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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

#121

Post by sjducb »

22289d wrote: post #75

A common phenomenon in the age of ChatGPT. Making the mistake of thinking you can spot AI writing because you can spot bad AI writing. You're only spotting the bad. The good you think is real. Some of the best cover letters and answers the author reads were probably written with the assistance of AI. The key to using AI to write better is: 'with the assistance of'. You don't write a prompt, get a bunch of text and co…

Yea. I mostly write a first draft and tell AI to improve it. It keeps all of the content I put in, but the writing is much better than what I did.

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

#122

Post by supriyo-biswas »

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…

Humans love bullshit, and using ChatGPT to reorganize and embellish your CV undoubtedly brought you results.

One need look no further than the Google Docs LLM demo that generated a job advert from a one line description. No employer wants to say that they’d like to pay their employees low salaries or that they’re looking for unmotivated underachievers, and yet every company feels the need to state they’re looking for rockstars who’ll be paid competitively.

If everyone says the same thing, then, from an information theoretic perspective, it conveys no information, what we’d otherwise call “bullshit”.

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

#123

Post by jgil »

steinuil wrote: post #80
daniel-s wrote: 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 actually just looked at their application form for a systems software developer position. They really want to know how good you were at maths and native language in high school for some reason, and not only do they ask what top percentage you were in (whatever that means, high schools in my country don't do that), but they also ask you to directly point to evidence for these scores. Right before the application for…

High school related questions can be a way for companies to infer your socioeconomic status, religion, ethnicity, etc.

Some companies even ask for the specific high school.

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

#125

Post by foldr »

gampleman wrote: post #29
Darkstryder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To me, a good cover letter is about being actually motivated to apply to a specific job and then simply explaining why. AI doesn’t help because if you can articulate your genuine motivation as a prompt for an AI, you should just use the prompt as the cover letter which will be a lot more effective than using the AI-generated letter, as the AI will muddy your authentic motivation and diminish its impact.

Did anyone ever get hired by answering the question of "Why do you want to work for us?" with "Because I need a pay check"? Because that's realistically like 80% of the motivation for most job/candidate pairings. In my case the remainder is usually like 15% "and it doesn't require selling my immortal soul to the devil" and 5% "your tech/problem is vaguely interesting". Given the above, I feel like a typical cover let…

A cover letter is also supposed to explain why the company should want you to work for them. But this question isn't usually posed explicitly, which I guess is confusing for some people.

Also, almost no-one is motivated so purely by money that they are equally interested in all jobs that pay the same. You can probably think of some reason why you would want to work at company X as opposed to any other number of other companies that may be offering similarly-paying roles.

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

#126

Post by badcppdev »

dkdbejwi383 wrote: post #63
silvestrov wrote: post #33

When do employers get to "how to properly write a job advertisement"? All these articles are only about what workers should do, not how companies fail again and again at writing a good description of the job. E.g. "Describe your experience with software operations and running services in production" is a really bad question as it is too open ended and leads to name dropping. Asking for "engaging answers" judges the p…

"Don't be generic" applies to the employer with regards to renumeration. "Competitive" means nothing, give me a numerical range. This avoids a waste of time on both parties' behalf.

It would be nice if they mentioned anything at all rather than "Competitive"

How about, "Top Quartile for software engineers in the UK market according to itjobswatch.co.uk"

Or, "Above average according to Glassdoor for San Portland, Georgia"

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

#127

Post by DoctorDabadedoo »

verve_rat wrote: post #65
sdflhasjd wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who already have a job and are wanting to move will have reasons for wanting a shift (frequently besides just salary).

But that is about leaving the last place, not why I want to work at the next one.

If you have the luxury to choose and are not in the loop of "I need a job by MM/dd otherwise I'm screwed", this is more evident, be it because the business area is more interesting or more aligned to your own values, the product looks great and engaging, you're changing industries, etc.

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

#129

Post by qkeast »

cmcaleer wrote: post #105
emerongi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 f…

If an interviewer phrases a question this way, they're explicitly framing the conversation in such a way that the candidate is on the defensive and has to justify themselves in their response, and it highlights a power dynamic between the interviewer and the interviewee.

The interviewer could easily craft this question in any number of ways that creates space for the candidate based on what signals they're looking for. And it should be on the interviewer to get this right, not the candidate to interpret it as intended.

Of course, it could also be that the interviewer's looking for signals around how the candidate approaches being placed on the defensive and belittled; but hopefully the candidate will recognize that signal for what it is. Why would a candidate want to work in a place where they'll be expected to be on the defensive and belittled, to the point where it's highlighted in the interview process?

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

#130

Post by fmajid »

siva7 wrote: post #117

I applied twice at Canonical. Got both times an automated mail where they proudly pronounced how superior and more human their interview process is and that i will definitely receive a follow-up. Both times i've been ghosted. So therefore let me give some advice to the blog author: Before (or instead of) giving out generic advice to job candidates, try to be a bit more humble about the (broken) reality at Canonical.

I've been through the hiring process at Canonical 6 months ago (wringer would be a more accurate term), all the way to 4 interviews with Mark Shuttleworth and an offer for a Director level position. I ended up passing because I didn't want to manage in a 100% remote distributed culture, and to be perfectly honest with myself a senior IC position was more suited to my personality than a managerial one.

I think their process is intense but fair, and I believe them when they say they try hard to rid themselves of bias. I'd ditch the psychometric tests, but will give them the benefit of doubt when they say it correlates with job performance (Google's also made that claim before).

Given how many people apply for jobs at Canonical, it's to be expected there is a high level of attrition, and quite possible small errors in the resume or application end up disqualifying your application, specially for more junior hobs. I can understand your disappointment, but they can only work based on what you've sent them.

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