Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#181

Post by paxys » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 6:08 PM UTC

thinkingtoilet wrote: post #41

buro9 wrote: post #29

I work at Grafana, and we be hiring, I posted on the Who's Hiring in January and that was a big mistake. I've posted before (probably 6 times a year as I miss the 1st sometimes) and had few to no responses, but in January I had over 50 responses in the first few hours, and it continued to elicit responses for the next week. Employers are swamped right now, there are a lot of people seeking few positions. I've gone fr…

There is no real way to handle the influx of applications these days since it's so easy to apply, especially on platforms like LinkedIn. I just take the first X and try to find a qualified applicant. I'm at a small company, we simply can't process 1000 resumes.

Yup. Whenever people post stuff like "I sent out 1000 applications and haven't received a response" I always think - if you so easily sent out thousands of applications then so did everyone else, which means companies are dealing with an overwhelming volume of applications for each position and you aren't really standing out in any way.

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#182

Post by eatbitseveryday » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 6:28 PM UTC

Same for me. I have a PhD from a top ten university in Computer Science, with publications, and strong but shorter work history.

I interviewed with a well-known startup here on HN that required a lengthy application material submission, which I spent a few hours on. Then talked with the CTO and felt the conversations went well. After two conversations I was ghosted.

Submitted to a large software company in Washington state which indicated they had "up to 100% remote" for specific roles. In the application I indicated "not available for relocation" and have only received automated rejection emails for them. I mention that last point because I suspect that may have been the reason.

I have also applied to roles from the last few Who's Hiring posts in positions that are more of a stretch for my line of work but with overlap in core technologies, but have not received so much as a conversation. One just silently rejected my application (I had to view in their workday site to see what the status was).

On the other hand, large companies like Google, Apple, etc. are (or were) very eager to move forward to interview me, even for multiple roles. But I cannot relocate and had to inform the recruiters I am unfortunately inflexible with this. Ironic, I find.

NVIDIA, Meta, many smaller companies (gitlab, duckduckgo, kagi, and other startups found here) seem to be the only tech employers that explicitly advertise remote work is okay with them. But some roles in the smaller companies aren't always a great match for my interests (maybe the culture would be, so I am trying to keep an open mind).

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#183

Post by paxys » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 6:34 PM UTC

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #36

To everyone struggling to get hired: Start your own thing. Seriously.

If you are struggling to get hired AND have a massive financial cushion AND have the right connections in the industry to get funding for your project AND are at a stage in life where failure will not have real consequences.

Most people out there need to put food on the table for their families and make rent next month, and so don't have the above luxuries.

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#184

Post by greatpostman » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 6:35 PM UTC

twojobsoneboss wrote: post #58

greatpostman wrote: post #7

This is going to put fuel on the fire. I run a startup, we hired two devs out of Eastern Europe at 60k each that are absolutely phenomenal. We’d love to hire American but can’t afford it. I know many other companies doing the same (nyc based seed/preseed startups). With ai, high interest rates, and covid accelerating remote hiring, I don’t see this recovering.

Ding ding ding, this right here is a big part of it. Previously it was very rare for vc funded startups (which are the main source of decent tech jobs apart from big tech) to hire from abroad, but now it’s more the norm rather than the exception (just look at the HN postings, tons of latam) The remote work movement chickens have come home to roost

Yes. You need an expert based in the USA to manage the technical solutions. This is the pattern that works

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#185

Post by thrwaway1985882 » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 7:30 PM UTC

mikhailfranco wrote: post #177

thrwaway1985882 wrote: post #116

From the perspective of a hiring manager at a mid-size company, I'm not at all surprised. I'm having a tough time getting backfills approved when we have voluntary departures, all my opens were cut, and the goal is "do way more with way less". HR has already frozen salaries - no increases for existing employees, and they're already starting to cut salaries for newly posted positions. When you do get a position posted…

> "take it or leave it" up front I have also encountered this - salary negotiation with HR/recruiter at first contact. This was before any interviews or coding tests, at a point when I only had the vague job posting as a guide for the role. There seemed to be two filters: a remoteness/WFH/RTO test; and a low-ball salary bludgeon. As Groucho Marx almost said, I'm very glad I don't work for a company like that :)

Me too. My company isn't that bad – yet?. But in 2022 I remember employees regularly countering on the offer and squeezing out significant %age increases to base. Now the offer is the offer.

Could be worse, I guess. Other managers I've talked to have said that their organizations are actively running the numbers on salary cuts to "normalize" wages after things heated up so much in 21-22.

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#186

Post by jethro_tell » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 8:27 PM UTC

ghaff wrote: post #167

jethro_tell wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a role open for a sr. Sys admin. I got 150+ applications per day. At some point, you just have to close the window. I can only realistically do 10/25 résumé per day and still do my job. All most all hiring has a strong element of luck. I've hired really good engineers that can't write a resume or aren't self promoting enough in an interview and they seem kinda flat. But they roll in and make good decisions, goo…

If a machine isn't doing a lot of pre-filter, I'm going to be doing a first pass filter on some really lazy heuristics.

Of course, and that right there is luck of the draw. Didn't list the specific thing I need help with? Might not make it to the list of 20 I look at. Not because I wouldn't hire someone for not listing it, or demonstrating they can Lear quickly but jiet be cause I have a limited amount of time.

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#187

Post by neilk » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 8:49 PM UTC

As someone who is trying to hire for server-side and devops roles, we are getting pickier. We have a lot of incoming.

A lot of it is spam and people who clearly are using AI to fill in our form. One applicant didn’t even bother to remove “ChatGPT:” from the answer.

Of the remaining applicants I do feel that even those with years of experience at big companies are kind of hothouse flowers. They are skilled at using complex and costly frameworks, but they are often missing what I used to think of as the basics.

A lot of those frameworks are themselves ZIRPs! I kind of think the current generation has been cheated a bit. If I were starting out today I don’t know how I would have learned anything.

We had a candidate who detailed some of their achievements at their previous employer, things like “I got this third party service to feed their logs into that third party service”. And they are not wrong, this was a titanic effort and they had to navigate complex change procedures to get it done. But… this isn’t what I’m hiring for.

Candidates are also under a lot of pressure. I read an application the other day which was clearly human-written, but they gave two or three word answers to essay questions. The answers were actually correct, just not with the kind of detail we wanted. But I imagine that we were one of ten applications the guy filled out that day. In this environment I don’t know how much time I can legitimately expect a candidate to spend on us.

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#188

Post by ghaff » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 8:57 PM UTC

jethro_tell wrote: post #186

ghaff wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a machine isn't doing a lot of pre-filter, I'm going to be doing a first pass filter on some really lazy heuristics.

Of course, and that right there is luck of the draw. Didn't list the specific thing I need help with? Might not make it to the list of 20 I look at. Not because I wouldn't hire someone for not listing it, or demonstrating they can Lear quickly but jiet be cause I have a limited amount of time.

Or it's look at schools. See if any of the companies pop out and they spent some time there. Obvious exact skills match. The resume isn't too long. Whatever I can get in a 30 second skim.

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#189

Post by throwaway458864 » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 9:08 PM UTC

neilk wrote: post #187

As someone who is trying to hire for server-side and devops roles, we are getting pickier. We have a lot of incoming. A lot of it is spam and people who clearly are using AI to fill in our form. One applicant didn’t even bother to remove “ChatGPT:” from the answer. Of the remaining applicants I do feel that even those with years of experience at big companies are kind of hothouse flowers. They are skilled at using co…

Is there anything applicants can do to better provide what you're looking for? Obviously giving more complete answers, but anything else that would help you find the right person? And the other way round, is there anything you might change to get the right people to find you?

Re: Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?

#190

Post by neilk » Thu, Mar 28, 2024, 9:19 PM UTC

throwaway458864 wrote: post #189

neilk wrote: post #187

As someone who is trying to hire for server-side and devops roles, we are getting pickier. We have a lot of incoming. A lot of it is spam and people who clearly are using AI to fill in our form. One applicant didn’t even bother to remove “ChatGPT:” from the answer. Of the remaining applicants I do feel that even those with years of experience at big companies are kind of hothouse flowers. They are skilled at using co…

Is there anything applicants can do to better provide what you're looking for? Obviously giving more complete answers, but anything else that would help you find the right person? And the other way round, is there anything you might change to get the right people to find you?

We'll probably just work our personal networks harder.

Personal networks didn't work as well during bubble/ZIRP times because everybody good was employed and either they already made more than what you were offering, or were holding out for a company that paid more.

Nowadays everybody knows someone good who has been laid off or is worried about being laid off. Or maybe they made major lifestyle changes during the pandemic and now they'd have to move a small family from Omaha back to the Bay Area.

As for screening questions, there's never going to be an automated way that detects AI or AI-influenced answers, for obvious reasons. There are countermeasures I have in mind but I'm not sharing them here.