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The biggest pain / fear related to layoffs for me isn't the immediate actual loss of income... It was that I have to go job hunting and how demoralizing and to
by duxup 2y ago
The biggest pain / fear related to layoffs for me isn't the immediate actual loss of income...
It was that I have to go job hunting and how demoralizing and toil heavy that process is. Heck I'd likely go job hunting just out of curiosity, the idea of exploring other options should be interesting at the least, but naw it's too much of a pain.
>Recruiters. Don’t discount or blow them off.
That's all they do for me ... I suspect there's a subset of people who are very attractive to recruiters and they actually do things for those people and I am not in that group. The advice surrounding recruiters is always so disconnected from my experience that it seems strange.
- Salgat 2y agoThe leetcode grind is my biggest dread. I can do it and I do well, but I'll be damned if it isn't a lot of mindless rote memorization that immediately leaves my brain the second I land the job, never to be used again (even in my job) until the next time I apply around.
- diamondfist25 2y agoI wonder what’s the value of even doing leetcode when AI can solve it in 10 seconds…
- zamalek 2y agoThe highly specific/specialized problems leetcode has presented have never held value, outside of a very small set of companies (i.e. MOFAANG).
- nickff 2y agoIt’s not about testing ability to solve those problems, it’s about testing conformity, determination, and IQ (while being job-specific and thus legal).
- tptacek 2y agoIQ tests aren't illegal. Several big companies overtly use them.
- nickff 2y agoAFAIK Hasn’t been legal unless the test is closely related to the job since Griggs v. Duke Power Company, a 1971 SCOTUS case.
- tptacek 2y agoYou can just go look this up with IQ test vendors; you don't have to derive it axiomatically. They proudly list their (large) clients.
- disgruntledphd2 2y agoYou need to ensure that the test doesn't discriminate on the basis of a protected characteristic though.
- tptacek 2y agoThese are just completely bog-standard cognitive aptitude tests; in fact, they are if anything less rigorous than a modern IQ test. They're generally not specialized to specific jobs. You can read Reddit threads about people taking (and studying for) them. Don't get me wrong: I think this is an incredibly dumb practice. But there's a mythology that IQ testing is a super-effective tool for recruiting that has been suppressed by anti-discrimination law. That is not the case. Most companies don't use IQ tests, because they're not fit for purpose.
- saagarjha 2y agoWhile the actual implementation isn't particularly good having a decent understanding of algorithms is useful in a lot of contexts.
- gedy 2y agoHonestly I just stopped interviewing at leetcode places and those that expect you to "prepare" for their interview, especially those that are dumb no-name SaaS companies. It's less about me being stubborn as it is those places are hiring based on the wrong skills, and those end up not being good places to work.
- anarticle 2y agoSimply don't, lean on your network if you can. It ends up bottlenecking your search anyway.
- scarface_74 2y agoExcept at smaller companies, your network just gets you a referral and interview. You still have to go through the same interview process. The two exceptions I have had were when a former coworker who is now the director of an f500 non tech company was going to create a strategic position for me. He needed someone he could trust. The other time was when a CTO and the director of application development were both former coworkers from another company and it was just a matter of me saying yes. The first job would have been more stress than I was willing to deal with and I don’t do large companies (I was suffering from PTSD from my time at AWS). The second didn’t have the budget to meet my compensation target.
- anarticle 2y agoOh totally! My aim is to avoid leetcode as a 10y+ developer with real track record delivering $XM projects. To me it is a game breaker to have to study up on leetcode problems, as it keeps me from juggling multiple interview in the pipeline. Every network job I've gotten (two) has been a walk on interview, I'm fine with this as long as I don't have to do circus problems.
- scarface_74 2y agoSure you can avoid leetCode if you’re okay with not maximizing your compensation by working at one of the FAANG or adjacent companies that pay at top of market. But you aren’t going to have a walk on non leetcode interview at one of the companies that pay a quarter million+ for a mid level developer based on a referral. I’m not saying you are a mid level developer just giving an example of comp. The amount a returning intern I mentored when I was at BigTech had a return offer that was the same as I made two years prior at 60 person startup. Now that I’m out of BigTech, I had to get a job as a “staff software architect” at a 3rd party consulting company to come close to what I was making in 2020 as mid level consultant at AWS and I’m making over $80K less than I would make as a senior doing the same thing at AWS or GCP. I’m 50, an empty nester and I’m good with making that trade off. I would rather get an anal probe with a cactus than ever work at any large company again. But if I were 30 in 2024 instead of in 2004, yeah I would grind leetCode to make a 300K+ a year. And yeah I got into BigTech without a coding interview and could probably weasel my way into Google/GCP in the consulting department without one. But that needle would be hard to thread for the vast majority of prople That’s why I always advise anyone in CS to practice for coding interviews
- eschneider 2y agoLook at this way: It's just something you do for money.
- duderific 2y agoAt least you can do it well, imagine the grind when you can't.
- le-mark 2y agoRemember when fizzbuzz was the gold standard in trick interview questions? And Joel was a revolutionary for advocating it? Things have certainly changed.
- throwaway2037 2y agoIn some sense, leetcode is fizzbuzz on steriods. As I recall, the "trick" to fizzbuzz is knowing about the modulo operator. Most leetcode problems have a similar trick that you need to know/learn to complete them correctly.
- dagw 2y agoFizzbuzz wasn't about seeing if a candidate knew the 'tricks', it was to test if you knew how to code at all. If you know about loops and if statements you can do fizzbuzz even you've never heard about modulo operators. Fizzbuzz was designed to catch the complete bullshitters who literally could not code. Apparently that was a real problem people were having at the time.
- throwaway2037 2y ago> Fizzbuzz was designed to catch the complete bullshitters who literally could not code. I'm unsure if we are in agreement or not. To me, the expansion of leetcode and friends is driven by the desire to filter for higher quality candidates. For example, in year 2000, fizzbuzz was good to filter out people who could barely write a for loop. Then, big tech needed higher and higher gates to keep out people who did not meet their standards. So fizzbuzz was given a healthy dose of anabolic steriods and told to "hit the gym". In a sense, fizzbuzz was transformed into leetcode, but the spirit was unchanged.
- pavel_lishin 2y ago
- satvikpendem 2y agoLots of jobs don't require Leetcode. I haven't done it in years yet I still get jobs consistently.
- rirze 2y agoToo many folks in this industry think any job other than FAANG/startups is not serious.
- luckylion 2y agoMight depend on the niche you're in, or your location. My experience with recruiters (on the hiring side) mirrored what I heard from friends who got hired through recruiters: they're basically match-makers. If you're not a well-known name, you can have your job-postings but you won't get any applications. Either you spend time on advertising and try to convince people that you're really real and actually really want to hire, or you just get yourself someone who introduces you to people who might be a good fit. That's a recruiter.
- scarface_74 2y agoOut of the 10 jobs I have had since 1996, 6 came from external recruiters. I met five of them in person over lunch or in their office when I was looking for local jobs in Atlanta until 2022. The one I didn’t meet in person was a specialized recruiter for my niche. Two came from me reaching out to them and two were from internal recruiters
- throwway120385 2y agoYeah -- the best recruiters have been "let's meet in person and chat about what you're looking for" people who would send me jobs when I was looking. The worst ones open the conversation by asking for my social over the phone.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- Izkata 2y agoI have 3 rock-bottom criteria for responding to a recruiter: 1) They use the correct email address, the one I used on my resume and to apply for jobs, and didn't dig out my personal one somewhere. 2) They don't say something stupid that reveals they didn't even look at my resume. ("I see you have C# experience", uh no I don't) 3) They include anything at all that's supposed to interest me, even if it actually doesn't. The vast majority fail at step 1. I've only ever had one email from a recruiter that passed all these criteria.
- mvdtnz 2y agoYou're saying that the "vast majority" of recruiters receive your CV (from wherever) and instead of contacting you on the email address on your CV they will Google around for your personal email address? I don't believe you. Why would anyone do that extra step when they already have your email address?
- bradlys 2y agoNext to no recruiters out there are doing things by hand. Everything is automated. They’re not googling for you.
- wil421 2y agoI’ve had recruiters find my work email after a phone call. They proceeded to send a bunch of emails while I was screen sharing. I was able to hide it but it was almost a disaster.
- throwaway2037 2y ago> Heck I'd likely go job hunting just out of curiosity, the idea of exploring other options should be interesting at the least When I grew up, my father worked in commercial banking in the 1980s and 1990s. There were so many bankruptcies / mergers / financial crises, that he got (painfully) used to being laid off. Watching him go through this had a large impact on my view of my relationship with most employers (hostile, wary, defensive). He once said to me, "At my level (middle manager), as soon as I start my new job, I start looking for my next job." He was exaggerating, but the point stayed with me. I definitely agree with you: Looking for a job (or "keeping your doors & windows open to new opportunities") while having a job is much, much easier -- mentally. In my industry, most connections with head hunters are made through LinkedIn. You can set a special flag in your profile that says "I'm looking for work", but this is only visible to professional head hunters (they pay a lot of money for an account with these special privileges). It works very well. Normally, the calls start with: "Them: Are you looking at the moment? Me: No, but I am open to new and exciting opportunities. Them: Oh, great. I have something for you." Do that enough, and eventually something very good lands on your doorstep.
- scarface_74 2y ago> At my level (middle manager), as soon as I start my new job, I start looking for my next job." He was exaggerating, but the point stayed with me. That’s no exaggeration at all. I’m not always looking for a job. But everything I do I do with one eye toward how will this look when I get ready to interview? Am I working on tech that is demand? Am I working at the correct “scope, impact, and ambiguity” or am I just being a “ticket taker”?
- slothtrop 2y agoMore than half of recruiters will ghost me after I've jumped through the hoops (phone call, CV, filling grid, security clearance forms, etc).