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Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

241 points by charxyz 3y ago

I’m steadily looking for new opportunities, but am increasingly annoyed by the LinkedIn / Indeed grind. I feel like half the jobs are recruiting firms or very bloated positions with >500 applicants. I love the monthly “Who is hiring?” thread — these positions almost always yield more responses and suffer less from false advertising. Are there other sites I’m not considering? Methods I’m not using? How do you find good (defined as not bloated and optimized for LI) job opportunities in the current market?

say_it_as_it_is 3y ago
The cost of everything has risen tremendously the last few years. Profits are soaring. Do not accept a job that doesn't pay you more than you made at your last job. Investors are making a killing right now.
snappyc 3y ago
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Nellyz 3y ago
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katrinaroberta 3y ago
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katrinaroberta 3y ago
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goddamnyouryan 3y ago
Figuring out hiring in 2023 is exactly what we’re trying to do over at https://polyfill.work https://polyfill.work
mikece 3y ago
1. Personal network of non-recruiter acquaintances. 2. Recruiters (it's popular to hate them but they can help you land a job). 3. Scan the "open jobs" on LinkedIn and apply for them. 4. Post on some big board like Indeed (I set up a junk email account for this because 98% of the replies are junk/low-ball offers).
- m4thfr34k 3y ago
  LinkedIn's easy apply helps mitigate how tedious and soul crushing item three can be. Set up an alert for new jobs that meet your requirements and be consistent. Set a goal of applying for five a day. If you apply to more then great but meet your goal. I'll add each application to a log that has the company, when I applied, the position, and something I found interesting about the posting. Helps remind me in a month when I hear something back. Just remember, you have zero information on where the company is in on the hiring process for this position. They could still be in the 'collecting applications' phase and won't really take a look at the applicants for days or weeks. In my experience, very few companies look at applications as they come in. They have a target date where they do a first cut and then move onto the next. This creates those situations where you hear back from an application weeks and months later. This also creates that soul crushing feeling of "I've applied to 20 positions this week and haven't heard ANYTHING." Apply to a few each day and move on. The companies are doing everything they can to maximize their efficiency with this process, including bad behavior's like ghosting / posting jobs just to meet regulations when they already have who they are going to hire / etc., so there is nothing wrong with you maximizing your efficiency where it makes sense. Apply and move on. Side note, don't forget item one above, personal network. It feels great to me to get a job offer from some company where my personal network wasn't involved in any way, but the reality is that most jobs are filled by someone already aligned in some way, aka personal network was involved.
  - octobus2021 3y ago
    I'm just one person but in my experience the quality of open positions on LinkedIn has been exactly 0 for quite awhile. I was looking for a job in 2020 and LinkedIn was full of open positions with my skillset. I received almost 0 replies from any of my applications. Again, this is just my opinion, but I would argue that it's best to spend that time researching companies and their open positions and try to find ways to apply through some alternative channels.
itsoktocry 3y ago
Once you've moved beyond a junior-level of experience, I'm not sure if there's a better way than working your network for opportunities. In my experience there is never, and will never be, a shortage of business people looking for technical problems solvers.
- alexpotato 3y ago
  Joel Spolksy has an interesting quote about this: "Third, and trust me on this, there’s still an incredible shortage of the really good programmers, here and in India. Yes, there are a bunch of out of work IT people making a lot of noise about how long they’ve been out of work, but you know what? At the risk of pissing them off, really good programmers do have jobs" From: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/02/advice-for-computer-science-college-students/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/02/advice-for-compute...
  - lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
    Dan Luu has an interesting post about it as well. https://danluu.com/hiring-lemons/ https://danluu.com/hiring-lemons/
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      From about half-way down the post: " At the last conference I attended, I asked most people I met two questions: Do you know of any companies that aren't highly dysfunctional? Do you know of any particular teams that are great and are hiring? Not one single person told me that their company meets the criteria in (1). A few people suggested that, maybe, Dropbox is ok, or that, maybe, Jane Street is ok, but the answers were of the form 'I know a few people there and I haven't heard any terrible horror stories yet, plus I sometimes hear good stories', not 'that company is great and you should definitely work there'. Most people said that they didn't know of any companies that weren't a total mess. "
      - ornornor 3y ago
wskinner 3y ago
1. Make friends with people at work 2. Eventually, some of those people will get new jobs, and they can refer you to their new employer (and vice versa). 3. Repeat for a few cycles and you have a network full of potential job opportunities without ever going through a job board.
- mronetwo 3y ago
  Make friends with Talent Acquisition. Nothing like having a TA that moves to another company.
  - endemic 3y ago
    Hah, I went this route a few jobs ago. The TA loved the place, but unfortunately their engineering culture turned out to be complete trash.
- tetris11 3y ago
  4. Never burn any bridges. That boss or coworker you refuse to work with can and will actively block you in future employment possibilities. Also know that if that person is making your entire life hell, you might just need other things happening in your life to make your life more varied. Smile to the end (if you can).
  - __MatrixMan__ 3y ago
    Sometimes you have to chose which bridge to burn. Hopefully not, hopefully you're leaving for greener pastures, or because of something systemic that you can critique on exit without throwing anyone under the bus. But sometimes not. Sometimes you have a responsibility to your peers to honestly describe the problem that prompted you to leave, even if it means burning a bridge. The alternative is to squander the organizational growth opportunity that your resignation represents, and subsequently burn all bridges except the one with the problematic person.
  - ghusto 3y ago
    Disagree; stay true to yourself. Try to be nice to everyone regardless, but also don't hold back on honest criticism for fear of reprisals. Doesn't matter how high the other person gets in the chain, you can't hide what you are (neither them, nor you).
vouaobrasil 3y ago
The truth is, most jobs these days are rather bloated themselves. I do wish you luck in finding a job, but I would also give you this following piece of advice: at the same time while trying to find a job, think about strategies where you can work less and contribute more to society in your local community. I truly believe that the real opportunities out there are those which are mostly divorced away from the typical LinkedIn posting where it's just some company trying to push more consumerism on the world.
- mronetwo 3y ago
  Ideally, this. Realistically, not sure about this. It might be a bit of a crapshoot. It might yield very rewarding "jobs" but it's difficult to put your mind into it, when you just want to make a living. It just feels like you have to cross certain wealth threshold to do this. It might not reflect reality but this feeling of "I need a 9 to 5 to just keep myself afloat" is real.
  - vouaobrasil 3y ago
    You're right about that. And this is something I've been thinking about for quite some time. My rejoinder is that most people have a set of compromises they can make that might make them a lot wealthier than they think. For example, a friend of mine was complaining that he had to work hard to afford a house. However, he was dead-set on a set of ideals and a location he wanted to settle at. Maybe part of that was preference, but it was clear that part of that was some sort of preconceived notion hammered into him by society and peer examples. Instead, he could have aimed to buy a cheaper house in a smaller town while working/renting in the current town and just moved out. In my home town, even smaller houses cost at least 400K but there are plenty of nice places where the houses are 60K. So, buy one of those instead and move away once you've saved up enough... By taking a month and seriously going through what's important to have a happy, "basic" life, most people will find things that they can give up, but that will make them happier in the long run. Like living in a certain neighbourhood, buying this or that, taking a certain number of vacations, having an extra child, a dog, etc. Most people end up saving TOO much for retirement...and while caution is good, our society hammers this idea of an extremely consumptive lifestyle that these endless 9-5 jobs support.
rr808 3y ago
No one else has mentioned it but my last role was applying on the website of a company I wanted to work for. I chose 20 big companies, applied for 1-2 jobs each. This relies on internal recruiters that in many companies do nothing but some companies actually works. Usually the form was one of those oraclecloud forms that take a while to complete. Half the companies I never heard anything but a few I got phonecalls and ended up with something I really wanted I was lucky. This was still early 2023 though.
frfl 3y ago
Bit of a tangent, but what has been everyone's experience so far in 2023 trying to find a new job? I got really interested in this and have been passively researching it (HN, reddit posts). My conclusion, so far, is unless you've got strong connections it's hard right now to find a job. Most job posting, as OP mentions get hundreds if not thousands of applications. Other times, I've personally also notice, candidates with perfect skill/experience matches get the same generic rejection ("we respect your experience but we're going to go with another candidate") or worse getting no response at all. There have been mentions of pseudo job posts (ie companies are just falsely advertising positions they are not actually look to fill). Ultimately, a really crappy situation for those looking for a job. Even experienced people, think 7,8,10+ years of experience, are seeing similar things unless they have a strong connection that get them to the final stage(s) of the internet process. Happy to provide a links to relevant online discussions and articles about this situation if anyone is interested. Let me know.
- screwturner68 3y ago
  IF people have a problem with 1000+ people applying for every job the answer is pretty simple, get rid of WFH. Five years ago you had to live within and hour or so of the job site but now those barriers are gone and people went from competing with everyone within a 60 mile radius to competing with everyone in the country. Don't gt me wrong WFH is great but the crazy amount of people applying for every job is one of the consequences. So what do people want more WFH or an easier time getting a job. It's a lot like online dating, instead of only dating people in your neighborhood you get a massive dating pool of everyone in the area, as a side result few good looking guys are going to get a lot of interest and the rest will become incels.
- justinzollars 3y ago
  I think the market is ice cold right now. I know many highly qualified people - great engineers, who get things done, who are looking for work.
- teirce 3y ago
  Been looking since about February. I've probably sent out at least a hundred apps for positions I was interested in and met qualifications for. I think I've made it to a recruiter screen around ~10 times, and I've had less than 5 actual interviews follow. I have 6+ years in industry, 4 and some change of which were FAANG (which everyone believes is a golden ticket into any company). And I can't even get an interview. I'm with OP. The grind is straight up depressing, demoralizing, soul crushing. I'm close to moving in with family just to preserve my money at this point.
cebert 3y ago
Conferences are a great place to network and find companies or people working on projects you’re interested in. These past two years, I’ve purchased my own ticket to the AWS re:Invent conference. I’ve made new connections and gained new insights by attending. I’ve also learned of some companies I’d be interested in working for in the future. Even though it’s expensive to attend, I view it as a good investment in my own career for networking and continued learning.
georgeoliver 3y ago
I wonder what's a rough estimate of how many people find a job by first finding a company they want to work for?
- stevekemp 3y ago
  The last time I was looking for a job I did just that. I came up with a list of five companies that either came well-recommended by friends-of-friends, or seemed like they were doing interesting work. I applied to three of them, interviewed with two, and accepted an offer. Had those initial three companies not worked out I'd have gone down my list of two more companies, before starting the process again with another small list. (I've not the patience for juggling many applications at the same time. I've learned I can apply to two-three companies and keep all the names, details, and things I've said to them straight in my head. I guess if you're desperate for _any_ job then applying for more all at once would probably be a safer approach.)
- epicureanideal 3y ago
  Are there companies that people want to work for? I feel like the magic has gone from most companies.
  - the_only_law 3y ago
    Yeah I don’t think I could make a company offhand that I love so much I’d want to work for. I’ve definitely been browsing jobs and found companies/roles that look cool that I think I’d enjoy, but there’s I reason I’m not and have not worked for them.
- teirce 3y ago
  I was able to succeed in this, but I had basically a perfect storm of conditions. It was a smaller local company, I had good internship experience, and the head recruiter had previously worked at (and recruited me for) the company I interned at. If you are a new-grad and you're targeting a 'glorious' FAANG position, I would imagine the percentage is quite low.
- dangerwill 3y ago
igloopan 3y ago
In the sense that it's primarily startups, YCombinator's workatastartup and Wellfound's job board are similar to the "Who is hiring?" threads, so you might have more success with those in terms of replies. Though as someone applying for 2024 New Grad positions neither seem particularly great for that, unfortunately.
- rushils 3y ago
  If you are applying to new grad position, highly recommend checking out https://simplify.jobs/ https://simplify.jobs/
zuhayeer 3y ago
Check out our job board at https://levels.fyi/jobs https://levels.fyi/jobs We’re constantly iterating on it and the cornerstone of our board is the ability to filter opportunities by compensation. You can also set alerts for specific filters, and we’re always open to feedback!
- lubujackson 3y ago
  I really like the levels.fyi search, but I wish it would actually restrict San Francisco results to SF. Seems to be an issue with all the job sites that even after specifying SF and not "bay area" I still see roles in San Mateo and Mountain View.
  - verve_rat 3y ago
    Related gripe: allow me to filter remote jobs to positions that will hire people that live in my country. It is incredibly frustrating to see "Work from anywhere you want!" Only to find see "Remote (US Only)" in the job text.
  - zuhayeer 3y ago
    Appreciate the feedback, we're working on city-specific filters instead of region. For now, you can text search it for a more acute match: https://www.levels.fyi/jobs?searchText=San+Francisco https://www.levels.fyi/jobs?searchText=San+Francisco
4kimov 3y ago
Besides all the already mentioned, solid responses about looking for new opportunities (personal network, consistent daily applications, etc), it's worth noting this one too: Become a regular contributor to specific open-source projects (esp if it's a growing and/or funded startup). This approach might work better for those that are already comfortable w/ OSS and don't yet have connections. When applying to that company a bit later, obviously mention all the merged PRs. For example, here's Posthog [0] showing you what you could help with thru a job post. You can find more companies like this one at Fossfox [1], shameless plug: I maintain that index rn. [0] https://posthog.com/careers/full-stack-engineer-growth#typical-tasks https://posthog.com/careers/full-stack-engineer-growth#typic... [1] https://fossfox.com/ https://fossfox.com/
- teirce 3y ago
  Thank you for this suggestion. I think it's infinitely more interesting than the meme-y, parroted 'grind leetcode' response to improve job prospects. And it can give you more direction than trying to think of hobby projects to put on github.
  - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
    I know people who have joined AWS because their OSS contributions opened doors for them. It is a great suggestion imho.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      ...and then left < 2 years later because AWS is Amazon and will grind you out
      - PartiallyTyped 3y ago
        Maybe, but at least you are free to find out yourself.
shadowfoxx 3y ago
Its rough out here. I've got 8+ years of experience and I've worked a breadth of experience as well. I'm scouring the posts here on "Who's Hiring", I work applications on LinkedIn, Speak with some recruiters, and I utilize Remote Rocketship. My network of connections is a bit smaller than could be useful (this is my own fault.) but I have also reached out to people I personally know who could vouch for me. A number of those are still working at my last job. Sent out upwards of 500 applications, 10, 20, maybe 30 interviews even fewer that have gone to the 'final rounds' and even some very close calls. No offers yet. I'm also spending this time learning new tech that interests me and working on a portfolio site that is true to those interests. This is slow going but I don't let it get me down (if I can help it) because I help my partner garden, raise our dog, and work on my other hobbies as well.
- codq 3y ago
  I'm in a similar boat. I'm a marketing guy, and have started to regret my career path. I've made it to several final rounds in the past year, but only wound up with rejection at the end—at the final stages, it can be real subtle things that lead them to make that final choice of one candidate vs. another. On top of that, I'm taking care of a toddler full time, since we can't afford a nanny since I got laid off, so I have even less time to dedicate to the job hunt / skill advancement, and honestly I'm so exhausted by the end of the day that I'm too drained to work on projects that require real brainpower. It's been a slog, but I'm hanging in there and not giving up. Otta.com has been a great, easy resource for job hunting.
  - shadowfoxx 3y ago
    Thanks for the arrow, I'll definitely add Otta.com to my rounds. If you're not familiar you could also try Remote Rocketship
    - sah2ed 3y ago
      Remote Rocketship is paid :(
lylejantzi3rd 3y ago
For all of you hiring managers out there, what's your opinion on product-focused engineers? Is that a desirable trait? Or would you prefer a candidate who could care less about the product he works on and only cares about the technology?
- mzmoen 3y ago
  It’s far too situational to give a blanket answer. I run a 15 person startup, and my preference is product focused people because of the breadth they can cover. However, we have a number of people who aren’t that way and are just good developers, which is great. My sense would be the narrow/deeper technically a space is, the less preference there is for product focus, but again just my personal guess.
- schrodinger 3y ago
  I would think this is more valuable for startups where roles are less defined and less for big companies. Then again I'm at a ~2B company and product-focus is still appreciated and considered in hiring.
joewhale 3y ago
You’re probably not used to thinking with a “sales” hat, but you are selling yourself. Find the contact of your potential manager (engineering manager or whoever) and find a way to directly reach out to them and pitch them and the call to action is a phone call. Cut through all the noise. This is the way.
CoastalCoder 3y ago
Also worth discussing: once you start interviewing, what can you do to get an offer? Personal anecdote: I was laid off ~4 months ago. It wasn't that hard to get interviews. But then I bombed the coding interviews for several appealing positions. I'm a very experienced developer, but I didn't realize just how much my programming-during-an-interview skills had atrophied. IMHO those coding tests were properly weeding me out, because it really looked like I couldn't program. I'm now making time to work on practice problems, and I think they're really helping. I expect future coding interviews to go much better.
TrackerFF 3y ago
I must be incredibly lucky, because every job I've gotten the past years have been through the "normal" channels, meaning that I found the job listing on some rather huge classifieds website. I then just typed up a honest job application, updated my resume, and applied for the jobs. Always got a reply, and eventually a job interview. Should be mentioned that I live rather rural, and have experience (analysis and engineering) which makes me stand out from most other applicants. Since 2004, I've sent out under 20 job applications. The past 5 years I've switched work twice (better jobs and higher salary) - so I don't know if I'm a good representation of the job market. But most of my ex-colleagues that work as devs seem to get their interviews through their network. Usually goes something like this: 1) Company needs something fixed, or increase their headcount to meet goals 2) Dev: "I know this one guy/gal, I've seen his work and we worked briefly on a project" 3) Manager: "Great! Reach out to them and see if they're interested!"
- base698 3y ago
  Have you gotten a job in the last year?
- rr808 3y ago
  > The past 5 years I've switched work twice The last 12 months is very different to early 2022.
Ilasky 3y ago
My own search has been on LinkedIn, as well as sites like Otta. The key for me to get more callbacks has been to personalize my resume for each job description (I even made a tool to do it for me [0]) and then to follow up with the hiring managers for the job. Out of the stacks of resumes that get submitted to the black hole, it really does feel like a grind, but the little bit extra by reaching out to the recruiters/hiring managers seems to make the boost to at least get to the first round screen. [0] https://resgen.app https://resgen.app
jamal-kumar 3y ago
Honestly just look for companies that have bounties on tickets in their open source software and make a name for yourself that way. They'll know your name when you apply. You'll start to make money right away too. [1] [1] https://github.com/djadmin/awesome-bug-bounty https://github.com/djadmin/awesome-bug-bounty
Madmallard 3y ago
Tech is a choked industry right now. Pivoting is probably smart if you’re able to do so. If you look on /r/forhire nearly 50% of posts are devs looking for work
- convolvatron 3y ago
  It certainly seems that way. But why are there so many postings that don’t get filled given that everyone says they are drowning in applicants?
  - Madmallard 3y ago
    Companies are being as picky as they can get away with.
    - convolvatron 3y ago
      It’s weird seeing the same posting I got rejected for 6 months later. Surely work needs to start sometime?
      - octobus2021 3y ago
        Open position does not mean there's an actual need, or even a budget allocated. Even if it's not "market research" position (to assess how many relevant applicants will apply) it can be open by the HR at the request of prospective hiring manager because they would like to hire somebody at some point. I helps businesses create an impression that they're growing (because they're hiring), gives HR some work to create impression they're busy and invaluable, and improve metrics of whatever job boards they post it to. Everybody wins. I've seen the same positions open for more than a year and even applied for one like a year after I was rejected after an interview (just for fun). It was a different recruiting agency the second time and I think they submitted my resume again because I was pretty much perfect fit :-)
  - confidantlake 3y ago
    For many job postings there was never an intention to hire.
gidorah 3y ago
I'm a UK accountant, so not IT. But I never apply direct. I always use recruiters. I think the benefits are: - recruiter usually only sends 2/3 resumes to employer, so better candidate-job match - recruiter has relationship with the client, so is more trusted - recruitment is a sales job, so they want a better match. - your first interview is with the recruiter, so less formal. If that goes well, they will make more effort to see your skills and expertise over other candidates. - better jobs come thru recruiter. These are ones that dont get publically listed - recruiter will pre-screen roles based on your salary expectations, so you do not apply to roles that have no salary. Saves everyone a lot of time - you can ask recruiter more about the person the client is looking for, so know how to angle interviews and sole the clients problems
- akudha 3y ago
  Every recruiter I have interacted with, in the last decade, has been nasty individuals. Changing my resume without my knowledge, stealing my wages (been fighting two years now, to get it back), paying late consistently (we are talking 4-6 months late, on top of net60) and above all - lying about everything, even silly things that don’t make sense and are easy to verify. Maybe it is just my dumb luck that I attract shitty recruiters, I dunno. Maybe UK recruiters are better than American recruiters? Whatever is the reason, these days I assume the worst about every recruiter I interact with (I am very trusting of people otherwise), I am still waiting to be proven wrong :(
  - gidorah 3y ago
    That sounds like a totally different arrangement. More like how working as temp or contract staff would work in the UK. For perm staff, recruiters are usually paid a fixed percentage of your annual salary as a one-off fee.
  - IshKebab 3y ago
    Sounds like UK recruiters work differently to American ones. I don't understand how they would steal your wages. They don't pay you in the UK.
sputr 3y ago
Question for the community: we're building a "talent pool" on top of our mass psychometric testing SaaS (hrpotentials.com). Our key thing is testing cognitive ability(ie ability to learn and problem solve) with computer generated tests, remotely. Anyway: would you join such a talent pool (and submit yourself to free testing that takes an hour)? We know it works in less in-demand fields as a way for employers to more objecitevly rate candidates. But the question is, if we can turn it into a tool for employment-seekers to get better opportunities.
- gsuuon 3y ago
  This sounds like IQ testing which I thought was illegal (in the US)?
- verve_rat 3y ago
  Isn't psychometric testing voodoo astrology? I think you might have a hard time convincing software engineers to sign up to more bullshit testing that doesn't actually reflect what the job entails.
  - sputr 3y ago
    Often, yes. Far too often. But there is a scientifically sound way to measure some things, and there is very good science that cognitive ability plus unstructured are the most predicitiv (and least bias) way to select employees that we have available right now. Ideally you would also include objective knowledge tests. We're headed by a professor of organisational psychology and stick strickly to scientifically well supported methods and stick to the ONET and APA guidelines. But we're one of the few since it's not the easiest way of doing business. But we refuse to peddle sudo science.
rodolphoarruda 3y ago
I don't. I gave up. It became an impossible task for me due to the lack of feedback in any possible action I take. I feel like I'm playing tennis alone in the court.
Cypher 3y ago
I've done a lot, got a load of interviews and it's all just dried up. It's pretty depressing too. I'm fortunate I can retire in a couple of years but I'd love a change to sink my teeth into before I finally put my feet up.
Oras 3y ago
Do not be put off by the number of applicants of jobs on LinkedIn. I hired two developers in the last few weeks via LinkedIn job ads and I can tell you out of 200 applicants there were less than 10 who fits the requirements. I would also say make sure your resume fits the job, add your phone number and email address. Start with what's important, your experience and things that you're really good at. Changing the resume to fit each JD would hard, but apply for jobs that your experience fit well.
CSMastermind 3y ago
My data suggests that wages are down about 15% from their peak 2 years ago. When I see people with 10+ years of experience struggle to get jobs right now it's almost always because they're filtering out good opportunities with their comp expectations. For more junior folks the market is tough right now. It's going to be a grind but I'd highly encourage you to consider working with a third-party recruiter. You may need to try a few different ones before you find one that can get you placed but a good one will be worth it. All the normal advice applies: leverage your network and debug the problem. Consider where in the process you're dropping off. Are you not hearing back at all? Are you getting interviews but not offers? Work from there.
fuckthisshit3 3y ago
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joshuamcginnis 3y ago
UPS is paying $100-200K for drivers and I can't find a decent plumber, electrician, roofer or concrete installer without paying insane costs and/or waiting for months. Something to consider!
- blamazon 3y ago
  UPS is only paying experienced drivers (with experience at UPS) those rates, at the entry level it's more in the neighborhood of part time work 20 dollars an hour, which is a common entry level rate in warehousing and logistics these days. Similarly, it's a long road to being a skilled laborer that can pull those large contracts, and even then the margins can be utterly ruthless to small operators. Just seeking to be realistic - both can be great career paths for the right person.
  - joshuamcginnis 3y ago
    UPS is paying $170K on average per driver this year per renegotiated contracts. True, like any job, you start off on the lower side, but unlike other companies, UPS pay begins going way up after just a year and that doesn't include the incredible amount of overtime available to even new drivers. You don't need to pull in large contracts or even be the business owner of a skilled-trade to do well. Literally every tradesman I speak with is telling me the same thing: we're desperate for bodies; we're willing to hire kids out of high school, train them and pay them > $100K and we still can't fill the seats. My overall (unpopular point) is that a lot of people are complaining that their high-paid cushy remote job isn't available anymore, while ignoring that there is a huge need for skilled labor in other areas of the economy. This strikes me as a huge opportunity for lots of people, and I don't see it changing anytime soon.
    - caminante 3y ago
      From my research, $170k is a headline number to make the unions and UPS sound like they're getting and giving a great deal. The fine print [0] is more like $92k base plus pension, overtime, medical benefits, and other items that have value, but aren't exactly going into UPS driver pockets. [0] https://www.distractify.com/p/ups-driver-explains-ups-170k-pay-increase https://www.distractify.com/p/ups-driver-explains-ups-170k-p...
pythonbase 3y ago
I am a freelance software developer. While most of my work is from repeat customers or referrals, I actively look into the HN 'Seeking Freelancer' thread for interesting opportunities.
farmeroy 3y ago
Reading about all you engineers with years of experience struggling to get a job is incredibly painful, but in some ways it's relieving to hear that even experience engineers are finding this market difficult. I managed to land my first job during the pandemic on a combination of self-education and a bootcamp. That job is over due to lack of funding and I have been applying non-stop for 6 months, 300-400 applications and just one interview. In the meantime, I'm pursuing a BSc part time, building personal projects, and working in the service industry. Finding that next role seems like it will an epic journey and I certainly don't count on finding a role, or giving up, any time soon...
- supertofu 3y ago
  I'm also pursuing a BSc. My original degree is a BA and employers/recruiters see me as an "alternative" self-taught engineer, despite a decade of experience. I think a lack of STEM degree can really hurt a resume.
xiasongh 3y ago
I'm a new grad and I was extremely scared because of all the doom and gloom on HN and reddit. I also felt like new grads would be hit the hardest. Come application time... it was totally normal. Had some interviews and some rejections. Ended up getting multiple offers with very competitive compensation. While I may be the exception rather the norm, there are definitely companies that are still hiring and some that are just getting head count for the upcoming quarter. I would not give up hope.
- paddw 3y ago
  Where did you go to school? In my experience, there is never a slowdown in demand for elite schools, but outside of that track it's a lot tougher. Of course, a lot of it is your own skills/resume and luck
- syntheweave 3y ago
  Every market is a good one for some job seekers and a terrible one for others. It's very hard to have a good sense of it unless you're really close to the industry cycles(financing, hiring, etc.) - anecdotes always have an aspect of normalizing your own situation, because that's just what humans do.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  new hires can be brought on for less than the mid-to-high end. plenty of demand for fresh blood that doesn't know how the industry works and can be worked hard for 5 years. run a couple cycles of firing the seniors and hiring noobs and you can get the wages down. what did someone in that role make 2 years before?
flappyeagle 3y ago
The first step in looking for a job is not “apply for a position online” If you are experienced, you’re much better off with: reach out to anyone you’ve ever worked with who is now at a company you might want to work at. Google for them, guess their new company email, contact them on LinkedIn, DM them on Instagram. Once you have a warm intro your chances of landing a job go up by 2-20x depending on the company and their funnel.
jFriedensreich 3y ago
I was laid off 2 months ago as a fallout from pandemic and war (fullstack dev with 17y experience). i sent my resume to about 30 job posts on linkedin (nearly none with cover letter, as i just cannot possibly write 30 unique cover letters even with chatGPT) and wrote a “looking for job” post in 3 tech discord servers i was an active member on. The 30 linkedin applications totaled in one job offer and the three discord posts lead to one interesting job offer each. it took 1,5 months from start to first offer and 2 months to competing offers, decision and signing a contract. Pre pandemic it would take about 2 weeks for a first offer and i would mostly get them by recruiters contacting me on linkedin which is completely absent now. Bottom line is be active in tech communities you are excited about and reach out in the dedicated job channels on discord.
rr808 3y ago
Dev wages have to come down. The last 10 years have been crazy. Lots of devs are paid like doctors, without the limited supply or years of expensive training. It wasn't going to last.
- ArcticLandfall 3y ago
  As someone genuinely passionate about technology who sees the 90% in it for just the easy money at college, I'm very happy. Less superficial monetary incentive means people who are truly passionate about the craft will have more of an opportunity to shine.
  - schrodinger 3y ago
    Agreed. Once the wages got noticed, a lot of ppl got into programming for the money not the passion. Now don't get me wrong, I'll retire the second I can and am not programming for fun all the time, but I did get into out of legitimate passion and truly enjoy solving problems in tech. I do agree part of the situation now is a lot of ppl who only went into it for the money.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    if you're passionate about technology then hows about you do it for less, and let the rest of us who need to feed a family get that $$$
- grumpy_coder 3y ago
  The wages went up precisely because of the limited supply and years of training needed for devs. You get a really biased view when working in a tech company, but the vast majority of people can't code, and when they try to learn don't get beyond hello world.
  - rr808 3y ago
    > but the vast majority of people can't code, The vast majority of people can't fix their car engine, teach a classroom of kids or cook in a restaurant. Doesn't stop those professions from being 5 figure jobs.
deleted 3y ago
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rubicon33 3y ago
A lot to unpack in the comments here and I'm ready for the downvotes! First of all the credit market is in a crunch now and has been for some time. This makes investment rounds for small to medium sized startups both more difficult yield less. That means that hiring is slowing down if not straight up stopping for these startups. Second, there's a lot of pessimism here but I think the future is still bright. We definitely have more developers looking for work than ever before which is part of why there's such a crunch. The good news is that most of these develops are boot-campers who only got into coding because they heard somewhere they could live in a van and make hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their lack of talent, is your ticket in. Why do I throw them under the bus? Well, I think the industry has found that the truly 'talented' are actually passionate about software and didn't go into it just because Obama told them everyone needed to learn to code. We're seeing that although the market is flush with developers most of them can't code their way out of a paper bag. If it's not a basic CRUD system they're lost. So invest in yourself and you should do well. Diversify and show your potential employer that you can wear MULTIPLE hats. Someone who can spin up a basic react app, debug a firmware project over JTAG, and train their own model with Pytorch is going to catch my eye in this market where everyone and their mother knows how to make a website and code up some JS. Long story short - the market is tight right now. Low investor cash meets huge pool of wanting developers. Solution? Invest in yourself, diversify, stand out.
- frfl 3y ago
  > stand out Given what everyone in this thread has said, this is harder said than done, especially right now, when recruiters ghost, HR is drowning in applications, people are getting rejected even after good skill matches on paper, good interviews and 5+/10+ years of experience.
  - rubicon33 3y ago
    > this is harder said than done Definitely. I don't mean to mislead anyone here, its not an easy path forward right now. The combination of a reduced capital market and a swell of engineers is going to make the coming years more challenging, but the only path forward is investing in yourself and your skills.
willio58 3y ago
Indeed. Last year I more than doubled my income by applying with the “click to apply” feature on indeed with a 4 sentence long cover letter. Later I had a couple short zoom culture interviews and a take-home project which I sunk 10 hours into and outshined 30 other applicants. Offer in my inbox in less than 7 days. Mind you, this was after a grand total of like 20+ hours of interviews at other companies, with on the spot algo tests and all. Here’s what I’ve learned: I will not subject myself to algo interviews. I just don’t think that’s what I want the companies I work for to value most in their devs. I want take-home projects with clear instructions. I want culture interviews where they are truly trying to see if I’d be a good fit. Since I got hired I’ve actually helped hire a couple devs. Even as someone who went the traditional route of majoring in CS at a university I’ll say this: I don’t care how you got your knowledge. I just want to see real projects you’ve worked on. The sheer amount of people who apply even from prestigious schools like Stanford who have a mostly empty GitHub is staggering to me. I don’t care how much money you spent on education, show me the code!
- bags43 3y ago
  I am programming since 1995. I got my first job in 2007. Pretty sure that not single line of my code is online. Maybe except couple forum/reddit snippets. I have two kids, couple family friends, one hobby and I like to watch basketball and old movies. Outside of work I spend some time here and couple subreddits. I do not have time for the side projects on GitHub or to prepare for silly LC tests. I do not have time to create LinkedIn account and keep it updated. I have CV with average EU Uni and uninterrupted 16 years across many different domains and with different tech stacks. I refuse to do following: - LC tests - take home. On another hand we can have interview for 6 hours about your business domain or system design.
  - willio58 3y ago
    I think that’s a fair take. People feel comfortable with different things. Even in school I always surpassed others on take home assignments and struggled during tests. There’s another aspect in your comment too, and that’s seniority. I was born a year after you started programming, so GitHub and online portfolios were just a natural thing for me to take on. If you have people that will vouch for you and you have decades under your belt, you can more easily get away with no leetcode and no take home.
casenmgreen 3y ago
1. The numbers LinkedIn show apparently track clicks, not applications. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mitch-king_have-you-been-put-off-applying-for-a-role-activity-7082849475387412480-st7B?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios https://www.linkedin.com/posts/mitch-king_have-you-been-put-... 2. My take on applying for jobs is that it's become so easy now to apply, that recruiters and companies are utterly, utterly swamped with applications. I suspect normally at most only the first 20 or 30 are examined. 3. I work as a contractor, and I'm on good terms with a number of agents. Speaking to one last week, he said his application email inbox has like 700 unread emails. It's impossible to process. Most of those emails will never be read. 4. The approach I'm now taking is to contact the good agencies I know, have a chat, explain what I do, and leave my CV with them. I think the majority (75% perhaps) of roles are filled before they are advertised. 5. A key necessity I've found is being prepared to relocate; it's often unlikely work will be where you happen to be living.
RecycledEle 3y ago
Jobs that are posted on companies' web sites (not on recruiting web sites) give a much greater response rate.
vluis 3y ago
In April last year, I developed a Python scraper that monitors several job sites and boards, and sends new STEM-related job offers to a couple of Telegram channels using a webhook. That way I'm always on top of which companies are hiring in my country, and what they are looking for in terms of positions and technology. I also monitor LinkedIn job offers, but when a new one comes from them, I try to find the original offer on the company site itself, and then add the company's job board to my bot. I've applied to very few interesting positions and got a couple of interviews, but that's it, haven't changed jobs yet. In any case, I've definitely noticed that some companies post job offers and conduct interviews just with market research purposes, they probably don't intend to hire anyone in the short term, or at all.
lcrmorin 3y ago
Some things that worked for me this year: - Update your resume / cover letter to make it more appetizing. Don't hesitate to use ChatGPT. Change the title to match the job. You usually have to cater for HR first, not technical people. Also remove the stuff that you don't want to work with. This will remove the tech you don't want to work with anymore. - Emphasize anything that could stand out (side projects, anything to do with hot topics / techs). Again you have to catter to HR first. - Don't get afraid of the numbers (out of the 500 applications you mention a good 450 will be thrown into the garbage immediatly). But try to get early. - Often the first steps of the process require some customs texts (mails, achievements, why I want to works with you). LLMs can save you time and make your answers more appealing. - Specialized Recruiting firms can be you friend. Sometimes you need to be blunt with them. Discuss expectation early. ("I am currently making X with Y days remote. Would you be able to find something that match my skill and offer X+20% and at least Y+1 days remote ?")
vaxman 3y ago
Step one: Give all your bank passwords, employment and payroll information to some VC-infused startup run by foreign nationals who think of you like a farm animal and let them begin maintaining a record of your income, account and work history activity. Step two: Give complete strangers at various companies you are interested in working at your permission to subscribe to that record. Step three: Wait to be living in the street pushing a shopping cart and having the not yet fully matured descendants of very wealthy people bear false witness against you to try and get you to move along as you find new levels of dying.
nektro 3y ago
you're not missing anything, the market is really that awful right now
austin-cheney 3y ago
I just figure I must be doing something wrong. Of all maybe 2 people capable of full time commute to an office in my town with a top secret clearance, 10 years experience with Node.js, and a CASP or CISSP I still can’t get invited to an interview for a job where those are the minimum mandatory requirements.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  fix that resume mon ami. CISSP and TS means you're in demand, so it's gotta be the ATS or else something wonky w/ the resume
gcj 3y ago
I wrote something about it https://gcj.io/blog/how-to-get-a-better-dev-job/ https://gcj.io/blog/how-to-get-a-better-dev-job/
chalcolithic 3y ago
I've been looking for a job for some time and I don't understand the complaints. For every job opening that is available for someone in Asia (that's me) there's like a hundred openings that are US-only.
Chrisstar 3y ago
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Nellyz 3y ago
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camilamacedo 3y ago
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rushils 3y ago
Check out https://simplify.jobs https://simplify.jobs
SergeAx 3y ago
Last time I looked for a job I figured out the segment I am interested in (IoT in my case), then promising companies, and then scanned those companies' websites for "careers" section.
sterasody 3y ago
LinkedIn is still the main source I use. But sometimes I search on ATS boards to explore opportunity. For example, use operators like "site:greenhouse.io" and "site:lever.co" to search if there is any interesting opening.

mdekkers 3y ago

I’m 53, and I doubt I’ll ever find a job in tech again. I only started getting responses when I removed the earliest 15 year’s experience from my CV, and as soon as I hit the screening stage and my age is known they lose interest. Ageism can get fucked.

gedy 3y ago
Don't lose hope, it's just a downturn. At previous company (a year or so ago) we hired 61yo who had gotten in to tech a few years before. He turned out great.
- farmeroy 3y ago
  That's the kind of positive sentiment I need to hear!
justinzollars 3y ago
Out of curiosity - if this is actually true (I doubt it - that is you will never have another tech job; not ageism.) What is your plan?
- mdekkers 3y ago
  My plan? I’ll go out on my own terms. I fought my entire life to escape a bad childhood of poverty and homelessness. Not going back.
  - windowshopping 3y ago
    I don't know how you meant this to read but it sounds to me like you're saying you plan to commit suicide.
    - raisedbyninjas 3y ago
      Maybe. It could mean a number of things. It could be some creative squatting, moving to a low cost of living nation, or outright stealing. Having nothing to lose opens a lot of possibilities. I just read the story this morning of Nigerian stowaways that survived two weeks clinging to a ship's rudder.
darksofa 3y ago
Heh, I got a tech job at 56. But ... there is a lot of ageism out there. Which I've never understood.
- mdekkers 3y ago
  Well done. I really don’t understand it either. I have close to 30 years experience, and have always stayed relevant in terms of approach, skills, and knowledge. According to the folks I’ve worked with in the past, I’ve done great work, and I’m still in regular contact with many of them.
- vaxman 3y ago
  I was senior level but unable to shave yet when the movie War Games came out. That movie changed things socially and eventually at work. Young Bill Gates rise in celebrity also changed things. Quite a bit later, the dot-com boom started and we were hiring anything with a warm pulse to script HTML and Cold Fusion. Some of those kids were pulling $150K/yr in 1996 money! When the Crash happened, the kids moved home and laughed it off, eventually to reemerge as $7-$17/hr contractors while almost everyone over 40 was permanently retired (exceptions abound, but not enough). It happened because the older workers had more serious bills to pay and that involved changing careers and/or cracking open retirement nest eggs. The kids lacked any tenure with the grey beards and snow caps to guide them, but they had Google Search and the remotely connected Europeans (who were not as badly affected by the Crash due to socialism). Those kids of that era are fundamentally screwed because of lack of formal training and learning from those with decades of experience (and, of course, CS majors started graduating again ..about 17 years ago now.. and while initially outnumbered by the idiot kid masses, did manage to replicate to the point where things like PHP and Node are being slowly killed off and the applied science is coming back —along with renewed efforts to put training wheels on everything like was tried a generation ago with Pascal/Modula/Ada). However, one thing all those workers ALL shared was peer age group camaraderie! The older people were not seen as credible because the kids came to believe the entire industry had suddenly appeared out of thin are along with the advent of the WWW. Jeff Bezos took care of their heavy lifting for them (as long as they worked somewhere with a credit card lol) and is now the richest man in the world. Of course, I’m speaking very general here, but, for example, I doubt FB could have ever taken on Google because of this issue. I realized I was in trouble one day when I interviewed at Qualcomm wearing a suit and the kid who showed up late in casual attire accused me of being a fraud —not to my face, but to the recruiter. I notified their Legal and the response was like “Do we have a problem here?” Things are a bit better now, some of those kids look older than they are. Still, it’s not wise to let the young know what decade you were born in now, just as it once was with the old, before the War Games movie and Billy Gates.
corethree 3y ago
I believe it's illegal to talk about age or even consider it in the US. You need to make it to the technicals. Say webcam is broken for the screen.
bilsbie 3y ago
How do you take that off your resume? What if they ask? I didn’t realize you could do that.
- szatkus 3y ago
  Huh? You could just say that you got a first job in tech when you were 35 or something.
  - mixmastamyk 3y ago
    Don’t have to say anything. Sadly no one is interested in experience with Netware in the nineties.
    - mdekkers 3y ago
      Rocking that IPX/SPX!
      - mixmastamyk 3y ago
        Cried a little inside when I deleted that. sniff
- mdekkers 3y ago
  The only thing on my CV that indicates my age are my early jobs. Just take those away. When they do ask, I say that work I did at that time wasn’t relevant to today. Either way, as soon as they figure out my ago, the screening call is typically over.
elevatortrim 3y ago
This is a lot of people's experiences right now, young or old. As a manager who hires a lot, I could not care less about your age, would not even cross my mind as a criteria. Not saying agism does not exist, but not everywhere. It is an absolute buyer's market right now.
- pcthrowaway 3y ago
  I think we all have biases that we sometimes aren't aware of. For example, no one thinks they prefer taller employees. And yet taller people tend to make more money and have more positive qualities associated with them by others. I think age is a weird one, because there are both positive and negative biases at play. Maybe you don't think about age consciously, but subconsciously maybe you're more inclined to trust someone's opinion or experience if they're older. Conversely, you (and many other hiring managers) may feel a bit weird giving basic tasks or ordering around someone who is older than you. Maybe you don't realize it, but you might have more of a sense of "this candidate is less likely to take instruction" I'm not saying you're ageist (any more so than the baseline since I think we've all internalized ageism to some degree). But the fact that it "doesn't cross your mind as a criteria" doesn't necessarily mean that it hasn't affected your hiring decisions anyway.
vaxman 3y ago
I want you to download Unity, crack open a Safari book and go heads down until you can download and integrate 3D objects and write scripts. Make some tribute to something you like and then market it along side your grey beard. Remember me when you are making $250K next year :)
- mdekkers 3y ago
  Whilst i genuinely appreciate your suggestion, you are essentially saying “yes, the career and experience you have built up over the years are gone, beet find something else to do”
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]

tayo42 3y ago

my job search is miserable. I want to post a well thought out rant about my experience but idk how to do it anonymously without ruining my chances to get a job looking like a dick online. Every part is horrible: recruiters that don't know the industry beyond buzzwords. this is frustrating, they cant think outside their box "oh you havent done exactly this for 10 years, so i guess youll never do it." I dont think people know how bad of a filter these hr people are. I wrote code that handled tens of millions of requests a second, then you get "oh but were really looking for a sr backend api engineer, this doesnt seem like a good match" like what do you think I was doing? random interviews with no clear goals. "system design" wtf is this, i have no idea what anyone is looking in these within an hour. you want me to design facebook in 45min on a clunky ui? it takes 20 minutes just to talk about some of this stuff. you have to hope to hit their random keywords, but you have no idea what it is. leetcode has been beat to death, that to is horrible. we need you to optimize this exponential algorithm on the fly. basically if you haven't seen the exact problem before, you are not passing these interviews. or you run into the sr engineer, been with the company for years, that seems stuck in their local maximum that's interviewing you, your subjected their random questioning and expectations. the slow pace of everything. schedule an intro call a week ahead with a useless recruiter, schedule your tech screen another week out, now 2 weeks to get 3 engineers to screen you, talk with a hiring manager another week out. > worse getting no response at all. yeah, some company sent me an offline question, one question was write a k8s yaml file, right now, along with 2 other algorithm questions. like wtf was that looking for. no, i havent heard anything back. cant believe i wasted 1.5 hours on that. i dont think ill do any take home assements anymore, there is no guarantee anyone will look or respond. the low balls, "were looking for a staff/team lead, pay is 140k" you are out of your mind with these. I can keep going, the whole thing is horrible. thanks for reading my mini rant

countzeroasl 3y ago
"recruiters that don't know the industry beyond buzzwords. this is frustrating" I am not even in the Tech Industry (Plastics Manufacturing Engineering), and this is the case. There are maybe... MAYBE... a handful of recruiters that have been in the business, working with my industry long enough to actually know what the heck they are talking about. They are ones that have actually gone to plants, gone on tours, asked questions, and tried to understand the difference between a dryer, a hopper, and a barrel on an injection molding machine. Modern recruiting is as much a numbers game as modern job hunting (for the most part) and it is completely idiotic. I don't have really any advice, just wanted people to know that it's not just Tech that is seeing what you're seeing. The rest of us career professionals (16 years here) feel your pain and empathize.
frfl 3y ago
It seems to be a culmination of all the worst the hiring process throws at you right now. Your frustrations aren't unique right now unfortunately, as far as I can tell. But at the same time, either to keep up appearances or for whatever other reason, others don't seem to be freely describing the same frustrations. The public perceptions don't seem to reflect this side of reality either -- the job reports and unemployment rates at all time lows, yet the frustrations you're expressing seems more common that you'd think just looking at the headlines and reports of the job market. For what it's worth, I think it's best to try and ride it out, until the tides turn for the better. I don't know the root cause, but the economic situation (high interest rates) would seem to be the likely root cause, but that's just a guess.
- the_only_law 3y ago
  > the job reports and unemployment rates at all time lows I think this is because the issues described are particularly to software right now. Unemployment is pretty low, but I see a lot more people complaining about barely scraping by or hurting financially. My guess is that it’s mostly crappy jobs. Particularly in my locality there’s a massive divide between rent/property costs and average pay. I was trying to do some basic analysis on my local job market. Sadly, that data is not easily available, but I hand compiled the jobs posted in my area for a few days. There were plenty, but they tended to be low wage, low skill work, or work requiring expensive credentials or extensive experience.
  - frfl 3y ago
    /r/antiwork and /r/recruitinghell both have accounts of people being rejected from non-software jobs as well. Additionally, crappy wages and unrealistic job descriptions. Of course I read those posts knowing there's a certain amount of echo-chamber effect in those subreddits and a small number of posts may not give a clear indication of the overall job market. But certainly provides some perspective.
    - the_only_law 3y ago
      > Additionally, crappy wages and unrealistic job descriptions. What’s interesting, is from what I’ve seen, a lot of stuff is paying a lot better than I remember seeing a decade ago. However, the costs, notably the cost of things you need to survive (especially housing) has managed to far outpace those wage gains in a much shorter period of time. Although that might be specific to my location.
yu3zhou4 3y ago
Maybe the salaries are down and there is higher competitiveness between candidates because people are able to work remotely from low cost of living countries? I'd be happy to take fully remote staff eng/tech lead for 140k USD, because in my country I can make half of it for the same position
- tayo42 3y ago
  Maybe on a small scale but I dont think this is the case. A lot of roles are US only even if they are remote. Hiring out side the US when your exec team and related are all US based isn't as easy as just doing it. Language is hard to deal with. There are also issues with taxes following employment for where the hiring is being done that I dont think a lot of companies are going to put with. Companies can also be conservative about security, not everyone is going to want to have their data in a third world country. Also it seems like europe is cracking down on things you can get away with in the US
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    Not just taxes, but that's a big one * states have different payroll and VAT taxes, and internationally it could get very different and messy * NDAs, non-competes, and things like single-party consent for recording will vary by state and country. California, for example, basically banned non-competes, or else has to offer a lot of considerations to make them effective, but that ain't the case if you're in NYC, London, or Samarkand. * data storage, data-in-transit, data-at-rest and logging rules may be different * compliance rules like GDPR, CCPA, SOX, and PCI-DSS may have restrictions or not fly for one-off remote workers * then there are the very real security challenges, like geofencing IPs, getting 2FA to work with international numbers, making sure you're not MITM'd, or that US / Chinese / European / etc. border security won't scan your laptop as you enter or exit. My last job at a F500 had very strict protocols for travel to China, Russia, and the Middle East -- and for credible reasons. Meanwhile "remote in N. Carolina", even if 100% remote 45 min away, sidesteps a lot of those challenges.
  - pcthrowaway 3y ago
    > Hiring out side the US when your exec team and related are all US based isn't as easy as just doing it. Language is hard to deal with People talk about this, but really, U.S. companies can very easily hire from Canada, either through an employer of record (like Remote or Deel) or a PEO if they have several Canadian employees. They can also hire contractors and due to trade agreements don't have to deal with taxes at all (U.S. clients are even exempt from paying GST/HST that a Canadian contractor would typically have to charge otherwise). There are no more time zone issues than hiring remote U.S. and there's only a slightly higher chance of a language barrier (since Canada has a higher proportion of immigrants) I wouldn't be surprised if this is affecting the U.S. market (and might be the only saving grace of the Canadian market which nonetheless is in dire straits right now). Other than companies dealing with national security though, I don't see why US remote only would be a thing

the_only_law 3y ago

> but what has been everyone's experience so far in 2023 trying to find a new job? I’m done. Not even trying anymore. After a year of bullshit I’m convinced the only reason I ever made it into this field is because that stupid guilder age in the 2010s driven by cheap money, cargo culting, and naive idiocy. Even the non tech companies aren’t hiring much anymore. Seriously I had an easier time finding a job when I was 18, had no formal education, and no real work experience. I used to console myself with that fact that if I didn’t have anything else, I at least had a decent career and now I don’t even have that. Recruiters disappeared over night. I occasionally get a few every once in a blue moon, but they always end up with nothing. I did my last interview a couple weeks ago, only for the recruiter to call me back as confused as I was whether the answer was yes or no. Cold applications are worse. I did managed a couple interviews out of those, but was rejected within a few days. Not sure why, those were some of the best interviews I’ve had recently. And the worst are the companies who send me an email months after I’ve applied just to say “we cancelled this position, lol”. I’ve also had family friends and others reach out and ask me if I’d like to consult for them, only for them to ghost me as well. Now to be fair, some of this was my fault as well. I didn’t recognize how fucked the market was quick enough. I was desperately focusing on remote jobs, primarily because I really didn’t want to incur that costs and work that come with a move. I did a few interviews that were for in site positions, mostly for practice, and usually progressed further in those than for the remote roles, but ultimately didn’t seriously pursue them for the reason I just stated. Meanwhile I’m in one of the worst real estate markets in the country, with my savings having been battered by all sorts of unexpected emergency expenses. I’m honestly half convinced that 2023 is trying to kill me. At the very least, I suppose I won’t have much left to lose sooner rather than later.

frfl 3y ago
Your experiences are too similar to what I've seen. I don't think the public preconception has yet to realize this is what reality if looking like for many people rather than the headlines about no-recession, jobs everywhere, low unemployment. I was going to link my other comment, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37112093 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37112093, but you already read and commented on that. Just try to hold out, it's just absolutely terrible right now, perhaps dotcom/2008 bad, but those were both before my mind so I can't necessarily give a good account for the experience during those two periods.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  > Your experiences are too similar to what I've seen. I don't think the public preconception has yet to realize this is what reality if looking like for many people rather than the headlines about no-recession, jobs everywhere, low unemployment. Both can be true. Many people can have a reality of not being able to find buyers for remote work performed on computers. And the data indicating non remote work, possibly not performed on computers is widely available (albeit at an undesirable pay to quality of life ratio for those in the former category).
  - epicureanideal 3y ago
    > And the data indicating non remote work, possibly not performed on computers is widely available The initially reported jobs numbers each month always claim that, and then those numbers are consistently revised down over time so that jobs have been lost the whole time, and our perceptions were more accurate than the initially reported data.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      Presumably, this chart is using revised data, and it does not show any material upward movement in even the most expansive definition of unemployed for almost a year: https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate
      - epicureanideal 3y ago
        After 6 months people fall off the list, and also many people with high salaries don’t bother applying for the meager benefits. It also isn’t specific to tech so a slight decrease in unemployment outside of tech would mask tech unemployment.
- base698 3y ago
  As someone that skated through 2008 employed, this seems worse to me. I've seen people that are good take a year to get a job. Some even left willingly last year only to faceplant into the current situation.
dsattt 3y ago
I'm done as well. This entire field is toxic garbage.

maerF0x0 3y ago

What feedback or retrospect have you gathered about why you're not making the final rounds?

the_only_law 3y ago
Lmao do people get that? The only thing I’ve ever gotten after final round lately have been ghosted or a useless generic rejection email. Even when a recruiter is involved, they don’t seem to get that sort of information.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  I usually don’t get direct feedback. But if you’re even slightly socially conscious you can usually pick up clues by not having great answers to interview questions. Seeing their face or hearing their voice express some involuntary emotion that says, “ah he doesn’t know this.” I usually pick up the hints, read between the lines, and study up on those things, whatever they may be.
- tayo42 3y ago
  i ask everytime I get rejected, you do sometimes get some info. But i think its almost always useless because the next interview you do will be graded some other random arbitrary standard. sometimes it is helpful though, or if there is a trend.
- maerF0x0 3y ago
  I always ask for it directly. I usually get some clues, but nothing deep. I've never been ghosted after an in person interview (except by Tawkify matchmakers, but that's another story lol)
- schrodinger 3y ago
  As a hiring manager, it's risky to give detailed information because it could be used for a lawsuit, and there's no direct benefit to the company. My company still does give feedback because it's the right thing to do, but there is a reason why most companies shy away.
shadowfoxx 3y ago
Well its a mix of things. I struggle with "live coding", y'know fight,flight, or freeze? I freeze up. So on that front I think I need to do two things: 1. Slow down and ask for a few minutes to collect myself. "I'm not in this context, do you mind if I have a minute to organize my thoughts". And then do a little "whiteboard" in my notebook or something. Some people might say to verbalize your thinking process and I agree but there shouldn't be anything wrong with taking a few minutes. (I mean, this doesn't even necessarily test for how I'd do on the job because I'm at least competent at coding) 2. Practice more situations. Any time I struggle with a problem after the interview I make sure I understand that tech. Right now I'm studying up on class components and websockets. (Two technologies I either don't really see anymore: we use functional components on my latest projects or stuff you set and forget) I think #2 is part of what people mean when they say that interviewing prepares you for the next one. - Some places that I get far with I've literally reached out afterward and asked for pointers. One piece of feedback I've gotten is, "We didn't get a good sense of what drives you." which, that's fair. I think of software engineering as more of a technician => "I have the skills to solve your problems" and not so much, "My passion is building the front-end for X,Y,Z business" I mean, I'd obviously like to find work with meaning but I'm not driven by that meaning. I don't think we'd ask our plumber to show their passion for the work (Not that they can't have that) but instead we're more concerned with, "Are you competent?" - That's something I need to work on for sure. - Lastly, I've learned that an interview is for both parties. The person interviewing me is also representative of the company. The last two interviews I had a bad feeling about the fit post interview and I think I should have reached out and rescinded my interest because our values didn't align. Most of the time though, I check all the boxes and don't even make it to interview stage so its hard to really glean anything useful most of the time. Could it be a bad market? Is it because the only box I don't check is having a CS degree? (I have a bachelors but not in CS) Is it my experience is too varied? Who knows. Best I can do is to keep at it.

hnfong 3y ago

Survivor bias. It worked for you. People apply for dozens of jobs, if they had to spend 10 hours on a take home project each, it would add up to hundreds of total hours working on pointless toy projects just for the chance to get a job. That's like working full time for a month or two. Not counting the time spent to get up to that point (finding open job listings, editing resume, submitting application, doing screening interviews, etc.)

willio58 3y ago
Absolutely. This just ended up being a company with a mission I actually cared about, using a tech stack that had my mouth watering, and a project prompt that allowed for creativity and showing my full-stack chops in a way I hadn't experienced in take-home projects before. I should clarify, I was done with the prompt in 1 hour. But the frontend aspect of the prompt was very much like "show us what you can do", and that's the type of thing that gets me going. But I totally agree with your point. I think that if a take-home project goes over a couple hours it should be paid. Some companies do this, but not enough.
- hnfong 3y ago
  In a sense the take home assignment without enforced time limit selects for candidates that are most committed (or, alternatively, desperate, if you will). That may or may not be a good thing, depending on the situation. But the downside is that the company would lose out on the potential applicants who can demonstrate skill in interviews, are in high demand, and can't be bothered to spend time on take homes.
  - willio58 3y ago
    Definitely true. The only issue with the idea of enforcing strict time limits on take-home projects is you pretty quickly get back to the same issues people including myself have with Leetcode and the like. Like actual day-to-day work, just give me a prompt and a recommended time limit and I'll try to fit it to that and I might go above and beyond depending on a number of factors. It's a situation where you have to pick your poison as an interviewee. Either subject yourself to the stress and lack of meaning that is leetcode (just my perspective), or be prepared to waste a few hours of your life on a project that doesn't wow your potential employer. I'd rather take the latter and hope I can learn something valuable along the way.

tayo42 3y ago
> In a competitive hiring environment, you need your resume to tell the person reviewing it why you’re a safe bet. Your resume tells me that if I need someone to build internal full stack web-app automation then you’ve got experience of doing that at Google… which is great except Google is pretty much the only place where that work is required This is so incredibly dismissive and naive about the work being done. I can't believe you actually think this way. Its almost insulting These kinds of projects require everything any other project needs. He learned a new tech, was able to identify a real problem then solve the issue with real measureable results. All of this within an organziation where you need to design and plan correctly all of this is generalizable to almost any software work being done. and important skills for experienced engineers
- oldtownroad 3y ago
  I absolutely do not mean to suggest his work was not valuable or that he is a bad software engineer. I am sure he is very talented. My point is that his resume is the problem, not his skill. A resume is a sales tool, and sales is about knowing your audience. His resume would be great if he was applying for a job at Google… but he isn’t and so he needs a resume that sells his skills to companies that aren’t Google. I am sorry that my comments came across as anything other than encouraging and positive: I think he has great potential and that his time at Google will be a differentiator for him and will help him get interviews… as long as the resume is good.
  - SAI_Peregrinus 3y ago
    I'd also note that just like a cover letter, a resume can be customized to the job you're applying for. I keep a base resume with all my experience, and then selectively delete irrelevant portions for each job application.
teirce 3y ago
Thank you for taking the time to write out this detailed feedback. I will have to think hard about how my resume may change, and in what ways. I may end up starting from scratch and seeing what I can come up with and get further feedback from there.

laurels-marts 3y ago
This is true. The better you're at networking and building relationships the easier it gets in almost every domain of life. There's a point at which when you have enough connections and relationships you'll likely never need to write another motivation letter. You can just leverage your network.
zlg_codes 3y ago
In what way is it moral to hire someone based on network instead of merit? That practice is itself the problem. It is a privilege because the bar you're meant to reach is lower if you know someone. What relationships would you build? You're coworkers. Friendships require outside-work time and effort, which is already in scant supply. I truly don't know how anyone manages these relationships.
- kmoser 3y ago
  You're assuming a hire based on networking is somehow unqualified. In reality people hire based at least partly on networking because there is an assumption (whether true or not) that you can trust that person to some degree: I know them, they seem to have their act together, they can communicate reasonably well. In other words, they are more of a known quantity than a stranger with nothing more than a decent looking resume. One's network may not be perfect, but it tends to provide more qualified candidates than the Internet at large, so people tend to look to their network first. If you live near even one person, you can get together with them and talk. That's how networking starts. If you don't live near anyone, there is no shortage of online forums where you can network.
  - zlg_codes 3y ago
    That assumption may not be correct, though maybe it is statistically better than a random Internet resume. Where would you begin? Just talking doesn't do anything for me. I'm not into small talk or chit-chat. I think part of it for me is suspected neurodivergence, since I have great difficulty following what other people are coasting on instinctively. I'm drained within an hour or two and get incredibly irritable. I went to a networking event once, on frontend dev and responsive design. This was back in 2012. I attended the talks and had some brief chatting, but the vibe there seemed like it was meant for people already well-networked or in the industry. I don't feel like I belong in these places, despite sharing an interest in computing.
    - kmoser 3y ago
      You don't have to engage in small talk or chit-chat: just have a genuine conversation with the other person, and end it when it starts to get tedious. I don't see these conversations having to last more than 10 or 15 minutes; an hour would be a really long time, unless you're enjoying it. Agreed, this is not always fun or easy, but it may help to approach it like a hacker would: given a seemingly impenetrable system (a stranger's personality), how do you find something in common to talk about? How to begin the convo and guide it will depend largely on who you're talking to (complete stranger, acquaintance, etc.) but a good starting topic would be something simple like websites and/or something related to your area of expertise or interest. Pro tip: ask them what things they're interested in and see if you can find common ground.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      you're not going to go to a networking event once and magically make new contacts and change your life. it may take time, esp. in a setting where there are a lot of presentations and less interactions. in a room full of aspie nerds, all of whom are kinda awkward, you may need to be the one who breaks the ice. think of small talk like the wheels on a plane -- it's there to get you up into the sky, or to land you after a long chat, so deploy it just enough to get you in and out of more meaningful convos, onto new topics, etc.
      - zlg_codes 3y ago
        I appreciate the reframing here and will attempt to employ it next time, but more and more I'm discovering that I just don't gel with people, even within my own interests. There's something 'missing' in me that others interpret as permission to mistreat or attack.
- desert_rue 3y ago
  I got my last job by kicking ass at the job before that. When someone left the previous company, she made sure to let me know she was hiring. I wouldn’t say we were friends; we never hung out outside of work. But she knew my capabilities and she knew what my interests were.

red-iron-pine 3y ago

some people are born with social privilage, but a lot of folks work at it. meetup.com groups, linux user groups, powershell scripters forums, python guilds, SCADA code conferences, etc. doesn't even have to be tech stuff per se, my ISP account executives (sales guys) used to pull leads from Cars and Coffee meetups, painball, beer tasting events, etc. you may not be born with blue-blood connections, but you can certainly build lots and lots of connections, and tech, esp. startup tech, is a place that lends itself well to that. go get em, killer. > Also, isn't it a bit scummy to keep someone in your life just in case you need a job? if you only see this as transactional, esp. in a one-way transactional sense, you're never going to network successfully; it's quid pro quo, and you need to be willing (and able) to give as well as receive. and not always just job stuff.

zlg_codes 3y ago
What are these connections, really? Are they actually relationships, or just a list of people you can call for favors? I've struggled to digest the feedback in the whole subthread. Quid pro quo makes sense, but then, you need something to give. I don't have anything people would want. I don't know anyone hiring, nor could I put a good word in about it. You mentioned it's not just job stuff; what sort of stuff is it? I'm legitimately confused about how these relationships are any different than a half-baked, not-really-a-friendship, or acquaintance. The whole "why" for me would be to find better opportunities. This seems incompatible with what you and others are saying about networking, like it needs to be more than jobs. I'm struggling to grok what that "more than jobs" would be in networking compared to a friendship. It's weird to express in light of what others have posted here. It really highlights the difference in how we process or understand socializing.
- jhatemyjob 3y ago
  You're right. It's not friendship. It's reputation. If you don't know someone's reputation, knowing whether or not they are good is very hard. That's what networking is for. When people know who you are and know your reputation, they feel safer hiring you.

confidantlake 3y ago

I don't believe the unemployment rate is as low as they claim. A low unemployment rate would mean employees would be less picky but they aren't. It is almost impossible to find a job right now. It is definitely tough to do research. A lot of the jobs posted are fake.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
I see lots of employers who are not picky. Hotels, grocery stores, hospitals, warehouses, construction crews, transportation businesses, etc. Employers in one sector being picky is not evidence of all employers being picky.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > I see lots of employers who are not picky. Hotels, grocery stores, hospitals, warehouses, construction crews, transportation businesses, etc. Jobs aren't getting filled because they're in places people can't afford to live. Right now that's most places - including places that had been affordable for generations but aren't any more. This all should be easily understood but it often isn't.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Insufficient pay can surely be a cause for some employers not being able to be picky, but that does not mean the official unemployment rate is false. I think what people are dancing around is percent of people employed with minimum “acceptable” pay to quality of life at work ratio, which includes the location of the work. This figure may very well be trending down, but is not an official figure, and it seems like a difficult metric to calculate anyway.
    - zlg_codes 3y ago
      The 'official' unemployment rate doesn't include people who aren't actively looking within X time. I would not trust the government to accurately report on a statistic that makes it look bad.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        There is an official unemployment rate that includes people who are not actively looking within X time. See U-6 unemployment rate: https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm https://www.bls.gov/cps/definitions.htm >U-6 is the broadest measure of labor underutilization. In addition to the total number of unemployed and all people marginally attached to the labor force, U-6 includes people at work part time for economic reasons (also called involuntary part-time workers) and is expressed as a percentage of the civilian labor force plus the marginally attached. >U-6 is calculated as: ( (Total Unemployed + Marginally Attached to the Labor Force + People at Work Part Time for Economic Reasons) ÷ (Labor Force + Marginally Attached to the Labor Force) ) x 100
        WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
        I've never run across that before. I think a lot about the 20 percentage points who aren't reflected in the official BOLS' rate. Specifically about the ones who would absolutely work but are daunted by their significant barriers to job entry. I'm hopeful these charts will reflect at least some of them.
        lotsofpulp 3y ago
        There is always labor force participation rate if you want all encompassing: https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-labor-force-participation-rate.htm https://www.bls.gov/charts/employment-situation/civilian-lab...
- zlg_codes 3y ago
  And most, if not all of those jobs, are bad for your health and don't pay anywhere close to what's necessary to make up for the stress on your body. Most jobs are crap, and so are most employers. They want warm bodies to wear out and make money. Generally, unpicky employers point to a high-turnover, high-stress, low paying environment. You couldn't pay me enough to work those shit jobs.
mcmcmc 3y ago
Something to consider is that unemployment rates only account for people who are actively in the job market/applying for jobs, and the workforce participation rate dropped significantly with Covid. If you get so discouraged that you stop looking for work, you are no longer counted as "unemployed"