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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?

#211

Post by expertentipp »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #173
mighmi wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you find these positions? I speak German and did my studies there but always worked in other places.

> worked in other places ...like what? And where did you get/find your jobs? I found a lot of jobs just by checking out all the big name companies directly (banks, insurances, BRZ, ...) of Austria, via recruiters from LinkedIn, I can also HIGHLY recommend contacting the company "ePunkt", they are supportive, almost pushy and forceful in getting you into in person job interviews. IT rat catcher consulting companies li…

> Kapsch

Luckily they are transparent with salaries... 55k EUR annually in Vienna... before pandemic it was low and meantime we've experienced over 20% accumulated inflation. I bet they complain about the "quality of candidates", right? With this package all they can demand is ability to use QWERTZ keyboard and that's probably the skillset they hire.

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

#212

Post by Arisaka1 »

misja111 wrote: post #198
Dylan16807 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now having been on the other side it is very apparent when someone hasn't prepared and practiced interviewing. It really is a skill in and of itself. And now that you can recognize that skill in isolation, do you use it as a major factor when choosing candidates? If you do, why? Do you think the people interviewing you could recognize that you were specifically bad at interviewing, and not at everything?

> do you use it as a major factor when choosing candidates? If you do, why? Definitely. Motivation is of major importance in whether a new employee will be successful or not. And if a candidate obviously has put a lot of effort in preparing for the interview, then this indicates that he/she is motivated to get the job. Ofc it is not the only factor to take into consideration, but surely an important one.

>And if a candidate obviously has put a lot of effort in preparing for the interview, then this indicates that he/she is motivated to get the job.

In case someone doesn't see the absurdity of this situation, let me make it clearer:

We all have 24 hours in a day. Given that fact, whenever I'm at the crossroads between "practicing my interview skills" and "diving deeper into " then it makes sense that I should be prioritizing the former because prioritizing the former implies that I will be motivated enough to learn and work with the latter, and nothing more.

Why not just learn the latter in the first place?

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

#213

Post by hamburglar »

darkwater wrote: post #206
hamburglar wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confused by the question. Are you under the impression that the term “full stack” didn’t exist in the early ‘00s? I recall the term already being an overused joke by then. It basically just means that whatever stack you got, the person can work on all parts of it.

Never heard the full stack term in early '00s, but I was very very junior so it might be me, anyway I'm pretty sure that nowadays "full stack" has a specific meaning (basically only related to web development) and that it was different back in the day

Is the definition today something beyond “can work client, web front end, web back end, infrastructure, and database”? Because that’s how I thought of it then and that’s my understanding of it still.

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

#214

Post by ImageXav »

fullstackchris wrote: post #207
misja111 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do you use it as a major factor when choosing candidates? If you do, why? Definitely. Motivation is of major importance in whether a new employee will be successful or not. And if a candidate obviously has put a lot of effort in preparing for the interview, then this indicates that he/she is motivated to get the job. Ofc it is not the only factor to take into consideration, but surely an important one.

I don't know, why should we have to be "motivated" to get a job, when the company can just get rid of us at any time? What's the point? Seems like a double standard.

You could also leave the company at any point, so why should they hire you?

There's got to be some give and take in a relationship with an employer. If you're feeling exploited, you're not in the right role. And that will show in the quality of your work. Work can be fun and interesting, and someone who enjoys what they do will relish the opportunity to learn. I know that for me interviewing, though tough, has always been an opportunity to solidify my basic understanding of the field I'm in. Maybe figure out what you enjoy, and find an employer who respects you equally?

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

#215

Post by ramraj07 »

misja111 wrote: post #198
Dylan16807 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now having been on the other side it is very apparent when someone hasn't prepared and practiced interviewing. It really is a skill in and of itself. And now that you can recognize that skill in isolation, do you use it as a major factor when choosing candidates? If you do, why? Do you think the people interviewing you could recognize that you were specifically bad at interviewing, and not at everything?

> do you use it as a major factor when choosing candidates? If you do, why? Definitely. Motivation is of major importance in whether a new employee will be successful or not. And if a candidate obviously has put a lot of effort in preparing for the interview, then this indicates that he/she is motivated to get the job. Ofc it is not the only factor to take into consideration, but surely an important one.

I beg to differ by a mile and more. If all you have to choose from are mediocre candidates then choosing the ones who hustle by preparing for inane interviews is maybe a barely acceptable option. But you instantly discount any great candidate who doesn’t interview well. A great candidate who also interviews well will have the pick of the lot and unless your org is OpenAI I doubt they’ll come to you. So it’s probably in your interest to try and find the hidden talent in the bad interviewees.

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

#216

Post by skrebbel »

misja111 wrote: post #198
Dylan16807 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now having been on the other side it is very apparent when someone hasn't prepared and practiced interviewing. It really is a skill in and of itself. And now that you can recognize that skill in isolation, do you use it as a major factor when choosing candidates? If you do, why? Do you think the people interviewing you could recognize that you were specifically bad at interviewing, and not at everything?

> do you use it as a major factor when choosing candidates? If you do, why? Definitely. Motivation is of major importance in whether a new employee will be successful or not. And if a candidate obviously has put a lot of effort in preparing for the interview, then this indicates that he/she is motivated to get the job. Ofc it is not the only factor to take into consideration, but surely an important one.

Fwiw I’m an employer too and I strongly disagree with this. In fact we try very hard to see if we can separate “interviewing skill” from “real work skill” because we only care about the latter, and with programming roles there is little overlap between the two skills.

The idea that someone investing time and effort into being a smooth interviewer somehow shows that they’re “motivated” seems like a weird tribal dance to me. Who does it benefit?

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

#217

Post by fullstackchris »

Applying and interviewing for software jobs has become possibly THE most toxic thing I've ever experienced:

- ghosted by companies if you don't EXACTLY match and 'gel' with their stupid full stack takehome projects to the T

- multiple cases of simply no response

- hours of interview rounds taking my time away, when it's clear they won't take you

The list goes on, there is truly nothing I hate more.

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

#218

Post by oxfordmale »

firefoxd wrote: post #63

I hate to say this, stop applying. Find a recruiter on LinkedIn. This is what it has come to. There are thousands of resumes being sent at my company, yet the recruiter can't find anyone. Why? Because no one is applying through her link. The regular resume channel is reserved for bots at this point. Contact a person and you have more chances.

For what it is worth, I see a slight recovery in the software engineering job market. In the first half of 2023, voluntary staff turnover was historically low in my company after redundancies at the beginning of the year. Now the economy isn't doing as badly as predicted, industry-wide layoffs are reducing frequently, and staff are regaining the confidence to move jobs again.

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

#219

Post by jacob_rezi »

Ilasky wrote: post #2

I've had similar issues - so much so that I've created Resgen[0] just because it was tough getting call backs. It turns out I really needed to tailor my resume to each job and it resulted in a lot more call backs. [0] https://resgen.app

Similar to what we're building at rezi. https://www.rezi.ai/

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

#220

Post by fullstackchris »

tossoff49463628 wrote: post #96

If you admit that you have a slight bent towards entrepreneurship or similar you are out of the door instantly. If it’s somewhere like a YC startup and they realize you’re not young and willing to sacrifice your life, same thing. Edit: to make that less bitter sounding. To be more helpful: A resume gap that you’ll casually admit to or honesty in monetary requirements also are instant disqualified status these days. N…

Can't help but feel this is often the case. A bit of "oh they are not desperate enough yet to join us"
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