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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

#271

Post by sefrost »

atraac wrote: post #263
imhoguy wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure let me "tailor my CV" to a role just to get ghosted or offered laughable salary. I'm just gonna make friends of random people from that company that don't know me, presumably by cold approaching them via LinkedIn? Lol

Tailoring your CV, in my experience, simply means looking at the job description and then rearranging your achievements so that the things they are specifically asking for are mentioned at the top. Also make sure you use the same language as them and specifically mention the exact technology they put in the job description.

I do this, then I make a copy of the CV as MyName_CompanyName.pdf in my Documents directory so I can refer back to it if I get an interview.

I've never struggled to get an interview with this method and I'm pretty sure I'm one of the mediocre people on HN.

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

#272

Post by P_I_Staker »

I'm a little disheartened by this apparently getting downvoted heavily. This needs to be talked about more. The market for developers is not what many people claim. Also, most organizations have blanket policies that restrict who they can hire and disqualify a huge percentage of applicants.

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

#273

Post by anon50118810 »

nyc_data_geek1 wrote: post #254
anon50118810 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP here. Great advice for people with a big network, though of course if a company is waiting for a strong referral before hiring, they're not really that desperate, which was my thesis.

I would posit that time spent building that network is more valuable than the equivalent amount of time spent blasting out resumes to random job listings. You can network with recruiters to find the right ones with no prior exposure to them. For the most part, desperate employers are not the ones you want to work for anyhow. They're desperate for a reason. It's not like there's some scarcity of candidates now, especi…

I've said elsewhere that I've had better response rates from direct applications (15-20%) than from third-party recruiters (~0%). My LinkedIn says I'm looking for work and I've gotten very little attention there. I'm sure relying on recruiters works for some people but it doesn't look like the way forward for me.

Desperate doesn't have to mean bad, it just means they have a hiring need and you're on hand to fill it. Unfortunately this is really the only option if you're otherwise going to have a tough time competing head-to-head with your peers.

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

#274

Post by carabiner »

theonething wrote: post #227
carabiner wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The latter. They're looking for H1B jobs in the US. Sorry, woke up too early.

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

#275

Post by Silhouette »

amlozano wrote: post #50
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…

Regarding over the top accomplishments in resumes: every resume writing workshop tells you to do this. I don't think you should be rejecting these first just because someone listened to the advice of "sell yourself".

There's also the possibility that some candidates actually do have the track record they claim. If your default assumption is that anyone claiming really strong experience is obviously exaggerating when you haven't even talked to them then you're going to rule out a lot of the best candidates stupidly.

I've been in the bracket where ageism is a factor for a while now and so have many of the best people I know who still work as ICs. Being told that no-one really has that breadth or depth of experience and unicorns don't exist should be surprising for this group but sadly isn't any more. If the person making the silly comment is an important player in a hiring process then that's not a good sign.

The worst I've seen is when you're personally invited in as an expert/consultant by someone in your network and then HR insist on treating the gig as if they're hiring some random junior developer applicant. Objectively the professional thing to do if you're getting messed around like that is usually to politely disengage but then you risk making your friend/colleague look bad. Sometimes going via your network is a double-edged sword.

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

#276

Post by anon50118810 »

dadjoker wrote: post #161

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 te…

OP here. This is good advice but is also basic stuff, maybe good for new grads or people with weak social or interviewing skills. I don't think any of this is an issue for me.

For your number (4) it's also important for the hiring side to accept responsibility for choosing to send applicants through one of these platforms. If you set your candidates up to fail, and then they fail, should you own that failure or should they? This is a signal to the candidate too. Practically though, the candidate should just gracefully move on if they are rejected.

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

#277

Post by dadjoker »

neon_electro wrote: post #240
dadjoker wrote: post #161

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 te…

Do you really think code tests like the ones you mentioned are an effective way to screen candidates? I will outright drop out of consideration for a role if Leetcode is mentioned. I'm not putting up with it.

Yes, but it depends. In our case, we purposely made them fairly simple, with a 50% passing score required, just to make sure they can do the basics.

When I was applying, I would get code tests that were off the charts, and would take hours, where they would say that setting up a user and roles system on top of everything else should only take 3 or 4 hours, or I would get grilled on language minutia that were things I had never encountered in my day to day work. In ou se case, ee were just trying to have them demonstrate a minimal amount of code capability without overwhelming them.

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

#278

Post by throwaway675309 »

_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…

Given that you're talking about a 60 K position I can only assume that this is out of your first job or at the very least you're a junior or entry-level position.

So of course this is only anecdotal but I've never sent more than 5 applications out at a time even back when I was a junior dev. In the last 10 years I don't even bother looking for jobs actively anymore, I just turn the switch on my LinkedIn indicating that I'm seeking employment, and let recruiters do the rest.

I'm not sure what the difference is, but I would consider myself to be an outlier as far as traditional engineers go, in that I am both exceptionally articulate and naturally extroverted. If I can get to the point where I have a face-to-face or a phone interview, I'm fairly confident that I'll be able to acquire an offer. Without specifics I can only recommend that engineers work on developing their soft skills if they don't already have them.

On the other hand I'm not particularly picky in terms of companies, and I have a wide range of senior level experience in major platforms including C# and node/typescript/JavaScript.

Just a counterpoint for all the gloom and doom but I'd say that you have nothing to worry about if you have the following:

- in demand skillset (ts/js/c#)

- people skills / charisma

- US citizenship

- 10+ years experience

- reasonable salary expectations (140-175k)

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

#279

Post by anon50118810 »

Ken_At_EM wrote: post #267

This does not describe our company. We want to hire developers.

I looked at the jobs page off your HN profile. It looks like you're trying to hire firmware developers in-office in Houston, who also have to do customer support with an on-call rotation, and are paying on the low end of what web development pays. Kudos for being so upfront but looking at that I have a sense of where the challenges are for you.

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

#280

Post by anon50118810 »

dariusj18 wrote: post #28

My experience is it's impossible to find people who's experience actually matches their resume.

This only comes into play once you've started the interview process, unless you're saying you're so jaded that you don't even bother contacting candidates with good resumes.
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