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Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

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Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#271

Post by tonyedgecombe »

eek2121 wrote: post #125

You aren't. The economy is absolute garbage right now. I'm in the US and the situation is similar here. I've never had an issue finding a job before either, but I've been unemployed since the middle of 2023. Assuming you aren't under financial hardship, my advice is to spend more time on your hobbies and check back in around July/August. That is when the layoffs are projected to drop and hiring is expected to keep up…

>That is when the layoffs are projected to drop and hiring is expected to keep up.

Or this could be the new normal.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#272

Post by Noneofya »

avmich wrote: post #193
stonogo wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have over 200 resumes to go over this week for an open position. If I have to decipher your narrative it's going in the 'no' pile. Effective communication is a critical skill and evaluating that starts here. I'm not calling anything "wrong" but I definitely don't have time to have tea with your branding or whatever.

The whole web stands on each and every website being uniquely designed, however hard it is to learn how to navigate. If you want efficiency, work with databases, not people.

Lol, the entitlement. Nobody owes you a job, or their time for that matter.

And websites are not at all randomly designed. They share common concepts and design language. Buttons, dropdowns, hamburger menus, icons etc.

Just like a CV is typically chronological, because that’s what the reader cares about.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#273

Post by keiferski »

Paul-Craft wrote: post #262
keiferski wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was a simplified example. Obviously on a real world resume you would say “was a part of a team that did X.”

Oh. You were "part of a team?" But what did you do? What? You mean your team added 20% more users with this feature, not you? SMH.

Yeah, that’s not how real people actually communicate in real life, so your criticism is pretty baseless here.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#274

Post by jacobp100 »

I was in this boat in October. The market was brutal back then. The contract market is pretty much dead now except for fintech. Sent out probably more than 100 applications, and didn’t hear back from almost every single one. One of the recruiters has said it’s picked up a little since then, so fingers crossed

I don’t see anything especially wrong with your CV. Maybe add a few sentences at the top about who you are, what you’re looking for etc.

How was Arts Alliance Media? I was going to go there as my first job after uni - but they pulled the offer literally one working day before I was meant to start

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#276

Post by UK-AL »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #183

Jonathan Blow predicted the collapse of web jobs about a year back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTkRPwnzE4w Basically get out of web dev if you can. Do real programming and try and tackle harder problems. Or even step into entrepreneurship. A talented programmer should be able to create a fast growing company within 2 years if they really applied themselves.

The last statement is complete bullshit. To build a cash flow positive company requires a lot sales, marketing, PR etc and probably more than 1 engineer.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#277

Post by 0xBDB »

pschuegr wrote: post #255
CableNinja wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was laid off in june. Ive been applying since August (except through december to now). Ive had bites and good talks but in the end, donuts. I obviously have no real evidence, but there have been a few times now where the recruiter has said: - "We got literally thousands of resumes for this position" - "We have had so many bad resumes, its been hard to find the good ones" Truth is, right now the tech job market is f…

salivate - or possibly not. signed, xoogler having just as much trouble as the rest of y'all

FWIW, I asked my last boss (a CISO) about taking advantage of the layoffs to staff up and his response was that he couldn't afford Meta and Google talent. I think this is a common perception among tech's less privileged - the manufacturers and insurance companies and such of the world.

I don't know how to convey that you don't need Google-grade RSUs just because you're a xoogler, without looking desperate, but I wish I did because it would be handy for everybody about now.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#278

Post by brianwawok »

elzbardico wrote: post #149
brianwawok wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I’m hiring if still prefer 1, and give negative points to anyone that goes longer.

Why?

Not being able to get you resume down to a single page, shows a lack of attention to detail. You can't tell which of these 120 bullet points are the most important? You are just blasting me with info and hope I figure it out? I bet your code is way too verbose as well :)

Now if I am hiring a CEO with 30 years of experience, you can have a second page. But never actually hired for something like this, so maybe I would see the same trend and still prefer 1 page.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#279

Post by brianwawok »

Paul-Craft wrote: post #197
brianwawok wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a surplus of talent, a company would rather hire someone who has background in the current stack and can jump right in. If there is a lack of talent, companies hire whatever is even close and trains the new stuff. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

> If there is a lack of talent, companies hire whatever is even close and trains the new stuff. I've been an engineer for 9 years and not once have I gotten so much as an acknowledgement or a call back on a job that didn't use a very similar tech stack to what I had on my resume.

I live in a small town. When I hired a developer locally, I basically posted it as:

* 2-3 years in Vue, React, Angular, or any modern JS framework

When I posted it for remote only I advertised

* 2-3 years of Vue experience

Had you emailed me in the first one with react? Cool, interview. But if you emailed me in the second, I would have skipped over. The bigger the pool, the more picky I can be.

Re: Ask HN: Why am I suddenly unemployable?

#280

Post by brianwawok »

bmitc wrote: post #237
erulabs wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it short term? Are employees less familiar with the technology they’re using day to day more likely to stick around? I’d guess the opposite?

It's short term because you will filter out intelligent and experienced candidates simply because they have happened to not use extensively in their career. It's short term because such a candidate will have used a plethora of other things and would likely come in with a fresh perspective given their experience. It just might take them slightly longer to ramp up on the language and its associated tooling and ecosyste…

I live in a small town. When I hired a developer locally, I basically posted it as:

* 2-3 years in Vue, React, Angular, or any modern JS framework

When I posted it for remote only I advertised

* 2-3 years of Vue experience

There are _SO_ many applicants for a remote job (1000s), that I can be picky. So I will cut to the 500 that have the language I want, vs a slog through 5,000 that can maybe someday do what I want.

When you run a business and hire, you can totally do it different.

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