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Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

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Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#31

Post by atrettel »

jwells89 wrote: post #6
UncleOxidant wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Someone on another thread here about hiring in the ML/AI space bemoaned the fact that they mostly get applications from people who have dabbled with ML/AI on the side and very few applicants who have actual ML/AI work experience. But it seems like the ML/AI space is still nascent and growing rapidly - you're not going to find a lot of available people with ML/AI work experience. Given that ML/AI is where a lot of cur…

It's another variation on the classic, "6 years experience with X required" where X is something that has only been publicly available for a year or less. Everybody wants candidates who can hit the ground running even when that's not practically possible.

This is just one example of the overall problem. In my view, hiring managers often are just going off a list of requirements and do not really know too much about the technology. They tend to reject anyone who does not use the exact terms they are looking for, even if they have a sufficient amount of experience. I'm thinking about people who worked in optimization for a long time before applying to machine learning jobs. Both fields have basically equivalent work, just with different techniques, and optimization is a lot older and more mature of a discipline. If hiring managers do not know that, they will skip over qualified candidates.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#32

Post by UncleOxidant »

digitalsushi wrote: post #24

As someone casually looking for a better fit as an infrastructure person, it can be disparaging for some of these portals to keep stats on interesting jobs. I'll open up an email advertisement, to see that sometimes >10,000 people have applied for this single role. I'll chuckle and close that tab - I am not a lottery player and I will not drop my resume into an applicant pool twice as large as my town. I would say my…

Same. I saw a job on LinkedIn that had 1000+ applies yet it was asking for quite a few skills. I wonder if these numbers are being gamed somehow? Are they accurate? Are there bots involved?

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#33

Post by JohnFen »

We've had two positions open on my team for months. Filling them has been a struggle. There's no lack of applicants, but none of them have the needed kind/amount of experience.

Pay isn't the issue. I think there's three reasons why this is the case: we need genuine senior-level people, web/internet stack technology experience isn't relevant, and there's a requirement to work in the office. I mention that second one because the vast majority of applicants we get are Java/C#/etc. programmers and we need C/C++ ones.

Hopefully, the company will at least give a bit on the office requirement. I think if they did, we'd have filled these months ago.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#34

Post by vlod »

MattGaiser wrote: post #5

It wouldn’t surprise me if this is a question of credentials. I don’t know any experienced people with solid skills who also have degrees who have been having difficulty. I know one good one, but without a relevant degree who is struggling. I also know lots of boot camp/recent grads in iffy masters programs who aren’t getting anywhere. I am aware of a few hiring processes that are just inundated with people who don’t…

I don't think skills, degree, whether it has a cover letter, or astrological sign makes any difference at the moment.

A lot of recruiters are just throwing out anything they receive after I dunno, after 400 applicants. It's too much trouble to go through.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#35

Post by karmakurtisaani »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #32
digitalsushi wrote: post #24

As someone casually looking for a better fit as an infrastructure person, it can be disparaging for some of these portals to keep stats on interesting jobs. I'll open up an email advertisement, to see that sometimes >10,000 people have applied for this single role. I'll chuckle and close that tab - I am not a lottery player and I will not drop my resume into an applicant pool twice as large as my town. I would say my…

Same. I saw a job on LinkedIn that had 1000+ applies yet it was asking for quite a few skills. I wonder if these numbers are being gamed somehow? Are they accurate? Are there bots involved?

I remember reading that the numbers include the applicants from previous times the same job opening was posted. That's why you get hundreds of applicants 3 hours after the job was listed.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#36

Post by cebert »

JohnFen wrote: post #33

We've had two positions open on my team for months. Filling them has been a struggle. There's no lack of applicants, but none of them have the needed kind/amount of experience. Pay isn't the issue. I think there's three reasons why this is the case: we need genuine senior-level people, web/internet stack technology experience isn't relevant, and there's a requirement to work in the office. I mention that second one b…

Is there a reason you don’t think a good Java/C# developer willing to learn couldn’t learn C/C++. Especially with LLMs, I feel like which language(s) a developer is currently comfortable with is less of an issue.

I previously had no Python experience, but know how to code well in C# and JavaScript. Using a LLM, I was able to quickly get up to speed writing DevOps Python scripts because I understood basic programming concepts and terms.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#37

Post by JohnFen »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #27
linsomniac wrote: post #23

A couple weeks ago we put a advert out on Indeed and also listed it here on HN. Initially we didn't have any further qualifications beyond the job post, which did indeed go into details on the job and requesting a cover letter. After spending a couple days of 2-3 hours each on reviewing resumes that were "only ok", we started adding additional hoops for getting resumes in, and also tried to put in a gatekeeper to rea…

I'm kind of surprised to hear that cover letters still matter. It seems like most of the places I've applied to recently don't even have an option for including a cover letter. Since most of this is driven by keywords anymore, I guess I figured the cover letter was kind of an anachronism. I suspect you're in a small to medium sized company?

My company is a large one, but we aren't keyword-driven or the like. A human screens the applications. Cover letters matter to us.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#38

Post by chiefalchemist »

I generally keep an eye on (web dev) job ads. What follows is all anecdotal, but such is the nature of the question.

Once the talk of possible recession started (earlier this year), postings fell off. Also salary range seemed to have dipped. As in the hiring company was looking for more for less. It appear many were fishing for better talent, recently downsized and desperate of steady income. Sure, such people exist. But when you sense it from a job ad, it's not a good look.

Since the beginning of Sept (read: end of Summer) it feels like things have picked up, and there's less bottom feeding. I've been getting interviews steady enough but in nearly all cases in the first five to ten minutes I find myself thinking, "Why am I here?" The point is, I often feel companies post ads but the ad doesn't actually refect their needs, or they are for some reason confused about their wants and needs. It's very annoying.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#39

Post by andrewstuart »

linsomniac wrote: post #23

A couple weeks ago we put a advert out on Indeed and also listed it here on HN. Initially we didn't have any further qualifications beyond the job post, which did indeed go into details on the job and requesting a cover letter. After spending a couple days of 2-3 hours each on reviewing resumes that were "only ok", we started adding additional hoops for getting resumes in, and also tried to put in a gatekeeper to rea…

This need for a cover letter is essentially asking candidates to tell you how much they love the company and how much they want the job.

Why is this important beyond making the company feel loved?

As a job applicant I’m not going to invest a minute in your company until you’ve read my resume and expressed an interest.

Theres hundreds of companies out there employing who want your time but give nothing back.

I know next thing you'll ask for is a coding test and I’m not doing it. You can blame all the previous companies who wanted a coding test and it turned out to be just burning my time.

No cover letters, no coding tests, no 5 stage interview processes, no “you passed 4 interviews and failed the 5th cause everyone has veto”.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#40

Post by toomuchtodo »

sirobg wrote: post #8
meindnoch wrote: post #4

>Tech people reporting that it's hard to find a new gig right now and hiring managers reporting that it's hard to find people right now. It's hard to find people with the desired skills at their offered price point . Simple as.

Of course, but as OP asked: any thoughts on why it seems exacerbated now?

Companies thought they’d be able to get a discount on labor due to FAANG layoffs that mostly impacted non tech roles. There is no labor recession, so no discount to be found for senior talent, but companies are still tire kickers waiting for that undervalued unicorn to land in front of a hiring manager. Expectations take the elevator up and the stairs down.

https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/tech-layoff-draft/ (“Tech layoffs see former workers in high demand elsewhere”)

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