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Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

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Re: Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

#21

Post by aprdm »

larrykubin wrote: post #3

If the interview process weren't so exhausting, then it'd probably be easier to get people to switch jobs. Getting a ton of emails lately, but have zero desire to grind leetcode, do take home tests, and interview with 6+ people when I already have a job.

Pretty much this. I honestly cannot be bothered to study or prepare to interviews on top of my existing job and life.

If you just send me some test I will refuse to do it. If I have a technical interview with someone, I hope they're truly looking to see how I think instead of if I grind leet code....

It's truly exhausting to apply to companies and do their dance in 2021.

Re: Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

#22

Post by xs83 »

I would say no, it is just a candidate driven market right now.

I work in an office with a load of recruiters and Candidates are basically turning down interviews for many reasons but these are the primary reasons:

- Interview process longer than 2 stages - Interview processes that contain silly code tests / spec work / whiteboarding - Seeing technologies they "don't like" in a JD and might have to deal with - Requirement to be in an office - 100% work at home (some like the flexibility of working at home and office) - Top Salary (Seriously - some of the requests are ridiculous) - Company reputation, seeing this more and more, if there are bad reviews on Glassdoor - then plenty of other companies to look at!

Short and tall of it is - either make it an attractive place to work or you are not going to find the top talent you require right now.

Re: Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

#23

Post by EADGBE »

harshalizee wrote: post #4
larrykubin wrote: post #3

If the interview process weren't so exhausting, then it'd probably be easier to get people to switch jobs. Getting a ton of emails lately, but have zero desire to grind leetcode, do take home tests, and interview with 6+ people when I already have a job.

You make a great point. I have a job, a good manager who's already told me I can work fully remote, or office or a mix of either. The company has decent work life balance and perks. Sure, the work does get a bit boring sometimes and I could try for a bigger paycheck. So, unless the hiring company can offer a substantially large amount of money, flexibility and interesting work, I don't really care to go through their…

The switch was attractive to me- and made me willing to dance - when my ex employer was unwilling to let me continue to work remote as I had the previous 18 months.

I voiced my opinions on it, changed my life around because of COVID, and they still seemed surprised when I gave them my 2 weeks.

I would have likely stayed if I got the approval to continue to work at home.

I’d say the extra ~10 hours of work over the month for it was worth it. It always is.

Re: Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

#25

Post by mars4rp »

larrykubin wrote: post #3

If the interview process weren't so exhausting, then it'd probably be easier to get people to switch jobs. Getting a ton of emails lately, but have zero desire to grind leetcode, do take home tests, and interview with 6+ people when I already have a job.

Big companies made interviews hard, and because they pay more and the brand name they get the applicant to fill up the position.

Smaller companies followed without being able to compete on TC. Now although some percentage of people go through interview torture every year a really big percentage of my peers and friends don't do that because it is a pain.

Big companies won in keeping the talent for less. Smaller companies lost because they blindly followed.

Re: Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

#26

Post by tolbish »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #20
tolbish wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question was for the person who posted the original submission, though.

Sure. But when you make a top-level comment here, other people do feel free to reply...

Your response was irrelevant to my questions, since the goal of my questions was obviously to understand just the OP's mindset, not an unrelated person's mindset.

Re: Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

#27

Post by DarrenDev »

_ah wrote: post #14

Technical people are expensive (and hard to fire if they don't work out), which really raises the bar for minimum qualifications and skills. There's no room to "take a chance" on anyone anymore. As a HM, most candidates I see are woefully underqualified. The great ones are beyond my (quite reasonable) budget. And I've seen this on the other side too: recruiters contacting me always want to hire me for mid-sr IC role…

>Technical people are expensive (and hard to fire if they don't work out), which really raises the bar for minimum qualifications and skills. There's no room to "take a chance" on anyone anymore.

I've never been hired for a permanent job that didn't have a 6 month probationary period, so I really don't see why "hard to fire", even in Europe where it really is hard to fire, is still an excuse companies use.

Re: Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

#28

Post by altdataseller »

tolbish wrote: post #26
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. But when you make a top-level comment here, other people do feel free to reply...

Your response was irrelevant to my questions, since the goal of my questions was obviously to understand just the OP's mindset, not an unrelated person's mindset.

His response is helpful to others who are reading this thread. That’s all that matters: not thread hygiene or correctness.

Re: Ask HN: Has it suddenly become exceedingly hard to attract full-time employees?

#30

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

harshalizee wrote: post #4
larrykubin wrote: post #3

If the interview process weren't so exhausting, then it'd probably be easier to get people to switch jobs. Getting a ton of emails lately, but have zero desire to grind leetcode, do take home tests, and interview with 6+ people when I already have a job.

You make a great point. I have a job, a good manager who's already told me I can work fully remote, or office or a mix of either. The company has decent work life balance and perks. Sure, the work does get a bit boring sometimes and I could try for a bigger paycheck. So, unless the hiring company can offer a substantially large amount of money, flexibility and interesting work, I don't really care to go through their…

This is exactly the problem. For people that have worked a few different roles and seen bad practices/environments and are now relatively happy where they are, why leave?

The US software industry might be at another inflection point where in order to recruit senior roles, salaries have to move up significantly. Sure there are other factors candidates consider but changing tech stack, culture, process, etc. is much harder to do if those things are a problem. In contrast to those things, paying more is easier to do and that is even considering how hard it is to get approvals/budget as well as fairness with existing staff.

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