14 ms·

Looking for a Job Is Tough

184 points by skaplich 2y ago

38 2y ago
server is extremely slow
- catskull 2y ago
  Redacted; insensitive.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- cle 2y ago
  https://archive.ph/Pmw9c https://archive.ph/Pmw9c
friggeri 2y ago
One piece of advice I usually give is to avoid applying to jobs through company’s career websites or LinkedIn. Instead, tap your social network: see if there is someone you know/have worked with who either works at the company you’re interested in or is connected to it someone (as an advisor, investor, personal friend of someone in a leadership position) and ask them for a warm intro. Social proof gives you an advantage over the legion of anonymous online applicants.
- OccamsMirror 2y ago
  > Instead, tap your social network Do you have experience with doing this in a way that doesn't come across as desperate or too forward? How close do you need to be with this network? Is Linkedin connection enough, or would you only do this approach with people you've worked with?
  - sokoloff 2y ago
    If I get such a request from someone I don't know, I will direct them to the public job board. I'm very happy to refer and vouch for someone that I've actually worked with (and look forward to working with again), but I'm not vouching for some random stranger...
  - SoftTalker 2y ago
    Ideally people you've worked with or at least know of you and your work so they can give a positive internal recommendation. "He follows me on X" isn't much of an endorsement if that's all the person can say about you.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - InvaderFizz 2y ago
    I'll review resumes of any referrals from my network. Usually provide tips or areas they need to show more substance in. I won't submit any network referral to my company's internal recruiter unless they stand out and fit a need. The proximity to my network doesn't need to be strong, but your resume does.
  - herbertl 2y ago
    I like to think of it more as being intentional, and less as desperate/too forward. You want to know what you're looking for and, just as important, what you're not looking for. In terms of reaching out, here are some things I did when I was job hunting: 1. The classic referral Find the job post and work backwards from there (e.g., is there somebody I know (1st connection) or somebody who knows somebody I know (2nd connection) on LinkedIn who works at the company?). If I knew the 1st connection, I'd reach out and ask if they were comfortable referring me. 2. The forwardable email If it was a 2nd connection, I'd reach out with a forwardable email (https://also.roybahat.com/introductions-and-the-forward-intro-email-14e2827716a1 https://also.roybahat.com/introductions-and-the-forward-intr...) and ask if they'd be able to forward an email and make an intro if they received a positive response. 3. Job hunting as an occasion I made time to catch up with good friends. It felt energizing to get the moral support, with the added bonus that sometimes they knew people working at companies looking to hire. For example I would eventually get a job offer from Figma and that was because a good friend's partner worked there and was glad to refer me. I hadn't even heard of the opportunity before we talked. 4. The weak ties I also made time to catch up with people I didn't know that well. There's some research on "weak ties" that suggest that people who you don't know well probably are exposed to a very different network to you, and will come across very different opportunities. The convo would be an opportunity for us to catch up and I'd talk about being open to job opportunities. I hope this helps!
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  In my experience, even internal referrals barely give you an edge these days unless the referrer is quite high in the company org. Of course things can change rapidly; perhaps the influx of ai-produced applications may bring this practice back.
  - cj 2y ago
    Internal referrals won’t necessarily give you an edge, but they definitely nearly guarantee at least getting into the door. At our company the (unwritten) policy is anyone who is referred internally will always get at least 1 shot at an interview even if the resume would been have otherwise been rejected. The bar isn’t lowered on merit, though.
  - danielvaughn 2y ago
    Yep. Several months ago I leaned on a friend for a referral. This person is relatively well known in his industry. He’s written books and has spoke at a lot of conferences, and been interviewed by a lot of outlets. I got a personal referral from him, and I didn’t even get a phone call with a recruiter. Crazy.
    - ghaff 2y ago
      There's still a lot of luck of the draw. It certainly helps if the person is the hiring manager or some skip-level of the hiring manager as opposed to just an industry "name."
- chii 2y ago
  > Instead, tap your social network social network might not be great for someone who just broke out of their underclass social network to try make it big. This advice assumes you have such a network anyway.
  - thesuitonym 2y ago
    Unfortunately, it’s not really advice so much as reality. The truth of it is, if you know someone, you have a much better chance.
- benreesman 2y ago
  Ah yes, in the grand tradition of meritocracy, competition, and capitalism: “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. To be clear, I’m not saying you’re wrong: in a distorted market it’s absolutely about who you know and get on with. So it’s nothing personal that your (astute) observation irks me. I just can’t see advice like this without feeling a little tick: I’ve been in this business for more than twenty years, and there have been downturns certainly in that time, but I’ve never seen it so firmly in the iron grip of monopoly and nepotism with such predictably grim results for the software outcomes. And don’t get me started on the party line that “the economy is doing great”.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- skaplich 2y ago
  Yeah, that’s a good point. I often ask my network for help, and it gets results. But still, I think I get more feedback when applying through the careers page.
- fatnoah 2y ago
  My previous job search in 2019 yielded 2 FAANG offers, 1 exec role at a $2B public company, and an "almost" from another Seattle-based big tech company. This September, I finished up a 10 month job search (had a job that was going nowhere, so looked for another) In that time, I started with careful analysis of each role, custom resume building, and applying to one or two jobs a week. When that yielded no results after a few months, I crafted a few resumes to match the broad categories of roles that I saw that were good matches and started applying in bulk. That yielded much better result in terms of actual human contact. I did also leverage my LinkedIn network, and that yielded lots of nice reconnections with past coworkers, but zero job opportunities. The one reach out that led to anything was to the manager for the FAANG job I rejected in 2019 (always say no very nicely!). That manager made it to VP in that timeframe, and a VP recommendation to the recruiting team WILL get you in the door to talk to someone. Of course, a multi-month process resulted in a kafka-esque situation where the team that wanted me got laid off and that killed the entire process. Oh well. In the end, I'd sent out over 300 applications, had a few dozen recruiter calls, and 7 full loops (4 offers, one of which was a lowball and 3 that all happened at the same time). Ironically, the job I ended up taking came as an inbound opportunity via LinkedIn from a recruiter at the company. The good news seemed to be that by the August timeframe, activity had really picked up. The same resumes started getting a lot more traction.
- commandlinefan 2y ago
  > tap your social network People have been saying that since I was in school in the 90's. I've never found it to be helpful. In fact, even back in the days when there were still jobs to be had, by far the worst jobs I ever held were the ones I was referred into. The reason was pretty obvious at the time - the person who referred me in had to "talk me up" so I was starting in a position where I could only disappoint. The "cold applications" didn't have huge expectations, so when I turned out to be good at what I was doing, they were happy to see it.
  - negoutputeng 2y ago
    not sure i agree, i went to school in the 90's as well, and out of 9 jobs I have held since, 4 came through cold-applications and 5 through referrals. referrals imo have a better chance of success particularly if you are a senior engineer, and you could have a bigger eco-system of referrers. I would also like to add that with more experience, you need to build bigger referrer networks which help in this whole process. i try to help anyone i know (with referrals) as i have personally seen the anxiety, stress, and emotional roller-coaster that accompany the job hunt.
- Jabbs 2y ago
  I totally agree with going directly to company websites.
ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
Good luck, Sergey. In my case, the process became so awful, humiliating, and hostile, I just gave up, and retired, ten years before I had planned. I’m very fortunate, that I could afford it. I now develop software for free, for outfits that can’t afford people like me. It’s tough, but looking for work after 50, especially when pivoting from management, back to IC, is unbearable. My heart goes out to those without the means to walk away. I think some companies missed out, but I am under no illusion that I’m missed. I doubt they had any regrets in passing me up. In my case, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I left a lot of money on the table, but I have been happier than I ever dreamed, while working twice as hard as I ever did, when I was getting paid for it.
- mixmastamyk 2y ago
  > outfits that can’t afford people like me What kind of outfits? Might be interested myself.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    In my case, I’m a longtime member of a worldwide nonprofit organization, and that gives me a good platform to work in. I would be happy to chat about it, offline, but I don’t usually discuss it in detail, hereabouts, as I deliberately avoid putting my work in the limelight.
- jarsin 2y ago
  Devs in there 40's and 50's are probably the most valuable devs on earth. We grew up with computers and had to adapt to our rapidly changing industry. I suspect we will see startup founders trending older if it isn't already happening. Companies stuck in the old way of thinking that older is slower will probably be disrupted in the next recession.
  - girvo 2y ago
    > I suspect we will see startup founders trending older if it isn't already happening Anecdotally, I think it already is. Part of it is simply because the younger you are, the less risk you can take with the cost of housing the way that it is. Older people/Millenials often have housing security and can take more risks this way, plus the other factors you raised. Can't speak to whether that's universally true, but it's something I've been seeing: including people in their late 30s to mid 40s leaving cushy well paying corporate jobs to try founder life: they have big nest eggs from said previous jobs, so why not!
highwayman47 2y ago
That’s why I gave up
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
MrVandemar 2y ago
> " the salary listed in the description had dropped by $30,000 ... But the role still sounded interesting, and the task itself looked like a fun challenge, " If you still went for a job that had dropped by that much, but it was still a meaningful amount of money and an interesting sounding job, well ... Good luck and all, but I kind of wish I had your problems.
- uhtred 2y ago
  I can't figure out what your point is?
- uhtred 2y ago
  Are you judging them with an assumption that they earn so much that a 30k drop in salary still results in a large salary? Seems like it. But what if that wasn't the case at all and they desperately needed an income and were willing to take an unfairly small salary?
trentnix 2y ago
I’m going through a similar experience after being laid off back in July for the first time in my career. The jobs advertised are quite often less-than-inspiring, the hiring processes are weird and opaque, and the hiring team is frequently disorganized and unprofessional. An interviewer last week was straight out of a Silicon Valley storyline, asking a “if you were on an elevator with Marc Andreessen” question and explaining his devotion to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10000 hour “rule”. The week before I got ghosted twice by a company who’s leadership team apparently pays no attention to the Calendly invites they forced me to set up “for my convenience”. I know I’m capable and do good work, so I’m not having any sort of crisis of confidence. At least not yet. But the process is definitely frustrating.
- pseingatl 2y ago
  whose
  - trentnix 2y ago
    Yep. That frequently trips me up.
- skaplich 2y ago
  Good luck! Hope we both find something suitable soon
- solidninja 2y ago
  > a “if you were on an elevator with Marc Andreessen” question Were they looking for a nice local newspaper story about a misdemeanor assault?
thw09j9m 2y ago
This is the toughest market I've ever seen. I easily made it to on-sites at FAANG a few years ago and now I'm getting resume rejected by no-name startups (and FAANG). The bar has also been raised significantly. I had an interview recently where I solved the algorithm question very quickly, but didn't refactor/clean up my code perfectly and was rejected.
- trentnix 2y ago
  I’m not sure the bar has been raised. It’s been weirded, but not raised.
  - realityfactchex 2y ago
    Weirded how, if you don't mind elaborating slightly? For example, does it mean: the actual skill level (e.g., smartness) people actually look for and hire hasn't changed, but the activities that hiring teams require candidates to have experience with are (seemingly weirdly) not a great thing to need anyway and therefore lots of great candidates end up twiddling their thumbs? In that way, the "height" of the bar is the same, but it's a "weird" bar, in that one could have to accept it for what it is, or even stoop to it, or perhaps shift over to it, in order to pass it? Or more that the overall interview experiences are weird caricatures in and of themselves? Weird is a great word, but it can be a little non-specific, so I'm left curious about the intended usage/meaning.
    - rdfc-xn-uuid 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - MrVandemar 2y ago
        > It hurts when you see posh privileged urban women having much more chance of getting into a good company than a man who worked his way up through sacrifice. It's not a gender issue. I would be looking to hire someone competent who works hard, not someone who makes "sacrifices" and then expects a job/promotion. The latter never works. That's not the work culture in most places. I've seen it many times, people who make "sacrifices", allowing themselves to be exploited, expecting some promotion from it, and are then passed over for someone who actually has demonstrated they are good at the job and ready for more responsibility, and not being a doormat. Then they become resentful. Don't be bitter. Be better.
yawnxyz 2y ago
I know someone who has a UX background and is technical, who just landed a job... at a car dealership. Times are tough
- meowster 2y ago
  I hope that person is continuing their job search, because from what I can tell, car dealerships aren't doing too hot right now.
  - yawnxyz 2y ago
    Yeah I told them the same
colesantiago 2y ago
It's going to get tougher and tougher in this job market. 1. Layoffs happening regularly. 2. Less Senior positions and virtually no junior jobs. 2. AI accelerating and reducing the number of software engineers. 3. Job postings being reposted with less salary and equity in US, EU and especially the UK. You might as well take yourself off the job market / stay in current job, build a paying SMB company or side project on the side and make that your third income. If it gets better and reaches sustainability you can choose to leave your job and live off it, or choose to get funding if need be. After applying for over 60+ jobs after graduation and getting rejected over and over, I took myself off the market and started a pest control SaaS 4 years ago now it's bringing in over $2.2M+ ARR. While the jobs I was applying for have now either shut down or not even bringing in anything over $100K ARR.
- wayoverthecloud 2y ago
  Congratulations! This is my dream. But the SaaS thing is so challenging. Couple of questions if you don't mind. Any tips for someone starting out? Did you have any experience in the pest control business? How did you decide pest control industry? How did you market the product?
- MarcelOlsz 2y ago
  On the other side of this you have people like me who've tried and failed, and now 15 years later I have 30 days to pay my mortgage or my life starts unfolding. Hoping to make some portfolio pieces in that time to impress some hiring managers, building fun tools for myself again without profit in mind. Not everyone can build a hyper successful SaaS.
- rglynn 2y ago
  Congrats on the business, I hope this inspires others to pursue their dreams. Since you mentioned a specific number of applications (60+), I just wanted to share my job hunt story. When I was last looking for a role (8 months ago), I started out thinking 5 applications a day was good, but then I spoke with an industry mentor, and he laughed me off saying that wasn't close to enough. Turns out he was right. On his recommendation I started aiming for 50 a day. At first it's very slow, but you build up a corpus of cover letters and other material to submit applications. This would have been easier if I was employed at the time, since so many places auto-reject if you aren't currently employed. This was also looking for fully-remote in APAC, which has far fewer opportunities than other regions/timezones. And you might say "but I don't want to work for all these companies" and I would agree. But provided you are applying for a role that you are at least curious about, those ones that are not great fits can provide good interview practice.
Plasmoid 2y ago
There are just piles and piles of companies out there trying to hire but are absolutely obsessed with having people work in their terrible SF offices. I don't get it. If these companies really believed that working in an office was so beneficial they would invest in them. But they all come across like "I need an office to appear like a real company but I don't want to spend a lot of money". They're these millennial gray warehouses rocking the sad-bachelor aesthetic.
- aprilthird2021 2y ago
  They're not obsessed. There are tons of qualified people looking for such jobs, so they can afford to make demands like this
  - rachofsunshine 2y ago
    It isn't cheap, though. You burn something on the order of 80k a hire to hire in-office, probably more if you're specifically looking in SF or NYC. Those roles are going to get squeezed pretty fast as the market heats up.
    - red-iron-pine 2y ago
      okay I know hiring is expensive, but 80k? are you buying these candidates first class flights with caviar? even at $300+ per hour of engineer time, I can interview 10 candidates with several engineers, and even fly promising ones out, for less than that, while using ATS systems like Taleo.
      - ssivark 2y ago
        I think they are referring to the annual salary differential to hire a similar skill-set for someone working remotely -vs- someone regularly coming in to the office in SF/NYC.
      - rachofsunshine 2y ago
        It cuts your candidate pool by a factor of five or ten, and adds about 30k a year of comp demands (a number which will grow as engs get less desperate in a warming market).
GenerWork 2y ago
I've been unemployed for 4 months. While I have received a job offer, it would require me to move and either sell my house, rent it out, or just continue to pay the mortgage on top of rent. I'm torn as to what to do as I do need a job, but I don't want to leave my friends and family. My thoughts go out to everybody else out there looking for a job at this time.
- zxexz 2y ago
  Is it in a position where, if remote work would be possible, regardless of corporate policy?
  - GenerWork 2y ago
    Unfortunately I've been told in no uncertain terms that it's in office only.
- skaplich 2y ago
  Damn, that situation really sucks. Hope you’ll be okay no matter what choice you make!
- svilen_dobrev 2y ago
  move temporarily. 3 months. 6 months. .. do not do any other drastic changes (selling houses, divorcing, whatever). Decide what to do then.
  - GenerWork 2y ago
    This is the backup plan if the interview I have on Friday doesn't pan out.
- negoutputeng 2y ago
  sucks... after the dot-com bust, i took a job that involved a 70 mile commute (each way) which was about 100 minutes on the road on average each way. At the time, i thought that was the only option for me. turns out it was one the worst career choices i made.
atrettel 2y ago
At this point, I view the job search process as stochastic rather than deterministic. I model my job search using the binomial distribution. All that you need to know is what how frequently you get interviews and offers to then explore the probabilities involved. To me at least, that removes a lot of the uncertainty, since I now know that if I apply to X jobs, I will have a Y percent chance of getting at least one offer, etc. Or maybe all of this is just an indictment of current hiring practices that I no longer think in terms of individual positions but in terms of aggregates of them.
- Swizec 2y ago
  > At this point, I view the job search process as stochastic rather than deterministic. Yes, it is sales. You are doing sales. Leads -> chats -> due dilligence -> offers -> negotiation -> conversions. This is also how the hiring side looks at it. “How many leads do we need to get a conversion to this role?”. It helps when both sides understand this.
- nradov 2y ago
  Admissions to selective colleges are the same way. For most students it's rather foolish and wasteful to target any one specific college because luck plays a huge factor (or the actual selection criteria are unknown and unknowable, which from the applicant's perspective is indistinguishable from luck).
  - mlsu 2y ago
    People cannot discriminate. They must spray and pray because the algorithm demands it of them. Thus, both sides (employer and employee) lose, because every applicant and every institution becomes flattened, generalized. It used to be, applying to places took time and effort. So students (and job applicants likewise) would discriminate. This allowed employers and institutions to actually build culture. An institution could be different from another institution in large ways, all cultural, all "soft" -- unpronounceable by the machine. This enriched us all, because it allowed pockets of brilliance to form. Actual, real, human variation. Now, every job has 2,000 applicants. Every HR person is trained at a school whose curriculum is undifferentiated from Harvard or Yale, because every school has the incentive to emulate Harvard or Yale. Every HR person's classmates all, similarly, could not afford to care which institution they applied to, because their application process was -- again, spray and pray. And thus, every HR person at every company creates the exact same institution. This flattening, this algorithmization, is like an invasive species which has choked out all of the variable, beautiful, at times brilliant flora and fauna which existed, protected, in its isolated institutional ecology. All of that cultural diversity has been destroyed so that we could click "easy apply." What's the result? Every job application looks the same. Every interview looks the same. Every internal culture looks the same. Every job is the same, so much so that you could switch jobs every 2 years and nobody would even notice or care. Every 2 years! How much does a 2 year old know!? Every company apes Google in their interview process because Google is the Kudzu that choked out their local flora and fauna. We're all poorer for it, this mass extinction event. Like you say, it's happening all over, not just in companies and schools.
deleted 2y ago
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purple-leafy 2y ago
It’s insanely tough. I’m currently searching. For context - I’ve made 4 personal projects that currently have over 1000+ daily active users (numbers are ~1500, ~6000, ~14,000, and ~430,000) all created within the span of the last year. I’ve also sold software. On top of all that, I have an Engineering degree, 4 years experience, no breaks in employment, study on my afternoons and weekends (C, Go, C#) and take extra university courses, and have some other high level achievements/recognition. I apply for Intermediate and Senior positions. So far I have 3 interviews lined up out of ~30-40 applications. About 10 rejections so far. 1 of those jobs is actually decent, the other 2 are desperation applications. It’s brutal. I’m trying my absolute best, I don’t see how people that have been coasting have any chance. You should be able to coast a bit in life. I’m sad at the state of things, and sad for people trying to stay in the industry or break into the industry. Makes me want to become a gardener
- tasuki 2y ago
  > Makes me want to become a gardener Why not?
  - randomdata 2y ago
    Likely because it is not a good time to be a gardener (professionally) right now either. The tech job market and agriculture prosperity seem to track each other.
    - pavel_lishin 2y ago
      Plus - assuming that purple-leafy lives in the northern hemisphere - it's not even a good time to be a gardener recreationally.
  - mock-possum 2y ago
    You can’t make $85 an hour playing with your computer as a gardener (Although, apparently it’s not likely you can you do it as a dev in today’s market so)
stefandesu 2y ago
I guess Europe isn't nearly as bad as the US. My portfolio (and probably my actual skills) are nowhere close to what some of those in the comments that can't find a job are offering, but I was able to secure a job in Trondheim, Norway (where I'm about to move in January) with a single application and interview. I assume there weren't too many people in the Trondheim area who were willing to work at an office and who already know Vue.js pretty well.
- mathverse 2y ago
  The salaries and perks in the US are much higher and candidates are more mobile than us in Europe.
- higeorge13 2y ago
  Europe is probably easier to get hired, but if you are a senior making some medium+ salary, it's also easier to get skipped in favor of cheaper candidates.
tennisflyi 2y ago
I could never land anything... Those cushy AF PM jobs at Uber and the ilk right out of college really irk me. Although, those perks are getting culled left and right. Putting my time in to be a lowkey package driver at UPS and cultivating my passion project to a SMB lol
viralpraxis 2y ago
Now, imagine this situation taken to the extreme: searching for a job with relocation opportunities while residing in a country that many avoid for ethical reasons. :(
noobermin 2y ago
Sometimes I feel like you guys live in alternative universe. Nothing about the "bad" interview sounded too atypical. Sure it's annoying, but not uncommon enough to be exceptional. I don't mean to discount anyone's unpleasantness but you'd be surprised how much worse the rest of the world is.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  That's kind of the point, the "typical" experience is actually pretty bad for job hunters
  - thrw42A8N 2y ago
    Try to get a job in finance, accounting, marketing, law, or other kinds of engineering. 7+ rounds of interviews, weird pop-psych questions, even getting a reply/meeting is a problem ...
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      "It's bad everywhere" or "it's worse elsewhere" does not mean it's not bad "Other people have it worse" is not a compelling reason to make people believe their own shitty situation is good Maybe we could improve the interviewing in all industries? But we could start with Software since that's where most of the people on this board work
      - thrw42A8N 2y ago
        I don't think SWE interviews are bad. And I have no idea who's the "we" that's supposed to fix it globally.
        bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Do you think that SWE interviews are perfect and could not possibly be improved? I personally think there's a lot of room for improvement in interview processes, regardless of if they are currently "bad" or not, they certainly could be better I also don't think things ever really improve broadly as long as there are enough people who think "that's actually not that bad"
greenie_beans 2y ago
all of these posts make me feel grateful that i've been able to pick up work. it also makes me wonder what i'm doing right and what all of these bloggers are doing wrong. bloggers are clearly good at marketing and communicating what they can do for a company, which is what a lot of software developers struggle with.
- skaplich 2y ago
  Yeah, my marketing background helped me land my first tech job
  - greenie_beans 2y ago
    yep. saying, "data engineer who can turn your messy data into a data visualization or interactive map" is so much more powerful than saying "data engineer with 10 years of experience leading projects with python, aws, kubernetes"
- purple-leafy 2y ago
  I thought the same thing until this month. Look at my other comment. About to possibly be made redundant which seemed impossible to me a year ago.
smileysteve 2y ago
To blame the the macro / US policies, 2 key things are impacting technology - The end of 0% interest rates - The 5 year amortization of the R&D tax credit as part of the 2017 Tax Act (versus same year since 1981)
- deepsquirrelnet 2y ago
  Nailed it. CPI is turning down to a lower slope, but the Fed is suggesting that it’s still going to be a bit before the rates really cool off.
nicbou 2y ago
It’s noticeably worse in Germany, to the point that the entire immigration industry is in a slump. My relocation consultant friends are really feeling it. I also see it everywhere I look. I have never had this many unemployed friends. People spend a lot longer trying to find a job and don’t seem very successful at it.
negoutputeng 2y ago
I got laid off thrice during my 25+ year career during which i have worked at 9 different companies. twice from startups in each of the previous busts and once from a large company. job hunts are not easy and i dont interview well. however, there are tech transitions and it appears we are in the midst of one - after which a new set of tech careers seem to emerge. internet/web/mobile/cloud/saas and whatnot. i fully expect the same to happen here. so, hang in there, and keep your sword sharp.
pSYoniK 2y ago
It is. It really is. I had posted something about jobs and looking for jobs some time before here, but the best advice I can give is that all of this "What color is your rainbow" and "Cracking the coding interview" and so on isn't really applicable or it never seemed applicable to me and my experience. To expand on my previous comment, I'm now on my 9th job in 10 years. Over the last year or so I've had another 30-40 interviews give or take. It was probably more, but this is as close as I can get. I would have liked to spend more time on some of these jobs, but circumstances didn't work in my favor so I had to make changes. What I've learned throughout the process is that all of this is a numbers game. It also helped me spot red flags and cut the process short. For anyone else looking for a job and for the OP, here are some things: 1. Someone who is motivated to hire someone for a job will be quick/good to communicate 2. They need to set a clear timeline and steps in the process (and if they don't, ask for one and any deviation will be a red flag) 3. They might also tell you how many others are applying for the role (not mandatory, but it's good so you have a rough idea of what your statistical chances are) 4. Be clear about salary expectations early on and if someone pushes to find your current salary, feel free to say it's higher than it actually is. Any deviation from this or if someone doesn't want to say, it's a red(ish) flag and I'd be careful. It doesn't matter and if a recruiter will comment on this - I don't care what your theory about this is, you will aim to pay the lowest amount you can humanly get away with. It's also the reason we have minimum wage laws, not because companies were showering employees with money, but because they would have kept slavery going if that made sense to their bottom line (and they still do). 5. Ask why they are hiring - did they fire a bunch of people previously, are people leaving every few months or is the team/company growing; these can help you save time later on and at least have an idea of what culture you might be joining 6. Ask how widespread the technology you're going to be using is within the company. If a company has 99% Go roles and you applied to the 1% of the roles that are in Java, why is there such a discrepancy? Is it some old code carcass left over with no documentation, testing and with no desire to further develop it but they just want a body in the chair in case something goes wrong... not sure, but that's not something I'd want to do. 7. Be CLEAR about remote work/hybrid working policies - unless it is clearly stated in the contract, it CAN be changed with no notice. A change in contract would at least generally give you some time, but without this being in the contract, you can't really back out of it (case and point, Atos had remote-ish contracts for some of their teams, then they said they updated the terms and conditions, issued a new contract and forced employees to sign or resign). At a previous role I left I was told that the team is highly flexible and remote working is normal, but it's not in the contract, but it's ok, because everyone likes it. On a Thursday we were told that from Monday its 5 days in the office. 8. Anything outside of your salary or contract is NOT guaranteed, so don't pick a job based on perks. Those tend to vanish at the first sight of trouble and also, don't be one of those people that drinks the free coffee at the office just because its free. Stuff costs to make, grow, ship, build - pay for it. 9. Don't be pressured into accepting. This is a bit weirder, but it can happen. Let's say you are interviewing at 2 companies at the same time, one is more motivated to hire, but you don't like it as much, the other has a longer process but you like their domain more. Be upfront about this - "I am interviewing with another company and would like to see both outcomes to make a decision". Being forced at this stage to drop out, being bullied into saying the company name or anything of the sort is a red flag to me. If you have an offer but you need to wait a few days or a week - say so. "I am waiting for a reply from the other company too and I can provide an answer at the end of the next week". 10. Just because you accepted a job doesn't generally mean you need to take it. This is not legal advice, so take it with a grain of salt, as it depends greatly on what you sign, how enforceable it is and where you reside. But the general idea is that, if you accepted a job, but a week or two after you get a better offer, just tell the company you accepted the offer "No". "No" is a complete sentence. You do not need to give justifications, you don't need to take abuse or anything else. You have to think about yourself. They won't. If there is some legal rationale through which you NEED to start that role, just start it and hand in your notice on the first day. Most of these contracts will have some sort of "1 week notice by either party during probation". So you can join, give your notice, work the week, get paid for it and start at the other job. Also, it will suck. Searching for a job will suck. More and more companies (especially recruitment companies - Noir, Tietalent, Aristo Group, RM Group and Hays to name a few) are really just mining for data with little to no interest in pushing you to any of their clients. They will also tend to try and say that just because you had read about COBOL during Uni, you are now 100% COBOL dev and set you up with a rather terrible interview with some client. There are more, but I'll stop here. On a side note, if you do end up working or answering to a question from a recruitment company check their reviews, look up the person that contacted you, look up the client and apply the same rigor to them as to the company you would end up working with. This entire industry is focused on selling out people to whomever, so don't end up pushed into stuff you don't want to do by one of these enthusiastic second hand car sales people.
aurareturn 2y ago
For those of you who are in San Francisco/Bay Area, is it just as tough as people here make it out to be? Or is it a lot better when you're physically in the Bay Area?
- phendrenad2 2y ago
  It's slightly better, but there are still tons of people competing for a small number of roles.
ig0r0 2y ago
I am in the same situation but in central Europe and looking for a bit more niche position, I am a mobile developer with 10+ years of experience doing iOS. I have been looking for a job since the middle of the July with not much to show off. I have decreased my salary expectations but that is not the main problem, there are just no jobs to apply to. For the last 7 years I have been working remotely for various companies inside the EU but it looks to me remote jobs are almost dead now. Everyone wants people back in the office. My, probably controversial, opinion is that before Covid remote jobs were jobs for the more skilled people, so companies offered them knowing what they will get in return. But during Covid, when everyone worked remotely, some people not doing that that well, the companies just started considering remote jobs not worth it. Local jobs are almost not existent too here, sometimes there is an opening at a bank but immediately fills in with tens of applications. Last time I was looking for a new job, in 2022, after 1 month of the search I had 3 offers to choose from; 1 remote EU job and 2 remote local jobs. Now, after 4 months, the furthest I got was remote EU job where after 5 rounds I was told I made it into top 3 candidates but was not chosen. I started brushing up on C#/.NET I did over a decade ago as something to switch to, I am definitely not an Apple fanboy to stick to iOS at all costs, but the situation with those kinds of jobs does not look that much better either.
akullpp 2y ago
Same boat right now, startup bankrupt, interviewing is just harassment and don’t know if I want to work in this dysfunctional domain anymore
FireSquid2006 2y ago
Second company smells like systemic dysfunction.
xivusr 2y ago
I've been unemployed for 3 months now. Building a swiftui app and applying to several Sr Engineer roles a week. Lots of recruiters reach out out and then ghost after 1-2 meetings. Been in the industry for almost 16 years now, have never struggled to find new role like this. Seems like everywhere is looking for unicorns with very specific criteria instead of problem solvers with a proven history of learning and using the correct tool for a job. Running weekdays and working on side project helps with mental health, hopefully can find something before I run out of savings. Best of luck to OP and everyone else in this challenging market.
adultSwim 2y ago
Welcome to the real world. This experience is far more representative for the vast majority of the population than we usually see on HN.

184 points by skaplich 2y ago

38 2y ago

server is extremely slow

catskull 2y ago
Redacted; insensitive.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
cle 2y ago
https://archive.ph/Pmw9c https://archive.ph/Pmw9c

friggeri 2y ago

One piece of advice I usually give is to avoid applying to jobs through company’s career websites or LinkedIn. Instead, tap your social network: see if there is someone you know/have worked with who either works at the company you’re interested in or is connected to it someone (as an advisor, investor, personal friend of someone in a leadership position) and ask them for a warm intro. Social proof gives you an advantage over the legion of anonymous online applicants.

OccamsMirror 2y ago
> Instead, tap your social network Do you have experience with doing this in a way that doesn't come across as desperate or too forward? How close do you need to be with this network? Is Linkedin connection enough, or would you only do this approach with people you've worked with?
- sokoloff 2y ago
  If I get such a request from someone I don't know, I will direct them to the public job board. I'm very happy to refer and vouch for someone that I've actually worked with (and look forward to working with again), but I'm not vouching for some random stranger...
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  Ideally people you've worked with or at least know of you and your work so they can give a positive internal recommendation. "He follows me on X" isn't much of an endorsement if that's all the person can say about you.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- InvaderFizz 2y ago
  I'll review resumes of any referrals from my network. Usually provide tips or areas they need to show more substance in. I won't submit any network referral to my company's internal recruiter unless they stand out and fit a need. The proximity to my network doesn't need to be strong, but your resume does.
- herbertl 2y ago
  I like to think of it more as being intentional, and less as desperate/too forward. You want to know what you're looking for and, just as important, what you're not looking for. In terms of reaching out, here are some things I did when I was job hunting: 1. The classic referral Find the job post and work backwards from there (e.g., is there somebody I know (1st connection) or somebody who knows somebody I know (2nd connection) on LinkedIn who works at the company?). If I knew the 1st connection, I'd reach out and ask if they were comfortable referring me. 2. The forwardable email If it was a 2nd connection, I'd reach out with a forwardable email (https://also.roybahat.com/introductions-and-the-forward-intro-email-14e2827716a1 https://also.roybahat.com/introductions-and-the-forward-intr...) and ask if they'd be able to forward an email and make an intro if they received a positive response. 3. Job hunting as an occasion I made time to catch up with good friends. It felt energizing to get the moral support, with the added bonus that sometimes they knew people working at companies looking to hire. For example I would eventually get a job offer from Figma and that was because a good friend's partner worked there and was glad to refer me. I hadn't even heard of the opportunity before we talked. 4. The weak ties I also made time to catch up with people I didn't know that well. There's some research on "weak ties" that suggest that people who you don't know well probably are exposed to a very different network to you, and will come across very different opportunities. The convo would be an opportunity for us to catch up and I'd talk about being open to job opportunities. I hope this helps!
PittleyDunkin 2y ago
In my experience, even internal referrals barely give you an edge these days unless the referrer is quite high in the company org. Of course things can change rapidly; perhaps the influx of ai-produced applications may bring this practice back.
- cj 2y ago
  Internal referrals won’t necessarily give you an edge, but they definitely nearly guarantee at least getting into the door. At our company the (unwritten) policy is anyone who is referred internally will always get at least 1 shot at an interview even if the resume would been have otherwise been rejected. The bar isn’t lowered on merit, though.
- danielvaughn 2y ago
  Yep. Several months ago I leaned on a friend for a referral. This person is relatively well known in his industry. He’s written books and has spoke at a lot of conferences, and been interviewed by a lot of outlets. I got a personal referral from him, and I didn’t even get a phone call with a recruiter. Crazy.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    There's still a lot of luck of the draw. It certainly helps if the person is the hiring manager or some skip-level of the hiring manager as opposed to just an industry "name."
chii 2y ago
> Instead, tap your social network social network might not be great for someone who just broke out of their underclass social network to try make it big. This advice assumes you have such a network anyway.
- thesuitonym 2y ago
  Unfortunately, it’s not really advice so much as reality. The truth of it is, if you know someone, you have a much better chance.
benreesman 2y ago
Ah yes, in the grand tradition of meritocracy, competition, and capitalism: “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”. To be clear, I’m not saying you’re wrong: in a distorted market it’s absolutely about who you know and get on with. So it’s nothing personal that your (astute) observation irks me. I just can’t see advice like this without feeling a little tick: I’ve been in this business for more than twenty years, and there have been downturns certainly in that time, but I’ve never seen it so firmly in the iron grip of monopoly and nepotism with such predictably grim results for the software outcomes. And don’t get me started on the party line that “the economy is doing great”.
deleted 2y ago
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skaplich 2y ago
Yeah, that’s a good point. I often ask my network for help, and it gets results. But still, I think I get more feedback when applying through the careers page.
fatnoah 2y ago
My previous job search in 2019 yielded 2 FAANG offers, 1 exec role at a $2B public company, and an "almost" from another Seattle-based big tech company. This September, I finished up a 10 month job search (had a job that was going nowhere, so looked for another) In that time, I started with careful analysis of each role, custom resume building, and applying to one or two jobs a week. When that yielded no results after a few months, I crafted a few resumes to match the broad categories of roles that I saw that were good matches and started applying in bulk. That yielded much better result in terms of actual human contact. I did also leverage my LinkedIn network, and that yielded lots of nice reconnections with past coworkers, but zero job opportunities. The one reach out that led to anything was to the manager for the FAANG job I rejected in 2019 (always say no very nicely!). That manager made it to VP in that timeframe, and a VP recommendation to the recruiting team WILL get you in the door to talk to someone. Of course, a multi-month process resulted in a kafka-esque situation where the team that wanted me got laid off and that killed the entire process. Oh well. In the end, I'd sent out over 300 applications, had a few dozen recruiter calls, and 7 full loops (4 offers, one of which was a lowball and 3 that all happened at the same time). Ironically, the job I ended up taking came as an inbound opportunity via LinkedIn from a recruiter at the company. The good news seemed to be that by the August timeframe, activity had really picked up. The same resumes started getting a lot more traction.
commandlinefan 2y ago
> tap your social network People have been saying that since I was in school in the 90's. I've never found it to be helpful. In fact, even back in the days when there were still jobs to be had, by far the worst jobs I ever held were the ones I was referred into. The reason was pretty obvious at the time - the person who referred me in had to "talk me up" so I was starting in a position where I could only disappoint. The "cold applications" didn't have huge expectations, so when I turned out to be good at what I was doing, they were happy to see it.
- negoutputeng 2y ago
  not sure i agree, i went to school in the 90's as well, and out of 9 jobs I have held since, 4 came through cold-applications and 5 through referrals. referrals imo have a better chance of success particularly if you are a senior engineer, and you could have a bigger eco-system of referrers. I would also like to add that with more experience, you need to build bigger referrer networks which help in this whole process. i try to help anyone i know (with referrals) as i have personally seen the anxiety, stress, and emotional roller-coaster that accompany the job hunt.
Jabbs 2y ago
I totally agree with going directly to company websites.

ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago

Good luck, Sergey. In my case, the process became so awful, humiliating, and hostile, I just gave up, and retired, ten years before I had planned. I’m very fortunate, that I could afford it. I now develop software for free, for outfits that can’t afford people like me. It’s tough, but looking for work after 50, especially when pivoting from management, back to IC, is unbearable. My heart goes out to those without the means to walk away. I think some companies missed out, but I am under no illusion that I’m missed. I doubt they had any regrets in passing me up. In my case, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. I left a lot of money on the table, but I have been happier than I ever dreamed, while working twice as hard as I ever did, when I was getting paid for it.

mixmastamyk 2y ago
> outfits that can’t afford people like me What kind of outfits? Might be interested myself.
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  In my case, I’m a longtime member of a worldwide nonprofit organization, and that gives me a good platform to work in. I would be happy to chat about it, offline, but I don’t usually discuss it in detail, hereabouts, as I deliberately avoid putting my work in the limelight.
jarsin 2y ago
Devs in there 40's and 50's are probably the most valuable devs on earth. We grew up with computers and had to adapt to our rapidly changing industry. I suspect we will see startup founders trending older if it isn't already happening. Companies stuck in the old way of thinking that older is slower will probably be disrupted in the next recession.
- girvo 2y ago
  > I suspect we will see startup founders trending older if it isn't already happening Anecdotally, I think it already is. Part of it is simply because the younger you are, the less risk you can take with the cost of housing the way that it is. Older people/Millenials often have housing security and can take more risks this way, plus the other factors you raised. Can't speak to whether that's universally true, but it's something I've been seeing: including people in their late 30s to mid 40s leaving cushy well paying corporate jobs to try founder life: they have big nest eggs from said previous jobs, so why not!

highwayman47 2y ago

That’s why I gave up

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

MrVandemar 2y ago

> " the salary listed in the description had dropped by $30,000 ... But the role still sounded interesting, and the task itself looked like a fun challenge, " If you still went for a job that had dropped by that much, but it was still a meaningful amount of money and an interesting sounding job, well ... Good luck and all, but I kind of wish I had your problems.

uhtred 2y ago
I can't figure out what your point is?
uhtred 2y ago
Are you judging them with an assumption that they earn so much that a 30k drop in salary still results in a large salary? Seems like it. But what if that wasn't the case at all and they desperately needed an income and were willing to take an unfairly small salary?

trentnix 2y ago

I’m going through a similar experience after being laid off back in July for the first time in my career. The jobs advertised are quite often less-than-inspiring, the hiring processes are weird and opaque, and the hiring team is frequently disorganized and unprofessional. An interviewer last week was straight out of a Silicon Valley storyline, asking a “if you were on an elevator with Marc Andreessen” question and explaining his devotion to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10000 hour “rule”. The week before I got ghosted twice by a company who’s leadership team apparently pays no attention to the Calendly invites they forced me to set up “for my convenience”. I know I’m capable and do good work, so I’m not having any sort of crisis of confidence. At least not yet. But the process is definitely frustrating.

pseingatl 2y ago
whose
- trentnix 2y ago
  Yep. That frequently trips me up.
skaplich 2y ago
Good luck! Hope we both find something suitable soon
solidninja 2y ago
> a “if you were on an elevator with Marc Andreessen” question Were they looking for a nice local newspaper story about a misdemeanor assault?

thw09j9m 2y ago

This is the toughest market I've ever seen. I easily made it to on-sites at FAANG a few years ago and now I'm getting resume rejected by no-name startups (and FAANG). The bar has also been raised significantly. I had an interview recently where I solved the algorithm question very quickly, but didn't refactor/clean up my code perfectly and was rejected.

trentnix 2y ago
I’m not sure the bar has been raised. It’s been weirded, but not raised.
- realityfactchex 2y ago
  Weirded how, if you don't mind elaborating slightly? For example, does it mean: the actual skill level (e.g., smartness) people actually look for and hire hasn't changed, but the activities that hiring teams require candidates to have experience with are (seemingly weirdly) not a great thing to need anyway and therefore lots of great candidates end up twiddling their thumbs? In that way, the "height" of the bar is the same, but it's a "weird" bar, in that one could have to accept it for what it is, or even stoop to it, or perhaps shift over to it, in order to pass it? Or more that the overall interview experiences are weird caricatures in and of themselves? Weird is a great word, but it can be a little non-specific, so I'm left curious about the intended usage/meaning.
  - rdfc-xn-uuid 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - MrVandemar 2y ago
      > It hurts when you see posh privileged urban women having much more chance of getting into a good company than a man who worked his way up through sacrifice. It's not a gender issue. I would be looking to hire someone competent who works hard, not someone who makes "sacrifices" and then expects a job/promotion. The latter never works. That's not the work culture in most places. I've seen it many times, people who make "sacrifices", allowing themselves to be exploited, expecting some promotion from it, and are then passed over for someone who actually has demonstrated they are good at the job and ready for more responsibility, and not being a doormat. Then they become resentful. Don't be bitter. Be better.

yawnxyz 2y ago

I know someone who has a UX background and is technical, who just landed a job... at a car dealership. Times are tough

meowster 2y ago
I hope that person is continuing their job search, because from what I can tell, car dealerships aren't doing too hot right now.
- yawnxyz 2y ago
  Yeah I told them the same

colesantiago 2y ago

It's going to get tougher and tougher in this job market. 1. Layoffs happening regularly. 2. Less Senior positions and virtually no junior jobs. 2. AI accelerating and reducing the number of software engineers. 3. Job postings being reposted with less salary and equity in US, EU and especially the UK. You might as well take yourself off the job market / stay in current job, build a paying SMB company or side project on the side and make that your third income. If it gets better and reaches sustainability you can choose to leave your job and live off it, or choose to get funding if need be. After applying for over 60+ jobs after graduation and getting rejected over and over, I took myself off the market and started a pest control SaaS 4 years ago now it's bringing in over $2.2M+ ARR. While the jobs I was applying for have now either shut down or not even bringing in anything over $100K ARR.

wayoverthecloud 2y ago
Congratulations! This is my dream. But the SaaS thing is so challenging. Couple of questions if you don't mind. Any tips for someone starting out? Did you have any experience in the pest control business? How did you decide pest control industry? How did you market the product?
MarcelOlsz 2y ago
On the other side of this you have people like me who've tried and failed, and now 15 years later I have 30 days to pay my mortgage or my life starts unfolding. Hoping to make some portfolio pieces in that time to impress some hiring managers, building fun tools for myself again without profit in mind. Not everyone can build a hyper successful SaaS.
rglynn 2y ago
Congrats on the business, I hope this inspires others to pursue their dreams. Since you mentioned a specific number of applications (60+), I just wanted to share my job hunt story. When I was last looking for a role (8 months ago), I started out thinking 5 applications a day was good, but then I spoke with an industry mentor, and he laughed me off saying that wasn't close to enough. Turns out he was right. On his recommendation I started aiming for 50 a day. At first it's very slow, but you build up a corpus of cover letters and other material to submit applications. This would have been easier if I was employed at the time, since so many places auto-reject if you aren't currently employed. This was also looking for fully-remote in APAC, which has far fewer opportunities than other regions/timezones. And you might say "but I don't want to work for all these companies" and I would agree. But provided you are applying for a role that you are at least curious about, those ones that are not great fits can provide good interview practice.

Plasmoid 2y ago

There are just piles and piles of companies out there trying to hire but are absolutely obsessed with having people work in their terrible SF offices. I don't get it. If these companies really believed that working in an office was so beneficial they would invest in them. But they all come across like "I need an office to appear like a real company but I don't want to spend a lot of money". They're these millennial gray warehouses rocking the sad-bachelor aesthetic.

aprilthird2021 2y ago
They're not obsessed. There are tons of qualified people looking for such jobs, so they can afford to make demands like this
- rachofsunshine 2y ago
  It isn't cheap, though. You burn something on the order of 80k a hire to hire in-office, probably more if you're specifically looking in SF or NYC. Those roles are going to get squeezed pretty fast as the market heats up.
  - red-iron-pine 2y ago
    okay I know hiring is expensive, but 80k? are you buying these candidates first class flights with caviar? even at $300+ per hour of engineer time, I can interview 10 candidates with several engineers, and even fly promising ones out, for less than that, while using ATS systems like Taleo.
    - ssivark 2y ago
      I think they are referring to the annual salary differential to hire a similar skill-set for someone working remotely -vs- someone regularly coming in to the office in SF/NYC.
    - rachofsunshine 2y ago
      It cuts your candidate pool by a factor of five or ten, and adds about 30k a year of comp demands (a number which will grow as engs get less desperate in a warming market).

GenerWork 2y ago

I've been unemployed for 4 months. While I have received a job offer, it would require me to move and either sell my house, rent it out, or just continue to pay the mortgage on top of rent. I'm torn as to what to do as I do need a job, but I don't want to leave my friends and family. My thoughts go out to everybody else out there looking for a job at this time.

zxexz 2y ago
Is it in a position where, if remote work would be possible, regardless of corporate policy?
- GenerWork 2y ago
  Unfortunately I've been told in no uncertain terms that it's in office only.
skaplich 2y ago
Damn, that situation really sucks. Hope you’ll be okay no matter what choice you make!
svilen_dobrev 2y ago
move temporarily. 3 months. 6 months. .. do not do any other drastic changes (selling houses, divorcing, whatever). Decide what to do then.
- GenerWork 2y ago
  This is the backup plan if the interview I have on Friday doesn't pan out.
negoutputeng 2y ago
sucks... after the dot-com bust, i took a job that involved a 70 mile commute (each way) which was about 100 minutes on the road on average each way. At the time, i thought that was the only option for me. turns out it was one the worst career choices i made.

atrettel 2y ago

At this point, I view the job search process as stochastic rather than deterministic. I model my job search using the binomial distribution. All that you need to know is what how frequently you get interviews and offers to then explore the probabilities involved. To me at least, that removes a lot of the uncertainty, since I now know that if I apply to X jobs, I will have a Y percent chance of getting at least one offer, etc. Or maybe all of this is just an indictment of current hiring practices that I no longer think in terms of individual positions but in terms of aggregates of them.

Swizec 2y ago
> At this point, I view the job search process as stochastic rather than deterministic. Yes, it is sales. You are doing sales. Leads -> chats -> due dilligence -> offers -> negotiation -> conversions. This is also how the hiring side looks at it. “How many leads do we need to get a conversion to this role?”. It helps when both sides understand this.
nradov 2y ago
Admissions to selective colleges are the same way. For most students it's rather foolish and wasteful to target any one specific college because luck plays a huge factor (or the actual selection criteria are unknown and unknowable, which from the applicant's perspective is indistinguishable from luck).
- mlsu 2y ago
  People cannot discriminate. They must spray and pray because the algorithm demands it of them. Thus, both sides (employer and employee) lose, because every applicant and every institution becomes flattened, generalized. It used to be, applying to places took time and effort. So students (and job applicants likewise) would discriminate. This allowed employers and institutions to actually build culture. An institution could be different from another institution in large ways, all cultural, all "soft" -- unpronounceable by the machine. This enriched us all, because it allowed pockets of brilliance to form. Actual, real, human variation. Now, every job has 2,000 applicants. Every HR person is trained at a school whose curriculum is undifferentiated from Harvard or Yale, because every school has the incentive to emulate Harvard or Yale. Every HR person's classmates all, similarly, could not afford to care which institution they applied to, because their application process was -- again, spray and pray. And thus, every HR person at every company creates the exact same institution. This flattening, this algorithmization, is like an invasive species which has choked out all of the variable, beautiful, at times brilliant flora and fauna which existed, protected, in its isolated institutional ecology. All of that cultural diversity has been destroyed so that we could click "easy apply." What's the result? Every job application looks the same. Every interview looks the same. Every internal culture looks the same. Every job is the same, so much so that you could switch jobs every 2 years and nobody would even notice or care. Every 2 years! How much does a 2 year old know!? Every company apes Google in their interview process because Google is the Kudzu that choked out their local flora and fauna. We're all poorer for it, this mass extinction event. Like you say, it's happening all over, not just in companies and schools.

deleted 2y ago

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purple-leafy 2y ago

It’s insanely tough. I’m currently searching. For context - I’ve made 4 personal projects that currently have over 1000+ daily active users (numbers are ~1500, ~6000, ~14,000, and ~430,000) all created within the span of the last year. I’ve also sold software. On top of all that, I have an Engineering degree, 4 years experience, no breaks in employment, study on my afternoons and weekends (C, Go, C#) and take extra university courses, and have some other high level achievements/recognition. I apply for Intermediate and Senior positions. So far I have 3 interviews lined up out of ~30-40 applications. About 10 rejections so far. 1 of those jobs is actually decent, the other 2 are desperation applications. It’s brutal. I’m trying my absolute best, I don’t see how people that have been coasting have any chance. You should be able to coast a bit in life. I’m sad at the state of things, and sad for people trying to stay in the industry or break into the industry. Makes me want to become a gardener

tasuki 2y ago
> Makes me want to become a gardener Why not?
- randomdata 2y ago
  Likely because it is not a good time to be a gardener (professionally) right now either. The tech job market and agriculture prosperity seem to track each other.
  - pavel_lishin 2y ago
    Plus - assuming that purple-leafy lives in the northern hemisphere - it's not even a good time to be a gardener recreationally.
- mock-possum 2y ago
  You can’t make $85 an hour playing with your computer as a gardener (Although, apparently it’s not likely you can you do it as a dev in today’s market so)

stefandesu 2y ago

I guess Europe isn't nearly as bad as the US. My portfolio (and probably my actual skills) are nowhere close to what some of those in the comments that can't find a job are offering, but I was able to secure a job in Trondheim, Norway (where I'm about to move in January) with a single application and interview. I assume there weren't too many people in the Trondheim area who were willing to work at an office and who already know Vue.js pretty well.

mathverse 2y ago
The salaries and perks in the US are much higher and candidates are more mobile than us in Europe.
higeorge13 2y ago
Europe is probably easier to get hired, but if you are a senior making some medium+ salary, it's also easier to get skipped in favor of cheaper candidates.

tennisflyi 2y ago

I could never land anything... Those cushy AF PM jobs at Uber and the ilk right out of college really irk me. Although, those perks are getting culled left and right. Putting my time in to be a lowkey package driver at UPS and cultivating my passion project to a SMB lol

viralpraxis 2y ago

Now, imagine this situation taken to the extreme: searching for a job with relocation opportunities while residing in a country that many avoid for ethical reasons. :(

noobermin 2y ago

Sometimes I feel like you guys live in alternative universe. Nothing about the "bad" interview sounded too atypical. Sure it's annoying, but not uncommon enough to be exceptional. I don't mean to discount anyone's unpleasantness but you'd be surprised how much worse the rest of the world is.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
That's kind of the point, the "typical" experience is actually pretty bad for job hunters
- thrw42A8N 2y ago
  Try to get a job in finance, accounting, marketing, law, or other kinds of engineering. 7+ rounds of interviews, weird pop-psych questions, even getting a reply/meeting is a problem ...
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    "It's bad everywhere" or "it's worse elsewhere" does not mean it's not bad "Other people have it worse" is not a compelling reason to make people believe their own shitty situation is good Maybe we could improve the interviewing in all industries? But we could start with Software since that's where most of the people on this board work
    - thrw42A8N 2y ago
      I don't think SWE interviews are bad. And I have no idea who's the "we" that's supposed to fix it globally.
      - bluefirebrand 2y ago
        Do you think that SWE interviews are perfect and could not possibly be improved? I personally think there's a lot of room for improvement in interview processes, regardless of if they are currently "bad" or not, they certainly could be better I also don't think things ever really improve broadly as long as there are enough people who think "that's actually not that bad"

greenie_beans 2y ago

all of these posts make me feel grateful that i've been able to pick up work. it also makes me wonder what i'm doing right and what all of these bloggers are doing wrong. bloggers are clearly good at marketing and communicating what they can do for a company, which is what a lot of software developers struggle with.

skaplich 2y ago
Yeah, my marketing background helped me land my first tech job
- greenie_beans 2y ago
  yep. saying, "data engineer who can turn your messy data into a data visualization or interactive map" is so much more powerful than saying "data engineer with 10 years of experience leading projects with python, aws, kubernetes"
purple-leafy 2y ago
I thought the same thing until this month. Look at my other comment. About to possibly be made redundant which seemed impossible to me a year ago.

smileysteve 2y ago

To blame the the macro / US policies, 2 key things are impacting technology - The end of 0% interest rates - The 5 year amortization of the R&D tax credit as part of the 2017 Tax Act (versus same year since 1981)

deepsquirrelnet 2y ago
Nailed it. CPI is turning down to a lower slope, but the Fed is suggesting that it’s still going to be a bit before the rates really cool off.

nicbou 2y ago

It’s noticeably worse in Germany, to the point that the entire immigration industry is in a slump. My relocation consultant friends are really feeling it. I also see it everywhere I look. I have never had this many unemployed friends. People spend a lot longer trying to find a job and don’t seem very successful at it.

negoutputeng 2y ago

I got laid off thrice during my 25+ year career during which i have worked at 9 different companies. twice from startups in each of the previous busts and once from a large company. job hunts are not easy and i dont interview well. however, there are tech transitions and it appears we are in the midst of one - after which a new set of tech careers seem to emerge. internet/web/mobile/cloud/saas and whatnot. i fully expect the same to happen here. so, hang in there, and keep your sword sharp.

pSYoniK 2y ago

It is. It really is. I had posted something about jobs and looking for jobs some time before here, but the best advice I can give is that all of this "What color is your rainbow" and "Cracking the coding interview" and so on isn't really applicable or it never seemed applicable to me and my experience. To expand on my previous comment, I'm now on my 9th job in 10 years. Over the last year or so I've had another 30-40 interviews give or take. It was probably more, but this is as close as I can get. I would have liked to spend more time on some of these jobs, but circumstances didn't work in my favor so I had to make changes. What I've learned throughout the process is that all of this is a numbers game. It also helped me spot red flags and cut the process short. For anyone else looking for a job and for the OP, here are some things: 1. Someone who is motivated to hire someone for a job will be quick/good to communicate 2. They need to set a clear timeline and steps in the process (and if they don't, ask for one and any deviation will be a red flag) 3. They might also tell you how many others are applying for the role (not mandatory, but it's good so you have a rough idea of what your statistical chances are) 4. Be clear about salary expectations early on and if someone pushes to find your current salary, feel free to say it's higher than it actually is. Any deviation from this or if someone doesn't want to say, it's a red(ish) flag and I'd be careful. It doesn't matter and if a recruiter will comment on this - I don't care what your theory about this is, you will aim to pay the lowest amount you can humanly get away with. It's also the reason we have minimum wage laws, not because companies were showering employees with money, but because they would have kept slavery going if that made sense to their bottom line (and they still do). 5. Ask why they are hiring - did they fire a bunch of people previously, are people leaving every few months or is the team/company growing; these can help you save time later on and at least have an idea of what culture you might be joining 6. Ask how widespread the technology you're going to be using is within the company. If a company has 99% Go roles and you applied to the 1% of the roles that are in Java, why is there such a discrepancy? Is it some old code carcass left over with no documentation, testing and with no desire to further develop it but they just want a body in the chair in case something goes wrong... not sure, but that's not something I'd want to do. 7. Be CLEAR about remote work/hybrid working policies - unless it is clearly stated in the contract, it CAN be changed with no notice. A change in contract would at least generally give you some time, but without this being in the contract, you can't really back out of it (case and point, Atos had remote-ish contracts for some of their teams, then they said they updated the terms and conditions, issued a new contract and forced employees to sign or resign). At a previous role I left I was told that the team is highly flexible and remote working is normal, but it's not in the contract, but it's ok, because everyone likes it. On a Thursday we were told that from Monday its 5 days in the office. 8. Anything outside of your salary or contract is NOT guaranteed, so don't pick a job based on perks. Those tend to vanish at the first sight of trouble and also, don't be one of those people that drinks the free coffee at the office just because its free. Stuff costs to make, grow, ship, build - pay for it. 9. Don't be pressured into accepting. This is a bit weirder, but it can happen. Let's say you are interviewing at 2 companies at the same time, one is more motivated to hire, but you don't like it as much, the other has a longer process but you like their domain more. Be upfront about this - "I am interviewing with another company and would like to see both outcomes to make a decision". Being forced at this stage to drop out, being bullied into saying the company name or anything of the sort is a red flag to me. If you have an offer but you need to wait a few days or a week - say so. "I am waiting for a reply from the other company too and I can provide an answer at the end of the next week". 10. Just because you accepted a job doesn't generally mean you need to take it. This is not legal advice, so take it with a grain of salt, as it depends greatly on what you sign, how enforceable it is and where you reside. But the general idea is that, if you accepted a job, but a week or two after you get a better offer, just tell the company you accepted the offer "No". "No" is a complete sentence. You do not need to give justifications, you don't need to take abuse or anything else. You have to think about yourself. They won't. If there is some legal rationale through which you NEED to start that role, just start it and hand in your notice on the first day. Most of these contracts will have some sort of "1 week notice by either party during probation". So you can join, give your notice, work the week, get paid for it and start at the other job. Also, it will suck. Searching for a job will suck. More and more companies (especially recruitment companies - Noir, Tietalent, Aristo Group, RM Group and Hays to name a few) are really just mining for data with little to no interest in pushing you to any of their clients. They will also tend to try and say that just because you had read about COBOL during Uni, you are now 100% COBOL dev and set you up with a rather terrible interview with some client. There are more, but I'll stop here. On a side note, if you do end up working or answering to a question from a recruitment company check their reviews, look up the person that contacted you, look up the client and apply the same rigor to them as to the company you would end up working with. This entire industry is focused on selling out people to whomever, so don't end up pushed into stuff you don't want to do by one of these enthusiastic second hand car sales people.

aurareturn 2y ago

For those of you who are in San Francisco/Bay Area, is it just as tough as people here make it out to be? Or is it a lot better when you're physically in the Bay Area?

phendrenad2 2y ago
It's slightly better, but there are still tons of people competing for a small number of roles.

ig0r0 2y ago

I am in the same situation but in central Europe and looking for a bit more niche position, I am a mobile developer with 10+ years of experience doing iOS. I have been looking for a job since the middle of the July with not much to show off. I have decreased my salary expectations but that is not the main problem, there are just no jobs to apply to. For the last 7 years I have been working remotely for various companies inside the EU but it looks to me remote jobs are almost dead now. Everyone wants people back in the office. My, probably controversial, opinion is that before Covid remote jobs were jobs for the more skilled people, so companies offered them knowing what they will get in return. But during Covid, when everyone worked remotely, some people not doing that that well, the companies just started considering remote jobs not worth it. Local jobs are almost not existent too here, sometimes there is an opening at a bank but immediately fills in with tens of applications. Last time I was looking for a new job, in 2022, after 1 month of the search I had 3 offers to choose from; 1 remote EU job and 2 remote local jobs. Now, after 4 months, the furthest I got was remote EU job where after 5 rounds I was told I made it into top 3 candidates but was not chosen. I started brushing up on C#/.NET I did over a decade ago as something to switch to, I am definitely not an Apple fanboy to stick to iOS at all costs, but the situation with those kinds of jobs does not look that much better either.

akullpp 2y ago

Same boat right now, startup bankrupt, interviewing is just harassment and don’t know if I want to work in this dysfunctional domain anymore

FireSquid2006 2y ago

Second company smells like systemic dysfunction.

xivusr 2y ago

I've been unemployed for 3 months now. Building a swiftui app and applying to several Sr Engineer roles a week. Lots of recruiters reach out out and then ghost after 1-2 meetings. Been in the industry for almost 16 years now, have never struggled to find new role like this. Seems like everywhere is looking for unicorns with very specific criteria instead of problem solvers with a proven history of learning and using the correct tool for a job. Running weekdays and working on side project helps with mental health, hopefully can find something before I run out of savings. Best of luck to OP and everyone else in this challenging market.

adultSwim 2y ago

Welcome to the real world. This experience is far more representative for the vast majority of the population than we usually see on HN.