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Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

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Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#191

Post by plants »

moosedev wrote: post #112

I took ~1.5 years off after 12+ years of FAANG. 1 month ago, I decided I was ready to work again and started talking to recruiters for real. It's been very slow. Most positions I've applied to, I've heard nothing back, even when referred by a current employee. I've had some flat rejections without even a recruiter chat. One recruiter called me to say they were on a temporary hiring freeze, and then she got laid off.…

I have also been out of work for ~8mo for various reasons, and while I’m sorry for your situation, it’s heartening to hear I’m not the only one. I’ve only actually gotten one tech screen in which I was asked a LC “hard” question, which I didn’t pass (I’m pretty good with “easy” and “medium”, but come on, hard?).

So far, I have one other interview from an internal referral, but haven’t heard anything back from the ~10-15 other applications I’ve sent out. I’m getting a bit discouraged and feel similarly as you - it would be nice to take more time off (maybe I don’t actually love working in tech?), but I have the same worried as you. Feels good to vent in this thread, though :)

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#192

Post by skeeter2020 »

abadger9 wrote: post #7

I'm not laid off but actively looking to change after spending a couple of years at my current employer. Despite being a staff engineer, managing 12 engineers, and having a solid revenue stream tied to my current team - I've mostly gotten rejections without interviews, 1-2 low ball offers, or radio silence. I cannot imagine how hard this must be for those laid-off, hopefully this storm passes soon. EDIT: you cannot m…

>> Despite being a staff engineer, managing 12 engineers,

So this is actually a warning to me as a hiring manager. Good staff developers absolutely are technical leaders but if they have day-to-day people management skills I'm at best confused, at worst skeptical. Managing 12 engineers is a full time job before you even get to staff developer responsibilities.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#193

Post by bhaney »

JoelMcCracken wrote: post #134
bhaney wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I've found plenty of hits but haven't accepted an offer yet" seems like a perfectly reasonable response to the question of "how's the job hunt going?"

Sure, but I think the implicit question-behind-the-question-being-asked is "we're hearing about a recession and that the job market is a lot harder than it was, how are you finding it?"

Right, and that seems like a question that can be usefully answered right now by the victims of the early layoffs who might have had time to get a few offers by now. If the responses are all "it's been a month and 90% of the feedback I get is 'sorry we aren't hiring anymore'" then that paints a much more dire picture than "it's been a month and I have 4 viable offers that I need to pick between," both of which are potential responses we could be seeing by now.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#194

Post by skeeter2020 »

progman32 wrote: post #98
300bps wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But I'm looking at the job market and think it might be better to give it 4-6 months. I'm fascinated by this. How does one do this? Two options I can think of are being independently wealthy and being dependent on another. Are there other ways to accomplish being so comfortable with, "eh, gonna be unemployed another 4-6 months and see what happens"?

Lots of financial ideas in this thread, but I feel this misses one point: achieving the comfort level. For me, it started with focusing on my mental health, finally getting to the realization that I'm worth taking care of, and that my non career dreams are valid and important. So jumping out of the rat race for a year to just exist as a human was an almost no brainier. I'm not getting any younger.

I think it was Scott Adams he presented this formula to me: "Happiness = Health + Freedom". This includes mental, physical and emotional health, while freedom is far more variable and personal in definition. The key is you need both.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#195

Post by skeeter2020 »

pojzon wrote: post #151
noworriesnate wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do I get those contracts? I'm a full-stack developer with 10 years of experience, also some data analytics experience. I got laid off almost two weeks ago. I would love to start my own contracting business. Do you have any insight?

There is a lot of contractors and you have to be extremely good to do what the dude/dudette said. Like - have a unique skillset, have multiple certifications, recommendations, proven B2B experience as a consultant. Then getting contracts is easy. Probably less easy now tho.

I contracted for the better part of a decade and I wasn't extremely good, but I was solid technically and trusted as a problem solver, so I got my first contract from my personal network, and then built it from there. If I had to rely on being extremely good and going in cold I'd still be looking. Your best bet is to go with a third party and then eventually go independent once you have your own reputation and network.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#197

Post by SCUSKU »

Thanks for asking so that we can all vent!

I have 2 YOE as a SWE, got laid off in August from a startup that was Series A and generating no revenue. I was able to get interviews in September/October, and got far at 2 companies but got rejected by one and ghosted by another. I have found it's much harder to get an interview this month as layoffs increase. I'm pretty much hoping that once the holidays are over, things will pick up again, but I am pretty worried that I may be forced to just join the military or something because I can't get a job in tech.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#198

Post by skeeter2020 »

ctvo wrote: post #76
abadger9 wrote: post #7

I'm not laid off but actively looking to change after spending a couple of years at my current employer. Despite being a staff engineer, managing 12 engineers, and having a solid revenue stream tied to my current team - I've mostly gotten rejections without interviews, 1-2 low ball offers, or radio silence. I cannot imagine how hard this must be for those laid-off, hopefully this storm passes soon. EDIT: you cannot m…

> Despite being a staff engineer, managing 12 engineers, and having a solid revenue stream tied to my current team - I've mostly gotten rejections without interviews How do you expect the HR folks to validate (or even to have read what you wrote) these claims? A lot of people put the things you’re putting on their resumes. They’re also getting resumes when from Meta, Amazon, Stripe, … engineers. Is it really surprisi…

HR don't validate resumes before you get a call back; that would be super-inefficient. As a hiring manager of course experience at the big co's catches my eye, but unless you're hiring there as well (and most of us are not) I actually figure I can't get them interested anyway, so don't pursue these people. Someone who claims deep technical or experience or people management though? I'm totally going to jump at the chance to talk to them asap, even if I've never heard of their current company.

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#199

Post by mettamage »

culi wrote: post #180
dan-robertson wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need to practice leetcode like things for interviews, aren’t you also doing free ‘work’? Only in that case it’s more proof-of-work than something actually useful. Perhaps one could point at the openly viewable results when talking to other companies. The strategy strikes me as a little weird but not crazy. If you like open source already, it might make a lot of sense.

> If you need to practice leetcode like things for interviews, aren’t you also doing free ‘work’? Only in that case it’s more proof-of-work than something actually useful. This might be true, but at least the skills are easy to show off on a resume and will help you with other interviews. Open-source contributions might vary drastically in nature and might be harder to leverage as experience/proof of skill

Many tech interviews at startups are simply: "talk about a project you once did :)"

Re: Ask HN: How's the job hunt going? (For those laid off)

#200

Post by HDThoreaun »

mwint wrote: post #188
HDThoreaun wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work for a startup whose equity I consider worthless, 180 base.

Can I ask what industry and your seniority (And maybe whether you’re doing 80h weeks?) Been considering a move, trying to calibrate myself on what I’m actually worth.

It’s a data warehousing company and I’m an se2. Sorry but would prefer not to say anything else. I will say that I got this job at the height of the market froth and am not sure if they’re still offering this salary although we are hiring

I used levels.fyi to find comparable salaries and my friends in tech said it’s pretty accurate

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