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Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

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Re: Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

#71

Post by csomar »

You need to re-adjust your reality. I have 12 years of professional experience and to be honest I hated the last two years until now. The market got flooded by junior software developers who got paid a lot of money and delivered very little results. The reality is that work sucks. Sometimes, as a developer, you get to work on something you like, with people you like and in a place that you like (remote). But for the most part, that's not an option.

1. Re-Adjust your reality. If you have had a very high salary with 2-3 years of experience, that was an exceptional event. You'll need to re-figure out how much you are worth.

2. Accept to work on some company that doesn't necessarily check all your boxes.

I happen to be in this particular position: I am both hiring and also looking for a job. It's very difficult to get anyone senior right now. It's also very difficult, for me, to find a position that checks my boxes and still pays a reasonable salary vis-a-vis my skill set. Part of the problem, many companies have difficulty making a value assessment of my contribution's worth.

Re: Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

#72

Post by imperfect_light »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #61
pyrrhotech wrote: post #22

The tech bubble is bursting, did you miss the memo? Even after the recent dead cat bounce, FAANG stocks are down 30%+ with their revenue growth collapsing and they are laying off workers, and it's a whole lot worse for all the non-profitable zombie companies that have been surviving solely on ZIRP and Quantitative Easing absurdly loose financial conditions that have come to an abrupt halt. Naive investors in the tech…

Let's face facts most of the FAANG were/are overstaffed. If Twitter can reduce its staff by nearly 50% and still function then the other tech companies can reduce their staff too. They are just resizing. This is a good time, while there's a threat of a recession, to reduce the number while not scaring the stockholders too much. It's not a burst similar to 2000. It's a correction. Tech is too vital for the economy for…

>If Twitter can reduce its staff by nearly 50% and still function then the other tech companies can reduce their staff too.

I'm not sure why this is such a common take. Many functions in a typical business, overstaffed or lean, could be greatly pared back without an immediate impact. UX, UR, product, legal, HR, design, recruiting, infosec, analytics, marketing, sales, facilities, etc. The question is will it have a negative impact 6 or 12 or 24 months down the road.

I have no personal knowledge on whether Twitter was overstaffed but the "we got rid of X, Y, Z and the business hasn't collapsed yet so must not be needed!" is a bad take.

Re: Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

#73

Post by WheelsAtLarge »

imperfect_light wrote: post #72
WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's face facts most of the FAANG were/are overstaffed. If Twitter can reduce its staff by nearly 50% and still function then the other tech companies can reduce their staff too. They are just resizing. This is a good time, while there's a threat of a recession, to reduce the number while not scaring the stockholders too much. It's not a burst similar to 2000. It's a correction. Tech is too vital for the economy for…

>If Twitter can reduce its staff by nearly 50% and still function then the other tech companies can reduce their staff too. I'm not sure why this is such a common take. Many functions in a typical business, overstaffed or lean, could be greatly pared back without an immediate impact. UX, UR, product, legal, HR, design, recruiting, infosec, analytics, marketing, sales, facilities, etc. The question is will it have a n…

The thing is that if the position is vital then they rehire. But at least you know that that person is needed. One thing I've learned, for the most part, is that no one person is vital to a company's success or failure. I worked for a project manager that thought everything he did was very important. So he had files and files to document what was happening. He got fired and the "important documentation" ended up in the trash. A department in the same company was confident they were as lean as possible. They worked long hours and output as much work they thought was needed. The company decided to close the department and every one got fired. 2 years later the company was fine and they were not missed. Turns out they were doing work no one really needed.

People quit all the time and they get replaced. It's the same thing with layoffs. Another thing is that a lot of positions are filled by people that are over educated or experience for the job they hold. They do it simply because that person wants to work for a FAANG and are open to getting any position they can. My suspicion is that a lot of people are going to move jobs as jobs become available and some positions will be merged from say 2 to 1. I'm sure it's crazy now but they will be fine.

Re: Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

#74

Post by vasili111 »

WheelsAtLarge wrote: post #61
pyrrhotech wrote: post #22

The tech bubble is bursting, did you miss the memo? Even after the recent dead cat bounce, FAANG stocks are down 30%+ with their revenue growth collapsing and they are laying off workers, and it's a whole lot worse for all the non-profitable zombie companies that have been surviving solely on ZIRP and Quantitative Easing absurdly loose financial conditions that have come to an abrupt halt. Naive investors in the tech…

Let's face facts most of the FAANG were/are overstaffed. If Twitter can reduce its staff by nearly 50% and still function then the other tech companies can reduce their staff too. They are just resizing. This is a good time, while there's a threat of a recession, to reduce the number while not scaring the stockholders too much. It's not a burst similar to 2000. It's a correction. Tech is too vital for the economy for…

This maybe only my personal experience but for me Twitter on Andorid works much worse than before Twitter mass stuff reductions.

Re: Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

#75

Post by vasili111 »

nytesky wrote: post #54
DamonHD wrote: post #8

https://www.theregister.com/2023/01/31/netapp_layoffs_8_perc... 210,000+ people in IT now lost their job since start of 2022

Weren’t those mostly recruiters and product managers, not IT per we?

This is very interesting question that I cannot find answer on. It will be interesting to see which exactly kind of professionals lost there job.

Re: Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

#76

Post by jfalcon »

It has slowed down some on the return call - last month out of the few dozen, about half came back stating they were reconsidering the role with a few interviews and a few more than that stating it wasn't a match for them.

Which is funny as a few recruiters called in December asking what I was looking for - even weirder was the interview loop that failed to call back after we got the interview done and was in salary negotiation phase as they were wanting to chisel me down due to lack of one skill they used but I obviously had experiences all around it and parallel to it. I said fine and came down then no communication since.

I just think that everyone is all bunched up about inflation as costs have gone up across the board.. ask anyone who does the grocery shopping or eats out all the time.

It's a good time for fintech and healthcare who've had to play second tier with all the FAANG-like companies as now there is a flood of talent who have had a long need of people who have the skills and experience - and people still need to pay bills.

So hang in there, apply where you can, up your skills - remote work isn't going away immediately but workers should be aware if mgmt uses this as a way to force their will - I think most mid-managers however also see the benefit of remote and hybrid work even if the C-Suite would rather see people being micromanaged... :)

Re: Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

#77

Post by dougmwne »

pianoben wrote: post #18
dougmwne wrote: post #9

You can reach back out to the recruiters who previously messaged you ask ask what their openings look like now. Apply to jobs, let your contacts know you are looking. Even if the market is slow, there are always openings.

That's assuming the recruiters haven't also been laid off - most of my big-tech recruiter contacts lost their jobs well before their engineering coworkers did.

But here we are with another fantastic jobs report. Hiring did not stop. The jobs are out there!

Re: Ask HN: Recruiters have stopped contacting me? What could have happened?

#78

Post by kcplate »

Because there are now 100k+ people with a similar resume and 20k+ people with a better resume than yours looking for work.

Recruiters are no longer in hunting mode, they are gathering. You need to take an active role and not wait for a recruiter to reach out to you if you want a dev position in this economic climate. You need to do the work now.

> I was being very selective with who’d I’d talk to. If a recruiter wanted me to jump through hoops, or refused to give me any information about the role/company/etc. they were hiring for id just ignore them.

So you burnt some bridges and are wondering why you can’t cross a river?

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