He who submits a resume has already lost • Hacker News Board

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#131

Post by nitwit005 » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 9:39 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #36

andrewstuart wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not a bad analogy btw. Love at the first sight is very rare. What you could expect is a certain amount of interest - which could develop if all goes well. But expecting people to be madly in love with your company after reading a website is a bit megalomanic - or just selecting for people who are really good at faking.

I definitely read that as someone who wants people to praise them.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#132

Post by Yoric » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 9:45 AM UTC

andrewstuart wrote: post #128

Yoric wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: I'm currently through an interview process that has lasted 11 weeks so far, including 12 discussions, 1 system design, 2 coding, 3 behavioral. The employer has informed me several times that they intend to make an offer and that my salary expectations are within their range... but they've been postponing the offer for 3 weeks now and clarified yesterday that they want me to profess that I'm more interested…

You have the right to confirm likely salary offer after interview number two. Unfortunately there’s a really strange thing that happens in very long interview processes, is the employer starts to think something is wrong because the process has taken so long, despite the process being driven by them . Anyhow, to your situation…. It is now an employers market and some of them need to feel loved. So you should effusive…

Well, I pretty much told them that 2 weeks ago. If they want more than that... I'm not sure what else I can do. Right now, I'm actually starting to ponder whether I should tell them "no", because it starts to feel like a red flag.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#133

Post by Yoric » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 9:46 AM UTC

Uptrenda wrote: post #125

Yoric wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fun fact: I'm currently through an interview process that has lasted 11 weeks so far, including 12 discussions, 1 system design, 2 coding, 3 behavioral. The employer has informed me several times that they intend to make an offer and that my salary expectations are within their range... but they've been postponing the offer for 3 weeks now and clarified yesterday that they want me to profess that I'm more interested…

This sounds sketchy and unprofessional. I'm surprised you said yes to that many interviews...

This is 2023, the market is weird. I don't quite feel like playing diva :)

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#134

Post by tukantje » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 9:46 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #94

elihu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking back on my life, I can't remember a single example where I ever got a job just by submitting a resume. Either I already knew someone in the organization or otherwise had a relationship with it to begin with (e.g. I got a summer grounds job at a University because I was already a student there), or I met someone at an event who was looking for people to hire.

But how does that even work? Even if you know someone at the company, at some point you have to apply online, to get into the real HR pipeline. I occasionally have people I used to work with ask me for help getting a job. I usually encourage them and give them some interview pointers, but ultimately I have to say “Here is the link to the posting, go apply and good luck!” I am just employee number 52214. I don’t have…

Most companies have a referral system.

You also know the structure inside: meaning you can say hi to a hiring manager you may or may not know, and say “check this guy out - I vouch for him”

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#135

Post by em-bee » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 9:52 AM UTC

ht_th wrote: post #118

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe with the population of this site this is more true than the most, but I'd still consider it a minority, even here. I doubt many plumbers cite a love of modern world development, when they get hired for fixing toilets, or that people assembling washing machines have a passion for clean clothes for other people... or even people working for google don't really have that much passion for collecting other peoples p…

No, but they might like the sort of projects the organization does with respect to complexity, or that they mostly serve governmental buildings, or that they work in the community they're part of, etc. In the end, you have to make a choice between organizations to work for, and usually they all pay more or less the same. So, what's then the deciding factor? By the way, this definitely doesn't mean to glorify an organ…

indeed this.

there is a difference between the choice of profession and the choice of company after learning the profession.

above we were discussion which tech company to work for, because most of us here are in tech. but tech companies have a wide variety of business goals and practices.

plumbers not so much. they do plumbing. they all have the same business goal, the differences are where they operate and how nice the coworkers are and the work conditions and pay.

for a tech company it makes sense to ask, do i like their product, independent of the job i'll be doing there. for a plumber not really.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#136

Post by sph » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 9:57 AM UTC

Resume-based hiring is dehumanising and terrible under any aspect. There is nothing redeeming about it.

There is an incredible number of factors that determine how good a prospective employee is to a company, and none of them can be easily represented with a list of job titles and qualifications. You can find people with impressive resumes and they are terrible employees: lazy, stupid, unmotivated. There is a vast amount of people with unimpressed job history that would be perfect candidates even to work on a very specific piece of technology if they are smart, quick to learn, driven, ambitious, enthusiastic or any other soft-skill.

My best interview is my first, as a 19 year old high school dropout: I must've mentioned that I had played with Linux and knew C and PHP. They asked me something along the lines of "what does ifconfig do?", "can you configure Apache?" and "tell me a little about your projects in C", and got hired. They only needed to know I was able to learn undirected, was passionate about computers in general. Of course this was for a junior position, but still, none of that 3 interviews, whiteboard leetcode bullcrap that is so common nowadays.

tl;dr: Candidates are to their resumes what a chef's meal is to the list of ingredients.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#137

Post by pasquinelli » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 9:59 AM UTC

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…

yeah, and back when it was a tight labor market, when employers were supposedly dying for anyone they could use, i don't recall the opposite attitude prevailing. of course, i'm not really in that scene anymore, so i could've missed it.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#138

Post by elihu » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 10:05 AM UTC

ryandrake wrote: post #94

elihu wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking back on my life, I can't remember a single example where I ever got a job just by submitting a resume. Either I already knew someone in the organization or otherwise had a relationship with it to begin with (e.g. I got a summer grounds job at a University because I was already a student there), or I met someone at an event who was looking for people to hire.

But how does that even work? Even if you know someone at the company, at some point you have to apply online, to get into the real HR pipeline. I occasionally have people I used to work with ask me for help getting a job. I usually encourage them and give them some interview pointers, but ultimately I have to say “Here is the link to the posting, go apply and good luck!” I am just employee number 52214. I don’t have…

My most recent job was with Intel. I got invited to some kind of recruiting event, I'm not sure how. One of my friends was trying to get me to join, so maybe he sent them my email address? Or maybe they spotted me on LinkedIn? I have no idea. Anyways, I ended up talking to one of their senior engineers on the project they were hiring for. I can't remember if it came out then or later that that senior engineer was a college friend of a guy that founded a startup I had previously worked for. Not sure if that made any difference or not, but I had relevant experience in the area they were hiring for, so they brought me in for an interview. (Which turned out to be an all-day ordeal, but I passed.)

The startup I had worked at before, I was hired because I went to a local un-conference, Portland BarCamp. I ran into someone I know from the Personal Telco Project, which started back in the early days of 802.11 wireless networking and was trying to promote free access points around town. Anyways, he knew someone else there that was hiring for a startup, so he introduced me and we talked and I went in for an interview and got the job.

In either case, it's not like friends are directly getting me jobs (as far as I know), it's more that my network of acquaintances aligned in a favorable way and I was in the right place at the right time.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#139

Post by pasquinelli » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 10:05 AM UTC

leipert wrote: post #20

andrewstuart wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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 think the real move is to situate yourself in a relationship with the prospective employer where the resume and cover letter and interview and all are formalities done after you've already got the job, but that's a tough thing to just do in a hurry, like, say, if you just got shit-canned. maybe you'll do better with a cover letter, but it's still a cold-calling sales job, with success rates to match.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#140

Post by sph » Sat, Apr 01, 2023, 10:07 AM UTC

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…

> 1. Why do you want to take this role?

> 2. Why are you a good fit for this role?

"I need someone to pay me a salary so I can make rent. I have valuable skills that match the position, but working for you is not the dream of my life. I will probably quit after a few years if the project is boring or I find a better paying opportunity."

There have been times I was really passionate for a company, and it shows in my cover letters. But when you're looking for a job and are considering hundreds of positions, I have no interest in writing some bullshit story how I have been dreaming of working there since childhood for every single company I am applying for, especially if they're unknown or have limited public presence.

And it is hilarious, sad, and mental that companies expect prospective candidates to lie and/or debase themselves like that. Should I ask any plumber when I have a leak under my sink to tell me why they think they are a good fit for the role, and where do they see themselves in 5 years?

I'm not looking for charity, I am very good at my job, I can create value and improve your product, how is this not enough?

(I know I am looking for contract work these days, and being so outspoken will hurt my chances, but honestly this has to be said. I do not like lying, nor spending 3 hours becoming passionate about your company, just to fall through the cracks and not even get a rejection letter. You need work done, I am good at doing it, let's talk.)