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Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

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Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#11

Post by gautamdivgi »

moosedev wrote: post #6

Not just you. I would guess, optimistically, I’m averaging a 5% conversion rate of applications to recruiter chats/“stage 0 interviews”. That is, ~95% of applications yield silence or a generic email rejection without any human contact. ~15 YOE, FAANG experience, usually only applying to roles I feel I’m at least a halfway good fit for (i.e. not a complete scattergun approach). I’m (financially) fine for now, which i…

If you are a US citizen try defense companies.

Edit: I should have explained my reasoning. They have a much smaller eligible applicant pool - US citizens who are eligible for security clearance. Because of this they’re continuously looking for good talent.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#12

Post by dangwhy »

tomashertus wrote: post #5

I've not been actively looking for a new role, but the number of inquiries in my LinkedIn inbox has dropped from 6–10 per month to 1–2. I think there is an overall slowdown in hiring, especially in FAANG, and given how many open positions they were hiring for, it's a significant drop that can be felt, especially in the Bay Area. I believe that with the recent news coming from Twitter and Facebook (cutting middle mana…

> believe that with the recent news coming from Twitter and Facebook (cutting middle managers), there will be significantly fewer open positions in middle management roles.

This still hasn't materlized at META though. There have been no middle managment layoffs at meta. Reamins to be seen if mark was just bluffing.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#13

Post by arthurcolle »

Keep at it. It definitely takes a while to ramp up into doing daily interviews/technical assessments (take homes) but once you are in a good flow, it becomes easier.

I would say that your time is probably better spent leveraging your network, and using Linkedin/Work at a Startup/RemoteOK to find better leads, as there is more favorable signal/noise ratio on these more 'intimate' sites (excluding linkedin, but there is still value in Linkedin)

It definitely sucks. Especially when unemployment insurance takes forever (been trying to get a piddly $400 a week from MD where my last employer was located for the last 5 months, and honestly no one there is sympathetic for someone earning 100K+ who now is submitting all the documents and doing everything needed to get unemployment checks)

It's tough out there. If you are really hard up for money, take whatever is available or try to get into consulting. I wish I had better answers, but I'm in the same boat.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#14

Post by BWStearns »

I've definitely noticed it's a lot softer market than any other time I've seen it. Not totally dead but not great, especially since I'm really trying to find a role I actually want to be in this time (historically I haven't been very picky other than the comp number and it led to a bit of burnout).

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#15

Post by Plasmoid »

I was looking at some internal metrics for applications. We were seeing ~1000 applications per week for SWE roles and around 500/week for senior SWE.

I'm not sure how many are genuine compared to scatter-shot applications but it means that a lot of recruiters have to dig through huge piles of resumes and odds are good that you're just being missed in the volume.

There are much fewer resumes for specialized/higher level roles than for junior roles. Infra or Security roles get much fewer applications than junior SWE.

On a personal note, I've noticed that recruiter reach outs have increased since mid-February.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#17

Post by smitty1110 »

Caveat Lector: I'm east coast, so YMMV.

Everything I've heard suggests there's a lot of decisions that are waiting on financial reporting for the quarter before the C-suites make their hiring decisions. MS is not just laying off, they have frozen internal hiring between groups and even projects inside of groups. AWS is waiting on financials, my contact over there is looking to move back to MITRE because he's worried, and he has high-side access. I know a couple of start ups in the area have had their buyouts put in a holding pattern. Nothing is dire, but the general vibe is "calm before the storm".

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#18

Post by 1differential »

It's extremely brutal. I'm a staff engineer and a tech lead of ~12 engineers, I've either been getting low ball offers, or ending the last round of interviews to get no offer. I've employed but have been looking for a job for ~6 months with terrible results. I graduated from a T5 school, have worked at a "unicorn" startup, and have an average of 3 years at every role. My conversion rate is a little better - 3 interviews for every 40-50 apps, but I've gotten 2 offers for 6 months of searching.

My most memorable was this tier 3 hedge fund trying to convince me to take a junior IC role for a new team that had also hired a manager and director from outside the company for a new endeavor/initiative, and the manager had been at his last 3 jobs for roughly over a year each, get out of here lol.

Re: Ask HN: Is the job market brutal? or is it just me?

#20

Post by 0zemp1c »

during a previous downturn, I just took six months off

if the market is lousy, its lousy...even if you get something, the offers could be lowball or inferior positions

no one judged me or questioned this, it seemed sensible to take a time out during a crappy market

not everyone can swing a "sabbatical", but if you can, I doubt anyone will judge you for it

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