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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

#161

Post by dadjoker »

I experienced this same thing in 2020 when I was hunting for my current job. I lost count of how many places I applied to.

Over the past year, I have been on the hiring side, and I can offer a few tips as well, based on filtering through many resumes and doing many interviews.

1) Don't list 20 different technologies and claim to be an expert in all of them. There is no way for someone to be a true "expert" in many technologies/languages, and if you get specific questions about these technologies, you will be exposed (something that happened multiple times when I was interviewing).

2) Pay attention to what tools the job requires and tailor your resume/cover letter accordingly. It doesn't do us much good to tell me you have experience with something else that we don't use or care about. That being said, if you don't have a lot of experience with what we use, make it clear that you are willing to learn. We know that we will not always get someone who meets every requirement.

3) As amazing as it is to have to say this; be courteous and communicate. For instance, if something comes up and you can't make an interview time, let the company know ahead of time; ghosting will hurt you.

4) If you don't do well on a code test (Leetcode, TestDome, etc), don't blame the platform for not doing well. If you are not willing to accept responsibility now, what will you do when you are working for us and something goes wrong with your code?

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

#162

Post by Der_Einzige »

mannymanman wrote: post #16
commandlinefan wrote: post #12

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.

Companies have diversity goals? I thought that the diversity related info wasn't used in hiring, as is stated in all the job application forms

LOL

Intel pays managers bonuses for hiring people that are "underrepresented minorities".

It's apparently totally legal.

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

#163

Post by anon50118810 »

commandlinefan wrote: post #12

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.

OP here. I'm very pro-diversity but leaving that aside, my experience on the hiring side is that there is a huge pipeline problem of even getting resumes from "diverse" candidates. Any company applying some kind of theoretical "filter" must not be in a rush to hire at all given how relatively rare these candidates are, in which case they wouldn't be likely to hire qualified "non-diverse" candidates without this "filter," either. So it doesn't really matter either way.

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

#164

Post by adventured »

_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…

> The median individual income in the U.S. is 32k

The median full-time income in the US - which is a much more applicable reference point - is around $55,000.

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

#165

Post by Der_Einzige »

Salgat wrote: post #54
rr888 wrote: post #34

Anyone know about ML? It used to be a different job market, I was thinking of moving into that area but now not sure if its bubble has been popped or always will be a premium.

ML falls into a few broad categories: model design, data preparation, and deployment. Unfortunately if you don't have a PhD, most serious places won't have you doing model design. To add to that, data preparation is very tedious. So the "sexy" part of ML (making the models) is pretty difficult to gain access to.

You don't need the Ph.D if you do Ph.D things (publishing at top conferences).

Hidden cheat code they don't tell grad students about.

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

#166

Post by brightball »

_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…

It’s always easier to get a job when you have one then when you don’t.

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

#167

Post by anon50118810 »

falcolas wrote: post #27
anon50118810 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolutely true that almost all of the remote jobs I'm seeing are explicitly senior or above, or require 3+ years of experience. I meet this, but for entry level people looking for something immediately, I'd recommend support or QA work to stay afloat while building a personal portfolio and hoping to get lucky with an employer who is actually desperate for developers.

I'm not so sure that QA work even still exists. And I'm pretty certain it's been eliminated as a path to being a developer. There's been an insanely strong push to eliminate QA and put that work on developers (in addition to all the other specializations they now generalize in) in the past decade.

Support and QA have long been questionable paths into software development, but if you're entry-level and looking for remote work vaguely in the field, these are good roles. This is especially true for support which can be done relatively independently by inexperienced people, unlike software development, which requires a lot of mentoring for entry-level people that remote environments haven't really figured out how to accommodate yet.

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

#168

Post by Joel_Mckay »

Ever tried negotiating budgets between the CEO, division managers, and CTO?

You basically run into a few arguments:

1. Can't hire Juniors as they cost a lot to train, and keep leaving for better paying firms

2. Can't hire Seniors as they cost too much, and tend to be a challenge to manage

3. Why don't we keep piling on the ticket queue till the existing teams starts to burnout, as they will burnout in a year anyway

4. That is a "no" to your budget request, as the staffing-agent/Marketer thinks we can get these positions filled for 34 cents to the dollar.

I dream of being a plumber everyday... Check out some local trade-shows in the field you are interested in, and chat with a few folks. =)

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

#169

Post by imhoguy »

capableweb wrote: post #71

> My personal goal is at least 100 applications before seriously considering pivoting to something else. I don't think I have especially cool resume or anything, nor do I have extremely many years in the industry as well, but I'd never consider applying for 100 different companies. I don't even know deeply about 100 companies I think, which is something I learn about a company before even considering applying to it.…

This. If that is 100x clicks on Apply button on jobs portal, then no wonder the result is mediocre.

Tailoring CV to a role, looking for some insider friends to let then collect the referal bonus... that takes time but is much more effective to put foot in the door.

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

#170

Post by John23832 »

fdschoeneman wrote: post #136
John23832 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you have no proof for any “end of year” DEI target rate limiting. It is entirely what you labeled it as, speculation. I said nothing about racism in hiring practices. I was addressing the statement that was made.

Okay so let's be clear: you think it is wrong or unhelpful to speculate that race or sex may be a factor in what the op claims to be observing? Because "baiting?" What do you mean by baiting? I read that as you trying to shame people for even discussing the possibility that racism or sexism is a factor. As if it is somehow wrong to discuss these things. If you had a different intent, please share it.

I could speculate because the op is a Taurus. It holds just as much weight in the conversation because there’s no evidence that the op’s zodiac or DEI status are used to eliminate them in the hiring process.

I used the word bait because unsubstantiated “DEI hate” is used on hackernews as lightning rods.

I haven’t shamed anyone. If you actually read what I said above, you would see that I’m not denying racism in hiring exist… but again there’s no evidence of that here.

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