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This article seems to have an assumption that companies have this huge pool of qualified candidates applying for jobs and you, as an applicant, just need to sho

This article seems to have an assumption that companies have this huge pool of qualified candidates applying for jobs and you, as an applicant, just need to show that little extra initiative to beat out the other applicants. As someone who has reviewed mountains of resumes for a large company, this assumption doesn't match my experience. In my experience there is this huge pool of unqualified applicants applying for every job no matter what the actual job requirements are. The applicants that got a call for an interview 1) looked at the technologies listed in the job requirements and 2) put their experience with these technologies on their resume. Also important, once you get called in for an interview make sure you can answer the most basic questions about what is on your resume. If you put Linux experience on your resume make sure you can explain how to list the contents of a directory from the command line. If you put MySQL experience on your resume make sure you can explain how to get a count of the total number of rows in a table. Are there really companies out there where the difference between getting an offer and not getting an offer is spending a few hours making a bespoke "please hire me" website?

busterarm 8y ago
> Are there really companies out there where the difference between getting an offer and not getting an offer is spending a few hours making a bespoke "please hire me" website? No, but it can jedi mind trick your way past HR screeners. And that's the only thing that it can do. If your only way into a company you want to work for is "through the front door" and you aren't a perfect on-paper candidate for them (same role at a direct competitor) then it could be worth your time doing this... I did this once while applying to a fully remote company and it got me the interview (hey, it's hard to compete against hundreds of applications per day) but did not end up with an offer.
- blattimwind 8y ago
  It's probably easier to just befriend some engineers that are already working there.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    Absolutely it is, but that's not always feasible.
    - pkaye 8y ago
      I've had some people cold call me via Linked In because they were looking for a job. Mostly just new college grads. It does give them a little boost for taking a initiative but beyond that they will need to go through the usual resume review, phone screen and in office interview.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  > No, but it can jedi mind trick your way past HR screeners. And that's the only thing that it can do. Can it? Frankly, I'd think any application that deviates from the normal procedure in a quirky way is a demerit for most companies.
  - eggpy 8y ago
    Reeeeeeeally depends. In my experience, most people who would do the early interviews/ determine candidacy for an interview probably don't have the time or desire to check out bespoke websites or other "deviations". The look at a summary of the position applied for and a summary of the qualifications and determine to go forward with an interview. In all likelihood, your interviewer probably won't look at your website either. But it's a good talking point, and if the interview is anywhere other than one FaGooNetZon etc, then being able to talk about it in an interview might win you points. So it wouldn't say it is _bad_, just that it will probably be ignored 80% of the time.
  - busterarm 8y ago
    Maybe if you're applying for a bank or it doesn't fit the role. I was trying to get a support engineer role that would have had me demoing to clients, so I whiteboard-animated and filmed my pitch for why I was a perfect fit for the company. It went over.
  - Rylinks 8y ago
    It seems like a high-variance strategy. Most of the time it would be a demerit, but that doesn't matter if most of the time you will not get past the HR screens regardless.
ryandrake 8y ago
The tech hiring market is like a disfunctional dating pool. Lots of companies complaining they can’t find good talent, and lots of talent complaining they can’t find good companies. Is it too high standards on both sides or on one side? Is it a broken matchmaking system?
- paladin314159 8y ago
  I don't know that you need the "dysfunctional" qualification to that statement. It probably suffers from the usual problem: people want to work at a place that is too good for them (whatever that actually means) and companies want to hire people that are too good for them (again, whatever that means).
  - bigiain 8y ago
    And it gets deeper too. From both ends. Nobody knows what they're doing here... Most mediocre devs overestimate their abilities - while many of the truely top devs severely under estimate themselves. The recruitment process/chain at many companies severely overestimates their desirability as an employer ("If selected, you'll be given the privilege of working at this traditional corporate bank, working on 6 year old Windows desktop development machines, under overpaid architecture astronauts who's suits cost more than your weekly take-home, on strictly waterfall projects. But we'll still expect you to be in the office at 9am for the mandatory "Agile Standup"!!!)
- lynnetye 8y ago
  I think about this a lot. Here's a little brain dump: Too many people are playing a numbers game, which creates a lot of noise. The noise makes it easy to miss good connections. Inexperienced people (on both sides) are looking for the wrong things and just like it is w/ love, a lot of us need to learn the hard way. Wanting to date the most popular guy/girl in school is the equivalent of wanting to work at a "company everyone knows." A few years later, we want to meet someone who is "ambitious, interesting, and has a good sense of humor," which is maybe like wanting to work at a company in an industry you can get behind. It's less superficial, and we have some direction here, but it's still too vague. (A lot of people are drawn to health and education not because they're truly passionate about either, but simply because it'll be easier find purpose/meaning.) After a heartbreak or two, we finally figure out what our deal breakers are. Examples: I can't date anyone who cares a lot about fashion. I'm very attracted to people who dress well, but it turns out prioritizing it means attention and money is spent in ways I can't get on board w/. Similarly, I can't work anywhere that has a lot of mandatory meetings. Counter intuitive because I'm very extroverted and social, but meetings destroy my productivity. I would have never known these things 10 years ago. Resumes and "dating profiles" don't give us a full picture. What we really want to know is: "Are we truly compatible? Are our goals and values truly aligned?" Those things take time, introspection, and research. However, it feels like job searching/sourcing/recruiting is going in the complete opposite direction (ie. "let's email 1k engineers every day, maybe 1% will respond"). This creates the noise that makes it hard for people who've figured out what they are looking for to find it.
ravenstine 8y ago
> In my experience there is this huge pool of unqualified applicants applying for every job no matter what the actual job requirements are. The applicants that got a call for an interview 1) looked at the technologies listed in the job requirements and 2) put their experience with these technologies on their resume. I think this is a result of the (frankly) BS practice employers have been using for years of inflating the qualifications required for positions. I can't count on one hand how many postings I've seen for mid-level developer roles that require 5+ years of experience writing Python, C++, C#, Java, and JavaScript; oh yeah, you've also got to know Angular and React, and "bonus" if you know Vue. Even before I became a developer(I first tried to get into animation), the advice from older folks and career specialists was to "just apply to all the positions you want even if you don't meet all the qualifications", and I'd bet good money that a lot of people are still hearing this advice from various channels. Now that everyone is just shotgun applying to everything, the advantage is largely gone. But because everyone is doing it, and individual must do so or they'll be drowned out in signal noise.
- kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
  Well some of us can tick off most of those boxes. Still can't get past the AI gauntlet though.
- aaronblohowiak 8y ago
  Overly specific job requirements are sometimes used to game the immigration system.
- BigJono 8y ago
  This is exactly what I try not to do when hiring. I don't want someone that's built a bloody todo list in Angular, React and Vue. I want someone that's generated revenue by building quality software in one of them. I think one of the biggest technical advantages you can get over your competition is to hire good specialists. Almost everywhere I've worked (especially anywhere HR or non-tech people are involved in the hiring) has just hoovered up the "jack of all trades" types and I suspect their tech has suffered for it.
paulsutter 8y ago
When I was at Apple, the resumes filtered by HR were a huge pool of unqualified candidates. Gems were among candidates rejected by HR. Wasn't easy getting that list. HR is a compliance function. By some strange fluke, it gets inserted in the hiring process in large companies.
- itronitron 8y ago
  and this is why people overstate their skills on their resumes, because they are trying to get their resume into the hands of someone that will actually read it
  - sumedh 8y ago
    Fake it till you make it.
- flukus 8y ago
  > HR is a compliance function. By some strange fluke, it gets inserted in the hiring process in large companies. Someone's got to do it and if it's not HR then it's generally a recruitment company. For the price of hiring 4 devs through a recruiter the company could afford a full time HR person (ignoring stupid accounting tricks).
  - philwelch 8y ago
    But if the HR person does a bad enough job, then the hiring manager ends up having to do it themselves, on top of fighting with the HR department to let them do it themselves, so you end up with a negative net value added.
  - paulsutter 8y ago
    We built a sourcing department to source candidates. A “recruiter” is a salesperson incented to close deals, not someone you want in the hiring process.
- tnhaoeh34thoe9 8y ago
  I once worked the recruiting booth at a popular computer conference. HR told me to mark all the resumes that looked good for our group with my manager's name and they'd send them on to him. A week after I got back, I asked him about it, and he said they didn't send him a single resume. WTF did I waste my time (and the company's time) doing at the show then?
emodendroket 8y ago
Every time I've been involved in hiring, we didn't really mind what technologies they used if they'd done some sort of vaguely similar programming.
watwut 8y ago
People who apply to jobs they dont fill requirements for on average get better jobs - because many times it works. This is one of probable reasons between male and female career differences - women tend to apply where they dont fill all requirements less and consequently men who dont match them get more jobs. As is now, rational behavior is to apply even if you are unqualified and hope it works, unfortunately.

busterarm 8y ago

> Are there really companies out there where the difference between getting an offer and not getting an offer is spending a few hours making a bespoke "please hire me" website? No, but it can jedi mind trick your way past HR screeners. And that's the only thing that it can do. If your only way into a company you want to work for is "through the front door" and you aren't a perfect on-paper candidate for them (same role at a direct competitor) then it could be worth your time doing this... I did this once while applying to a fully remote company and it got me the interview (hey, it's hard to compete against hundreds of applications per day) but did not end up with an offer.

blattimwind 8y ago
It's probably easier to just befriend some engineers that are already working there.
- busterarm 8y ago
  Absolutely it is, but that's not always feasible.
  - pkaye 8y ago
    I've had some people cold call me via Linked In because they were looking for a job. Mostly just new college grads. It does give them a little boost for taking a initiative but beyond that they will need to go through the usual resume review, phone screen and in office interview.
emodendroket 8y ago
> No, but it can jedi mind trick your way past HR screeners. And that's the only thing that it can do. Can it? Frankly, I'd think any application that deviates from the normal procedure in a quirky way is a demerit for most companies.
- eggpy 8y ago
  Reeeeeeeally depends. In my experience, most people who would do the early interviews/ determine candidacy for an interview probably don't have the time or desire to check out bespoke websites or other "deviations". The look at a summary of the position applied for and a summary of the qualifications and determine to go forward with an interview. In all likelihood, your interviewer probably won't look at your website either. But it's a good talking point, and if the interview is anywhere other than one FaGooNetZon etc, then being able to talk about it in an interview might win you points. So it wouldn't say it is _bad_, just that it will probably be ignored 80% of the time.
- busterarm 8y ago
  Maybe if you're applying for a bank or it doesn't fit the role. I was trying to get a support engineer role that would have had me demoing to clients, so I whiteboard-animated and filmed my pitch for why I was a perfect fit for the company. It went over.
- Rylinks 8y ago
  It seems like a high-variance strategy. Most of the time it would be a demerit, but that doesn't matter if most of the time you will not get past the HR screens regardless.

ryandrake 8y ago

The tech hiring market is like a disfunctional dating pool. Lots of companies complaining they can’t find good talent, and lots of talent complaining they can’t find good companies. Is it too high standards on both sides or on one side? Is it a broken matchmaking system?

paladin314159 8y ago
I don't know that you need the "dysfunctional" qualification to that statement. It probably suffers from the usual problem: people want to work at a place that is too good for them (whatever that actually means) and companies want to hire people that are too good for them (again, whatever that means).
- bigiain 8y ago
  And it gets deeper too. From both ends. Nobody knows what they're doing here... Most mediocre devs overestimate their abilities - while many of the truely top devs severely under estimate themselves. The recruitment process/chain at many companies severely overestimates their desirability as an employer ("If selected, you'll be given the privilege of working at this traditional corporate bank, working on 6 year old Windows desktop development machines, under overpaid architecture astronauts who's suits cost more than your weekly take-home, on strictly waterfall projects. But we'll still expect you to be in the office at 9am for the mandatory "Agile Standup"!!!)
lynnetye 8y ago
I think about this a lot. Here's a little brain dump: Too many people are playing a numbers game, which creates a lot of noise. The noise makes it easy to miss good connections. Inexperienced people (on both sides) are looking for the wrong things and just like it is w/ love, a lot of us need to learn the hard way. Wanting to date the most popular guy/girl in school is the equivalent of wanting to work at a "company everyone knows." A few years later, we want to meet someone who is "ambitious, interesting, and has a good sense of humor," which is maybe like wanting to work at a company in an industry you can get behind. It's less superficial, and we have some direction here, but it's still too vague. (A lot of people are drawn to health and education not because they're truly passionate about either, but simply because it'll be easier find purpose/meaning.) After a heartbreak or two, we finally figure out what our deal breakers are. Examples: I can't date anyone who cares a lot about fashion. I'm very attracted to people who dress well, but it turns out prioritizing it means attention and money is spent in ways I can't get on board w/. Similarly, I can't work anywhere that has a lot of mandatory meetings. Counter intuitive because I'm very extroverted and social, but meetings destroy my productivity. I would have never known these things 10 years ago. Resumes and "dating profiles" don't give us a full picture. What we really want to know is: "Are we truly compatible? Are our goals and values truly aligned?" Those things take time, introspection, and research. However, it feels like job searching/sourcing/recruiting is going in the complete opposite direction (ie. "let's email 1k engineers every day, maybe 1% will respond"). This creates the noise that makes it hard for people who've figured out what they are looking for to find it.

ravenstine 8y ago

> In my experience there is this huge pool of unqualified applicants applying for every job no matter what the actual job requirements are. The applicants that got a call for an interview 1) looked at the technologies listed in the job requirements and 2) put their experience with these technologies on their resume. I think this is a result of the (frankly) BS practice employers have been using for years of inflating the qualifications required for positions. I can't count on one hand how many postings I've seen for mid-level developer roles that require 5+ years of experience writing Python, C++, C#, Java, and JavaScript; oh yeah, you've also got to know Angular and React, and "bonus" if you know Vue. Even before I became a developer(I first tried to get into animation), the advice from older folks and career specialists was to "just apply to all the positions you want even if you don't meet all the qualifications", and I'd bet good money that a lot of people are still hearing this advice from various channels. Now that everyone is just shotgun applying to everything, the advantage is largely gone. But because everyone is doing it, and individual must do so or they'll be drowned out in signal noise.

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Well some of us can tick off most of those boxes. Still can't get past the AI gauntlet though.
aaronblohowiak 8y ago
Overly specific job requirements are sometimes used to game the immigration system.
BigJono 8y ago
This is exactly what I try not to do when hiring. I don't want someone that's built a bloody todo list in Angular, React and Vue. I want someone that's generated revenue by building quality software in one of them. I think one of the biggest technical advantages you can get over your competition is to hire good specialists. Almost everywhere I've worked (especially anywhere HR or non-tech people are involved in the hiring) has just hoovered up the "jack of all trades" types and I suspect their tech has suffered for it.

paulsutter 8y ago

When I was at Apple, the resumes filtered by HR were a huge pool of unqualified candidates. Gems were among candidates rejected by HR. Wasn't easy getting that list. HR is a compliance function. By some strange fluke, it gets inserted in the hiring process in large companies.

itronitron 8y ago
and this is why people overstate their skills on their resumes, because they are trying to get their resume into the hands of someone that will actually read it
- sumedh 8y ago
  Fake it till you make it.
flukus 8y ago
> HR is a compliance function. By some strange fluke, it gets inserted in the hiring process in large companies. Someone's got to do it and if it's not HR then it's generally a recruitment company. For the price of hiring 4 devs through a recruiter the company could afford a full time HR person (ignoring stupid accounting tricks).
- philwelch 8y ago
  But if the HR person does a bad enough job, then the hiring manager ends up having to do it themselves, on top of fighting with the HR department to let them do it themselves, so you end up with a negative net value added.
- paulsutter 8y ago
  We built a sourcing department to source candidates. A “recruiter” is a salesperson incented to close deals, not someone you want in the hiring process.
tnhaoeh34thoe9 8y ago
I once worked the recruiting booth at a popular computer conference. HR told me to mark all the resumes that looked good for our group with my manager's name and they'd send them on to him. A week after I got back, I asked him about it, and he said they didn't send him a single resume. WTF did I waste my time (and the company's time) doing at the show then?

emodendroket 8y ago

Every time I've been involved in hiring, we didn't really mind what technologies they used if they'd done some sort of vaguely similar programming.

watwut 8y ago

People who apply to jobs they dont fill requirements for on average get better jobs - because many times it works. This is one of probable reasons between male and female career differences - women tend to apply where they dont fill all requirements less and consequently men who dont match them get more jobs. As is now, rational behavior is to apply even if you are unqualified and hope it works, unfortunately.