeed or Monster or Craig’s List—I want to tell you something you might not know already).

Vettery

Vettery is a market place that not only connects candidates with jobs, but they get real human people to help you out as well. In a turn-on-the-head move, instead of you applying to jobs, jobs apply to you—fill out a profile, get vetted and then get featured. If you take a job through Vettery, you get a $1,000 signing bonus from them. The service is free for candidates (employers get charged).

Markets Served: I’m waiting on an email back for this piece of information. I’ll update it when it arrives.

Job Types: “We are looking for exceptional candidates to fill both technical and business roles at top-notch employers across the U.S. Examples of technical roles are Software/Hardware/Mobile Engineer, UX/UI Designer, and Data Scientist, while business roles typically include Investment Banking, Consulting, Private Equity, Hedge Fund, Research, Sales, Marketing, Growth, Business Development, and Product Management.” (That’s from their FAQ.)

HireArt

I talked to HireArt at NY Tech Day, and their focus seems to be a more compassionate, less computer-y way to place people in jobs they’ll love. You answer both written and video questions, and then someone from HireArt actually goes through your material and highlights your strengths. They connect you to employers looking for your strengths. When I spoke to the representative at the NY Tech Day table, he said that HireArt is therefore the perfect platform for people whose strengths don’t necessarily play as well on paper. Big plus on this one, one of the founders is a woman (YAY WOMEN IN TECH). Here she is at Y Combinator’s Female Founders Conference in 2014:

Markets Served: Boston, Chicago, LA, New York, Phoenix, The Bay Area are their main ones. But I bopped through and found a bunch of others, too. One was listed for DC, one for Louisville.

Job Types: You can actually browse the jobs on this one—and see everything from sales, to computer engineers to office managers. The nice part is they rank each position as entry-level, mid-level, etc. They also use their own services, so you may wind up working at HireArt.

Hired

Hired and Vettery are very similar in scope, purpose and even aesthetic. They even have the same $1,000 signing bonus if you take a job through them. But I wanted to feature them specifically because they also cater to freelancers (and that $1,000 signing bonus is still yours if you bill 500 hours to a company found through Hired). As a freelancer, and as someone who really likes freelancing, that felt really important to share with you.

Markets Served: “Hired places candidates across the U.S., including the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, San Diego, Seattle, Denver, Austin, Chicago, New York, Boston, and Washington D.C. We’re also expanding internationally, placing candidates in Toronto, Paris, Sydney, Melbourne and London. We plan to be in 30 markets worldwide by the end of next year. If you live outside of our key markets and are willing to relocate, we encourage you to try us out!” (This is from their FAQ, just fyi.)

Job Types: “Companies come to us to help find candidates for hard-to-hire tech and sales roles like engineers, UX/UI designers, data scientists, account executives and account managers. In addition, companies come to us to find candidates for marketing jobs, including public relations, product marketing, content marketing, and paid marketing roles, as well as freelance jobs.

We place entry level job seekers all the way up to C-level execs, although our sweet spot is in the two to eight years of experience range. We’ll be expanding into a variety of industries and job categories in the future, and hope to ultimately be the place all knowledge workers go to find a job they love.”

Vitae

Vitae isn’t a marketplace in the same way the others are, but as someone whose goals include academia, this also felt important to share with you. This site lists college and university jobs (anything from administration to assistant professor). They also have news and advice, groups for adjuncts and nontraditional academic career paths, and a syllabi database.

Haystack

And now for something completely different—this app isn’t a market place or listing site at all. Haystack is a digital business card AND a way to collect and save business contacts. It’s free for individuals, and that free membership includes quite a lot—basic digital business card design services, scanning physical cards you may get, even backing up your business cards and business contacts. There are premium services, but those are for companies. When it comes to networking hard enough to get you hired, this app is totally free. Available on iOS and Android. Side note, I do HATE their YouTube add, but their product is really cool.

So what about you? What tech are you using during your job hunt? If you found a job successfully, which websites or tools played a role in helping you get hired?

Opportunities Corner

A few weeks ago, I wrote an article about my concerns with the hegemony of the tech industry specifically as it relates to the burgeoning sphere of virtual reality. I’ve been banging the drum forever on getting more queer women and non-binary folks into tech — generally, the more representative the creators of a product are of the wide scope of end users, the better the product will be. I’ve decided whenever I get something that sounds like a really cool opportunity but doesn’t quite warrant a post of it’s own (or at least, not yet), I’m going to post it at the bottom of the Queer Your Tech for that week so you don’t miss out. These are specifically for queer women and non-binary folks who are looking for careers or to advance their careers in the tech-o-sphere.

We’ve got one opportunity this week from the good folks over at Failbetter Games—their new funding initiative for narrative games, Fundbetter, is finishing up its first round of applications in July. From their site:

We’re open-minded on the meaning of ‘narrative’ and ‘game’. So this might include: games with a strong linear storyline; choice-based narratives using Twine or a similar technology; parser-based interactive fiction; strategy games where the choices have a storyful feel; card games where story emerges from the mechanics; or a dozen other things we haven’t thought of.

We particularly like text-centric games. These are often a low-cost, high-leverage way to do something interesting and intelligent with an idea. Text-centric doesn’t mean text-only; but games which involve reading are more our bag.

We’re particularly interested to hear from women applicants, applicants of a black or minority ethnic background, and applicants who are LGBTQIA+.

@AEOsworth @autostraddle Ace! We know there are good ideas out there that aren't reaching us, all help spreading word is appreciated!

— Failbetter Games (@failbettergames) May 10, 2016

The other opportunity is one you know well, and it’s from our friends at Lesbians Who Tech. Their Edie Windsor Coding Scholarship Fund is doing well, but they have just four more days to reach $100,000 on their Kickstarter. If they do, Dev Bootcamp is going to match, which means double the queer women in coding bootcamps. I’d like to think of this as an opportunity for the whole community, so if you have a few extra bucks kicking around, donate today. That way, I’ll be listing this as an apply-for opportunity in a few months. Let’s make it happen!

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