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He who submits a resume has already lost

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Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#71

Post by pdimitar »

bjornsing wrote: post #52
cornholio wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We don't want job applications from people who are looking for a job. We're looking for people who actually want to do work > We're not offering you a job. We offer you the opportunity This gem right here sums up what an employers market means. Every employer thinks they are special and wants an employee who's entire life's journey was only a preparation for the singular great moment of meeting you and building you…

> But guess what: you are not special, you are just a workplace and you compete in the marketplace for talent just like everybody else. For economic reasons that have nothing to do with you, you have more negotiating power for a limited time. That is all. I think it’s perfectly legitimate to not want to hire people with this attitude. Just a few people with this attitude can completely ruin an early stage company. An…

How did you infer the "early stage company" thing? That's an assumption.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#72

Post by r_hoods_ghost »

Let's be honest, the alternative to having an open hiring process, i.e. resumes, is nepotism and hiring your chums and the chums of your contacts. Which does describe the hiring process in a lot of startups. Ethical issues aside, the problem with this is that it shrinks the pool of potential hires down drastically, to people who look like you, think like you, and know roughly the same things as you. Great if your customers also fit into this bracket, not so great if they don't.

However I think the OP drastically underestimates the proportion of wholly unqualified on paper people who apply for most jobs. I'd put it at 50% for most and up to 90% for some. So you can see why people go down the nepotism + chums route.

As someone who has a deeply weird CV and life experiences / social circle that is pretty much orthogonal to most techies it can be difficult, as the nepotism / chums route is not available. But just writing a cover letter to the JD and company gets me a fair way usually.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#73

Post by frrae »

cornholio wrote: post #28
jensneuse wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand where you're coming from, but see it differently. This really is a filter. We don't want job applications from people who are looking for a job. We're looking for people who actually want to do work at WunderGraph. We're the first to build a Backend for Frontend Framework, unifying the ideas of API Gateway, BFF and package manager. Our long term goal is to build the GitHub for APIs, a collaborative platf…

> We don't want job applications from people who are looking for a job. We're looking for people who actually want to do work > We're not offering you a job. We offer you the opportunity This gem right here sums up what an employers market means. Every employer thinks they are special and wants an employee who's entire life's journey was only a preparation for the singular great moment of meeting you and building you…

You are indirectly making a great case for requiring that applicants consider the company more that "just a job". If my coworkers ranted like that, I'd not have fun at my work and you'd be dragging morale down.

I spend 8-10 hours a day at my job. That's far more than with any of my friends and typically more than even with my spouse in the average week. My coworkers, at least a significant fraction, better be amazing. If somebody comes and basically says, dude, it's just a job, leave me alone, I leave them to their misery. If I am forced to work with them any significant amount of time, I quit an go work somewhere else where I can build meaningful connections with people around me. Cause let's face it, co-workers are a friends substitute in this day and age.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#74

Post by frrae »

pdimitar wrote: post #71
bjornsing wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But guess what: you are not special, you are just a workplace and you compete in the marketplace for talent just like everybody else. For economic reasons that have nothing to do with you, you have more negotiating power for a limited time. That is all. I think it’s perfectly legitimate to not want to hire people with this attitude. Just a few people with this attitude can completely ruin an early stage company. An…

How did you infer the "early stage company" thing? That's an assumption.

It's worst for early stage, but applies to all companies except one-man-shows.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#75

Post by ryandrake »

gymbeaux wrote: post #54
chocolatkey wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a jaded interviewer (and interviewee) in tech, I will say this works great if you have, for example, a face-to-face meeting and you can demonstrate your interest/passion for the role, but in cover letters or similar email exchanges, you already have people spitting out those fake statements, and it's tedious to distinguish the genuine interest from the fake "I am interested in because you and believe I am a perfec…

There has to be a better way. I really think TripleByte was on to something. No other profession has such a convoluted interviewing system. Imagine if doctors were expected to perform surgeries in X minutes in order to prove they were qualified for the job? Imagine if a lawyer had to prove they graduated from law school by defending a random felon in a court setting. No other profession in existence expects candidate…

This comes up a lot and the reason doctors and lawyers don’t have to do their version of FizzBuzz is that they have strong, organized professional organizations managing their professions and providing a credential that assures some base-level skill. If we had the equivalent of the Bar Exam, we’d only have to take it once and then skip 75% of every interview.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#77

Post by pdimitar »

frrae wrote: post #74
pdimitar wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How did you infer the "early stage company" thing? That's an assumption.

It's worst for early stage, but applies to all companies except one-man-shows.

I believe in this entire thread the attitude of "just do your job well and exceed expectations a few times a year" is very under-represented. And I've met many employers who have it.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#78

Post by yawboakye »

parkinson’s essay on the principle of selection[0] is relevant here. concerning cv submission/job application being a negative signal he says, and I quote:

  Heaped on the table before this committee are 483 forms of application, with testimonials attached. All the applicants are Chinese and all without exception have a first degree from Peking or Amoy and a Doctorate of Philosophy from Cornell or Johns Hopkins. The majority of the candidates have at one time held ministerial office in Formosa. Some have attached their photographs. Others have (perhaps wisely) refrained from doing so. The chairman turns to the leading Chinese expert and says, "Perhaps Dr. Wu can tell us which of these candidates should be put on the short list." Dr. Wu smiles enigmatically and points to the heap. "None of them any good," he says briefly. "But how--I mean, why not?" asks the chairman, surprised. "Because no good scholar would ever apply. He would fear to lose face if he were not chosen." "So what do we do now?" asks the chairman. "I think," says Dr. Wu, "we might persuade Dr. Lim to take this post. What do you think. Dr. Lee?" "Yes, I think he might," says Lee, "but we couldn't approach him ourselves of course. We could ask Dr. Tan whether he thinks Dr. Lim would be interested." "I don't know Dr. Tan," says Wu, "but I know his friend Dr. Wong."
[0]: http://www.geocities.ws/films4/parkinsonselection.htm

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#79

Post by Brian_K_White »

andrewstuart wrote: post #10
jensneuse wrote: post #7

I keep giving this advice on how to significantly increase your chances of getting to the interview stage. Most candidates really only submit a resume. The chances of getting to the interview stage with this approach are almost zero. Because everyone does this, you can easily stand out. Simply answer the following 2 questions briefly in plain English. 1. Why do you want to take this role? 2. Why are you a good fit fo…

This attitude is well suited to an employers market in which you need to profess your love for the job and company as part of your job application. A pity the market has turned back this direction. It’s usually accompanied by an employer “looking for someone who loves the opportunity enough to go through our 12 week, 9 interview, 1 whiteboard, 2 coding test process which usually ends in veto and ghosting”. Like telli…

They didn't say anything remotely ike that.

Hyperbole is not an argument.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#80

Post by ryandrake »

gymbeaux wrote: post #51
leipert wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get your point. But when you go through hundreds of applications for a single role, the ones with a cover letter do stand out. Not that I would only hire if you had a cover letter, but it still stands out. One hand folks complain about automatic scanning and rejection based on just the CVs and here we are complaining about the one instrument, a job seeker has, to express interest in the company. To go with your dat…

I never made the connection before, but yes online dating apps are a LOT like interviewing for software jobs. In both cases, I am/was "rejected" a lot, but in both cases, wherever/whoever I ended up with, was very happy with me. I think most likely the conclusion to be drawn is that humans suck at evaluating other humans.

The job market works exactly like the dating market would if there were 1,000 available men for every 1 available woman. In other words… like online dating.
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