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Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

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Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#51

Post by SuoDuanDao »

fallingknife wrote: post #34
snarkypixel wrote: post #6

I wanted to make an app to make job searching easier. It's a pain in the ass on both side and imo current tools on the market suck.

Is this really a problem that can be fixed by an app? It seems more like a human behavior issue to me. There is a filter, and people are trying to get through it. It's adversarial, and automating the process makes it easier to game, which is why those solutions have not been adopted.

I think it could, in theory. I've had the idea of approaching it more like a sorting problem. Scrape social media of the candidates and the company, use NLP to provide a 'cultural fit' metric that circumvents the interview process...

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#52

Post by callahad »

hall0ween wrote: post #26
wincy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last time I had trouble getting a job I just looked at what the most popular language was in my city. Then proceeded to read a book on C# and make a quick and dirty demo project. Had a job within two weeks after looking for months. It was kind of annoying switching to Windows dev but whatever do what you gotta do.

How did you find programming language popularity by city?

Looking at Meetup group membership / attendance used to be a pretty good gauge.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#53

Post by SuoDuanDao »

One thing I found helped during my 9-month job search was to have a project I was working on at the same time. A huge factor why job searching is exhausting is that one doesn't see any progress. Having a 'resume filler' helped me feel like I was still moving in a positive direction.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#54

Post by fallingknife »

snarkypixel wrote: post #45
fallingknife wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a problem that can be fixed by an app? It seems more like a human behavior issue to me. There is a filter, and people are trying to get through it. It's adversarial, and automating the process makes it easier to game, which is why those solutions have not been adopted.

I think the problem is how the vast majority of inbound job requests are spam or irrelevant, while at the same time there are a few gems out there that can't seem to reach the right candidates.

Sure, but how do you address this routing issue? Let recruiters target candidates in a different and more granular way than Linkedin, I guess? But then there is the issue that the paying customers are going to be on the recruiting end (like they are on Linkedin), not the employees, and the recruiters want to spam. I do think you could find a better way to solve this problem, though. Unfortunately I also think that you would run into this problem (https://www.fortressofdoors.com/so-you-want-to-compete-with-...) except replace Steam with Linkedin.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#55

Post by onemiketwelve »

snarkypixel wrote: post #6

I wanted to make an app to make job searching easier. It's a pain in the ass on both side and imo current tools on the market suck.

this has been done a hundred times since it's the low hanging fruit that every engineer has gone through. The biggest pain at this moment in time as someone who's searching is that I have to hand build a table in notion of:

1. hiring freezes from twitter/blind 2. specific insurance providers from corporate info/ glassdoor 3. salary ranges from levels.fyi/glassdoor 4. specific roles and tech stack from google jobs/glassdoor 5. finding refering relationships through linkdin/blind 6. general company reviews, work life balance, from glassdoor/blind 7. then the actual application through the company website

It's a huge pain in the ass to hand-populate and research. Every platform has a piece of the puzzle but it's not in once place.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#56

Post by thisiswrongggg »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #43
wincy wrote: post #25

I don’t know OP, I’m a tech lead who has done his fair share of interviews and based on your few comments on HN there seem to be some red flags with how you’re viewing the interview process. Saying “one person derails things because I’d outshine them” seems to externalize the blame. I don’t know that I’ve ever worked with any engineer who thinks they’d be worse off by hiring an extremely intelligent engineer. I’d lov…

There is always office politics and no-one wants a new guy that they perceive as a potential threat. It's not just someone they might think is 'brighter' but someone that seems experienced and senior enough to have a good shot at taking over or being promoted over them.

This. Very few people would welcome someone more competent than themselves, let alone open the door for them.

A lesser coworker who does not rock the boat and pulls some amount of work (specially the rote kind of it) is seen as the best option.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#57

Post by thisiswrongggg »

Job market is weird and gets weirder and more hostile as you grow more senior and older.

Yet, it is a numbers game. Just keep at it and maybe change your focus a bit. E.g. if you target startups leave them aside and focus on banks or health sector. Pivot around.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#58

Post by paxys »

__ryan__ wrote: post #49
paxys wrote: post #37

Assuming you are making it to final rounds, 40 interviews, at an average of 6-8 per company, means you have been rejected by 5-7 companies. If you are aiming for only FAANG-equivalents then competition for the open positions is obviously intense, and your experience isn't too out of the ordinary. I'd wager the best programmer on the planet will have a You have two paths forward. Either double down, do more coding pre…

at an average of 6-8 per company Based on what?

1 recruiter call

1-2 phone screens

Maybe a take home test

4-5 onsite interviews

1 call with hiring manager

This is the standard process in big tech recruiting.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#59

Post by fallingknife »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #51
fallingknife wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this really a problem that can be fixed by an app? It seems more like a human behavior issue to me. There is a filter, and people are trying to get through it. It's adversarial, and automating the process makes it easier to game, which is why those solutions have not been adopted.

I think it could, in theory. I've had the idea of approaching it more like a sorting problem. Scrape social media of the candidates and the company, use NLP to provide a 'cultural fit' metric that circumvents the interview process...

Problem with culture fit is that no one is willing to be completely honest about what they want, or what their culture is. No candidate is going to ever say "I'm a mediocre engineer really just looking for something easy where I can coast. Below market comp is OK." And no company is ever going to say "Kind of bureaucratic for a company this size, so want somebody who has a high BS tolerance, and will put up with that in exchange for good pay and reasonably low productivity standards."

Also god help you if your culture fit algorithm has correlations with race / gender / nationality. And there's pretty much a 100% chance it will.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome job search exhaustion?

#60

Post by kayodelycaon »

rahimnathwani wrote: post #42
kayodelycaon wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If someone is actually way smarter than me, my concerns would be: 1. Would they get bored or frustrated here? 2. Are their people skills good enough for the role? 3. How long do they plan to be here? 4. What do they expect from us? But I’m a generalist and find being the dumbest person in the room to be very educational. :)

Wouldn't #2 apply equally to someone who isn't way smarter than you?

Yes. :) So would #3 and #4.
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