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Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

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Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#171

Post by protocolture »

I get looped in on hiring quite a bit and the feedback I have:

1. Job titles. I need to understand where you were in the hierarchy. Its dumb but I do, for the same reason as

2. Salary Expectation. How much do you cost.

This is because the good hiring managers are job sizing. They want to consult their table of skills and responsibilities and justify paying you money. You have plainly declared your skills, but not your responsibilities or your cost.

Its one thing to hire a dev, but do you mentor other developers? Manage a team? "Worked On" doesn't give us a good view of your place in the team. Was there even a team? Are you a SENIOR developer, or just taking junior tasks?

If I have lots of applicants, and your resume wont feed cleanly into my job size matrix, then you arent getting an interview.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#172

Post by cedws »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #148

One PSA - Please file for unemployment! The government won't be as incentivized to help you until you're their liability ;) In the US we've seen labor force participation decline which allows governments to claim unemployment is lower than it is.

Getting Universal Credit in the UK is a miserable experience that you don't want to go through unless you're basically starving and desperate. It doesn't sound like OP is at that stage.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#173

Post by SkyPuncher »

slotrans wrote: post #97
codingdave wrote: post #27

Your CV doesn't tell me anything you accomplished, it just lists things you did. Hiring managers want to know the impact of your work, not a page of bullets that all say: "I did a thing." Picking one at random: "Worked on frontend and backend systems for this health tech company." OK... and what impact did your work have? Can you cite a qualitative improvement on the business due to your work? If not, can you at leas…

Why do hiring managers like such claims? They're all fake.

Ultimately, people are hired to create an impact. People who can identify and communicate that impact are typically a step ahead of people who just do a skill. I always prefer the person who is less technically skilled but understands why and how they're making an impact. Better to have an B+ technical person working on the right problem, than to have an A+ technical person working on the wrong problem.

> They're all fake.

Sure, but they are semi-based in reality and give insight to the scope of your work.

* "Perfectly implemented [some feature] on [some project], resulting in perfect launch". Definitely an IC. Maybe not even senior.

* "Led organization-wide effort across 100+ engineers to migrate from X to Y". Might be an IC. Might be a manager. In either case, you don't do this type of work below senior level.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#174

Post by gtirloni »

It's not you, companies are squeezing candidates right now. Either through unreal requirements or really low offers.

I've been to a few final rounds where the hiring manager was already discussing specifics of what I'd be doing and then simply got ghosted by recruiters. Zero replies, not even the canned response saying they have chosen someone else.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#175

Post by hmcq6 »

protocolture wrote: post #171

I get looped in on hiring quite a bit and the feedback I have: 1. Job titles. I need to understand where you were in the hierarchy. Its dumb but I do, for the same reason as 2. Salary Expectation. How much do you cost. This is because the good hiring managers are job sizing. They want to consult their table of skills and responsibilities and justify paying you money. You have plainly declared your skills, but not you…

I've never heard of putting your salary expectations in your resume. It actually feels kinda inappropriate to me simply for the fact that when I get looped in on hiring I'm supposed to be assessing someones skills and not where they fit into the company budget.

And it would almost undoubtedly lead those not involved in the financial aspect of hiring to have inaccurate expectations around what their coworkers are getting paid. Potential jealousy in the hiring room?

It's totally fine for an employer to expect that info upfront but if you expect it then you should have a segment in your online application for it. Especialy because it feels like the kind of info that should be stripped out of a resume for deidentification/anonymization purposes before handing that resume around to the rest of the company.

Also because my resume is my resume. I'll tailor it for a job but it's more or less static. Just my 2 cents but I think a CV letter is probably a more appropriate place to put something that is so specific to a particular job opening.

Edit: I'm US based, if that makes a difference

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#176

Post by fulladder »

ath3nd wrote: post #70
cooper_ganglia wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with many of your points, but the comical levels of unadulterated doomerism make it hard to take very seriously. The world isn’t over because a company decided some unnecessary backend employees didn’t need to work there anymore. Standards of living have never been higher, worldwide poverty has never been lower, all hand-delivered to each of us via capitalism.

Capitalism is like a sleight of hand trick, a cheap con designed to distract with stupid toys and distractions while it robs you blind. It pretending that it's creating value, while never showing where the value comes from. Often it comes from extraction from other places. What the OP is experiencing is merely one of the many ugly heads of the very much real process of extracting value in pursuit of profit. There are…

It sounds like you've been out of work for a year and you've fallen into a state of anger and despair. It's understandable and you're hardly the first person that has happened to, but I'd really encourage you to rethink how you're looking at life. Just in a practical sense, even if you can 90% hide your rage in a work setting, the other 10% is still going to be enough to discourage anyone from hiring you. People are just going to be scared to work with you and hiring managers won't want to take the chance. Just my two cents, friend.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#177

Post by gtirloni »

brailsafe wrote: post #93
theandrewbailey wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the first time in 20 years there are more applicants than jobs again. I'd argue that happened during 2008 and 2009. Source: I graduated and had to get a first job during that time. For every 100 positions I applied for, I got a call for 5, and had on site interviews for 1. Sounds like that may be the case again.

That was my experience pre-2023, now it's 100 applications and maybe one response, except there aren't 100 positions, all of them are the highest possible level of seniority and require 10 y.o.e plus a masters degree, and nobody responds to messages.

If this may offer any comfort, even people with all those skills aren't getting many interviews right now.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#178

Post by the_only_law »

StreetChief wrote: post #140

We live in a world of techno-fuedalism, you are not alone. Every company wants an MIT graduate. They want someone "sexy" like a "rock star." One company's I looked at asked me "what is the most impressive thing you've worked on?" Like that really indicates the quality of my work.

> One company's I looked at asked me "what is the most impressive thing you've worked on?"

I get this one a good bit and I despise it because the answer is always something I did outside of work.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#179

Post by gtirloni »

burrish wrote: post #52

No way you are the author of Hapland, thank you I had lot of fun. I don't have anything more to say than what has already been said in this thread, I would just recommend modernizing your CV by using Canva [1] , the site has lots of free themes and they are generally well done. [1] - https://www.canva.com/

I'd be careful with any modernization that impacts ATS software's ability to parse it.

Recruiters work through ATS systems and will rarely read a resume unless it shows up at the top of some filter.

Use something like jobscan.com to validate how the resume parses and avoid any cool graphics and stuff.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#180

Post by the_only_law »

gtirloni wrote: post #179
burrish wrote: post #52

No way you are the author of Hapland, thank you I had lot of fun. I don't have anything more to say than what has already been said in this thread, I would just recommend modernizing your CV by using Canva [1] , the site has lots of free themes and they are generally well done. [1] - https://www.canva.com/

I'd be careful with any modernization that impacts ATS software's ability to parse it. Recruiters work through ATS systems and will rarely read a resume unless it shows up at the top of some filter. Use something like jobscan.com to validate how the resume parses and avoid any cool graphics and stuff.

Jobscan really killed any spark left in me when it dinged my resume for not having useless vague phrases copy/pasted from job descriptions like “business solutions”.
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