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Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

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Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#101
post #84
post #30

It took me 200 applications to land my job, and I think the rest of everyone I know who’s a decent programmer had similar situations. The bottom line is that everyone has employment and only had to move for it if they’re taking a high (120k+ TC for entry level) paying position. This is “falling of trees” compared to any other industry. Being able to land a middle class job directly in the field of your education with…

Not the OP, but your definition of "falling off trees" and mine are very different if it took 200 applications to land a job. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying I would never use that expression to describe it.

It's actually kind of soul sucking bad, and I have trouble coming to terms with that "this is just how it is now."

I really do feel for those without a decent network.

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#102

I work at Apple and my team has been “hiring” for the last 2 years with no offers so far. Why? Because even if you are a good candidate, hiring is not as easy as people think. Among the many challengues we have I can list the following: 1. The people interested in your profile have minimal influence in the process, 2. There are people who are always chasing for the shiny new object (or person, in this case), 3. There…

What's the political situation ? It may well be that some execs further up the chain don't really want your team to be hiring ? That would explain the friction.

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#103
post #30

It took me 200 applications to land my job, and I think the rest of everyone I know who’s a decent programmer had similar situations. The bottom line is that everyone has employment and only had to move for it if they’re taking a high (120k+ TC for entry level) paying position. This is “falling of trees” compared to any other industry. Being able to land a middle class job directly in the field of your education with…

I'm not in the US; if I had to send out 200 or even 100 applications I would change career. If I had to send 50 I would be starting to investigate other careers.

I think it depends, if you're early in your career you're basically trying to find a company willing to take a chance on you and train you. Once you have some accomplishments under your belt companies will start being more aggressive at hiring you because you can hit the ground running.

If you're applying for "senior" positions and have the CV to back it up and you're still batting 1/200 getting to the first interview then you are either the unluckiest person ever or there's a red flag you haven't noticed.

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#104

Is it possible that you're not passing a DEI filter? A lot of companies are running into trouble for not meeting their diversity goals, especially bumping into the end of the year.

Is there any reason not to tick 'African American' and 'Female' on those forms? Surely they can't prove anything, right?

there's more evidence to support that actually being african american will hurt you during job interviews

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they are real jobs. But you have to make sure that it is from primary vendors. Often times, many secondary vendors source for the same job listed by primary vendor. One way to cut down secondary vendors, ask for decent rates. If someone asks you to work for $60 per hr, just say NO. Even primary vendors have outsourced their recruiting to India.

$60 per hour isn't a decent rate?

For contract position in the U. S.? Where total comp is going to be...$60/hour, and you pay your own health insurance? For an IC role better than junior, I'd laugh as I hung up the phone...ten years ago. And I'm nothing special, just a grunt with a decent resume.

(Seattle-area, if it matters, and it does.)

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#106
post #4

If you're not passing tech screens, why are you assuming this means lack of demand on employer side?

It depends on whether the OP is failing tech screens or whether it's the companies/interviewers that are failing the screens. I was on the job hunt earlier this year and, while I'm by no means perfect, I had a lot of tech screens fall apart because the interviewer was awkward, pushy, or arrogant; or the demand placed upon knowledge or skill assessment was unreasonable. My impression is that if hiring really mattered to these companies that they would refine their hiring process rather than leaving it up to whichever dev who has nothing else to do that day.

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#107

I'm a business owner and hire SE roles on a regular clip. I'll share some things with you, the market is totally unpredictable right now. Even with some projected wins, we don't know what a new/mixed US Administration will mean. Investigations? Deadlock? New laws that impact us? We have record inflation for our career lifetimes and we seem to have entered a recession, but people still disagree on if we're in it and h…

> I'll share some things with you, the market is totally unpredictable right now. Even with some projected wins, we don't know what a new/mixed US Administration will mean.

How does what the US admin look like impact your business? Do you provide services to the government?

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#108
post #84
post #30

It took me 200 applications to land my job, and I think the rest of everyone I know who’s a decent programmer had similar situations. The bottom line is that everyone has employment and only had to move for it if they’re taking a high (120k+ TC for entry level) paying position. This is “falling of trees” compared to any other industry. Being able to land a middle class job directly in the field of your education with…

Not the OP, but your definition of "falling off trees" and mine are very different if it took 200 applications to land a job. I'm not saying it's bad, I'm just saying I would never use that expression to describe it.

I would consider sending out 200 applications (for someone with some experience to reasonably targeted openings) to be an extraordinarily high number. I doubt if I sent out that many form letter scattershot from pre-internet grad school.

Certainly hasn't been the case since. To be sure, the few other jobs I've had have all come through personal connections.

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#109

I'm a business owner and hire SE roles on a regular clip. I'll share some things with you, the market is totally unpredictable right now. Even with some projected wins, we don't know what a new/mixed US Administration will mean. Investigations? Deadlock? New laws that impact us? We have record inflation for our career lifetimes and we seem to have entered a recession, but people still disagree on if we're in it and h…

This is a good example of what I mean by saying employers aren't desperate. If you're thinking about the outcome of the election or any of that, you're not desperate. Desperate means you have a pile of work and the value proposition of pulling someone in to do it is obvious.

There's nothing wrong with that unless you're giving mixed signals to your applicants. Accepting resumes for a perpetual "general interest" position is no problem. Posting a new listing for a specific position and then assuring an applicant during the first interview that you're actively recruiting when in fact you're really ambivalent is not good. I'm not accusing you of doing that, I'm just saying, is all.

Re: Tell HN: Employers are not desperate to hire developers

#110

1) Tail end of the year - its hard to get full time roles , The hiring definitely picks up after Jan 2nd week or so. 2) Try consulting/contracting - That space is still brimming w hiring. Much faster on-boarding /hiring.

I find that very hard to believe.

All I see is full time jobs, no remote, and certainly no contract jobs. Germany.

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