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He who submits a resume has already lost

residentcontrarian.com

171–180 of 225 posts

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#171
post #136

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 am…

> Candidates are to their resumes what a chef's meal is to the list of ingredients. It sounds as though you're saying it's not the list of ingredients, it's what you make of them. On the contrary, the interesting chefs, you can tell from the list, as there are delightfully unexpected choices and twists on the list. This absolutely POPS on a resume, and is one of the indicators I look for.

Can you tell me how good my chilli con carne is going to taste? These are the ingredients I use: ground beef, tomatoes, peppers, onions, garlic, red beans, and of course, chilli.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#172

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…

The flip side is a company interviewing me, and didn't open any of my relevant social profiles.

Instead, I'm getting complexity questions whose solution amounts to "do a cumulative sum?"

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#173
post #98

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…

It's hilarious that you think people are thrilled to work for your company. You could have this attitude if you were running a non-profit or were a pioneer in something. Running a fancy CRUD app ain't that, chief. And to answer your question in a way that 99% of your applicants would like to, but your high-horse approach is stopping them: 1. To make money so I can pay for rent 2. Because I have previous experience wi…

Evidently you haven't read their landing page since it's definitely not a fancy CRUD app and as a developer of fancy CRUD apps, what they're doing does excite me (too bad I'm not looking for a job!).

And given that they're an early stage company (my company is as well), I have had employees who were working as a boring day job for the comp alone, vs those who do it out of genuine interest in the space, and it excites them. Both types of employees are useful to have, but the latter are far more indispensable to me. Given a choice between either type of candidate, the latter wins every time. The mindset has to be different between "big stable megacorp" and "scrappy startup".

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#174
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, especially since the answer the the first question ("1. Why do you want to take this role?") is usually: "you have work to do, and have the money, I can do the work, and want the money"

If I truly loved your vision or product or something or believed in it, I probably would start my own competition. If I want to invest in it why not go all in. But I don't. So it is a transaction and you are one in hundreds of options I have over years. And you should also treat it like that.

Why would you believe in a company? It's not God or your wife.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#175
post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people mis-read this post as "showing" love to a company in the application. This is not what I meant, so I'd like to clarify this with a story. Prior to starting WunderGraph, I've worked for a Full Lifecycle API Management company. It's was my best paying and most satisfying job before cutting my salary almost half to make my startup burn as little as possible. I found this company because they had an open sour…

> I've read through your website and documentation and are truly inspired by your vision It's probably more practices like this, where the prospective employee has to enthusiastically profess subservient, slavish devotion to a company in order to be considered a viable candidate. You're writing GraphQL API glue. Everyone knows you're doing it to pay the mortgage. It's not a transcendental experience. By contrary, the…

As someone with GraphQL problems I am excited by GraphQL API glue lol.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#176
post #149

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…

> I’m sorry, but I am special: there is only one of me on this planet. There may be only one person exactly like you, although with 9 billion people it remains to be proven. But you sure are replaceable by many others with approximately the same set of skills.

Sure. And my general attitude is that if my employer can replace me then they should, so I can do something more productive (where I will be harder to replace). And to state the obvious: when you run your work life like this for 20 years you get pretty hard to replace.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#177
post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ghost them and move on. Why waste your time?

I'll probably send a thank you note rather than ghosting them outright, but this has become the plan as of yesterday.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#178
post #119

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…

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…

Gather all job offers worthy of your application. List them on a document with: company name, short description, link to the offer, a link to an archived copy (sorted by interestingness, they go at the top: published 15 weeks ago)

Put a table under each where each row represents your steps though their process, columns are mostly time stamps, offer published, time elapsed since previous step, time since publication. When you've added it to the document, when you've applied, when they responded, when the interview was (if any) Final row (if any) should describe why you rejected the offer.

If you just didn't get hired the entry may be removed.

Put a version number on the document and a pass-worded link to the most recent version.

IOW a detailed survey of the landscape.

Re: He who submits a resume has already lost

#180
post #119

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…

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…

I'd have called time a long time ago. It sounds like you're their fallback and they've been stringing you along (the way I read it). I don't know what more they'd want beyond you saying you'll accept their job offer for the terms already discussed. I'd time limit it as you have already wasted enough time with them. 12 discussions? I don't think so.
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