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How (not) to apply for a software job

benhoyt.com

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

#101

Post by RHSeeger »

r4indeer wrote: post #74
tsak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm sorry, a 10-stage application with at least 5 different interviews? How many weeks is this going to take? This feels like FAANG-level recruitment. Am I so out of touch to expect an application, one interview and maybe a technical assessment for most IT/CompSci jobs? Wouldn't the probationary period be way more effective to see if you fit into the team/company/culture/etc.?

If you're going to be leaving another job to work at a company, you want to find out if it's a cultural fit _before_ that happens, not during a probationary fit.

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

#102

Post by jgil »

The author contradicts their own advice to avoid flowery prose, “show don’t tell”, and to use “nothing but words” — they frequently use italics and punctuation for added emphasis.

The criticisms seem pedantic, given that many job postings might fail the writing bar suggested by the post. How would applicants know that the writing style in a posting is unacceptable in their submission?

Re:business jargon — the example of “actionable insights” that was derided as meaningless merely lacks specificity. It provides more information about a candidate’s prior role. Are they building dashboards with summary stats, or expected to propose strategy based on research? Not knowing business jargon doesn't prove that the jargon itself has no meaning.

What do people think of the language in the job below, evaluated using the criteria in the post?

https://canonical.com/careers/4348076

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

#103

Post by dangus »

yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #20
hp6 wrote: post #18

When you have a sub 1% chance of getting an interview, asking for a cover letter or some kind of non trivial time comitment is just wrong. IMHO a better approach would be to select lets say 10% of the candidates and ask only them.

If an applicant can’t take the time to write a cover letter — and by “cover letter” I just mean an email that’s says here’s who I am and here’s what I like/do — why should the person hiring take the time to read what the applicant has copied and pasted to countless other employers?

Do you really want an employee who is dumb enough to do a repetitive, menial, low-value task manually for dozens or hundreds of iterations?

Do you want to disqualify great programmers who are bad at writing prose?

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

#104

Post by loloquwowndueo »

He forgot the part where the most important section of the “written interview” is about your high school years, because Mark Shuttleworth blindly and erroneously believes it’s a good predictor of what kind of person you are and how you will do at Canonical. Never mind that as has been said many times, this is about hiring the current “you” and not high-school “you” which may well have happened 30 years ago.

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

#105

Post by cmcaleer »

emerongi wrote: post #66
rawbert wrote: 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.

I think none of my coworkers in different jobs have had Github profiles with public code. I have a Github profile with multiple public repos, but I don't think it helps with anything. I once had an interviewer say "it seems like you don't have much on your Github profile".

> I once had an interviewer say "it seems like you don't have much on your Github profile".

This sounds like a softball question to invite you to talk about your projects phrased in a slightly ignorant way, possibly on purpose. If you had quality projects on your GitHub this should be an extremely easy statement to answer with "I disagree because x and I'm particularly proud of y and its popularity with n users and feel that it demonstrates skills z". It's a perfectly fine way get a chance to state the value you demonstrate on your GitHub. I'd have no problem with getting this.

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

#106

Post by Joel_Mckay »

From time to time, I volunteer with friends and local grads to find positions out of simple annoyance with the ecosystem. I suspect the reason things look generic is staffing-agents (and data mining scammers) will often post/farm-lead a genetic description of nonexistent positions, than spam the inbox of HR people when a request for applicants is posted. There are many reasons this happens, few are related directly to building a team.

For example, the non-vite job posting some unions, faculties, and work-visa-sponsors must post on public lists by law. These are often so overly specific one could name the single applicant out of 200k CVs. The posters sometimes just want to document time/details with a few applicants to prove on paper they had no option other than hire a specific worker they wanted in the first place.

There are great companies out there that need help building interesting projects. You probably don’t want to work someplace where the process is deceptive, punitive and or humiliating... even with low-stakes conversations about project staffing.

Production programmers/engineers are busy people, and often don’t give a toss about making things aesthetically pleasing for laypersons. For example, they would ignore an article written by chatGPT criticizing chatGPT with 62% certainty.

Good luck, =)

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

#107

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

dangus wrote: post #103
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If an applicant can’t take the time to write a cover letter — and by “cover letter” I just mean an email that’s says here’s who I am and here’s what I like/do — why should the person hiring take the time to read what the applicant has copied and pasted to countless other employers?

Do you really want an employee who is dumb enough to do a repetitive, menial, low-value task manually for dozens or hundreds of iterations? Do you want to disqualify great programmers who are bad at writing prose?

None of my colleagues are dumb, and I don't think the implication is appropriate.

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

#108

Post by loloquwowndueo »

GoToRO wrote: post #36
tsak wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

From what you wrote, sounds like one of the best. At least it sounds better than most other interviews I had that were basically random.

Lots of companies have standardized and well documented interview processes.

canonical’s is indeed a disaster, it’s onerous for applicants (hey that simplified outline doesn’t say it but you can expect between five and fourteen interviews - seriously I know applicants who had fourteen interviews).

Another thing it doesn’t mention is the fact that there’s really no dedicated hiring and interviewing team at Canonical - all engineering teams “pitch in” (read: are forced to) with resume and written interview reviews, as well as in-person interviews.

This wastes a tremendous amount of expensive engineering time, and a lot of this is due to poorly screened resumes. It was very frequent for me to interview a candidate and wonder how they made it to that stage when it was clear from looking at the resume during interview prep that they were totally unsuited for the role.

Source: former Canonical who like everyone else, was forced to “participate” in the hiring process.

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

#109

Post by brabel »

pacMakaveli wrote: post #82

This article is so frustrating. Get yourself on the market before spewing this 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 n…

I have the impression that for each recruiter with the same opinions as the OP, there's 10 that love bullshit and flowery prose and will discard anything that sounds like a simple developer writing about what he's been doing in a more realistic tone.

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

#110

Post by loloquwowndueo »

pacMakaveli wrote: post #82

This article is so frustrating. Get yourself on the market before spewing this 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 n…

Mod parent up!!
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