In market where layoffs are a rite of passage and employment-for-life is one of those quaint things that happened to our parents, you realistically have to start finding your next job as soon as you have started at the current one. In a tech community as small as Toronto’s the adage of it’s not what you know, it’s who you know is especially true.

I’ve had this post bouncing around for a bit, but it wasn’t until Anne-Marie Charrett wrote I recently re-discovered that the best way to promote myself is to meet people…..in the flesh, face to face… you know, where you shake hands and make eye contact. that I convinced to finish it.

As QA/Testers, there are a couple of events that it makes sense to attend (with resumes / business cards)

  • TASSQ is the Toronto Association for System and Software Quality. TASSQ meets once a month for a (decent) meal and after the meal there is a featured presentation. The organizers are pretty well connected in the greater testing world so can lure excellent speakers.
  • The Toronto SPIN (Software Process Improvement Network) has been dormant for awhile, but appears to be starting up again. The demographic is more BA type persons, but if you believe that Quality is largely a process issue, then this might be worth going to. If you get a rash from CMMi or similar though you might want to avoid it.
  • The ASQ also has a Toronto Chapter but looking at their schedule they seem to be more manufacturing oriented than software. There are worse things to do than get involved in the ASQ though as they have a large software community there too.

Another avenue to get yourself injected into the larger Toronto community is to participate in the numerous un-conference events that happen through the city. The largest one of these is DemoCamp where lots of the movers and shakers get together to keep a pulse on the scene with people demoing the cool things they are working on. The most important networking opportunity is afterwards at the pub though where you can just jump in and out of conversations. I’ve made a tonne of connections through DemoCamp. You can find announcements regarding DemoCamp on David Crow’s site.

There are also a number of related and spin-off events that happen through the month. Some of which are WikiWednesday, VizThink, Enterprise2.0Camp, StartupCamp, FacebookCamp, etc. If you are trying to get yourself known and cannot find something 3 times a week, you are not really trying.

Something with more history than anything so far are user groups. These tend to be pretty light on the tester representation, but as testers are becoming more and more technical and knowing a programming language is becoming a near-requirement (for long term success) we can fit in better. I was a regular attended of the Toronto Linux User Group (at one point adam@linux.ca was my email) 10 years ago and still ping people every so often to keep my name in their contact list. There are groups for every niche / system and language. Pick where you want to be known at and start attending. I know there are active meetings for Unix, Java, .NET, Python, Perl and Ruby. At one point there was even a Mercury Toolset one, but I’m not sure how active they are now.

Finally, this last tip is not really as generic as the ones above, but from a career standpoint is invaluable. Instead of sending your resume to every headhunter in the city, get to know 2 or 3 of them well. Ask to be assigned an associate and request a meeting. Tell them who you are, what you do, what you are looking for etc. I guarantee that they will remember the person who floored them in their office for an hour over someone who they just know as an entry in their contact list. This strategy isn’t without risk of course, but not that much. Most companies who retain a headhunter, retain 2 or 3 firms for the same job. Pick your firm well and you a lot of your bases covered. At one point I was in frequent contact with someone from Procom, CNC Global and still have someone from GuruLink programmed into my phone.

I’ve used all these methods to a fair degree of success over the last 6 or 7 years that I have been actively managing my career. They do require a bit of extrovertedness though as you do have to walk up and introduce yourself, but the connections made are well worth the effort as the people who attend these sorts of thing are generally passionate people which are exactly the sort of people you want to surround yourself with.