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Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

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Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#41

Post by [deleted] »

JohnFen wrote: post #37
UncleOxidant wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My company is a large one, but we aren't keyword-driven or the like. A human screens the applications. Cover letters matter to us.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#43

Post by analognoise »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #32
digitalsushi wrote: post #24

As 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…

Same. I saw a job on LinkedIn that had 1000+ applies yet it was asking for quite a few skills. I wonder if these numbers are being gamed somehow? Are they accurate? Are there bots involved?

EasyApply filter on, hit apply on every job for the first 10 pages that even remotely mentions something you do, want to do, or thought about once.

I would not be surprised if jobs were getting 1000+ applicants.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#44

Post by vlod »

dzek69 wrote: post #17

I'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…

>but people seem so unmotivated right now to work and learn

Hmm.. not been my experience and not for me specifically. My attitude to interviewing (when I was on that side of the fence), was to hire for (I hate to say it as it's subjective), by perceived IQ and their drive to learn/get stuff done. It usually worked out quite well for my hires.

ATM, I'm getting rejected for the most stupid f.things of not knowing some obscure dated framework/library. Not sure if interviewers realize this, but in a lot of cases, it's an evening hacking on a project to learn it. These things are not rocket science.

My thoughts is that there's so many candidates (or maybe posting bots?), that if all checkboxes are not ticked, they can discard them.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#45

Post by Our_Benefactors »

linsomniac wrote: post #23

A 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…

Cover letter = I don't want to discover what other archaic rituals and customs this dinosaur company has

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#46

Post by sirspacey »

timeagain wrote: post #28

I 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 man…

Having worked in the recruiting industry, these are the three top barriers to hiring:

1. The CEO/Board/Leaders ignore clear signals from candidates on what they want in a job (hybrid/remote being most common issue)

2. Hiring managers refused to learn the basics on how to attract & vet quality candidates. They are unreliable, capricious, and generally run hot/cold during the process

3. Recruiters have given up on addressing points #1 & #2, so they shovel candidates and jobs back and forth without expecting to be heard

Most intermediaries are in this position, they are trying to apply expertise on a business function to those who don’t share it. It’s very difficult to overcome, even when internal owners (like HR team members) know the gap and are advocating for an effective approach

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#47

Post by JohnFen »

cebert wrote: post #36
JohnFen wrote: post #33

We've had two positions open on my team for months. Filling them has been a struggle. There's no lack of applicants, but none of them have the needed kind/amount of experience. Pay isn't the issue. I think there's three reasons why this is the case: we need genuine senior-level people, web/internet stack technology experience isn't relevant, and there's a requirement to work in the office. I mention that second one b…

Is there a reason you don’t think a good Java/C# developer willing to learn couldn’t learn C/C++. Especially with LLMs, I feel like which language(s) a developer is currently comfortable with is less of an issue. I previously had no Python experience, but know how to code well in C# and JavaScript. Using a LLM, I was able to quickly get up to speed writing DevOps Python scripts because I understood basic programming…

No reason at all, and we don't rule out applicants because of language. But Java/etc programmers have a strong tendency to be specialized in a particular sort of programming that we don't do, and get very weak when they're not doing that. They need more training that we can afford in order to come up to speed.

But we absolutely interview the ones who seem like they'd be able to come up to speed. The pickings seem a bit slim, though.

We also aren't in SV, Seattle, or any of the other hot places people want to be. That's why I think the problem is more the office requirement than anything else.

The positions also aren't ML positions (we do use ML, but those positions are already well-covered.)

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#48

Post by beernet »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #40
sirobg wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, but as OP asked: any thoughts on why it seems exacerbated now?

Companies thought they’d be able to get a discount on labor due to FAANG layoffs that mostly impacted non tech roles. There is no labor recession, so no discount to be found for senior talent, but companies are still tire kickers waiting for that undervalued unicorn to land in front of a hiring manager. Expectations take the elevator up and the stairs down. https://www.cbsnews.com/sanfrancisco/news/tech-layoff-draft/…

> FAANG layoffs that mostly impacted non tech roles.

Source? My impression is the exact opposite.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#49

Post by whynotmaybe »

JohnFen wrote: post #37
UncleOxidant wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

My company is a large one, but we aren't keyword-driven or the like. A human screens the applications. Cover letters matter to us.

What criteria are you looking for in a cover letter?

I find the concept of cover letter completely disassociated of a candidate competency to do their job.

I can spend 1h to write a cover letter with perfect structure, good intention and really speaking my vision of me in the company, this won't show that I can do a leetcode medium or that my clipper code is well structured.

Re: Ask HN: For those trying to hire how hard is it to find people currently?

#50

Post by UncleOxidant »

cebert wrote: post #36
JohnFen wrote: post #33

We've had two positions open on my team for months. Filling them has been a struggle. There's no lack of applicants, but none of them have the needed kind/amount of experience. Pay isn't the issue. I think there's three reasons why this is the case: we need genuine senior-level people, web/internet stack technology experience isn't relevant, and there's a requirement to work in the office. I mention that second one b…

Is there a reason you don’t think a good Java/C# developer willing to learn couldn’t learn C/C++. Especially with LLMs, I feel like which language(s) a developer is currently comfortable with is less of an issue. I previously had no Python experience, but know how to code well in C# and JavaScript. Using a LLM, I was able to quickly get up to speed writing DevOps Python scripts because I understood basic programming…

I feel like with a lot of languages this is true - it's pretty easy to pick up Python if you know Ruby (and vice-versa) for example. But with C++... there's just so much complexity now and still so many footguns. Hiring C++ devs familiar with modern C++ (C++11 and beyond) is probably not easy. I've done a good bit of C++ in the past (prior to C++11) and I've done a bit of modern C++, but when a job ad lists C++17+ I'm really hesitant to apply. It's a whole different beast than it was 15 years ago.
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