15 ms·

Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

366 points by johnny313 10y ago

chiefofgxbxl 10y ago
Minus the dog learning to type at the end, sounds like my experience applying for jobs: submit application online to several places, get a "resume received" email, some automated email a few days later to get one's hopes up, and then get that denial email. I don't want to hear some euphemistic email detailing how I was a very strong candidate but among a large qualified pool of applicants or how the team was impressed with my resume but unable to move forward at this time... just tell me I didn't get the job already and cut out all the flowery soup.
- jansho 10y ago
  > ... just tell me I didn't get the job already and cut out all the flowery soup. Amen to that. Recently I submitted five applications and four of them ended up as duds. What really annoys me is that I had to chase the recruiters to find out for myself that either the job is too senior or they forgot to take down the advert. The best one so far is when a recruiter claimed they never received my application when I got a confirmation email earlier. Please guys, don't be lazy! Don't play games! Don't make me look desperate, geez.
  - lacampbell 10y ago
    After I've sent out an application I don't give it any more thought. I don't wonder if it's been read or if they'll ask for an interview or how long it will take them. I look for the next job to apply to. As far as I am concerned, a rejection wastes both of our time. Unless they want an interview, why bother communicating any further?
    - jansho 10y ago
      Not when I was deeply interested in those jobs, and took my time tailoring the applications to them. I don't usually mass-send my CV, I prefer to shortlist jobs and focus on them. See, I would appreciate at least a note about the outcomes. But it's either no contact or it drags on for ages until they somehow realise that the position is no longer available. It's a bit unbelievable, and I'm starting to doubt myself. These days too I notice that recruiters have become more mechanical and not very interested in finding out more about you as a person. It's like they forgot that they've got two clients, the organisation and the applicant. Sigh. To be honest I've never had this experience before so it's a bit demoralising. But hey let's keep carrying on.
      - lacampbell 10y ago
        I would honestly question why you are spending a long time tailoring an application, or pinning hopes on any one application. I wouldn't say I mass send CVs - but I try not to spend over an hour because I don't see it as a good time investment. Anyway I'm hardly an expert, but this attitude and process has helped me.
        rleigh 10y ago
        Why? Because there are two extremes here: 1) Selectively applying only for positions in companies where you truly care about the specifics of the role and the overall purpose of the company, because you want a specialised role and/or professional progression. 2) Indiscriminately applying for anything which vaguely seems like you might be able to do, even if it's not a good match and you care little about it. I've not done a huge amount of interviewing, but last time I did so it was painfully obvious which categories the CVs fell into. All the (2) applicants were immediately rejected on the grounds of not meeting the required job criteria or were ranked much lower than the (1) candidates for not having relevant experience in the area or zero demonstrated interest in the area or specific position either on paper or in the interview. You must tailor both the CV and cover letter to make a good impression. That's the careers advice I was given, and it's good advice. Not taking the time to do so makes it much more likely your application will be rejected outright, or be ranked below better applications. If your application doesn't demonstrate any clear interest or specific aptitude for the position, it's going to naturally make you appear less desirable than candidates with the same skills which do. The CV is selling you to the people reading it, and if no effort is made to market your skills and experience for the position on offer, then you're selling yourself short. Last time I had to apply for a job, I spent a lot of time looking over job listings, and submitted four applications to four places, all tailored bar one. I got four interviews and three job offers. The hours spent tailoring each application paid off in terms of the response. And I got a job in a field I cared about, rather than something random. The one I didn't get an offer for was with Google, and that was mostly untailored because they weren't hiring for a specific role; I wouldn't have accepted an offer in any event, so no loss for that one!
        10y ago
apsec112 10y ago
In my job search, I've been surprised by how often you submit a resume online, and then you don't even get a rejection email. It's a true "black hole" in that you never hear back, not even with a "no thanks". I think it's disrespectful of candidates to ask them to spend time filling out an application, and then leave them hanging because you're (presumably) too lazy to read it.
- kintamanimatt 10y ago
  Part of the reason is that rejected candidates tend to ask why they were rejected, which is a massive time sink. The logic goes that it's better to black hole than it is to be inundated with requests for reasons.
  - soneca 10y ago
    A clearly automatic rejection with some corporative language is not particularly nice or warm, but fulfills the role of notifying the rejection without any room for this time sinking demand.
    - chiph 10y ago
      Seriously. All it takes is a form letter, and then you know for certain. Dear Applicant, We're sorry but we have decided not to go forward with your application at the present time. We will keep your CV on file for 6 months in case our needs change. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
  - throwaway2048 10y ago
    Yeah, god forbid corporations show some common courtsey lest it cost small amounts of money.
  - dilemma 10y ago
    No, it is a status and power play. People that apply are unworthy of a reply. You really want to be head hunted, or get a warm intro. I have personal experience being black holed when applying and hired when introduced, and know others for which the same has happened.
jellin 10y ago
I have almost 10 years of experience and I've been looking for a job for the last year. I've sent applications to some companies, carefully selected and for which I'm 100% enthusiast about. I've sent custom cover letters, I've been studied the product and provided feedback and improvements. And still I don't deserve even an email saying that I've been rejected. With some companies I was exchanging email, providing all the info, and then suddenly I never received any further reply. I think that it's good for the company to filter out candidates, but something must change, as candidates we expect at least a rejection email, especially when your life depends on it.
- siculars 10y ago
  You don't depend on them. They depend on you. Always remember that wherever you work: they are renting your time, you are always working to better yourself. Keep staying positive and know there is an opportunity out there for you. Don't get discouraged!
  - dukeluke 10y ago
    IT workers are losing leverage in the US. Many have been offshored, and most remaining positions are being centralized to a handful of tech hubs in the country. It's good to not lose hope, but don't think as an IT worker, your have infinite leverage.
    - bobbington 10y ago
      The advantage of a us based coder is significant. Being in person allows you to build a relationship and trust. My mom always taught me how important that is, and I agree 100%. I think the reason I get business over people in India who work 10x cheaper is that I show people I can be trusted.
  - darpa_escapee 10y ago
    When there's an applicant pool of 100 people who can do your job just as well as you, they do not depend on solely on you.
gnarbarian 10y ago
The worst is when you have to fill out countless repetitive and exhaustive applications for ONE job because they don't have enough a proper interface to indeed/LinkedIn/etc I probably spent 7 hours on application paperwork for my current job. Complete with detailed personal history that had to be 100% accurate going back 10 years. I had 3 other offers expire before I got my offer from my current employer. Then once I accepted it was another month before I knew if I passed the background checks. That wanted me to start a few days after I finally knew without giving proper notice to my current employer too! Thankfully this only had one 3 hour casual interview and it was more a waiting game than endless hours poured into interviews for a job I might not get. I knew this would be a better choice than the other offers and I'm glad I did what I did.
- busterarm 10y ago
  I accepted an offer at a subcontractor at Gulfstream once. Crazy process, including them demanding I send all kinds of crazy info including SSN via email unencrypted. Anyway, I spent several weeks asking them over and over when my start date was supposed to be, because eventually my soon-to-be employer's contract with GD was going to expire and I also wanted to give my current employer notice. After a couple of months of this, I got fed up on a Friday and wrote an email telling them that I'm rescinding my offer and they went crazy and then kept calling me through the weekend and telling me I could start on Monday begging me to start...telling me I should just walk away from my current employer with no notice. Walked away from that situation and never looked back. Glad I did it. My background check cost them nearly $500 and I imagine it hurt their relationship with General Dynamics. First clue should have been the fact their entire HR department was offshored.
  - siculars 10y ago
    Good for you! Seriously! Love hearing these stories so don't dv me... encouraging others to share.
  - gnarbarian 10y ago
    The only thing that kept me going on this was excellent communication with both my new manager and HR. They guided me through the process and were very honest about where we stood and how I should answer ambiguous questions in the application. I was certain I would pass the background check but nonetheless it felt unnerving to let those other offers expire for something that was not really a sure thing. Also some of the background checks can cost quite a bit more than $500. The preliminary ones are fast but the thorough federal one I'm undergoing now takes around 6 months. I passed a similar one a few years ago which cost the employer more than 30k and took more than a year to compete.
Overtonwindow 10y ago
This is the finest account of the resume/employer process I have ever laid eyes on.
kareemsabri 10y ago
As a counter example, I got a great job from one of those black holes.
- shawnz 10y ago
  What makes it a black hole if you got a reply?
  - a3n 10y ago
    Black holes emit radiation from their edge, when incoming material is disintegrated.
good_vibes 10y ago
+1 for entrepreneurship
mbfg 10y ago
Fake News! Companies never respond to you at all, even when prompted.
M_Grey 10y ago
I've been so thoroughly broken by naming schemes like "Gravity" or "Flaming Biscuit" or whatever, that I've basically trained myself (at least here) to read things like "Black Hole" as a project name. Imagine my brief consternation when I thought, "Who in their right mind would name a resume hosting service 'Black Hole'?!"... then saw the source and felt incredibly stupid. Beyond that, let me just add my voice to the multitude shouting, "Holy shit, yes, and it's terrible!"
- tormeh 10y ago
  I recently deleted an issue in redmine while meaning to delete a comment. It had a confirmation popup saying "do you really want to delete this issue?". I thought "sure, in Redmine they probably call comments issues."
amgin3 10y ago
In my experience in searching for a job, companies invite for 3 interviews and a coding test, then decide the position isn't clearly defined, so they restart the entire process and ask you to re-apply. Then you go through 3 more interviews and another coding test, and then one more interview, then you never hear from the company again. Since the whole process took 4-months, you are now broke and homeless.
crispyambulance 10y ago
The best way to avoid the "black hole" is to not throw your resume into it in the first place. Instead, use your professional networks and friends. Reach out to actual human beings. Find any way you can to bypass the bullshit online job application systems and HR departments. When people (or programs) go through a stack of resumes, it's all about finding reasons to eliminate as many as possible as quickly as possible using the flimsiest of criteria. Of course it's going to create hard feelings but what should one expect when putting oneself into a giant horde of applicants?
- arvinsim 10y ago
  So you're screwed if you didn't invest in contacts early in your career even if you have the needed experience and skills? Having a good professional network is not something you can just "turn on" at will.
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    You would be surprised. With a few months of investment attending local meetups, you can meet a lot of people. If you take the extra step and, say, volunteer for speaking engagements, you can establish yourself as an authority in your area of expertise fairly quickly. You won't become a DHH overnight, but you'll still be miles ahead of those who still play the resume game.
    - speeder 10y ago
      What to do if you don't have resources to do that? (Example: me. No friends, negative net worth, zero income, no car, no bicycle, no bus money, most clothes have holes in them)
      - Pxl_Buzzard 10y ago
        Getting involved in the community of open source software is a good strategy. If you can prove your technical chops along with being friendly and open to giving and receiving feedback you'll make good professional contacts.
akhilcacharya 10y ago
That's why it's best to just directly contact a recruiter.
dkarapetyan 10y ago
I'm more and more convinced that being a cog in some corporate machine is coming to an end. We've collectively refined corporate processes to the point that it no longer requires human ingenuity or creativity. This has all happened under the guise of making things more efficient so that a stock ticker will be less volatile and will consistently move up and to the right. The candidate tracking software that this article parodies is one example of such an automated and "efficient" system. One gets the sense that the recruiters are almost secondary. Soon a "dog" will really be able to screen candidates for a job. I don't think I'm saying anything new here. The mechanization of such work has been happening for a while now and the smart move is to start planning for that inevitability. Anything that requires basic pattern matching and procedures is pretty much gone. My retirement account I think is currently managed by a "robo advisor". Hiring humans to do such mechanical tasks will start getting more and more expensive relative to tweaking some parameters in some neural network coupled maybe with some domain specific policy/optimization framework. Personally I don't think this is such a bad state of affairs. Why should societal optimization tasks be handled with heroic human effort when we can just do it with math?
- troymc 10y ago
  While math can be used to optimize some function(s) (for "societal optimization"), math is silent about the question of what to optimize. There's no general agreement about that. (For example, should there be regulations to reduce river pollution?)
  - dkarapetyan 10y ago
    Sure but what do you trust more, a properly designed control system with various safeguards to allow for the right amount of river pollution, or politicians arguing about which of their buddies should get the rights to polluting that river the most? In the future I imagine your question about the river pollution is almost nonsensical. That is if we manage to actually get there. Going by current news about the future of earth's ecology we might not actually make it much further. Gotta admit though heroic human optimizations seemed like they got us pretty far but the lag time in reacting to things is a bit too long when humans are in the loop. So the sooner they are out of that critical loop the better. Speaking of which: http://www.sciencealert.com/photos-reveal-more-than-200-bright-blue-arctic-lakes-have-started-bubbling-with-methane-gas http://www.sciencealert.com/photos-reveal-more-than-200-brig...
Tagore 10y ago
I've literally never gotten a job by sending out resumes. Every single job I've had I got through some connection or another. I actually refused to send my current job a resume. The conversation went like this: Can you send them a resume? No- here's my LinkedIn. But can you send them a resume? No- here's my LinkedIn. OK, can you come in for an interview? Interview. A month passes. Can you come in for another interview? Interview. Hired.
- rhodysurf 10y ago
  Counter point, I have gotten two job offers by just submitting resumes online. But I work in a state without tons of competing talent, so that could help.
  - BoysenberryPi 10y ago
    What state if you don't mind me asking? I really want to just move out to the midwest or somewhere where there aren't a lot of programmers.
    - kkhire 10y ago
      if you're a programmer, you can move anywhere in the midwest and get a job easy and the hours are chill too compared to east and west coast
    - rhodysurf 10y ago
      I live in RI and there are tons of jobs to fill with Navy engineering contractors. I just so happen to be a software engineer with an Ocean Engineering degree so it fits my mold better than most.
    - Tagore 10y ago
      New England (not a state, but let's not get too specific here,) but off the beaten track. Small town with a big University. There are really only about four companies around here who could credibly offer me offer me a job doing something I want to do at a rate I want to do it for. That's a double-edged sword. On one hand I have to be pretty careful not to burn bridges or hop jobs, cause if I want to stay around here I'll run out of both quickly. On the other hand established developers around here all know each other, pretty much, so the network effect is very, very strong. And that even means easy intros to people who work remotely for interesting companies elsewhere (which seems to be more and more a thing.) Just in the last month I've met people, through my local network, who work for places like Trello, Circle, etc. The Circle guy in particular- well, he came up to introduce himself after a talk I gave, and some of what he's doing for Circle is very much up my alley, so if I wanted a different job or a remote job (I don't at the moment) I might hit him up.
economicanxiety 10y ago
Has anyone had any luck with Workday? Is it possible to game the system by special keywords? Should I attach my resume as PDF or expound it in the form?
Tagore 10y ago
The issue here is that it's very, very difficult to figure out if someone can code, at all, from a resume. You might have a masters in CS and still be hopeless when it comes to actually writing even very simple things. You'd be surprised at how often that is the case... So, when I hire, I do so through through connections. I ask friends "Do you know anyone who can actually code who is looking for a job?" And if it's just me, that's the end of it, but... let's say I'm hiring for a venture-backed firm, or for a department in a bank or something. In that case, I have a fiduciary duty to put a job ad out there, and I have to be able to show that I received a lot of resumes and "looked them over." By which I mean unceremoniously threw away. Who has the time to look over 1,000 resumes, most of which are complete bullshit? I was going to hire my friend's friend anyway, but I had to solicit your resume along with many others to provide some cover. I threw your resume away without glancing past the education section (if you had gone to an Ivy I might have looked twice.) Capisce?
- jachee 10y ago
  Sounds like you waste a lot of people's time to lie to higher-ups.
  - Tagore 10y ago
    Yep- don't hate the player, hate the game. I'm legally obligated to do so in some cases. That's what fiduciary means.
    - tutufan 10y ago
      You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
      - Tagore 10y ago
        Except that is what it means. The term is used mainly in certain contexts these days, so you might have gotten the impression that it only applies in those contexts, but 'fiduciary' has a broader meaning. To quote from Wiki (I know): "[t]he distinguishing or overriding duty of a fiduciary is the obligation of undivided loyalty" and I'd argue that taking on capital imposes just such an obligation, such that trying to hire the people most likely to maximize your investors return is indeed a fiduciary duty, one that implies other duties.
ryandrake 10y ago
Whenever this subject comes up, predictably the answer here is always Blah blah blah network network network. For a demographic always looking for the scalable solution to a problem, HN seems pretty attached to the least scalable option. The numbers just don't make sense to me. Let's generously assume that you meet and have excellent working relationships with 100 people at each of the 4 jobs you've had. Of those 400 people, say, conservatively, 50% think so highly of you that they'd be willing to stick their neck out help you with your next job search. Out of those 200 people, 50% are no longer working for that company. Out of those 100 people, let's optimistically assume you actively kept in touch with all of them over the years. Now, maybe 50% are working for a company where you'd actually like to apply. Out of those 50 companies, 20% actually have a job opening that fits your background. Out of those 10, maybe 2 actually know and can put you in touch with the hiring manager for that opening. And your success chance through the interview pipeline has got to be worse than 50%. Tweak my numbers up or down a little, but I think it's a pipe dream for most workers: You have to have an enormous address book full of high-power contacts in order to end up at the end of the funnel with one or two who are both willing and able to successfully help you get a job. And once you've exhausted that network (all it takes is to blow a few interviews), then what?
- Tagore 10y ago
  Dunno- I got my current job through exactly one connection. I wasn't even sure I wanted a job, at the time, but he kept pestering me to come in and interview, and eventually I did. I'm not unhappy about it- it's nice to have a paycheck. But I think your math is off.
  - sametmax 10y ago
    It is off because it assumes : - you need powerful people - you need to know people well - you need to know them IRL - you need to know them if they know you - one person can only help you get a job at one place - the person must be in your line of work However my experience has been rather: - anybody has the potential to bring you an opportunity. They have friends, family and colleagues, and they talk. My first internship was from the cousin of a friend of my mother needing somebody. 3 layers of indirection. - superficial relationships (met once in a meetup, sport club, whatever) do carry opportunity. When people are looking for a worker, they prefer somebody they know, but will rarely find it and settle for anybody they can assess. - IRC channels, forum and social networks are all doors to get jobs. Even MMORPG, MOBA or RTS. Actually they are filled with geeks, they all work in companies having some need for a recruitment or the other. And they are having fun with you. - Even if you don't know somebody, if the person knows your work, it's a start. Github is a great personal showcase. I personally don't send my resume first, but my link to my stackoverflow account because it's quite famous in the Python community. - people can talk about you to somebody working at another company who heard someone needed somebody, etc. Actually it often works that way: informal networking is the way humans connect the best. This is something I learned in Africa where it's the way of life, it's a lost art in our countries, were we do it reluctantly if we have no way around it. - I'm currently working for a transport facility. Because my flat mate, not an IT person at all, works for one of their contractor, and he knows the project manager for one stuff where they needed something to be coded and he hooked us up. How ? We played laser tag 2 years ago, and so they know me and we just had diner to seal the deal. It's that stupid. And it worked. I delivered the software and they were happy.
batguano 10y ago
No way all this happens in a mere two months. It'd get dragged out for four, at least.
jkaljundi 10y ago
Have been toying around with an idea of recruitment and job application service which would try to turn the tables and show candidates who's interested in them. So instead of applying, the first step would be a question from candidate to company saying "tell me more about this job". The company would then need to actively get back to the candidate. The advantage to the company would be a much larger pool of candidate contacts, although they would also need to work those contacts more. It might not be a solution for jobs and company types described in this thread, but in many industries, company types and countries the lack of candidates is a much bigger problem than too many candidates.
- JSeymourATL 10y ago
  > the first step would be a question from candidate to company saying "tell me more about this job". The company would then need to actively get back to the candidate. Such a service exists. It's called Retained Search, an old-school, high-touch, high-feel service reserved for executive level, mission-critical roles. It's also expensive, 25-33% of first year target compensation. Naturally, companies are incentivized to use cheaper approaches first.
cardiffspaceman 10y ago
For how ever many weeks you might wish to collect unemployment checks, you have to show that you're looking actively, in my jurisdiction. One might have a network of contacts but it's going to take some time for that network to lead to the kind of events that count as evidence that you're looking for work. On the other hand the black holes can lead to lots of events of that nature. So worst case, the black holes actually generate something (is Hawking radiation the right term?) that you can use to keep those checks coming.
dezb 10y ago
what a waste of my life reading that stupid page..
lukaszjb 10y ago
WTF I just read?
- jkaljundi 10y ago
  Humour (or humor in American English) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.
tiatia 10y ago
You would not believe me how many applications I wrote. I know the black hole. There are a few rules. Never apply to a job that uses Taleo, SAP or any other "application" interface. A real job requires to send or upload a resume and an _OPTIONAL_ cover letter. Ignore everything else. Never apply for a job that requires anything unusual (only non-smokers, hand written resume, time of birth for astrological evaluation, hard copy of application etc.). I am even skeptical about "motivational" letters. All these are signs that your future boss is nuts. Be very open to create "sample" work, like a 10 page marketing plan or an "investment analysis of 5 companies". Just be very clear that this will be billed at your consulting rate too. Remember the second most stupid people work in HR (with the most stupid people working in real estate). This does not mean the every HR person is an idiot - in fact I am sure there are brilliant people -, it is just a reflection of the entry requirements for these jobs. I never really found a decent job after my PhD and I was desperate for years. The funny thing is: Now I get sometimes offered two jobs a day by just meeting people. I don't even engage in the conversation. They wouldn't be able to offer any salary that would make me even considering taking a job. And if I look at my former peer, never getting a job in the past may be the best thing that ever happened to me.
rampage101 10y ago
I don't get why referral is counted for so much especially when there are referral bonuses which would encourage employees to refer basically anybody they know. With all these companies having massive HR departments, I also don't understand how a resume goes unread or un-responded to when it takes maybe 10 minutes max to go through a resume thoroughly.
- alain94040 10y ago
  You grossly over-estimate the time it takes to read a resume. It's way below 30 seconds per resume. Probably on average closer to 10. Try it for yourself: set up a timer, open your resume. How quickly can you figure out how much experience you have, do the job titles match more or less the position, any description that lists similar stacks to the one your group uses? 10 seconds.
  - rampage101 10y ago
    It takes 10 seconds to read a resume? So you just throw out the resume if you don't immediately see "similar stacks"? I wrote "thoroughly" meaning reading the whole thing, and possibly looking at their links, or doing some small research about something on their resume.
wott 10y ago
I've had a recruiter writing me to thank me for my application, but unfortunately blah blah résumé blah blah position blah blah. The thing is I had never applied to anything at her company nor sent her a résumé, I had just asked her a question once. Which she had never answered...
bgribble 10y ago
I have actually had really good experiences as both a job seeker and a hiring manager with Hired. Their platform makes it easier to keep track of candidates and makes it less likely they will fall through the cracks. My experience with hiring in the past is that startups that do it completely internally with no HR or recruiter support are likely to get overwhelmed and drop the ball. Recruiters drive the process along but they are motivated to put any ass in the seat and are not usually completely trustworthy from either the job seeker or the client side. A marketplace solution like Hired, Vettery, etc makes the process lot more transparent and has a rhythm that helps keep hiring managers on task. Of course I'm a programmer and I'm in NYC and what works for me, here doesn't work for everybody, everywhere.

366 points by johnny313 10y ago

Minus the dog learning to type at the end, sounds like my experience applying for jobs: submit application online to several places, get a "resume received" email, some automated email a few days later to get one's hopes up, and then get that denial email. I don't want to hear some euphemistic email detailing how I was a very strong candidate but among a large qualified pool of applicants or how the team was impressed with my resume but unable to move forward at this time... just tell me I didn't get the job already and cut out all the flowery soup.

jansho 10y ago
> ... just tell me I didn't get the job already and cut out all the flowery soup. Amen to that. Recently I submitted five applications and four of them ended up as duds. What really annoys me is that I had to chase the recruiters to find out for myself that either the job is too senior or they forgot to take down the advert. The best one so far is when a recruiter claimed they never received my application when I got a confirmation email earlier. Please guys, don't be lazy! Don't play games! Don't make me look desperate, geez.
- lacampbell 10y ago
  After I've sent out an application I don't give it any more thought. I don't wonder if it's been read or if they'll ask for an interview or how long it will take them. I look for the next job to apply to. As far as I am concerned, a rejection wastes both of our time. Unless they want an interview, why bother communicating any further?
  - jansho 10y ago
    Not when I was deeply interested in those jobs, and took my time tailoring the applications to them. I don't usually mass-send my CV, I prefer to shortlist jobs and focus on them. See, I would appreciate at least a note about the outcomes. But it's either no contact or it drags on for ages until they somehow realise that the position is no longer available. It's a bit unbelievable, and I'm starting to doubt myself. These days too I notice that recruiters have become more mechanical and not very interested in finding out more about you as a person. It's like they forgot that they've got two clients, the organisation and the applicant. Sigh. To be honest I've never had this experience before so it's a bit demoralising. But hey let's keep carrying on.
    - lacampbell 10y ago
      I would honestly question why you are spending a long time tailoring an application, or pinning hopes on any one application. I wouldn't say I mass send CVs - but I try not to spend over an hour because I don't see it as a good time investment. Anyway I'm hardly an expert, but this attitude and process has helped me.
      - rleigh 10y ago
        Why? Because there are two extremes here: 1) Selectively applying only for positions in companies where you truly care about the specifics of the role and the overall purpose of the company, because you want a specialised role and/or professional progression. 2) Indiscriminately applying for anything which vaguely seems like you might be able to do, even if it's not a good match and you care little about it. I've not done a huge amount of interviewing, but last time I did so it was painfully obvious which categories the CVs fell into. All the (2) applicants were immediately rejected on the grounds of not meeting the required job criteria or were ranked much lower than the (1) candidates for not having relevant experience in the area or zero demonstrated interest in the area or specific position either on paper or in the interview. You must tailor both the CV and cover letter to make a good impression. That's the careers advice I was given, and it's good advice. Not taking the time to do so makes it much more likely your application will be rejected outright, or be ranked below better applications. If your application doesn't demonstrate any clear interest or specific aptitude for the position, it's going to naturally make you appear less desirable than candidates with the same skills which do. The CV is selling you to the people reading it, and if no effort is made to market your skills and experience for the position on offer, then you're selling yourself short. Last time I had to apply for a job, I spent a lot of time looking over job listings, and submitted four applications to four places, all tailored bar one. I got four interviews and three job offers. The hours spent tailoring each application paid off in terms of the response. And I got a job in a field I cared about, rather than something random. The one I didn't get an offer for was with Google, and that was mostly untailored because they weren't hiring for a specific role; I wouldn't have accepted an offer in any event, so no loss for that one!
        10y ago

apsec112 10y ago

In my job search, I've been surprised by how often you submit a resume online, and then you don't even get a rejection email. It's a true "black hole" in that you never hear back, not even with a "no thanks". I think it's disrespectful of candidates to ask them to spend time filling out an application, and then leave them hanging because you're (presumably) too lazy to read it.

kintamanimatt 10y ago
Part of the reason is that rejected candidates tend to ask why they were rejected, which is a massive time sink. The logic goes that it's better to black hole than it is to be inundated with requests for reasons.
- soneca 10y ago
  A clearly automatic rejection with some corporative language is not particularly nice or warm, but fulfills the role of notifying the rejection without any room for this time sinking demand.
  - chiph 10y ago
    Seriously. All it takes is a form letter, and then you know for certain. Dear Applicant, We're sorry but we have decided not to go forward with your application at the present time. We will keep your CV on file for 6 months in case our needs change. Best of luck in your future endeavors.
- throwaway2048 10y ago
  Yeah, god forbid corporations show some common courtsey lest it cost small amounts of money.
- dilemma 10y ago
  No, it is a status and power play. People that apply are unworthy of a reply. You really want to be head hunted, or get a warm intro. I have personal experience being black holed when applying and hired when introduced, and know others for which the same has happened.

jellin 10y ago

I have almost 10 years of experience and I've been looking for a job for the last year. I've sent applications to some companies, carefully selected and for which I'm 100% enthusiast about. I've sent custom cover letters, I've been studied the product and provided feedback and improvements. And still I don't deserve even an email saying that I've been rejected. With some companies I was exchanging email, providing all the info, and then suddenly I never received any further reply. I think that it's good for the company to filter out candidates, but something must change, as candidates we expect at least a rejection email, especially when your life depends on it.

siculars 10y ago
You don't depend on them. They depend on you. Always remember that wherever you work: they are renting your time, you are always working to better yourself. Keep staying positive and know there is an opportunity out there for you. Don't get discouraged!
- dukeluke 10y ago
  IT workers are losing leverage in the US. Many have been offshored, and most remaining positions are being centralized to a handful of tech hubs in the country. It's good to not lose hope, but don't think as an IT worker, your have infinite leverage.
  - bobbington 10y ago
    The advantage of a us based coder is significant. Being in person allows you to build a relationship and trust. My mom always taught me how important that is, and I agree 100%. I think the reason I get business over people in India who work 10x cheaper is that I show people I can be trusted.
- darpa_escapee 10y ago
  When there's an applicant pool of 100 people who can do your job just as well as you, they do not depend on solely on you.

gnarbarian 10y ago

The worst is when you have to fill out countless repetitive and exhaustive applications for ONE job because they don't have enough a proper interface to indeed/LinkedIn/etc I probably spent 7 hours on application paperwork for my current job. Complete with detailed personal history that had to be 100% accurate going back 10 years. I had 3 other offers expire before I got my offer from my current employer. Then once I accepted it was another month before I knew if I passed the background checks. That wanted me to start a few days after I finally knew without giving proper notice to my current employer too! Thankfully this only had one 3 hour casual interview and it was more a waiting game than endless hours poured into interviews for a job I might not get. I knew this would be a better choice than the other offers and I'm glad I did what I did.

busterarm 10y ago
I accepted an offer at a subcontractor at Gulfstream once. Crazy process, including them demanding I send all kinds of crazy info including SSN via email unencrypted. Anyway, I spent several weeks asking them over and over when my start date was supposed to be, because eventually my soon-to-be employer's contract with GD was going to expire and I also wanted to give my current employer notice. After a couple of months of this, I got fed up on a Friday and wrote an email telling them that I'm rescinding my offer and they went crazy and then kept calling me through the weekend and telling me I could start on Monday begging me to start...telling me I should just walk away from my current employer with no notice. Walked away from that situation and never looked back. Glad I did it. My background check cost them nearly $500 and I imagine it hurt their relationship with General Dynamics. First clue should have been the fact their entire HR department was offshored.
- siculars 10y ago
  Good for you! Seriously! Love hearing these stories so don't dv me... encouraging others to share.
- gnarbarian 10y ago
  The only thing that kept me going on this was excellent communication with both my new manager and HR. They guided me through the process and were very honest about where we stood and how I should answer ambiguous questions in the application. I was certain I would pass the background check but nonetheless it felt unnerving to let those other offers expire for something that was not really a sure thing. Also some of the background checks can cost quite a bit more than $500. The preliminary ones are fast but the thorough federal one I'm undergoing now takes around 6 months. I passed a similar one a few years ago which cost the employer more than 30k and took more than a year to compete.

Overtonwindow 10y ago

This is the finest account of the resume/employer process I have ever laid eyes on.

kareemsabri 10y ago

As a counter example, I got a great job from one of those black holes.

shawnz 10y ago
What makes it a black hole if you got a reply?
- a3n 10y ago
  Black holes emit radiation from their edge, when incoming material is disintegrated.

good_vibes 10y ago

+1 for entrepreneurship

mbfg 10y ago

Fake News! Companies never respond to you at all, even when prompted.

M_Grey 10y ago

I've been so thoroughly broken by naming schemes like "Gravity" or "Flaming Biscuit" or whatever, that I've basically trained myself (at least here) to read things like "Black Hole" as a project name. Imagine my brief consternation when I thought, "Who in their right mind would name a resume hosting service 'Black Hole'?!"... then saw the source and felt incredibly stupid. Beyond that, let me just add my voice to the multitude shouting, "Holy shit, yes, and it's terrible!"

tormeh 10y ago
I recently deleted an issue in redmine while meaning to delete a comment. It had a confirmation popup saying "do you really want to delete this issue?". I thought "sure, in Redmine they probably call comments issues."

amgin3 10y ago

In my experience in searching for a job, companies invite for 3 interviews and a coding test, then decide the position isn't clearly defined, so they restart the entire process and ask you to re-apply. Then you go through 3 more interviews and another coding test, and then one more interview, then you never hear from the company again. Since the whole process took 4-months, you are now broke and homeless.

crispyambulance 10y ago

The best way to avoid the "black hole" is to not throw your resume into it in the first place. Instead, use your professional networks and friends. Reach out to actual human beings. Find any way you can to bypass the bullshit online job application systems and HR departments. When people (or programs) go through a stack of resumes, it's all about finding reasons to eliminate as many as possible as quickly as possible using the flimsiest of criteria. Of course it's going to create hard feelings but what should one expect when putting oneself into a giant horde of applicants?

arvinsim 10y ago
So you're screwed if you didn't invest in contacts early in your career even if you have the needed experience and skills? Having a good professional network is not something you can just "turn on" at will.
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  You would be surprised. With a few months of investment attending local meetups, you can meet a lot of people. If you take the extra step and, say, volunteer for speaking engagements, you can establish yourself as an authority in your area of expertise fairly quickly. You won't become a DHH overnight, but you'll still be miles ahead of those who still play the resume game.
  - speeder 10y ago
    What to do if you don't have resources to do that? (Example: me. No friends, negative net worth, zero income, no car, no bicycle, no bus money, most clothes have holes in them)
    - Pxl_Buzzard 10y ago
      Getting involved in the community of open source software is a good strategy. If you can prove your technical chops along with being friendly and open to giving and receiving feedback you'll make good professional contacts.

akhilcacharya 10y ago

That's why it's best to just directly contact a recruiter.

dkarapetyan 10y ago

I'm more and more convinced that being a cog in some corporate machine is coming to an end. We've collectively refined corporate processes to the point that it no longer requires human ingenuity or creativity. This has all happened under the guise of making things more efficient so that a stock ticker will be less volatile and will consistently move up and to the right. The candidate tracking software that this article parodies is one example of such an automated and "efficient" system. One gets the sense that the recruiters are almost secondary. Soon a "dog" will really be able to screen candidates for a job. I don't think I'm saying anything new here. The mechanization of such work has been happening for a while now and the smart move is to start planning for that inevitability. Anything that requires basic pattern matching and procedures is pretty much gone. My retirement account I think is currently managed by a "robo advisor". Hiring humans to do such mechanical tasks will start getting more and more expensive relative to tweaking some parameters in some neural network coupled maybe with some domain specific policy/optimization framework. Personally I don't think this is such a bad state of affairs. Why should societal optimization tasks be handled with heroic human effort when we can just do it with math?

troymc 10y ago
While math can be used to optimize some function(s) (for "societal optimization"), math is silent about the question of what to optimize. There's no general agreement about that. (For example, should there be regulations to reduce river pollution?)
- dkarapetyan 10y ago
  Sure but what do you trust more, a properly designed control system with various safeguards to allow for the right amount of river pollution, or politicians arguing about which of their buddies should get the rights to polluting that river the most? In the future I imagine your question about the river pollution is almost nonsensical. That is if we manage to actually get there. Going by current news about the future of earth's ecology we might not actually make it much further. Gotta admit though heroic human optimizations seemed like they got us pretty far but the lag time in reacting to things is a bit too long when humans are in the loop. So the sooner they are out of that critical loop the better. Speaking of which: http://www.sciencealert.com/photos-reveal-more-than-200-bright-blue-arctic-lakes-have-started-bubbling-with-methane-gas http://www.sciencealert.com/photos-reveal-more-than-200-brig...

Tagore 10y ago

I've literally never gotten a job by sending out resumes. Every single job I've had I got through some connection or another. I actually refused to send my current job a resume. The conversation went like this: Can you send them a resume? No- here's my LinkedIn. But can you send them a resume? No- here's my LinkedIn. OK, can you come in for an interview? Interview. A month passes. Can you come in for another interview? Interview. Hired.

rhodysurf 10y ago
Counter point, I have gotten two job offers by just submitting resumes online. But I work in a state without tons of competing talent, so that could help.
- BoysenberryPi 10y ago
  What state if you don't mind me asking? I really want to just move out to the midwest or somewhere where there aren't a lot of programmers.
  - kkhire 10y ago
    if you're a programmer, you can move anywhere in the midwest and get a job easy and the hours are chill too compared to east and west coast
  - rhodysurf 10y ago
    I live in RI and there are tons of jobs to fill with Navy engineering contractors. I just so happen to be a software engineer with an Ocean Engineering degree so it fits my mold better than most.
  - Tagore 10y ago
    New England (not a state, but let's not get too specific here,) but off the beaten track. Small town with a big University. There are really only about four companies around here who could credibly offer me offer me a job doing something I want to do at a rate I want to do it for. That's a double-edged sword. On one hand I have to be pretty careful not to burn bridges or hop jobs, cause if I want to stay around here I'll run out of both quickly. On the other hand established developers around here all know each other, pretty much, so the network effect is very, very strong. And that even means easy intros to people who work remotely for interesting companies elsewhere (which seems to be more and more a thing.) Just in the last month I've met people, through my local network, who work for places like Trello, Circle, etc. The Circle guy in particular- well, he came up to introduce himself after a talk I gave, and some of what he's doing for Circle is very much up my alley, so if I wanted a different job or a remote job (I don't at the moment) I might hit him up.

economicanxiety 10y ago

Has anyone had any luck with Workday? Is it possible to game the system by special keywords? Should I attach my resume as PDF or expound it in the form?

Tagore 10y ago

The issue here is that it's very, very difficult to figure out if someone can code, at all, from a resume. You might have a masters in CS and still be hopeless when it comes to actually writing even very simple things. You'd be surprised at how often that is the case... So, when I hire, I do so through through connections. I ask friends "Do you know anyone who can actually code who is looking for a job?" And if it's just me, that's the end of it, but... let's say I'm hiring for a venture-backed firm, or for a department in a bank or something. In that case, I have a fiduciary duty to put a job ad out there, and I have to be able to show that I received a lot of resumes and "looked them over." By which I mean unceremoniously threw away. Who has the time to look over 1,000 resumes, most of which are complete bullshit? I was going to hire my friend's friend anyway, but I had to solicit your resume along with many others to provide some cover. I threw your resume away without glancing past the education section (if you had gone to an Ivy I might have looked twice.) Capisce?

jachee 10y ago
Sounds like you waste a lot of people's time to lie to higher-ups.
- Tagore 10y ago
  Yep- don't hate the player, hate the game. I'm legally obligated to do so in some cases. That's what fiduciary means.
  - tutufan 10y ago
    You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
    - Tagore 10y ago
      Except that is what it means. The term is used mainly in certain contexts these days, so you might have gotten the impression that it only applies in those contexts, but 'fiduciary' has a broader meaning. To quote from Wiki (I know): "[t]he distinguishing or overriding duty of a fiduciary is the obligation of undivided loyalty" and I'd argue that taking on capital imposes just such an obligation, such that trying to hire the people most likely to maximize your investors return is indeed a fiduciary duty, one that implies other duties.

ryandrake 10y ago

Whenever this subject comes up, predictably the answer here is always Blah blah blah network network network. For a demographic always looking for the scalable solution to a problem, HN seems pretty attached to the least scalable option. The numbers just don't make sense to me. Let's generously assume that you meet and have excellent working relationships with 100 people at each of the 4 jobs you've had. Of those 400 people, say, conservatively, 50% think so highly of you that they'd be willing to stick their neck out help you with your next job search. Out of those 200 people, 50% are no longer working for that company. Out of those 100 people, let's optimistically assume you actively kept in touch with all of them over the years. Now, maybe 50% are working for a company where you'd actually like to apply. Out of those 50 companies, 20% actually have a job opening that fits your background. Out of those 10, maybe 2 actually know and can put you in touch with the hiring manager for that opening. And your success chance through the interview pipeline has got to be worse than 50%. Tweak my numbers up or down a little, but I think it's a pipe dream for most workers: You have to have an enormous address book full of high-power contacts in order to end up at the end of the funnel with one or two who are both willing and able to successfully help you get a job. And once you've exhausted that network (all it takes is to blow a few interviews), then what?

Tagore 10y ago
Dunno- I got my current job through exactly one connection. I wasn't even sure I wanted a job, at the time, but he kept pestering me to come in and interview, and eventually I did. I'm not unhappy about it- it's nice to have a paycheck. But I think your math is off.
- sametmax 10y ago
  It is off because it assumes : - you need powerful people - you need to know people well - you need to know them IRL - you need to know them if they know you - one person can only help you get a job at one place - the person must be in your line of work However my experience has been rather: - anybody has the potential to bring you an opportunity. They have friends, family and colleagues, and they talk. My first internship was from the cousin of a friend of my mother needing somebody. 3 layers of indirection. - superficial relationships (met once in a meetup, sport club, whatever) do carry opportunity. When people are looking for a worker, they prefer somebody they know, but will rarely find it and settle for anybody they can assess. - IRC channels, forum and social networks are all doors to get jobs. Even MMORPG, MOBA or RTS. Actually they are filled with geeks, they all work in companies having some need for a recruitment or the other. And they are having fun with you. - Even if you don't know somebody, if the person knows your work, it's a start. Github is a great personal showcase. I personally don't send my resume first, but my link to my stackoverflow account because it's quite famous in the Python community. - people can talk about you to somebody working at another company who heard someone needed somebody, etc. Actually it often works that way: informal networking is the way humans connect the best. This is something I learned in Africa where it's the way of life, it's a lost art in our countries, were we do it reluctantly if we have no way around it. - I'm currently working for a transport facility. Because my flat mate, not an IT person at all, works for one of their contractor, and he knows the project manager for one stuff where they needed something to be coded and he hooked us up. How ? We played laser tag 2 years ago, and so they know me and we just had diner to seal the deal. It's that stupid. And it worked. I delivered the software and they were happy.

batguano 10y ago

No way all this happens in a mere two months. It'd get dragged out for four, at least.

jkaljundi 10y ago

Have been toying around with an idea of recruitment and job application service which would try to turn the tables and show candidates who's interested in them. So instead of applying, the first step would be a question from candidate to company saying "tell me more about this job". The company would then need to actively get back to the candidate. The advantage to the company would be a much larger pool of candidate contacts, although they would also need to work those contacts more. It might not be a solution for jobs and company types described in this thread, but in many industries, company types and countries the lack of candidates is a much bigger problem than too many candidates.

JSeymourATL 10y ago
> the first step would be a question from candidate to company saying "tell me more about this job". The company would then need to actively get back to the candidate. Such a service exists. It's called Retained Search, an old-school, high-touch, high-feel service reserved for executive level, mission-critical roles. It's also expensive, 25-33% of first year target compensation. Naturally, companies are incentivized to use cheaper approaches first.

cardiffspaceman 10y ago

For how ever many weeks you might wish to collect unemployment checks, you have to show that you're looking actively, in my jurisdiction. One might have a network of contacts but it's going to take some time for that network to lead to the kind of events that count as evidence that you're looking for work. On the other hand the black holes can lead to lots of events of that nature. So worst case, the black holes actually generate something (is Hawking radiation the right term?) that you can use to keep those checks coming.

dezb 10y ago

what a waste of my life reading that stupid page..

lukaszjb 10y ago

WTF I just read?

jkaljundi 10y ago
Humour (or humor in American English) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.

tiatia 10y ago

You would not believe me how many applications I wrote. I know the black hole. There are a few rules. Never apply to a job that uses Taleo, SAP or any other "application" interface. A real job requires to send or upload a resume and an _OPTIONAL_ cover letter. Ignore everything else. Never apply for a job that requires anything unusual (only non-smokers, hand written resume, time of birth for astrological evaluation, hard copy of application etc.). I am even skeptical about "motivational" letters. All these are signs that your future boss is nuts. Be very open to create "sample" work, like a 10 page marketing plan or an "investment analysis of 5 companies". Just be very clear that this will be billed at your consulting rate too. Remember the second most stupid people work in HR (with the most stupid people working in real estate). This does not mean the every HR person is an idiot - in fact I am sure there are brilliant people -, it is just a reflection of the entry requirements for these jobs. I never really found a decent job after my PhD and I was desperate for years. The funny thing is: Now I get sometimes offered two jobs a day by just meeting people. I don't even engage in the conversation. They wouldn't be able to offer any salary that would make me even considering taking a job. And if I look at my former peer, never getting a job in the past may be the best thing that ever happened to me.

rampage101 10y ago

I don't get why referral is counted for so much especially when there are referral bonuses which would encourage employees to refer basically anybody they know. With all these companies having massive HR departments, I also don't understand how a resume goes unread or un-responded to when it takes maybe 10 minutes max to go through a resume thoroughly.

alain94040 10y ago
You grossly over-estimate the time it takes to read a resume. It's way below 30 seconds per resume. Probably on average closer to 10. Try it for yourself: set up a timer, open your resume. How quickly can you figure out how much experience you have, do the job titles match more or less the position, any description that lists similar stacks to the one your group uses? 10 seconds.
- rampage101 10y ago
  It takes 10 seconds to read a resume? So you just throw out the resume if you don't immediately see "similar stacks"? I wrote "thoroughly" meaning reading the whole thing, and possibly looking at their links, or doing some small research about something on their resume.

wott 10y ago

I've had a recruiter writing me to thank me for my application, but unfortunately blah blah résumé blah blah position blah blah. The thing is I had never applied to anything at her company nor sent her a résumé, I had just asked her a question once. Which she had never answered...

bgribble 10y ago

I have actually had really good experiences as both a job seeker and a hiring manager with Hired. Their platform makes it easier to keep track of candidates and makes it less likely they will fall through the cracks. My experience with hiring in the past is that startups that do it completely internally with no HR or recruiter support are likely to get overwhelmed and drop the ball. Recruiters drive the process along but they are motivated to put any ass in the seat and are not usually completely trustworthy from either the job seeker or the client side. A marketplace solution like Hired, Vettery, etc makes the process lot more transparent and has a rhythm that helps keep hiring managers on task. Of course I'm a programmer and I'm in NYC and what works for me, here doesn't work for everybody, everywhere.