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?

#931

Post by prepend » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 1:56 AM UTC

scarface_74 wrote: post #916

dorfsmay wrote: post #516

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 20…

> why do you have your work experience dating back to the 80s?

I kind of disagree. It’s not like people are printing out or even reading back that far. May as well include it, but certainly don’t expect people to read it.

I’m currently hiring and reading a lot of resumes. I rarely read past the first 2-3 pages, but sometime when I’m curious go back to learn more about career path. Has someone been programming for 30 years? Or started as a dba or a support tech?

I think it depends on the risk of including it. If you worked for an embarrassing employer or maybe don’t want people to guess your age, remove old stuff. But otherwise, I suggest just spending more effort on making the first page relevant.

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

#932

Post by WinLychee » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:00 AM UTC

cloverich wrote: post #912

evantbyrne wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 open…

Thank you for this anecdote. This is where I am currently at, but I don't feel discouraged at all, I feel up to the challenge! I am finding the process of learning fun and I am in fact improving a ton at the fundamentals. My speed is improving quickly and pattern recognition is developing. I can glance at a problem at now have an intuition for what shape of solution it has.

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

#933

Post by tekchip » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:03 AM UTC

I've been looking for nearly a year. I've done the same work having services write/rewrite my resume. Having friends, loved ones, colleagues etc review them.

Few bites here and there. Made it to the third interview once. Ive only had 5 or 6 actual interviews. Not including initial contact interviews with recruiters (more like 10-12 of those). It's rough out there.

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

#934

Post by komali2 » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:04 AM UTC

fnimick wrote: post #722

throwaway2037 wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Have you interviewed recently? The vast majority of companies won't even have a conversation with you until after you've jumped through this.

I have but haven't had anyone ask me leetcode questions yet. Everyone's just been asking about my precious jobs. I also have an ok amount of public projects, maybe that's why?

If someone asked my to do a leetcode style problem I'd politely refuse, and likely end the interview. I went through that kind of job hunt at the expense of my mental health and confidence in myself as an engineer once. It was one of the most degrading experiences of my life (so in all not a bad life to be fair). I'll never do it again.

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

#935

Post by Uptrenda » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:04 AM UTC

Macha wrote: post #396

Uptrenda wrote: post #275

I believe the market really is just bad right now. When I was job searching it probably took me 3 times as long. I noticed that there were hundreds of applicants per role when normally I'd have noticed less than 20 maybe? Even at my current company they told us that hundreds of people were applying. That's how many you have to beat just to get in the door. I think it's caused by a number of factors: (1) Investors are…

I will say as someone who's been involved in the hiring side, the 100s of applicants number is true but also misleading. Especially if you take public applications on linked in or someone. You'll get a lot of people who are unqualified, and I don't mean stuff like "3 years of experience and the req said 5" or "Only worked in scala but we're hiring for python devs", but rather "This person is a cashier and has not ind…

I am always curious what kind of candidates the competition are. You have a unique insight as someone who does hiring.

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

#936

Post by evantbyrne » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:18 AM UTC

adriand wrote: post #867

troebr wrote: post #741

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 p…

Maybe charisma is the wrong term. I've found pleasantness and willingness to communicate to be strongly correlated with engineering ability amongst those in the profession. Likewise, the worst engineers I've worked with all had major anti-social personality issues. The profession has always involved soft skills in my experience. When I've hired people I designed small tasks similar to the actual day-to-day work they would be doing, and that filtered out candidates who lacked coding ability quite easily.

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

#937

Post by Meph504 » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:25 AM UTC

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…

> 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.

The harsh reality is right now, there are a lot of applicants were for many recent years hiring meant active recruiting so resumes aren't getting the attention that they once did. People aren't going deep dive your history unless you seem like the perfect candidate.

So short stints even mixed with a few long stints aren't going to balance out as you are suggesting in many situations.

What I can recommend to try and soften this, is be more generic, don't list ever single job, but something along the lines of "Various contract based projects from yyyy to yyyy" and bullet point detail the more juicier bits of the contacts.

but admittedly I base this solely on my own experience, so take it with a grain of salt.

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

#938

Post by injb » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:46 AM UTC

prepend wrote: post #931

scarface_74 wrote: post #916

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 20…

> why do you have your work experience dating back to the 80s? I kind of disagree. It’s not like people are printing out or even reading back that far. May as well include it, but certainly don’t expect people to read it. I’m currently hiring and reading a lot of resumes. I rarely read past the first 2-3 pages, but sometime when I’m curious go back to learn more about career path. Has someone been programming for 30…

I'm not an expert but your implicit premise that it's OK for a cv or resume to have multiple pages surprises me.

One page! Put the most recent relevant stuff on one page and send that. I don't agree with the idea that it's OK to include more info because people don't have to read it. They do have to read it because it might contain a red flag.

Every word you type is making work for someone, and if it's not then why write it?

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

#939

Post by dorfsmay » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:46 AM UTC

Alex63 wrote: post #921

dorfsmay wrote: post #903

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I reviewed your CV as well. I am a former programmer/analyst/architect, now an IT director. I have reviewed a lot of CVs as a hiring manager. I agree with the feedback you have already received. Here are some additional thoughts. You have listed a lot of experience, mainly focusing on technical skills. When I review a CV I focus more on the last 5 or 10 years than roles from 30 years ago (unless I'm looking for someo…

Thank you.

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

#940

Post by chrisweekly » Sat, Jul 29, 2023, 2:56 AM UTC

chrisweekly wrote: post #627

hoorayimhelping wrote: post #593

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have been diagnosed with ADHD this year. How do I best tell prospective employers I might need some accommodation in this process? As someone who was diagnosed with ADHD a decade-and-a-half ago in my 20s: You don't. You don't even think about using your diagnosis as an excuse or a shield for behavior that is unacceptable. You never consider thinking that you deserve special treatment because you were diagnosed wi…

I see ADHD as a trait. It's only a disability if it holds you back. It's akin to multi-threading; there's more complexity, and risk of thrashing, BUT when managed properly the parallel-processing can be a significant advantage compared to neurotypical minds.

I don't understand the downvotes. I'm speaking honestly from direct experience, and paraphrasing ideas I've encountered in various contexts over the years.