6 ms·

In the new remote tech world, it’s easier than ever to interview while on the job. Obviously it depends on your meeting load and how regularly unplanned work/me

by axg11 5y ago

In the new remote tech world, it’s easier than ever to interview while on the job. Obviously it depends on your meeting load and how regularly unplanned work/meetings arise. I have a suspicion this is another factor contributing to lower retention rates across the industry. Before the pandemic, if a recruiter contacted me I would have to weigh all the benefits of the role against the hassle of interviewing, including figuring out how to leave the office discreetly and potentially block off consecutive days. Now, it’s trivial for anyone to schedule interviews during hours without meetings. Effectively, the bar for accepting an interview loop from a candidate’s point-of-view is lower when they are fully remote. On the flip side, if you’re fully remote and find it difficult to job hunt while working, then that’s a good reason to leave! Your role likely isn’t giving you enough autonomy.

ryandrake 5y ago
Finding a job is not just interviewing. It's a massive time sink. Researching companies, filling out applications and web forms, "quick" phone chats with recruiters who refuse to just dump info over E-mail, re-studying fundamentals, grinding leetcode or other skills prep, doing company take-home tests and "challenges". And then for every 100 applications, you might get interviews at 10 companies, producing 1 offer. It's quite a bit of busy work, and if you have many work deliverables or are booked solid in meetings 8:30 to 6:00, you're not really going to have time to do it. I've always had to take blocks of time off (vacation or unpaid time off) in order to seriously get another job.
- gibolt 5y ago
  The recruiter calls are the worst waste of time! On top of that, if a recruiting agency sets you up, you're looking at an additional call with each company recruiter and/or hiring manager, before even starting to interview. On top of that, each individual call/interview takes up some adjacent time to schedule + prep and occupies your headspace until it happens.
- BlargMcLarg 5y ago
  >producing 1 offer And then the resulting offer isn't even on par with your current comp. It's almost as if the entire thing is designed maliciously on purpose.
- cecilpl2 5y ago
  This has not been my experience at all. My three most recent job switches (over 5 years) have gone like this: 1. Ex-coworker or recruiter reaches out with an opportunity that sounds interesting. 2. I ask for comp range and make sure it's acceptable (50%+ increase). 3. I go through the interview loop and get an offer In there have been maybe 3-4 short recruiter calls that went nowhere for fit or comp reasons. In my life, once I got to the tech screen stage I have gotten an offer 6 out of 9 times. Is this other people's experience as well? Maybe I have just been extraordinarily lucky?
  - BlargMcLarg 5y ago
    Three times 50%? So 337.5%+ of your salary pre-first hop? I assure you, the far majority will not just get offers for that, if they can even find a job willing to make such a jump in comp. They'll be looking for those offers themselves. If only for the fact most devs are still in the first 5 years of their career.
    - cecilpl2 5y ago
      Yes, closer to 4x (120k-480k). Admittedly I was originally underpaid even for my market area and the rise of remote work has allowed me to find jobs in higher-paying markets. Anyway, my main point was that I have found inbound job requests from recruiters or referrals to have a very high success rate.
  - sanderjd 5y ago
    This is closer to my experience than your parent, fwiw. Though I have done job searches myself rather than going with inbound outreach from my network. My recent job search was more like 8 -> 5 -> 3 rather than the 100 -> 10 -> 1 in the parent comment.
    - derekbaker783 5y ago
      Same
    - faddypaddy34 5y ago
- grepLeigh 5y ago
  I've thought about piloting a temp personal assistant service for software engineers during their job search. Imagine the following... - Recruiter outreach is filtered / summarized. - Recruiter phone screens are scheduled for you, batched together. - Your assistant pre-screens for basic preferences: remote, salary, company size, role scope/level. - Interview loops are scheduled for you. - Receive a packet of spaced repetition exercises (optional), digest of Blind/Glassdoors messages, compensation data from the company/industry/area. - Negotiation practice, coaching In my experience, "forwarding this to my assistant for scheduling" is a power move. Some of above is handled by agency-style recruiting (Cybercoders) but the quality of those leads is on the low end. The high-end recruiting agencies focus on the employer side of the equation. Feels like there's an interesting gap for a service focused on a highly-skilled candidate's side of the equation.
  - arthurcolle 5y ago
    It's a great idea!
  - izzygonzalez 5y ago
    I've worked on a lot of these processes. If you're interested in talking, my Twitter is linked in my HN profile.
    - grepLeigh 5y ago
      Followed, just in case! I probably won't pursue this idea (too many other things going on), so anyone who wants to run with this should try it.
  - a_t48 5y ago
    I had good luck reaching directly out to a recruiter working at a VC firm last time I was looking. I'm not sure how this would work without a direct introduction, but presumably one could reach out on linkedin/email. This was great from the perspective of outreach/filtering.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    It's a good idea. In show business, this person is your agent. If you can afford someone to do this, it makes sense to offload this tedious work.
- JPatRedCarpet 5y ago
  > "quick" phone chats with recruiters who refuse to just dump info over E-mail This is definitely a pain, 100%. I've read as many as 90-95% of messages some engineers get from recruiters don't include comp at all within the outbound, it's a shame! On top of that, it's many times impossible to understand anything deep about the company, what projects they have going on, information about the team members you'd be working with etc. Recruiting, and job descriptions in general, can do so much more than they do today and actually be an asset to engineers instead of time drains.
  - cecilpl2 5y ago
    I have never had an initial recruiter message contain comp info. Literally 0 out of hundreds. Maybe 10% are willing to provide hard numbers upon request, and about 50% have given me numbers after a 15 minute ~~phone call~~ sales pitch.
- throwaway675309 5y ago
  If you have some recruiters that you've worked with in the past and cultivated a good relationship with them, then it makes entire experience a lot more streamlined. My last three jobs in the industry all I've done is literally flip a switch on my LinkedIn to "looking for work" and then notified my recruiters. They lined up some interviews - I picked the ones that I liked, finished the interviews and had offers from several companies within a few weeks. No grinding at all.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- bspear 5y ago
  Ya the researching companies thing takes so long esp. if you're going for startups. These sites saved me a lot of time: https://topstartups.io/ https://topstartups.io/, https://breakoutlist.com/ https://breakoutlist.com/ Also helps to take a few days off here and there to get it all done, even if you're working remote
- zeroonetwothree 5y ago
  I guess I am kind of privileged, but with experience at a "brand name" employer I get interviews at 100% of places I apply to, and offers probably 75% of the time overall. Most of them I have declined though because I've found it hard to increase comp (or there were other red flags).
- journey_16162 5y ago
  Sometimes there's also a part before job hunting - preparing your portfolio. Nowadays you get a lot of "show us what you made on GitHub" - which sort of makes sense from employers standpoint because you get to see code quality and ability of someone to think independently. I'm changing the tech stack completely - different language, different type of development (at least from the day job perspective, I had some 2,000h of experience with it on a side project I can't publish yet in the recent 2 years) and I will definitely need to prepare something, otherwise I have almost no relevant experience to show. I suppose it's going to take at least 500h and that's being optimistic. Time is slightly on my side though, as the day job is freelancing, I think I can cap it at 30h/week average and have remaining 30h/week for the portfolio project - which hopefully means I will be ready 5 months from now, but I would not be surprised if it blows up further.
- dominotw 5y ago
  Depending on diff between your current pay and potential pay, one might be better off quitting and searching for the new job to create best possible outcome.
pm90 5y ago
Interviewing has become so much better. Final rounds used to involve travel so you almost always had to take time off to do it. Today, final rounds are done remotely, and you can split them between days reducing the stress involved for the candidate. No longer do we have to do the stupidest, most idiotic idea invented by anyone ever: Whiteboard programming. Instead, we can use excellent tools like Coderpad which are so much more easier to work with.
jimkleiber 5y ago
As I read your comment, I wonder how much the job market parallels the dating market, especially as I read: > if a recruiter contacted me I would have to weigh all the benefits of the role against the hassle of interviewing, including figuring out how to leave the office discreetly and potentially block off consecutive days. I wonder if remote working and remote (long-distance) relationships are facing similar challenges—maybe more "serial monogamy" (lower retention), "cheating" (secretly working for a second company or consulting), "polygamy" (openly work for multiple companies at the same time), "open relationships" (allowed to take consulting gigs and side projects on top of one's job), or just "dating" (freelancing instead of being exclusive with one company). I really wonder how much the technology environment enables or pushes us towards these types of relationships, professional and romantic.

by axg11 5y ago

ryandrake 5y ago

Finding a job is not just interviewing. It's a massive time sink. Researching companies, filling out applications and web forms, "quick" phone chats with recruiters who refuse to just dump info over E-mail, re-studying fundamentals, grinding leetcode or other skills prep, doing company take-home tests and "challenges". And then for every 100 applications, you might get interviews at 10 companies, producing 1 offer. It's quite a bit of busy work, and if you have many work deliverables or are booked solid in meetings 8:30 to 6:00, you're not really going to have time to do it. I've always had to take blocks of time off (vacation or unpaid time off) in order to seriously get another job.

gibolt 5y ago
The recruiter calls are the worst waste of time! On top of that, if a recruiting agency sets you up, you're looking at an additional call with each company recruiter and/or hiring manager, before even starting to interview. On top of that, each individual call/interview takes up some adjacent time to schedule + prep and occupies your headspace until it happens.
BlargMcLarg 5y ago
>producing 1 offer And then the resulting offer isn't even on par with your current comp. It's almost as if the entire thing is designed maliciously on purpose.
cecilpl2 5y ago
This has not been my experience at all. My three most recent job switches (over 5 years) have gone like this: 1. Ex-coworker or recruiter reaches out with an opportunity that sounds interesting. 2. I ask for comp range and make sure it's acceptable (50%+ increase). 3. I go through the interview loop and get an offer In there have been maybe 3-4 short recruiter calls that went nowhere for fit or comp reasons. In my life, once I got to the tech screen stage I have gotten an offer 6 out of 9 times. Is this other people's experience as well? Maybe I have just been extraordinarily lucky?
- BlargMcLarg 5y ago
  Three times 50%? So 337.5%+ of your salary pre-first hop? I assure you, the far majority will not just get offers for that, if they can even find a job willing to make such a jump in comp. They'll be looking for those offers themselves. If only for the fact most devs are still in the first 5 years of their career.
  - cecilpl2 5y ago
    Yes, closer to 4x (120k-480k). Admittedly I was originally underpaid even for my market area and the rise of remote work has allowed me to find jobs in higher-paying markets. Anyway, my main point was that I have found inbound job requests from recruiters or referrals to have a very high success rate.
- sanderjd 5y ago
  This is closer to my experience than your parent, fwiw. Though I have done job searches myself rather than going with inbound outreach from my network. My recent job search was more like 8 -> 5 -> 3 rather than the 100 -> 10 -> 1 in the parent comment.
  - derekbaker783 5y ago
    Same
  - faddypaddy34 5y ago
grepLeigh 5y ago
I've thought about piloting a temp personal assistant service for software engineers during their job search. Imagine the following... - Recruiter outreach is filtered / summarized. - Recruiter phone screens are scheduled for you, batched together. - Your assistant pre-screens for basic preferences: remote, salary, company size, role scope/level. - Interview loops are scheduled for you. - Receive a packet of spaced repetition exercises (optional), digest of Blind/Glassdoors messages, compensation data from the company/industry/area. - Negotiation practice, coaching In my experience, "forwarding this to my assistant for scheduling" is a power move. Some of above is handled by agency-style recruiting (Cybercoders) but the quality of those leads is on the low end. The high-end recruiting agencies focus on the employer side of the equation. Feels like there's an interesting gap for a service focused on a highly-skilled candidate's side of the equation.
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  It's a great idea!
- izzygonzalez 5y ago
  I've worked on a lot of these processes. If you're interested in talking, my Twitter is linked in my HN profile.
  - grepLeigh 5y ago
    Followed, just in case! I probably won't pursue this idea (too many other things going on), so anyone who wants to run with this should try it.
- a_t48 5y ago
  I had good luck reaching directly out to a recruiter working at a VC firm last time I was looking. I'm not sure how this would work without a direct introduction, but presumably one could reach out on linkedin/email. This was great from the perspective of outreach/filtering.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  It's a good idea. In show business, this person is your agent. If you can afford someone to do this, it makes sense to offload this tedious work.
JPatRedCarpet 5y ago
> "quick" phone chats with recruiters who refuse to just dump info over E-mail This is definitely a pain, 100%. I've read as many as 90-95% of messages some engineers get from recruiters don't include comp at all within the outbound, it's a shame! On top of that, it's many times impossible to understand anything deep about the company, what projects they have going on, information about the team members you'd be working with etc. Recruiting, and job descriptions in general, can do so much more than they do today and actually be an asset to engineers instead of time drains.
- cecilpl2 5y ago
  I have never had an initial recruiter message contain comp info. Literally 0 out of hundreds. Maybe 10% are willing to provide hard numbers upon request, and about 50% have given me numbers after a 15 minute ~~phone call~~ sales pitch.
throwaway675309 5y ago
If you have some recruiters that you've worked with in the past and cultivated a good relationship with them, then it makes entire experience a lot more streamlined. My last three jobs in the industry all I've done is literally flip a switch on my LinkedIn to "looking for work" and then notified my recruiters. They lined up some interviews - I picked the ones that I liked, finished the interviews and had offers from several companies within a few weeks. No grinding at all.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bspear 5y ago
Ya the researching companies thing takes so long esp. if you're going for startups. These sites saved me a lot of time: https://topstartups.io/ https://topstartups.io/, https://breakoutlist.com/ https://breakoutlist.com/ Also helps to take a few days off here and there to get it all done, even if you're working remote
zeroonetwothree 5y ago
I guess I am kind of privileged, but with experience at a "brand name" employer I get interviews at 100% of places I apply to, and offers probably 75% of the time overall. Most of them I have declined though because I've found it hard to increase comp (or there were other red flags).
journey_16162 5y ago
Sometimes there's also a part before job hunting - preparing your portfolio. Nowadays you get a lot of "show us what you made on GitHub" - which sort of makes sense from employers standpoint because you get to see code quality and ability of someone to think independently. I'm changing the tech stack completely - different language, different type of development (at least from the day job perspective, I had some 2,000h of experience with it on a side project I can't publish yet in the recent 2 years) and I will definitely need to prepare something, otherwise I have almost no relevant experience to show. I suppose it's going to take at least 500h and that's being optimistic. Time is slightly on my side though, as the day job is freelancing, I think I can cap it at 30h/week average and have remaining 30h/week for the portfolio project - which hopefully means I will be ready 5 months from now, but I would not be surprised if it blows up further.
dominotw 5y ago
Depending on diff between your current pay and potential pay, one might be better off quitting and searching for the new job to create best possible outcome.

pm90 5y ago

Interviewing has become so much better. Final rounds used to involve travel so you almost always had to take time off to do it. Today, final rounds are done remotely, and you can split them between days reducing the stress involved for the candidate. No longer do we have to do the stupidest, most idiotic idea invented by anyone ever: Whiteboard programming. Instead, we can use excellent tools like Coderpad which are so much more easier to work with.

jimkleiber 5y ago

As I read your comment, I wonder how much the job market parallels the dating market, especially as I read: > if a recruiter contacted me I would have to weigh all the benefits of the role against the hassle of interviewing, including figuring out how to leave the office discreetly and potentially block off consecutive days. I wonder if remote working and remote (long-distance) relationships are facing similar challenges—maybe more "serial monogamy" (lower retention), "cheating" (secretly working for a second company or consulting), "polygamy" (openly work for multiple companies at the same time), "open relationships" (allowed to take consulting gigs and side projects on top of one's job), or just "dating" (freelancing instead of being exclusive with one company). I really wonder how much the technology environment enables or pushes us towards these types of relationships, professional and romantic.