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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?

#701

Post by throwaway2037 »

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…

Hello no, don't tell them anything of that sort. This isn't university; this is real life full of unfairness and hidden discrimination. I wrote more about it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36901303&p=2#36903751

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

#702

Post by polishdude20 »

jorts wrote: post #656
MentallyRetired wrote: post #652

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this tech downturn is all a collusion amongst tech leaders to bring down software developer salaries. How are so many places hiring yet so many are laying off thousands, and most of them in tech/development? Even the places laying people off are still hiring those positions.

More like everyone realized that they can trim down to improve margins without taking a lot of flack.

Yep, fire the devs after they've built the software. Fire them because the software is already built. Slowly your software grinds to a halt and dies because you release features too slow or your software starts to become very bad.

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

#703

Post by whstl »

mooreds wrote: post #421
whstl wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would still probably refuse at this point, on grounds of having done this in the past and being "ghosted", even though there was prior conversations.

If a company is interested in me, they won't make me jump through hoops. On the other hand, I'm quite experienced and popular in the job market, so things might be different for other folks.

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

#704

Post by noodle »

MentallyRetired wrote: post #652
noodle wrote: post #602

As someone on the other side, with open positions we're hiring for: There are probably fewer job openings than there were, but I don't think my company or anyone in my network have changed HOW they're hiring, but we have definitely noticed a huge uptick in volume of applications. Earlier in the year, we were getting almost nothing. Now we're getting hundreds of resumes a week for each open position, and the bulk of e…

I think this tech downturn is all a collusion amongst tech leaders to bring down software developer salaries. How are so many places hiring yet so many are laying off thousands, and most of them in tech/development? Even the places laying people off are still hiring those positions.

Well, to give you my POV - my company is still hiring because the business fundamentals are still strong. We're making money and using that money to pay people. But I have friends in network who had to lay off because they were hiring against VC cash instead of revenue, with the expectation of raising another round later. But they now don't expect to be able to raise that next round so easily so they have to slow their burn rates.

Money WAS cheap and easy for a while, and with everyone trying to use that money to grow, you could throw cash around easy to hire/poach/etc. and had to compete heavily for talent. Now you can't, money is much more expensive and tougher to get and you have to be more deliberate.

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

#705

Post by fnimick »

criley2 wrote: post #647
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…

>In hindsight nobody asked anything _super_ hard, but you cannot make a single mistake, or a suboptimal solution, or give the wrong response to a question right now. >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. Again, you cannot afford a single mistake in process right now or they will pass…

I got explicitly failed from a first round interview because I took too long to solve a graph traversal problem. I reasoned my way through and got to the optimal solution, the interviewer confirmed that it was the optimal solution, then said I "should have recognized a variant of Dijkstra's algorithm" and that I had failed for not knowing it in advance.

Personally, I think developing it from scratch shows more promise than memory, but a lot of employers are looking for the inverse right now, IME.

edit: and this was not a FAANG, this was a startup with a single digit number of employees!

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

#706

Post by shiftpgdn »

MentallyRetired wrote: post #652
noodle wrote: post #602

As someone on the other side, with open positions we're hiring for: There are probably fewer job openings than there were, but I don't think my company or anyone in my network have changed HOW they're hiring, but we have definitely noticed a huge uptick in volume of applications. Earlier in the year, we were getting almost nothing. Now we're getting hundreds of resumes a week for each open position, and the bulk of e…

I think this tech downturn is all a collusion amongst tech leaders to bring down software developer salaries. How are so many places hiring yet so many are laying off thousands, and most of them in tech/development? Even the places laying people off are still hiring those positions.

Tech leaders colluding with the government by abusing the H1B program and ultra-lax enforcement of anti-trust laws to absolutely crater tech salaries has been the name of the game for 15+ years.

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

#707

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #697
WinLychee wrote: post #670

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the first round is usually a timed coding interview where the goal is to get an optimal solution as fast as possible. You should not be talking much with the interviewer. The intro (if there is one) is a quick exchange of names and last job worked at, then immediately diving into coding problem. You cannot start with a naive solution, interviewer will ask you to skip and go straight to optimal (this happened to m…

Jesus Christ: Where are you interviewing? This sounds more like Stephen King's The Long Walk, than a job interview! Do they hold a gun to your head while you regurtitate the optimal solution?

[deleted]

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

#708

Post by moneywoes »

throwaway14142 wrote: post #143

I tried advertising as a consultancy, after an exceptional career in tech. * Client emails me asking if I can help with his site. I respond. He asks for more details. I respond. He provides a website with an MLM video on how to "be your own boss and sell a product that sells itself". I was talking to a bot. * Try upwork. Spend all day to send 15 proposals, get 3 views, no replies. Upwork wants me to pay money monthly…

What channels did you use to advertise? Can upwork be a good starting spot?

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

#709

Post by fnimick »

phpnode wrote: post #674
sethaurus wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been very disclosive about my diagnosis, and many people I work with have in turn revealed their own diagnoses to me. I'd like to hear more about your experience with this ⸻ how is this info getting used against people?

All weaknesses or differences can be used against you. When you’re interviewing for a job you are presenting an idealised version of yourself that makes the decision to hire you easy from the interviewer’s perspective. That’s not the time to bring up flaws. In general though this idea that people should talk openly about their mental health problems is good for society and terrible for the individuals concerned. Peop…

Exactly. This is why the "tell me your weakness" question is a trap. It's deliberately selecting for people able to read the subtext and the situation and respond accordingly.

The interview, and to a lesser extent the workplace, is a hostile environment where you are in direct competition with peers and management who try to get the most out of you for the least compensation. Anything you say or do will be used against you the second it is useful to undercut you in favor of someone else's payday.

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

#710

Post by whaleofatw2022 »

noodle wrote: post #602

As someone on the other side, with open positions we're hiring for: There are probably fewer job openings than there were, but I don't think my company or anyone in my network have changed HOW they're hiring, but we have definitely noticed a huge uptick in volume of applications. Earlier in the year, we were getting almost nothing. Now we're getting hundreds of resumes a week for each open position, and the bulk of e…

> and the bulk of each one of those resumes do not come close to even being in conversation range of the posted JD.

Been seeing a lot of this too. Backend specific job, .NET, and we get a bunch of folks who are front-end devs with maybe python or node.

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