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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

#131

Post by jen20 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #92
bergenty wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> For anyone reading your resume in the future, it's impossible to know

Just write why on your resume? The dates will check out or not.

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

#132

Post by beranabus »

deeptote wrote: post #114
EamonnMR wrote: post #83

Anecdotally, the recruiter calls surged in the previous few months and have slowed to a trickle in the last couple.

Mine are still off charts. I had 15 reach out today, alone. Currently have interviews at Github, Google, Stripe, and Reddit.

How does one get to the point where they get so much inquiries?

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

#133

Post by glintik »

muzani wrote: post #127
glintik wrote: post #118

Markets need to cool down sometimes to wipe out millions of ineffective businesses. Others will optimize their processes to cut off expenses. Real estate will be cheaper. These moments are positive.

I thought that was what covid was for

Covid didn’t hurt most of tech companies. Instead they got hot money and multiplied capitalization.

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

#134

Post by ghaff »

oblio wrote: post #99
saos wrote: 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.

Yes, 2000/2001 was much worse generally in tech. I was pretty lucky. Was laid off but got another job through a good connection with a company still doing OK. Then not so OK but aside from a salary cut made it through.

But there was a lot of "Would you like fries with that?" in the tech sector generally.

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

#135

Post by no_wizard »

michaelrpeskin wrote: post #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…

I’m sure you’ll get some interests folks if you post where you work here on HN!

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

#136

Post by wly_cdgr »

yodsanklai wrote: post #100
wly_cdgr wrote: post #97

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?

No deep expertise, just looking at the last few decades and eyeballing the odds

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

#137

Post by deeptote »

beranabus wrote: post #132
deeptote wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mine are still off charts. I had 15 reach out today, alone. Currently have interviews at Github, Google, Stripe, and Reddit.

How does one get to the point where they get so much inquiries?

It's not about being talented, that's for sure :)

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

#138

Post by soared »

jp57 wrote: post #56

> I wanna know if during recessions recruiting slows down even for big profitable companies. Yes, and they might lay people off. Hiring slows generally (and unemployment rises) during recessions. For example, I was at Amazon in 2008-9 and their attitude was: "We think we'll be alright, but we're not taking any chances, so departments should expect to make due with their current staff for a while." Once the freeze was…

I interviewed at Amazon a few months into Covid and they were interviewing but not hiring to put people in their “recycled” status. Which means we’ll hire you but not in this exact role or this exact time.

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

#139

Post by wly_cdgr »

lordofgibbons wrote: post #103
wly_cdgr wrote: post #97

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

I have never once in my career seen someone with an MS get hired over someone with a BS because they had a MS. If you're doing it purely for return-on-investment, it's a massive waste of time and money.

I've seen hundreds of job descriptions for a wide range of interesting roles (data science, ML, systems, computer graphics, AI research, CV, etc) that list an MS or PhD as a requirement

But even if that bullet point is BS, I am sceptical that the ROI on spending $7k to get 1000+ hours better at your field can be THAT bad. Maybe suboptimal, with all the good free/cheap resources out there, but a waste of time? I'd be surprised.

Besides, you get to avoid meetings for a couple more years, and that by itself might be worth $7k :)

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

#140

Post by eikenberry »

ineptech wrote: post #121

If you want to be recession-proof, get a job at a non-software company (or in academia, state/city government, etc). In theory, "programmer" is the same job whether you work for a startup or the Minnesota Dept. of Transportation, but in practice they feel like completely different industries. In one, you can make fantastic money but the interviews are famously difficult, the culture can be borderline abusive, and lay…

I'd recommend the opposite approach and go for stable software companies as the best employers. Non-software companies usually see software as a cost that is often at the top of the list when layoffs come up. IMO working for a software company means not only better treatment (eg. see the recent discussions on staff vs. line jobs) but you get better stability as you are core to the business.

None of this applies to start-ups which are volatile in every industry. But if looking at established players I'd 100% rather work for a software company or, more specifically, any company where the software is core to what they do (ie. SaS companies, hardware+software companies, etc. all are usually good).

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