[HN Gopher] Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers
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Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers
I'm in the middle of a job search and wanted to share my impression
after discussions like
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33563083. I'm an unemployed
mid/senior-level developer in the U.S. with a mediocre but solid
portfolio and passable social skills. I've applied for many jobs at
normal non-FAANG places, almost all of which were a decent match
for my background, and employers don't seem desperate. Lots of no
responses or form rejections, several places where I was rejected
after either the initial or tech screen. I haven't gotten to the
negotiation phase yet anywhere. When I asked, most seemed serious
about hiring: they just got a new round of funding, there was a
backlog of work, something, but still no hire. Also almost no
response from external recruiters, and very little inbound LinkedIn
messaging from anyone. I'm not complaining, it's just how the
grind is. I'm getting enough traction that I'm sure it's just a
numbers game. But the employers are not desperate. If you are a
candidate without a golden resume or big network and need a job,
then definitely don't get complacent because of HNers telling you
that $100k-150k jobs are falling off trees. Put together a decent
portfolio and then get those applications numbers up from day one.
My personal goal is at least 100 applications before seriously
considering pivoting to something else.
Author : anon50118810
Score : 242 points
Date : 2022-11-14 16:43 UTC (6 hours ago)
| eric4smith wrote:
| Now, a lot of people might be saying... "Hire remote".
|
| Here's why most companies won't do it.
|
| 1. An employee is a big investment to non-FAANG companies.
|
| 2. Does the candidate demonstrate that they are capable of remote
| work? (Sorry, more than 50% aren't).
|
| 3. Employers want to see competence first before they would allow
| remote work.
|
| These days only companies who are desperate, or have a solid
| competence and experience in managing remote workers will do it.
| smt88 wrote:
| I wonder if this is related to the transition to remote work. A
| lot of companies are passing on comparatively expensive US
| developers and getting the same level of experience for 1/2 or
| 1/3 the cost in other countries.
| more_corn wrote:
| My company does contract development work. We've gotten quite a
| bit of work cleaning up half-assed projects that have been
| bungled by offshore shops. If your company is doing that, be
| sure to keep me in mind for when this blows up in a quarter or
| two!
| jollyllama wrote:
| The big thing about remote work is it's going to be very
| difficult for people to advance up the ladder. A lot of remote
| work is freezing careers and org charts in place.
| halfmatthalfcat wrote:
| I've seen the opposite - more on-shoring after realizing that
| offshoring has led to a lot of tech debt due to a variety of
| factors. The economy is spooking people though and anecdotally,
| we've greatly slowed (but not stopped) hiring.
| pacifika wrote:
| Well communication is more important in remote work, so local
| developers have an advantage in my opinion.
| Salgat wrote:
| Companies have been trying to do this en masse since the 90s,
| and there's a reason why it usually fails.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| The large majority of remote jobs I've seen on LinkedIn and
| other job boards, or applied to, are U.S.-only, sometimes
| restricted to particular states. Companies using the transition
| to remote to expand worldwide must be advertising elsewhere and
| are not really an issue for me.
| yrgulation wrote:
| I am elsewhere and even here jobs are limited to within the
| country. Op is spreading a far right anti work from home
| conspiracy theory.
| ct520 wrote:
| Not sure what you are doing. But for the few jobs I applied for I
| always got an offer. Maybe take a look at the jobs you are
| applying for and what you are putting in your resume?
| stack_framer wrote:
| I recently spent four weeks interviewing before landing a job,
| which is not an unusual amount of time compared to years prior
| (at least for me). The company I joined went from first interview
| to a good offer in two weeks--they were definitely eager. I put
| my application out approximately 50 times. Changing my LinkedIn
| status to "Open to work" helped.
|
| The biggest difference this time around: Several companies
| invoked a hiring freeze _while I was in the middle of their
| interview process_. I 've never had that happen before, so it
| felt like a storm brewing. Some were nice enough to tell me right
| away, while others went completely dark for weeks before getting
| back to me.
|
| Good luck with the job search! I know it can be utterly
| miserable, but stay positive and keep those live-coding skills
| sharp as a razor.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Not now, but they were, about a year ago. I was one of them. Now,
| I'm turning away resumes, because we've filled the positions,
| after a long slog.
| jsjsof wrote:
| So you advertise jobs, but turn candidates away.
| capableweb wrote:
| > My personal goal is at least 100 applications before seriously
| considering pivoting to something else.
|
| I don't think I have especially cool resume or anything, nor do I
| have extremely many years in the industry as well, but I'd never
| consider applying for 100 different companies. I don't even know
| deeply about 100 companies I think, which is something I learn
| about a company before even considering applying to it.
|
| I think I've applied to about 5 different full-time positions
| over the years and I have been in about 10 full-time positions in
| the same time, 5 of those applied to and the others was companies
| "applying" to me instead. Then bunch of consulting and
| freelancing gigs in-between.
| imhoguy wrote:
| This. If that is 100x clicks on Apply button on jobs portal,
| then no wonder the result is mediocre.
|
| Tailoring CV to a role, looking for some insider friends to let
| then collect the referal bonus... that takes time but is much
| more effective to put foot in the door.
| atraac wrote:
| Sure let me "tailor my CV" to a role just to get ghosted or
| offered laughable salary. I'm just gonna make friends of
| random people from that company that don't know me,
| presumably by cold approaching them via LinkedIn? Lol
| sefrost wrote:
| Tailoring your CV, in my experience, simply means looking
| at the job description and then rearranging your
| achievements so that the things they are specifically
| asking for are mentioned at the top. Also make sure you use
| the same language as them and specifically mention the
| exact technology they put in the job description.
|
| I do this, then I make a copy of the CV as
| MyName_CompanyName.pdf in my Documents directory so I can
| refer back to it if I get an interview.
|
| I've never struggled to get an interview with this method
| and I'm pretty sure I'm one of the mediocre people on HN.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| Yes, it's hard to imagine being on a team where my direct
| coworkers are vouching for random people who contacted them
| because they're trying to get a referral bonus. If someone
| contacted me like that, I'd direct them to the careers page
| and then let someone in the hiring path know. Very strange.
| kurtreed wrote:
| This what?
| anon50118810 wrote:
| No one knows deeply about 100 companies, especially 100 random
| companies scattered around the U.S. Sometimes you have to do
| what you have to do.
| abhaynayar wrote:
| Maybe that is the problem.
|
| Instead of applying to 100 companies out of desperation, if a
| candidate practices and develops specific marketable skills
| and targets specific roles, he only needs to apply to 10
| companies that he knows deeply and are in tune with his
| skills.
|
| The law of reversed effort -- When you focus on your own
| skills and self-worth instead of desperately pursuing random
| externalities, externalities that are actually suited to you
| in turn get attracted to you strongly.
|
| So then even if you apply to 10 companies, the number is low
| but the expected value of an offer is higher than if you
| applied to 100 companies the other way.
| TedKroft wrote:
| That sounds nice, but it can be a bad really limiting to
| have high expectations of only getting jobs that initially
| appeal to you for multiple reasons.
|
| 1. Time spent researching or preparing for a job doesn't
| guarantee you anything. 2. Sometimes the most appealing
| jobs are the most competitive, meaning you might have less
| of a chance of getting them and they might have worse comp
| or quality of life 3. Some positions on websites are
| already filled or cancelled. 4. Not everything on a job
| listing is accurate and you can only get a limited sense of
| what the job will be like after talking to people during
| the interview process.
|
| Definitely play up your strengths and be selective and
| discriminating. I've got some jobs through network and some
| through scattershot, but never have got an offer after
| sending out only 10 applications. Most companies don't even
| respond.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| Yes, people at the typical small or midsized company you
| found on LinkedIn know they are not really special and
| are not going to be fooled or won over that you
| redesigned your resume just for them or that you talk
| about how inspired you are by this company you just found
| out about today. You either are a match or you aren't. If
| your work experience is 90% backend and 10% frontend, it
| won't make any difference to tweak and fudge your resume
| to make you look like a frontend developer. It will come
| out in the end anyway. Better to focus on applying for
| the backend jobs that you do qualify for, or if you
| really want those frontend jobs, try to make your case in
| the cover letter or in some other way.
|
| It should also be emphasized that jobs at famous
| organizations that you might legitimately have heard of
| already or been inspired by are going to be very
| competitive even if the salary is low and you far exceed
| the posted requirements.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| Shotgunning resumes does not work. You need to tailor each
| application to the employer. Most importantly that means
| finding someone at the company who will vouch for you.
| francisofascii wrote:
| Anecdotally speaking, but I suspect is common: We were
| hemorrhaging employees a year ago, but the bleeding has stopped.
| So we hired over the past year, slowly filled all those empty
| roles, and are now more picky with new hires. And honestly, we
| probably were not picky enough a year ago. Some candidates are
| struggling get work done or have issues with remote work.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Honestly, this doesn't sound much different than a year ago, five
| years ago, or ten years ago. Companies never seem to be serious
| about hiring: they go fishing but never reel anyone in, they
| ghost you after a few communications, they reject your
| application with automation, and even if you have an internal
| referral, the referrer is usually only able to do "Go apply
| through the normal funnel and if you get through the automation,
| I'll vouch for ya!"
|
| I've got ~20 years in the industry, including startup-sized
| companies, medium sized companies and FAANGs. Every job hunt for
| me is still around 100 applications : 10 interviews : 1 offer.
| These ratios have remained pretty reliable through bull and bear
| hiring markets.
|
| I suspect people for whom "jobs are falling off trees" are rarer
| than HN commenters might have you believe.
| tra3 wrote:
| When I looked for a job 6 months ago, I had the same
| experience. A dozen applications and no responses. Working with
| recruiters that put me in front of a hiring person was how I
| ended up finding my current job.
| devsatish wrote:
| 1) Tail end of the year - its hard to get full time roles , The
| hiring definitely picks up after Jan 2nd week or so. 2) Try
| consulting/contracting - That space is still brimming w hiring.
| Much faster on-boarding /hiring.
| mcv wrote:
| > Try consulting/contracting - That space is still brimming w
| hiring. Much faster on-boarding /hiring.
|
| Hiring is faster, yes, but onboarding is often still a dreadful
| mess. At least if it's at a company that expects you to use
| their equipment and their closed system.
| yrgulation wrote:
| Still getting paid for it. Had a client that made me stare at
| the walls because of their "security policies" messing things
| up now and then. Got paid for sitting around.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| Contracting is not really an option that way in the U.S. market
| that I've seen, though I'd be interested if you've had a
| different experience. Either you're contracting through an
| agency in which case you're applying just like for any FTE job,
| or you're operating at the high end with an established
| network. Random gigs at places like Upwork don't pay enough for
| a major U.S. metro area unless you're willing to hustle full-
| time to live a student.
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| There is definitely an opportunity to contract this way, but
| you have to think outside of the largest companies. You want
| to start by looking through your network and finding the
| folks who are at smaller start-ups or even have experience
| working with venture capital firms. Start there and inquire
| if they have any need for contract work or looking for an
| engineer for one of their smaller portfolio companies who
| might want to take on a contract-to-hire or even just
| contract.
|
| Smaller companies generally have less red tape to getting
| contractors, more need (as they are either scaling quickly OR
| just need something done and don't want to incur high cost of
| a perm eng). You will need to figure out the appropriate rate
| (keeping in mind this doesn't come with benefits), but that
| exercise is left to the reader.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| Sounds like a great strategy if you have a big network of
| people at startups or connected to VC. Not everyone is in
| that boat, though.
| neon_electro wrote:
| Not to mention being your own full-time benefits manager
| isn't free and should be reflected in your
| contracting/hourly/non-W2-with-immediate-salary-and-employer-
| benefits wage.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| Yes. They say that as a contractor you should ask for your
| desired FTE yearly salary divided by 1000, per hour. So the
| equivalent for a $120k/year FTE position would be
| contracting full time at $120/hour. As far as I know it's
| not any easier to find 40 hours/week at $120/hour
| contracting than it is to find a $120k FTE position.
| mgkimsal wrote:
| It may be easier to find 2 or 3 projects/engagements that
| are 10-15/hrs/week.
| jebr224 wrote:
| 2) Consulting makes sense, companies are less likely to hire in
| a downturn (because they want to avoid increasing ongoing
| cost). However,is still work to be done, and timelines to be
| made. A "one time" expense is easier to justify.
| humanlion87 wrote:
| Any suggestions on how to look for good contracting roles?
| LinkedIn only seems to have FTE roles.
| devsatish wrote:
| Which tech skills? Full stack? Backend? any speciality
| skills?
| humanlion87 wrote:
| Backend. Can't think of any speciality skills
| unfortunately. Generally building, testing, shipping and
| maintaining services. Familiar with C#/.NET and
| Python/Django.
| perfecthjrjth wrote:
| Put your resume on Indeed and Dice, and keep a google voice
| number, you will get a lot of calls from "offshore
| recruiters" working for primary and secondary vendors.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| How legitimate are those? Do they have real jobs?
|
| I've just been ignoring anything from an Indian sounding
| name as they seemed to me to be scams.
| perfecthjrjth wrote:
| Yes, they are real jobs. But you have to make sure that
| it is from primary vendors. Often times, many secondary
| vendors source for the same job listed by primary vendor.
| One way to cut down secondary vendors, ask for decent
| rates. If someone asks you to work for $60 per hr, just
| say NO.
|
| Even primary vendors have outsourced their recruiting to
| India.
| spoonfeeder006 wrote:
| $60 per hour isn't a decent rate?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Try double or triple that at minimum.
|
| $60/hr as a contractor is the equivalent of $30/hr or
| less salaried. At $60/hr, it's probably even less than
| $30/hr because you are not eligible for ACA tax breaks
| and must pay full price for health insurance. The health
| insurance plans available on the individual market have
| large premiums and deductibles compared to plans that
| employers subsidize. You also have a larger tax burden,
| including the need to file quarterly.
|
| The rule of thumb for contracting is to take your
| salaried rate and double it at minimum.
| ghaff wrote:
| Do the math.
|
| If you can _bill_ 40 hours /week for 50 weeks per year,
| that's about 2K hours so $120K/year. But you can't.
| You'll probably do well to bill half that because
| contracts probably don't fill basically the entire year
| neatly like that. You probably also want to budget time
| anyway for vacations/illness/etc., selling, billing,
| learning, and all the other off-the-clock things you need
| to do.
|
| So now you're closer to $60K per year and that's with
| self-employment tax and no benefits including health
| (unless you're on a partner's plan).
|
| So at $60/hr, even with a fairly full calendar, you're
| pretty much scraping by in the US.
| mikestew wrote:
| For contract position in the U. S.? Where total comp is
| going to be...$60/hour, and you pay your own health
| insurance? For an IC role better than junior, I'd laugh
| as I hung up the phone... _ten years ago_. And I 'm
| nothing special, just a grunt with a decent resume.
|
| (Seattle-area, if it matters, and it does.)
| darkwizard42 wrote:
| Start with your network (assuming you have at least a few
| senior engineers and your career is 4+ years in tech, you
| should have this via LinkedIn). You are looking for folks you
| worked with that are now at their 2nd+ job in their career
| with mostly smaller companies (generally start-ups, 5-100
| full-time, 1-50 eng teams) or are now involved with venture
| capital/investing/anything that suggests they have exposure
| to smaller teams. These are the companies with high chance of
| having a contract role open either because they are growing
| too fast or they just have lots of stuff to build but don't
| necessarily want to/can spend time on hiring.
|
| From there reach out and ask them for help and provide your
| skillset, goals (X length contract work with mobile focus),
| and see if they will help connect you further. Hopefully your
| resume and past experience with that connection help you get
| your foot in the door more easily.
| jollyllama wrote:
| Yes. Hiring processes slow greatly this time of year. It's
| always been that way.
| lakomen wrote:
| I find that very hard to believe.
|
| All I see is full time jobs, no remote, and certainly no
| contract jobs. Germany.
| ravenstine wrote:
| Contrasting with even just a year ago, the job market is in a
| lackluster state the way I see it. Don't be gaslit by all the
| people insisting that it's still a gold rush. It's not that there
| aren't jobs out there, but many companies right now are either
| laying off employees, under hiring freezes, or simply aren't that
| serious about hiring besides through nepotism. Since I got
| started as a software developer full time 9-ish years ago, I've
| been relentlessly blasted with messages from various recruiters.
| In the last 6 months, recruiter activity has slowed to a crawl,
| and I don't believe it's because there's something wrong with me.
| Back when I chose to stop working for almost a year, I still got
| plenty of recruiters reaching out to me.
|
| To add to your point about resumes, people need to not
| underestimate the power of networking. Networking has been the
| key factor to my advancement for the last 3 jobs. It's just the
| way things are. People want to work with developers who aren't
| dicks, and interviewing is a time suck for both interviewees and
| interviewers. Today I was informed by a colleague that someone he
| was interviewing couldn't write a basic loop. Though the need for
| mere competence is reduced significantly, it's definitely still
| there.
|
| Another thing to consider is to find companies that actually have
| a real profit model and apply to those. This is not the time IMO
| for feeding from the trough of easy money, because that whole
| phenomenon appears to be hitting a wall.
| bityard wrote:
| > To add to your point about resumes, people need to not
| underestimate the power of networking. Networking has been the
| key factor to my advancement for the last 3 jobs. It's just the
| way things are.
|
| It's hard to overstate the importance of this. Without
| networking, your chances of landing the kind of job you
| _really_ want are vanishingly close to zero. Every single one
| of my civilian jobs has come about either through personal
| friendships ("hey bityard, my work is hiring and I'd like to
| work next to you") or due to name recognition, e.g. moving in
| and around the same groups of people that the hiring people are
| in. I have probably blindly fired off less than two dozen
| resumes in my decades-long career and while some resulted in an
| interview, none resulted in a hire.
|
| For someone just starting out in their career, maybe blindly
| firing off 100 or 200 resumes for entry-level positions is the
| only option they have. But they should also be broadcasting
| their availability far and wide to friends, family, randos on
| the street, basically anyone that will listen. Local tech
| meetups. Online tech meetups. Career fairs, etc.
|
| But if you've been in the industry for more than 2 or 3 years,
| and don't have a network that you can leverage in a job search,
| that is something you need to fix like immediately. That well
| must be filled BEFORE you need to drink from it.
| ravenstine wrote:
| To add to your point about meetups, I don't think there's
| been a better time to _start_ an IRL tech meetup in a long
| time. The local tech scene in the SoCal area has definitely
| not been the same since the pandemic, and I recall a few
| threads on HN with remarks about how local tech meetups didn
| 't come back. If someone can't find a meetup in their area,
| they might as well start one and have a good chance of
| getting networking value out of it.
| educaysean wrote:
| > Without networking, your chances of landing the kind of job
| you _really_ want are vanishingly close to zero
|
| Just to offer an anecdotal counterpoint: I switched companies
| 3 times in the last 4-5 years. Went from enterprise -> local
| start up -> big tech -> bay area start up. None of those
| jobs, including the enterprise gig where I got my start,
| required me to leverage my network.
|
| I don't doubt it's much easier when you have people that can
| vouch for you, but "vanishingly close to zero" is not the
| experience I've had. And no, I didn't have to send out 200+
| resumes.
| theonething wrote:
| Same experience here. I do have a network, but have never
| leveraged it. I just apply for jobs I'm interested and I
| get some of them. I never have to apply for more than 10 -
| 15 positions to get at least one. I don't have FAANG on my
| resume, but a string of solid, but not amazing experience.
| foundajob wrote:
| ghaff wrote:
| 100%. In school I did the usual on-campus interviews and
| blasting out resumes. However, the three jobs I've had since
| I didn't even apply for. I just sent emails to people I knew.
| (And, in one case, the job description was written for me.)
| Obviously your mileage will vary with this sort of thing, but
| it's my personal experience.
| alexpotato wrote:
| Every time I see people mentioning that they've sent X00
| applications for jobs, I always think of this video:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__lvS2pjuSg
|
| Recap:
|
| - Think of a job search as social engineering your way into an
| organization
|
| - Use that framework to figure out what the org cares about, who
| cares about it and then how to position yourself so that person
| sees your "work"
|
| - "Work" b/c it's not your resume, it's something that CLEARLY
| identifies that you are the perfect person for the role.
| b3kart wrote:
| And after all of this work your resume gets ignored because the
| recruiter got distracted for the 5 seconds that he has to look
| at each of 1000 resumes in his pile.
| alexpotato wrote:
| The point of this whole process is to bypass the gatekeeping
| recruiter.
| lwhi wrote:
| I've been contracting for the past five years.
|
| Still luckily have work when I want it.
|
| However, my general feeling is the market is cooler here in the
| UK. I used to get annoyed on a regular basis by the number of
| recruiters who contacted me .. it's happening a lot less often
| now.
| [deleted]
| asah wrote:
| pro-tip reminder: specialize to differentiate! you only need one
| job, and employerXYZ needs an expert in <stack>.
|
| ultimate example: COBOL developers are not concerned about this
| downturn!!
| ian_dot_so wrote:
| I think this is over-generalizing
|
| I've been both on the hiring side and candidate side this year
| and demand is still very strong (granted moreso for more senior
| applicants than junior).
|
| Couple of tips that have worked for me:
|
| * Make sure your Linkedin is up-to-date, you have "open to work"
| turned on and that your experience is filled with direct results
| and accomplishments. Example of a bad bullet point (Used
| javascript to build a user-facing dashboard). Example of a good
| bullet point (Built a new dashboard product that manages x for y
| number of users. Ultimately drove z result.
|
| * Tweak your resume details over time. Don't blindly apply to
| 100+ roles with the same resume. Not only could there be
| something wrong with it that's throwing off employers, it doesn't
| serve you as well as it could. If it's a full stack role,
| highlight more of those skills in your resume. If it's a iOS
| role, make sure more mobile experience is called out. Note: this
| doesn't mean filling it with things that aren't accurate about
| your background.
|
| * Don't underestimate a solid cover letter (especially for
| smaller companies) and also reaching out to recruiters at those
| companies. Both of these things should take < 15 mins.
|
| * Have a skills section somewhere on your resume that lists the
| technologies you are familiar with. This is critical to get
| passed resume screeners and it also helps free up your experience
| section to list more accomplishment details than technology ones.
|
| * Leetcode, leetcode, leetcode. I know it sucks and it feels like
| a waste of time but your point of "several places where I was
| rejected after either the initial or tech screen" makes me feel
| like you could use some work here. Try to do as many mediums as
| you can. When I've been deep in interview mode, I try to solve 1
| medium problem/day every single day. I set a 45 minute time and
| make sure I can get something working in that time. If I fail, I
| study the answer and get ready for the next day. After 1-2 months
| you should be in good shape.
|
| Hope this helps!
| i_am_toaster wrote:
| I don't agree on a few of these.
|
| I wouldn't personalize your resume for any company, nor do I
| recommend writing a personalized cover letter for any of them
| -- you have no idea the skill set that will be valued by the
| person reading the resume, as they are an unknown random
| variable. I feel it's just a time waste and there is no proof
| that this sort of thing is fruitful.
|
| Also fuck leetcode. I've refused to do the leetcode and still
| gotten the offer to do an interview without it. Imo, we should
| all show some backbone and stop accepting all this
| superstitious mumbo jumbo as the accepted form of recruitment.
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| > I wouldn't personalize your resume for any company
|
| No one wants to read a multi-page resume, so you have to
| leave things out. Some of the things you normally leave out
| might be super-relevant for a particular role, due to the
| industry or business domain.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. I agree with not customizing the resume, that's not
| sustainable for a necessarily high-volume job search. I'm
| lucky enough that my background is in a relatively popular
| field, so it's a much better strategy to just apply to places
| that are already a good fit for my existing resume.
| Definitely not going to do micro-tweaks to a resume based on
| whatever happens to be in the listing. Keep in mind
| recruiters spend literally seconds per resume. However a
| simple cover letter is generally a good idea and also a good
| place to add or highlight skills that may be especially
| relevant but not in the resume.
|
| Strangely enough, despite what you might think from HN, I
| haven't run into a ton of LeetCode algorithm-type puzzles at
| the places I've been looking.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| > Example of a bad bullet point (Used javascript to build a
| user-facing dashboard). Example of a good bullet point (Built a
| new dashboard product that manages x for y number of users.
| Ultimately drove z result.
|
| Master Drywall Contractor
|
| Built walls using 5/8 in. x 4 ft. x 12 ft. Firecode X Drywall
| over 178,000 sq. ft. resulting in client generating $1.1b in
| revenue annually.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| > Example of a bad bullet point (Used javascript to build a
| user-facing dashboard). Example of a good bullet point (Built a
| new dashboard product that manages x for y number of users.
| Ultimately drove z result.
|
| This is one of the most repeated pieces of advice I see, but,
| as a person who reviews CVs and does interviews, I would rather
| see the first point. From there, we would have a discussion
| about the technology you used and the features built for users.
| It could have been a dashboard that ultimately wasn't useful
| for users and had little to no result - I don't care. I care
| that you're able to build it.
| P_I_Staker wrote:
| I'm a little disheartened by this apparently getting downvoted
| heavily. This needs to be talked about more. The market for
| developers is not what many people claim. Also, most
| organizations have blanket policies that restrict who they can
| hire and disqualify a huge percentage of applicants.
| elforce002 wrote:
| This is anecdotal but if you can, create a LinkedIn account and
| put your resume there. That's the only good thing about posting
| your resume there. I think the market will correct itself in
| Q2(2023).
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. A LinkedIn profile is essential, not only to have in
| general but also because most applications ask for it. However
| the really irreplaceable thing is having visible connections to
| people at past or current jobs. I feel like this shows you're
| an actual person who has worked at the places you say you've
| worked at and aren't just making things up on your resume.
| Maybe that's just me, though, because no one else seems to hype
| up that part of it.
| ghaff wrote:
| For me the value of LinkedIn is 1.) A self-updating Rolodex
| given that actual Rolodexes and business cards, for the most
| part, don't exist any longer and 2.) Because people expect
| you to have one. That said, the information I have on
| LinkedIn is very scanty and I've never used it for job
| hunting although I've (very rarely) responded to recruiters
| who reached out to me.
| emmp wrote:
| I'm NOT a developer. I'm actually in tech support. I can write
| scripts, identify bugs in code, and am up to date on cloud and
| k8s, but mostly I don't write code, I debug systems, write up bug
| tickets, and deal with customer issues. Even with these less
| impressive skills I was able to land 3 offers above 150k base
| comp for TECHNICAL SUPPORT in the past month. It's still a
| seller's market for skilled people in tech. Yes you need to pump
| out as many applications a day as you can -- the vast majority
| will never get back to you, will ghost, or will freeze midway
| through the pipeline. But there are still plenty of offers going
| around and only so many people who can credibly do the work.
| 1letterunixname wrote:
| The macro economic conditions are such that only senior technical
| people and similar high-value employees are getting jobs.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| It's absolutely true that almost all of the remote jobs I'm
| seeing are explicitly senior or above, or require 3+ years of
| experience. I meet this, but for entry level people looking for
| something immediately, I'd recommend support or QA work to stay
| afloat while building a personal portfolio and hoping to get
| lucky with an employer who is actually desperate for
| developers.
| falcolas wrote:
| I'm not so sure that QA work even still exists. And I'm
| pretty certain it's been eliminated as a path to being a
| developer.
|
| There's been an insanely strong push to eliminate QA and put
| that work on developers (in addition to all the other
| specializations they now generalize in) in the past decade.
| monkpit wrote:
| What a wild thing to post
| forgotusername6 wrote:
| The majority of my team started their career as manual
| testers. We are all software engineers now and do not have
| a manual test team at all. We don't even have an automation
| test team. The company does have a few roles like that
| still but they are massively reduced.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| Support and QA have long been questionable paths into
| software development, but if you're entry-level and looking
| for remote work vaguely in the field, these are good roles.
| This is especially true for support which can be done
| relatively independently by inexperienced people, unlike
| software development, which requires a lot of mentoring for
| entry-level people that remote environments haven't really
| figured out how to accommodate yet.
| xtracto wrote:
| QA is a position/work that has been heavily outsourced. I
| know because I've met several QA outsourcing firms in
| Mexico and Ukraine that have really good business in the
| US.
| bdw5204 wrote:
| The problem right now is that the FAANG companies and the tier
| below that have suddenly laid off an absolute ton of people
| (and not hired a ton of people that they'd normally have hired)
| so you're competing with those people for the pool of open
| jobs.
|
| If you're the kind of developer who would usually end up at the
| second tier companies, those companies are going to be hiring
| the people Facebook and Twitter just laid off before they hire
| you. That's perfectly rational because the laid off FAANG
| developers are, on average, better developers than everybody
| else on the job market. This isn't good for anybody but is what
| happens when the market is suddenly flooded with tons of highly
| desirable developers.
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| LinkedIn's algorithm seems to be related to how active you are.
| One step you could try is reaching out to any recruiters you may
| have added over the years and ask them if they know of any open
| positions you might be a good fit for. If you haven't added any
| you might be able to look in your feed to see if there are any
| advertising jobs and reach out to them from there.
|
| I know LinkedIn and recruiters get kind of a bad rap but I really
| like working with them over applying the old fashioned way.
|
| You get more phone calls but it beats filling out forms. If you
| get multiple recuriters working on your behalf you can setup
| situations where you try to interview for lots of companies at
| once in batches. If you're currently unemployed and have the time
| for that, some companies will eliminate time consuming steps in
| their interview process to hire you before one of the other
| companies does.
|
| I haven't looked in the last few months but this is most of my
| strategy for finding good jobs without having to bother with
| annoying things like job applications or too many interviews.
|
| Long term an additional thing you can do to boost this is
| continue to add recruiters on linkedin even when you're not
| actively looking.
|
| I don't enjoy the job search, so I let the recruiters do it for
| me.
|
| You can be pretty straightforward with them too because they're
| incentivized to get you a job with commissions. You might be
| surprised with what they come back with if you tell them very
| explicitly what you're looking for (money, remote, type of
| interview, etc). Of course the more recruiters you work with the
| more likely some of them will be able to turn up these roles.
|
| I also like this system because it ensure you are only working
| with companies extremely motivated to hire. At the point where a
| company has hired an external recruiter, they have already spent
| thousands of dollars to try to hire you, failed, and now they're
| spending thousands more in commission to send someone out into
| the wild to find them someone they can please hire.
|
| One last thing I'll throw out if you're still having trouble past
| that or if that strategy is unpalatable to you. You could pick up
| a couple AWS certifications.
|
| They aren't easy, but they aren't that hard either.
|
| AWS Certified Solutions Architect - Associate AWS Certified
| Developer
|
| These certs are extremely similar and if you study for one you
| can do just a little more and pass the other too.
|
| Cloud skills are in especially high demand and some companies
| agreements with AWS even require them to employ a minimum number
| of people with AWS certs.
|
| The AWS certs in particular are nice because they are quite cheap
| compared to many certifications. $150 each for the 2 I mentioned.
| You'll want study materials as well. I really liked the courses
| offered by acloudguru which I believe is now owned by linux
| academy.
|
| https://acloudguru.com/forums/certified-solutions-architect-...
| https://acloudguru.com/course/aws-certified-developer-associ...
|
| In any case sorry you're in that situation. Job change is always
| stressful, especially when it doesn't go smooth. Good luck!
| mywittyname wrote:
| > LinkedIn's algorithm seems to be related to how active you
| are.
|
| I used to keep a spreadsheet of what dates I'd log in, and what
| actions I'd take, then I'd wait for the summary email from LI
| and put the results in it. Anecdotally, after logging into LI
| and making minor edits to my profile, the "number of times
| you've appeared in search results" emails I receive indicate a
| 2-3x increase over baseline.
|
| By minor edits, I mean changing punctuation or other small
| changes to a sentence or two. Major edits would dramatically
| increase my search results, such as adding certifications, but
| that's to be expected.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. I've had basically no response from the various third-
| party recruiters I've contacted, compared to at least some
| response to my direct applications to specific positions.
| Letting recruiters do your job search for you sounds like a
| great way to go though if that's an option for you.
|
| I've gotten certificates in the past and used to put them on my
| resume or LinkedIn, now I just leave them off. They're so minor
| compared to the rest of the stuff on my resume that
| realistically they aren't going to move the needle. In fact, no
| offense intended, but it feels like a junior move given my
| existing background, like putting my high school on my resume.
| I can see them being really helpful for some people, though.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| They never were. Oh, they _think they are_ but insist on unicorn
| candidates that don't make a single mistake over ~four hours.
| Almost lottery-level luck required, along with nerves of steel.
|
| Five years ago I saw CRUD jobs unfilled a year after I started
| looking. They are effectively not desperate.
|
| There's a reason that the SAT (for example) is hundreds of
| questions taken as a whole and not a series of several sudden
| death pass/fail tests over the breadth of a four year degree. The
| second is simply unrealistic for squishy meat bags.
|
| Next up, the "STEM shortage." :-D
| Joel_Mckay wrote:
| Ever tried negotiating budgets between the CEO, division
| managers, and CTO?
|
| You basically run into a few arguments:
|
| 1. Can't hire Juniors as they cost a lot to train, and keep
| leaving for better paying firms
|
| 2. Can't hire Seniors as they cost too much, and tend to be a
| challenge to manage
|
| 3. Why don't we keep piling on the ticket queue till the existing
| teams starts to burnout, as they will burnout in a year anyway
|
| 4. That is a "no" to your budget request, as the staffing-
| agent/Marketer thinks we can get these positions filled for 34
| cents to the dollar.
|
| I dream of being a plumber everyday... Check out some local
| trade-shows in the field you are interested in, and chat with a
| few folks. =)
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| Opinion:
|
| Too much of a blanket statement in my opinion. The way I see it
| as a consultant that has talked to multiple devs and management
| over the last year at multiple companies is that remote jobs are
| competitive at the moment, in person jobs less so, and
| contracting jobs are always hiring.
|
| We are at the end of the year and operational expenditure is low
| and getting renewed, while capital expenditure is high and
| increasing which is good for contractors and consultants.
|
| Factual Anecdote:
|
| Personally if I were you I would go up the top 100 market cap
| companies [1]. I'm at a company that hired 75 dev in my
| department alone in the last year. I know personally places like
| Costco, Home Depot, Caterpillar, Abbott, and Comcast have been
| steadily having new employees and job postings.
|
| Just don't stick the jobs that Indeed and LinkedIn throw at you.
|
| [1]: https://companiesmarketcap.com
| Ken_At_EM wrote:
| This does not describe our company. We want to hire developers.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| I looked at the jobs page off your HN profile. It looks like
| you're trying to hire firmware developers in-office in Houston,
| who also have to do customer support with an on-call rotation,
| and are paying on the low end of what web development pays.
| Kudos for being so upfront but looking at that I have a sense
| of where the challenges are for you.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| As cliche as it sounds, beggars can't be choosers. I've done
| customer support and on-call and it can be manageable.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| At some point, one has to consider that the crazy highly salaries
| of last years gold rush was putting a dent in shareholder value,
| and so Something Had To Be Done.
| Railsify wrote:
| During a period where there is a perceived shortage of new devs,
| existing dev teams still have to meet deadlines and move the
| ball, this forces streamlining of processes and thus reduces the
| immediate need for new team members. If someone on my team leaves
| and I need to back-fill engineering time on a process or app, and
| I can't back-fill quickly, what other choice do I have other than
| to reassess the entire process and change it so that it requires
| less commitment moving forward?
| ghusto wrote:
| I'm not so cynical as to suggest the industry is putting out fake
| posts like this in order to make it easier on themselves, but I'm
| not so trustful as to put it past them.
|
| I can only speak for parts of western Europe like the U.K., and
| it's fine here? I've not had to go looking for work for about 15
| years, and I've moved a bunch.
| Tade0 wrote:
| > and employers don't seem desperate.
|
| Hiring follows predictable patterns throughout the year, namely
| the last month of the quarter is usually relatively hot.
|
| It's November now, so there's still ample time to fulfill
| recruitment KPIs. My experience is that hiring only picks up
| speed come mid-December, when there's simply fewer candidates
| than normally due to Christmas.
|
| That being said this September, which usually burns through the
| backlog from the summer vacation season, was unusually slow.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| It's true that the number of job openings doesn't tell a complete
| story just as the number of layoffs doesn't.
|
| The layoffs aren't a general crash, they're a correction of
| overhiring and overconfidence by certain companies that
| disproportionately gained from covid.
|
| And while there are endless job openings, the average urgency to
| hire is low. Companies are not making offers if they don't fall
| in love.
| dnissley wrote:
| I think we need more info: Age bracket? Are you only going for
| remote roles? If not, in what metro are you searching?
| avbanks wrote:
| If you failed the tech screens why would they be desperate to
| hire you?
| toast0 wrote:
| If they were desperate to hire somebody, they'd lower the bar
| on the tech screens.
| physicsguy wrote:
| I don't agree - I'd rather wait than take on someone that
| can't meet the standard, because they're likely to be an
| active drag rather than a help. I can hire contractors if I
| need to fill a seat that quickly.
| toast0 wrote:
| If you're willing to wait, I don't think you're desperate,
| IMHO. You're also probably right, most of the time, of
| course.
| wins32767 wrote:
| I once lowered my hiring bar because I was desperate. I
| ended up with a few bad employees that slowed us down
| more than the ones that turned out good accelerated us.
| Not worth the tradeoff IMO.
| more_corn wrote:
| I've never met a tech screen that adequately measured
| candidate quality (actually I take that back Okta's SRE
| interview was fantastic).
|
| I tried to hire a known, trusted, high performing engineer
| at Google. He was rejected. After reading his packet I
| could not figure out why. I had to call the recruiter and
| ask her if he'd said something so unmentionable they
| couldn't even write it down.
|
| They decided to pass on him because he was so good his
| promotion path at the role would be inadequate. I could
| have told them that before they wasted his time flying him
| out and sitting him through 8 hours of tech screen.
|
| I literally had to fly him back out and do it all again,
| because "that's the process"
|
| I hate to break it to you but the process is broken.
| physicsguy wrote:
| Our process is not particularly difficult, I'm not doing
| Leetcode or anything. I just ask questions at interview
| which test whether people have a surface level
| understanding or whether we'll have to hand hold people
| through things.
|
| For e.g. I've interviewed backend devs with 5+ years of
| Django experience who haven't been able to tell me the
| general methods of how they might go about tackling a
| poor performing ORM query. I'm not asking them to even be
| able to write the code here, I'm just asking them to tell
| me roughly what their approach would be. If people aren't
| able to talk me through that in general terms, they're
| not going to help much.
|
| I had one this week where a guy took user input on an API
| and then used "eval" to run it as code. Where do you even
| start with that? On CV terms, this person had 10 years of
| decent looking experience.
| [deleted]
| endigma wrote:
| We are desperate to hire developers, HMU if you want a job.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. I don't feel comfortable applying for a job in
| connection with this anonymous handle, but I've been checking
| the HN hiring threads since I've started my job search. If you
| post your job there next time, I should see it and apply if I'm
| still looking and it's a good fit.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Contact info would make that easier...
| jabart wrote:
| It's end of the year, hiring managers may be taking weeks off.
| Businesses are likely in a unannounced hiring freeze without
| announcing it. This happened all the time in the corporate world
| with open jobs but an unspoken hiring freeze. Next year's budgets
| have not been finalized. Hiring someone now means you might have
| to pay them a bonus come Q1. A lot of different factors. Since
| you are in the US, I would try to reach out to some recruiters
| and get feedback. Hopefully one responds with something instead
| of nothing like the ones you have already contacted. Try to
| schedule a lunch of coffee with a few. Those metrics are tracked
| so they have to schedule them at the places I know.
| neon_electro wrote:
| Been on the grind 9 months now, totally seeing what you're
| seeing. I'm looking for full-stack Web development work,
| strongest with Ruby, but flexible to hop into any environment and
| be productive within 2-3 months.
| yrgulation wrote:
| Ruby is in low demand, always has been.
| binkHN wrote:
| Maybe they're trying to hire all the FAANG developers that are
| getting laid off?
| foundajob wrote:
| jollyllama wrote:
| How long have you been at it? Recruiting at non-FAANG employers
| works differently. The father you get from FAANG or startups, the
| less urgency you will find on the part of your prospective
| employers. Don't let this discourage you. Have you had to job
| search much before? I've found it's often a months long process.
| You might not be at the beginning, but at the middle of it.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| Lol I find this to be exact opposite, FAANG has had very long
| wait times, Google probably with the longest streak of that.
|
| I find non-FAANG to be much quicker.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| My experience is it's impossible to find people who's experience
| actually matches their resume.
| digitalsushi wrote:
| We try to hire seasoned linux admins for our ops team. This has
| become difficult.
|
| I start with this technical interview question so I can
| calibrate quickly:
|
| "If I run the following two commands:
|
| mkdir a b c;mv *
|
| What happens?"
|
| One person so far has asked if globbing was active. Like half
| of people get the answer right if they assume it is.
|
| This question is deemed as "not fair", though, because it
| assumes a linux admin would know about shell globbing. So we're
| trying to find a modern equivalent that is somehow relevant,
| even though we're literally hiring people to know some shell.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| You didn't ask for advice, but I have some Linux experience
| and it does feel a little like a trick question since you
| would normally never do that. Probably I'd give 100% credit
| for answering the question as asked, and 90% credit if they
| can explain to you what happened after running it in a
| terminal or if you tell them the end result.
|
| If you need good questions, maybe ask your current admins the
| five most common operations or pain points they have every
| day and then base your questions on that.
| jsjsof wrote:
| Do your job posts match the jobs?
| physicsguy wrote:
| Same. The tech exercise we give to candidates is to write two
| very simple CRUD end points in Django/DRF, and to add date
| filtering to one of them. There are various ways to implement
| this and I'd accept a lot of variation in the final solution,
| but probably 80% of them didn't work correctly. And that's from
| people that mostly say they "know" Django on their CV.
| mxuribe wrote:
| I've heard this so many times....But, i believe that there is
| always the possibility that someone who is not a perfect match
| can evolve and learn to become the perfect match. I've also
| seen the case - though rare - where the "perfect candidate"
| fails to evolve to learn new things, or fails to adapt to new
| conditions because they're too intsrested in only a specific
| scenario. I've been on both the candidate side as well as (many
| times) the hiring manager side. I think too many HR departments
| and hiring mangers lack the mechanism to gauge candidates, so
| they fall back to metrics that might be too generalized.
| Granted, a non-standard approach to finding that candidate who
| can evolve is not super-scalabel - i get it - but its still my
| preferred direction. In all cases, when i have hired using my
| approach, i have always had great candidates; my approach has
| yet to fail me. Meanwhile, my peers who hire using too rigid a
| set of metrics...well, let's say that they've gotten good
| candidates only about half the time.
| dariusj18 wrote:
| That is the case when hiring entry level and junior, but a
| senior level should be able to hit the ground running on at
| least one part of the job requirement.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| This only comes into play once you've started the interview
| process, unless you're saying you're so jaded that you don't
| even bother contacting candidates with good resumes.
| sharkster711 wrote:
| It's unlikely the screening bar has gone up - are you sure you're
| doing well on the tech screens?
| neon_electro wrote:
| Sometimes the tech screens have been frustrating enough to just
| abandon the effort and save everyone some time.
| atraac wrote:
| I've just spent over two months looking for a Senior role in EU.
| I believe EU landscape is vastly different than US but I noticed
| similar trends. I had a ton of 'offers' on LinkedIn. I applied to
| few dozens. I got any kind of meeting with a recruiter with maybe
| third of them. Roughly half of those paid below the market rate.
| The other half I interviewed with further. Some ghosted me, some
| straight out told me no after take home assignment without a
| reason, some had assignment so ridiculously time consuming I just
| refused to do them. I got to around 5 proper tech interviews, got
| offers from 3, one being heavily underpaid(even though they knew
| what I asked for since the beginning). I was fairly picky as I
| aimed at the higher side of western salaries even though I live
| in Poland. I managed to get something well paid albeit really
| boring that I might end up changing in a year. Worth noting that
| I have mainly experience with .NET/Azure so that limits my
| options heavily. Very few companies want generalists besides
| FAANG.
| siliconc0w wrote:
| Go for quality vs quantity - which means personalized approaches
| and use of your network/recruiters. A cold application through an
| online portal has a very low probability of success but if you go
| through a recruiter, previous colleague, or just a friend of a
| friend your chances are much better (and you might get some
| inside info like are they _really_ hiring or is that open senior
| position just for appearances /unicorn candidates - I suspect
| this is a majority of companies who have are already over-hired
| and are have been told to preserve cash for 1+ years).
| nyc_data_geek1 wrote:
| Came here to say this. Rather than a metric of "how many total
| jobs have I applied to", a perhaps more effective metric would
| be "how many high quality applications have I put in, how many
| opportunities have I been exposed to via referral, how many
| friends do I have looking on my behalf/providing introductions
| to hiring managers who are actively hiring".
|
| Blindly applying to listings you find online with no "in", is
| going to be a lot of applications to get to a single
| conversion/hire event. Find your buddies, the recruiters who
| respect your time and expertise, even "friend of a friend" as
| parent mentioned is worlds better than "just another resume on
| the stack".
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. Great advice for people with a big network, though
| of course if a company is waiting for a strong referral
| before hiring, they're not really that desperate, which was
| my thesis.
| nyc_data_geek1 wrote:
| I would posit that time spent building that network is more
| valuable than the equivalent amount of time spent blasting
| out resumes to random job listings. You can network with
| recruiters to find the right ones with no prior exposure to
| them.
|
| For the most part, desperate employers are not the ones you
| want to work for anyhow. They're desperate for a reason.
| It's not like there's some scarcity of candidates now,
| especially as layoffs before more common.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| I've said elsewhere that I've had better response rates
| from direct applications (15-20%) than from third-party
| recruiters (~0%). My LinkedIn says I'm looking for work
| and I've gotten very little attention there. I'm sure
| relying on recruiters works for some people but it
| doesn't look like the way forward for me.
|
| Desperate doesn't have to mean bad, it just means they
| have a hiring need and you're on hand to fill it.
| Unfortunately this is really the only option if you're
| otherwise going to have a tough time competing head-to-
| head with your peers.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| I am curious about this as I am not a FAANG person either, have
| just 3 years of experience, and am having no trouble getting to
| the verbal offer stage. I am just playing around, so I don't go
| beyond that, but it is getting there. LinkedIn remains clogged.
|
| Are you sure the tech screens are going well?
| anon50118810 wrote:
| They're going well enough for anyone serious about hiring. See
| my other comment at
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33600444.
| sharkster711 wrote:
| I think the job market will get better by mid January 2023, when
| budgets open up. TC will probably be quite a bit lower than 2021
| offers, but there's work to be done everywhere.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| Every quarter someone comments that next quarter will be
| better.
| deathanatos wrote:
| > _TC will probably be quite a bit lower than 2021 offers_
|
| I mean, if _nominal_ TC is lower, then you 're not "desperate
| to hire". You're not going to woo over someone offering them
| less TC than their current position, and most of us that are
| probably ready for a switch are looking to fill a 10% gap in
| real TC caused by the economy. Just like my landlord says "the
| economy" and then raises prices faster than CPI, so too am I
| going to be adjusting my expectations on the real value of
| offers made.
|
| But you certainly have to come in above BATNA.
| steviesands wrote:
| Is this how it works at most companies where new budget leads
| to new headcount and hiring in January? Is it due to an annual
| process?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Yes.
|
| Think of it this way: From mid-November to the end of
| December, there are two major US holidays where most
| employees will take one if not two weeks of vacation.
| Onboarding is an issue because you won't always have a full
| team in place to support the new hire. Vacation is an issue
| because new employees generally don't get any accrued
| vacation time, so you end up with idle, directionless, new
| employees for almost half the period. It's also easier to
| hide budget issues if you don't hire someone who isn't going
| to be useful anyway. It's just easier for everyone if you
| shut it down in November and start again fresh in January.
| TedKroft wrote:
| Yes, it is pretty common for hiring to pick up in January.
| Usually there are approved number of hires approved and they
| run out toward the end of the year and then many teams stop
| trying to hire until new headcounts are approved for the next
| January.
| comfypotato wrote:
| I'm the comment you're talking about I believe. The top comment
| on that post anyway.
|
| It took me 200 applications to land my job, and I think the rest
| of _everyone I know who's a decent programmer_ had similar
| situations. The bottom line is that everyone has employment and
| only had to move for it if they're taking a high (120k+ TC for
| entry level) paying position.
|
| This is "falling of trees" compared to any other industry. Being
| able to land a middle class job directly in the field of your
| education without having to move is a very nice thing. Even if it
| takes 200 applications. It's not common outside of engineering.
|
| The median individual income in the U.S. is 32k [1]. Software
| engineers in the U.S., as a generalization of industry around the
| world, is literally the best that it gets.
|
| That being said. Job hunting is soul sucking. Good luck.
|
| 1.
| https://datacommons.org/place/country/USA?utm_medium=explore...
|
| (Edit because people are concerned about my 200 number. I got an
| offer for the first 60k position I applied for and decided to
| turn it down. I was shooting a tad higher. I'm also counting "one
| click" applications: Zip Recruiter and Linkedin.)
| throwaway675309 wrote:
| Given that you're talking about a 60 K position I can only
| assume that this is out of your first job or at the very least
| you're a junior or entry-level position.
|
| So of course this is only anecdotal but I've never sent more
| than 5 applications out at a time even back when I was a junior
| dev. In the last 10 years I don't even bother looking for jobs
| actively anymore, I just turn the switch on my LinkedIn
| indicating that I'm seeking employment, and let recruiters do
| the rest.
|
| I'm not sure what the difference is, but I would consider
| myself to be an outlier as far as traditional engineers go, in
| that I am both exceptionally articulate and naturally
| extroverted. If I can get to the point where I have a face-to-
| face or a phone interview, I'm fairly confident that I'll be
| able to acquire an offer. Without specifics I can only
| recommend that engineers work on developing their soft skills
| if they don't already have them.
|
| On the other hand I'm not particularly picky in terms of
| companies, and I have a wide range of senior level experience
| in major platforms including C# and node/typescript/JavaScript.
|
| Just a counterpoint for all the gloom and doom but I'd say that
| you have nothing to worry about if you have the following:
|
| - in demand skillset (ts/js/c#)
|
| - people skills / charisma
|
| - US citizenship
|
| - 10+ years experience
|
| - reasonable salary expectations (140-175k)
| anon50118810 wrote:
| If you're selling something that's both highly in-demand and
| niche, then lots of people will contact you and everyone who
| contacts you already wants what you're selling. Soft skills
| aren't really involved other than to avoid messing up the
| sale. I'm sure you're a very personable sort but I don't
| think that's really the issue here.
| adventured wrote:
| > The median individual income in the U.S. is 32k
|
| The median full-time income in the US - which is a much more
| applicable reference point - is around $55,000.
| tomrod wrote:
| I believe that's household income. Quick google shows census
| reporting median income at ~31k
| giantg2 wrote:
| Source?
|
| I thought it was $42k a year or two ago, but haven't looked
| since, and I don't remember if it was strictly full-time.
| carabiner wrote:
| When I graduated in aerospace engineering in 2008 during the
| great recession, I applied for maybe 40 places total and got 2
| offers. I probably could have pulled some strings to get 1-2
| more from the places where I had interned (didn't bother
| applying to them because I wasn't interested). Aerospace in the
| US requires US citizenship so the number of applicants is
| 1/10th SWE. SWE also just has insane demand from people in
| India and China. So SWE is a crazy outlier because of salary,
| remote opportunities, established educational bases in some
| regions etc.
| theonething wrote:
| > SWE also just has insane demand from people in India and
| China.
|
| this sentence is confusing to me. Are you saying there are a
| lot of SWE jobs in India and China? Or are you saying there
| are a lot of people from those places looking for SWE jobs.
|
| Or something different?
| carabiner wrote:
| The latter. They're looking for H1B jobs in the US. Sorry,
| woke up too early.
| brightball wrote:
| It's always easier to get a job when you have one then when you
| don't.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > It's always easier to get a job when you have one then when
| you don't.
|
| This should be emphasized. I have a friend who quit a
| terrible, stressful job without something new lined up, and
| it took him a _year_ to find another one. After an excessive
| number of interviews at one company for one position, he got
| annoyed and asked them what the deal was. They said that they
| were impressed by him, but were honest and said they were
| trying to figure out "what was wrong with him," since he
| wasn't employed, and then gave him an offer.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| This is one of the reasons why I made this post, to put some
| numbers out there. A lot of people on HN have ideal backgrounds
| so that they really are going to get constant unsolicited
| offers, or at least an interview anywhere they apply. Other
| people are on the hiring side struggling for one reason or
| another and blaming it on a hot market. If you're in a group
| like that, it's easy to get the wrong impression, and worse to
| repeat it.
|
| I definitely agree that developers have it better than most
| people. Anyone who's watched someone outside the field look for
| work should understand that. But there is a huge middle ground
| between the Stanford graduate working at Google for whom every
| application results in an offer, and people applying to bad
| jobs with a 90 minute commute just to find something. That
| middle ground is what you and I are talking about, where you do
| have to send out a lot of applications, 100 or 200 or more, but
| there are also a lot of companies, you can work remotely and
| they pay really well compared to other jobs in the U.S., let
| alone worldwide.
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| I'm not in the US; if I had to send out 200 or even 100
| applications I would change career. If I had to send 50 I would
| be starting to investigate other careers.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I've been a developer in the US and held... oh... 8 or 9 tech
| jobs since about the year 2000. I don't think I've ever sent
| more than 10 applications in a job search. My average is
| probably 3-4. I'm _entirely_ unremarkable and also didn 't
| have a degree for the first IIRC 4 jobs (I floundered and
| bailed on a non-tech Bachelor's the first time, then several
| years later got a CS degree from an unremarkable--but at
| least not infamous--university).
|
| But I also target the mid-tier, not FAANG, finance, or top-
| tier startups that hire like FAANG. I'd break down halfway
| through one of their day-long interviews no matter how much I
| studied leetcode, and I know it. Put me in any kind of
| meeting for more than a couple hours and I'm braindead, and
| interviews count as meetings. Even worse than ordinary
| meetings, really.
|
| Yeah, if I had to send 50, let alone 200 applications in one
| search... I can't even imagine. If I hit 100 with no offers
| I'd for-sure reckon my career was over and I needed to look
| at jobs several notches down the economic and social ladder
| (and tech's already not _that_ high on the social ladder).
| [deleted]
| DarrenDev wrote:
| I'm also very surprised by these numbers. I'm a senior dev in
| Ireland and my success rate over the past number of years
| would be around 1 in 5 CV submissions lead to a first
| interview / tech screen. And once I reach that stage around 1
| in 3 lead to an offer.
|
| I'm a reasonably good developer, but not top tier by any
| means.
|
| But my starting point is usually a recruiter contacting me.
| It's been a long time since I've chased a recruiter or
| company. And I've never sent out 100+ applications in my 22
| year career.
|
| Maybe geography plays a part. London and Dublin are full of
| tech jobs. Isolated cities in the US might be different, with
| moving or commuting to a different city not an easy option.
|
| I'd like to see some of the CVs that keep getting rejected or
| passed over, because that volume (100-200) doesn't feel right
| to me.
| pkteison wrote:
| I've had it take 80 applications to actually get one on-site
| interview before (and I have a pretty good resume). I would
| not be suggesting people consider major life changes based on
| a few dozen attempts not progressing, it can definitely take
| more than that without reflecting on you.
| Spivak wrote:
| I think it depends, if you're early in your career you're
| basically trying to find a company willing to take a chance
| on you and train you. Once you have some accomplishments
| under your belt companies will start being more aggressive at
| hiring you because you can hit the ground running.
|
| If you're applying for "senior" positions and have the CV to
| back it up and you're still batting 1/200 getting to the
| first interview then you are either the unluckiest person
| ever or there's a red flag you haven't noticed.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. You're just graduating from school. Maybe it's not a
| well-known school--or maybe it's not even the "right" (or
| any) degree. Maybe you're grades aren't the best. It's very
| reasonable that getting someone to take a chance on you for
| a job you're not obviously qualified to grow into can be
| pretty hard.
|
| But, with a track record and you aren't trying to career
| change? That is a _lot_.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. GGP said 200 applications to get a job, not an
| interview. I've had a bit under a 20% success rate on
| getting a first interview after an application but haven't
| gotten an offer yet.
|
| Also, there are red flags, and there are red flags. I have
| some red flags I can't do anything about, I just have to
| push through them, but they shouldn't be a dealbreaker for
| anyone actually desperate to hire.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "and train you"
|
| Frankly, companies don't train. Mt company talks about
| training all the time and it's a joke.
| ownagefool wrote:
| I'm in the UK and have:
|
| - previously passed a loop with FAANG ( didn't join tho ) -
| have a strong portfolio in a hard to resource niche
|
| Easily send out 200 apps and get ignored.
|
| The market is dumb, not sure I should quit over it tho
| chrisseaton wrote:
| If you're a FAANG level developer (very top of your field)
| then surely you've got a network of people you can ask for
| a job anytime rather than having to apply as normal?
|
| I'm not even remotely FAANG level but if I wanted a job I'd
| email some people I know or Tweet that I'm looking - not
| fill in a form.
|
| Have you tried working your network? Emailing some friends?
| giantg2 wrote:
| I hate that there's so much talk about networks. There's
| a ton of talk about anti-discrimination, equity/equality,
| etc in other areas of HN.
|
| What's the word for cronyism if the person is qualified?
| [deleted]
| chrisseaton wrote:
| It's not cronyism - it's people knowing your portfolio of
| work and abilities.
|
| And at the end of the day - do whatever you need to
| within reason to put food on your own table. Don't worry
| about someone else judging you for cronyism for feeding
| your family.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| There's nothing wrong with networking, but if we're all
| agreeing that networking is important to having a job
| search that doesn't involve hundreds of applications,
| then let's just be honest about that. In particular let's
| make sure people who don't have that network and who do
| have to job search know what they need to do to get where
| they need to be.
| ghaff wrote:
| I expect it varies enormously. I can readily believe that
| people with relatively straightforward in-demand skills,
| an easy to follow track record, and maybe the right
| schools can probably (in a reasonable economy) just turn
| on LinkedIn and let interview requests flow in.
|
| Someone who doesn't really check boxes and doesn't have a
| network may have to play a numbers game.
|
| On the other hand, more senior and more specialized
| people (both in and out of engineering) will often have a
| much smaller number of holes that they would fit properly
| in and just sending out resumes is unlikely to be nearly
| as effective as networking.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > if we're all agreeing that networking is important to
| having a job search that doesn't involve hundreds of
| applications, then let's just be honest about that
|
| I think we already were? That's exactly what I said. Who
| do you think isn't being honest?
| anon50118810 wrote:
| No one's lying but one of the grandparent comments said
| that they would change careers if they needed to send out
| 100 applications for a job search. If 100 applications is
| necessary for even a good developer without a strong
| network, that's a misleading recommendation.
| jason-phillips wrote:
| I applied to 500 openings to get my first job. I think
| persistence is what matters.
| Macha wrote:
| My first development job as a graduate I applied to 5
| positions, got 3 interviews and offers from all 3
| interviews. Degree from somewhere middle of the road in my
| country, some side projects, applying to large but not
| FAANG tech cos. I think I had a good CV for a graduate
| nothing _that_ spectactular. There's definitely some
| diverging experiences going on here.
| Eisenstein wrote:
| Maybe people should have their resume looked over? I have
| seen some very talented people make some pretty glaring
| errors and/or just be pretty bad at making things
| presentable. I think they may be getting tossed out of
| the pile due to something they just aren't realizing.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. I'm getting a roughly 15%-20% success rate
| converting a cold application to a first interview.
| That's around the industry average from what I've seen on
| various sites. If my resume were a disaster I'd expect
| something closer to 0%.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Maybe, but probably not a huge percentage. There are tons
| of resources for helping review resumes and provide
| practice interviews. Mine was reviewed by at least 4
| people and still took over 200 applications to get a job.
| nocman wrote:
| Not the OP, but your definition of "falling off trees" and mine
| are very different if it took 200 applications to land a job.
|
| I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying I would never use that
| expression to describe it.
| fwsgonzo wrote:
| It's actually kind of soul sucking bad, and I have trouble
| coming to terms with that "this is just how it is now."
|
| I really do feel for those without a decent network.
| ghaff wrote:
| I would consider sending out 200 applications (for someone
| with some experience to reasonably targeted openings) to be
| an extraordinarily high number. I doubt if I sent out that
| many form letter scattershot from pre-internet grad school.
|
| Certainly hasn't been the case since. To be sure, the few
| other jobs I've had have all come through personal
| connections.
| [deleted]
| nocman wrote:
| I had just assumed that if someone was sending out 200
| applications, it was pretty much the same resume going to
| all of them (no catering it to the individual interests of
| the employer) - with perhaps some exceptions to jobs the
| applicant was particularly interested in.
|
| I can't imagine sending out that many having spent large
| quantities of time on each one.
|
| [edited to fix typing the wrong word]
| ghaff wrote:
| I would assume so as well although that may be the
| problem.
|
| Though I'm also open to the possibility that some
| companies just want to hire some number of developers
| with 3-5 years of experience in $TECHNOLOGY and aren't
| too fussy beyond that. In which case, it may indeed
| become more of a numbers game if a company is basically
| picking a handful of resumes at random that clear some
| minimum bar.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. When I think of an employer as desperate to
| hire, I think of it in the same way that I'm desperate to
| get more milk when I'm out of milk. I go to the store
| with milk on my mind, I pick from the few on offer, buy
| it and take it home. I don't need to taste test or
| anything like that.
|
| Of course everyone wants to be a premium brand but
| sometimes it just doesn't work out like that.
|
| A challenge is that most job listings are mostly "3-5
| years of experience in $TECHNOLOGY," or rather there are
| so many $TECHNOLOGIES listed that almost no one is going
| to be an expert in all of them. It's difficult to tell
| from the outside whether they want someone who has
| experience in at least some of the core and can learn the
| rest, or whether they're holding out for the perfect
| candidate.
| cableshaft wrote:
| Is this first job in the industry or mid-senior level? I don't
| think I've ever sent 200 applications in any of my job
| searches. Last time I didn't send any; I just flicked the
| switch on LinkedIn and Hired and had almost 60 recruiters reach
| out to me (followed up with about 18, had initial interviews
| with about 8 companies, ended up with 4 late stage interviews
| and 2 offers).
|
| And I wouldn't consider myself an amazing developer (I do
| alright, but I'm not 10x) or have an amazing portfolio and I
| don't have a FAANG on my resume, just a large corporation that
| no one has heard of, a couple medium-sized companies, and
| several smaller companies / failed startups.
|
| Might be a bit different now, this was back in June/July 2021.
| giantg2 wrote:
| About 10 years ago I applied tot about 200 jobs.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| My impression is that it was a lot different back in
| June/July 2021.
|
| Also that sounds like an impressive background, 6 or 7 or
| more companies over I'm guessing 10-15 years? Also the stuff
| on your HN profile looks pretty good too. Don't sell yourself
| short.
| treis wrote:
| Once you're a part of the club it's dramatically easier to
| get a job. A year and change ago I made the move into a legit
| tech company. I think it took me 50ish applications to get
| that one offer. That job was not meant to be and I went
| looking after a few months. With just that brief stint I
| applied to like 10 places, got some level interest from all
| of them, and ended up with an offer.
| [deleted]
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Per capita median income is what you get when you include
| retirees, teenagers, those who do not work at all (they will
| still have some income from welfare/disability/gifts), and
| other part time workers. It's not a good measure of average
| employment earnings in an economy in which labor force
| participation is only 61%.
|
| What you should look at is median earnings of full time
| workers, which is about $1000 per week, or $52K per year. This
| does not include benefits - in the U.S. things like healthcare
| are primarily funded by the employer and retirement is roughly
| half funded via social security matching contributions, so
| total compensation would be about 70K/year.
|
| https://www.bls.gov/charts/usual-weekly-earnings/usual-weekl...
| [deleted]
| oneplane wrote:
| I'm still receiving tons of mails and LinkedIn offers, even phone
| calls, and I haven't really seen much of a difference or decline.
| If anything, the compensation packages have only gone up, but the
| offers are as tone deaf as always.
| ravenstine wrote:
| That's interesting because my recruiter messages and emails
| have dropped off a cliff. I might get a few a week now versus
| getting multiple ones every single day, which was the
| experience I've had for several years. Maybe whatever bot
| recruiters are using to blast messages to me was
| decommissioned? lol
|
| Not that I'm complaining. I loathe most recruiters. It's just
| an observation of mine that _seems_ to correlate with the state
| of hiring in tech.
| rr888 wrote:
| > Lots of no responses or form rejections
|
| To be fair, this was normal at the peak too. (as well as ghosting
| after doing 3 rounds)
| nickphx wrote:
| If you're not passing tech screens, why are you assuming this
| means lack of demand on employer side?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Any developer with a "mediocre but solid portfolio" would know
| if they bombed a tech screen. Frankly I think even somebody
| with zero experience knows if they've bombed an interview. So
| I've no reason to doubt OP there.
|
| I'm choosing to trust OP here - after all this is HN and we
| assume best intentions. If you're not passing
| tech screens, why are you assuming this means lack of
| demand on employer side?
|
| Well, perhaps not so much "lack of demand" as much as "supply
| exceeding demand."
|
| If you have e.g. 50 applicants who've passed the tech screen
| you might only seriously pursue 5-10 of them.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here, thank you. I've given many tech interviews from the
| hiring side and know what bombing looks like. In my case as a
| candidate it's less bombing and more a bad feeling after
| struggling with trivia questions or a time crunch. Of course
| I don't know exactly how it's perceived on their side, only
| that they get back to me later saying they don't want to
| proceed. However between the various parts of my portfolio it
| should be obvious I can deliver high-quality code and
| complete reasonably complex projects, so all this extra stuff
| shouldn't be necessary if just need someone who can do that.
| flutas wrote:
| FWIW, I agree with the poster.
|
| I'm SR in my current role, 7+ years experience, tech lead for
| 7+ people...
|
| I can't get an offer to save my life. I've gone through final
| round about 10 times now and always get either ghosted or "we
| decided on another person over you" then the role stays open
| for months. Had Disney offer to create a new role for me and
| then rescind when I agreed. Or my personal favorite, hiring
| freeze right after final interview and "we're frozen, can't do
| anything."
|
| My latest ended with "we hired someone else for the role, but
| we just opened this role. Do you like it? We'd only need 1
| interview from you since you aced the other ones." 3 weeks
| later and I can't get a reply from them to even schedule that
| interview...
|
| I don't know if I'm just missing the mark somewhere or what, as
| all feedback I can get is "you're great we just like someone
| better." Well, except for the one who rejected me because "we
| didn't get a strong feeling of how you work with design at your
| current role." When I explained step by step our cycle for
| dev/design team ups, user testing and the feedback loop between
| dev/design.
| ravenstine wrote:
| It depends on whether the OP is failing tech screens or whether
| it's the companies/interviewers that are failing the screens. I
| was on the job hunt earlier this year and, while I'm by no
| means perfect, I had a lot of tech screens fall apart because
| the interviewer was awkward, pushy, or arrogant; or the demand
| placed upon knowledge or skill assessment was unreasonable. My
| impression is that if hiring really mattered to these companies
| that they would refine their hiring process rather than leaving
| it up to whichever dev who has nothing else to do that day.
| guessmyname wrote:
| I work at Apple and my team has been _"hiring"_ for the last 2
| years with no offers so far.
|
| Why? Because even if you are a good candidate, hiring is not as
| easy as people think.
|
| Among the many challengues we have I can list the following:
|
| 1. The people interested in your profile have minimal influence
| in the process,
|
| 2. There are people who are always chasing for the shiny new
| object (or person, in this case),
|
| 3. There is a sea of resumes in our hands, and we pick the best,
| but they want the world and lose them during negotiations, and
| the ones at the bottom of the list who really want the job, move
| on because the process to get to them takes too long (several
| months),
|
| 4. People over estimate their qualifications. Their abilities may
| be good, but they write over the top accomplishments in their
| resumes that are hard to believe, at least without proof, and
| they are the first ones to get rejected,
|
| 5. HR interferes too much in the process. They sometimes change
| the job requirements, sometimes ignore candidates that we
| explicitely tell them to follow up with, sometimes extend
| meaningless offers just to keep potentially good candidates in
| the hook (people with offers at other Big Co.), sometimes force
| candidates to accept offers without a signed paper, so on and so
| forth. Obviously, good candidates get fed up with this and
| decline/renege the offer, we lose them, and the people below them
| too because the negotiation took too long (3-5 months),
|
| 6. I really want to hire motivated individuals, and I know many
| people like me across different teams, but we lose motivation
| over time because of all the roadblocks, and the cycle(s)
| described above repeats.
|
| The whole process is kind of silly. I have reviewed hundreds of
| resume from people who are doing amazing work at other companies,
| but we reject them for very small things. Only two of
| approximately 20 referrals got an offer, and I am 100% sure that
| all of those referrals are as good or better than me (facepalm).
| giantg2 wrote:
| It may not be as easy as people think, but there are also items
| on the list that could be addressed by the company. It should
| not take _several months_ to go from applications to offer for
| most jobs.
|
| It sounds like I would not want to work at Apple with all the
| games HR plays.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| This team is not hiring, or at least not taking it seriously.
| The bar is not high, it's just petty. The only explanation is
| that you literally need something that only a handful of people
| can do, in which case you wouldn't be talking to that many
| people.
| giantg2 wrote:
| And yet if op says this to management/HR, he would be the one
| looking for a job.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| I'm the OP and I don't mean to argue your experience, but my
| post was more pushing back on the idea that non-FAANG companies
| are desperate for people. In other words, I'm pushing back on
| the idea that anyone willing to work outside of FAANG for
| $100k-$150k should be able to find something super quick.
| tacheiordache wrote:
| There's a surplus of devs right now, lots of layoffs and all
| that. I'm sure compensation is going to take a hit till the
| market will stabilize itself. We're going to have a how low
| are you willing to go in the short term future and it's going
| to be a bit rough for everyone.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| I'm not really concerned about this too much. There are
| millions of software developers in the U.S., the tens of
| thousands getting laid off from FAANG are a drop in the
| bucket. Many of them will be absorbed into other upmarket
| positions that I wouldn't get hired into anyway.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| Is it possible your recs are just to support the "We can't find
| anybody so we have to hire foreigners" narrative.
| ryandrake wrote:
| A lot of companies say "we're hiring" but are not _hiring_ ,
| defined as actually extending an offer and actually employing
| someone. They're fishing, but not catching, or they're catching
| and releasing. We need a more precise word than "hiring".
| Everyone can say they're hiring, but they're not actually
| hiring anyone--they're just fishing.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| We're interviewing.
| neilv wrote:
| > _We need a more precise word than "hiring"._
|
| I think it's precise. Two terms:
|
| * Hiring -- When you are actually ready to make offers to
| hire people.
|
| * Pretending -- When you are trying to keep the hiring funnel
| full, or to give the appearance of business doing well, but
| not ready to actually make offers.
| clumsysmurf wrote:
| Another way I have heard this is described is, "we're
| always hiring, and never hiring"
| giantg2 wrote:
| Schrodinger's job opening
| rapind wrote:
| I don't know if this has changed, but I remember most tech
| businesses were perpetually hiring, because part of the visa
| process to bring in workers was a requirement to prove that
| you tried to find local talent first.
|
| (source: I once worked in the states on a TN visa, and this
| was the practice at the time.)
| bernawil wrote:
| I think this comes from the fact that we give a lot of leeway
| to the definition of "supply" and "demand" in common economic
| talk. "I'd totally buy a Ferrari for $500" says nothing about
| the supply or demand for Ferraris.
|
| Economists pull demand curves out of their asses when the
| only verifiable facts are actual, concrete sales.
| amlozano wrote:
| Regarding over the top accomplishments in resumes: every resume
| writing workshop tells you to do this. I don't think you should
| be rejecting these first just because someone listened to the
| advice of "sell yourself".
| mola wrote:
| Or maybe they should, so we can stop with this nonsense and
| make it easier for everyone.
| godelski wrote:
| I think to do that we need to recognize that it is really
| hard to actually evaluate people. Resumes are only a weak
| signal.
|
| A lot of people think they're way better at hiring than
| they are. Just like employees overestimate their skills
| (and are encouraged to because the resume process)
| employers also over estimate their hiring skills (and are
| encouraged to because the bureaucratic process).
| pepy wrote:
| Impossible Is Nothing
| yamtaddle wrote:
| Have a relative who's quite accomplished in HR and recruiting
| and, can confirm, they don't encourage outright lying but
| they do insist you have to stretch everything to the max and
| freely _imply_ a lot more than a very honest person might be
| inclined to.
|
| Judging from the results for people I know who've had this
| person re-work their resumes, it's extremely good advice.
| Non-braggy resumes seem to just get round-filed for not
| knowing how to play the game, even if they're otherwise very
| well-written. I'm sure there are a few folks hiring--probably
| almost all at relatively small enterprises--who have the
| opposite reaction but they're instead rejecting good people
| who are simply playing their hand the best possible way,
| given the rules. Those who fluff up their resumes get _much_
| better results.
| layer8 wrote:
| > Non-braggy resumes seem to just get round-filed for not
| knowing how to play the game
|
| That doesn't make sense, there must be a different
| causality.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I can say that I have generally been a modest person who
| has performed well in the past.
|
| The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
|
| People can have fewer accomplishments and make a big deal
| out of them and get more out of it. I would rather not
| make a big deal out of meaningless stuff. I recently
| certified as an AWS practicioner after my associate level
| certs expired. My manager wants to send an email out to
| the department about that accomplishment. I don't get it
| - it's just practicioner.
| yamtaddle wrote:
| I guess it's also possible that HR people actually
| believe all the stuff on resumes is accurate and think
| those candidates are worse than someone presenting the
| exaggerated version of the exact same work history and
| abilities. I was trying to be generous and assume they
| simply think those are amateurish or are some kind of
| non-conformist or lack-of-social-awareness red flag.
| ghaff wrote:
| Why? People expect it to effectively be a sales document.
| So if you have a bullet item like "One of 100 people
| peripherally involved with only modestly successful
| $PRODUCT," readers would be forgiven for discounting that
| experience.
|
| To be clear, per parent, I'm not saying to lie but things
| can generally be presented in a positive way.
| layer8 wrote:
| My objecting is against "for not knowing how to play the
| game". You're arguing for a more plausible causality.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| One of the twists in the software industry is that
| something that looks braggy to a non-technical recruiter
| can look irrelevant to someone in the know, or from the
| other direction something that looks braggy to a tech
| person can be meaningless to a non-tech person.
|
| For example, if you say that you "developed software that
| saved the company $X million/year," that might look good to
| a non-tech person but a tech person will understand that
| could mean nothing. Maybe you spellchecked comments in a
| sub-subcomponent of a project a thousand people worked on.
| On the other hand you might say you "worked on v1 of the
| Frobnicator library" which might look like nothing to a
| recruiter but which is a legendary accomplishment in the
| field.
|
| In my case I just say what I did in plain language that
| includes a bunch of keywords and hope that's enough.
| Silhouette wrote:
| There's also the possibility that some candidates actually do
| have the track record they claim. If your default assumption
| is that anyone claiming really strong experience is obviously
| exaggerating when you haven't even talked to them then you're
| going to rule out a lot of the best candidates stupidly.
|
| I've been in the bracket where ageism is a factor for a while
| now and so have many of the best people I know who still work
| as ICs. Being told that no-one really has that breadth or
| depth of experience and unicorns don't exist should be
| surprising for this group but sadly isn't any more. If the
| person making the silly comment is an important player in a
| hiring process then that's not a good sign.
|
| The worst I've seen is when you're personally invited in as
| an expert/consultant by someone in your network and then HR
| insist on treating the gig as if they're hiring some random
| junior developer applicant. Objectively the professional
| thing to do if you're getting messed around like that is
| usually to politely disengage but then you risk making your
| friend/colleague look bad. Sometimes going via your network
| is a double-edged sword.
| ketralnis wrote:
| I can confirm the time taken, negotiations, and HR interference
| at Apple. They took about 6 months to get me through their
| process, by which time my current company gave me the promotion
| that I was trying to get by moving companies in the first
| place. (Really a lateral move but to me it was a promotion.)
| pyb wrote:
| What's the political situation ? It may well be that some execs
| further up the chain don't really want your team to be hiring ?
| That would explain the friction.
| twelve40 wrote:
| yes, these problems sounds very solvable if/when someone up
| the chain actually starts to _want_ to hire.
| neon_electro wrote:
| Please start hiring remote folks.
| mejutoco wrote:
| > they write over the top accomplishments in their resumes that
| are hard to believe, at least without proof
|
| Do you ask them for proof or reject them without asking?
| jsjsof wrote:
| Not only that, but lying and stringing people along is extremely
| prevalent.
|
| I truly feel like people doing the hiring have mental health
| issues.
| neon_electro wrote:
| I think it's incentives gone wrong/"metric gaming" masquerading
| as "hiring/interviewing".
|
| People on the other side of the table have metrics to meet and
| a pipeline to keep filled. They care less about how many offers
| are extended.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| Is it possible that you're not passing a DEI filter? A lot of
| companies are running into trouble for not meeting their
| diversity goals, especially bumping into the end of the year.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| "A lot of companies are running into trouble for not meeting
| their diversity goals, especially bumping into the end of the
| year."
|
| Any examples you'd like to share?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Is there any reason not to tick 'African American' and 'Female'
| on those forms? Surely they can't prove anything, right?
| houstonn wrote:
| 34% of white Americans who applied to colleges or
| universities admit to lying about being a racial minority on
| their application
|
| 48% of people who lied claimed to be Native American
|
| 3/4 of people who faked being a racial minority on their
| applications were accepted by the colleges to which they lied
|
| https://thehill.com/changing-
| america/enrichment/education/57...
| notpushkin wrote:
| How does this work? Surely you can't be white, say you're
| black and not get caught. Is that data perhaps anonymized?
| jimbob45 wrote:
| How would they catch you? It's very possible to be of
| African descent and have white skin. Are they going to
| DNA test you?
| frontman1988 wrote:
| Does it also work if you say you identify as a female
| even though you are a male biologically?
| HideousKojima wrote:
| If it doesn't yet then give it 5 years tops.
| kube-system wrote:
| Gender identity is frequently visible. I don't think many
| people are going to fraudulently represent their gender
| identity for a misguided chance at a job.
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| there's more evidence to support that actually being african
| american will hurt you during job interviews
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| I do not believe you could be charged with a crime, no.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. I'm very pro-diversity but leaving that aside, my
| experience on the hiring side is that there is a huge pipeline
| problem of even getting resumes from "diverse" candidates. Any
| company applying some kind of theoretical "filter" must not be
| in a rush to hire at all given how relatively rare these
| candidates are, in which case they wouldn't be likely to hire
| qualified "non-diverse" candidates without this "filter,"
| either. So it doesn't really matter either way.
| mannymanman wrote:
| Companies have diversity goals? I thought that the diversity
| related info wasn't used in hiring, as is stated in all the job
| application forms
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| LOL
|
| Intel pays managers bonuses for hiring people that are
| "underrepresented minorities".
|
| It's apparently totally legal.
| winrid wrote:
| Yes, they do. Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives they are
| called.... :)
| [deleted]
| John23832 wrote:
| There's no proof of this. Don't throw that bait out there with
| nothing to back it up.
| frontman1988 wrote:
| In University recruitments in India, a lot of companies like
| Adobe only hire females. Like 10 people selected from a
| university with 70-80% male students and yet all 10 selected
| are women.
| John23832 wrote:
| That has nothing to do with what has been presented here.
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| Why not? Do you seriously believe racism is never a thing
| that happens in hiring? Because it is, just as it is in
| academia. At least some of the time. Instead of shaming
| people for pointing out the real possibility that racism may
| be at play, consider acknowledging that it may be at play but
| that there's nothing the op can do about it and he or she
| should just keep plugging away. It's a numbers game, with or
| without racism, and you are not helping anyone by dismissing
| what is entirely fair speculation.
| John23832 wrote:
| Because you have no proof for any "end of year" DEI target
| rate limiting. It is entirely what you labeled it as,
| speculation.
|
| I said nothing about racism in hiring practices. I was
| addressing the statement that was made.
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| Okay so let's be clear: you think it is wrong or
| unhelpful to speculate that race or sex may be a factor
| in what the op claims to be observing? Because "baiting?"
|
| What do you mean by baiting? I read that as you trying to
| shame people for even discussing the possibility that
| racism or sexism is a factor. As if it is somehow wrong
| to discuss these things. If you had a different intent,
| please share it.
| John23832 wrote:
| I could speculate because the op is a Taurus. It holds
| just as much weight in the conversation because there's
| no evidence that the op's zodiac or DEI status are used
| to eliminate them in the hiring process.
|
| I used the word bait because unsubstantiated "DEI hate"
| is used on hackernews as lightning rods.
|
| I haven't shamed anyone. If you actually read what I said
| above, you would see that I'm not denying racism in
| hiring exist... but again there's no evidence of that
| here.
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| No evidence? I was not in on any of those specific
| conversations and neither was the op but I've overheard a
| lot of conversations from hiring managers and they did
| explicitly discuss candidates race and sex, and I think
| if you ask around you'll see you are the outlier in
| having never seen evidence that racism and sexism have
| played a role before.
|
| Just because you may not have been around when a tree
| fell in the woods doesn't mean it didn't make a sound.
| John23832 wrote:
| > I was not in on any of those specific conversations and
| neither was the op
|
| To my point that you're speculating about something you
| have no evidence of and know nothing about.
|
| > I've overheard a lot of conversations from hiring
| managers and they did explicitly discuss candidates race
| and sex,
|
| Anectdata.
|
| > I think if you ask around you'll see you are the
| outlier in having never seen evidence that racism and
| sexism have played a role before.
|
| I never said this.
|
| > Just because you may not have been around when a tree
| fell in the woods doesn't mean it didn't make a sound.
|
| You can't speculate that a specific tree was felled with
| an axe rather than a chainsaw when you weren't in the
| woods to see it happen.
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| "You can't speculate that a specific tree was felled with
| an axe rather than a chainsaw when you weren't in the
| woods to see it happen."
|
| -- on the contrary, I'm pretty sure a rational person
| could speculate that a specific tree was felled by an axe
| vs a chainsaw depending on what she knows about loggers
| in a given area from a given culture and during a given
| time period. It's a question of probability. It's normal
| and rational and fair to discuss probabilities when
| speculating. It's unclear that you understand the terms
| you are using though so I'm gonna peace out and wish you
| luck.
| John23832 wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure a rational person could speculate that
| a specific tree was felled by an axe vs a chainsaw
| depending on what she knows about loggers in a given area
| from a given culture and during a given time period. It's
| a question of probability. It's normal and rational and
| fair to discuss probabilities when speculating.
|
| Given that you know nothing about the hiring practices of
| the OP's company, it's safe to say that you know nothing
| about the woods in this analogy either ha.
|
| > It's unclear that you understand the terms you are
| using though so I'm gonna peace out and wish you luck.
|
| I understand very well. You made an analogy, and I made a
| more apt one. But when in doubt, resort to ad hominem.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > the real possibility that racism may be at play
|
| I mean... isn't that the actual justification for DEI
| policies in the first place?
| fdschoeneman wrote:
| That is literally the stated justification for dei
| policies.
| dementis wrote:
| DEI policies are not necessarily also anti-racism
| policies. The devil is in the details as they say.
|
| This is taken from CNBC interview with Lybra
| Clemons(Chief Diversity, Inclusion and Belonging Officer
| at Twilio Inc.)
|
| "This success, as well as Clemons' acclaim for the
| company, is owed to Twilio's commitment to becoming
| "anti-racist." According to Clemons, part of the
| difference between DE&I and anti-racism is self-
| awareness.
|
| "Right before I joined, Twilio said, we're on this
| journey to become anti-racist. And I think we were all
| like, what does that even mean," she tells CNBC Make It.
|
| "I think a lot of people thought it was just a more
| elevated term for diversity, equity inclusion. But as
| we've started to go through the process, we're learning
| that anti-racism is different. DE&I are still very
| foundational and fundamental to work, but anti-racism is
| an active term where you are personally responsible. This
| is about self-awareness and taking full accountability of
| who you are. We are actively promoting equity and racial
| justice through consistent, deliberate decisions that we
| make.""
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/11/the-difference-between-
| dei-a...
|
| Same page archived
|
| https://archive.ph/u92e4#selection-737.0-745.506
| hotdamnson wrote:
| I don't think that 'normal' tech / consulting / software house
| companies have those. It's more of a big corp thing.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I've had a flurry of recruiter's contact me lately. A lot more
| than I usually get. So there is another anecdote for you all.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| [deleted]
| bluedino wrote:
| I've been getting bombarded on LinkedIn recently, but it's all
| low pay, low quality jobs, or things I'm only remotely
| qualified for and not really looking to do (generic 'cyber-
| security' position or some software or system I have on my
| LinkedIn profile involving a job from 8 years ago, for example)
| mrweasel wrote:
| That might be a little different from person to person and
| market to market, but I've been getting more and more
| qualified recruiters contact me. Overall there are fewer, but
| the messages are now clearly from recruiters that have read
| my resume and aren't reaching out in bulk.
|
| That being said, I think operations people and SREs are
| currently doing better than developers.
| neon_electro wrote:
| Wishing you well and success. Been at it 9 months now,
| full-stack Web, plenty of contacts, dozens of interviews
| and tech assessments, one offer that was shit, zero signed
| agreements.
| kidsil wrote:
| Beyond 6 years of experience (let's say 2-3 companies), it's
| somewhat a waste of time for an engineer to apply for jobs.
|
| Your time is better spent reaching out to your existing network
| and ex-colleagues to fish for openings in my experience.
| cbm-vic-20 wrote:
| I was interested in an open position that I was uniquely suited
| for- I have expertise in their field, and I even know a number of
| people at the company, as they were former co-workers. I wasn't
| even able to get an interview there because I'm in the US- and
| they're only willing to hire in Canada and Latin America.
|
| I work at a "second tier" tech company, I'm not making FAANG
| money, and I wouldn't be asking for FAANG money, but companies
| may be shying away from US employees who are more expensive than
| whoever they could find elsewhere.
| rr888 wrote:
| Anyone know about ML? It used to be a different job market, I was
| thinking of moving into that area but now not sure if its bubble
| has been popped or always will be a premium.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| Like everyone else is saying, from what I understand, going
| into ML as an ML expert only really makes sense if you have a
| PhD or at least a master's in the field from a well-known
| school. On the other hand there seem to be lots of ML companies
| who need more general software developers.
| throwawaysleep wrote:
| Flooded at the entry level by Coursera certs and MS in Data
| Science from University You Have Never Heard Of. Used to work
| for an ML company that hires the entry level cert people for
| $19 an hour as consultants. They have an endless pool of cheap
| hires.
| Salgat wrote:
| ML falls into a few broad categories: model design, data
| preparation, and deployment. Unfortunately if you don't have a
| PhD, most serious places won't have you doing model design. To
| add to that, data preparation is very tedious. So the "sexy"
| part of ML (making the models) is pretty difficult to gain
| access to.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| You don't need the Ph.D if you do Ph.D things (publishing at
| top conferences).
|
| Hidden cheat code they don't tell grad students about.
| bluedino wrote:
| I don't have a degree, period, so I can't be hired where I
| work (contractor). But I spend a lot of time fixing Python
| code written by PhD's. There's a lot of 'glue' work to be
| done that traditional IT can't really handle and the actual
| scientists doing the work usually don't know much about.
| dadjoker wrote:
| I experienced this same thing in 2020 when I was hunting for my
| current job. I lost count of how many places I applied to.
|
| Over the past year, I have been on the hiring side, and I can
| offer a few tips as well, based on filtering through many resumes
| and doing many interviews.
|
| 1) Don't list 20 different technologies and claim to be an expert
| in all of them. There is no way for someone to be a true "expert"
| in many technologies/languages, and if you get specific questions
| about these technologies, you will be exposed (something that
| happened multiple times when I was interviewing).
|
| 2) Pay attention to what tools the job requires and tailor your
| resume/cover letter accordingly. It doesn't do us much good to
| tell me you have experience with something else that we don't use
| or care about. That being said, if you don't have a lot of
| experience with what we use, make it clear that you are willing
| to learn. We know that we will not always get someone who meets
| every requirement.
|
| 3) As amazing as it is to have to say this; be courteous and
| communicate. For instance, if something comes up and you can't
| make an interview time, let the company know ahead of time;
| ghosting will hurt you.
|
| 4) If you don't do well on a code test (Leetcode, TestDome, etc),
| don't blame the platform for not doing well. If you are not
| willing to accept responsibility now, what will you do when you
| are working for us and something goes wrong with your code?
| neon_electro wrote:
| Do you really think code tests like the ones you mentioned are
| an effective way to screen candidates? I will outright drop out
| of consideration for a role if Leetcode is mentioned. I'm not
| putting up with it.
| dadjoker wrote:
| Yes, but it depends. In our case, we purposely made them
| fairly simple, with a 50% passing score required, just to
| make sure they can do the basics.
|
| When I was applying, I would get code tests that were off the
| charts, and would take hours, where they would say that
| setting up a user and roles system on top of everything else
| should only take 3 or 4 hours, or I would get grilled on
| language minutia that were things I had never encountered in
| my day to day work. In ou se case, ee were just trying to
| have them demonstrate a minimal amount of code capability
| without overwhelming them.
| anon50118810 wrote:
| OP here. This is good advice but is also basic stuff, maybe
| good for new grads or people with weak social or interviewing
| skills. I don't think any of this is an issue for me.
|
| For your number (4) it's also important for the hiring side to
| accept responsibility for choosing to send applicants through
| one of these platforms. If you set your candidates up to fail,
| and then they fail, should you own that failure or should they?
| This is a signal to the candidate too. Practically though, the
| candidate should just gracefully move on if they are rejected.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I've had a flurry of recruiter's contact me lately. A lot more
| than I usually get. Non-FAANG, 2 YOE. So there is another
| anecdote for you all.
| ramesh31 wrote:
| Recruiter spam is just noise. It has almost no correlation to
| job offers whatsoever.
| heyflyguy wrote:
| I'm a business owner and hire SE roles on a regular clip. I'll
| share some things with you, the market is totally unpredictable
| right now. Even with some projected wins, we don't know what a
| new/mixed US Administration will mean. Investigations? Deadlock?
| New laws that impact us? We have record inflation for our career
| lifetimes and we seem to have entered a recession, but people
| still disagree on if we're in it and how long we'll last. My
| customers are all experiencing this, and while that emotion has
| slowed orders they have not stopped.
|
| All of these things together as a business owner, going into
| holiday times; make me keep the mindset that hiring anyone right
| now for a non-essential position can probably wait until I can
| understand better what our company's financial picture is going
| to look like.
|
| edit for typo
| thisarticle wrote:
| > I'll share some things with you, the market is totally
| unpredictable right now. Even with some projected wins, we
| don't know what a new/mixed US Administration will mean.
|
| How does what the US admin look like impact your business? Do
| you provide services to the government?
| anon50118810 wrote:
| This is a good example of what I mean by saying employers
| aren't desperate. If you're thinking about the outcome of the
| election or any of that, you're not desperate. Desperate means
| you have a pile of work and the value proposition of pulling
| someone in to do it is obvious.
|
| There's nothing wrong with that unless you're giving mixed
| signals to your applicants. Accepting resumes for a perpetual
| "general interest" position is no problem. Posting a new
| listing for a specific position and then assuring an applicant
| during the first interview that you're actively recruiting when
| in fact you're really ambivalent is not good. I'm not accusing
| you of doing that, I'm just saying, is all.
| breck wrote:
| We are. https://pldb.com
| theknocker wrote:
| fbrncci wrote:
| You are right about the portfolio, I personally have one together
| which is quite nice, I brush it up every month, and it has had
| companies chasing me.
| freedom2099 wrote:
| I guess I am lucky... but I never had to "look for a job". My
| fort job after graduation was the company itself that reached out
| while I was finishing my studies (and was not the only one... I
| was overwhelmed by offers). After that every time I changed job
| is because the company I moved to reached out to me. I am in
| Europe though... maybe the market in the US is tough!
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