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Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

paulfuhr.medium.com

41–50 of 176 posts

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#41
IMO job sites were dead the day the launched.

I posted a job ad on jobs.gc.ca in early 2000s which is a government site, with junk UX and even then I got about 200 applications.

Then about five years ago I have talked to my last employer. And they used StackOverflow jobs and got 350 applications just the first day for a super niche position (Perl related). No doubt most applications are unrelated spam.

Now, how do you expect these people to objectively review every single application and pick you?

It’s not possible.

You must do things differently to stand out.

Or network.

But that’s just another way of saying “do things differently”.

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#42
post #35

The author says they've been applying to thousands of jobs. This is the resume the author is linking in the article: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v2sv6ev393z9fkk62v1hw/Paul-Fu... I wonder, if this person's main method of applying has been online forms where you click the "upload resume", he puts this resume in and then everything fails from the start because the ATS is unable to read it. It looks like the text in t…

I would expect no less from a JP Morgan employee ;-)

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#44

> “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” This is the quote from the last powerpoint slide by cute girl from consulting agency. Sweetheart I wake up every morning, eat and drink the same, and yes I expect this day will be different.

That's not what the quote says. It'd be more like you waking up, eating the same thing every day, and expecting different outcomes from the eating, e.g. the level of satiety or the effect on your energy until lunch.

> and expecting different outcomes from the eating, e.g. the level of satiety or the effect on your energy until lunch.

But eating the same can absolutely result with different levels of satiety and energy. Ever been sick, poisoned, or depressed?

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#45
How come I keep reading these types of posts, hearing these stories, yet I've never experienced anything remotely close to this? Job hunting has always been the opposite for me; being inundated by sharks trying to aggressively recruit me.

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For reference; here's a quick summary of my job history: Mid 20s, I was working for a retail bank in Iceland (where I'm from), doing ASP.NET and C#. With about 4 years of experience, I decided I was a "big fish in a small pond" and that I needed a greater challenge. I was interested in finance and wanted to move to London and do quant trading or HFT, so one night I applied for about 5-6 different jobs posted on Indeed.co.uk. At 7AM the next morning the phone started ringing. 3 days later I was in London, doing five interviews a day for 4 days straight, and long story short, ended up doing about a 15-20 interviews and ending the week with a dozen offers.

Since then, I've done the occasional round of interviews, just to determine whether I'm "optimally employed", and they've never been an issue to set up. Basically just message a couple of reliable recruiters on LinkedIn, tell them "hey I'm interested, and I'm looking for X" and they come back with job specs on a silver platter. I've NEVER not got an interview somewhere I wanted to work. Literally never. I've been rejected a handful of times, most of which I'd chalk up to the interviewers or the hiring process being terrible. I've rejected or cut short A LOT of hiring processes, though, I have some insane stories to tell regarding that.

Now, I work almost entirely by referral. I didn't even interview for my current role or send them a CV, because I'm working for and with people who know me. And I have a feeling that's how it'll stay from now on.

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So, now that I got that out of the way - why the F00k is my experience so askew with these horror stories? Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to put anyone down, or brag, or say they're doing it wrong or something, I'm simply asking; what causes the difference in experiences? Is it the fact that London finance runs on recruiters? Is that not a thing elsewhere? The last time I submitted an application directly to a company was in 2009. Since then, I've always had recruiters do it on my behalf.

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#46

While my sympathy goes out to this person, I think this entire long, rambling, post could be condensed to a paragraph, or even a sentence: "It was a mistake for me to use Indeed.com." If you want the job (of finding leads, and finding jobs) done right, hire a professional -- a recruiter who will charge a fee and is aligned towards you finding a job. Trying to cold-apply to every single job with a spray and pray appro…

> Trying to cold-apply to every single job with a spray and pray approach is about as fruitful as cold calling every company you can to sell a product which may or may not apply to them.

This also describes most of the recruiters who contact me; occasionally they happen to be aligned with me job hunting, but usually they were in the "java == javascript" category, and time has only changed this into the "all mobile developers are interchangeable, so even though this is an android position and your last 13 years was iOS…" category.

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#47

While my sympathy goes out to this person, I think this entire long, rambling, post could be condensed to a paragraph, or even a sentence: "It was a mistake for me to use Indeed.com." If you want the job (of finding leads, and finding jobs) done right, hire a professional -- a recruiter who will charge a fee and is aligned towards you finding a job. Trying to cold-apply to every single job with a spray and pray appro…

Any recommendations on finding such middlemen?

I have met the owner of https://www.findmyprofession.com/ a few times and he seems like a good guy but I haven’t used their services. They claim to be such a middleman.

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#48
post #13

Im my more than 10 years of experience as a software engineer, I’ve never used once indeed.com. It always looked to me as a place where 90% or more of the job ads are either scam or of very little quality.

Yeah same, I worry though that this is just a side-effect of our skills being currently under-supplied for the current demand.

We can afford to let people come to us a little bit more than someone who (even though probably has a wealth of experience) is applying for something where the supply of applicants is above or is more inline with the demand.

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