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Ask HN: Reject/ghost on all job applications with 8 YoE, what am I doing wrong?

121 points by throwaway_sp11 4y ago

Hi HN, I know this isn't the forum for this kinda question but I've been an avid reader and commenter here for 10+ years and I feel I align pretty well with the demographic. Which is why I'm asking for help. Recently I've been applying to remote jobs, but literally all of my applications have been rejected or ghosted. It's so much different than when I was looking a couple years ago. I'm in my mid-20s, with 7-8 years of professional experience and have been programming since I was a kid. I have FAANG names on my resume, jobs and internships (when I was a student). I consider myself a reasonably good engineer - I don't think I'm hot shit, but I would've expected to get to the first screening at least somewhere. Has the landscape changed so much in the past few years? Or, if I'm doing something wrong and raising a huge red flag to everyone, how the hell do I figure out what it is? Getting kinda jumpy about my prospects, it's been disheartening.

kayodelycaon 4y ago
Not sure how the job market is, but let’s start with the basics: Have you had some someone review your resume? If not, my email is in my profile. :)
- throwaway_sp11 4y ago
  Just friends in the field. They say it looks good. Thank you so much for the offer, I'll drop you an email.
  - giggles_01 4y ago
    Would you be so kind to generalize the advices you receive and post them (without PII)?
    - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
      I will, if the parent commenter is OK with it. I'm happy to help others in a similar situation.
donkeyboy 4y ago
Note: the tech market isn’t doing too hot, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Applying to jobs can be a numbers game. Just keep applying. Tune your CV to have keywords in each job application. Reach out to the recruiter on Linkedin and see if they can refer you. Have a trusted friend review your CV too.
thenerdhead 4y ago
Nobody can tell you what might be wrong without seeing with their eyes. You would be more successful if you anonymously posted something like a resume or recent application that people could provide constructive feedback to. I'll give you a 5 minute review if you find my contact information from my profile and send me your resume. I've publicly helped people land all sorts of tech jobs in the last few years.
- throwaway_sp11 4y ago
  Thank you for the offer. I dropped you an email. About posting the resume publicly, I worry that it's hard to anonymize properly and still get the point across. Although I might do it if I run out of things to try.
  - akvadrako 4y ago
    Why would you want to be anonymous? It's better to get your name out there in front of more potential eyes. As for your question, I consider finding a good job without a personal connection to always be a grind. I have about 20 years of engineering experience with trendy buzzwords, high profile gigs and high praise from references. Yet I still expect to apply to a hundred places and only get a handful of interviews.
    - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
      I'm just not comfortable with my manager knowing that I'm looking around.
      - freedude 4y ago
        Perhaps the problem is in the reason you are leaving.
        throwaway_sp11 4y ago
        I don't understand, why do you say that?
lnsru 4y ago
Today we got at Big Corp an e-mail, that pandemic is over and no measures are needed anymore. I think next step will be back to the office. Remote jobs will slowly disappear. I am very confident, that on-site applicants today are preferred over remote candidates.
- fipar 4y ago
  What you say is not remote jobs, it’s working remotely for an office-based company. I don’t know if that will disappear completely but from what you say that seems to be the case. But remote jobs for remote companies have always been a thing (been doing that on and off for 20 years, continuously for 14) and I don’t see them going away. If anything, hiring just got a little less difficult know that the pool of people who can and like working from home grew a bit.
- nness 4y ago
  Maybe some industries (or countries) but it's very much here to stay in Europe in the agency/consultancy/non-FAANG tech market. In my most recent job search, "fully on prem" technology rules were quite rare.
- lnsru 4y ago
  Edit: remote jobs will not disappear. Rather get back to pre-pandemic level.
phphphphp 4y ago
What type of jobs are you applying for, can you share examples? Keep in mind that jobs advertised as remote on remote-centric job boards will be inundated with huge numbers of applications and so you should expect rejection even if you’re a great candidate. The other possibility is that your resume is terrible for some reason — does the file open? Are you sending a PDF or some obscure file format that nobody could open? Personally, I would not bother with jobs that are advertised as “remote” first, and instead I would focus on finding a great job match that can offer remote working — so that I’m not competing against thousands of people.
- throwaway_sp11 4y ago
  I've applied mostly to full-stack and back-end positions. JS, Python, etc. It's a good point about remote-centric job boards. My trouble is that other positions usually have a "Are you authorized to work in X country" as a question, and if I answer "no", I think it goes in the bin directly.
  - phphphphp 4y ago
    Sorry, by examples I mean links to the job board posts for the positions. There’s an art to determining if a job posting is even worth your attention, it’s entirely possible you’ve applied to dozens of jobs that there’s zero chance of being hired for which is basically the same as not applying to any at all. Regarding work authorization, are you not in the US? If you’re not in the US and you’re applying for jobs that accept non-US people, you can increase the numbers I mentioned by an order of magnitude, you’ll be competing with literally thousands of people. Step 1 of an effective job search is to invest your time into positions you have a realistic chance of getting — if you can share some links to jobs you’ve applied for, I can let you know if they pass my own sniff test for worthwhile.
    - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
      Yes, unfortunately I'm not in the US. Here's a random sample of the positions I applied to: https://www.stimulus.com/jobs/1539721e-7c7d-4f45-a5b0-17e5c02d7bd0 https://www.stimulus.com/jobs/1539721e-7c7d-4f45-a5b0-17e5c0... https://app.beapplied.com/apply/grlyqh9t6e https://app.beapplied.com/apply/grlyqh9t6e https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers?ashby_jid=7dcbfb52-f465-46b2-adbb-b6caccafbe0a https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers?ashby_jid=7dcbfb52-f465-46b2... https://brave.com/careers/?gh_jid=4822139 https://brave.com/careers/?gh_jid=4822139 https://careers.liveflow.io/?ashby_jid=335a93bc-2cb0-4f6c-bd25-acac905ace88 https://careers.liveflow.io/?ashby_jid=335a93bc-2cb0-4f6c-bd...
janetacarr 4y ago
I think I need more context. Do you only have FAANG names on your resume? How many jobs have you held in your career? Do you have a lot of experience interviewing? Are you applying for jobs in a different area/level? (Management or higher seniority) Are you hoping to jump to a radically different org? (FAANG -> startup) I’ve been a hiring developer for a lot of my career and with more context I might be able to give you pointers.
- throwaway_sp11 4y ago
  To answer your questions: 1. Not only FAANG, I was a first eng hire at a startup, did some consulting work, etc. 2. It's 5 positions excluding internships. 3. I'd say I have some experience, I did competitive programming back in the day and the usual LC-style questions are not a big problem for me. I used to land jobs without doing any prep at all. Although I'm sure I've gotten a bit rusty. 4. I applied to some higher seniority jobs, but I'd say that's not the majority. 5. A startup would be great, I love wearing many hats, but I've been applying to what I considered mid-level companies with a larger engineering workforce, processes in place, etc. Thanks!
  - hardware2win 4y ago
    >It's 5 positions excluding internships. Do I get this right? 5 jobs over 7-8 years? In my opinion this is very bad How you can have strong experience if you rarely go thru whole software development lifecycle unless projects are small? This is genuine question If project takes a year to develop and you leave a few months later, then how do you know implications of your design??
    - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
      Ok, that is truly useful feedback. I didn't consider it like that. My current role is 3.5 years. 1.5 years was a startup, start-to-finish. In the end it failed, so it's not like I left voluntarily. Before that I was a student so I picked up junior and project-based jobs to finance myself.
finolex1 4y ago
The job market for tech is especially brutal right now. Most tech companies have frozen hiring or are actively laying off people. Perhaps look at trading firms or more traditional F500 companies, which still seem to be actively hiring.
hirako2000 4y ago
Not the answer people in your situation like to hear: - you are too hot for well over 90% of the roles up for grabs. - your expected salary alone may be enough a deterrent. One thing hasn't changed: the recruiting scene has not improved, rather gotten worse. Jack is a recruiting manager. He constantly needs people and the three projects he is on are far behind. HR just announced a wage cap and he will only be able to hire one engineer. 10 remotely relevant applicants, you are one of them, but the other 9 will say yes to start coding this impossible to complete set of features and won't make noise until there is room for a few more recruits. 3 of them seem like a good fit and he won't have to battle with HR like last time to offer twice what he would offer any other three who have a few years experience which should be enough to get moving with lambdas on AWS. My tip would be to not give in and be as meticulous in your selection of roles to apply to as your technical expertise is. Plenty of companies out there looking for exactly your level of experience and nothing less. On the bright side, it may sound contradictive but more roles are open than ever for top tier talent. Compensations have more than doubled in the last 10y and hiring people expect more, add noise that has amplified even more than compensations and that's what the climate is like. It takes several months to land a fitting role. Less than that you are very lucky or gave in for something subpar to your value
- John23832 4y ago
  This. The recruiters don't know quality. They know the (general) requirements asked for by the job req and the resources available to them to complete a hire (salary). OP is "failing" along one of these dimensions. From the OP's description, they fit the general requirements, so it's most likely the salary (whether the salary expectation was stated explicitly by the OP, or assumed by the recruiter). Hopefully the OP has some savings and can withstand the amount of time to find a quality fit for themselves. I'm not sure what other solution there is.
  - hirako2000 4y ago
    That. I don't think OP disclosed any info about salaries before getting "rejected". He could just broadcast to his circle that he's available for hire and a few weeks later some opportunity come up. Seems dumb can feel diminishing but can save a lot of time, good connections know what's a fit and what isn't.
wepple 4y ago
+1 that we don’t have much to go off of. Mid-twenties with 7-8 years professional experience suggests you’re self-taught. IMO that’s a highlight, but could it be that in this tech hiring freeze economy, companies are filtering on undergraduate as a prerequisite?
- throwaway_sp11 4y ago
  I finished a 4-year CS undergrad at a university, although I do consider myself 90% self-taught.
  - wepple 4y ago
    Ah, wow, that’s quite an accomplishment while working. I guess it can’t be that then.
kashnote 4y ago
You didn’t mention it in your post so I assume you have been applying to these positions online. I would try and work your network as much as possible here. With a decent resume, you’re almost guaranteed an interview if you get a referral.
- alan3456 4y ago
  Especially so if the new role is a stretch and your referrer can provide context about why you are a fit. Even in apparently rigid enterprise hiring environments - speaking from first hand experience.
fipar 4y ago
I don’t know what type of role you’re looking for but I have hired for database-related roles in the past (I’m an IC now) and will be happy to review your resume and maybe suggest a couple of places for you to try if applicable, just contact me at the email on my profile.
astura 4y ago
Nobody here can give you any meaningful feedback without seeing your resume.
Apreche 4y ago
Even in these times of many layoffs, I still get recruiters regularly contacting me. It’s mostly because they find my LinkedIn profile. I have the setting configured that I’m not looking right now, and my current job started less than a year ago, but they contact me anyway. I assume you have your resume and profile fully up to date on there, and you have it indicated that you are actively looking for a job. Recruiters aren’t bombarding you? I haven’t had success or responses from sending in job applications the old fashioned way since I used Craigslist to get a job in like, 2008. By all means keep sending them. There’s nothing to lose. But what you really want is to get an introduction from a recruiter, or a referral from someone you know. Have you asked your former co-workers if there are open positions at the places they are working?
marifjeren 4y ago
> literally all of my applications have been rejected or ghosted How many is "literally all"? What's the number? After how many days of not hearing back do you consider an employer to have ghosted you? Do you follow up with emails or phone calls to recruiters?
giantg2 4y ago
How many applications have you put out? If it's less than 10, then this isn't surprising in my experience. I'm wondering if in this environment FAANG is a detriment. It's possible with all the belt tightening that companies would rather go with cheaper candidates.
verdverm 4y ago
Who's Hiring / Looking for a Job is about to post, sounds like perfect timing for you
dusted 4y ago
I assume you've worked with people during the 8 years, they know that you can get stuff done and is friendly to be around? Definitely get in touch with them, let them know you're available. Also, since everyone seems to be "trading up" when they get a new job, you might be considered overqualified in one or more senses.. From the view of someone hiring: - Previous FAANG? = High salary expectations, our little shop not fancy enough for you. - 8 years, done a lot, coding since childhood: High expectations to problems (this role is too boring for you, you'd jump ship first chance you get, waste of time for us to onboard you) Use your network, explain you're looking for stability. I remember an interview where the interviewer asked my current salary and told me "it didn't scare him" well.. it shouldn't ? looking back on it, I guess he expected that he'd have to outbid it (he wouldn't even, I dropped them for other reasons)
mkl95 4y ago
It's a conservative market. Many companies are hiring defensively rather than trying to accelerate their growth. Hiring high profile engineers may not make sense for those companies since many projects are in maintenance mode.
onion2k 4y ago
Recently I've been applying to remote jobs... You and about 200,000 others. This is going to have a horrible impact on people's success rate.
- mynameishere 4y ago
  Remote is great when it just happens to you--when your job suddenly switches. But the obvious problem is that you just transitioned from a local to a global labor market. Ask US factory workers from 1981 how that turns out. If you do find remote work, do like me: Save your money.
- collyw 4y ago
  Remote has become the norm here in Spain, but the salaries aren't anywhere near US salaries.
- fatnoah 4y ago
  This is definitely a complicating factor. I had my first job search in the remote area after getting laid off this fall (previous one was fall 2019). In the past, I'd check job listings once a week or so, and over the course of the search I'd find 2-3 roles where the requirements seemed like a good fit. Applications almost always results in interviews and offers. In the past cycle, and with remote work in the mix, I saw a couple interesting roles every single day. Given that I have 20+ YOE and was looking for Director/VP roles, this was remarkable. Even restricting myself to ones that felt like either great matches or slight reaches, I applied to about 30-40 jobs. Each of those had 10-300 applications. Fully half of those resulted in no reply whatsoever, about 10 resulted in an eventual rejection after weeks, and about 10 of those resulted in screens (a couple came 2 months after applying), with about 5 progressing to interviews, 2 going to "final round" status, and exactly one offer. It's a numbers game now. The good news is that there are still lots of great roles, but there are more applicants. If you've been at large companies/FAANG and are used to lots of RSUs, then it's much more challenging to find that level of pay, as those companies are the ones making the cuts.
  - mbrameld 4y ago
zxcvbn4038 4y ago
Even in the best hiring environment it’s not uncommon for you not receive a response to a resume. HR departments are black holes that suck up bazillions of resumes, do a light pass to discard any that aren’t an obvious (to HR) match, then throw away the rest. The traditional pleasantries be damned. Without seeing the text of your resume, my advice is to keep applying, make sure you have key words, skills, experience from the job description visible. Avoid any upfront salary discussion. A good recruiter can tell you if there are obvious issues with your resume.
nfw2 4y ago
I’m in the same boat with roughly the same experience. The job market for engineers is night-and-day worse than it was a couple years ago. Back then everyone was hiring; now most companies have frozen hiring or are laying people off. The most success I’ve had getting interviews has been with small startups. Try YC’s Work At A Startup if you haven’t already. The Who’s Hiring thread this month may also have some good leads. Best of luck
throwaway_ios23 4y ago
I've noticed this as well. I'm a freelance iOS developer (or rather, subcontractor) with plenty of experience, in N/W Europe. Frankly, it's awfully quiet. I've been looking for a project since november last year, so that's approaching 3 months now. I'm getting antsy, I love developing but I can't concentrate and have to spend it on looking for a new client. One recruiter told me that she has a number of mobile devs looking for a project right now. Besides contracting projects, I've been including regular jobs in my search now as well.
justsocrateasin 4y ago
As an engineer who has worked as the hiring manager and directly looked through hundreds of resumes, I can say that with FAANG your resume probably would get pulled out of the stack. But maybe not. I found that, for better or worse, the only resume's that definitely got a look (and if they were above the bar, an interview) were ones that had a personal referral attached to them. It pulls it out of the stack. Frankly, I don't really apply for jobs without having a referral, I think it's often a waste of time. There's no guarantee your resume will make it out of a sea of others that look just like it otherwise. Second, as other people have mentioned, sometimes FAANG can scare companies away. They see your resume and think "gosh, he's expensive, there's no way he'll sign at the rates we're offering". This happened to my father - MBA, 30 years of experience, he found that companies didn't want to hire him because he would "be too expensive" or "was more experienced" than they wanted. Combination of those two factors could be it.
- alkonaut 4y ago
  Out of curiosity, how exactly did the referrals work? When you say "attached" do you mean literally attached? Or just that someone internal had emailed and said "heads up, this guy Bob Bobson, a former colleague of mine, is going to apply for the position and I think you should pay extra attention to his resume because he's da bomb"?
  - nixgeek 4y ago
    Many companies have ways for employees to refer new people into the recruiting process. It’s usually as easy as entering a name and email. Then when you apply Recruiting will see it comes with a referral from one or more existing employees. Some companies will also give employees who refer someone that then is hired a bonus - have seen this be $1500 to perhaps $5000 in U.S. places. Referral processes may ask whether you know the person in some non-professional capacity, or whether you have direct professional working experience with the person. There’s usually more weight assigned to the latter case. Applicants who have multiple referrals really stand out; applicants who have referrals from people in my team (versus the wider >100k person company) are also extra interesting.
  - 4y ago
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
[flagged]
- arcturus17 4y ago
  This is neither true, nor helpful, nor does it make you look smart - quite the opposite, in fact.
  - stackedinserter 4y ago
    How come it's not true?
    - sbmthakur 4y ago
      They probably mean all 12000 of them are not leetcoders.
    - arcturus17 4y ago
      Do I really need to explain to you how the statement that Google has laid off 12,000 expert leetcoders is false and borders on farce?
- cbsks 4y ago
  Has Google or any of the other tech companies with large layoffs disclosed a breakdown of how many of the fired people are programmers?
throwaway892238 4y ago
Your resume tells a story. What story does yours tell? If you haven't stayed very long at jobs, red flag. If you have done a lot of different things that don't relate to the job you're applying for, yellow flag. FAANG salary? Red flag. Mid-20s? Yellow flag (sorry, ageism is real: if they're looking for senior/leadership/etc that's unlikely to be found in someone in their 20s). Pay for a professional resume review and fix any problems they find, whether you agree or not. Keeping multiple resumes is best practice, and always write a good cover letter. Focus on your professional network. Most of your jobs should be coming from referrals from coworkers, not cold-calls on a jobs board. This is the only way to continuously get hired regardless of the job market, and is very important as you get older (again: ageism is real). Personal projects count for a lot for a software developer. Make sure you have at least a couple small projects that you maintain regularly. Contributing to open source is nice, but unless you're a major contributor, it isn't a big factor the way owning a project is. Make it really shiny: good docs, clean code, linting, testing, CI/CD. Using the latest tech is encouraging. You're applying during a time when hundreds of thousands have been layed off at the beginning of an economic recession. It's gonna be hard for anyone but the most qualified candidates to land a job now. Just look for the jobs you're a shoe-in for, get employed, wait for a better role.
- CSSer 4y ago
  Could you elaborate on what you mean by FAANG salary? I’ve always heard the prevailing wisdom is that if you’ve got one of those names on your resume you’re basically set.
  - codingdave 4y ago
    It means they assume you want to keep that high salary, and won't waste their time calling you back if their target compensation isn't competitive with FAANG, because going through an interview process only to have the candidate reject the offer isn't productive for anyone.
    - JustSomeNobody 4y ago
      One more reason companies should post the salary range. If someone with FAANG is still applying, that means they're willing to work for that range.
mgkimsal 4y ago
Use a recruiter. I understand the general consensus here is on the 'anti-recruiter' side, and there are a lot of low quality ones. And yes, it may be hard to know up front, but... play the field. Contact 3-4 recruiting companies in your area, and let them sell you. You don't have to stop your own outreach either. Just get someone else trying to sell you as well. Asking professionals whose paycheck depends on getting you placed in a job may be more fruitful than asking random HN readers. :) I don't necessarily recommend it as a 'use recruiters your entire career' but... I've had a couple good experiences that helped over the years. You also don't have to say 'yes' to anything they present.
- siva7 4y ago
  Don't know why it's downvoted but this is still along the best advice you will get. Recruiters are doing the job professionally you're failing at the moment.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I agree. But you need to find a good one. They do exist -- but they're not likely to be cold-calling you. I know of a lot of companies who simply don't do direct hiring at all -- they do everything through agencies, on a contract-to-hire basis. That way, they don't have to put as much time and effort into finding and screening applicants, and they can "try before they buy" -- if the person doesn't work out during the contract period, it's less investment lost by the company. If they do, then the company hires them directly after the contract ends.
  - mgkimsal 4y ago
    Sure, not easy to find a good recruiter, but yes, they exist. Hence the advice "Contact 3-4 recruiting companies in your area" - you need to do some outreach to them. Get referrals from network as to who may have used someone. I've had a couple of good engagements from recruiter-connected work over the years. Had a couple of not great ones too, but... they pass. You move on. Just like with 'job hunting' - you need to work it. Be talking to multiple recruiters at the same time.
remote_phone 4y ago
I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention but there have been layoffs across the entire tech industry the likes we haven’t seen since the dotcom bust, 20 years ago. I suggest tempering your expectations right now until the large companies start hiring again.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  Not across the entire tech industry. It's mostly limited to FAANG-style and SV-style companies, who have been overhiring for the past several years. Most of the industry seems to be hiring at the same rates they've always been hiring.
morley 4y ago
Hi! I'm hiring right now for a backend role (and have hired for more than eight years). I'm happy to give constructive feedback about your resume. morley - at - daylight.xyz.
deleted 4y ago
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keraf 4y ago
Was in the same boat in the beginning of the year, got +10 years of professional experience at some good companies. Got ghosted or rejected before the intro call a lot, despite matching 100% the job description, sometimes even ticking all extra/bonus points. It was very frustrating, especially since I never received any feedback on why... I guess it's because I hopped from job to job at a 1 year interval in the past years. I ended up finding a really nice job via my network. Took some time but I'm very happy now. Ping me your LinkedIn or CV, the company I'm at is still hiring. My email is the same as my website in my HN profile, only replace the first dot with an @.
bking 4y ago
Need the full context around your resume/linked-in/personal site to be able to give you better info, but throwaway892238 covers the main bases.
brailsafe 4y ago
Looks like it's pretty bad out there. For the first time in a while I'm employed, but I'm destroying myself trying to show up for these meetings rather than working on anything remotely engaging. Have started applying but not even a call yet, recruiters have dried up.
dsattt 4y ago
Look at my post from last year. Most people told me there must be something wrong with me. Everybody is looking for red flags and reasons to dismiss and reject people. It's like cancel culture, but for people with experience.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  This is actually an important point. If you have a position to fill and a stack of resumes in front of you, you will be looking for reasons to whittle down the size of that pile. That means you're going to be looking for red flags that let you quickly roundfile resumes.
noodle 4y ago
I've hired for a few remote startups in the past. It certainly could be your resume, but my offhand is that your FAANG experience prices you out of the remote market, either directly (you're telling them) or indirectly (recruiters know you'll be expensive). I've hired ballpark 500 people in my career, talked to a lot of FAANG candidates, and hired only one. Comp expectations compared to experience was just always way out of alignment. Only reason the one got hired was because they were a great fit and very open about being willing and able to take a pay cut to go full remote.
Sodman 4y ago
It's hard to give specific advice without a resume, but I did want to comment on the '8 years experience / 4 year degree / mid-20s' combo a little. You may of course be the rare exception here, but broadly here's what I've seen with that kind of resume: Many hiring managers will all but ignore any high-school level work. It's a nice positive signal to know that you've been interested in this kind of work for a long time, and stuck with it. However, I've seen many resumes that will claim "3 years" worth of experience before entering college, and when you dig in it frequently boils down to "I edited a few html pages for a total of < 100 hours when I was 16". I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but unless you have demonstrable projects on your resume from that period that prove otherwise, I'd probably avoid counting those as "years of experience" on an application. Many hiring managers will even discount college internships, as the quality can vary significantly. This is less likely to be the case for you as you have that FAANG AAA brand recognition. I've also seen candidates do two 3-month summer internships and count that as "2 years experience" though, so you have to be careful about that. Ultimately, some managers will see that you graduated in eg 2019 and therefore bucket you in with other applicants that have ~3-4 years experience. Nobody will believe a fresh 21/22 year old graduate getting their first job after graduation credibly has "5-6 years experience", for example. Some may also see and accept 8 years experience at face value, but then they'll judge you at that level and compare you to other applicants with 8 years post-college experience. These days that includes many other folks from FAANG companies with equally impressive resumes who were recently laid off. Maybe the resume screener notices that you didn't make it to a certain level within 8 years (senior/mentor/manager/tech lead/whatever arbitrary metric they expect somebody with 8 full years experience to have achieved), which could be an elimination criteria for some. Finally, as many others have commented coming from FAANG usually implies a very high salary expectation, especially for folks with 7-8 years experience, so many companies likely literally can't afford you!
- qzw 4y ago
  Yes, the same thing jumped out at me with the timeline given by OP. Your analysis is spot on.
- throwaway_sp11 4y ago
  Other commenters have also pointed out that I have a skewed view of what counts as "professional experience, which is something I'll fix. My high school & college work included more than editing HTML, but it was still junior-level and I understand it's a tough sell for that to count as work experience. Know that I really appreciate your detailed analysis and the information is really helpful to know - thanks for taking the time to type this up.
IanDrake 4y ago
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sbarre 4y ago
Not sure if anyone else has said this but: the timing is also pretty bad. A lot of companies have tight budgets for 2023 and I suspect people are waiting out Q1, maybe even Q2, before they start to spend too much, just to see how things shake out and if it's going to get better or worse. So this may not just be about you.
revskill 4y ago
Because most of the job now is just CRUD api kind of work. Who need FAANG experience for such work, at the cost of high salary ?
gregors 4y ago
Interviewing is a game to be played. It's very much a funnel. Resume/cover letter applications get phone screens. Phone screens get interviews. Interviews get second interviews, until you finally get an offer. Where in the funnel are you getting ghosted? Step 1 or further down the line? Each step (stage) has it's pitfalls. Definitely think of this as a game, how can you play it better.
neilv 4y ago
Surely not your entire problem, but at least one of those roundfilings of your resume could be anti-FAANG bias, or bias against a particular FAANG. A recruiter for a hot technical-excellence company (the kind you might think would poach the strongest FAANG people), told me that an exec was explicitly uninterested in candidates from a particular FAANG. (I forget the exact rationale, but it was something like a belief that people from there having learned the wrong lessons about engineering or product.)
- ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
  I know of at least 2 companies who will explicitly not hire ex-facebook engineers, with the rationale that anyone who would work for facebook is morally bankrupt, especially the more recent years.
daviddever23box 4y ago
Resume / CV is everything - as a manager who hires, I can discern quite a bit from one's resume style. Tell me about your work, not the number of languages you think you know. Friends are important to the process; let them review your CV to see whether your description aligns with real life. Good luck!
suchoudh 4y ago
IMHO the shift is from job to gig. Did u try the gig Market instead of Job Market. Fiverr/Upwork and the ilk
ultim8k 4y ago
The market is horrible at the moment. All the big tech corps are laying off thousands of people who have bigger potential at landing in a job as they have those big names in their CV. I'm in similar shoes at the moment although I'm not only applying to fully remote jobs, but almost any job I see.
glocoin 4y ago
You're likely doing nothing wrong it's just a saturated market of jobseekers. Supply and demand ebb and flow for most roles regularly. I simply think engineers have had a period of very high demand and lower supply for decades. Now that companies are finding ways to hire anywhere and everywhere (with or without a legal entity) supply has greatly increased and impacted demand. Just 2 cents from a recruiter hiring engineers for over 24 years. Also, remote jobs have the lowest talent demand (highest supply) because everyone wants them.
phormio 4y ago
From recent experience applying for a remote job with 9YoE: I accepted a new job last week that I found after 3 full months of active looking (during all of the industry layoffs AND over the holidays) and submitting applications for 46 different positions (fun fact: it was the 45th application that offered me the job). 27 outright rejections, 13 I still have not heard back from, only 6 companies actually reached out to talk to me. I’ve heard it said that applying is a numbers game; I did not want to believe it, but my recent experience was exactly that. My recommendations: 1. Work to distill what you actually want from a new opportunity and use that to ruthlessly filter opportunities. I applied to a ton of companies, but every single one of them met my checklist of career goals. I passed on hundreds of others that did not. 2. If you want practice finding out what you want, engage with recruiters on LinkedIn. I did not find my job this way, but it was helpful for me to workshop my communication and build up a good list of “do not wants” (can be as helpful in winnowing down opportunities as “do wants” or “must haves” 3. Try multiple job search sites to be exposed to interesting new companies. (Otta was useful for me and where I ultimately found my new company). Don’t limit yourself to only companies whose names you already know. I trawled LinkedIn regularly to see who my connections and their connections were working for to expose myself to new companies and industries. 4. Find a way to achieve balance in the search. Some jobs I really wanted, I spent more time on the application. Some jobs that I knew less about, I submitted resume only. Have hope, but don’t fixate on particular opportunities - that’s a recipe for disappointment. This isn’t necessarily great advice for someone recently laid off - I was still employed while searching, so adjust accordingly. Understand that it’s possible that some things have nothing to do with you: one company I really wanted to work for never reached out to me. Turns out they gutted their recruiting department in a recent layoff. It is what it is. I wish you well in your continued search and hope you are able to find what you are looking for. Edit: Attempting to fix formatting
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > Find a way to achieve balance in the search. Oh, what a good point! When I'm looking for work, I tend to divide jobs into two piles. Jobs I really want, and jobs I know I can get. I usually work out how much time I can afford to go without work. I divide that in half, and spend the first half of the time chasing the jobs I really want (even if I'm not sure that they'd have me). If I haven't landed any of those at the halfway mark, I switch to jobs I know I can get. My track record is 50-50 on landing my dream jobs, but those are the jobs that made me more valuable on the market in later days, because those were the ones where I stretched and expanded my skills.
adsteel_ 4y ago
I have a similar resume to yours. 8 months ago I put my resume up on hired.com. I had to turn it off after about a week because I had so many interviews already and the requests kept pouring in. I ended up turning them all down because things seemed to stabilize at my job. After getting laid off 3 weeks ago I turned it back on, and I have gotten a single response. There are other indicators in my job search that tell me the market is much cooler, but this is the clearest. I have also heard from people on the inside of other companies, that posted jobs are on hold, will actually go to internal transfers, or already have a backlog of applicants. This could explain the ghosting.
lmeyerov 4y ago
Senior high-salary hiring is definitely happening at high numbers, but specializing and finding the right opening matters. We get a ton of CVs, but few in our advertised areas, and we know we can keep looking so everyone involved wins. If you don't have a network to find those jobs, I'd go through a recruiter. FAANGs, banks, etc have hiring freezes and VC-funded co's don't even know if they can ever raise again: Unspecialized desperate learn-on-the-job well-paying senior hires aren't as big a thing right now
trynewideas 4y ago
> I have FAANG names on my resume If you mean company names, that doesn't mean much. Get referrals, as directly as you can manage but even just active endorsements when you can't. As your career progresses, more and more of your job search can lean on and might rely on referrals. If you didn't make meaningful connections with people at your past jobs who can endorse or refer you, that's kind of a red flag in itself.
ravagat 4y ago
One thing for sure is the recruiting scene has not improved. There are plenty of companies looking for talent and there are plenty of open roles. The process has largely been 'gamified' for certain levels. I think it is important to note with 8 YoE going through the traditional recruitment process will definitely be harder than say someone in the first 4 years of their professional life. Traditionally if you're with 8 YoE and in the same field, when looking elsewhere for work you would largely be relying on your network by now. I don't mean to put you down by writing this but rather to suggest maybe trying to capitalize with your network instead of just your resume. If anything you'll still be selling yourself with the interview and further processes. Good luck
stuaxo 4y ago
IT is cyclical, there can be periods when it's harder to get work. I started in Y2k, so internet bubble burst when I had only 1 year experience, then in 2008, I'd just switched from J2me to python before everything got tricky. Both times had about a year out of work, it can be very boom and bust.
ryandrake 4y ago
If you have 8 years of experience, then you've never experienced what hiring is like in a bear market. Buckle up, because it's wildly different than the last 10+ years of "8 job applications, 7 interviews, 6 offers." We're going to be looking at ratios like 100:10:1 until tech companies stop mass-panicking. Learn to take rejection and ghosting in stride--it's not a judgment about you or your morals. I've got 20+ years of experience (almost 1/2 FAANG) and I get ghosted too. Fact of life--no big deal. You're probably not doing anything wrong at all. During the last two tech downturns, I was sending out ~50-100 resumes a day.
anonreeeeplor 4y ago
lot of work went to South America. Could be a timing problem. May get better in the summer. Summer is hiring season

kayodelycaon 4y ago

Not sure how the job market is, but let’s start with the basics: Have you had some someone review your resume? If not, my email is in my profile. :)

throwaway_sp11 4y ago
Just friends in the field. They say it looks good. Thank you so much for the offer, I'll drop you an email.
- giggles_01 4y ago
  Would you be so kind to generalize the advices you receive and post them (without PII)?
  - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
    I will, if the parent commenter is OK with it. I'm happy to help others in a similar situation.

donkeyboy 4y ago

Note: the tech market isn’t doing too hot, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Applying to jobs can be a numbers game. Just keep applying. Tune your CV to have keywords in each job application. Reach out to the recruiter on Linkedin and see if they can refer you. Have a trusted friend review your CV too.

thenerdhead 4y ago

Nobody can tell you what might be wrong without seeing with their eyes. You would be more successful if you anonymously posted something like a resume or recent application that people could provide constructive feedback to. I'll give you a 5 minute review if you find my contact information from my profile and send me your resume. I've publicly helped people land all sorts of tech jobs in the last few years.

throwaway_sp11 4y ago
Thank you for the offer. I dropped you an email. About posting the resume publicly, I worry that it's hard to anonymize properly and still get the point across. Although I might do it if I run out of things to try.
- akvadrako 4y ago
  Why would you want to be anonymous? It's better to get your name out there in front of more potential eyes. As for your question, I consider finding a good job without a personal connection to always be a grind. I have about 20 years of engineering experience with trendy buzzwords, high profile gigs and high praise from references. Yet I still expect to apply to a hundred places and only get a handful of interviews.
  - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
    I'm just not comfortable with my manager knowing that I'm looking around.
    - freedude 4y ago
      Perhaps the problem is in the reason you are leaving.
      - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
        I don't understand, why do you say that?

lnsru 4y ago

Today we got at Big Corp an e-mail, that pandemic is over and no measures are needed anymore. I think next step will be back to the office. Remote jobs will slowly disappear. I am very confident, that on-site applicants today are preferred over remote candidates.

fipar 4y ago
What you say is not remote jobs, it’s working remotely for an office-based company. I don’t know if that will disappear completely but from what you say that seems to be the case. But remote jobs for remote companies have always been a thing (been doing that on and off for 20 years, continuously for 14) and I don’t see them going away. If anything, hiring just got a little less difficult know that the pool of people who can and like working from home grew a bit.
nness 4y ago
Maybe some industries (or countries) but it's very much here to stay in Europe in the agency/consultancy/non-FAANG tech market. In my most recent job search, "fully on prem" technology rules were quite rare.
lnsru 4y ago
Edit: remote jobs will not disappear. Rather get back to pre-pandemic level.

phphphphp 4y ago

What type of jobs are you applying for, can you share examples? Keep in mind that jobs advertised as remote on remote-centric job boards will be inundated with huge numbers of applications and so you should expect rejection even if you’re a great candidate. The other possibility is that your resume is terrible for some reason — does the file open? Are you sending a PDF or some obscure file format that nobody could open? Personally, I would not bother with jobs that are advertised as “remote” first, and instead I would focus on finding a great job match that can offer remote working — so that I’m not competing against thousands of people.

throwaway_sp11 4y ago
I've applied mostly to full-stack and back-end positions. JS, Python, etc. It's a good point about remote-centric job boards. My trouble is that other positions usually have a "Are you authorized to work in X country" as a question, and if I answer "no", I think it goes in the bin directly.
- phphphphp 4y ago
  Sorry, by examples I mean links to the job board posts for the positions. There’s an art to determining if a job posting is even worth your attention, it’s entirely possible you’ve applied to dozens of jobs that there’s zero chance of being hired for which is basically the same as not applying to any at all. Regarding work authorization, are you not in the US? If you’re not in the US and you’re applying for jobs that accept non-US people, you can increase the numbers I mentioned by an order of magnitude, you’ll be competing with literally thousands of people. Step 1 of an effective job search is to invest your time into positions you have a realistic chance of getting — if you can share some links to jobs you’ve applied for, I can let you know if they pass my own sniff test for worthwhile.
  - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
    Yes, unfortunately I'm not in the US. Here's a random sample of the positions I applied to: https://www.stimulus.com/jobs/1539721e-7c7d-4f45-a5b0-17e5c02d7bd0 https://www.stimulus.com/jobs/1539721e-7c7d-4f45-a5b0-17e5c0... https://app.beapplied.com/apply/grlyqh9t6e https://app.beapplied.com/apply/grlyqh9t6e https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers?ashby_jid=7dcbfb52-f465-46b2-adbb-b6caccafbe0a https://www.ashbyhq.com/careers?ashby_jid=7dcbfb52-f465-46b2... https://brave.com/careers/?gh_jid=4822139 https://brave.com/careers/?gh_jid=4822139 https://careers.liveflow.io/?ashby_jid=335a93bc-2cb0-4f6c-bd25-acac905ace88 https://careers.liveflow.io/?ashby_jid=335a93bc-2cb0-4f6c-bd...

janetacarr 4y ago

I think I need more context. Do you only have FAANG names on your resume? How many jobs have you held in your career? Do you have a lot of experience interviewing? Are you applying for jobs in a different area/level? (Management or higher seniority) Are you hoping to jump to a radically different org? (FAANG -> startup) I’ve been a hiring developer for a lot of my career and with more context I might be able to give you pointers.

throwaway_sp11 4y ago
To answer your questions: 1. Not only FAANG, I was a first eng hire at a startup, did some consulting work, etc. 2. It's 5 positions excluding internships. 3. I'd say I have some experience, I did competitive programming back in the day and the usual LC-style questions are not a big problem for me. I used to land jobs without doing any prep at all. Although I'm sure I've gotten a bit rusty. 4. I applied to some higher seniority jobs, but I'd say that's not the majority. 5. A startup would be great, I love wearing many hats, but I've been applying to what I considered mid-level companies with a larger engineering workforce, processes in place, etc. Thanks!
- hardware2win 4y ago
  >It's 5 positions excluding internships. Do I get this right? 5 jobs over 7-8 years? In my opinion this is very bad How you can have strong experience if you rarely go thru whole software development lifecycle unless projects are small? This is genuine question If project takes a year to develop and you leave a few months later, then how do you know implications of your design??
  - throwaway_sp11 4y ago
    Ok, that is truly useful feedback. I didn't consider it like that. My current role is 3.5 years. 1.5 years was a startup, start-to-finish. In the end it failed, so it's not like I left voluntarily. Before that I was a student so I picked up junior and project-based jobs to finance myself.

finolex1 4y ago

The job market for tech is especially brutal right now. Most tech companies have frozen hiring or are actively laying off people. Perhaps look at trading firms or more traditional F500 companies, which still seem to be actively hiring.

hirako2000 4y ago

Not the answer people in your situation like to hear: - you are too hot for well over 90% of the roles up for grabs. - your expected salary alone may be enough a deterrent. One thing hasn't changed: the recruiting scene has not improved, rather gotten worse. Jack is a recruiting manager. He constantly needs people and the three projects he is on are far behind. HR just announced a wage cap and he will only be able to hire one engineer. 10 remotely relevant applicants, you are one of them, but the other 9 will say yes to start coding this impossible to complete set of features and won't make noise until there is room for a few more recruits. 3 of them seem like a good fit and he won't have to battle with HR like last time to offer twice what he would offer any other three who have a few years experience which should be enough to get moving with lambdas on AWS. My tip would be to not give in and be as meticulous in your selection of roles to apply to as your technical expertise is. Plenty of companies out there looking for exactly your level of experience and nothing less. On the bright side, it may sound contradictive but more roles are open than ever for top tier talent. Compensations have more than doubled in the last 10y and hiring people expect more, add noise that has amplified even more than compensations and that's what the climate is like. It takes several months to land a fitting role. Less than that you are very lucky or gave in for something subpar to your value

John23832 4y ago
This. The recruiters don't know quality. They know the (general) requirements asked for by the job req and the resources available to them to complete a hire (salary). OP is "failing" along one of these dimensions. From the OP's description, they fit the general requirements, so it's most likely the salary (whether the salary expectation was stated explicitly by the OP, or assumed by the recruiter). Hopefully the OP has some savings and can withstand the amount of time to find a quality fit for themselves. I'm not sure what other solution there is.
- hirako2000 4y ago
  That. I don't think OP disclosed any info about salaries before getting "rejected". He could just broadcast to his circle that he's available for hire and a few weeks later some opportunity come up. Seems dumb can feel diminishing but can save a lot of time, good connections know what's a fit and what isn't.

wepple 4y ago

+1 that we don’t have much to go off of. Mid-twenties with 7-8 years professional experience suggests you’re self-taught. IMO that’s a highlight, but could it be that in this tech hiring freeze economy, companies are filtering on undergraduate as a prerequisite?

throwaway_sp11 4y ago
I finished a 4-year CS undergrad at a university, although I do consider myself 90% self-taught.
- wepple 4y ago
  Ah, wow, that’s quite an accomplishment while working. I guess it can’t be that then.

kashnote 4y ago

You didn’t mention it in your post so I assume you have been applying to these positions online. I would try and work your network as much as possible here. With a decent resume, you’re almost guaranteed an interview if you get a referral.

alan3456 4y ago
Especially so if the new role is a stretch and your referrer can provide context about why you are a fit. Even in apparently rigid enterprise hiring environments - speaking from first hand experience.

fipar 4y ago

I don’t know what type of role you’re looking for but I have hired for database-related roles in the past (I’m an IC now) and will be happy to review your resume and maybe suggest a couple of places for you to try if applicable, just contact me at the email on my profile.

astura 4y ago

Nobody here can give you any meaningful feedback without seeing your resume.

Apreche 4y ago

Even in these times of many layoffs, I still get recruiters regularly contacting me. It’s mostly because they find my LinkedIn profile. I have the setting configured that I’m not looking right now, and my current job started less than a year ago, but they contact me anyway. I assume you have your resume and profile fully up to date on there, and you have it indicated that you are actively looking for a job. Recruiters aren’t bombarding you? I haven’t had success or responses from sending in job applications the old fashioned way since I used Craigslist to get a job in like, 2008. By all means keep sending them. There’s nothing to lose. But what you really want is to get an introduction from a recruiter, or a referral from someone you know. Have you asked your former co-workers if there are open positions at the places they are working?

marifjeren 4y ago

> literally all of my applications have been rejected or ghosted How many is "literally all"? What's the number? After how many days of not hearing back do you consider an employer to have ghosted you? Do you follow up with emails or phone calls to recruiters?

giantg2 4y ago

How many applications have you put out? If it's less than 10, then this isn't surprising in my experience. I'm wondering if in this environment FAANG is a detriment. It's possible with all the belt tightening that companies would rather go with cheaper candidates.

verdverm 4y ago

Who's Hiring / Looking for a Job is about to post, sounds like perfect timing for you

dusted 4y ago

I assume you've worked with people during the 8 years, they know that you can get stuff done and is friendly to be around? Definitely get in touch with them, let them know you're available. Also, since everyone seems to be "trading up" when they get a new job, you might be considered overqualified in one or more senses.. From the view of someone hiring: - Previous FAANG? = High salary expectations, our little shop not fancy enough for you. - 8 years, done a lot, coding since childhood: High expectations to problems (this role is too boring for you, you'd jump ship first chance you get, waste of time for us to onboard you) Use your network, explain you're looking for stability. I remember an interview where the interviewer asked my current salary and told me "it didn't scare him" well.. it shouldn't ? looking back on it, I guess he expected that he'd have to outbid it (he wouldn't even, I dropped them for other reasons)

mkl95 4y ago

It's a conservative market. Many companies are hiring defensively rather than trying to accelerate their growth. Hiring high profile engineers may not make sense for those companies since many projects are in maintenance mode.

onion2k 4y ago

Recently I've been applying to remote jobs... You and about 200,000 others. This is going to have a horrible impact on people's success rate.

mynameishere 4y ago
Remote is great when it just happens to you--when your job suddenly switches. But the obvious problem is that you just transitioned from a local to a global labor market. Ask US factory workers from 1981 how that turns out. If you do find remote work, do like me: Save your money.
collyw 4y ago
Remote has become the norm here in Spain, but the salaries aren't anywhere near US salaries.
fatnoah 4y ago
This is definitely a complicating factor. I had my first job search in the remote area after getting laid off this fall (previous one was fall 2019). In the past, I'd check job listings once a week or so, and over the course of the search I'd find 2-3 roles where the requirements seemed like a good fit. Applications almost always results in interviews and offers. In the past cycle, and with remote work in the mix, I saw a couple interesting roles every single day. Given that I have 20+ YOE and was looking for Director/VP roles, this was remarkable. Even restricting myself to ones that felt like either great matches or slight reaches, I applied to about 30-40 jobs. Each of those had 10-300 applications. Fully half of those resulted in no reply whatsoever, about 10 resulted in an eventual rejection after weeks, and about 10 of those resulted in screens (a couple came 2 months after applying), with about 5 progressing to interviews, 2 going to "final round" status, and exactly one offer. It's a numbers game now. The good news is that there are still lots of great roles, but there are more applicants. If you've been at large companies/FAANG and are used to lots of RSUs, then it's much more challenging to find that level of pay, as those companies are the ones making the cuts.
- mbrameld 4y ago

zxcvbn4038 4y ago

Even in the best hiring environment it’s not uncommon for you not receive a response to a resume. HR departments are black holes that suck up bazillions of resumes, do a light pass to discard any that aren’t an obvious (to HR) match, then throw away the rest. The traditional pleasantries be damned. Without seeing the text of your resume, my advice is to keep applying, make sure you have key words, skills, experience from the job description visible. Avoid any upfront salary discussion. A good recruiter can tell you if there are obvious issues with your resume.

nfw2 4y ago

I’m in the same boat with roughly the same experience. The job market for engineers is night-and-day worse than it was a couple years ago. Back then everyone was hiring; now most companies have frozen hiring or are laying people off. The most success I’ve had getting interviews has been with small startups. Try YC’s Work At A Startup if you haven’t already. The Who’s Hiring thread this month may also have some good leads. Best of luck

throwaway_ios23 4y ago

I've noticed this as well. I'm a freelance iOS developer (or rather, subcontractor) with plenty of experience, in N/W Europe. Frankly, it's awfully quiet. I've been looking for a project since november last year, so that's approaching 3 months now. I'm getting antsy, I love developing but I can't concentrate and have to spend it on looking for a new client. One recruiter told me that she has a number of mobile devs looking for a project right now. Besides contracting projects, I've been including regular jobs in my search now as well.

justsocrateasin 4y ago

As an engineer who has worked as the hiring manager and directly looked through hundreds of resumes, I can say that with FAANG your resume probably would get pulled out of the stack. But maybe not. I found that, for better or worse, the only resume's that definitely got a look (and if they were above the bar, an interview) were ones that had a personal referral attached to them. It pulls it out of the stack. Frankly, I don't really apply for jobs without having a referral, I think it's often a waste of time. There's no guarantee your resume will make it out of a sea of others that look just like it otherwise. Second, as other people have mentioned, sometimes FAANG can scare companies away. They see your resume and think "gosh, he's expensive, there's no way he'll sign at the rates we're offering". This happened to my father - MBA, 30 years of experience, he found that companies didn't want to hire him because he would "be too expensive" or "was more experienced" than they wanted. Combination of those two factors could be it.

alkonaut 4y ago
Out of curiosity, how exactly did the referrals work? When you say "attached" do you mean literally attached? Or just that someone internal had emailed and said "heads up, this guy Bob Bobson, a former colleague of mine, is going to apply for the position and I think you should pay extra attention to his resume because he's da bomb"?
- nixgeek 4y ago
  Many companies have ways for employees to refer new people into the recruiting process. It’s usually as easy as entering a name and email. Then when you apply Recruiting will see it comes with a referral from one or more existing employees. Some companies will also give employees who refer someone that then is hired a bonus - have seen this be $1500 to perhaps $5000 in U.S. places. Referral processes may ask whether you know the person in some non-professional capacity, or whether you have direct professional working experience with the person. There’s usually more weight assigned to the latter case. Applicants who have multiple referrals really stand out; applicants who have referrals from people in my team (versus the wider >100k person company) are also extra interesting.
- 4y ago

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

[flagged]

arcturus17 4y ago
This is neither true, nor helpful, nor does it make you look smart - quite the opposite, in fact.
- stackedinserter 4y ago
  How come it's not true?
  - sbmthakur 4y ago
    They probably mean all 12000 of them are not leetcoders.
  - arcturus17 4y ago
    Do I really need to explain to you how the statement that Google has laid off 12,000 expert leetcoders is false and borders on farce?
cbsks 4y ago
Has Google or any of the other tech companies with large layoffs disclosed a breakdown of how many of the fired people are programmers?

throwaway892238 4y ago

Your resume tells a story. What story does yours tell? If you haven't stayed very long at jobs, red flag. If you have done a lot of different things that don't relate to the job you're applying for, yellow flag. FAANG salary? Red flag. Mid-20s? Yellow flag (sorry, ageism is real: if they're looking for senior/leadership/etc that's unlikely to be found in someone in their 20s). Pay for a professional resume review and fix any problems they find, whether you agree or not. Keeping multiple resumes is best practice, and always write a good cover letter. Focus on your professional network. Most of your jobs should be coming from referrals from coworkers, not cold-calls on a jobs board. This is the only way to continuously get hired regardless of the job market, and is very important as you get older (again: ageism is real). Personal projects count for a lot for a software developer. Make sure you have at least a couple small projects that you maintain regularly. Contributing to open source is nice, but unless you're a major contributor, it isn't a big factor the way owning a project is. Make it really shiny: good docs, clean code, linting, testing, CI/CD. Using the latest tech is encouraging. You're applying during a time when hundreds of thousands have been layed off at the beginning of an economic recession. It's gonna be hard for anyone but the most qualified candidates to land a job now. Just look for the jobs you're a shoe-in for, get employed, wait for a better role.

CSSer 4y ago
Could you elaborate on what you mean by FAANG salary? I’ve always heard the prevailing wisdom is that if you’ve got one of those names on your resume you’re basically set.
- codingdave 4y ago
  It means they assume you want to keep that high salary, and won't waste their time calling you back if their target compensation isn't competitive with FAANG, because going through an interview process only to have the candidate reject the offer isn't productive for anyone.
  - JustSomeNobody 4y ago
    One more reason companies should post the salary range. If someone with FAANG is still applying, that means they're willing to work for that range.

mgkimsal 4y ago

Use a recruiter. I understand the general consensus here is on the 'anti-recruiter' side, and there are a lot of low quality ones. And yes, it may be hard to know up front, but... play the field. Contact 3-4 recruiting companies in your area, and let them sell you. You don't have to stop your own outreach either. Just get someone else trying to sell you as well. Asking professionals whose paycheck depends on getting you placed in a job may be more fruitful than asking random HN readers. :) I don't necessarily recommend it as a 'use recruiters your entire career' but... I've had a couple good experiences that helped over the years. You also don't have to say 'yes' to anything they present.

siva7 4y ago
Don't know why it's downvoted but this is still along the best advice you will get. Recruiters are doing the job professionally you're failing at the moment.
JohnFen 4y ago
I agree. But you need to find a good one. They do exist -- but they're not likely to be cold-calling you. I know of a lot of companies who simply don't do direct hiring at all -- they do everything through agencies, on a contract-to-hire basis. That way, they don't have to put as much time and effort into finding and screening applicants, and they can "try before they buy" -- if the person doesn't work out during the contract period, it's less investment lost by the company. If they do, then the company hires them directly after the contract ends.
- mgkimsal 4y ago
  Sure, not easy to find a good recruiter, but yes, they exist. Hence the advice "Contact 3-4 recruiting companies in your area" - you need to do some outreach to them. Get referrals from network as to who may have used someone. I've had a couple of good engagements from recruiter-connected work over the years. Had a couple of not great ones too, but... they pass. You move on. Just like with 'job hunting' - you need to work it. Be talking to multiple recruiters at the same time.

remote_phone 4y ago

I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention but there have been layoffs across the entire tech industry the likes we haven’t seen since the dotcom bust, 20 years ago. I suggest tempering your expectations right now until the large companies start hiring again.

JohnFen 4y ago
Not across the entire tech industry. It's mostly limited to FAANG-style and SV-style companies, who have been overhiring for the past several years. Most of the industry seems to be hiring at the same rates they've always been hiring.

morley 4y ago

Hi! I'm hiring right now for a backend role (and have hired for more than eight years). I'm happy to give constructive feedback about your resume. morley - at - daylight.xyz.

deleted 4y ago

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keraf 4y ago

Was in the same boat in the beginning of the year, got +10 years of professional experience at some good companies. Got ghosted or rejected before the intro call a lot, despite matching 100% the job description, sometimes even ticking all extra/bonus points. It was very frustrating, especially since I never received any feedback on why... I guess it's because I hopped from job to job at a 1 year interval in the past years. I ended up finding a really nice job via my network. Took some time but I'm very happy now. Ping me your LinkedIn or CV, the company I'm at is still hiring. My email is the same as my website in my HN profile, only replace the first dot with an @.

bking 4y ago

Need the full context around your resume/linked-in/personal site to be able to give you better info, but throwaway892238 covers the main bases.

brailsafe 4y ago

Looks like it's pretty bad out there. For the first time in a while I'm employed, but I'm destroying myself trying to show up for these meetings rather than working on anything remotely engaging. Have started applying but not even a call yet, recruiters have dried up.

dsattt 4y ago

Look at my post from last year. Most people told me there must be something wrong with me. Everybody is looking for red flags and reasons to dismiss and reject people. It's like cancel culture, but for people with experience.

JohnFen 4y ago
This is actually an important point. If you have a position to fill and a stack of resumes in front of you, you will be looking for reasons to whittle down the size of that pile. That means you're going to be looking for red flags that let you quickly roundfile resumes.

noodle 4y ago

I've hired for a few remote startups in the past. It certainly could be your resume, but my offhand is that your FAANG experience prices you out of the remote market, either directly (you're telling them) or indirectly (recruiters know you'll be expensive). I've hired ballpark 500 people in my career, talked to a lot of FAANG candidates, and hired only one. Comp expectations compared to experience was just always way out of alignment. Only reason the one got hired was because they were a great fit and very open about being willing and able to take a pay cut to go full remote.

Sodman 4y ago

It's hard to give specific advice without a resume, but I did want to comment on the '8 years experience / 4 year degree / mid-20s' combo a little. You may of course be the rare exception here, but broadly here's what I've seen with that kind of resume: Many hiring managers will all but ignore any high-school level work. It's a nice positive signal to know that you've been interested in this kind of work for a long time, and stuck with it. However, I've seen many resumes that will claim "3 years" worth of experience before entering college, and when you dig in it frequently boils down to "I edited a few html pages for a total of < 100 hours when I was 16". I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but unless you have demonstrable projects on your resume from that period that prove otherwise, I'd probably avoid counting those as "years of experience" on an application. Many hiring managers will even discount college internships, as the quality can vary significantly. This is less likely to be the case for you as you have that FAANG AAA brand recognition. I've also seen candidates do two 3-month summer internships and count that as "2 years experience" though, so you have to be careful about that. Ultimately, some managers will see that you graduated in eg 2019 and therefore bucket you in with other applicants that have ~3-4 years experience. Nobody will believe a fresh 21/22 year old graduate getting their first job after graduation credibly has "5-6 years experience", for example. Some may also see and accept 8 years experience at face value, but then they'll judge you at that level and compare you to other applicants with 8 years post-college experience. These days that includes many other folks from FAANG companies with equally impressive resumes who were recently laid off. Maybe the resume screener notices that you didn't make it to a certain level within 8 years (senior/mentor/manager/tech lead/whatever arbitrary metric they expect somebody with 8 full years experience to have achieved), which could be an elimination criteria for some. Finally, as many others have commented coming from FAANG usually implies a very high salary expectation, especially for folks with 7-8 years experience, so many companies likely literally can't afford you!

qzw 4y ago
Yes, the same thing jumped out at me with the timeline given by OP. Your analysis is spot on.
throwaway_sp11 4y ago
Other commenters have also pointed out that I have a skewed view of what counts as "professional experience, which is something I'll fix. My high school & college work included more than editing HTML, but it was still junior-level and I understand it's a tough sell for that to count as work experience. Know that I really appreciate your detailed analysis and the information is really helpful to know - thanks for taking the time to type this up.

IanDrake 4y ago

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sbarre 4y ago

Not sure if anyone else has said this but: the timing is also pretty bad. A lot of companies have tight budgets for 2023 and I suspect people are waiting out Q1, maybe even Q2, before they start to spend too much, just to see how things shake out and if it's going to get better or worse. So this may not just be about you.

revskill 4y ago

Because most of the job now is just CRUD api kind of work. Who need FAANG experience for such work, at the cost of high salary ?

gregors 4y ago

Interviewing is a game to be played. It's very much a funnel. Resume/cover letter applications get phone screens. Phone screens get interviews. Interviews get second interviews, until you finally get an offer. Where in the funnel are you getting ghosted? Step 1 or further down the line? Each step (stage) has it's pitfalls. Definitely think of this as a game, how can you play it better.

neilv 4y ago

Surely not your entire problem, but at least one of those roundfilings of your resume could be anti-FAANG bias, or bias against a particular FAANG. A recruiter for a hot technical-excellence company (the kind you might think would poach the strongest FAANG people), told me that an exec was explicitly uninterested in candidates from a particular FAANG. (I forget the exact rationale, but it was something like a belief that people from there having learned the wrong lessons about engineering or product.)

ye-olde-sysrq 4y ago
I know of at least 2 companies who will explicitly not hire ex-facebook engineers, with the rationale that anyone who would work for facebook is morally bankrupt, especially the more recent years.

daviddever23box 4y ago

Resume / CV is everything - as a manager who hires, I can discern quite a bit from one's resume style. Tell me about your work, not the number of languages you think you know. Friends are important to the process; let them review your CV to see whether your description aligns with real life. Good luck!

suchoudh 4y ago

IMHO the shift is from job to gig. Did u try the gig Market instead of Job Market. Fiverr/Upwork and the ilk

ultim8k 4y ago

The market is horrible at the moment. All the big tech corps are laying off thousands of people who have bigger potential at landing in a job as they have those big names in their CV. I'm in similar shoes at the moment although I'm not only applying to fully remote jobs, but almost any job I see.

glocoin 4y ago

You're likely doing nothing wrong it's just a saturated market of jobseekers. Supply and demand ebb and flow for most roles regularly. I simply think engineers have had a period of very high demand and lower supply for decades. Now that companies are finding ways to hire anywhere and everywhere (with or without a legal entity) supply has greatly increased and impacted demand. Just 2 cents from a recruiter hiring engineers for over 24 years. Also, remote jobs have the lowest talent demand (highest supply) because everyone wants them.

phormio 4y ago

From recent experience applying for a remote job with 9YoE: I accepted a new job last week that I found after 3 full months of active looking (during all of the industry layoffs AND over the holidays) and submitting applications for 46 different positions (fun fact: it was the 45th application that offered me the job). 27 outright rejections, 13 I still have not heard back from, only 6 companies actually reached out to talk to me. I’ve heard it said that applying is a numbers game; I did not want to believe it, but my recent experience was exactly that. My recommendations: 1. Work to distill what you actually want from a new opportunity and use that to ruthlessly filter opportunities. I applied to a ton of companies, but every single one of them met my checklist of career goals. I passed on hundreds of others that did not. 2. If you want practice finding out what you want, engage with recruiters on LinkedIn. I did not find my job this way, but it was helpful for me to workshop my communication and build up a good list of “do not wants” (can be as helpful in winnowing down opportunities as “do wants” or “must haves” 3. Try multiple job search sites to be exposed to interesting new companies. (Otta was useful for me and where I ultimately found my new company). Don’t limit yourself to only companies whose names you already know. I trawled LinkedIn regularly to see who my connections and their connections were working for to expose myself to new companies and industries. 4. Find a way to achieve balance in the search. Some jobs I really wanted, I spent more time on the application. Some jobs that I knew less about, I submitted resume only. Have hope, but don’t fixate on particular opportunities - that’s a recipe for disappointment. This isn’t necessarily great advice for someone recently laid off - I was still employed while searching, so adjust accordingly. Understand that it’s possible that some things have nothing to do with you: one company I really wanted to work for never reached out to me. Turns out they gutted their recruiting department in a recent layoff. It is what it is. I wish you well in your continued search and hope you are able to find what you are looking for. Edit: Attempting to fix formatting

JohnFen 4y ago
> Find a way to achieve balance in the search. Oh, what a good point! When I'm looking for work, I tend to divide jobs into two piles. Jobs I really want, and jobs I know I can get. I usually work out how much time I can afford to go without work. I divide that in half, and spend the first half of the time chasing the jobs I really want (even if I'm not sure that they'd have me). If I haven't landed any of those at the halfway mark, I switch to jobs I know I can get. My track record is 50-50 on landing my dream jobs, but those are the jobs that made me more valuable on the market in later days, because those were the ones where I stretched and expanded my skills.

adsteel_ 4y ago

I have a similar resume to yours. 8 months ago I put my resume up on hired.com. I had to turn it off after about a week because I had so many interviews already and the requests kept pouring in. I ended up turning them all down because things seemed to stabilize at my job. After getting laid off 3 weeks ago I turned it back on, and I have gotten a single response. There are other indicators in my job search that tell me the market is much cooler, but this is the clearest. I have also heard from people on the inside of other companies, that posted jobs are on hold, will actually go to internal transfers, or already have a backlog of applicants. This could explain the ghosting.

lmeyerov 4y ago

Senior high-salary hiring is definitely happening at high numbers, but specializing and finding the right opening matters. We get a ton of CVs, but few in our advertised areas, and we know we can keep looking so everyone involved wins. If you don't have a network to find those jobs, I'd go through a recruiter. FAANGs, banks, etc have hiring freezes and VC-funded co's don't even know if they can ever raise again: Unspecialized desperate learn-on-the-job well-paying senior hires aren't as big a thing right now

trynewideas 4y ago

> I have FAANG names on my resume If you mean company names, that doesn't mean much. Get referrals, as directly as you can manage but even just active endorsements when you can't. As your career progresses, more and more of your job search can lean on and might rely on referrals. If you didn't make meaningful connections with people at your past jobs who can endorse or refer you, that's kind of a red flag in itself.

ravagat 4y ago

One thing for sure is the recruiting scene has not improved. There are plenty of companies looking for talent and there are plenty of open roles. The process has largely been 'gamified' for certain levels. I think it is important to note with 8 YoE going through the traditional recruitment process will definitely be harder than say someone in the first 4 years of their professional life. Traditionally if you're with 8 YoE and in the same field, when looking elsewhere for work you would largely be relying on your network by now. I don't mean to put you down by writing this but rather to suggest maybe trying to capitalize with your network instead of just your resume. If anything you'll still be selling yourself with the interview and further processes. Good luck

stuaxo 4y ago

IT is cyclical, there can be periods when it's harder to get work. I started in Y2k, so internet bubble burst when I had only 1 year experience, then in 2008, I'd just switched from J2me to python before everything got tricky. Both times had about a year out of work, it can be very boom and bust.

ryandrake 4y ago

If you have 8 years of experience, then you've never experienced what hiring is like in a bear market. Buckle up, because it's wildly different than the last 10+ years of "8 job applications, 7 interviews, 6 offers." We're going to be looking at ratios like 100:10:1 until tech companies stop mass-panicking. Learn to take rejection and ghosting in stride--it's not a judgment about you or your morals. I've got 20+ years of experience (almost 1/2 FAANG) and I get ghosted too. Fact of life--no big deal. You're probably not doing anything wrong at all. During the last two tech downturns, I was sending out ~50-100 resumes a day.

anonreeeeplor 4y ago

lot of work went to South America. Could be a timing problem. May get better in the summer. Summer is hiring season