200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by dymk » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

NullPrefix wrote: post #96

cj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth mentioning that sometimes there are legitimate reasons for removing reviews. Our company had a slew of negative reviews suddenly. Upon closer look, the reviewers were working in positions we had never employed anyone for. They were posting about an office they worked at in Israel (we are in the USA). Turns out there was another startup in Israel who had a very similar name to ours. That company closed a bi…

>Our company had a slew of negative reviews suddenly. Upon closer look Did you scrutinized positive reviews the same way or just glanced them over and went "yeah, five stars, this is good"?

Why does that matter?

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

#122

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:38 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #109

throwaway5752 wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"So you believe they have more rights to work in the USA than US citizens" What are you even asking? Do you know how many hoops they have to go through to get an H1B in the first place, and how many conditions they have once they are here working on one? Do you understand what it's like to be a month or so away from being deported if you get fired and can't find a new job, and living with the pressure every day? To a…

> Do you understand what it's like to be a month or so away from being deported if you get fired and can't find a new job, and living with the pressure every day? That's the biggest reason why H1-Bs cause problems for American workers: people on those visas are under immense pressure to accept deals that natives and more secure immigrants would not. The pressure on American workers would be reduced if all H1Bs were c…

[deleted]

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

#123

Post by OJFord » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:40 PM UTC

NullPrefix wrote: post #96

cj wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth mentioning that sometimes there are legitimate reasons for removing reviews. Our company had a slew of negative reviews suddenly. Upon closer look, the reviewers were working in positions we had never employed anyone for. They were posting about an office they worked at in Israel (we are in the USA). Turns out there was another startup in Israel who had a very similar name to ours. That company closed a bi…

>Our company had a slew of negative reviews suddenly. Upon closer look Did you scrutinized positive reviews the same way or just glanced them over and went "yeah, five stars, this is good"?

If you received a load of erroneous and accidental negative reviews, would you honestly just ignore it hoping and assuming that it'll be levelled out by the erroneous and accidental positive reviews?

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

#124

Post by dymk » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:42 PM UTC

flyGuyOnTheSly wrote: post #76

And this is why amazon workers are abused. Supply significantly outpaces demand.

That’s not really abuse then if so many people want to work there. They know what they’re getting themselves into.

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

#125

Post by elliekelly » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:48 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #75

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…

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 on…

You definitely need to know someone to get your application to the top of the pile. Perhaps the legal industry is an extreme outlier but aside from my very first job as a “summer associate” (read: intern) I haven’t gotten a single job from blindly applying. And even the summer program was an “inside recommendation” of sorts since the school organizes the whole OCI process.

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

#126

Post by hi41 » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:50 PM UTC

bob_theslob646 wrote: post #111

hi41 wrote: post #105

My friend’s wife took almost 8 months to find a production support job. Why are jobs so hard to get these days? Is it because competition is so high and for a single job there are 20 applicants?

Great question. No one seems to know why. The worst part about the job search, is not even getting a response. most companies don't even have an HR function so it's cheaper to just not answer. It's also cheaper not to get into a lawsuit by giving an answer as well which kind of sucks. I wish there was a way to protect companies in their speech so that's not discriminatory to tell them why we didn't choose the candida…

Thank you for your response.

She applied for 800 job postings. That was the only thing she did the whole day - apply job after job. She maintained an excel file with all the details. Which company she applied for, who responded, who rejected. It was demoralizing. She got a job now but she started the job hunt last November.

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

#127

Post by notus » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:53 PM UTC

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'm a senior software engineer and my experience is much different for contrast. I get a response from almost every place I apply.

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

#128

Post by notus » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:56 PM UTC

chooseaname wrote: post #113

ashelmire wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

This just seems so strange to me. When I look for work, I look for companies doing things I find interesting, then narrow that down to maybe half dozen at most and send them my resume. I don't look for mostly generic developer work, though. I'm pretty specific with the industries and technologies (RFID, HW control systems, etc) (but not necessarily the developer stack; that's easy to get up to speed on).

This is the difference between a person who has an established career already and a junior getting their first job. I take my time with job searches and pick companies I like, but getting my very first job was difficult and it wasn't a great job.

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

#129

Post by notTyler » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:57 PM UTC

hi41 wrote: post #105

My friend’s wife took almost 8 months to find a production support job. Why are jobs so hard to get these days? Is it because competition is so high and for a single job there are 20 applicants?

I assume it looks bad if a candidate someone hires ends up being a terrible fit. This is basically how it goes everywhere else at larger companies. Visibility is more important than getting things done.

Like, I'm staffed at a company that isn't Arthur Anderson right now on an internal project and our SM/PO came back from scrum of scrums and said everyone was massively overestimating tasks to make sure they got them in on time. If you finish early you get pushback on starting something else because it looks 'so bad' if work goes from one sprint to the next.

Slow work and hitting metrics > everything, I guess.

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

#130

Post by oralty » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 2:58 PM UTC

hourislate wrote: post #119

ahnus6 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't compete? How can they not compete? The link you're showing me shows average wages for the H1-B group near $80k for all occupations. That's well above the median income for Texas, and well well above the poverty line. So if this large pool of workers in the US can't "compete" what are they doing? Refusing to work and therefore making $0 rather than making $98k? That doesn't make sense. You seem to be implyi…

>The link you're showing me shows average wages for the H1-B group near $80k for all occupations. You might not understand how things work. The wages are representative of what the staffing firms who contract out the labor charge for the H1B employee. They make substantially less than $80k even though that's the rate a company pays to avoid hiring a US employee.

that doesn't change the economics at all. the money paid to the worker through a middle-man has no bearing on the labor market as seen by the company and their bottom-line. You could send your paycheck into the incinerator every month... it makes no difference.

as you say the $80k is the rate to avoid hiring a US employee. maybe that's lower than what it would be with no h1-b, but then what are these displaced american workers doing for more than $80k?