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

My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

philosophicalhacker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 272 posts

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#21

Post by vertak »

mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #2

This is terribly useless for anyone else. I’d go so far as to say it is not, in fact, a data point for anyone. - 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market - the coding interview experience of this applicant and requirements of the companies appears to be far more lax than most experiences in tech hiring - it took place right around the pandemic / unemployment / layoff time period which is a nasty confound…

> this is terribly useless for for anyone else

I bet this was terribly useless for you, but for the wider set of readers here its near impossible to generalize as you have done.

I haven’t dived deep to search for “here was my job search” stories and I’ve probably read fewer than 5 such posts on HN over the years I’ve been lurking here. However I appreciated this one for its candid sharing of the numbers (number of applications, rejections, etc.) and his resume + cover letters. Unless you are some interview god/goddess who has seen all the resumes there are to see, it’s valuable to see different ways of approaching the job search.

I’m currently on the job hunt myself and have bookmarked this article for a reread.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#22

Post by soneca »

marcinzm wrote: post #17
soneca wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I am not understanding your advice (or the post). I didn’t see where the author claims to be a ”rare programmer” or does not show humility.

It's in the cover letter.

Got it, thanks. Still, I am reading it with more generous eyes I think. It seemed to be used to contextualize their communication skills. Not as ”I am better than most”, more like ”I have this unique trait that you might value”.

But I can see how it could be read

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#23

Post by Joof »

meddlepal wrote: post #6
mlthoughts2018 wrote: post #2

This is terribly useless for anyone else. I’d go so far as to say it is not, in fact, a data point for anyone. - 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market - the coding interview experience of this applicant and requirements of the companies appears to be far more lax than most experiences in tech hiring - it took place right around the pandemic / unemployment / layoff time period which is a nasty confound…

> 65 days is a very very short time to be on the market Wait what? Is this just an SF/Valley thing? 60 days on the market is a long time IMO. Long enough that my experience with east coast recruiting is that by the time you hit 30 days offers start evaporating so it makes it difficult to play them off of each other for negotiating purposes.

I usually prolong it for travel, but I've always had offers by 60 days in. Anecdote.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#24

Post by marcinzm »

t_1589165433 wrote: post #19

How on earth do people have these experiences? I have to submit multiple hundreds of applications to get one interview. Throwaway because it could turn into multiple thousands if that fact is linked to my identity.

In general don't blindly apply unless you have no choice. Use your network, have people refer you, respond to recruiters, etc. Someone you know may know someone who can refer you and so on.

That said, going through recruiters alone should give you decently high interview rates. Assuming you have some experience and so on. If it's not then your resume needs work. For whatever reason, hiring manager look at it and don't want to talk to you further.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#25

Post by Thorentis »

Is it true you still need an "open source coding resume" by mid-career stage? I can understand using that to give you an advantage for entry-level roles, but by "mid-career" shouldn't your experience and achievements in past roles speak for itself? Or do companies still want to see engineers spending their spare time doing unpaid coding? By mid-career, many people have families to support, that they also would like to spend time with in their down time. Surely this is considered during the hiring process? I don't think I would want to work somewhere that expects a married with kids mid-level engineer to spend their weekends and nights contributing to open source, just to land their next job.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#26

Post by non-entity »

marcinzm wrote: post #24
t_1589165433 wrote: post #19

How on earth do people have these experiences? I have to submit multiple hundreds of applications to get one interview. Throwaway because it could turn into multiple thousands if that fact is linked to my identity.

In general don't blindly apply unless you have no choice. Use your network, have people refer you, respond to recruiters, etc. Someone you know may know someone who can refer you and so on. That said, going through recruiters alone should give you decently high interview rates. Assuming you have some experience and so on. If it's not then your resume needs work. For whatever reason, hiring manager look at it and don'…

I've never get good recruiters. It's always some underpaid external recruiter trying to pass anyone off for some low paying, and probably mibd-killing position. The kind the heavily editorilzaze you resume unsolicited so that it matches the position description exactly and the description they send you have glaring typos and theres a small percentage its even relevant to your experience. Everytime I've tried to follow through with one it's just ended in nothing, they dont even give you straight answers most of the time when asked a question

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#27

Post by eel »

lynchdt wrote: post #10

Some perhaps unsolicited advice from a hiring manager in a company very similar to the great ones in which this writer was unsuccessful. - Rare programmers won’t identify themselves as such. - Most great companies hire for humility as a trait.

While I agree with your advice in the general case, I also find the author's data point interesting and compelling. Receiving 2 offers from 7 interviews with only 16 applications is a good rate in software engineering as far as I am aware.

It's also worth pointing out that the cover letter mentioning "rare programmer" ultimately led to an interview and an offer according to the author.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#28

Post by t_1589165433 »

marcinzm wrote: post #24
t_1589165433 wrote: post #19

How on earth do people have these experiences? I have to submit multiple hundreds of applications to get one interview. Throwaway because it could turn into multiple thousands if that fact is linked to my identity.

In general don't blindly apply unless you have no choice. Use your network, have people refer you, respond to recruiters, etc. Someone you know may know someone who can refer you and so on. That said, going through recruiters alone should give you decently high interview rates. Assuming you have some experience and so on. If it's not then your resume needs work. For whatever reason, hiring manager look at it and don'…

I'd love to carefully tailor applications to jobs I'm suited for, get references through people, etc. Unfortunately, when I've tried this, I've been completely ignored or one-liner email rejected if I'm lucky, and it's a lot of effort - so my only option is huge volume, which means I can't carefully craft anything.

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#29

Post by georgeburdell »

I look at that resume and I wonder if it didn't hurt more than it helped; it's form over function, and a bit corny. The fact that he got multiple offers in two months shows how strong the software job market is.

I'm several years younger, but a staff-level hardware engineer at a second tier company (top tier being FAANG). I've had an incredibly difficult time jumping companies --- 2 years and counting. Despite being twice promoted since graduating with my PhD, most recently this past review cycle, I have yet to get past the first interview stage* with a top tier company, even with close friends at those companies referring me. It's quite frustrating and I wish I knew what the successful candidates had that I didn't.

* Note that for hardware engineering, the initial interview is a meet-and-greet with a technical question or two, so more laid back

Re: My Mid-Career Job-Hunt: A Data Point for Job-Seeking Devs

#30

Post by troughway »

georgeburdell wrote: post #29

I look at that resume and I wonder if it didn't hurt more than it helped; it's form over function, and a bit corny. The fact that he got multiple offers in two months shows how strong the software job market is. I'm several years younger, but a staff-level hardware engineer at a second tier company (top tier being FAANG). I've had an incredibly difficult time jumping companies --- 2 years and counting. Despite being…

> It's quite frustrating and I wish I knew what the successful candidates had that I didn't.

Have you asked your close friends or your coworkers about this?

Post reply on HN