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Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

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Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#31

Post by terminatornet »

frfl wrote: post #8

Bit of a tangent, but what has been everyone's experience so far in 2023 trying to find a new job? I got really interested in this and have been passively researching it (HN, reddit posts). My conclusion, so far, is unless you've got strong connections it's hard right now to find a job. Most job posting, as OP mentions get hundreds if not thousands of applications. Other times, I've personally also notice, candidates…

I'm still employed, but just started looking for new jobs as of a few weeks ago. I've similarly had the generic rejection with every position I've applied for so far.

I suspect that my biggest hurdle is that my resume isn't tailored enough to get through whatever criteria their applicant tracking system is using. Really annoying that I have to try and game the system just to get my foot in the door.

Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#32

Post by gedy »

mdekkers wrote: post #19
frfl wrote: post #8

Bit of a tangent, but what has been everyone's experience so far in 2023 trying to find a new job? I got really interested in this and have been passively researching it (HN, reddit posts). My conclusion, so far, is unless you've got strong connections it's hard right now to find a job. Most job posting, as OP mentions get hundreds if not thousands of applications. Other times, I've personally also notice, candidates…

I’m 53, and I doubt I’ll ever find a job in tech again. I only started getting responses when I removed the earliest 15 year’s experience from my CV, and as soon as I hit the screening stage and my age is known they lose interest. Ageism can get fucked.

Don't lose hope, it's just a downturn. At previous company (a year or so ago) we hired 61yo who had gotten in to tech a few years before. He turned out great.

Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#33

Post by justinzollars »

mdekkers wrote: post #19
frfl wrote: post #8

Bit of a tangent, but what has been everyone's experience so far in 2023 trying to find a new job? I got really interested in this and have been passively researching it (HN, reddit posts). My conclusion, so far, is unless you've got strong connections it's hard right now to find a job. Most job posting, as OP mentions get hundreds if not thousands of applications. Other times, I've personally also notice, candidates…

I’m 53, and I doubt I’ll ever find a job in tech again. I only started getting responses when I removed the earliest 15 year’s experience from my CV, and as soon as I hit the screening stage and my age is known they lose interest. Ageism can get fucked.

Out of curiosity - if this is actually true (I doubt it - that is you will never have another tech job; not ageism.) What is your plan?

Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#34

Post by lylejantzi3rd »

alexpotato wrote: post #21
itsoktocry wrote: post #3

Once you've moved beyond a junior-level of experience, I'm not sure if there's a better way than working your network for opportunities. In my experience there is never, and will never be, a shortage of business people looking for technical problems solvers.

Joel Spolksy has an interesting quote about this: "Third, and trust me on this, there’s still an incredible shortage of the really good programmers, here and in India. Yes, there are a bunch of out of work IT people making a lot of noise about how long they’ve been out of work, but you know what? At the risk of pissing them off, really good programmers do have jobs" From: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2005/01/02/adv…

Dan Luu has an interesting post about it as well.

https://danluu.com/hiring-lemons/

Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#35

Post by vouaobrasil »

mronetwo wrote: post #22
vouaobrasil wrote: post #5

The truth is, most jobs these days are rather bloated themselves. I do wish you luck in finding a job, but I would also give you this following piece of advice: at the same time while trying to find a job, think about strategies where you can work less and contribute more to society in your local community. I truly believe that the real opportunities out there are those which are mostly divorced away from the typical…

Ideally, this. Realistically, not sure about this. It might be a bit of a crapshoot. It might yield very rewarding "jobs" but it's difficult to put your mind into it, when you just want to make a living. It just feels like you have to cross certain wealth threshold to do this. It might not reflect reality but this feeling of "I need a 9 to 5 to just keep myself afloat" is real.

You're right about that. And this is something I've been thinking about for quite some time. My rejoinder is that most people have a set of compromises they can make that might make them a lot wealthier than they think.

For example, a friend of mine was complaining that he had to work hard to afford a house. However, he was dead-set on a set of ideals and a location he wanted to settle at. Maybe part of that was preference, but it was clear that part of that was some sort of preconceived notion hammered into him by society and peer examples.

Instead, he could have aimed to buy a cheaper house in a smaller town while working/renting in the current town and just moved out. In my home town, even smaller houses cost at least 400K but there are plenty of nice places where the houses are 60K. So, buy one of those instead and move away once you've saved up enough...

By taking a month and seriously going through what's important to have a happy, "basic" life, most people will find things that they can give up, but that will make them happier in the long run. Like living in a certain neighbourhood, buying this or that, taking a certain number of vacations, having an extra child, a dog, etc.

Most people end up saving TOO much for retirement...and while caution is good, our society hammers this idea of an extremely consumptive lifestyle that these endless 9-5 jobs support.

Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#37

Post by joewhale »

You’re probably not used to thinking with a “sales” hat, but you are selling yourself. Find the contact of your potential manager (engineering manager or whoever) and find a way to directly reach out to them and pitch them and the call to action is a phone call.

Cut through all the noise. This is the way.

Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#38

Post by tayo42 »

frfl wrote: post #8

Bit of a tangent, but what has been everyone's experience so far in 2023 trying to find a new job? I got really interested in this and have been passively researching it (HN, reddit posts). My conclusion, so far, is unless you've got strong connections it's hard right now to find a job. Most job posting, as OP mentions get hundreds if not thousands of applications. Other times, I've personally also notice, candidates…

my job search is miserable. I want to post a well thought out rant about my experience but idk how to do it anonymously without ruining my chances to get a job looking like a dick online.

Every part is horrible:

recruiters that don't know the industry beyond buzzwords. this is frustrating, they cant think outside their box "oh you havent done exactly this for 10 years, so i guess youll never do it." I dont think people know how bad of a filter these hr people are. I wrote code that handled tens of millions of requests a second, then you get "oh but were really looking for a sr backend api engineer, this doesnt seem like a good match" like what do you think I was doing?

random interviews with no clear goals. "system design" wtf is this, i have no idea what anyone is looking in these within an hour. you want me to design facebook in 45min on a clunky ui? it takes 20 minutes just to talk about some of this stuff. you have to hope to hit their random keywords, but you have no idea what it is. leetcode has been beat to death, that to is horrible. we need you to optimize this exponential algorithm on the fly. basically if you haven't seen the exact problem before, you are not passing these interviews. or you run into the sr engineer, been with the company for years, that seems stuck in their local maximum that's interviewing you, your subjected their random questioning and expectations.

the slow pace of everything. schedule an intro call a week ahead with a useless recruiter, schedule your tech screen another week out, now 2 weeks to get 3 engineers to screen you, talk with a hiring manager another week out.

> worse getting no response at all.

yeah, some company sent me an offline question, one question was write a k8s yaml file, right now, along with 2 other algorithm questions. like wtf was that looking for. no, i havent heard anything back. cant believe i wasted 1.5 hours on that. i dont think ill do any take home assements anymore, there is no guarantee anyone will look or respond.

the low balls, "were looking for a staff/team lead, pay is 140k" you are out of your mind with these.

I can keep going, the whole thing is horrible. thanks for reading my mini rant

Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#39

Post by CoastalCoder »

Also worth discussing: once you start interviewing, what can you do to get an offer?

Personal anecdote: I was laid off ~4 months ago. It wasn't that hard to get interviews. But then I bombed the coding interviews for several appealing positions.

I'm a very experienced developer, but I didn't realize just how much my programming-during-an-interview skills had atrophied. IMHO those coding tests were properly weeding me out, because it really looked like I couldn't program.

I'm now making time to work on practice problems, and I think they're really helping. I expect future coding interviews to go much better.

Re: Ask HN: How do you look for jobs in 2023?

#40

Post by TrackerFF »

I must be incredibly lucky, because every job I've gotten the past years have been through the "normal" channels, meaning that I found the job listing on some rather huge classifieds website. I then just typed up a honest job application, updated my resume, and applied for the jobs. Always got a reply, and eventually a job interview.

Should be mentioned that I live rather rural, and have experience (analysis and engineering) which makes me stand out from most other applicants.

Since 2004, I've sent out under 20 job applications. The past 5 years I've switched work twice (better jobs and higher salary) - so I don't know if I'm a good representation of the job market.

But most of my ex-colleagues that work as devs seem to get their interviews through their network. Usually goes something like this:

1) Company needs something fixed, or increase their headcount to meet goals

2) Dev: "I know this one guy/gal, I've seen his work and we worked briefly on a project"

3) Manager: "Great! Reach out to them and see if they're interested!"

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