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Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

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Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#91

First comment: Don't say "get rekt" anywhere near managers, recruiters or founders.

I'll take contemporary teenager slang over YC-backed web3 shitcoin startups, recruiters looking for "rockstars" or "ninjas" coupled with the latest JS library, or founders with their "change the world" mantra at yet another utterly useless ETL SaaS.

[deleted]

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#92
post #2

Their honesty should be applauded. Imagine they hired you and then had to fire you in 6 months. Keep in touch with the PM if you liked them and see how they perform in the next 12 months.

Isn’t that pretty great? Get paid for 6 months of relatively light ramp up time and then a few months worth of severance for some time off once fired?

> Isn’t that pretty great? Get paid for 6 months of relatively light ramp up time and then a few months worth of severance for some time off once fired?

Not great at all.

For anyone reading your resume in the future, it's impossible to know if you were let go due to no fault of your own, or if you were let go for cause after a probationary period expired.

I personally don't hold a single short job against people, but the reality is that having a 6-month job followed by a couple months off on your resume will have a negative impact when some hiring managers read your resume.

It's also 6 months (+ time off) that you can't accomplish much of anything because you were ramping up and then had the rug pulled out from under you. Having a 6-12 month setback in your career isn't a huge deal when you've been working for 20 years, but it can be a huge setback for juniors.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#93
I'm not surprised (unfortunately, and I am truly sorry for this).

Don't look to the 2008 recession for an idea of how things may go. Look to the 2000 (Tech Bubble Burst) recession. In that one, the bottom dropped out of the tech market. Web designers were especially hard hit.

I have family that works for Intel, and they say that Intel tends to actually increase hiring in bear markets. I suspect that's because they are getting bargains, and preparing for the inevitable upswing, so they will be in a position to jump on the up elevator when things turn around.

I guess it depends on the company. Companies that are running on fumes (highly leveraged) are likely to have a tough time. Companies with conservative approaches may do better.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#94

Just to give you my own experience right now, I literally just accepted a new job yesterday after job hunting for 3-ish weeks. I had multiple job interviews, even more job interview requests. I don't say this to brag, so I apologize if it comes off that way. I just wanted to give you what could be a cancelling-out anecdata point to your own experience. I wouldn't let it get you down too much. Keep hunting and keep ap…

Got my last job thanks to Hired. It was my first time using it, and I had a good experience. I'd use it again.

Main benefit of Hired is I could set my target salary ahead of time and the people contacting me knew and agreed to what I was looking for, instead of having to dig it out of the interview process elsewhere, and I still had about 10 companies reach out to me through there.

In comparison, pretty much every recruiter that contacted me on LinkedIn were giving me ranges at least 20% lower.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#95

First comment: Don't say "get rekt" anywhere near managers, recruiters or founders.

Are you f*cking kidding me?

Counterpoint: Say "get rekt" around me. It's fine. Nobody cares if you're making stuff or can help them make stuff.

This comment is a joke, nobody who matters thinks like this.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I entered the job market during the 2008 recession. I definitely experienced the "hired... and..now you're laid off" ~ as the saying goes "when times get tough, last to hire = first to fire" . As for laying off senior folks -- I've seen this too; I've seen people who are senior by virtue of just having been there the longest (20+ years) and have had the most pay raises... but don't necessarily contribute as much valu…

> that you're contributing more value add than is reflected by your paycheck -- you won't be let go That's a very optimistic take. What usually happens is that there's an obvious bottom line improvement to laying off a few very senior people, but the impact isn't so obvious, so from the business's perspective it looks like a win. I remember the cognitive dissonance of being an employer's rep at a job fair in 2010 and…

This exception wise might be the case but, the cost to performance is probably just less for some senior folks compared to up and coming new people. For instance if i have 10+ year employee who has received 3% cost of living raises + additional performance raises they likely have a cost/performance ratio worse than the A player with 5 years experience who wants to move up. I can promote them for a bump in salary and have someone who hasn't accumulated as much cost overtime with a similar performance. I reduced capacity, improved moral for an A player and cut cost in one decision. There would also be minimal impact moral wise to the remaining organization by hiring within. That's just my take though and I am no authority in the topic.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#98
I bet the non-profitable, feeding-on-VC startups are getting worried and we'll see more of this. I work at a non-VC-funded, profitable, stable, small place and we're desperately trying to hire. I've never made FAANG/startup income, and I've always felt a little left-out because of that. But we've been stable for nearly 30 years, and have never had the big layoffs or hiring freezes including, dot-com bust, 2008, 2020 COVID lockdowns, and now. We're low variance, so the upside isn't as crazy, but then again the downside has been historically pretty limited too. My advise is to find a smaller, stable, profitable place to interview at.

edit: grammar

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#99
post #79

Can someone do a story time of the last recession and how it impacted tech? Start, middle and end Just want to understand what to look out for and just prepare.

2008? Not much. Some hiring freezes, maybe some salary freezes, but overall quite reduced impact. Of course, this is very location dependent and domain dependent.

New grads were probably hit the hardest, as they usually are during recessions.

2000 was much worse from everything I hear, but I wasn't there at the time.

Re: Tell HN: Job interview canceled due to looming recession

#100

Go get your MS/PhD. By the time you finish, the market will be stronger, and so will your resume The Georgia Tech online MS is good and about $7k total. You can pay for it working at Starbucks

> the market will be stronger

what makes you think so?

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