5 Secrets to Distinguishing Yourself in the IT Job Market

The IT market is full of talent, but not everyone receives job offers. Even senior talents can go months without an interview. What do those companies want to see in their teams do?

By the way, you can find vacancies for IT talents on the Telegram channel t.me/zaichenkoteam and the website zaichenkoteam.com

A catchy cover letter – make it specific

It is important to respond to a vacancy with specifics: “I have already researched the code of your open-source project and found a way to reduce latency by 15%.” Most candidates don’t add anything at all, so this will already give you an advantage.

Networking = opportunities that are not publicly available

Senior roles are seldom advertised through conventional job listings; instead, they are obtained through networking.

How to act?

• Be active on LinkedIn: comment on posts, share insights, and publish posts about your technical discoveries.
• Communicate with tech leaders – if they remember you, you’ll get the job before anyone else.
• Attend meetups and conferences – one good conversation can open the door to a company.
• Join the community at t.me/zaichenkoteam

Be a business solution

Technical skills are good, but it’s also important to understand how they affect the product.

• Add results to your resume:

❌ “Worked with Kubernetes” → ✅ “Optimized CI/CD, reduced deployment time by 40%”

❌ “Developed a mobile application” → ✅ “Improved UX, which led to an increase in user retention by 25%”

• During interviews, speak the language of business: “Here’s how my work has impacted revenue, speed, or user experience.”

Learn to self-present – even great engineers fail at this

• Prepare a 30-second elevator pitch: who you are, what you can do, and what problems you solve.
• Learn to explain technical solutions concisely – the CTO or business side should understand you without unnecessary terminology.
• Ask questions – senior talent is interested in technical details and the company’s strategy.

A portfolio that really works

You most likely do not have a basic portfolio if you are a senior or lead tech talent. But you can do the following:

• Describe the complex technical challenges you solved on your blog or LinkedIn.
• Publish your own developments on GitHub – even if it’s just an optimized algorithm or a small tool.
• Join open-source projects – this will show your level and allow you to get contacts in large companies.

The difference between those who receive offers and those who wait a long time for a response is the approach!

Use these strategies, and companies will be interested in you. Which of these points have you not used yet?