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Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?

#11

Post by saluki »

Reach out to your personal network to try to get some connections to get your resume to the top of the stack.

Reach out to former co-workers and see if their current companies have any openings.

It's tough to stand out in a stack of 200 applicants without a connection.

Is your front-end stack or experience too narrow? What are you using for frontend. Are there more front-end languages you have experience with that you could broaden your search/resume?

Have you done any backend? Is now a good time to learn Rails or Laravel?

Can you seek out any alternative job boards that are more specific for your niche? Linked and Indeed are the most saturated with applicants.

Freelance and Contract work might be an option to stay active and show on your resume. Show Consulting as your current gig from when you left your last job.

Lastly you could reach out to your old company if it's a place you'd like to go back to, not sure how things left off. A lot can change in a year.

Re: Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?

#12

Post by pjbeam »

We are getting literally thousands of more or less qualified applicants for most of the roles we're hiring for at Dropbox right now. Can't speak for other places but I imagine it's similar for some. I don't know anything about your resume or qualifications but it very well may not be _you_ that's the problem, per se. As others have suggested I would see who you know places who can pull you out of the pile.

Re: Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?

#14

Post by rahimnathwani »

I'm curious: when you say you've 'been applying constantly', how many jobs have you applied for?

Assuming the number of available roles isn't a limiting factor, you probably applied for ~1000+ jobs in that time. (1 job per hour * 40 hours/week * 4.3 weeks per month * 7 months)

Is that right? If so, where have you had drop off in your funnel? Are you getting dropped before or after the recruiter screening call?

If after, then the problem may not be your CV.

Re: Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?

#15

Post by imadkhan »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #14

I'm curious: when you say you've 'been applying constantly', how many jobs have you applied for? Assuming the number of available roles isn't a limiting factor, you probably applied for ~1000+ jobs in that time. (1 job per hour * 40 hours/week * 4.3 weeks per month * 7 months) Is that right? If so, where have you had drop off in your funnel? Are you getting dropped before or after the recruiter screening call? If aft…

I'm not even getting an initial screening call. I know this points to it being the resume but I already paid for 3 separate resume reviews, so I'm hoping its just the market right now

Re: Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?

#16

Post by rahimnathwani »

imadkhan wrote: post #15
rahimnathwani wrote: post #14

I'm curious: when you say you've 'been applying constantly', how many jobs have you applied for? Assuming the number of available roles isn't a limiting factor, you probably applied for ~1000+ jobs in that time. (1 job per hour * 40 hours/week * 4.3 weeks per month * 7 months) Is that right? If so, where have you had drop off in your funnel? Are you getting dropped before or after the recruiter screening call? If aft…

I'm not even getting an initial screening call. I know this points to it being the resume but I already paid for 3 separate resume reviews, so I'm hoping its just the market right now

If you've applied to 1000 jobs and gotten only one screening call, I suggest you take seriously what's in this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36901965

Re: Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?

#19

Post by DoesntMatter22 »

kypro wrote: post #7

It's bad, but it's not that bad. The fact you have only had one interview this year is very odd in my opinion. I've been on the market twice this year and it's been harder for sure (especially earlier this year), but it's far from impossible to find something. I don't know if you're looking for advice or just anecdotes here, but I'll share some thoughts for what might be happening... Frontend development has changed…

Imo this is the worst market I've seen since 95 when I started.

Re: Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?

#20

Post by zer8k »

My linkedin views are basically rock bottom and the twice-daily recruiter spam has stopped entirely. From my assessment of my network anyone who lost their job is looking, or has been looking for a long time.

The market is effectively dead. Even if you set your sights extremely low. Even corporate suit-and-tie programmer jobs are drying up. I don't know what I'll do if I lose my job. Construction, maybe. I can't be without health insurance so I am always terrified of markets where it might take months to get a new position.

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