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Ask HN: How is your job search going?

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Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#21

Post by muzani »

geuis wrote: post #14

I've been looking for most of the past year. My back is against the wall. I've applied to more companies than I can keep track of. I've exhausted my savings. Friends and family have already helped as much as they can. I'm days away from having some life changing situational events happen. I've recently seen a small uptick in interviews, but over the last year almost nothing has moved past the initial call/zoom meetin…

Curious which markets you applied to. I assume it's not so bad that you're applying to flip burgers. But is it all Silicon Valley stuff?

Have you tried, say, some cosmetics brand that needs a Shopify site updated?

Gov jobs? I had a friend who was a star at a startup, but couldn't do the crazy hours after an injury, but she still makes decent money and gets a pension at a large organization with low expectations.

Sales engineer jobs? Normally sales jobs are still high demand during a recession and some roles require technical experience.

Also you could try jobs outside your country. Some may not pay as well in cash and may not get the same level of savings, but an experienced engineer could get a job that pays top 5-10% and get a luxurious life compared to the local living expenses. I think Mexico pays quite well, but you can also look to places like India as well.

Still, best of luck in your job search. Honestly, I have reason to believe it may dip worse, so you might want to consider looking into a lower league.

Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#22

Post by joeshmoe112 »

Pretty terrible in LA.

I was laid off two months ago. I haven’t been able to find an internal transfer team. I had two interviews but they both went for other candidates

I have one interview left. No more hits from applications, no more recruiter contacts and no more people I can ask for referrals. I’m burnt out from studying

Now I am being fairly picky at this stage, trying to aim for roles at big tech that can match my previous compensation.

If this last interview falls through I’m going to take a few weeks to focus on my mental and physical health. I’ve gained 10 pounds the past two months and stopped working out. So I’ll start with that. Then when I’m in a better place emotionally I’ll resume and expand my search.

Luckily I’ve been following r/financialindependence since I started working so I have a wealth of savings I can pull from to pay for my life while I find a job

Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#23

Post by the_only_law »

muzani wrote: post #21
geuis wrote: post #14

I've been looking for most of the past year. My back is against the wall. I've applied to more companies than I can keep track of. I've exhausted my savings. Friends and family have already helped as much as they can. I'm days away from having some life changing situational events happen. I've recently seen a small uptick in interviews, but over the last year almost nothing has moved past the initial call/zoom meetin…

Curious which markets you applied to. I assume it's not so bad that you're applying to flip burgers. But is it all Silicon Valley stuff? Have you tried, say, some cosmetics brand that needs a Shopify site updated? Gov jobs? I had a friend who was a star at a startup, but couldn't do the crazy hours after an injury, but she still makes decent money and gets a pension at a large organization with low expectations. Sale…

> Gov jobs?

Maybe state/local (though depending on where you are you'll be in for one hell of a paycut), but from what I've seen, federal jobs are the chooisest beggars out there.

Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#24

Post by muzani »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #3

It's grim seeing seniors struggling to get jobs. As a junior, I'm eagerly awaiting my cue to start applying again. That is, once the deluge of threads about struggling seniors abates, which has been happening for quite a while and doesn't seem to be stopping anytime soon. I hope you guys make it, because if you can't, that means I definitely can't.

There's been a bit of a tech bubble lately. Salaries got higher than they would have, because a lot of it was fueled by VC and crypto money. People kept the dot com boom in mind back when apps were booming, but not with crypto and FAANG. Nobody wants to take a pay cut, go to a $250k job after a $300k job.

There's still junior roles and with AI coming up, there's plenty of new stuff that many seniors won't touch. I got my ticket into tech back when everyone wanted to do iOS and Windows Phone, and Android was some runt that even BlackBerry users laughed at. Did desktop to mobile redesigns, which led to responsive web work, and just building apps. There's very likely plenty of new jobs which seniors won't take. Heck, there's still a gap in the market for Flutter jobs here - seniors tend to go for native Android/iOS or React Native because they want to take advantage of the 10 years of experience.

Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#25

Post by pyuser583 »

geuis wrote: post #14

I've been looking for most of the past year. My back is against the wall. I've applied to more companies than I can keep track of. I've exhausted my savings. Friends and family have already helped as much as they can. I'm days away from having some life changing situational events happen. I've recently seen a small uptick in interviews, but over the last year almost nothing has moved past the initial call/zoom meetin…

How many years experience and education? What is your skill set?

Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#27

Post by distortionfield »

qd011 wrote: post #26

> Today I got technical feedback on an assessment (making a gRPC server in Rust) Did you interview at Helsing? Pretty sure that their test was something like this.

It was not Helsing, sorry. The challenge was to build a zero-knowledge implementation from scratch as an auth/login server. I was able to get it working, but I spent a non-trivial amount of time on it, which is the real story of my job search lately. It's a part-time job just to keep up with code challenges while I'm applying this often for work.

Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#28

Post by ehto »

I'm in London. Today was a low point. I've been slowly expanding the aperture of what I would be open to doing, and haven't been going for volume applications because of my weird background.

The last few rejections have really shaken me because I (to my detriment) get invested. As best I can tell I'm perfect, get a first round interview, excitement builds, then get rejected...

For me a big learning is that your CV and fit ONLY serves to get you into the first round. They do NOT get to the end and then 'add up' everything they know about you, such that being outstanding in terms of relevant experience can offset whatever petty box ticking result they get from the interview. You have to be perfect in the interview. Provide perfect examples of your experiences. Precisely detailed and structured answers. Highlight impressive outcomes.

It simply doesn't matter what you have done, in that interview if you don't bring it you are kicked from the process. It hurts.

I can't help feeling like I am wired wrong if I can't give them what they want.

Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#29

Post by ehto »

8b16380d wrote: post #5

It's below average. I am not really hard-pressed to make a job change, but I have been interviewing a bit over the past few months. If you are really in need of a job I would study up on system design, behavioral interview patterns and a bit of leetcode-style programming problems. From my experience, employers are being very very picky. I have been through full rounds at a couple of places with positive feedback, but…

I feel you on the point about missteps. It boggles my mind that negligible things like 'not quite enough detail in an answer' is enough to offset my years of highly relevant experience, obvious enthusiasm, and solid CV and get me rejected out of the process.

I would love to meet the candidates that beat me to these roles. I tell myself they are simply me, but more polished and more FAANG. So I never stood a chance.

Re: Ask HN: How is your job search going?

#30

Post by jechamt »

ehto wrote: post #28

I'm in London. Today was a low point. I've been slowly expanding the aperture of what I would be open to doing, and haven't been going for volume applications because of my weird background. The last few rejections have really shaken me because I (to my detriment) get invested. As best I can tell I'm perfect, get a first round interview, excitement builds, then get rejected... For me a big learning is that your CV an…

I am in the US, but otherwise your situation highly resonates with me, and I feel your description could be used to describe my own search.

I've been looking, applying, and interviewing (though not as often as I would like nor expect from my volume of applications) for 8 months. After some recent disappointing news, I am looking to be moving away from software development and systems-at-scale roles, and spending more time and effort at IT support / system administration roles in the future as I can't help but feel the industry just isn't interested in any desire to grow and develop professionally, they just want the perfect applicant that has already used the technologies they need for 2-5 years and won't waste time on anyone else.

It doesn't help my own confidence that I have "FAANG" experience (I'll leave it to the reader to decide which FAANG belongs in quotes), and it hasn't helped my response rate or evaluations.

In any case, it's disapointing, and I feel your struggles. I wish you the best, and hopefully your newfound perspective separating the CV and the interview will help you spend less time and anguish over the less important parts

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