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Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

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Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#171

Post by e_i_pi_2 »

ryandrake wrote: post #22

I've been through the dotcom slaughter of 2000-2002 as a new grad (undergrad) and the comparatively small slowdown of 2008 (grad school new grad). Get ready to hit the Submit button... a lot. The stories of "getting three job offers after four interviews at five companies" are no longer reality. My application:interview:offer ratio has always varied from 50:5:1 to 100:10:1, and I would expect something like that or w…

I think this is the big advice - it may be harder to get hired at a "top" tech company, but there's still so many hiring, seems more like a shift from larger to smaller companies - decentralization of the workforce rather than a reduction.

I don't have data to back this up though, just my general feeling and seems like what happened in the past

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#172

Post by ghaff »

thinking4real wrote: post #165
qbasic_forever wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Connections, connections, connections. Reach out to every friend, old coworker, etc. especially those that are in management now. Catch up and get a pulse for how their company situation is right now--if they're weathering the downturn well, going through layoffs, etc. If you do get laid off you can reach out to these folks immediately and get recommendations or even just feedback on your resume. The sooner you start…

“Reach out to every friend, old coworker, etc. especially those that are in management now.” This advice always cracks me up. Most people don’t have deep networks of people who can hook them up with a senior level engineering position. Like, even the people I know who are quite well connected don’t really have this option. Sure, everyone has a buddy who’d love to pay them half for twice the work. But we’re talking re…

>This advice always cracks me up.

And, yet, all three jobs I've had in the last 25 years (including one in 2001), I landed because I knew someone senior at the company pretty well. Not strictly engineering but tech and tech ecosystem companies. Was that lucky and atypical? Perhaps. But those were my experiences.

The last job I got through "normal" channels was from a campus interview at grad school.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#173

Post by vehemenz »

ryandrake wrote: post #148
fernandopj wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Network aggressively and be likeable. You never know when that linkedin connection from a shit job 3 years ago will throw you a bone. I know everybody on HN really likes their leetcode but if you have an inside reference, the interview is reduced to just a vibe check. ++1 this. Couldn't have said better myself. I went more than 10 years not having to apply anywhere, switching jobs just by referral - interviews felt…

Maybe I'm just not that good at networking, but I haven't found this to be true. Networking can let you bypass the very top of the funnel: Where you're pissing your resume into the void. And that's significant! But I've never "networked" myself into a job. Your standard Software Engineer peers in other companies just don't tend to have the power to hire. They may know which jobs are real, which ones are good, and mig…

We could be talking about different things, but networking at conferences and professional events has been productive for me. I'm talking real-life socializing here, not LinkedIn. You can size people up quickly and determine whether they are competent/sane without a lengthy interview process. It's less about having friends in high places than sharing war stories and establishing a rapport with like-minded people in an informal, semi-work-related context. You're not really trying to find a job or employees, but you might meet enough people and your contacts eventually become an organic part of the hiring or job-hunting process.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#174

Post by AnotherGoodName »

sh4rks wrote: post #123
mooreds wrote: post #18

I like the advice here: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/advice-for-junior-softwar... (didn't write it, but it jives with my experience). I also wrote something here on how to stand out: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2022/09/19/ways-to-stand-... Finally, you ask: > Is it better to get any job than keep searching for the job I'd be most suited for? That depends on your financial situation and emotional runway,…

Great advice. The only thing that's missing is to grind leetcode as hard as you can. As much as HN and Reddit hates leetcode, most companies still use it in some form. Getting good at leetcode-style questions will allow you to get through the first few interview stages more consistently. Then, in the later interview stages, you can show off your personal projects and open source contributions.

I've worked at multiple of the FAANG. Everyone acknowledges they study for the interview. You may occasionally get someone trying to make out they could pass without study but even then they acknowledged they studied. This isn't something to be arrogant about. It's a process designed to filter out those who'd refuse to study to get the job. You have to study. Doesn't matter if you have a PhD and write books on CS. Study. Don't be a dick about this fact. Complain in HN about a process that filters out those who can't/don't study if you want but if you're going for the job study. This is rather straightforward to the point the recruiter taking you through the pipeline will explain this in detail.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#175

Post by phone8675309 »

r4vik wrote: post #105
lowbloodsugar wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point there is no way any software company could justify, legally, hiring someone on an H1B. There are some 40k layoffs in last few months and certainly a large number of those are US citizens. Any company claiming that they can’t find a US citizen with the right skills is lying.

they've always been lying, the can't find someone with the skills is just a hoop to jump through.

The lie is that they can't find someone with the skills

The truth is that they can't find someone with the skills who will work like a pittance and who will worry about being deported if they leave/get fired.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#176

Post by ska »

lifeisstillgood wrote: post #137
mooreds wrote: post #18

I like the advice here: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/advice-for-junior-softwar... (didn't write it, but it jives with my experience). I also wrote something here on how to stand out: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2022/09/19/ways-to-stand-... Finally, you ask: > Is it better to get any job than keep searching for the job I'd be most suited for? That depends on your financial situation and emotional runway,…

Just to jump in on this - I got canned in the last big recession and while not a new grad, I took the next (contract) job that came up, at much lower pay, and over the next year doubled my take home from the original job. Two lessons 1. Spend your lunchtimes job hunting. Treat it like a job 2. Move around as a new grad. Think of it like dating, you have to kiss a few frogs just to get an idea of what is out there. (M…

> Move around as a new grad.

... but not too much/too soon. Best to understand what you can/should learn and try and achieve that before looking for a change.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#177

Post by olddustytrail »

liquid_stranger wrote: post #86
topkai22 wrote: post #31

As a new grad I don’t think you need to do much different. At my Megacorp the college hire budget is separate from everything else. Even during the strictest hiring freeze college hiring continued. I would advise shifting expectations a bit, it’s likely offers will still be good but not quite as lucrative as last year. As for accepting any job- just because you’ve accepted a job does not mean you can’t keep interview…

> Of the 20 people we had, 3 had new jobs within 3 months of hire. I am coming up on month 3 of my new job and not liking the team and leadership. I can tell it will only get worse. I really want to leave and luckily have the opportunity to close the loop on all my current projects. Should I just make it quick and send an email to manager tomorrow that I feel it's not a good fit and Friday is my last day? Make it qui…

No. Your assignments are irrelevant; that handover is what your notice period is for.

Line up a new job first. Might not be as easy as you think.

If you want a break in between tell your new job you can't start for a couple of months.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#178

Post by 2sk21 »

I have one of the early PhDs in neural network based machine learning - completed in 1992. My biggest problem back then was that only a few people in the entire world even know what a neural network was - so I was a little head of the curve :-) Thankfully however, I was able to get a job in a networking group at IBM Research on the basis of some distributed systems work that I had done in the process of creating my neural network training code. You have to recall how slow computers were thirty years ago so I needed a lot of them to train my networks.

Anyway, I was completely out of the machine learning field for nearly 15 years until the late 2000s when interest in the field started to pick up again. The main advice I can offer is to be flexible and bide your time.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#179

Post by manimino »

nyanpasu64 wrote: post #61
Traubenfuchs wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The stories of "getting three job offers after four interviews at five companies" are no longer reality. Yikes. I have been in Software Engineering for about 11 years and never had it any other way and even then interviewing and managing applications was stressful. Having to apply to 10s, 100s of companies would destroy me. I am very, very scared of my company going under and me having to compete in this market. I…

If I'm unemployed and dropped out from college due to stress and burnout (still ongoing, compounded by a psychologically-unsafe living environment), and would have to fill out hundreds of job applications to find a job, and doing so is unmanageable and beyond my capabilities, is it easier to not find a job and stop trying to stay alive?

It's not really that binary, though - job or death. There's an awful lot of space in between the two.

There's this conveyer-belt view of life: we are supposed to go directly from birth to school to job to kids to bigger job to death. Some people really do live that. Most people don't.

But we're expected to fit that mold, so anyone who's stepped off the belt will usually keep quiet about it. So it's easy to start believing that the only valid life is some linear path.

Still. Unemployment is stress and uncertainty. But bad job markets aren't forever. Good luck with finding a job, or managing to enjoy the interim.

Nyanpasu.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#180

Post by akomtu »

nemo44x wrote: post #85
time_to_smile wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are nothing like that situation Agreed because this time the asset bubble extends well beyond tech. This is a much larger problem and will take much longer to unwind, cutting much deeper than that.

I understand the sentiment and there's certainly a logical and valid case for it. But I disagree with it and here's why: 1) The secular trend in falling interest rates and "low" interest rates will continue longer term. Raising rates rapidly has been disruptive but it also gives some breathing room and the ability to slowly lower rates again, which will be needed to stimulate demand again. Lower interest rates obviou…

I like your optimism about 2025. Tension around china, russia, north korea is rapidly increasing and by the end of the decade I'd expect a bigger war there. US will have to print another pile of money and then face a choice: let the economy sink in the inflation or join the war. The dust will settle by 2055.
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