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

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

#141

Post by bdowling »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #98

Want to start by saying I do really empathize with this person. But I can't help but shake my head a little when I read way too unnecessarily long missives like this (I admit, I only got a couple of paragraphs in before I bailed) and think "this person just doesn't get it." Some points: 1. First, to start, I have a ton of empathy for this person being in an extremely challenging field. He essentially did internal com…

> way too unnecessarily long missives like this

The punchline (buried way too far down) is that he calls himself a professional writer.

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

#142

Post by tamimio »

I think we all agree that there should be a unified and standardized way of submitting applications, something that passes all company's systems and also as an applicant you sure your resume is not botched somehow. Ironic how all these developers who build all these very complicated systems, APIs, architecture, you name it, can’t even make a proper system so it makes their life easier the next time they apply for a job, or even when their system receives many resumes.

Keep in mind, that after all this chaotic process, these resumes will pass through a mostly-lazy HR department, so the whole process is a failure built on top of failure.

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

#143

Post by nradov »

colesantiago wrote: post #139
jmye wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you know if the CV is accurate or not? What does this have to do with AI? People have lied on their resumes long before ChatGPT existed.

Well it has everything to do with AI, as this will make the application process completely worse, fake CVs and cover letters produced at scale faster than before with little effort which does not help the sifting process for hiring managers. You might as well (as I suggested before) not rely on CV / cover letters as a signal at all, and look at other means such as real world projects (with working links) that people…

That's just silly. Creation and submission of fake CVs was never an obstacle before. It was always super easy, and AI changes nothing significant. The reason most job applicants are fairly honest is that any major lies are likely to be discovered during the interview and background check process.

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

#144

Post by jmye »

colesantiago wrote: post #139
jmye wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do you know if the CV is accurate or not? What does this have to do with AI? People have lied on their resumes long before ChatGPT existed.

Well it has everything to do with AI, as this will make the application process completely worse, fake CVs and cover letters produced at scale faster than before with little effort which does not help the sifting process for hiring managers. You might as well (as I suggested before) not rely on CV / cover letters as a signal at all, and look at other means such as real world projects (with working links) that people…

I still have no idea why you think this is an AI problem. What is the value in creating a fake resume via AI that doesn’t exist without AI?

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

#145

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

bdowling wrote: post #141
hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #98

Want to start by saying I do really empathize with this person. But I can't help but shake my head a little when I read way too unnecessarily long missives like this (I admit, I only got a couple of paragraphs in before I bailed) and think "this person just doesn't get it." Some points: 1. First, to start, I have a ton of empathy for this person being in an extremely challenging field. He essentially did internal com…

> way too unnecessarily long missives like this The punchline (buried way too far down) is that he calls himself a professional writer.

Didn't really want to pile on, but this guy is looking for marketing writing jobs. Granted, I guess in one way he succeeded by getting to the front page of HN. But if I wanted to hire someone whose primary purpose was to communicate effectively and succinctly to potential customers (or employees as was the case with his most recent job), this post would be a red flag to me.

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

#146

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

angarg12 wrote: post #32
dboreham wrote: post #10

Never used indeed.com once. But...people should know that these sites, and recruiters, are basically hiring theater. Almost all jobs (perhaps excepting FAANG meat grinder) are filled through personal connections.

> Almost all jobs are filled through personal connections. I see this repeated online, but is there any data to actually back this claim up? In my experience only a small number of jobs get filled through referrals etc.

I think this might be a difficult thing to get data on, as I don't think most companies would want to release this info. But I would say in my experience that the more senior the role and the more experience someone has (the author had VP-level experience) it is absolutely the case that you lean on referral networks. Even at the very senior level where people are hired through executive search firms, a big reason those firms exist is to ensure confidentiality throughout the process, but most of the names they come up with aren't usually unknown to the hiring company.

Also, it's important to understand that it doesn't need to be direct referrals (i.e. someone at the company saying "We should hire Bob X for this job"). Oftentimes it's things as simple as LinkedIn posts sharing job openings with your network, and then when that's passed around have someone reach out through a mutual contact.

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

#147

Post by turquoisevar »

adeon wrote: 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…

To be fair most ATSs are really bad at parsing information in very unexpected ways.

I used to have a pretty basic resume with two columns, basically plain text describing job experience and education in reverse chronological order and a narrow side column showing experience in languages and frameworks in a progress bar style to indicate proficiency/experience.

Some of the application software of the “fill everything in regardless of resume” variety offered to upload resume and then auto populate, which is essentially a preview of the ATS parsing capabilities.

It was perfectly capable of parsing the experience in languages etc, but would consistently fuckup the plain work history.

Even recreating the resume in a simple no frills Word document would help.

In these cases I was lucky I could manually input everything, but it did leave me very unimpressed.

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

#148

Post by yowlingcat »

raincole wrote: post #38
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations on finding such middlemen?

Another middleman who is "professional" at finding middlemen, of course.

Very clever. But rather than optimizing towards cleverness, you could optimize towards directness and say "try them out and develop relationships over the long term." It's not as cute and clever of a phrase. It's unfortunate that the truth isn't cute and clever.

Or maybe it's fortunate? You know, I actually think it's fortunate. I'll let the cynics who like being cute and clever keep their misfortune, and I'll keep my boring, ugly, successful reality.

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

#149

Post by yowlingcat »

paulddraper wrote: post #67
yowlingcat wrote: post #9

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…

(On the hiring side) Every year or so I cave and enlist a third-party recruiter. And every year or so I am reminded why I don't normally do that. The average quality of candidate recommendations is abysmal. So I return to LinkedIn + personal networks.

This is a prescient insight and you're getting at the core achilles heel of the traditional recruitment model. Because the compensation is based on a ratio of first year salary, the recruiters incentives actually align with the candidate and against the hiring manager. The recruiter, as with the candidate, can (and often will) profit from overpricing a low quality candidate with a hiring manager they view as gullible.

But this creates a market for lemons where many of the savviest hiring managers hire through other means. That doesn't just disadvantage savvy hiring managers, it also disadvantages savvy candidates by eroding the ecosystem.

The solution is to use curated networks -- and any recruiter worth their salt should be able to speak credibly to their own with strong references from strong candidates and especially strong hiring managers. After canvassing both and running some real life experimental tests, you'll be able to sift the wheat from the chaff. Ideally, you can do this over a span of multiple years across multiple roles so you've integrated this ecosystem into your own.

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

#150

Post by yowlingcat »

ben_w wrote: post #46
yowlingcat wrote: post #9

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 de…

> This also describes most of the recruiters who contact me

How often do you reach out to them?

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