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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?

#141

Post by jselysianeagle »

gigatexal wrote: post #75
gigatexal wrote: post #72

Have you considered moving abroad? I’m a mediocre engineer compared to the rockstars in my field and I regularly get interviews at startups, and medium to large companies here in Germany. I feel as though the jobs are for me to take or the interviews are for me to fail. Honestly think about it. I do interviews for the company I work for (though I’m a senior data engineer I really like being people facing and meeting…

*forgot to add context: I’m an American living in Germany for the last 5 years.

Someone elsewhere in this very thread is claiming that the market for Senior/Lead level roles in EU right now is in fact tough. In your experience is getting a visa sponsorship in Germany as hard and limiting as it is here in the US?

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

#142

Post by lexarflash8g »

In my experience its terrible for juniors, and tough right now for senior devs. I'm applying for Snr SRE/Devops roles -- I maybe get a 50 percent response rate since my resume looks good.

Get the call with the recruiter -- bla bla bla - we will submit your profile to hiring manager and typically ends there. Its like they are playing games and intentionally messing with you. Somewhere in the process I fall between the cracks, and its rinse and repeat.

Its time consuming and you basically do free work (take-homes), or even assessments as part of the application. Very morale reducing.

Seems like the jobs in demand are for principals/leads/ or management roles.

A year ago with less experience it was much easier to get final round interviews.

I've cast a wide fishing net, applying to jobs on Linkedin, through Slack channels, and posted on Hackernews. But to be frank, basically it goes nowhere.

I'm using my time to upskill and read books on tech topics, take video boot camps, and sharpen my coding skills. Its hard to stay motivated without an incentive really. Seems like techies are disposable at this moment and requires a huge ego check.

It sort of baffles me -- tech jobs are abundant and I'm not picky --- like trying to work as a game dev at a AAA studio or be a screenwriter in Hollywood.

BS and recruiting hell seem to be the norm now

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

#143

Post by oh_sigh »

uncletammy wrote: post #68
oh_sigh wrote: post #9

150 resumes sounds like you're just shotgunning them out there willy nilly. Maybe take a more nuanced approach and work your network a little bit. Your network could even just be people you've worked with in the past who respect you and enjoyed working with you, doesn't need to be people you actively keep up with.

It's hard to keep morale up after spending multiple hours composing a few thoughtful, "good fit" applications, just to be auto-rejected immediately upon submission without them even being seen by a human. I don't even bother anymore unless I have someone on the other end who's willing to usher my application straight to a hiring manager.

I agree - that's why my advice isn't to merely spend more time studying who you're sending resumes to - instead, ask friends and friends of friends for recommendations to get your foot in the door. I worked at a company that a lot of techies aspired to work at at one point, and if your resume came in through the unsolicited form, you had basically a 0% chance of anyone even seeing your resume. But if your resume was recommended by a current employee (not vouching for them absolutely, just telling the recruiters - hey, check this out), then you had like a 1-2% chance of getting hired. Which doesn't sound great but it is far better than 0%.

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

#144

Post by mrpeluca »

pkaler wrote: post #89

Hiring manager here with open REQs. I've been doing multiple phone screens daily, and it's been brutal on my end, too. I structure the hour-long phone screen to be 1/3 coding, 1/3 behavioural questions, and 1/3 career growth and questions for me. We rarely get out of the coding question block. It's a fairly simple question that ChatGPT solves easily. The tightest solution is about 10 lines of code. It can be answered…

> We rarely get out of the coding question block. It's a fairly simple question that ChatGPT solves easily.

well I guess now we know why its all so brutal. We are being compared to a state of the art AI. Also we gotta have a compiler installed on our heads. That aside, if you are a hiring manager, ask yourself what your company really needs. Because this format of interview is so outdated, its insane.

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

#145

Post by lexarflash8g »

jstx1 wrote: post #34

Seems brutal. No prestigious company on my resume and I'm trying to switch fields - so far only no-responses and auto-rejections.

If you have a "name" in the industry, meaning you are some sort of 10x developer, which 99% is not -- companies will actively poach you like you are some NBA all-star. For the normal people out there -- even having a big-name company on your CV won't get you far. And forget telling them you got laid-off or out of work -- you'll be tossed out. Hiring has never been an honest process -- eliminated my expectations that any company is trying to help you.

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

#146

Post by aborsy »

I wonder if finding a job was easier in 90s and 2000s.

It feels like finding employment is getting harder and harder. There is much more specialization required nowadays (so many YOE in exactly the same field and software frameworks), rapidly shifting trends (that can leave out many people who are not lucky working in an area that is in demand), elevated expectations (see the number of the rounds of interviews) and increased competition (more and more people having access to the same jobs due internet).

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

#147

Post by taylodl »

skyyler wrote: post #82
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, would be great to live in a magic land, where the US has no competitors, adversaries and sworn enemies. But this isn't magic land. US defense contractors are very much for profit and deliver a product that deters or kills some very bad people, more and more discriminating between collateral damage and intended targets - far more than can be said of Russian in Ukraine, for example. There's an entire generation i…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/politics/afghanistan-d... Anyone that gets into defense because of this thread, remember that the technologies you develop will be used to slaughter the innocent.

Cold War Kid here. I grew up in a neighborhood where a significant faction of the fathers were engineers working for a major defense contractor. The Tomahawk Cruise Missile, the Aegis Anti-Missile System, the Abrams Night Vision system - those are just a few of the projects our dads were working on.

Everyone in the community, us kids included, considered this to be serious and vital work for defending the US from the USSR, an adversary who's brutality has been revealed for the umpteenth time in the Ukraine attack. I, for one, would like to see the US strive to actually live up to our stated ideals. Unfortunately, Reagan showed the neocons all you have to do is act like you care about your ideals.

WRT your link - that video was obtained via a FOIA request. Do you think Putin would allow such a video to be released? Yeah, we're not perfect but at least we're still allowed to talk about the bad things we do, openly gripe about our government, and demand more accountability. THAT is something for which US citizens can still be envied.

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

#148

Post by taylodl »

mmanciop wrote: post #117
hef19898 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can confirm, defence (related) and security clearance requirements largely limit the applicant pool. One, because for some reason Lockheed is dirty while Palantir or Facebook isn't. And because a lot of people are, by virtue of country of birth, ineligible of getting a security clearance. Also decent money and job security. But while I draw my moral.line at small arms (those have the nasty habbit of ending everywhere…

> Lockheed is dirty while Palantir or Facebook aren’t Said nobody with any common sense, ever. Palanthir or Meta are in my eyes as bad on CV as… as… wait is there a way I don’t go Godwin’s in this thread?

Agreed. Where I work we hire people from Lockheed all the time. Meta? We wouldn't touch them. Move fast and break things isn't the mentality we're looking for when working with what the Department of Homeland Security has classified as National Critical Infrastructure.

If our service goes down, civilization goes down. We can't afford to hire people who've spent a career playing games.

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

#149

Post by bobobob420 »

gabereiser wrote: post #25
ivanstegic wrote: post #19

I believe that the market is correcting and that salaries will be going down.

On the contrary… I’m not seeing any evidence of this. If anything, salaries are going up.

that is just simply not true. all evidence including anecdotal points to much lower salaries than we saw in last 2 years. Where and for which roles are you seeing salaries climb?

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

#150

Post by CoastalCoder »

skyyler wrote: post #82
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, would be great to live in a magic land, where the US has no competitors, adversaries and sworn enemies. But this isn't magic land. US defense contractors are very much for profit and deliver a product that deters or kills some very bad people, more and more discriminating between collateral damage and intended targets - far more than can be said of Russian in Ukraine, for example. There's an entire generation i…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/19/us/politics/afghanistan-d... Anyone that gets into defense because of this thread, remember that the technologies you develop will be used to slaughter the innocent.

> ... remember that the technologies you develop will be used to slaughter the innocent.

I totally agree. One should think carefully before helping to arm a nation or its people. It's a weighty decision.

I wish the answer was as straight-forward as armament is bad, pacifism is good. Unfortunately, AFAIK unarmed nations don't last very long.

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