>Tech people reporting that it's hard to find a new gig right now and hiring managers reporting that it's hard to find people right now. It's hard to find people with the desired skills at their offered price point . Simple as.
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Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
21–30 of 182 posts
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#22I'm working at crypto startup that grows fast right now. There is enough candidates, but we can't find anyone good. We aim for seniors and we pay a nice price IMO. Current "seniors" are much worse than 2016's "middles". I'd not mind hiring a "middle", but people seem so unmotivated right now to work and learn. It's more about the attitude than skills. Also funny stats: For 15 candidates interviewed we even got "scamm…
I'm going to guess that pretty much everyone who wants to be in Crypto is by now. Others outside the field are going to be wary to enter it given the volatility and reputation issues of the industry.
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#23A couple weeks ago we put a advert out on Indeed and also listed it here on HN. Initially we didn't have any further qualifications beyond the job post, which did indeed go into details on the job and requesting a cover letter.
After spending a couple days of 2-3 hours each on reviewing resumes that were "only ok", we started adding additional hoops for getting resumes in, and also tried to put in a gatekeeper to really urge applicants to write cover letters. After that the rate has dropped to bearable, but we still maybe get one out of 10 applications with a cover.
So, if you are applying to a job right now, I'd say that rather than optimizing your process for getting a lot of jobs applied for, spend some more time and apply for jobs that you're well suited for, and then make a cover letter that explains why.
I've been very lucky, I've not had to apply for many jobs. But when I have, I always wrote a specific cover letter AND customized my resume to the job advert.
But, yeah, we're having a hard time finding full-stack people that can hit the ground running with Java and Vue.
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#24As someone casually looking for a better fit as an infrastructure person, it can be disparaging for some of these portals to keep stats on interesting jobs. I'll open up an email advertisement, to see that sometimes >10,000 people have applied for this single role. I'll chuckle and close that tab - I am not a lottery player and I will not drop my resume into an applicant pool twice as large as my town.
I would say my personal cutoff is about 25, whether these statistics are trustworthy or not.
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#25Most so-called opportunities feel like scams anymore.
Navigating the current job market hardly seems worth the risk, considering I've already got a stable, fairly well-paying job.
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#26My observation is that there were recent (2022/2023) layoffs that have now flooded the job market in tech with lots of unfortunately mediocre candidates. Therefore, it is both challenging to hire and challenging to find a job. I don’t think it’s that there’s any lack of good tools to use to find candidates. And great engineers are still just as hard to find, as companies are very reluctant to fire top performers even in mass layoff rounds that affect the rest of their division.
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#27A couple weeks ago we put a advert out on Indeed and also listed it here on HN. Initially we didn't have any further qualifications beyond the job post, which did indeed go into details on the job and requesting a cover letter. After spending a couple days of 2-3 hours each on reviewing resumes that were "only ok", we started adding additional hoops for getting resumes in, and also tried to put in a gatekeeper to rea…
I'm kind of surprised to hear that cover letters still matter. It seems like most of the places I've applied to recently don't even have an option for including a cover letter. Since most of this is driven by keywords anymore, I guess I figured the cover letter was kind of an anachronism. I suspect you're in a small to medium sized company?
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#28I think the “hard on both sides” nature of tech hiring is the desired end result of the “hiring industry” (indeed, freelance recruiters, leetcode, HR bureaucracy, etc.) the incentives are just like any other intermediary: make their services ubiquitous, unavoidable, and in constant need.
These services, like most others, sell something that cannot be bought. Namely, high quality candidates delivered to the hiring managers door. But in reality the incentives are more similar to Tinder than they are to a matchamker. Get everyone on both sides in a pay-to-play whirlpool and provide just enough value to seem useful.
In many industries hiring is still done primarily in-person through real-world network referrals. Maybe you tell yourself that these jobs are more fungible so the extra steps aren’t as necessary, but I think that as developers we underestimate our own fungibility.
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#29A couple weeks ago we put a advert out on Indeed and also listed it here on HN. Initially we didn't have any further qualifications beyond the job post, which did indeed go into details on the job and requesting a cover letter. After spending a couple days of 2-3 hours each on reviewing resumes that were "only ok", we started adding additional hoops for getting resumes in, and also tried to put in a gatekeeper to rea…
My boomer grandfather called and wants his cover letter back.
Jk but why not ask for a five minute coding challenge instead of a cover letter. Eg decode this string and include it in the subject line.
Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?
#30I'm working at crypto startup that grows fast right now. There is enough candidates, but we can't find anyone good. We aim for seniors and we pay a nice price IMO. Current "seniors" are much worse than 2016's "middles". I'd not mind hiring a "middle", but people seem so unmotivated right now to work and learn. It's more about the attitude than skills. Also funny stats: For 15 candidates interviewed we even got "scamm…
And there I thought that being good at scamming was a key skill in crypto.
(Nothing personal, but it had to be said.)