9 ms·

Why the Job Search Sucks

67 points by NetOpWibby 9y ago

ionforce 9y ago
Isn't this one of those asymmetry things where the hiring company has no incentive to make the process pleasant? They hold all the power/keys etc. Before people jump in with "what about negative Glassdoor reviews" or "negative reputation", I'm saying that all things taken into account, the equation is still in favor of the company. I don't know.
- Chyzwar 9y ago
  It is complicated. My team is trying to hire but it is almost impossible to get a decent candidate. It is a massive time sink and still depends more on luck than anything else.
  - ryandrake 9y ago
    The hiring market is like a disfunctional dating market: A whole bunch of mediocre singles complaining they can't find supermodels of the opposite (or their preferred) sex.
    - ionforce 9y ago
      So there should be optimal pairing... I guess the problem is if both sides are exercising minimums. "I don't want the best of the shitty programmers remaining, I want someone with at least this much experience." I don't want some random company, I want a supermodel!
    - Chyzwar 9y ago
      It is more like: all hot girls/boys are already taken only leftovers that cannot complete fizzbuzz are left. Unless your company is hot or you can poach people from your network you will have big problem hiring.
- expertentipp 9y ago
  I think, collecting anegdotal examples, that we might have a particular crisis right now which reached the widely understood IT as well. Companies simply don’t want to hire, if they do they want compliance and dirt cheap. Many recruiting people I had little pleasant dealing with treat recruitment like buying an item - demand experience with exact technology match and an obedient person as well (“1-2 hours” code assignment). The situation is in a deadlock.
- apple4ever 9y ago
  It really isn't, even though they think it is. They are losing out on so many good candidates which does affect the bottom line.
draw_down 9y ago
I just try not to take everything too personal. Companies rely on their process like gospel, when in reality it only emits a very noisy signal. It's a no until it's a yes, etc. It sucks, I agree. Our industry generally sucks, so it comes as no surprise.
thenewestkid 9y ago
It was nice to randomly find your name here (: Good luck with the interviews, I totally agree with your points. Your blog improved a lot since I last checked it! (The NX framework guy)
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Haha, hey man! Yeah, I've been improving it bit by bit.
huydotnet 9y ago
Hey, just wanna stop by to say hi! I was in the same situation, the company I working for ran out of cash for no reason and I got no paycheck since November too :(
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Damn, that sucks. I hope we both find an awesome place to work soon!
sheeshkebab 9y ago
I think the answer to age bias (that author referred to) is remote work. No one gives a shit how old you are if all you need is code, slack, email, and zoom/webex. Or so is my experience.
- neosavvy 9y ago
  I have to say I've been told numerous times by folks when they find out what I do "Oh, you can work anywhere". Needless to say maybe I have been looking in all the wrong places for remote opportunities, but getting paid a reasonable rate + being remote seems hard to find. I think the general nature of interviews is flawed - I've seen companies pass on great candidates who test well over some silly comment they made about a previous project, or because of "team fit".
- pinewurst 9y ago
  Speaking as a mostly remote worker, you still have to get by a lot of the screening BS - and commonly awful HR treatment - before you can start work. Also many places think they can pay a lot less for a remote person.
  - neosavvy 9y ago
    Do you use many of the services like Hired / Vettery or Remote seeking these gigs? I'll be honest I just haven't put much effort into it quite yet - still trying to arrange a few other projects in the event one of them takes off. I am just resided to the "if it doesn't exist - make it yourself" but it sure is taking a lot of patience out of me to make it so.
    - pinewurst 9y ago
      I've not had good luck with Hired, but I haven't been a developer in quite a long time. Mostly it's been "make it yourself" which is unfortunate, I agree.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Hmm! I never thought about suggesting that. I'll do so if/when I attend a similar seminar.
PretzelFisch 9y ago
I hate not getting feedback and the time it takes now to interview. On the other side of the desk, I have regretted not putting up the same code challenge and whiteboard sessions with people I interviewed and hired.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Yep, it's a massive time sink. I'd want tips on how to make that time matter or be utilized better.
zer00eyz 9y ago
FTA: "These tests and whiteboarding are not indicative of your skill level, they are approximations of what you can do with what is likely to be limited information and ambiguous scope." If I'm going to make you get up at a white board (and I might) it isn't going to be to write code on it. We don't hand designers white board markers and say "draw monkey draw" - because it isn't their medium and neither is it ours. If I am going to get you up at the white board it is going to be to show me a diagram (probably database) or how you think something "should flow" (boxes and arrows) to see if you can COMMUNICATE a concept. If you can't do that then we have issues -- because at some point your going to have to do that very thing to convey an idea to a colleague and if you can't we have a PROBLEM. There isn't really a "right" answer to this setup, but there are plenty of wrong ones - ones that show you either lack basic knowledge or communication skills needed to do the job.
- matthew3 9y ago
  I like this explanation, I hadn't put it into words before but it feels intuitively correct. For most positions, your ability to communicate what you're doing to the rest of the team is way more important than your ability to write fancy code, or do something like a sample project that isn't our actual day-to-day-codebase. That communication is what's going to keep the team disciplined design wise, keep things consistent, and keep the codebase extensible. And keep morale up since everybody is capable of getting on the same page with everybody. Dealing with ambiguous scope is the single biggest thing I want in a candidate, so if you don't like dealing with that, you're not going to like working with me anyway. But here's the thing, from my perspective: when's the last time you worked with product or business people who gave you 100% perfect information and specs up-front and then didn't change them? If you can build in a way that allows for future change based on the needs of the team/company/market, then you're very valuable. > I've never met someone who performs exceptionally well with thinking on the spot in front of people they've never met when the grand prize is gainful employment. I also want to know, based on this line, how many people the author has interviewed themselves. Cause I've interviewed a few (it's at least in the 100+ area) and have seen as many people do well in that sort of environment as have frozen up. Not uncommon for them to do better than I'd expect myself to do, either, algorithmically - but neither does that always translate directly to an offer, if they're bad at the communication or wrinkle-handling parts.
tschellenbach 9y ago
This is an area were AI could really help improve discovery. I see more and more job sites leverage personalized feed technology similar to the Facebook and YouTube. One could argue its perhaps more useful for job sites :) Also check out this blogpost: https://getstream.io/blog/personalized-job-feeds-machine-learning/ https://getstream.io/blog/personalized-job-feeds-machine-lea...
barryhoodlum 9y ago
"I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of tech companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS." You don't have experience 99% of employers want, and your response is to stubbornly write it off as a fad? Maybe that's got something to do with it? If you have zero experience, how do you know it's gross?
- morinted 9y ago
  "I hate what I don't understand"
- thidr0 9y ago
  That's like a company saying "We make a product, but 99.999999% of our target market want some feature we don't have. IDIOTS!" Guess what, in this scenario, you (specifically your labor) is the product.
- azangru 9y ago
  I am actually wondering how many readers of the blog post rolled their eyes here. I am not saying that React is the best thing ever; there may be different arguments against using it, but man, this "CSS in JS" (or, alternatively, "HTML in JS") argument is not even funny anymore. I would have discarded this as a meaningless complaint coming from a hardcore backend developer who is repeating the principles of single responsibility and separation of concerns he has heard in older days and has not yet had a chance to realize that a component is no lesser way of thinking about separation of concerns than an html or a css file. But judging by the appearance of the blog site, the author is a frontend developer, with pretty decent skills. I am confused.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    As a mostly back end developer, snazzy front end templates are either cheap or free.
    - 9y ago
codingdave 9y ago
> At least I know not to waste my time waiting on you. So don't. If they don't meet your communication expectations, then it isn't a good match anyway. So don't wait. Move along. > These tests and whiteboarding are not indicative of your skill level No, they indicate your ability to work and talk through problems. I'm not sure where this idea that whiteboarding is about skill level came from. You can cram/study algorithms. But you can't fake the thinking process, or how you approach a problem. You can't fake your communication style. And that is what doing it in a stressful situation shows - how do you really think and communicate under pressure? > Maaaaan, go fuck yourself. Hmm. OK, you are being honest about your feelings, but... does anyone ever get a better result in their job search after ranting about it online? Does an employer ever call you and say, "Well, we were on the fence, but after seeing you F-bomb other companies, we decided we liked you!" I'd save these rants for AFTER you get a job.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  > If they don't meet your communication expectations, then it isn't a good match anyway. So don't wait. Move along. You do realize this is like, every employer right? Or maybe I have bad luck. Your last point is good and I thought about it for a good minute before I decided to go with it anyway because, if these companies don't care about me, why should I care about them? I'm already in the reject pile, right?
- Clubber 9y ago
  >But you can't fake the thinking process, or how you approach a problem. You can't fake your communication style. And that is what doing it in a stressful situation shows - how do you really think and communicate under pressure? Totally different type of pressure. You're assuming timeline pressure and social pressure is the same thing. It is not. >does anyone ever get a better result in their job search after ranting about it online? I don't believe that was his objective. Maybe some hiring manager will read this while simultaneously complaining about not being able to find anyone and a light will come on. Maybe not.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Totally different type of pressure. You're assuming timeline pressure and social pressure is the same thing. It is not. If I'm applying for a senior developer/architect position, I should be able to think of a high level solution on the spot. When I was looking for a job a year or so ago, I thought I was interviewing for a regular developer position. I didn't realize I was interviewing for a lead position and they were looking for someone to create a development department from scratch. The first thing my now manager asked me was what steps I would take in the next 3-6 months to create the department.
dmm 9y ago
""" I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of tech companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS. """ React is just a library for mapping state to ui elements, right? I've been using react and all of my css lives in separate .css files. Is that not typical? Maybe they are just venting frustration but maybe blowing off what employers want is indicative of other issues or a bad attitude.
expertentipp 9y ago
> Writing CSS in JS? GROSS. Similarly jsx is writing HTML in JS. The whole evolution of web was to separate, modularize, componentize the concepts (DOMs, CSS, JS, HTML5 APIs, templates etc.), what on fucking earth happened?
- ng12 9y ago
  The goalposts moved. We went from building websites to building SPAs, and the biggest problem there was reusing/abstracting/modularizing logic.
- nickthemagicman 9y ago
  It's still separated, modularized, componentized, just on a web component level instead of a file level.
gwbas1c 9y ago
One thing about feedback: Too much feedback helps candidates game the system. This ultimately leads to bad hires, who end up getting fired. It hurts the process overall. When interviewing with a good interviewer, he (or she) knows that whiteboard sessions / tests / projects are just hypothetical situations. If I throw an unfamiliar API in front of you, and you ask certain wrong questions, I know you're not going to work out. If you "get it" and can move forward, I know you're going to be able to learn all the weirdo stuff that you need to learn in order to do the job. But, something I learned when I was in a similar situation: Companies that demand a LOT of upfront, grueling time in the interview process should be avoided. Once a call drags out beyond 45 minutes, or the coding test is just too time consuming, it's time to walk away. Regarding whiteboarding, if the candidate argues with me about why we're using a particular API, I pretty much reject the candidate. (No, we can't use the new threading API, I want to see how you can learn this API. No, we can't use an ORM, I want to make sure that you understand how to use a database.)
- cantrip 9y ago
  These all seem like highly subjective criteria, which is the whole problem with the way hiring works in first place.
  - gwbas1c 9y ago
    You might think it's subjective, but it's more like people arguing over whether it's a 6 or a 9. There's only one right answer. In this case, I'm trying to filter out the morons, and people who can't disagree and commit. The idiots who argue with me that we should use a different API (for the interview question) get rejected immediately. The actual programming question is pretty mindless and any competent software engineer should be able to figure it out in under 10 minutes. But the bigger reason is that in an engineering situation, people who argue over subjective things often times just waste everybody's time. Certain decisions were made and there is really no good reason to go back and revisit them.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  > Regarding whiteboarding, if the candidate argues with me about why we're using a particular API, I pretty much reject the candidate. (No, we can't use the new threading API, I want to see how you can learn this API. No, we can't use an ORM, I want to make sure that you understand how to use a database.) YUCK. One of the first things I will do when presented with a technical scenario is start questioning the problem's parameters, including API choice. Interviewer: "Show me how you'd store a list of items in C++." Me: "Well, depending on the expected usage pattern I'd reach for one of the standard library's containers like std::list since it is time tested, robust, and comes with the compiler." Interviewer: "No, er, I mean if you don't have std::list... I want to know you can implement something from scratch." Me: "Am I really going to be working on a project without the language's library?? You generally don't want someone's hand-rolled linked list in production code." I guess not wanting to waste the company's time re-implementing a wheel makes me a bad candidate.
phantom_oracle 9y ago
The reference point for gaining employment is that dude who wrote Homebrew and got rejected by Google for being unable to "invert a binary tree on a whiteboard" [1] Unfortunately with this and many other articles I've read on HN over the years, the common theme is that decent/good programmers are not making it past HR. Everyone that wants to work in tech should instead navigate through the meetup/social space and build up a decent network for this kind of thing. Anecdotally, at 1 interview I went for, I knew the hiring manager and our "interview" was a 15 minute casual chat. That's it. [1] https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768
- matthew3 9y ago
  Maybe I've been just unlucky with how many times I've had to google for weird "brew doctor" type incantations to make it happy, or with how (un)smoothly I've found it + a Mac compared to using real actual Linux, but is it outside the realm of possibility that you can make something a lot of people find useful for some situations and still not necessarily be qualified for or entitled to every job out there? If it's truly because there was an algorithm question with no correlation to what the team worked on, that sucks. But I've seen the other side of enough of these rants to take any single anecdote with a giant grain of salt. There's a few potential audiences for rants like this, but most of them are unproductive. Other frustrated people don't have influence to change things, and hiring managers not experiencing hiring issues don't have incentive to listen to you. The group you need to find, if this is how you're feeling, is the hiring managers who aren't having luck right now. Maybe because their company doesn't have as much name recognition, or as much money to offer, or a sexy office location in the Bay Area, whatever. They're gonna need to expand their pool to compete, and that's where potential matches are. It takes a lot more leg work and sales work of the "here's why I don't fit exactly what you're looking for but why you should be confident in my ability to get there fast" variety, but it can be accomplished - I did it about 7 years ago, myself, to get from the land of "boring jobs" to the land of "interesting jobs building 'interesting' experience," and have seen other people pull off the same path since then. You also generally will do better starting in a smaller environment like that with more face time with the key players in the company, than as another line-level cog at BigCompany.
jph 9y ago
If you can imagine each interview as a good way to learn about the people at the company, and also about the company's processes, then you can triage as you wish. As an example you could ask openly about the company's hiring processes, rankings, followups, and the like. If you receive answers that satisfy your preferences, that's great; otherwise, you can move on to prepare for the next company.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Y'know what jph? I'm gonna try that.
ronilan 9y ago
Employers should be required, by law, to compensate interviewees for their time at a rate equivalent to the job for which they are interviewing. (Macdonald’s, Goldman Sachs, line cook, VP legal, same law, everyone, everywhere)
- cantrip 9y ago
  Well then I would be a professional job candidate. I could easily fill my time with $300k+ job interviews that I can pass a phone screen for but am not fully qualified for.
  - Clubber 9y ago
    I seriously doubt that.
    - cantrip 9y ago
      Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I'm a decent developer, not a $300k salary developer.
      - Clubber 9y ago
        I mean, if you were paid market rates for interviews, you'd have to do a lot of interviews to net $300K. I don't see how that is possible, ignoring the fact that doing that would be about as fun as gold farming on WoW circa 2007.
        cantrip 9y ago
        Never did I say I'd be making $300k per year. $100k a year to do three 5 hour interviews a week for $300k jobs? I would do that in a heartbeat.
        Clubber 9y ago
        Still highly unlikely. There are only a few cities that offer $300K jobs and they talk to each other. Most of them probably use just a handful of recruiting firms. Your name would get around. You could maybe change it, but I still doubt you'd get more than a few hours every few days, then it would dry up. You'd have to interview about 12 hours a week (including Christmas and Thanksgiving), every week at only SV type companies and only for $300K jobs and pull it off for a year without getting caught before you hit $100K. Highly unlikely.
angarg12 9y ago
But, why does job search sucks? I feel like I need to hear the other side of the story to get the full picture.
- Clubber 9y ago
  Companies can't tell the difference, get bad candidates and are then afraid to fire them, even in "at will" states. Companies think this rigamarole will separate good candidates from bad candidates.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  I would love to read a post from the other side on this process. If nothing else, it'd help temper expectations.
justherefortart 9y ago
Filling out 7000 fields on taleo is comical. It's why I use the hated recruiters now. I get to skip the BS of applying online. (At the employer's expense too!) I miss the old days, you submitted your resume, then they called you for an interview. You interviewed and either got hired or didn't (they'd typically call and say if you didn't). Why we need 80 layers of BS between the job seekers and employers is beyond me. I've also never seen a competent HR person in my 20+ years of working in IT. If you can't tell by their resume, HR isn't going to give you anything more so skip that stupid step as well.
- neosavvy 9y ago
  I've met some competent HR folks out there - I promise they exist. I've only been around for like 15+ years though but been running in consulting circles for over 10. I'll admit that there are a fair number of crappy ones. I generally avoid recruiters too - just against working with them on principle. I wish there were an easy middle-person to use to find high quality project work. I think the tried and true referral system is all that has worked for me the entire time. I've never applied cold to something and done it, and been happy about it.
- scarface74 9y ago
  Why the "hated" recruiters. Only once in the past 20 years have I even thought about getting a job without a recruiter. I applied for 17 jobs through recruiters in my last job search and I knew the technology stack and the salary they were willing to pay before ever starting the process. Out of the 17, only one wasn't interested in starting the process, I got three offers within a month and none of the other 12 rejected me, I took myself out of the running when I found a company I liked. At no point was I just twiddling my thumbs waiting to hear back. The recruiters always knew where I was in the process. One day, I had 6 phone screens with different companies. Another day, I had a morning interview and an evening interview. I'm not trying to brag about myself, when you have a recruiter it's just so much easier finding jobs you are qualified for. They've also worked with the company before so they can prep you a little more for the interview. Also, you hardly ever walk into an interview knowing whether the salary you are expecting is in line with what they are willing to pay without a recruiter.
dvt 9y ago
I've been unemployed for ~4 months now (by choice) and it's been the best time of my life. Yeah, I'm burning through my savings, but I can focus on projects that make me happy, I can focus on honing skills I actually care about, and I don't have to partake in endless meetings that serve no purpose whatsoever. What I realized as I entered my 30s is that some people are okay with that. Some people are okay with endless streams of bullshit and office politics, with building sub-par products, and with anxiety-inducing whiteboard interviews. All they want is a paycheck and all is well. Last year, I discovered that I'm not one of those people. I tried hard to fit in that mold and just be happy -- but what makes me happy is fundamentally at odds with being a model "company man." Why the job search sucks is that there's a lot more people in the former camp than in the latter. It's the same reason why most people don't start companies, don't try to write novels, and don't compose orchestras -- a fundamental lack of creativity. Unless one of my projects really takes off, I'll inadvertently have to get another "real job" soon, and even though I loathe the process, I'm happy that this time away from work really helped me reflect and figure out who I truly am.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Having the privilege of being unemployed by choice sounds amazing. Unfortunately, I was blindsided by my employment and didn't have enough to just take it easy all this time. Thankfully, unemployment exists and I've been able to pay my important bills on time. This experience has reshaped how I think about savings though, that's for sure.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I recently took a 4 month sabbatical and it was wonderful. A friend of mine at a new company called me up looking for help, so it ended up being only 2 months, but I've replenished my "oh shit," fund and will take some more time off after this gig ends in a few years.
- jsoc815 9y ago
  Upvote x 1000.
kaspm 9y ago
A candidate we passed on reached out and asked for more specific feedback about why we passed. I happened to have some time over the holidays and agreed to provide him with some additional information personally and to meet up for coffee. > It's not you: The first thing I told him was that 80% of whether you get hired at a company is nothing you can do anything about. It depends on the company, your skills, their needs gap, the timing, the manager, so if you're batting .200, that's pretty good. The second thing was that there were some really basic stuff to make sure you're doing every time you interview that you CAN control to narrow that gap further: > Dress: wear dark jeans, nice shoes, a button down dress shirt. This outfit is almost never "too fancy" or "too casual". If the company requires more fancy than that, might want to question if you're a good fit (unless you like wearing a suit shudder) > Give Specific Examples: Always try to start your answer with a summary, then give a specific example then abstract it into a generalized theory. Don't start with the generalized theory and never give specifics > Know your stuff: If you list something on your resume, especially in a recent job, make sure you can not only explain it but that you have an opinion about it and that you've considered other opinions. Edit: the outfit above applies mainly to men, I'm less versed in what the equivalent would be for women. If someone wants to add that, I am sure it would be helpful.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  See? This! This would make the job search process a lil' less opaque.
  - fooblitzky 9y ago
    One reason I've been given for not providing feedback is that it could open the company to lawsuits.
  - SilasX 9y ago
    How? That's just general "how to do well" advice, it doesn't help explain which of the reasons were relevant to a particular rejection. And even that comment doesn't give an example of a shortcoming relative to one of those bullet points. I mean, from the comment it sounds like kaspm literally told the candidate: "hey, sometimes it just doesn't work out, you should be glad at 'batting .200'.". I don't see the actionable feedback.
gloryless 9y ago
The tone of this whole post tells the actual story.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  You sound like the dismissive companies I ranted about.
apple4ever 9y ago
He makes a lot of good points, many which I have experienced and resolved to never do. All my applicants know within a few days of whether they are getting an interview. All my first round interviewees know the next day if they are getting a second round interview. All my second round interviewees know the next day if they are hired. As you see above, there is only two rounds. There isn't any white boarding, because I find it a waste. For web developers, I ask a very simple one page site to make. I try hard to make sure the applicants at least know where they stand pretty quick. Because I've been on the other side of that.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Your last point is quite telling. I think a majority of the people making hiring decisions in these companies have never been where I'm at (and where you've been).
tahw 9y ago
The job search sucks for this guy because he's a front end developer that isn't keeping up with front end developer trends. Which is the thing people pay front end developers to do.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Actually, it sucks for a lot of people. Keeping up with trends !== building a todo app with said trend. Do you really expect anyone to create a new app with the new hotness every time a "Show HN: My framework" is announced?
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Yes. If there are people who are getting hired over him. It's not about what's fair.
    - NetOpWibby 9y ago
      That still doesn’t equal years of experience.
ResearchAtPlay 9y ago
When looking through job postings I watch out for this type of statement: “Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.” which means that I can’t expect any reply if I am not selected for an interview. Dear recruiters, this is not OK, ever! I put a day or two into a job application. (Which may be excessive, but it leads to a high conversion rate). Preparation includes researching the company, their products and projects, their history and my possible contribution – and tailoring my application package to their needs. If the company can’t be bothered to write me a short email “Nope, sorry. HR.” then that company is not worth my time. In effect, “Only short-listed candidates will be contacted” tells me: “1) We are too lazy or incompetent to set up a mass email reply. 2) We don’t care about candidates enough to save them the time and stress of unnecessary follow-ups.” By extension, I will assume that company does not care about its employees either and has effectively disqualified itself from my becoming a part of their team.
jsoc815 9y ago
> Coding/design tests Left tech years ago, but assumed that many/some of those tests and sample projects were employer attempts to procure free labor w/o any of the burdens (liability) of internships and employment. > Rounds of interviews Perhaps its helpful to look at the whole process from a different vantage point. Saw an article on CNBC a few days ago about the importance of, essentially, seeming desperate and wholly committed to whatever position it is one is applying/interviewing for. Seem too smart... too ambitious... have options for doing something else if this doesn't work out... etc? Don't expect to get hired. I can actually attest to that. Anyway, the implication is that if you are still available and willing to go through rounds of interviews, you probably aren't 'all that desirable' in the first place. Yes, there is some irony there. But I know this having spoken w/ a # of HR people. > Feedback: -- Dear Paul, Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha NO.-- Yeah, that would be, at a minimum, courteous, but... Workers are for the most part, commodities. As such, feedback isn't merited. Could say more here, but won't. > How to deal Obviously, each person's situation is different, but my experience tells me the best solution is to position oneself for independence (as much as is possible in a society). While in my last job, I pretty much decided that I'd focus on (hopefully) not needing another job. And while I didn't get everything right, I think that mindset and planning was instrumental in me pretty much being able to walk away from a job market that is pretty stacked against the typical applicant. I know tech is supposedly immune to such stacking, but... Last year I listened to an applicant's conversation with a recruiter. The applicant was getting robbed, so much so that a guy, who I think was/is homeless, told the applicant as much. I mean are people really going through all this work to get paid $25/hr... in California??? Yikes!
bitcrusher 9y ago
The level of pure bullshit that is part of the hiring process these days is mind-boggling. An recent example: I interviewed for company X, where I spent an entire day with more than a dozen engineers, answering the same types of questions over and over again: "Here's our platform, how would you fix it". At every turn, I would speak about X,Y,Z issues that would need to be solved and how this or that technology might be applicable in a broad case. Diligently, in every session, the interviewers were taking copious amounts of notes about what I was saying... NOT how I was doing on the interview, but rather, the content of what I was saying. "How do you spell Corfu?" (as an example). At the end, they told me they really liked me, and would have an offer for me in the next day or two... Two days passed and they called with "We're sorry, but you're just not technical enough for us". I basically gave them a free day of consulting. I'm not sure HOW to fix the problem, but it is definitely getting worse.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  Now THAT is some straight up bullshit.
  - NetOpWibby 9y ago
    For the downvoters, I was talking about how fucked up the company was for tricking bitcrusher into doing consulting for free.
    - bitcrusher 9y ago
      FWIW, I understood what you meant and I agree.
- jsoc815 9y ago
  > I basically gave them a free day of consulting. Exactly. (I mentioned this in my response to the OP.)
- expertentipp 9y ago
  Encountered such situation couple of times. Pokerface interviewers asking in-depth questions (e.g. domain knowledge, not necessarily data structures or algorithm smartassery), with minimal feedback. Learning basically. Quite cynical because it's good to talk basically, exchange knowledge and experience - I've always taken it as a common sense. Once I detect pokerface jokers I answer "no clue" for the simplest questions.
RafiZ 9y ago
Job search sucks for many reasons and for the most part it's the hiring companies to blame for. However, this is a given situation which will not change any time soon. Instead of ranting, candidates should put some time in researching what the companies they're applying to are looking for and act accordingly - e.g. personalize their resume to match job descriptions, anticipate interview questions and do mock interviews. Some resources that can help in the process: [1] https://www.glassdor.com https://www.glassdor.com (to find out interview questions asked by companies) [2] https://www.jobscan.co https://www.jobscan.co (to optimize your resume against job descriptions) [3] https://www.pramp.com https://www.pramp.com (a peer-to-peer mock interviewing platform for software engineers)
NetOpWibby 9y ago
OP here, I just realized the year slug was 2017 and it's clearly 2018. Updated link is here: https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2018/why-the-job-search-sucks https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2018/why-the-job-search-sucks Thanks for the insightful responses!

67 points by NetOpWibby 9y ago

Isn't this one of those asymmetry things where the hiring company has no incentive to make the process pleasant? They hold all the power/keys etc. Before people jump in with "what about negative Glassdoor reviews" or "negative reputation", I'm saying that all things taken into account, the equation is still in favor of the company. I don't know.

Chyzwar 9y ago
It is complicated. My team is trying to hire but it is almost impossible to get a decent candidate. It is a massive time sink and still depends more on luck than anything else.
- ryandrake 9y ago
  The hiring market is like a disfunctional dating market: A whole bunch of mediocre singles complaining they can't find supermodels of the opposite (or their preferred) sex.
  - ionforce 9y ago
    So there should be optimal pairing... I guess the problem is if both sides are exercising minimums. "I don't want the best of the shitty programmers remaining, I want someone with at least this much experience." I don't want some random company, I want a supermodel!
  - Chyzwar 9y ago
    It is more like: all hot girls/boys are already taken only leftovers that cannot complete fizzbuzz are left. Unless your company is hot or you can poach people from your network you will have big problem hiring.
expertentipp 9y ago
I think, collecting anegdotal examples, that we might have a particular crisis right now which reached the widely understood IT as well. Companies simply don’t want to hire, if they do they want compliance and dirt cheap. Many recruiting people I had little pleasant dealing with treat recruitment like buying an item - demand experience with exact technology match and an obedient person as well (“1-2 hours” code assignment). The situation is in a deadlock.
apple4ever 9y ago
It really isn't, even though they think it is. They are losing out on so many good candidates which does affect the bottom line.

draw_down 9y ago

I just try not to take everything too personal. Companies rely on their process like gospel, when in reality it only emits a very noisy signal. It's a no until it's a yes, etc. It sucks, I agree. Our industry generally sucks, so it comes as no surprise.

thenewestkid 9y ago

It was nice to randomly find your name here (: Good luck with the interviews, I totally agree with your points. Your blog improved a lot since I last checked it! (The NX framework guy)

NetOpWibby 9y ago
Haha, hey man! Yeah, I've been improving it bit by bit.

huydotnet 9y ago

Hey, just wanna stop by to say hi! I was in the same situation, the company I working for ran out of cash for no reason and I got no paycheck since November too :(

NetOpWibby 9y ago
Damn, that sucks. I hope we both find an awesome place to work soon!

sheeshkebab 9y ago

I think the answer to age bias (that author referred to) is remote work. No one gives a shit how old you are if all you need is code, slack, email, and zoom/webex. Or so is my experience.

neosavvy 9y ago
I have to say I've been told numerous times by folks when they find out what I do "Oh, you can work anywhere". Needless to say maybe I have been looking in all the wrong places for remote opportunities, but getting paid a reasonable rate + being remote seems hard to find. I think the general nature of interviews is flawed - I've seen companies pass on great candidates who test well over some silly comment they made about a previous project, or because of "team fit".
pinewurst 9y ago
Speaking as a mostly remote worker, you still have to get by a lot of the screening BS - and commonly awful HR treatment - before you can start work. Also many places think they can pay a lot less for a remote person.
- neosavvy 9y ago
  Do you use many of the services like Hired / Vettery or Remote seeking these gigs? I'll be honest I just haven't put much effort into it quite yet - still trying to arrange a few other projects in the event one of them takes off. I am just resided to the "if it doesn't exist - make it yourself" but it sure is taking a lot of patience out of me to make it so.
  - pinewurst 9y ago
    I've not had good luck with Hired, but I haven't been a developer in quite a long time. Mostly it's been "make it yourself" which is unfortunate, I agree.
NetOpWibby 9y ago
Hmm! I never thought about suggesting that. I'll do so if/when I attend a similar seminar.

PretzelFisch 9y ago

I hate not getting feedback and the time it takes now to interview. On the other side of the desk, I have regretted not putting up the same code challenge and whiteboard sessions with people I interviewed and hired.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
Yep, it's a massive time sink. I'd want tips on how to make that time matter or be utilized better.

zer00eyz 9y ago

FTA: "These tests and whiteboarding are not indicative of your skill level, they are approximations of what you can do with what is likely to be limited information and ambiguous scope." If I'm going to make you get up at a white board (and I might) it isn't going to be to write code on it. We don't hand designers white board markers and say "draw monkey draw" - because it isn't their medium and neither is it ours. If I am going to get you up at the white board it is going to be to show me a diagram (probably database) or how you think something "should flow" (boxes and arrows) to see if you can COMMUNICATE a concept. If you can't do that then we have issues -- because at some point your going to have to do that very thing to convey an idea to a colleague and if you can't we have a PROBLEM. There isn't really a "right" answer to this setup, but there are plenty of wrong ones - ones that show you either lack basic knowledge or communication skills needed to do the job.

matthew3 9y ago
I like this explanation, I hadn't put it into words before but it feels intuitively correct. For most positions, your ability to communicate what you're doing to the rest of the team is way more important than your ability to write fancy code, or do something like a sample project that isn't our actual day-to-day-codebase. That communication is what's going to keep the team disciplined design wise, keep things consistent, and keep the codebase extensible. And keep morale up since everybody is capable of getting on the same page with everybody. Dealing with ambiguous scope is the single biggest thing I want in a candidate, so if you don't like dealing with that, you're not going to like working with me anyway. But here's the thing, from my perspective: when's the last time you worked with product or business people who gave you 100% perfect information and specs up-front and then didn't change them? If you can build in a way that allows for future change based on the needs of the team/company/market, then you're very valuable. > I've never met someone who performs exceptionally well with thinking on the spot in front of people they've never met when the grand prize is gainful employment. I also want to know, based on this line, how many people the author has interviewed themselves. Cause I've interviewed a few (it's at least in the 100+ area) and have seen as many people do well in that sort of environment as have frozen up. Not uncommon for them to do better than I'd expect myself to do, either, algorithmically - but neither does that always translate directly to an offer, if they're bad at the communication or wrinkle-handling parts.

tschellenbach 9y ago

This is an area were AI could really help improve discovery. I see more and more job sites leverage personalized feed technology similar to the Facebook and YouTube. One could argue its perhaps more useful for job sites :) Also check out this blogpost: https://getstream.io/blog/personalized-job-feeds-machine-learning/ https://getstream.io/blog/personalized-job-feeds-machine-lea...

barryhoodlum 9y ago

"I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of tech companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS." You don't have experience 99% of employers want, and your response is to stubbornly write it off as a fad? Maybe that's got something to do with it? If you have zero experience, how do you know it's gross?

morinted 9y ago
"I hate what I don't understand"
thidr0 9y ago
That's like a company saying "We make a product, but 99.999999% of our target market want some feature we don't have. IDIOTS!" Guess what, in this scenario, you (specifically your labor) is the product.
azangru 9y ago
I am actually wondering how many readers of the blog post rolled their eyes here. I am not saying that React is the best thing ever; there may be different arguments against using it, but man, this "CSS in JS" (or, alternatively, "HTML in JS") argument is not even funny anymore. I would have discarded this as a meaningless complaint coming from a hardcore backend developer who is repeating the principles of single responsibility and separation of concerns he has heard in older days and has not yet had a chance to realize that a component is no lesser way of thinking about separation of concerns than an html or a css file. But judging by the appearance of the blog site, the author is a frontend developer, with pretty decent skills. I am confused.
- Clubber 9y ago
  As a mostly back end developer, snazzy front end templates are either cheap or free.
  - 9y ago

codingdave 9y ago

> At least I know not to waste my time waiting on you. So don't. If they don't meet your communication expectations, then it isn't a good match anyway. So don't wait. Move along. > These tests and whiteboarding are not indicative of your skill level No, they indicate your ability to work and talk through problems. I'm not sure where this idea that whiteboarding is about skill level came from. You can cram/study algorithms. But you can't fake the thinking process, or how you approach a problem. You can't fake your communication style. And that is what doing it in a stressful situation shows - how do you really think and communicate under pressure? > Maaaaan, go fuck yourself. Hmm. OK, you are being honest about your feelings, but... does anyone ever get a better result in their job search after ranting about it online? Does an employer ever call you and say, "Well, we were on the fence, but after seeing you F-bomb other companies, we decided we liked you!" I'd save these rants for AFTER you get a job.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
> If they don't meet your communication expectations, then it isn't a good match anyway. So don't wait. Move along. You do realize this is like, every employer right? Or maybe I have bad luck. Your last point is good and I thought about it for a good minute before I decided to go with it anyway because, if these companies don't care about me, why should I care about them? I'm already in the reject pile, right?
Clubber 9y ago
>But you can't fake the thinking process, or how you approach a problem. You can't fake your communication style. And that is what doing it in a stressful situation shows - how do you really think and communicate under pressure? Totally different type of pressure. You're assuming timeline pressure and social pressure is the same thing. It is not. >does anyone ever get a better result in their job search after ranting about it online? I don't believe that was his objective. Maybe some hiring manager will read this while simultaneously complaining about not being able to find anyone and a light will come on. Maybe not.
- scarface74 9y ago
  Totally different type of pressure. You're assuming timeline pressure and social pressure is the same thing. It is not. If I'm applying for a senior developer/architect position, I should be able to think of a high level solution on the spot. When I was looking for a job a year or so ago, I thought I was interviewing for a regular developer position. I didn't realize I was interviewing for a lead position and they were looking for someone to create a development department from scratch. The first thing my now manager asked me was what steps I would take in the next 3-6 months to create the department.

dmm 9y ago

""" I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of tech companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS. """ React is just a library for mapping state to ui elements, right? I've been using react and all of my css lives in separate .css files. Is that not typical? Maybe they are just venting frustration but maybe blowing off what employers want is indicative of other issues or a bad attitude.

expertentipp 9y ago

> Writing CSS in JS? GROSS. Similarly jsx is writing HTML in JS. The whole evolution of web was to separate, modularize, componentize the concepts (DOMs, CSS, JS, HTML5 APIs, templates etc.), what on fucking earth happened?

ng12 9y ago
The goalposts moved. We went from building websites to building SPAs, and the biggest problem there was reusing/abstracting/modularizing logic.
nickthemagicman 9y ago
It's still separated, modularized, componentized, just on a web component level instead of a file level.

gwbas1c 9y ago

One thing about feedback: Too much feedback helps candidates game the system. This ultimately leads to bad hires, who end up getting fired. It hurts the process overall. When interviewing with a good interviewer, he (or she) knows that whiteboard sessions / tests / projects are just hypothetical situations. If I throw an unfamiliar API in front of you, and you ask certain wrong questions, I know you're not going to work out. If you "get it" and can move forward, I know you're going to be able to learn all the weirdo stuff that you need to learn in order to do the job. But, something I learned when I was in a similar situation: Companies that demand a LOT of upfront, grueling time in the interview process should be avoided. Once a call drags out beyond 45 minutes, or the coding test is just too time consuming, it's time to walk away. Regarding whiteboarding, if the candidate argues with me about why we're using a particular API, I pretty much reject the candidate. (No, we can't use the new threading API, I want to see how you can learn this API. No, we can't use an ORM, I want to make sure that you understand how to use a database.)

cantrip 9y ago
These all seem like highly subjective criteria, which is the whole problem with the way hiring works in first place.
- gwbas1c 9y ago
  You might think it's subjective, but it's more like people arguing over whether it's a 6 or a 9. There's only one right answer. In this case, I'm trying to filter out the morons, and people who can't disagree and commit. The idiots who argue with me that we should use a different API (for the interview question) get rejected immediately. The actual programming question is pretty mindless and any competent software engineer should be able to figure it out in under 10 minutes. But the bigger reason is that in an engineering situation, people who argue over subjective things often times just waste everybody's time. Certain decisions were made and there is really no good reason to go back and revisit them.
ryandrake 9y ago
> Regarding whiteboarding, if the candidate argues with me about why we're using a particular API, I pretty much reject the candidate. (No, we can't use the new threading API, I want to see how you can learn this API. No, we can't use an ORM, I want to make sure that you understand how to use a database.) YUCK. One of the first things I will do when presented with a technical scenario is start questioning the problem's parameters, including API choice. Interviewer: "Show me how you'd store a list of items in C++." Me: "Well, depending on the expected usage pattern I'd reach for one of the standard library's containers like std::list since it is time tested, robust, and comes with the compiler." Interviewer: "No, er, I mean if you don't have std::list... I want to know you can implement something from scratch." Me: "Am I really going to be working on a project without the language's library?? You generally don't want someone's hand-rolled linked list in production code." I guess not wanting to waste the company's time re-implementing a wheel makes me a bad candidate.

phantom_oracle 9y ago

The reference point for gaining employment is that dude who wrote Homebrew and got rejected by Google for being unable to "invert a binary tree on a whiteboard" [1] Unfortunately with this and many other articles I've read on HN over the years, the common theme is that decent/good programmers are not making it past HR. Everyone that wants to work in tech should instead navigate through the meetup/social space and build up a decent network for this kind of thing. Anecdotally, at 1 interview I went for, I knew the hiring manager and our "interview" was a 15 minute casual chat. That's it. [1] https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768 https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768

matthew3 9y ago
Maybe I've been just unlucky with how many times I've had to google for weird "brew doctor" type incantations to make it happy, or with how (un)smoothly I've found it + a Mac compared to using real actual Linux, but is it outside the realm of possibility that you can make something a lot of people find useful for some situations and still not necessarily be qualified for or entitled to every job out there? If it's truly because there was an algorithm question with no correlation to what the team worked on, that sucks. But I've seen the other side of enough of these rants to take any single anecdote with a giant grain of salt. There's a few potential audiences for rants like this, but most of them are unproductive. Other frustrated people don't have influence to change things, and hiring managers not experiencing hiring issues don't have incentive to listen to you. The group you need to find, if this is how you're feeling, is the hiring managers who aren't having luck right now. Maybe because their company doesn't have as much name recognition, or as much money to offer, or a sexy office location in the Bay Area, whatever. They're gonna need to expand their pool to compete, and that's where potential matches are. It takes a lot more leg work and sales work of the "here's why I don't fit exactly what you're looking for but why you should be confident in my ability to get there fast" variety, but it can be accomplished - I did it about 7 years ago, myself, to get from the land of "boring jobs" to the land of "interesting jobs building 'interesting' experience," and have seen other people pull off the same path since then. You also generally will do better starting in a smaller environment like that with more face time with the key players in the company, than as another line-level cog at BigCompany.

jph 9y ago

If you can imagine each interview as a good way to learn about the people at the company, and also about the company's processes, then you can triage as you wish. As an example you could ask openly about the company's hiring processes, rankings, followups, and the like. If you receive answers that satisfy your preferences, that's great; otherwise, you can move on to prepare for the next company.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
Y'know what jph? I'm gonna try that.

ronilan 9y ago

Employers should be required, by law, to compensate interviewees for their time at a rate equivalent to the job for which they are interviewing. (Macdonald’s, Goldman Sachs, line cook, VP legal, same law, everyone, everywhere)

cantrip 9y ago
Well then I would be a professional job candidate. I could easily fill my time with $300k+ job interviews that I can pass a phone screen for but am not fully qualified for.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I seriously doubt that.
  - cantrip 9y ago
    Thank you for the vote of confidence, but I'm a decent developer, not a $300k salary developer.
    - Clubber 9y ago
      I mean, if you were paid market rates for interviews, you'd have to do a lot of interviews to net $300K. I don't see how that is possible, ignoring the fact that doing that would be about as fun as gold farming on WoW circa 2007.
      - cantrip 9y ago
        Never did I say I'd be making $300k per year. $100k a year to do three 5 hour interviews a week for $300k jobs? I would do that in a heartbeat.
        Clubber 9y ago
        Still highly unlikely. There are only a few cities that offer $300K jobs and they talk to each other. Most of them probably use just a handful of recruiting firms. Your name would get around. You could maybe change it, but I still doubt you'd get more than a few hours every few days, then it would dry up. You'd have to interview about 12 hours a week (including Christmas and Thanksgiving), every week at only SV type companies and only for $300K jobs and pull it off for a year without getting caught before you hit $100K. Highly unlikely.

angarg12 9y ago

But, why does job search sucks? I feel like I need to hear the other side of the story to get the full picture.

Clubber 9y ago
Companies can't tell the difference, get bad candidates and are then afraid to fire them, even in "at will" states. Companies think this rigamarole will separate good candidates from bad candidates.
NetOpWibby 9y ago
I would love to read a post from the other side on this process. If nothing else, it'd help temper expectations.

justherefortart 9y ago

Filling out 7000 fields on taleo is comical. It's why I use the hated recruiters now. I get to skip the BS of applying online. (At the employer's expense too!) I miss the old days, you submitted your resume, then they called you for an interview. You interviewed and either got hired or didn't (they'd typically call and say if you didn't). Why we need 80 layers of BS between the job seekers and employers is beyond me. I've also never seen a competent HR person in my 20+ years of working in IT. If you can't tell by their resume, HR isn't going to give you anything more so skip that stupid step as well.

neosavvy 9y ago
I've met some competent HR folks out there - I promise they exist. I've only been around for like 15+ years though but been running in consulting circles for over 10. I'll admit that there are a fair number of crappy ones. I generally avoid recruiters too - just against working with them on principle. I wish there were an easy middle-person to use to find high quality project work. I think the tried and true referral system is all that has worked for me the entire time. I've never applied cold to something and done it, and been happy about it.
scarface74 9y ago
Why the "hated" recruiters. Only once in the past 20 years have I even thought about getting a job without a recruiter. I applied for 17 jobs through recruiters in my last job search and I knew the technology stack and the salary they were willing to pay before ever starting the process. Out of the 17, only one wasn't interested in starting the process, I got three offers within a month and none of the other 12 rejected me, I took myself out of the running when I found a company I liked. At no point was I just twiddling my thumbs waiting to hear back. The recruiters always knew where I was in the process. One day, I had 6 phone screens with different companies. Another day, I had a morning interview and an evening interview. I'm not trying to brag about myself, when you have a recruiter it's just so much easier finding jobs you are qualified for. They've also worked with the company before so they can prep you a little more for the interview. Also, you hardly ever walk into an interview knowing whether the salary you are expecting is in line with what they are willing to pay without a recruiter.

dvt 9y ago

I've been unemployed for ~4 months now (by choice) and it's been the best time of my life. Yeah, I'm burning through my savings, but I can focus on projects that make me happy, I can focus on honing skills I actually care about, and I don't have to partake in endless meetings that serve no purpose whatsoever. What I realized as I entered my 30s is that some people are okay with that. Some people are okay with endless streams of bullshit and office politics, with building sub-par products, and with anxiety-inducing whiteboard interviews. All they want is a paycheck and all is well. Last year, I discovered that I'm not one of those people. I tried hard to fit in that mold and just be happy -- but what makes me happy is fundamentally at odds with being a model "company man." Why the job search sucks is that there's a lot more people in the former camp than in the latter. It's the same reason why most people don't start companies, don't try to write novels, and don't compose orchestras -- a fundamental lack of creativity. Unless one of my projects really takes off, I'll inadvertently have to get another "real job" soon, and even though I loathe the process, I'm happy that this time away from work really helped me reflect and figure out who I truly am.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
Having the privilege of being unemployed by choice sounds amazing. Unfortunately, I was blindsided by my employment and didn't have enough to just take it easy all this time. Thankfully, unemployment exists and I've been able to pay my important bills on time. This experience has reshaped how I think about savings though, that's for sure.
Clubber 9y ago
I recently took a 4 month sabbatical and it was wonderful. A friend of mine at a new company called me up looking for help, so it ended up being only 2 months, but I've replenished my "oh shit," fund and will take some more time off after this gig ends in a few years.
jsoc815 9y ago
Upvote x 1000.

kaspm 9y ago

A candidate we passed on reached out and asked for more specific feedback about why we passed. I happened to have some time over the holidays and agreed to provide him with some additional information personally and to meet up for coffee. > It's not you: The first thing I told him was that 80% of whether you get hired at a company is nothing you can do anything about. It depends on the company, your skills, their needs gap, the timing, the manager, so if you're batting .200, that's pretty good. The second thing was that there were some really basic stuff to make sure you're doing every time you interview that you CAN control to narrow that gap further: > Dress: wear dark jeans, nice shoes, a button down dress shirt. This outfit is almost never "too fancy" or "too casual". If the company requires more fancy than that, might want to question if you're a good fit (unless you like wearing a suit shudder) > Give Specific Examples: Always try to start your answer with a summary, then give a specific example then abstract it into a generalized theory. Don't start with the generalized theory and never give specifics > Know your stuff: If you list something on your resume, especially in a recent job, make sure you can not only explain it but that you have an opinion about it and that you've considered other opinions. Edit: the outfit above applies mainly to men, I'm less versed in what the equivalent would be for women. If someone wants to add that, I am sure it would be helpful.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
See? This! This would make the job search process a lil' less opaque.
- fooblitzky 9y ago
  One reason I've been given for not providing feedback is that it could open the company to lawsuits.
- SilasX 9y ago
  How? That's just general "how to do well" advice, it doesn't help explain which of the reasons were relevant to a particular rejection. And even that comment doesn't give an example of a shortcoming relative to one of those bullet points. I mean, from the comment it sounds like kaspm literally told the candidate: "hey, sometimes it just doesn't work out, you should be glad at 'batting .200'.". I don't see the actionable feedback.

gloryless 9y ago

The tone of this whole post tells the actual story.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
You sound like the dismissive companies I ranted about.

apple4ever 9y ago

He makes a lot of good points, many which I have experienced and resolved to never do. All my applicants know within a few days of whether they are getting an interview. All my first round interviewees know the next day if they are getting a second round interview. All my second round interviewees know the next day if they are hired. As you see above, there is only two rounds. There isn't any white boarding, because I find it a waste. For web developers, I ask a very simple one page site to make. I try hard to make sure the applicants at least know where they stand pretty quick. Because I've been on the other side of that.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
Your last point is quite telling. I think a majority of the people making hiring decisions in these companies have never been where I'm at (and where you've been).

tahw 9y ago

The job search sucks for this guy because he's a front end developer that isn't keeping up with front end developer trends. Which is the thing people pay front end developers to do.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
Actually, it sucks for a lot of people. Keeping up with trends !== building a todo app with said trend. Do you really expect anyone to create a new app with the new hotness every time a "Show HN: My framework" is announced?
- scarface74 9y ago
  Yes. If there are people who are getting hired over him. It's not about what's fair.
  - NetOpWibby 9y ago
    That still doesn’t equal years of experience.

ResearchAtPlay 9y ago

When looking through job postings I watch out for this type of statement: “Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.” which means that I can’t expect any reply if I am not selected for an interview. Dear recruiters, this is not OK, ever! I put a day or two into a job application. (Which may be excessive, but it leads to a high conversion rate). Preparation includes researching the company, their products and projects, their history and my possible contribution – and tailoring my application package to their needs. If the company can’t be bothered to write me a short email “Nope, sorry. HR.” then that company is not worth my time. In effect, “Only short-listed candidates will be contacted” tells me: “1) We are too lazy or incompetent to set up a mass email reply. 2) We don’t care about candidates enough to save them the time and stress of unnecessary follow-ups.” By extension, I will assume that company does not care about its employees either and has effectively disqualified itself from my becoming a part of their team.

jsoc815 9y ago

> Coding/design tests Left tech years ago, but assumed that many/some of those tests and sample projects were employer attempts to procure free labor w/o any of the burdens (liability) of internships and employment. > Rounds of interviews Perhaps its helpful to look at the whole process from a different vantage point. Saw an article on CNBC a few days ago about the importance of, essentially, seeming desperate and wholly committed to whatever position it is one is applying/interviewing for. Seem too smart... too ambitious... have options for doing something else if this doesn't work out... etc? Don't expect to get hired. I can actually attest to that. Anyway, the implication is that if you are still available and willing to go through rounds of interviews, you probably aren't 'all that desirable' in the first place. Yes, there is some irony there. But I know this having spoken w/ a # of HR people. > Feedback: -- Dear Paul, Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha NO.-- Yeah, that would be, at a minimum, courteous, but... Workers are for the most part, commodities. As such, feedback isn't merited. Could say more here, but won't. > How to deal Obviously, each person's situation is different, but my experience tells me the best solution is to position oneself for independence (as much as is possible in a society). While in my last job, I pretty much decided that I'd focus on (hopefully) not needing another job. And while I didn't get everything right, I think that mindset and planning was instrumental in me pretty much being able to walk away from a job market that is pretty stacked against the typical applicant. I know tech is supposedly immune to such stacking, but... Last year I listened to an applicant's conversation with a recruiter. The applicant was getting robbed, so much so that a guy, who I think was/is homeless, told the applicant as much. I mean are people really going through all this work to get paid $25/hr... in California??? Yikes!

bitcrusher 9y ago

The level of pure bullshit that is part of the hiring process these days is mind-boggling. An recent example: I interviewed for company X, where I spent an entire day with more than a dozen engineers, answering the same types of questions over and over again: "Here's our platform, how would you fix it". At every turn, I would speak about X,Y,Z issues that would need to be solved and how this or that technology might be applicable in a broad case. Diligently, in every session, the interviewers were taking copious amounts of notes about what I was saying... NOT how I was doing on the interview, but rather, the content of what I was saying. "How do you spell Corfu?" (as an example). At the end, they told me they really liked me, and would have an offer for me in the next day or two... Two days passed and they called with "We're sorry, but you're just not technical enough for us". I basically gave them a free day of consulting. I'm not sure HOW to fix the problem, but it is definitely getting worse.

NetOpWibby 9y ago
Now THAT is some straight up bullshit.
- NetOpWibby 9y ago
  For the downvoters, I was talking about how fucked up the company was for tricking bitcrusher into doing consulting for free.
  - bitcrusher 9y ago
    FWIW, I understood what you meant and I agree.
jsoc815 9y ago
> I basically gave them a free day of consulting. Exactly. (I mentioned this in my response to the OP.)
expertentipp 9y ago
Encountered such situation couple of times. Pokerface interviewers asking in-depth questions (e.g. domain knowledge, not necessarily data structures or algorithm smartassery), with minimal feedback. Learning basically. Quite cynical because it's good to talk basically, exchange knowledge and experience - I've always taken it as a common sense. Once I detect pokerface jokers I answer "no clue" for the simplest questions.

RafiZ 9y ago

Job search sucks for many reasons and for the most part it's the hiring companies to blame for. However, this is a given situation which will not change any time soon. Instead of ranting, candidates should put some time in researching what the companies they're applying to are looking for and act accordingly - e.g. personalize their resume to match job descriptions, anticipate interview questions and do mock interviews. Some resources that can help in the process: [1] https://www.glassdor.com https://www.glassdor.com (to find out interview questions asked by companies) [2] https://www.jobscan.co https://www.jobscan.co (to optimize your resume against job descriptions) [3] https://www.pramp.com https://www.pramp.com (a peer-to-peer mock interviewing platform for software engineers)

NetOpWibby 9y ago

OP here, I just realized the year slug was 2017 and it's clearly 2018. Updated link is here: https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2018/why-the-job-search-sucks https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2018/why-the-job-search-sucks Thanks for the insightful responses!