Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting? • Hacker News Board

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

#881

Post by taylodl » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

underlipton wrote: post #826

taylodl wrote: post #748

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. I'm also trying to provide some perspective to younger job hunters that while now it is more difficult to get a job than anytime since the Obama era, it was much, much harder during the George Bush Jr. era which wasn't all that long ago and I suspect there are a lot of folks here on HN who were working back then. Personally, I can go further. Things weren't too great during George Bush Sr. era where we had a re…

I don't know about that. During all previous major downturns, the base-level credential was a high school diploma or lower (yes, even during the GFC). That's no longer the case. Whatever our older siblings, parents, grandparents, etc. had to do, tack on another 4 years just to get your foot in the door. A lot of the people being hit today got their first wallops during 2008 (and were affected by their older relatives…

I was talking IT. Millions of IT folks, most having a 4 year degree, and even quite a few having advanced degrees, were tossed out onto the street en masse.IT has been requiring a 4 year degree (or equivalent experience) plus two years worth of work experience since the 1980's when I started my career.

In 1987 I bought a condo for $55K at 7.5% interest and thought I got a steal because I was buying for cheaper than rent. I just looked up on Zillow and that property today is $163,200. That represents an average annual percentage increase of 5.46%. According to Google, IT salaries have increased an average of 3.8% per year every year since 1987. That indicates properties values are increasing at a rate of 1.6% per year faster than IT salaries are growing. But that needs to be tempered against interest rates being so much lower now than they were during the 80's and 90's.

The biggest difference between today and back then is the cost of higher education. College tuition has increased at an annualized percentage rate of 5.5% per year since 1987. That doesn't sound too bad until you realize the minimum wage has only increased by 2.3% per year over the same period - which now means students are no longer able to work a part-time job and go to school, which was very common when I went to college. Now they get loans. Then when they graduate, even though the housing market values hasn't increased too bad compared to IT wages, it's a lot when you also have a lot of student debt that we never had.

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

#882

Post by m463 » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:13 PM UTC

isbvhodnvemrwvn wrote: post #688

m463 wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> now having been on the other side it is very apparent when someone hasn't prepared and practiced interviewing I noticed this when interviewing candidates and although it's nice to have someone with their interview skills together, you run the risk of hiring "the master of interviews".

Well, there's degrees. Last week I did 5 interviews where the candidate gets a full PDF explaining what we are going to do during the interview (along with a sample problem to practice on), and half didn't have an IDE or testing libraries set up for a TDD coding interview...

lol, what a guantlet. (sorry, I haven't interview since covid)

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

#883

Post by raydev » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:16 PM UTC

It's bad! I got laid off late last 2022 when I had just joined in 2021

When I got 2021 New Job, I continued to interact with recruiters and even did a few more interviews into December! My inbox was full of recruiters, as it had been for the 4-5 years prior.

The recruiter spam started drying up for me around June/July 2022, what used to flow became a trickle. By November 2022, my inbox was a bunch of tumbleweeds and I had just been laid off.

I followed 6 referrals from ex-colleagues and only 2 got me to an actual phone screen.

I got my current job a few months ago, but that was after weeks of pinging recruiters directly on LinkedIn and stumbling on a exactly-perfect fit of a job description to my resume which I boasted about.

My inbox is still mostly dry.

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

#884

Post by scarface_74 » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:22 PM UTC

eikenberry wrote: post #880

scarface_74 wrote: post #822

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think my suggestion is, do what you can to stand out Really, once you are unemployed and looking for a job, it’s too late to do anything to stand out. The time to do something to standout is while you are working. How will emailing someone directly help if he doesn’t have a unique set of skills that helps him stand out? If he is just another generic developer (no offense intended I don’t know anything about him a…

While I agree it is better to look for work while working, I don't see how that impacts how you stand out in a hiring process. How can you leverage an existing job to stand out to a new potential employer (while looking, ie. short time scales)?

I meant while you are working taking on tasks and responsibilities that will help you stand out in the market when it is time to look for another job.

In other words, always keep an eye on the market and be prepared. That also means keeping a strong network, always answering emails and LinkedIn messages from recruiters and judging which ones are reputable and which ones aren’t and honestly, doing resume driven development.

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

#885

Post by JohnBooty » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:23 PM UTC

neon_electro wrote: post #834

JohnBooty wrote: post #789

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been diagnosed myself, but ADHD varies greatly from person to person. So I definitely don't assume my experience is the same as yours. However... I've been at it on and off for 17 months and have had the worst experience with technical assessments, despite being a 10 year career veteran with plenty of Web development experience. In addition to my other reply: is ADHD truly the issue for you w.r.t. technical asse…

Thanks for your multiple comments and thoughts. My biggest frustration is the mismatch between what a technical interview ostensibly is supposed to elicit for the interviewer, and how that interview experience is supposed to help the candidate prove they can do the job by successfully completing the technical assessment. Solving a two-dimensional array data analysis problem is not an effective way to determine how go…

100% agree on every point.

Ability to crush Leetcode problems has little correlation with ability to make web apps and CRUD apps. I've been working in this industry for 25 years and it is extremely rare to have to bust out some compsci/Leetcode algorithm stuff in real life.

I'm okay with maybe a very quick coding screener like Fizzbuzz. The reality is a lot of people applying for these jobs can't code, at all, period.

https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/

Anything more than that is silly IMO.

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

#886

Post by midwestcode » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:30 PM UTC

yogurthewise wrote: post #857

hapless wrote: post #662

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone uses the FAANG loop + system design + leetcode design now I don't know when that change happened but it is practically universal

I've had about 6 different interviews these last couple of months, and none of them gave me leetcode type questions. The closest I got was code snippets where I had to explain what was going on, or very easy fizzbuzz type coding questions.

What companies? Every company I've interviewed with in my loops recently have me coding in the first technical screen. I've had five of these interviews so far, various sizes. On-site is multiple levels of tech screens. And this isn't even for FAANG-exclusive companies. FWIW, I'm interviewing in a HCOL area for companies that pay well, so it may be more competitive.

People often speak of the mystical company that doesn't make you code in the interview, but I haven't come across it once in the current market.

I also don't know how comfortable I'd be joining a team that doesn't make me write code in some capacity during the loop... but I also recognize the ridiculousness of expecting correctness, optimal solutions, or the types of questions being asked. Discussing those things, sure, but expecting regurgitation is nonsense.

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

#887

Post by readthenotes1 » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:34 PM UTC

pavlov wrote: post #100

readthenotes1 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recall reading many years ago about a woman who had to change her name to be male to get calls. That is in contrast with a few years ago where a man changed his resume to be of a black lesbian and started getting calls.

What kind of résumé highlights that the applicant is a black lesbian? This sounds more like a porn movie script. “Hardcore All-Girl Positive Discrimination XVII”

It was, I believe in the professional organizations and also in a cover letter.

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

#888

Post by pcthrowaway » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:41 PM UTC

artificialLimbs wrote: post #838

baobabKoodaa wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When did we arrive at a point where terms like "junior" became derogatory terms similar to "idiot" or "asshole"? No, you don't have a "14 year junior engineer". You have a senior engineer who is difficult to work with and is (according to you) bad at their job.

Her official title is literally Junior Engineer with the company. Did I say that it was a derogatory term or use the title idiot or asshole or say they were bad at their job? Bro you should get that chip on your shoulder examined.

Has she been with your company for 14 years? Because if so, this really calls some of your companies practices somewhere into question.

That being said, if she got hired as a junior in the last 5 years (despite tangentially having some programming experience) and never got promoted, I guess I can understand that, but really, why even keep someone on who refuses to learn new things, is difficult to work with, and consistently writes poor code

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

#889

Post by midwestcode » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:42 PM UTC

macintosh-hd wrote: post #853

whstl wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add them as a friend on LinkedIn and start a conversation. This is how they do it, they don't mind if candidates do it back.

I’ve done this about 50 times at this point with various strategies and have gotten ghosted on about 40, been told they aren’t hiring on 5, and told they had been fired on the other 5. I’m not sure this one works very well, at least at lower YoE.

This sort of mirrors what my experience has been during my search. In the past, reaching out via LinkedIn or otherwise would merit a response (at least); however, in the current market, I never get a reply and in some cases I see the application is rejected. I feel like sending messages is hurting more than helping.

Likewise with follow-ups. Anytime I follow-up on an interview, I never hear back or it is rejected, so I've stopped following up after interviews completely.

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

#890

Post by NCharby » Fri, Jul 28, 2023, 7:48 PM UTC

Perspective from a PM who runs a job board - Yes it's hard right now, but the reason why changes depending on where you look.

We saw mass layoffs (https://layoffs.fyi/) at the beginning of the year from what we used to call FAANG companies. Economic fear is a major motivator, but there's also been a shift in investor's mindsets. Growth at all costs isn't sexy anymore - we want to see realized profits. In response, these big names tightened up their expenses. And where you used to be a hot shot for having 2 years at Google or Amazon, you're now just another in the flood of extremely highly paid workers looking for a similar salary.

At the same time, the VC market sobered up. 10 years ago you could get a couple million on a powerpoint deck for wifi enabled dog food. It was the end of the great recession, let's get rich baby! Today the startup scene is much tighter and SMB's in any industry are nervous.

Then there's inflated title demand and emerging tech. Scroll any job board; 2/3rds of those roles will be at a senior level or be in something new like AI that few have real experience with. Do companies actually need Seniors? Usually no, but they believe 1 Senior can do the work of multiple Mid-levels and the cost per head drops. Do companies actually need an AI team? Usually no, but they believe they can replace departments with it.

So who's winning right now? It's not 'Tech Workers at Tech Companies'. It's not smaller SaaS businesses who can't afford all the talent sloshing around. Consultants might see some gains as a 1099 isn't the commitment a W2 is. But the real winners are the "Non-tech Tech" companies. Insurance companies, construction, brick and mortar retail, the IT department at your local hospital; they don't sell software, but they need tools to stay competitive. Those hiring teams have the pick of the litter right now.

Last thought: Firing all the recruiters during covid was a stupid move. You're not getting a callback because they canned the person who did the callbacks.