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200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

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Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#71

Post by lunchables »

vectorEQ wrote: post #44
rshnotsecure wrote: post #36

This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours. Desperate people from all over the US. I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore. Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in…

i just find it funny that theres posts about shortages of it people, and posts about a quarter of a million ppl applying to one company. who's lying. :D

They announced they were hiring 30,000 people. Having even 10 people apple for 1 job isn't highly unusual. So having 200k apply for 30k jobs doesn't seem odd. Plus because its a big announcement from a huge company, it will draw in far more than the usual random job ad on monster.com. I don't see anything surprising about this. One of the largest companies on earth had a huge hiring blitz and it brought in applicants from all over the country (and world, probably).

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#72

Post by meuk »

growlist wrote: post #58
csydas wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither :) You're missing an adjective from your observation: qualified. For any given position, even when you're pretty specific on the requirements, you will get an onslaught of applicants who have absolutely no business trying to apply for said position, but they do it anyways just because it vaguely matches a skillset they have and they need a job. This isn't a criticism of such persons; it's foolish for people t…

qualified* (*and will accept what we're paying)

This seems to be very relevant. I have double BSc and MSc degrees in STEM fields and am still struggling to find a proper job. On my first job I made less than 2k (for 4 days a week, but still). I've had offers which were even lower as well.

I've seen people in other fields with a lot less education do a lot better. It really makes me sceptic about the shortage of developers in Europe. If there really would be a shortage, surely developers would get paid more.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#73

Post by noneeeed »

pingyong wrote: post #41
noneeeed wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is actually a surprisingly good ratio. I work for a company that deals with this kind of data and the applicant to hire ratio at some companies, especially in retail or unskilled jobs can easily hit much, much higher than that. When I see people complaining about the hiring processes for many low qualification jobs they often have no idea just how many people they are up againt. They get annoyed because they did…

Honestly the rules aren't that difficult (applying them might be). You just have to answer quickly (either with "sorry no" or even with "you're in consideration", really anything), not hearing from people for weeks is the worst. And ideally, provide a reason for why you weren't hired and what they would like to see from you. That's really all. If you do that, people most likely won't hold a grudge. Casually mentionin…

People do hold a grudge, I see it all the time in our data and feedback. People applying for entry level jobs angry because they were rejected quickly based on their CV.

You can do all the basics right, but a lot of people are still going to be pissed off when they get automatically rejected based on a computer scoring the 100 candidates for the position, even if you explain why that is necessary.

I do think more companies need to be more honest about applicant to hire ratios, but the reality is that a lot of people treat anything short of hand-written letter from the hiring manager explaining in detail how they could have done better as a slap in the face.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#74

Post by hvidgaard »

angstrom wrote: post #49
vectorEQ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just find it funny that theres posts about shortages of it people, and posts about a quarter of a million ppl applying to one company. who's lying. :D

*Shortage of qualified people. I pity the people that have to filter that.

It's crazy what people think is acceptable. At least half of all the people that apply to our junior positions cannot answer simple question such as "how would you find the first "42" in an array of integers, and give me the index". If they don't have an idea of how to count with a for loop and write an if statement, they're not qualified for programming. Some even ask if they can take the "assignment" home and get back to me.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#75

Post by seanmcdirmid »

csydas wrote: post #50
vectorEQ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just find it funny that theres posts about shortages of it people, and posts about a quarter of a million ppl applying to one company. who's lying. :D

Neither :) You're missing an adjective from your observation: qualified. For any given position, even when you're pretty specific on the requirements, you will get an onslaught of applicants who have absolutely no business trying to apply for said position, but they do it anyways just because it vaguely matches a skillset they have and they need a job. This isn't a criticism of such persons; it's foolish for people t…

Sometimes HR is too specific, and even though you are missing one core requirement you match the other criteria very well. Anyways, it’s low overhead to submit an application, and low overhead to reject them. I’m still very picky about what jobs I apply to.

The best jobs still require an inside recommendation. It is very rare that you’ll be able to score those just by applying online (if the JD even goes up at all online).

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#77

Post by JCharante »

df wrote: post #45

on the other hand - I can't imagine I'm the only person to have been getting quite a few "come work for us" emails from Amazon via LinkedIn recently (two in the last month, six in the last year). The solicitations do not appear to be very carefully targeted - they seem to mention everything from machine learning to mobile app development.

I figure it's similar to applying to colleges. Stanford, Yale, etc send you info packets and ask you to apply but then reject you. Although some schools figure that if it takes $20 to acquire someone's attention and get them to apply to you (and pay a $90) fee then they can pocket the $70 (minus reviewer expenses) and look more exclusive when it comes to acceptance rates, but that's not the case with companies.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#78

Post by bigYahnz »

csydas wrote: post #50
vectorEQ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just find it funny that theres posts about shortages of it people, and posts about a quarter of a million ppl applying to one company. who's lying. :D

Neither :) You're missing an adjective from your observation: qualified. For any given position, even when you're pretty specific on the requirements, you will get an onslaught of applicants who have absolutely no business trying to apply for said position, but they do it anyways just because it vaguely matches a skillset they have and they need a job. This isn't a criticism of such persons; it's foolish for people t…

My company uses the same "qualified" excuse. So we hire H1B workers who had someone else take their qualification tests and who don't understand jQuery despite apparently having 10 years of experience. They did a wonderful job of hard coding the front end of some shitty CRUD app they were working on (yes, part of the blame should also be on the developer who was assigned to oversee the project). Where does such a skilled prabeep go? Oh to Capital One for 150k a year, of course.

Anyone suggesting we have to hire outsiders because we don't have enough developers should be hung by the neck.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#79

Post by ashelmire »

rshnotsecure wrote: post #36

This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours. Desperate people from all over the US. I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore. Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in…

> I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore.

Are you sure about that? Most of the posts I see from devs who just got well-paying jobs show them applying to 20+ companies. Usually more. Then they'll get interviews at several, offers from 1-5? It's absolutely a numbers game on both sides.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#80

Post by [deleted] »

hourislate wrote: post #69
rshnotsecure wrote: post #36

This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours. Desperate people from all over the US. I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore. Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in…

>Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications There are some major Corporations here in DFW, some that have hired 1000's of H1B's (Car companies, Airlines, etc). It doesn't surprise me that Americans are desperate for work.

[deleted]
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