Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

911–920 of 1001 posts

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

#911

Post by jeffreyq »

benreesman wrote: post #563
School-Cotton wrote: post #548

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wouldn't be unusual to be an E5 at Facebook (err, sorry, "Meta") after 5 years, which is considered "senior" level. The point I'm making is that this title inflation has happened more broadly than just at VC-funded startups.

I was hired at L5 at Meta in 2011, they’ve done a pretty good job at keeping the bar high but it’s mathematically impossible for it to stay at 2011 levels on multi order of magnitude growth. Back when I was even bothering in Jan/Feb it was me and 20 other L8s interviewing for the same L6 opening. It’s a coin toss at that point. Price discovery is not functioning at the moment, there are plenty of theories why. But hi…

Can you further elaborate on "price discovery" and how monetary policy interfaces with the bond market? Also, curious to better understand how you interpret monetary policy and bond markets ultimately impacting high-end tech hiring in a more concrete example.

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

#912

Post by cloverich »

evantbyrne wrote: post #657
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. Again, you cannot afford a single mistake in process right now or they will pass on you. I'm not discounting that it is hard to find tech jobs right now, but have you considered that this attitude of "grinding leetcode" is possibly contributing t…

> would imagine the most important qualities to have in an interview are going to be charisma and an ability to reason through technical problems.

No, they want the code to match their expectations. I interviewed last year, and breezed through the early and behavioral stuff, occasionally being up leveled or oddly positive feedback in the process. They'd often quickly move from interviewing to selling me, talking openly about (relatively good) salary, etc. Then I'd do the leet code* part and lol, bye bye. And after about 10+ rejections, as I got better (and similar) coding questions, suddenly that all changed. Rejections became offers, "not good enough" became "one of the best ever" -- same person, same(ish) questions. They all just care a LOT about the quality and speed of the coding part (along with the level of style and communication they expect). Its not unreasonable, I guess. Its odd, its frustrating. Maybe its accurate. But its best to accept what it is, get REALLY good at the coding part, and you'll get a lot more wiggle room if you're bad at the other parts. And if like me, you are great at the other parts, expect to do a lot of interviews to get the offers, and / or a lot of practice (but I strongly recommend interviewing first, as demoralizing as it is, because the companies you like tend to all ask same style of questions, I practiced tons of stuff I didnt end up using).

*They were rarely leet code, usually more realistic coding questions. But same vibe.

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

#913

Post by [deleted] »

ohgodplsno wrote: post #471
abathur wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a parallel-universe version of the question--from a universe where I've ~idealistically refused to create a LinkedIn account. How would you go about finding a recruiter sans LinkedIn? :)

You could go out, network, go to hiring fairs and various places. At which point you're pretty much always going to be asked for a LinkedIn, and pretty much noone will want to put work in for someone not doing something has simple as creating an account. So, unfortunately, as the other comment said, swallow your pride. These networks have made it so that the cost of idealism is being cut off socially, whether that's…

[deleted]

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

#914

Post by hellojesus »

scarface_74 wrote: post #884
eikenberry wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 develo…

How do you respond to LinkedIn recruiters when you're not in the market for a job?

Previously I had a colleague recommend taking interviews from recruiters to keep your interview skills high and market knowledge current. I gave it a shot but kept getting offers so stopped.

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

#915

Post by shakow »

Tao3300 wrote: post #118
stonks wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why working in crypto exchanges would show poor judgment? There are still technical problems to solve. I knew a principal engineer who heavily disliked blockchain because it uses a lot of energy for proof of work, but with proof of stake this should be better now.

> still technical problems Namely: - what schemes are still left for us to pull a lot of money into before they get recognized as scams - how do we get out in time to leave someone else holding the bag

I mean... morally speaking, how is it worse than working for Meta or Google?

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

#916

Post by scarface_74 »

dorfsmay wrote: post #516
rsynnott wrote: post #282

It's not a good job market, but it doesn't seem normal to spend six months applying and only get _one_ interview. It might be worth asking friends or former colleagues, ideally people who actually are involved in recruiting (hiring managers etc) to take a look at your resume and LinkedIn profile and see if there's anything glaringly wrong with them. Is your resume in a weird format, or is it structurally weird/overde…

Have you looked for a job recently? I don't know about you personally, but people in my social circles and employed think the job market is the same as it was from 2015 to 2020. They have no data point and assume their 2+ year old experience of looking for work is relevant today. The market is bad. I was getting calls from recruiters in 2020. I looked and found work (contracts) twice in 2022, the first time was not e…

What stands out to me is short work stints. You don’t tell a good story and why do you have your work experience dating back to the 80s?

I personally have been working professionally since the mid 90s. But I realize that no one cares about the fact that I did C on DEC VAX and Stratus VOS mainframes in the 90s, VB6 in the early 2000s along with C, C++/MFC/DCOM or C# for ruggedized Windows mobile devices in the late 200x. I’ve cut out everything on my resume before 2012.

Your resume is full of responsibilities. But not accomplishments. If I were to ask you why should I hire you over the dozens of other generic developers who run across my desk, what about your career sets you apart? I’m being completely hypothetical. I’m not in a hiring position and I’ve only been in one for a brief stint in my career. But put yourself in hiring manager’s shoes. Why would you hire you?

I’m not sitting on high judging you by any means. I’ve had a fairly unremarkable career myself until 2018 and nothing that really stood out.

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

#917

Post by scarface_74 »

hellojesus wrote: post #914
scarface_74 wrote: post #884

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 develo…

How do you respond to LinkedIn recruiters when you're not in the market for a job? Previously I had a colleague recommend taking interviews from recruiters to keep your interview skills high and market knowledge current. I gave it a shot but kept getting offers so stopped.

“I’m not really looking right now. But things can always change. Let’s talk. I’m always passively looking and the right opportunity may persuade me.”

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

#918

Post by PNewling »

ryandrake wrote: post #812
neon_electro wrote: post #729

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you make it clear that you will only accept candidates with strictly .NET experience? I've had plenty of reasonably positive experiences applying to places where I have the overall skill set (front-end or back-end) but do not have the exact tech stack the company uses as my strongest set of hard skills.

Both companies and applicants dance way out-of-step with each other on this. Companies list 10 things as "requirements" but are willing to hire candidates without all of them. To me, requirement means must-have, but what do I know? Candidates know that companies are not serious about the requirements, so they ignore them and apply. But, some of the requirements are "must have" from the point of view of the company, b…

>Both companies and applicants dance way out-of-step with each other on this.

100% agree with this. The previous commenter's company probably does want exactly those things, but as you said, some other companies have HR write the job postings and it is just a game of telephone with what the hiring team actually needs.

So they only way to find out is to apply, especially if you are currently unemployed you don't want to risk something just because you don't 100% line up to the position.

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

#919

Post by sigotirandolas »

dorfsmay wrote: post #903
sigotirandolas wrote: post #843

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am likely not revealing anything new to you (nor I know much about hiring), but: Taking a look at your CV, I notice that you have a lot of very short work stints, averaging at about a position per year. This is probably just the nature of contracting, but I can see this putting off most companies that are looking for someone to dive deeply in the business domain and work on supporting a project long-term. I also fe…

Thank you for taking the time to look at it and commenting. It is indeed the nature of contracting and project work. Note that there are 3 times where I have done contracts back to back for 4 or 5 years for the same company, which should show that I don't just jump ship all the time and am able to commit for a long time. It made more sense to highlight each project individually in an economy with a lot of need for co…

Appreciated, I wish I could help more. There's for sure a way to highlight that you can work on long stints, as well as quickly jump into diverse projects across the full stack.

Unfortunately I can't help much on it, as on my short career I always chained jobs on the good times and never had to work much on my CV or marketing myself.

Best of luck.

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

#920

Post by Cheezmeister »

scarface_74 wrote: post #522
abathur wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a parallel-universe version of the question--from a universe where I've ~idealistically refused to create a LinkedIn account. How would you go about finding a recruiter sans LinkedIn? :)

Last time I checked, I can’t exchange pride or whatever is keeping you from creating a LinkedIn profile for goods and services.

Um, personal data, and yes you absolutely can sell it, just not (paradoxically) if it belongs to you.

_Using_ LI, costs attention too, increasingly so, as with all social networks, but you also receive some in exchange, so if you don't value your own attention all that much higher than every other human's on the planet ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

...yeah, it's pride.

Post reply on HN