Ask HN: Is it harder getting a tech job now vs. 5 years ago?

I've been self-employed for the last 5 years. I created several SaaS apps that have collectively made $1.5M pretax during that time. I also have a semi-popular open source project, prior experience moving from a senior role into a management, and have kept my skills current learning things like Sass, Bootstrap, Angular and Flask.

I don't necessarily need a job right now, but I wouldn't mind taking one because my income is 100% passive. However, I haven't been getting any e-mails back.

What I remember about applying in the past was how easy it was to get an e-mail requesting a phone interview. Probably 1 out of every 3 jobs I applied for would yield one. Over the last week, I've applied to 25 jobs and only one yielded a phone screen.

Am I out of the loop already? Is my experience that much of a commodity nowadays? What does it take to differentiate yourself in 2017?

That's a good idea, although I'd rather work with companies direct. Recruiters can be shady.

True, but the only way you're going to "work with companies direct" is by having someone on the inside that can get your resume the light of day.

Nobody is going to call back somebody with no "work" experience for the past 5 years even if you claim to know the new javascript frameworks.

I don't have ton of experience, but I've gotten about an interview a week since I started looking for a job. I started by applying to 20 or 30 jobs a day, once I got a few interviews I slowed down.

I'm currently interviewing with a small company and I'll be doing a face-to-face with them next week.

I know it's hard to get feedback when you don't get an interview in the first place, but how does your resume look? You can have a lot of great stuff on there without giving enough specific points to generate interest. Or, you could not be applying to enough jobs.

Job searching is tough and un-fun, good luck out there!

I get a feeling that the tech job market is oversaturated right now, and there are plenty of people running around with all the "achievements" (diplomas, certifications, etc) and no actual knowledge.

On my last job i sat right next to the corner where we interviewed candidates, so i could hear everything and would occasionally pop in to participate. There was a scary amount of people like that - boasting a big resume but unable to tell a mutex from a semaphore.

So, i suspect you failed to pass some initial HR-level filters designed to filter out the sludge so that the actual programmers would be able to cope with the amount of candidates left to interview.