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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?

#861

Post by yogurthewise »

SCUSKU wrote: post #170
mrcnkoba wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you describe the process of learning the skill of being interviewed?

For me, I was actually just really bad at selling myself (job interviews are not where you should have false humility I learned). I was very fortunate in that my girlfriend helped me a lot here. But quite frankly what she did was very straightforward. She would do a 30 minute mock interview with me, and ask me pretty standard behavioral questions. Questions like: - Can you tell us about a time when you had to work on…

"job interviews are not where you should have false humility I learned" This is so true, definitely screwed over some of my earlier interviews due to doing this

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

#862

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

ramraj07 wrote: post #215
misja111 wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I beg to differ by a mile and more. If all you have to choose from are mediocre candidates then choosing the ones who hustle by preparing for inane interviews is maybe a barely acceptable option. But you instantly discount any great candidate who doesn’t interview well. A great candidate who also interviews well will have the pick of the lot and unless your org is OpenAI I doubt they’ll come to you. So it’s probably…

Most great candidates don't live in SF, so OpenAI isn't an option for them.

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

#863

Post by ulfw »

moneywoes wrote: post #731
ulfw wrote: post #32

The market is bad. I've been unemployed for 9 months, almost no interview invites and the ones I did have led to nothing (also to no alternative hire of someone else for the allegedly position). And I've got almost 20 years of Product Leadership experience, Stanford, Google, myspace, Booking and Trip.com Groups, that stuff. The market (in my case APAC: HK/SG/AU) is shit and frankly not really worth engaging in right…

Have you considered your own venture with that experience? Would love to connect

I am still considering, but assembling the right team and the right locale (to get talent and funding) is a bit difficult as I am based out of Hong Kong and Australia right now. But I am open to ideas.

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

#865

Post by pacomerh »

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 can relate to this situation. I've been interviewing since June, and the only times I've advanced to the next round were those where I made no mistakes at all. In the past, you could complete 90% of the task and explain the rest, which would hint to them that you know what you're doing. However, today's scenario is quite different. Now, you are expected not only to provide a complete solution but also to present it in the most currently accepted way.

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

#866

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

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

#867

Post by adriand »

troebr wrote: post #741
adriand wrote: post #686

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems. As someone who has interviewed many software developers, I can assure you that charisma is not something that experienced hiring managers in tech are expecting in the candidate pool. For sales positions, sure. For coding, though, competence is often inversely correlated…

> competence is often inversely correlated with charisma Source needed. I've been working in tech for 15+ years, alongside highly charismatic and competent people, terrible engineers with less charisma than my coffee pot, and everything in between. You do not need to be charismatic to be a good engineer, but also it certainly doesn't hurt, and friendly teammates make for a better team atmosphere. If I'm considering t…

Of course you want to work with people who are "pleasant" and "friendly" but these are not synonyms for "charismatic", defined as having "special magnetic charm or appeal". [1]

Would you disagree that software development, as a profession, tends to have fewer charismatic people in it than other fields in which charisma is more valuable and/or essential? For instance, if I were to suggest that the average successful politician is more charismatic than the average successful software engineer, would you disagree with that statement?

If we think about it in purely economic terms, I'd suggest that people who are very good at getting other people to do things (i.e. they have charisma) have a powerful incentive to enter careers where they can leverage that special ability.

1: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/charisma

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

#868

Post by throwaway5371 »

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.

not really

it turns out you need half the people to do the same job

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

#869

Post by vasili111 »

JofArnold wrote: post #779

The volume of applications we are getting for our open roles is huge and the proportion of them applying because they were laid off is higher than I've ever seen. Given that, as you will expect, hiring teams we need to process a lot of applications and make snap decisions. You need to ensure you rise to the top by - Keeping your CV brief and relevant - Making it clear what things you specifically did in previous role…

>At least outside AI

Does the finding job in AI easier? Any examples?

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

#870

Post by vasili111 »

aftoprokrustes wrote: post #139

Something that worked for me is that I have a profile where I am a domain expert who is reasonnably good at data science and software development. I am no rock star in any of the three fields, but this particular combination is pretty rare. I got my last 2 jobs this way: most applications just got lost, or ended in a meh screening interview, but there was this one job posting in the year that required this mix of ski…

>reasonnably good at data science and software development.

Could you please specify how good? What exactly are your strengths in those fields? Do you have PhD?

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