6 ms·

What you're seeing is actually the opposite problem. That candidates aren't obsessed enough with a potential "false positive" hire where they end up working som

What you're seeing is actually the opposite problem. That candidates aren't obsessed enough with a potential "false positive" hire where they end up working somewhere they don't actually want to work. You can't tell me that someone applying for 40 positions a week truly wants to work at all 40 of those places. Primarily, the candidate just wants any job he/she can get because of the fear of unemployment.

cryoshon 11y ago
"Fear of unemployment" is a necessary abstraction, but consider what unemployment actually means. Let's say you are unemployed, and living with your parents-- a very common situation for this generation. You're getting bled each month by your student loans, even if you no other bills, which you probably do. The candidate wants to work at any one of those 40 places, because otherwise they go into default and ruin their credit and probably their parents' credit too. If you don't live at home, the stakes are losing your apartment or car. This isn't some unreasonable fear; bills need to get paid, and there's an entire generation that is struggling to do so because their largest bill just won't go away.
- caskance 11y ago
  I'm not saying that people aren't justified in fearing unemployment. I'm just saying that fear pressures them into making suboptimal decisions. It's even worse because 99% of those people immediately stop looking for work, often with a huge sigh of relief, after they've found a stable job.
  - tomp 11y ago
    > immediately stop looking for work [...] after they've found a stable job As opposed to what?! Any potential employer will ask you in an interview, "Why are you looking to leave your job so soon?". What are you going to say? "Oh, I'm just trying to find something better." - a surefire way to instill trust in your interviewer and get hired /sarcasm.
    - caskance 11y ago
      And anyone worried about not having a good answer to that question doesn't list the job they just started last month in their employment history.
      - tomp 11y ago
        I'm not sure it's that easy... At least in the UK, the employer will sooner or later find out about your previous employment, because you'll need to give the new employer some PXX tax forms. In any case, I'm not sure being unemployed is actually that much better.
msandford 11y ago
Right, but a real problem is that the HR "match the keywords" whack-a-mole filter is totally random! 10 years of experience for a framework that's only been around for 8 years means that only the liars qualify and the honest folks don't. You don't know how people are going to evaluate your resume but statistically a bunch of companies aren't going to grade people holistically. But since you can't know a priori which company hires which way, the solution that people have settled on is to blast out a million resumes and hope that some make it past the keyword matchers and to actual human beings making hiring decisions. That's where the actual match-making takes place. But if you don't send out enough resumes to make it through the arbitrary, unpredictable filtering stage you don't make it to the matchmaking stage which means you're unemployed.
- caskance 11y ago
  It's a positive feedback loop. If it were not for pressure on applicants to find a job, any job, would every employer get bombarded by so many poorly written resumes that they would feel the need to implement such filters?
  - msandford 11y ago
    Yeah I'm not suggesting that the candidates are entirely innocent. But I think the companies share a bigger portion of the blame. If they didn't want to get a million responses they could do things to limit their responses to people who actually want the job like say not allowing people to apply online, or making people apply in person, or requiring a cover letter of a certain length, or whatever. But what has happened is that the companies set up these online systems to ostensibly make their own lives easier. Candidates have responded to the environment that they live in and started resume spamming. Companies respond by using overly-precise keyword matching to filter out candidates, despite the unsuitability. It's not as though job seekers started printing resumes by the thousands and sticking them to the door of every business in their town and the companies had to adapt to this by making online systems to reduce the crushing influx of paper.
    - caskance 11y ago
FilterSweep 11y ago
> That candidates aren't obsessed enough with a potential "false positive" hire where they end up working somewhere they don't actually want to work. You can't tell me that someone applying for 40 positions a week truly wants to work at all 40 of those places. This sounds like a whole lot of blaming the candidate. It also assumes that the candidate could even land one of those 40 positions in the first place. I applied to a whole lot more before I landed mine - as did most of my peers now in our early-mid 20s who didn't get swooped up in a career fair early on in the process. You can't really tell me that someone applying for a job _in the first place_ truly wants to work (instead of pursuing a passion they like) period. More likely, the candidate doesn't want(keyword) to work at any of those 40 places at all. And here's the kicker: The candidate should not be faulted for that if he or she is competent at the job and works hard. The modern age has shown a lot of workers being faithful to their companies and having that faithfulness be an expected one-way street. Look at the firings of Disney and IBM Engineers. The Disney engineers had to even educate their replacements at reduced salary. I'd love to be spending all my days producing music and building native iOS apps, but that's not how the world works. So, I work somewhere I tolerate working, somewhere I work well. And I count my blessings for it - not many millennials are as lucky as me.
- caskance 11y ago
  I have real trouble believing a competent developer can't find a job developing native iOS apps in this job market.
  - FilterSweep 11y ago
    Why would I do something I truly love for someone elses dream?
    - caskance 11y ago
      Presumably because you can't afford to pay rent doing it for your own.
    - jkaunisv1 11y ago

cryoshon 11y ago

"Fear of unemployment" is a necessary abstraction, but consider what unemployment actually means. Let's say you are unemployed, and living with your parents-- a very common situation for this generation. You're getting bled each month by your student loans, even if you no other bills, which you probably do. The candidate wants to work at any one of those 40 places, because otherwise they go into default and ruin their credit and probably their parents' credit too. If you don't live at home, the stakes are losing your apartment or car. This isn't some unreasonable fear; bills need to get paid, and there's an entire generation that is struggling to do so because their largest bill just won't go away.

caskance 11y ago
I'm not saying that people aren't justified in fearing unemployment. I'm just saying that fear pressures them into making suboptimal decisions. It's even worse because 99% of those people immediately stop looking for work, often with a huge sigh of relief, after they've found a stable job.
- tomp 11y ago
  > immediately stop looking for work [...] after they've found a stable job As opposed to what?! Any potential employer will ask you in an interview, "Why are you looking to leave your job so soon?". What are you going to say? "Oh, I'm just trying to find something better." - a surefire way to instill trust in your interviewer and get hired /sarcasm.
  - caskance 11y ago
    And anyone worried about not having a good answer to that question doesn't list the job they just started last month in their employment history.
    - tomp 11y ago
      I'm not sure it's that easy... At least in the UK, the employer will sooner or later find out about your previous employment, because you'll need to give the new employer some PXX tax forms. In any case, I'm not sure being unemployed is actually that much better.

msandford 11y ago

Right, but a real problem is that the HR "match the keywords" whack-a-mole filter is totally random! 10 years of experience for a framework that's only been around for 8 years means that only the liars qualify and the honest folks don't. You don't know how people are going to evaluate your resume but statistically a bunch of companies aren't going to grade people holistically. But since you can't know a priori which company hires which way, the solution that people have settled on is to blast out a million resumes and hope that some make it past the keyword matchers and to actual human beings making hiring decisions. That's where the actual match-making takes place. But if you don't send out enough resumes to make it through the arbitrary, unpredictable filtering stage you don't make it to the matchmaking stage which means you're unemployed.

caskance 11y ago
It's a positive feedback loop. If it were not for pressure on applicants to find a job, any job, would every employer get bombarded by so many poorly written resumes that they would feel the need to implement such filters?
- msandford 11y ago
  Yeah I'm not suggesting that the candidates are entirely innocent. But I think the companies share a bigger portion of the blame. If they didn't want to get a million responses they could do things to limit their responses to people who actually want the job like say not allowing people to apply online, or making people apply in person, or requiring a cover letter of a certain length, or whatever. But what has happened is that the companies set up these online systems to ostensibly make their own lives easier. Candidates have responded to the environment that they live in and started resume spamming. Companies respond by using overly-precise keyword matching to filter out candidates, despite the unsuitability. It's not as though job seekers started printing resumes by the thousands and sticking them to the door of every business in their town and the companies had to adapt to this by making online systems to reduce the crushing influx of paper.
  - caskance 11y ago

FilterSweep 11y ago

> That candidates aren't obsessed enough with a potential "false positive" hire where they end up working somewhere they don't actually want to work. You can't tell me that someone applying for 40 positions a week truly wants to work at all 40 of those places. This sounds like a whole lot of blaming the candidate. It also assumes that the candidate could even land one of those 40 positions in the first place. I applied to a whole lot more before I landed mine - as did most of my peers now in our early-mid 20s who didn't get swooped up in a career fair early on in the process. You can't really tell me that someone applying for a job _in the first place_ truly wants to work (instead of pursuing a passion they like) period. More likely, the candidate doesn't want(keyword) to work at any of those 40 places at all. And here's the kicker: The candidate should not be faulted for that if he or she is competent at the job and works hard. The modern age has shown a lot of workers being faithful to their companies and having that faithfulness be an expected one-way street. Look at the firings of Disney and IBM Engineers. The Disney engineers had to even educate their replacements at reduced salary. I'd love to be spending all my days producing music and building native iOS apps, but that's not how the world works. So, I work somewhere I tolerate working, somewhere I work well. And I count my blessings for it - not many millennials are as lucky as me.

caskance 11y ago
I have real trouble believing a competent developer can't find a job developing native iOS apps in this job market.
- FilterSweep 11y ago
  Why would I do something I truly love for someone elses dream?
  - caskance 11y ago
    Presumably because you can't afford to pay rent doing it for your own.
  - jkaunisv1 11y ago