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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?

#421

Post by mooreds »

whstl wrote: post #283
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.

I've given up on applying through company portals for a few years. Last job I applied myself was in 2016. The rest was people reaching me via LinkedIn. I'm not a recruiter and have no vested interest in this, but the experience with recruiters from the candidate side is just completely different to justify their existence. From the company side, we also get better candidates from recruiters. Applying through portals…

I think the right time to apply through a company portal is when you already have had conversations with folks at the company (hiring managers, recruiters, other team members) and are just "checking the box".

Definitely agree, hope I never have to apply via a portal again.

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

#422

Post by mooreds »

herodotusxviii wrote: post #236
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.

If you don't mind, could you tell me how I should go about finding a recruiter directly on LinkedIn? I've been out of the market for three years now (had to take care of sick family) and it's extra brutal; I've been contacted by a few recruiters but I'd really like to speed up the process of networking with them if possible. Thank you. (I'm in the Inland Empire in Southern California).

Ask around, google "inland empire recruiter", look on social media for recruiters (I know a few active on Twitter/X).

But asking around is best; shoot a few messages to ex-colleagues on linkedin.

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

#423

Post by codeisawesome »

icemelt8 wrote: post #343
herbst wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I have to concur with this opinion with a comment because upvotes are not visible on HN: yes it’s absolutely alright to keep in touch with people (even at the cost of it looking like pretence at times) and then ask for help ‘out of the blue’. I have absolutely helped out when I’ve gotten such reach-outs and will do so again. We live in a society…

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

#424

Post by idrios »

Varriount wrote: post #394
idrios wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in regards to competing against hundreds of applicants, I think that's driven by how easy it is to submit a job application now, and by the fact that so many roles are remote. I'm job searching as well at the moment, and a friend I talked to said he had genuinely applied to at least 1000 jobs, in basically any city in the country, before landing the role he has now. Said he submitted 20 applications/day, 5 d…

I'm curious though - how many of those applications were for recently posted positions? I ask because I assume that the older a job posting, the more likely its position has been filled but the posting hasn't been taken down. If you apply to 1000 positions, but 700 are from those "zombie" job postings, then you've really only applied to 300 positions.

I'm not sure but I'm guessing they were to mostly recent postings. He did say he would apply to companies multiple times because they often re-post job listings.

His approach was extremely different from how I would approach job applications though. The job he ended up getting was as a Ruby on Rails developer, as the 3rd person in a 3-person startup. And I don't think he knew Ruby when he applied, just html/css/js. And the job had him relocate to Ohio.

I think he's an extreme case, but I see "I applied to X-hundred jobs" posts so often that I do think it explains the massive applicant pools for most job listings.

I've never gotten a response from a job application where I put in very little effort though, so I can't vouch to whether it's a good strategy or not.

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

#426

Post by lizardking »

SCUSKU wrote: post #101

I was laid off in August 2022, and it took me 6 months to find a new job. I was able to land a decent number of interviews but I interviewed poorly and didn't get any offers. Doing interview prep actually helped a lot -- 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. I found my current job through the January HN Who…

I second this, I was hired through a who’s hiring post late last year myself. A director of engineering who is an active HN user was a green flag for me that the company was the right fit for me, and it turned out to be the case.

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

#427

Post by ragnot »

pSYoniK wrote: post #240
wholinator2 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious what the experience/incentive has been to change jobs so quickly. Was it a cluster of redundancies that is inflating the number or do you plan to stay at a job for no more than 1 year + a little? Do your interviewers find this suspicious or negative? I've always been told that if you switch jobs too fast then no one will hire you cause they know you'll leave as soon as you get up to speed.

I wanted to get into a more technical role and a lot of these roles were in customer service, sales, support, fraud prevention, etc until my most recent 2 jobs, which have been in software development. The other aspect is that I will view a company the same way they view me - a resource and a means to an end. I've been asked in several of those interviews "You don't seem to hang around a lot, how do we know you won't…

It's a great attitude to have. Just be aware that if you ever want to become a manager or higher it will work against you. If you just stick to technical positions you'll be fine (until ageism rears its ugly head).

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

#428

Post by hutzlibu »

ThunderSizzle wrote: post #404
azangru wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely there's a step between a junior and a senior?

We typically use programmer, developer, or software engineer as synonyms as a whole, but I tend to view those titles as more junior/intermediate/senior. A programmer can program code good enough, but that doesn't mean they are good at solving the goals business requires and communicating it. A developer can program and develop a small enhancement with good communication. Sometimes can also break things down so other…

"An architect is someone who comes up with a plan to build something without any real care about budget, labor costs, or labor skills - both in software and in buildings."

Disagree for both cases. The building architects I know surely have to work with a given budget and in software architecture likewise.

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

#429

Post by softwaredoug »

I’ll be honest. Some people are bad at interviewing and selling themselves.

Some of the best people I’ve worked with are getting passed over because they’re quiet and undersell themselves. Some of the more incompetent people can bullshit their way through the process and really oversell themselves. They think they’re gods gift to the field, and believing that, they can sell it.

It’s 100% Dunning Kruger.

I don’t know how to advise someone in this position. You just have to be willing to psych yourself up and believe a story about how great you are. Paradoxically it’s probably a TRUE story, but the great people won’t want to believe it about themselves. You CAN however put energy and practice into putting on a kind of performance of your (actual) competence.

The best people can probably say things like “oh I’ve never done X before”. They think of all the ways that can go wrong doing X. Because they visualize all the things that would go wrong they actually perform better at that task (research shows negative outcome visualization is actually better than positive visualization at achieving a goal[1]). Yet it sets you up to undersell yourself.

You have to suspend disbelief and remind yourself you can do hard things. And say “oh wow X sounds cool! I’ve done Y related thing, not X directly and I really would love to take a crack at X. I think I’d really love digging into it!”

1 - https://mindowl.org/premeditatio-malorum-negative-visualizat...

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

#430

Post by abathur »

nelsonic wrote: post #250
herodotusxviii wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't mind, could you tell me how I should go about finding a recruiter directly on LinkedIn? I've been out of the market for three years now (had to take care of sick family) and it's extra brutal; I've been contacted by a few recruiters but I'd really like to speed up the process of networking with them if possible. Thank you. (I'm in the Inland Empire in Southern California).

Connect with me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nelsonic I will help you fast-track this.

I have a parallel-universe version of the question--from a universe where I've ~idealistically refused to create a LinkedIn account.

How would you go about finding a recruiter sans LinkedIn? :)

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