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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

#221

Post by educaysean »

bityard wrote: post #137
ravenstine wrote: post #93

Contrasting with even just a year ago, the job market is in a lackluster state the way I see it. Don't be gaslit by all the people insisting that it's still a gold rush. It's not that there aren't jobs out there, but many companies right now are either laying off employees, under hiring freezes, or simply aren't that serious about hiring besides through nepotism. Since I got started as a software developer full time…

> To add to your point about resumes, people need to not underestimate the power of networking. Networking has been the key factor to my advancement for the last 3 jobs. It's just the way things are. It's hard to overstate the importance of this. Without networking, your chances of landing the kind of job you _really_ want are vanishingly close to zero. Every single one of my civilian jobs has come about either throu…

> Without networking, your chances of landing the kind of job you _really_ want are vanishingly close to zero

Just to offer an anecdotal counterpoint: I switched companies 3 times in the last 4-5 years. Went from enterprise -> local start up -> big tech -> bay area start up. None of those jobs, including the enterprise gig where I got my start, required me to leverage my network.

I don't doubt it's much easier when you have people that can vouch for you, but "vanishingly close to zero" is not the experience I've had. And no, I didn't have to send out 200+ resumes.

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

#222

Post by giantg2 »

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…

"and train you"

Frankly, companies don't train. Mt company talks about training all the time and it's a joke.

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

#223

Post by tomrod »

adventured wrote: post #164
_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.

I believe that's household income. Quick google shows census reporting median income at ~31k

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

#224

Post by giantg2 »

adventured wrote: post #164
_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.

Source?

I thought it was $42k a year or two ago, but haven't looked since, and I don't remember if it was strictly full-time.

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

#225

Post by anon50118810 »

Eisenstein wrote: post #203
Macha wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first development job as a graduate I applied to 5 positions, got 3 interviews and offers from all 3 interviews. Degree from somewhere middle of the road in my country, some side projects, applying to large but not FAANG tech cos. I think I had a good CV for a graduate nothing _that_ spectactular. There's definitely some diverging experiences going on here.

Maybe people should have their resume looked over? I have seen some very talented people make some pretty glaring errors and/or just be pretty bad at making things presentable. I think they may be getting tossed out of the pile due to something they just aren't realizing.

OP here. I'm getting a roughly 15%-20% success rate converting a cold application to a first interview. That's around the industry average from what I've seen on various sites. If my resume were a disaster I'd expect something closer to 0%.

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

#226

Post by John23832 »

fdschoeneman wrote: post #212
John23832 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hirin…

No evidence? I was not in on any of those specific conversations and neither was the op but I've overheard a lot of conversations from hiring managers and they did explicitly discuss candidates race and sex, and I think if you ask around you'll see you are the outlier in having never seen evidence that racism and sexism have played a role before. Just because you may not have been around when a tree fell in the woods…

> I was not in on any of those specific conversations and neither was the op

To my point that you're speculating about something you have no evidence of and know nothing about.

> I've overheard a lot of conversations from hiring managers and they did explicitly discuss candidates race and sex,

Anectdata.

> I think if you ask around you'll see you are the outlier in having never seen evidence that racism and sexism have played a role before.

I never said this.

> Just because you may not have been around when a tree fell in the woods doesn't mean it didn't make a sound.

You can't speculate that a specific tree was felled with an axe rather than a chainsaw when you weren't in the woods to see it happen.

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

#227

Post by theonething »

carabiner wrote: post #199
_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…

When I graduated in aerospace engineering in 2008 during the great recession, I applied for maybe 40 places total and got 2 offers. I probably could have pulled some strings to get 1-2 more from the places where I had interned (didn't bother applying to them because I wasn't interested). Aerospace in the US requires US citizenship so the number of applicants is 1/10th SWE. SWE also just has insane demand from people…

> SWE also just has insane demand from people in India and China.

this sentence is confusing to me. Are you saying there are a lot of SWE jobs in India and China? Or are you saying there are a lot of people from those places looking for SWE jobs.

Or something different?

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

#228

Post by layer8 »

ghaff wrote: post #207
layer8 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Non-braggy résumés seem to just get round-filed for not knowing how to play the game That doesn’t make sense, there must be a different causality.

Why? People expect it to effectively be a sales document. So if you have a bullet item like "One of 100 people peripherally involved with only modestly successful $PRODUCT," readers would be forgiven for discounting that experience. To be clear, per parent, I'm not saying to lie but things can generally be presented in a positive way.

My objecting is against “for not knowing how to play the game”. You’re arguing for a more plausible causality.

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

#229

Post by giantg2 »

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…

It may not be as easy as people think, but there are also items on the list that could be addressed by the company. It should not take several months to go from applications to offer for most jobs.

It sounds like I would not want to work at Apple with all the games HR plays.

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

#230

Post by kurtreed »

imhoguy wrote: post #169
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.

This what?
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