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Just curious, what do you define as an _okay_ job? Would you be willing to pay the opportunity cost to take it? For what it's worth, I thought the same. I appl

Just curious, what do you define as an _okay_ job? Would you be willing to pay the opportunity cost to take it? For what it's worth, I thought the same. I applied to over 50 companies and not all of them were FAANG by any stretch of the imagination. I'll admit I'm not the best at interviewing, which certainly was a factor. But even as I broadened my search to the "okay" roles, I still had difficulty landing work.

doix 4y ago
> Just curious, what do you define as an _okay_ job? Would you be willing to pay the opportunity cost to take it? If I didn't have enough money to pay for food/rent, I would take the first offer. Fortunately, I've never been in that situation. > I applied to over 50 companies and not all of them were FAANG by any stretch of the imagination. I'll admit I'm not the best at interviewing, which certainly was a factor. But even as I broadened my search to the "okay" roles, I still had difficulty landing work. If you're thinking about the distinction between FAANG and not FAANG, then we are talking about completely different levels of _okay_. I'm talking about non-tech companies, where you'd most likely be working on internal tools or whatever. Maybe you'd be writing crappy Jira/Confleunce/whatever plugins. Or gluing together one internal system to another internal system, etc. I consider _okay_ to mean a job that pays enough money to cover rent/food.
- anon50118810 4y ago
  It would be great if you could share your insights about finding work at these non-tech companies, either here or at my recent post at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34108841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34108841. I've applied to far over 50 places and would be satisfied with that sort of thing at least for the near term.
  - doix 4y ago
    You're looking for a remote job. The sort of companies I'm thinking of most likely won't do remote. Maybe it's different now in the era of COVID, but I suspect they'll still be "asses in chairs, look busy" type places. Go on monster.com (or any other job search site), type in "programmer" (or "<language> programmer" if you only have experience in a single language) and start applying. If you don't recognize the company name or what they do, that's good. If you're looking for a consultancy gig, then you probably want to look out for keywords like "government" or "client". If you're looking for a non-tech company, then you need to google the company name and see what field their in. If you know Java, you can probably search for "Jira programmer" or "Jira developer" and find a pretty cushy gig writing those. If you know PHP, then search for "wordpress developer". If it's python, search "Django developer" etc.
    - anon50118810 4y ago
      Yes, remote only if at all possible. I'm surprised that non-tech companies care about looking busy, since tech is a cost center for them and I would guess they're hiring grudgingly at best. I've looked mainly on LinkedIn and some smaller job boards, not Monster or Indeed or Dice or any of those. Another thing is that I'm avoiding complex applications, the ones where you're immediately asked to create an account and once you do they ask you for a ton of information like every job you've had in your life. Are the jobs you're talking about often gated behind these applications?
      - doix 4y ago
        > Are the jobs you're talking about often gated behind these applications? Most likely, you'll start to recognize the different software companies use to track job applications. My only experience was helping someone out when they got laid off. They had a mortgage to pay, a new born and a wife that quit her job to look after the new born. Being picky about job application software wasn't a the top of our list. I think we applied to over 500 ads over the course of a few days, basically every single commutable job. I think from those, there were 20 interviews and 3 offers. Some of the software automatically scans your CV and populates stuff. If it can't do it properly, restructure your CV until it can. You might need a few different CVs for different software. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you don't sound very serious. Or at least not desperate (which is probably a good thing). If you're looking for a job full time, you should spend a few hours a day grinding leetcode and a few hours a day filling in those shit applications. Obviously I don't know you or you situation, I have no idea if this is good advice for you or not.
        anon50118810 4y ago
        You can judge for yourself whether I'm serious or desperate or not. If your standard is 500 applications within a few days, then no. I can't even comprehend that. Are we talking like 10-15 applications per hour? I don't care about the software as such, but so far I'm not desperate enough to provide detailed information about every job I've had since I was a teenager, every reference up front, agree to legal statements, or whatever else they might insist on, knowing I could be fired later on if I get any of it wrong, just to maybe get the first 30 minute phone call from a recruiter. On top of this is the simple logic that any employer that puts up all these barriers is probably not really interested in hiring anyway. More work for less reward, so that my time would be better spent looking for more likely positions. That said I'm willing to have my mind changed on this. Maybe all of these jobs are actually super eager to hire despite being so hostile to applicants.
fatnoah 4y ago
Coming off my own job search, my take is that the era of remote work has fundamentally changed the entire process. I'm going on 24 years of professional experience and applied to more jobs in that search than in the rest of my career combined. Prior to this year, I've had exactly two applications that didn't result in an interview, and only 3 interviews that didn't result in offers. In this past search, I applied to about 50 jobs and had 4 interviews. According to LinkedIn stats, most of those jobs had 30-200+ applicants. The results of those applications were: ~12 screens with recruiters that resulted in rejection ~ 8 rejections w/no conversations ~20 no reply whatsoever ~ 3 rejects in first round - 1 second round reject - 1 final round reject (a nearly 2 month process!) - 1 offer for about 50% of my previous salary, but a more more interesting role - 2 replies indicating a desire to move forward that came 6 weeks after my application, and after I'd accepted a job. My takeaway is that it's a numbers game now. In the past, I was very highly targeted in my searches, but now that the doors are wide open to everyone across the country for many roles, it's about getting someone's eyes on your resume, and that requires a certain level of aggression in applying.

doix 4y ago

> Just curious, what do you define as an _okay_ job? Would you be willing to pay the opportunity cost to take it? If I didn't have enough money to pay for food/rent, I would take the first offer. Fortunately, I've never been in that situation. > I applied to over 50 companies and not all of them were FAANG by any stretch of the imagination. I'll admit I'm not the best at interviewing, which certainly was a factor. But even as I broadened my search to the "okay" roles, I still had difficulty landing work. If you're thinking about the distinction between FAANG and not FAANG, then we are talking about completely different levels of _okay_. I'm talking about non-tech companies, where you'd most likely be working on internal tools or whatever. Maybe you'd be writing crappy Jira/Confleunce/whatever plugins. Or gluing together one internal system to another internal system, etc. I consider _okay_ to mean a job that pays enough money to cover rent/food.

anon50118810 4y ago
It would be great if you could share your insights about finding work at these non-tech companies, either here or at my recent post at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34108841 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34108841. I've applied to far over 50 places and would be satisfied with that sort of thing at least for the near term.
- doix 4y ago
  You're looking for a remote job. The sort of companies I'm thinking of most likely won't do remote. Maybe it's different now in the era of COVID, but I suspect they'll still be "asses in chairs, look busy" type places. Go on monster.com (or any other job search site), type in "programmer" (or "<language> programmer" if you only have experience in a single language) and start applying. If you don't recognize the company name or what they do, that's good. If you're looking for a consultancy gig, then you probably want to look out for keywords like "government" or "client". If you're looking for a non-tech company, then you need to google the company name and see what field their in. If you know Java, you can probably search for "Jira programmer" or "Jira developer" and find a pretty cushy gig writing those. If you know PHP, then search for "wordpress developer". If it's python, search "Django developer" etc.
  - anon50118810 4y ago
    Yes, remote only if at all possible. I'm surprised that non-tech companies care about looking busy, since tech is a cost center for them and I would guess they're hiring grudgingly at best. I've looked mainly on LinkedIn and some smaller job boards, not Monster or Indeed or Dice or any of those. Another thing is that I'm avoiding complex applications, the ones where you're immediately asked to create an account and once you do they ask you for a ton of information like every job you've had in your life. Are the jobs you're talking about often gated behind these applications?
    - doix 4y ago
      > Are the jobs you're talking about often gated behind these applications? Most likely, you'll start to recognize the different software companies use to track job applications. My only experience was helping someone out when they got laid off. They had a mortgage to pay, a new born and a wife that quit her job to look after the new born. Being picky about job application software wasn't a the top of our list. I think we applied to over 500 ads over the course of a few days, basically every single commutable job. I think from those, there were 20 interviews and 3 offers. Some of the software automatically scans your CV and populates stuff. If it can't do it properly, restructure your CV until it can. You might need a few different CVs for different software. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you don't sound very serious. Or at least not desperate (which is probably a good thing). If you're looking for a job full time, you should spend a few hours a day grinding leetcode and a few hours a day filling in those shit applications. Obviously I don't know you or you situation, I have no idea if this is good advice for you or not.
      - anon50118810 4y ago
        You can judge for yourself whether I'm serious or desperate or not. If your standard is 500 applications within a few days, then no. I can't even comprehend that. Are we talking like 10-15 applications per hour? I don't care about the software as such, but so far I'm not desperate enough to provide detailed information about every job I've had since I was a teenager, every reference up front, agree to legal statements, or whatever else they might insist on, knowing I could be fired later on if I get any of it wrong, just to maybe get the first 30 minute phone call from a recruiter. On top of this is the simple logic that any employer that puts up all these barriers is probably not really interested in hiring anyway. More work for less reward, so that my time would be better spent looking for more likely positions. That said I'm willing to have my mind changed on this. Maybe all of these jobs are actually super eager to hire despite being so hostile to applicants.

fatnoah 4y ago

Coming off my own job search, my take is that the era of remote work has fundamentally changed the entire process. I'm going on 24 years of professional experience and applied to more jobs in that search than in the rest of my career combined. Prior to this year, I've had exactly two applications that didn't result in an interview, and only 3 interviews that didn't result in offers. In this past search, I applied to about 50 jobs and had 4 interviews. According to LinkedIn stats, most of those jobs had 30-200+ applicants. The results of those applications were: ~12 screens with recruiters that resulted in rejection ~ 8 rejections w/no conversations ~20 no reply whatsoever ~ 3 rejects in first round - 1 second round reject - 1 final round reject (a nearly 2 month process!) - 1 offer for about 50% of my previous salary, but a more more interesting role - 2 replies indicating a desire to move forward that came 6 weeks after my application, and after I'd accepted a job. My takeaway is that it's a numbers game now. In the past, I was very highly targeted in my searches, but now that the doors are wide open to everyone across the country for many roles, it's about getting someone's eyes on your resume, and that requires a certain level of aggression in applying.