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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

#111

Post by cbm-vic-20 »

I was interested in an open position that I was uniquely suited for- I have expertise in their field, and I even know a number of people at the company, as they were former co-workers. I wasn't even able to get an interview there because I'm in the US- and they're only willing to hire in Canada and Latin America.

I work at a "second tier" tech company, I'm not making FAANG money, and I wouldn't be asking for FAANG money, but companies may be shying away from US employees who are more expensive than whoever they could find elsewhere.

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

#112

Post by eric4smith »

Now, a lot of people might be saying… “Hire remote”.

Here’s why most companies won’t do it.

1. An employee is a big investment to non-FAANG companies.

2. Does the candidate demonstrate that they are capable of remote work? (Sorry, more than 50% aren’t).

3. Employers want to see competence first before they would allow remote work.

These days only companies who are desperate, or have a solid competence and experience in managing remote workers will do it.

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

#113

Post by yamtaddle »

heywherelogingo wrote: post #83
_ed7m wrote: 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've been a developer in the US and held... oh... 8 or 9 tech jobs since about the year 2000. I don't think I've ever sent more than 10 applications in a job search. My average is probably 3-4. I'm entirely unremarkable and also didn't have a degree for the first IIRC 4 jobs (I floundered and bailed on a non-tech Bachelor's the first time, then several years later got a CS degree from an unremarkable—but at least not infamous—university).

But I also target the mid-tier, not FAANG, finance, or top-tier startups that hire like FAANG. I'd break down halfway through one of their day-long interviews no matter how much I studied leetcode, and I know it. Put me in any kind of meeting for more than a couple hours and I'm braindead, and interviews count as meetings. Even worse than ordinary meetings, really.

Yeah, if I had to send 50, let alone 200 applications in one search... I can't even imagine. If I hit 100 with no offers I'd for-sure reckon my career was over and I needed to look at jobs several notches down the economic and social ladder (and tech's already not that high on the social ladder).

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

#114

Post by francisofascii »

Anecdotally speaking, but I suspect is common: We were hemorrhaging employees a year ago, but the bleeding has stopped. So we hired over the past year, slowly filled all those empty roles, and are now more picky with new hires. And honestly, we probably were not picky enough a year ago. Some candidates are struggling get work done or have issues with remote work.

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

#116

Post by pkteison »

heywherelogingo wrote: post #83
_ed7m wrote: 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've had it take 80 applications to actually get one on-site interview before (and I have a pretty good resume). I would not be suggesting people consider major life changes based on a few dozen attempts not progressing, it can definitely take more than that without reflecting on you.

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

#118

Post by ghaff »

Spivak wrote: post #103
heywherelogingo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 intervie…

Yeah. You're just graduating from school. Maybe it's not a well-known school--or maybe it's not even the "right" (or any) degree. Maybe you're grades aren't the best. It's very reasonable that getting someone to take a chance on you for a job you're not obviously qualified to grow into can be pretty hard.

But, with a track record and you aren't trying to career change? That is a lot.

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

#119

Post by neilv »

ryandrake wrote: post #49
guessmyname wrote: post #33

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…

A lot of companies say "we're hiring" but are not hiring , defined as actually extending an offer and actually employing someone. They're fishing, but not catching, or they're catching and releasing. We need a more precise word than "hiring". Everyone can say they're hiring, but they're not actually hiring anyone--they're just fishing.

> We need a more precise word than "hiring".

I think it's precise. Two terms:

* Hiring -- When you are actually ready to make offers to hire people.

* Pretending -- When you are trying to keep the hiring funnel full, or to give the appearance of business doing well, but not ready to actually make offers.

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

#120

Post by nyc_data_geek1 »

siliconc0w wrote: post #60

Go for quality vs quantity - which means personalized approaches and use of your network/recruiters. A cold application through an online portal has a very low probability of success but if you go through a recruiter, previous colleague, or just a friend of a friend your chances are much better (and you might get some inside info like are they really hiring or is that open senior position just for appearances/unicorn…

Came here to say this. Rather than a metric of "how many total jobs have I applied to", a perhaps more effective metric would be "how many high quality applications have I put in, how many opportunities have I been exposed to via referral, how many friends do I have looking on my behalf/providing introductions to hiring managers who are actively hiring".

Blindly applying to listings you find online with no "in", is going to be a lot of applications to get to a single conversion/hire event. Find your buddies, the recruiters who respect your time and expertise, even "friend of a friend" as parent mentioned is worlds better than "just another resume on the stack".

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