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How (not) to apply for a software job

benhoyt.com

91–100 of 174 posts

Re: How (not) to apply for a software job

#91
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t necessarily make you one, but it’s a darn good indicator.

How so? If it was, most novelist should be great software engineers. They are not.

This line of conversation has now become so nonsensical that I can only conclude you are arguing in bad faith.

The act of writing fictitious narrative prose is obviously quite far removed from communicating technical ideas clearly and concisely. I think you know that.

Re: How (not) to apply for a software job

#92
post #42

Am I the only one who is not maintaining some kind of private Github repo? I am doing this job for the money and not the "coding fun". If I had the urge to code more, I would just do more hours in my regular job and get paid for that.

Linking your GitHub profile works if:

- you have a very popular repo

- you have submitted a significant amount of PRs (or interesting issues) to popular repos

Your toy programming language that hasn’t received a single star nor a commit for over 2 years, your “fix typo” PRs, nor your countless forks don’t matter at all because: interviewers rarely look at them, if they do, they won’t understand it, if they understand it they will judge the smallest mistake they can find, and chances are, you yourself don’t remember a thing about your most interesting project.

Re: How (not) to apply for a software job

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, you want money. That's fine. But what does the potential employer get out of the deal?

A diligent employee who gets the job done in an efficient way because they want to get home to enjoy the money they just earned?

Ok. If you can explain in a little more detail how you get the job done and what qualifies your assessment of the relative efficiency, then you probably have the basis of a decent cover letter.

Re: How (not) to apply for a software job

#97

This article is so shit. I recently been on the lookout for a new job and my first CV was personal. Full of my own words and description of what I did in the last 10+ years as a software engineer. I'm a bit biased but it was a really good CV. That got me 0 fucking offers. ZERO I rewrote my CV based on some google suggestions and with ChatGPT. I got through for every single job I applied ( 10+ ) and even received offe…

I think if your resume goes through HR or automated filters first, they will filter out any personalized CVs. It would need to land directly on the table of an engineer for it to be appreciated.

Re: How (not) to apply for a software job

#98

This article is so shit. I recently been on the lookout for a new job and my first CV was personal. Full of my own words and description of what I did in the last 10+ years as a software engineer. I'm a bit biased but it was a really good CV. That got me 0 fucking offers. ZERO I rewrote my CV based on some google suggestions and with ChatGPT. I got through for every single job I applied ( 10+ ) and even received offe…

I wonder how differently this comment would have read if you had fed it through ChatGPT first.

Re: How (not) to apply for a software job

#99
post #8
post #6

Isn't Canonical famous for having one of the worst candidate selection processes? Also, there's a lot of superstition and nonsense about how to succeed at interviews and job applications.

I once applied for a job at Canonical. This was their process (roughly two years ago)... Thank you for applying for Software Engineer. The application process has several stages: - Initial screening (done) - Personal essay (this stage) - Culture interview - Standardised aptitude and personality tests - General interviews - Recruitment screen - Technical assessment - Role-specific interviews - Hiring manager interview…

> Standardised aptitude and personality tests

Really?! I'm pretty sure that's illegal.

Re: How (not) to apply for a software job

#100
> There’s nothing interesting or personal, and it could describe almost any software engineer.

Do you not want a software engineer?

I’m applying for a job that I have to have to survive, not my life’s ultimate passion.

If you don’t want me to use automation to aid my workflow (which in this case is to apply to hundreds of jobs knowing that my chances at each individual one are slim) then you’ll get what you’re asking for: employees who are stupid enough to waste their time on menial, low-value tasks like cover letters for job applications that have a 99%+ reject rate.

For hiring managers lamenting the fact that our resumes don’t stand out, maybe you should be scolded for your jobs not standing out. What do special about working for canonical? Let me guess, you write software that transforms inputs to outputs on a deadline. My bad for my cover letter on that subject being “boring.”

It’s not the applicant’s job to be worried about the difficulty of your screening process. If you don’t want to sift through flowery cover letters, stop asking for them. Also, it’s your job to sift through applications, not our job to tailor our applications for your individual preferences. You’re just one fish in the sea.

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