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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?

#341

Post by cientifico »

whiddershins wrote: post #287
rsynnott wrote: post #282

It's not a good job market, but it doesn't seem normal to spend six months applying and only get _one_ interview. It might be worth asking friends or former colleagues, ideally people who actually are involved in recruiting (hiring managers etc) to take a look at your resume and LinkedIn profile and see if there's anything glaringly wrong with them. Is your resume in a weird format, or is it structurally weird/overde…

No, no one calls someone with 5.5 years of experience a junior engineer.

I do, and quite frequently.

After more than a 2 decades in software development (rails/web/...), for me to consider a developer to be a senior it needs to:

* Communicate: For example: can explain tech concepts to non tech people, or inform on Monday that the sprint will be unlikely to be done in time.

* Can estimate and adapt to changes. Be boring and predictable.

* Can work/collaborate/teach with other devs.

I got tired of interviewing tech people that though that to be senior is the same as to be specialist (or worse even, that it was related with the number of years).

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

#343

Post by icemelt8 »

herbst wrote: post #335
jameshush wrote: post #46

Reach out to people you've worked with in the past. After having five years of experience, you should have worked with at least a handful of people who need someone to fix another broken website. These could be managers, people on your team, people on OTHER teams, vendors, salespeople you've spoken to, anyone. Ideally, you should ALWAYS keep in contact with people you've worked with, even if it's just emailing them "…

I would be totally weird out if some of my past co-workers suddenly reaches out to me with bullshit smalltalk to ask for a job. Or random people from my past sending me happy birthday ever year. I am probably not social enough to understand that, but that sounds like a lot of work just to stand out as kinda weird.

Yes you are not social enough to understand this, I regularly get mails or messages from past colleagues who I've never talked to in years suddenly ask me that they are looking for a job and if I know an open position. I absolutely understand their quandary and go out of my way to help them out, cuz we're humans.

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

#344

Post by JackFr »

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.

Needing to pay the mortgage is a HUGE motivation, but it doesn’t necessarily correlate with job performance.

What I would say I look for in software developers is people who are genuinely interested in software development. You don’t need to be a committer on 4 open source projects, but show me that you actually like the work (the fun parts at least.) If you’re also interested in the business domain that’s not necessarily required, but a huge plus.

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

#345

Post by arghwhat »

Aeolun wrote: post #315
whiddershins wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, no one calls someone with 5.5 years of experience a junior engineer.

That depends entirely on their skill. I’ve seen people with 10 years of experience that were still junior.

One should definitely have outgrown a junior title after say 3 years of relevant experience, as that is more than sufficient time to be trained into a normal (non-senior) status.

It could last longer if your company does not have a normal title (i.e., they consider junior == !senior), but someone with 10 years of relevant experience should have earned a seniority title of some sort.

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

#346

Post by mcv »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #165
Pmop wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also had good results with recruiters. They will actually get you at the door, so you better be prepared. Seems to be a decent strategy for people who are bad at networking like I am.

Recruiters get a lot of flak here and elsewhere, but having recently interacted with a few for a recent job change, their incentives are aligned to have some skin in the game, and they can do the emotionally draining part of pushing the company to speed up the process for you without having to send multiple emails or waiting for months for your rejection.

Lots of recruiters are scum, but some are great, and it's not always easy to tell the difference. I get all my work through recruiters who find me on LinkedIn, and they've found me some great projects. I may hate LinkedIn, but it really works for me. (Mind you, I'm a freelance contractor, not an employee.)

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

#347

Post by Roark66 »

herodotusxviii wrote: post #314
hanselot wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is weird. I've stopped going on LinkedIn because there is a constant barrage of recruiters. If you list the right skills they will find you.

This definitely used to be the case for me, but the large employment gap absolutely killed that. Not a surprise.

I had one gap I thought could be a problem(a couple years). I definitely lost ~50%-75% of the offers because of it, but I found what I was looking for in the end. However in my case during the gap I was working on my own projects that are at least tangentially related to my work.

If you haven't and your gap is for other reasons I'd write a "skills based cv" and definitely spend at least 2 weeks reminding yourself everything you need to know before you go for technical interview. There is no worse feeling than getting a technical question you knew an answer for, but you can't quite remember what is was.

I also found it's easier to apply directly rather than through recruiters if you have a big gap in your work.

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

#349

Post by VoodooJuJu »

rsynnott wrote: post #282

It's not a good job market, but it doesn't seem normal to spend six months applying and only get _one_ interview. It might be worth asking friends or former colleagues, ideally people who actually are involved in recruiting (hiring managers etc) to take a look at your resume and LinkedIn profile and see if there's anything glaringly wrong with them. Is your resume in a weird format, or is it structurally weird/overde…

>but it doesn't seem normal to spend six months applying and only get _one_ interview.

At this point in time, it's completely normal for people breaking into the industry.

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

#350

Post by b112 »

Ntrails wrote: post #336
sebzim4500 wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't speak for that guy but there are definitely people who are well paid but who will go out of their way for free stuff. Don't really get it myself, I think typically such people are drastically undervaluing their time.

> Can't speak for that guy but there are definitely people who are well paid but who will go out of their way for free stuff. Me: I'm not doing DIY, I'd rather pay someone competent than waste my time and energy. Also Me: I'm getting 100% of the value from this perk goddammit it's free stuff who turns down free stuff.

goddammit it's free stuff who turns down free stuff.

Your opinion is wide spread, but it erks me. "There's no such thing as a free lunch" is an adage millennia old, and true.

The rule is, nothing is free. Nothing. There are exceptions the rule, but that is exceedingly rare, and if you think you're onto one, it's probably a scam.

"strings attached" is another adage, and often you get "free", by having the strings attached to you.

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