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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?

#111
post #4

1. Make friends with people at work 2. Eventually, some of those people will get new jobs, and they can refer you to their new employer (and vice versa). 3. Repeat for a few cycles and you have a network full of potential job opportunities without ever going through a job board.

This.

I haven't bothered with non-word-of-mouth jobs for over ten years. If the job's not recommended to me by someone I already know, I'm not interested. It saves sooo much time.

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

#113
post #16
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…

Been looking since about February. I've probably sent out at least a hundred apps for positions I was interested in and met qualifications for. I think I've made it to a recruiter screen around ~10 times, and I've had less than 5 actual interviews follow. I have 6+ years in industry, 4 and some change of which were FAANG (which everyone believes is a golden ticket into any company). And I can't even get an interview.…

How is this possible? Surely at this point you would have a network to lean on that wouldn’t leave you applying for jobs online? I’m hesitant to believe you don’t have a network and more willing to believe you don’t realize you have that network and maybe even not sure how to use it. I truly don’t mean this to be critical and instead curious: Why would you spend that much time applying for jobs with that type of success rate?

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

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your experiences are too similar to what I've seen. I don't think the public preconception has yet to realize this is what reality if looking like for many people rather than the headlines about no-recession, jobs everywhere, low unemployment. Both can be true. Many people can have a reality of not being able to find buyers for remote work performed on computers. And the data indicating non remote work, possibly no…

> And the data indicating non remote work, possibly not performed on computers is widely available The initially reported jobs numbers each month always claim that, and then those numbers are consistently revised down over time so that jobs have been lost the whole time, and our perceptions were more accurate than the initially reported data.

Presumably, this chart is using revised data, and it does not show any material upward movement in even the most expansive definition of unemployed for almost a year:

https://www.macrotrends.net/1377/u6-unemployment-rate

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

#116
post #4

1. Make friends with people at work 2. Eventually, some of those people will get new jobs, and they can refer you to their new employer (and vice versa). 3. Repeat for a few cycles and you have a network full of potential job opportunities without ever going through a job board.

4. Never burn any bridges. That boss or coworker you refuse to work with can and will actively block you in future employment possibilities. Also know that if that person is making your entire life hell, you might just need other things happening in your life to make your life more varied. Smile to the end (if you can).

Disagree; stay true to yourself. Try to be nice to everyone regardless, but also don't hold back on honest criticism for fear of reprisals. Doesn't matter how high the other person gets in the chain, you can't hide what you are (neither them, nor you).

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

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't believe the unemployment rate is as low as they claim. A low unemployment rate would mean employees would be less picky but they aren't. It is almost impossible to find a job right now. It is definitely tough to do research. A lot of the jobs posted are fake.

I see lots of employers who are not picky. Hotels, grocery stores, hospitals, warehouses, construction crews, transportation businesses, etc. Employers in one sector being picky is not evidence of all employers being picky.

> I see lots of employers who are not picky. Hotels, grocery stores, hospitals, warehouses, construction crews, transportation businesses, etc.

Jobs aren't getting filled because they're in places people can't afford to live. Right now that's most places - including places that had been affordable for generations but aren't any more.

This all should be easily understood but it often isn't.

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

#118
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…

The ones I looked into didn't get past intros due to compensation. My last new job was before all the interest rate increases and all that stuff, so I think I pinned my salary solidly above my current market. I'd have trouble getting a lateral compensation move, let alone a bump. Between that and my house, interest rates have been kind but also I'm kinda bound by it.

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

#119
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

/r/antiwork and /r/recruitinghell both have accounts of people being rejected from non-software jobs as well. Additionally, crappy wages and unrealistic job descriptions. Of course I read those posts knowing there's a certain amount of echo-chamber effect in those subreddits and a small number of posts may not give a clear indication of the overall job market. But certainly provides some perspective.

> Additionally, crappy wages and unrealistic job descriptions. What’s interesting, is from what I’ve seen, a lot of stuff is paying a lot better than I remember seeing a decade ago. However, the costs, notably the cost of things you need to survive (especially housing) has managed to far outpace those wage gains in a much shorter period of time. Although that might be specific to my location.

> However, the costs, notably the cost of things you need to survive (especially housing) has managed to far outpace those wage gains in a much shorter period of time. Although that might be specific to my location.

It's not. That's everywhere. The difference is in the degree in awfulness.

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

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>which were FAANG (which everyone believes is a golden ticket into any company). In a past job, I saw a LOT of former FAANG candidates as a hiring manager (SRE @ hedge fund) at a past job. In my experience, FAANG folks have a somewhat barbell distribution where it's either: A. "This person is incredibly talented, well spoken and will probably find a job anywhere" B. "This person spent 5 years at a FAANG and worked on…

> I also distinctly remember learning that Google had 100K+ employees. To me, that is moving into "big bank" size territory and it's clearly impossible for EVERYONE who is former Google to be amazing. Ive worked at 3 places, sizes: I cant even imagine 100k. 100k for Toyota or Walmart, sure, that makes sense. But at tens of thousands of engineers you must have a lot of people not doing anything. Even at 20k, so maybe…

When I was an industry analyst and had more exposure to large companies at fairly high levels, the thing that impressed me was that they were able to function at all. So many layers of management, so many moving parts, so much coordination needed.

It also wan't unusual for me to be consulting with some group and some topic would come up and we'd be--you do know that so and so at your company is working on this, right? And they usually wouldn't.

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