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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?

#571

Post by mooooooooooooo »

skrebbel wrote: post #205
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.

Fwiw: I’m an employer, and sometimes people ignore the “how to apply” instructions on our site (which say to email to jobs@) and reach out straight via eg LinkedIn and I always file those in my “can’t follow a simple instruction” pile. Not to say that what you say will never work, but I think it’s worth pointing out that at some companies, application processes might exist for a reason. For me, having all application…

As someone on the other side of this - applications sink to the bottom and often never receive a response when sent to places like jobs@, so LinkedIn is a way to at least get the attention of a real person.

I’d suggest calling out on your job posting that LinkedIn messages may be missed and the email is the correct place to reach out.

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

#572

Post by jonfw »

pc86 wrote: post #536
ZephyrBlu wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You think it takes 5+ years to acquire those skills?! Man, I would be driven insane in an environment like that. Such a long time and a relatively low bar.

I have worked with people who have 8-10 years of experience and are still mid-level in both skill and professionalism, know that they are, and are fine with it. They get their joy from other things in life and are totally fine coming into the office and doing the bare minimum to get by and going years without raises or bonuses because of it. Again, this is a conscious choice these people are making, they're not being…

I work with a guy now who's a mid-senior level (senior is SDE4, he's a 3) nearing retirement. Happiest guy I know tbh

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

#573

Post by dkarl »

pc86 wrote: post #523
ryanbrunner wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years for junior for better or worse is well out of step with the industry - while you're right that you can get some massively inflated titles that are out of step with the norm, the norm is that you're an intermediate developer at a minimum and most likely a senior after 5 years. It's dumb, but it is the standard nowadays.

Intermediate/mid for sure, but if I get a resume from someone whose first programming job was 2018 and they're calling themselves senior, I'm throwing that in the trash unless like you said they're from VC-funded startups that are going to have massive title inflation and they're applying for a realistic (mid-level) role.

That doesn't seem fair, and it doesn't seem like an effective filter, either. Titles vary wildly for a lot of different reasons, and you can't expect candidates to present themselves to you in your terms. You can't expect them to take your job descriptions at face value, either. If mismatched title expectations bother you, blame the industry, blame other companies, blame hiring managers, but don't blame an engineer who has only been working for five years. It's on you to explain how titles and compensation work at your company and work out what their position would be.

I wouldn't pigeonhole someone into a level based on their years of experience or previous job titles, either. Interviews can reveal some surprising things. I've worked with people with less than five years of experience who were senior-quality developers at all aspects of the job, and I've worked with people with ten years of experience who just wanted to sit in their cube and write code without making any decisions or talking to anyone except their boss. And these people aren't going to straightforwardly tell you what their position should be. The one who wants to sit in his cube with no responsibilities might tell you he's senior (and his resume might back that up) and the one who is ready for a senior position might tell you they're mid-level, because at their last job they worked with extraordinary people.

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

#574

Post by tjrgergw »

thriller wrote: post #395

I was laid off in December, a week after a rallying speech from the CEO declaring all jobs were safe. I was surprised at how difficult it was to get an interview as I have a somewhat unique skillset. But understandable if 50-150 are applying. It took seven months before I found something, by which point I had to bullshit about the gap in employment (left to spin up my consultancy!). Agree with some of the comments he…

> I was laid off in December, a week after a rallying speech from the CEO declaring all jobs were safe.

Name and shame please.

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

#575

Post by habosa »

pc86 wrote: post #523
ryanbrunner wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

5 years for junior for better or worse is well out of step with the industry - while you're right that you can get some massively inflated titles that are out of step with the norm, the norm is that you're an intermediate developer at a minimum and most likely a senior after 5 years. It's dumb, but it is the standard nowadays.

Intermediate/mid for sure, but if I get a resume from someone whose first programming job was 2018 and they're calling themselves senior, I'm throwing that in the trash unless like you said they're from VC-funded startups that are going to have massive title inflation and they're applying for a realistic (mid-level) role.

There are tons of Senior engineers from Google and Facebook (and other large companies) with only 5ish yeahs of experience.

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

#576

Post by ilikehurdles »

collaborative wrote: post #521
willsmith72 wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can turn off any notification settings

It just bothers me that people get notified whenever I'd do anything on it. As for myself, I simply make notifications go to my spam folder I prefer to share my information when I want and with whom I want, but LinkedIn feels like a meat market. If FB was personal marketing 101 (only sharing what makes you attractive), linkedIn feels like an advanced course on being fake. It kind if disgusts me

Go in there and disable all that before changing anything. I’m bothered in a similar way about that stuff.

That being said, I don’t post or participate in the social media aspect. It’s a virtual resume and an index of recruiters and companies who are interested in you, and it’s good to know where your colleagues you want to work with again are at.

Don’t install the app for minimal invasiveness. And also consider that anyone who actively uses LinkedIn has probably disabled or filtered out all the notification noise themselves as well, so don’t get too caught up thinking about it.

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

#577

Post by edrxty »

neon_electro wrote: post #559
WinLychee wrote: post #553

I've gotten plenty, though I am a decent bit more senior than you. It's very hard to get an offer right now, but for sure you can get interviews. I think I've interviewed with ~10 companies for positions since June, and all passed on me, but it's mostly because I didn't take the time required to prepare. In hindsight nobody asked anything _super_ hard, but you cannot make a single mistake, or a suboptimal solution, o…

> I've started grinding leetcode, reviewing system design, and behavioral questions. You MUST memorize perfect responses to regurgitate as fast as possible on the interview. I have been diagnosed with ADHD (and started medication, to be clear) this year. How do I best tell prospective employers I might need some accommodation in this process? I've been at it on and off for 17 months and have had the worst experience…

Never reveal ADHD to employers or fellow employees. It will always be used against you.

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

#579

Post by almost_usual »

edrxty wrote: post #547
coffeebeqn wrote: post #520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very anecdotally it seems to have picked up in July/August. No major layoffs and at least I’m getting the usual recruiters spam again.

Same, I've had a bunch of flying car startups start bugging me with weird stuff plus a couple of the primes. It was all rather sudden too so I'm not sure what happened to flip that switch.

Flying car startups?

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

#580

Post by shmatt »

neon_electro wrote: post #559
WinLychee wrote: post #553

I've gotten plenty, though I am a decent bit more senior than you. It's very hard to get an offer right now, but for sure you can get interviews. I think I've interviewed with ~10 companies for positions since June, and all passed on me, but it's mostly because I didn't take the time required to prepare. In hindsight nobody asked anything _super_ hard, but you cannot make a single mistake, or a suboptimal solution, o…

> I've started grinding leetcode, reviewing system design, and behavioral questions. You MUST memorize perfect responses to regurgitate as fast as possible on the interview. I have been diagnosed with ADHD (and started medication, to be clear) this year. How do I best tell prospective employers I might need some accommodation in this process? I've been at it on and off for 17 months and have had the worst experience…

they will act confused, pause, say they will ask someone, and never get back to you

on the other hand its hard to blame one aspect for "being bad" at leetcode. Plenty of non-diagnosed people with tons of real world experience have a hard time finding the gotcha in a 38 minute interview. It doesn't represent the real world in any way IMO

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