13 ms·

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 resea

by 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.
- james-revisoai 3y ago
  You could always try leaving the FAANG name off or adapting it to the project name, and see how things go, given the associations people have with FAANG outside of SV/HN nowadays. Helped my friend a lot.
- alexpotato 3y ago
  >which were FAANG (which everyone believes is a golden ticket into any company). In a past job, I saw a LOT of former FAANG candidates as a hiring manager (SRE @ hedge fund) at a past job. In my experience, FAANG folks have a somewhat barbell distribution where it's either: A. "This person is incredibly talented, well spoken and will probably find a job anywhere" B. "This person spent 5 years at a FAANG and worked on basically two projects that would have taken <6 months at a hedge fund" There doesn't really seem to be an in between. I also distinctly remember learning that Google had 100K+ employees. To me, that is moving into "big bank" size territory and it's clearly impossible for EVERYONE who is former Google to be amazing.
  - dehrmann 3y ago
    My experience with FAANG candidates, especially those with only FAANG experience, while at a startup is they often have isolated skills and experience with bespoke, idiosyncratic ecosystems.
    - russh 3y ago
      > Isolated skills and experience with bespoke, idiosyncratic ecosystems. Sounds like a good tagline for my Resume.
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.
its_a_random_ac 3y ago
Yes, that's mostly been my experience (6 years + masters, Bay Area/remote positions.) A few other things I've noticed: 1. Yes, I've had the "candidates with perfect skill/experience matches get the same generic rejection" but I've also had times when I'd apply for something that I had only a little bit of a match for, and still get pretty far through the interview process. 2. Related to #1, I can't get a good feeling of how qualified I am for these listings. Sometimes I'll apply to something that is in the low 100ks with a customized resume that echos all of their reqs and get rejected, but other times I'll just blind fire out my standard resume to something with a base in the mid 200s and get selected for a full interview loop. 3. It feels like some places still have the same "standards" for each part of the interview process, leading to a lot of candidates getting to the end, which then leads to some weird "you did well but we chose someone else" responses. 4. Sometimes I'd have an interview lined up, but then right before it I get a "due to shifting requirements, we have to postpone this by a bit" email. This has happened several times now (and they never have actually un-postponed it.) Same thing with spending a day or two interviewing at a place, not hearing back, and then reading of a large layoff at that company a few days later.
terminatornet 3y ago
I'm still employed, but just started looking for new jobs as of a few weeks ago. I've similarly had the generic rejection with every position I've applied for so far. I suspect that my biggest hurdle is that my resume isn't tailored enough to get through whatever criteria their applicant tracking system is using. Really annoying that I have to try and game the system just to get my foot in the door.
- frfl 3y ago
  I keep track of where I apply and if I get a no-response or a rejection or an interview. Right now, 70 applications over 2 months, I had a ~4% interview rate. Slightly lower than normal. July and August were absolutely dead. June I had some interviews. Fall it may pick up from what I've read. I don't know how well tailoring works. If it's a special job, maybe it's worth it, otherwise, it may me more efficient to submit a comprehensive but otherwise non-tailored application. Maybe run an A/B test to see what gives you better results. You could also have a few pre-tailored resumes you can use for the typical positions you apply for (for eg Frontend, Backend, Fullstack, DevOps) instead of recreating one each time.
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.
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.
maerF0x0 3y ago
My experience was an absolute TON of jobs that had no idea what I do as a Staff+ engineer, or what it costs to get someone with my experience and skills. I'm talking many many recruiters fishing with 75% off my total comp. My take is there are lots of open roles, but companies are being slow to hire because they know they have the upper hand and want to wait out the market and get a great hire at a lower price. And right now with interest rates companies have lower opportunity cost (ie they're not incentivized to deploy capital as fast as possible) .
- corethree 3y ago
  That's dumb then the great hires have no loyalty they will quit.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  A startup with a tech team of 50 doesn't really need a staff+ engineer. They don't know what you do because these aren't things they even think about.
  - maerF0x0 3y ago
    A lot of startup folks just think a higher "level" just means "Faster". While I agree, I think it's measured more abstractly and across time, than just like "1..2...3.. Go" kind of race on a feature/issue.
yieldcrv 3y ago
I very reliably get callbacks and many unceremonious rejections after the technical round and yet the very first job I interviewed at in person hired me, matching my experience pre-pandemic. No compromise on my compensation bands, as I was really questioning my world by then But turns out the humans didnt change, the mode of interaction did and it has less inputs with different biases
camdenreslink 3y ago
I have applied to 90 jobs in the last 3 weeks as a senior software engineer looking for a remote position. These have been from LinkedIn, and the HackerNews who's hiring thread. I'd say I've had ~10-15% recruiter screen response rate. I think a lot of my rejections have been companies filling the position before I get a chance to interview.
base698 3y ago
Most of my unemployed friends have taken 10 months or longer to find employment. Some are even local in California where it seems like there should be more opportunities than seeking remote only.
nine_k 3y ago
It's been more than 3 months since I've started looking for a job. Back in May and June, things were really bad. Layoffs everywhere, basically no open engineering positions. Late July and early August were / are much better, some recruiters even reaching me, instead of me reaching them. Still pretty hard; about a hundred companies rejected me, of them a couple dozen after several rounds of interviews, and several after apparently successful final rounds.
whateveracct 3y ago
The ones I looked into didn't get past intros due to compensation. My last new job was before all the interest rate increases and all that stuff, so I think I pinned my salary solidly above my current market. I'd have trouble getting a lateral compensation move, let alone a bump. Between that and my house, interest rates have been kind but also I'm kinda bound by it.
SamPatt 3y ago
Been looking seriously for ~4 months now, no luck yet. My degree is in political science and I worked at a DC think tank as a research fellow focused on technology policy before leaving to co-found a VC-backed tech startup. After five years it failed. Now it seems difficult to find a place which needs my mix of skills, a combination of communication and technical. I don't know if it's my unusual career path or something I'm doing wrong, but it's been tough so far.
- herewego 3y ago
  This is the time to try your hand at entrepreneurship again. Most private investors I know are investing purposefully right now. Forget VCs and bootstrap - build the future you want - show you have grit. I work with a lot of exited bootstrapped founders and many of us are excited for the future. Most are not willing to struggle, sacrifice, survive, and grind for a decade or more. Be the exception and build sustainable value. Money follows; perhaps trite but true. Sadly, this is excellent advice that many ignore (this may not actually apply to your specific circumstances, of course). Your career path makes you top talent in the eyes of many. Honestly, your journey sounds like a leader’s narrative in the making. No excuses, get in there and get it done. I look in the mirror every morning and say nearly that exact thing to myself: “get in there and fight, today like all the other days before and all the days to come”. This is not figurative, I do this literally every single day as part of my daily routine and I don’t let up, even in my darkest hours of which there have been many over the years. I attribute my success to this mentality, perhaps it can work for you. Be well!
  - SamPatt 3y ago
    Thank you for the encouragement. I don't have an idea I'm sufficiently excited about, but the longer I'm unemployed the more I begin considering them.
- Nurbek-F 3y ago
  I'm in a similar position. Been 3 months. Good luck!
  - 3y ago
deprecative 3y ago
I'd been looking for months before layoffs finally hit my team. At this point I've been looking for 14 months, plus or minus. I've made it to the final round once and barely get anything from applications. It's enough to make me want to apply for roadkill as I'm pretty sure I'd land that job and you can't beat the pay.
potsandpans 3y ago
my experience in 2023 is that I applied to a single job at fastly, got a referral through blind. the only reason I applied was because it was uncanny how much the position matched my skillset. this position was 1:1 what I've been doing in my career, pretty much an open req tailored to my experience. dude on blind told me that it got fast tracked to the mgmt team from hr screening. I waited two weeks, and got a boilerplate rejection email. there were probably thousands of people who applied to that position.
AnimalMuppet 3y ago
I put out my resume on Indeed, Monster, maybe AngelList (I forget). Also, over the years, I have kept a list of headhunters that seemed to have both integrity and intelligence (it wasn't a long list). I reached out to them. Half of them weren't valid any more (it's been a while since I was in the market for a new job). I didn't do any direct applications to companies, as far as I recall - not until they had already reached out to me, either directly or through the recruiter. Oh, and I was looking for a job where I wanted to move to - over a thousand miles away from where I had contacts. Also, I have nearly four decades of experience (you can look at that as a plus or a minus, depending on how much age discrimination you think is out there). Result: Found a position where I wanted. It took a few months. I forget which way paid off. It was either Indeed or one of my headhunters. Sorry that my memory is kind of vague. Between switching jobs and moving cross-country, selling a house and buying another, I had kind of a lot going on, and I've dropped some of the details.

by frfl 3y ago

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.

james-revisoai 3y ago
You could always try leaving the FAANG name off or adapting it to the project name, and see how things go, given the associations people have with FAANG outside of SV/HN nowadays. Helped my friend a lot.
alexpotato 3y ago
>which were FAANG (which everyone believes is a golden ticket into any company). In a past job, I saw a LOT of former FAANG candidates as a hiring manager (SRE @ hedge fund) at a past job. In my experience, FAANG folks have a somewhat barbell distribution where it's either: A. "This person is incredibly talented, well spoken and will probably find a job anywhere" B. "This person spent 5 years at a FAANG and worked on basically two projects that would have taken <6 months at a hedge fund" There doesn't really seem to be an in between. I also distinctly remember learning that Google had 100K+ employees. To me, that is moving into "big bank" size territory and it's clearly impossible for EVERYONE who is former Google to be amazing.
- dehrmann 3y ago
  My experience with FAANG candidates, especially those with only FAANG experience, while at a startup is they often have isolated skills and experience with bespoke, idiosyncratic ecosystems.
  - russh 3y ago
    > Isolated skills and experience with bespoke, idiosyncratic ecosystems. Sounds like a good tagline for my Resume.

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.

its_a_random_ac 3y ago

Yes, that's mostly been my experience (6 years + masters, Bay Area/remote positions.) A few other things I've noticed: 1. Yes, I've had the "candidates with perfect skill/experience matches get the same generic rejection" but I've also had times when I'd apply for something that I had only a little bit of a match for, and still get pretty far through the interview process. 2. Related to #1, I can't get a good feeling of how qualified I am for these listings. Sometimes I'll apply to something that is in the low 100ks with a customized resume that echos all of their reqs and get rejected, but other times I'll just blind fire out my standard resume to something with a base in the mid 200s and get selected for a full interview loop. 3. It feels like some places still have the same "standards" for each part of the interview process, leading to a lot of candidates getting to the end, which then leads to some weird "you did well but we chose someone else" responses. 4. Sometimes I'd have an interview lined up, but then right before it I get a "due to shifting requirements, we have to postpone this by a bit" email. This has happened several times now (and they never have actually un-postponed it.) Same thing with spending a day or two interviewing at a place, not hearing back, and then reading of a large layoff at that company a few days later.

terminatornet 3y ago

I'm still employed, but just started looking for new jobs as of a few weeks ago. I've similarly had the generic rejection with every position I've applied for so far. I suspect that my biggest hurdle is that my resume isn't tailored enough to get through whatever criteria their applicant tracking system is using. Really annoying that I have to try and game the system just to get my foot in the door.

frfl 3y ago
I keep track of where I apply and if I get a no-response or a rejection or an interview. Right now, 70 applications over 2 months, I had a ~4% interview rate. Slightly lower than normal. July and August were absolutely dead. June I had some interviews. Fall it may pick up from what I've read. I don't know how well tailoring works. If it's a special job, maybe it's worth it, otherwise, it may me more efficient to submit a comprehensive but otherwise non-tailored application. Maybe run an A/B test to see what gives you better results. You could also have a few pre-tailored resumes you can use for the typical positions you apply for (for eg Frontend, Backend, Fullstack, DevOps) instead of recreating one each time.

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.

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.

maerF0x0 3y ago

My experience was an absolute TON of jobs that had no idea what I do as a Staff+ engineer, or what it costs to get someone with my experience and skills. I'm talking many many recruiters fishing with 75% off my total comp. My take is there are lots of open roles, but companies are being slow to hire because they know they have the upper hand and want to wait out the market and get a great hire at a lower price. And right now with interest rates companies have lower opportunity cost (ie they're not incentivized to deploy capital as fast as possible) .

corethree 3y ago
That's dumb then the great hires have no loyalty they will quit.
dehrmann 3y ago
A startup with a tech team of 50 doesn't really need a staff+ engineer. They don't know what you do because these aren't things they even think about.
- maerF0x0 3y ago
  A lot of startup folks just think a higher "level" just means "Faster". While I agree, I think it's measured more abstractly and across time, than just like "1..2...3.. Go" kind of race on a feature/issue.

yieldcrv 3y ago

I very reliably get callbacks and many unceremonious rejections after the technical round and yet the very first job I interviewed at in person hired me, matching my experience pre-pandemic. No compromise on my compensation bands, as I was really questioning my world by then But turns out the humans didnt change, the mode of interaction did and it has less inputs with different biases

camdenreslink 3y ago

I have applied to 90 jobs in the last 3 weeks as a senior software engineer looking for a remote position. These have been from LinkedIn, and the HackerNews who's hiring thread. I'd say I've had ~10-15% recruiter screen response rate. I think a lot of my rejections have been companies filling the position before I get a chance to interview.

base698 3y ago

Most of my unemployed friends have taken 10 months or longer to find employment. Some are even local in California where it seems like there should be more opportunities than seeking remote only.

nine_k 3y ago

It's been more than 3 months since I've started looking for a job. Back in May and June, things were really bad. Layoffs everywhere, basically no open engineering positions. Late July and early August were / are much better, some recruiters even reaching me, instead of me reaching them. Still pretty hard; about a hundred companies rejected me, of them a couple dozen after several rounds of interviews, and several after apparently successful final rounds.

whateveracct 3y ago

The ones I looked into didn't get past intros due to compensation. My last new job was before all the interest rate increases and all that stuff, so I think I pinned my salary solidly above my current market. I'd have trouble getting a lateral compensation move, let alone a bump. Between that and my house, interest rates have been kind but also I'm kinda bound by it.

SamPatt 3y ago

Been looking seriously for ~4 months now, no luck yet. My degree is in political science and I worked at a DC think tank as a research fellow focused on technology policy before leaving to co-found a VC-backed tech startup. After five years it failed. Now it seems difficult to find a place which needs my mix of skills, a combination of communication and technical. I don't know if it's my unusual career path or something I'm doing wrong, but it's been tough so far.

herewego 3y ago
This is the time to try your hand at entrepreneurship again. Most private investors I know are investing purposefully right now. Forget VCs and bootstrap - build the future you want - show you have grit. I work with a lot of exited bootstrapped founders and many of us are excited for the future. Most are not willing to struggle, sacrifice, survive, and grind for a decade or more. Be the exception and build sustainable value. Money follows; perhaps trite but true. Sadly, this is excellent advice that many ignore (this may not actually apply to your specific circumstances, of course). Your career path makes you top talent in the eyes of many. Honestly, your journey sounds like a leader’s narrative in the making. No excuses, get in there and get it done. I look in the mirror every morning and say nearly that exact thing to myself: “get in there and fight, today like all the other days before and all the days to come”. This is not figurative, I do this literally every single day as part of my daily routine and I don’t let up, even in my darkest hours of which there have been many over the years. I attribute my success to this mentality, perhaps it can work for you. Be well!
- SamPatt 3y ago
  Thank you for the encouragement. I don't have an idea I'm sufficiently excited about, but the longer I'm unemployed the more I begin considering them.
Nurbek-F 3y ago
I'm in a similar position. Been 3 months. Good luck!
- 3y ago

deprecative 3y ago

I'd been looking for months before layoffs finally hit my team. At this point I've been looking for 14 months, plus or minus. I've made it to the final round once and barely get anything from applications. It's enough to make me want to apply for roadkill as I'm pretty sure I'd land that job and you can't beat the pay.

potsandpans 3y ago

my experience in 2023 is that I applied to a single job at fastly, got a referral through blind. the only reason I applied was because it was uncanny how much the position matched my skillset. this position was 1:1 what I've been doing in my career, pretty much an open req tailored to my experience. dude on blind told me that it got fast tracked to the mgmt team from hr screening. I waited two weeks, and got a boilerplate rejection email. there were probably thousands of people who applied to that position.

AnimalMuppet 3y ago

I put out my resume on Indeed, Monster, maybe AngelList (I forget). Also, over the years, I have kept a list of headhunters that seemed to have both integrity and intelligence (it wasn't a long list). I reached out to them. Half of them weren't valid any more (it's been a while since I was in the market for a new job). I didn't do any direct applications to companies, as far as I recall - not until they had already reached out to me, either directly or through the recruiter. Oh, and I was looking for a job where I wanted to move to - over a thousand miles away from where I had contacts. Also, I have nearly four decades of experience (you can look at that as a plus or a minus, depending on how much age discrimination you think is out there). Result: Found a position where I wanted. It took a few months. I forget which way paid off. It was either Indeed or one of my headhunters. Sorry that my memory is kind of vague. Between switching jobs and moving cross-country, selling a house and buying another, I had kind of a lot going on, and I've dropped some of the details.