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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#151

Post by pknomad »

Oras wrote: post #42
tennisflyi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That investment isn't worth it to just be ghosted

Agree. You need to see it from the other side. Most likely, they are receiving 100+ applications, so the chance that your application will be seen is too low.

This.

I also limit myself on how many applications I see in a day (no more than 20 on a busy day, 50 on a not so busy day) so that I give every resume a fair read. A team can only do so much in a day. It's disheartening when you see a blatant AI use (and it goes into the trash bin right away).

Re: I automated my job application process

#152

Post by mvanbaak »

pknomad wrote: post #141
salomon812 wrote: post #131

I'm a software manager that has been doing some form of interviewing/hiring for 13 years. I did two rounds of hiring software engineers last year, one in spring that seemed normal, and one in the fall that was was brutal. The fall hiring had a flood of applicants, and in retrospect, most seemed like AI was used in some way. For the fall round, I suddenly had a higher percentage of applicants that qualified after resu…

I am a Platform Engineer and it feels like your experience mirrors mine. Like you, our challenge is filtering out large volume but also filtering out LLM abusers. We're not opposed to people using LLMs, when appropriate. I find that candidates inappropriately use it to circumvent the process and that is a big deal for me (and our team). We try to do the right thing(TM) by the candidates by creating minimal interview…

Fellow Platform Engineer here, and I can relate 100% with your comment. We decided to stop announcing our engineering jobs and go back to mouth to mouth for sourcing candidates for now. It's a move I didn't want to make as, like you said, it means a lot of less networked engineers will not know about it and all. but for now this was the only way we got rid of the constant stream of letters from AI.

Re: I automated my job application process

#153

Post by Uvix »

karaterobot wrote: post #87

Every job I've applied to has involved me researching the company, deciding whether I understood it, was right for the role, and wanted to work for them, and then tailoring my resume and cover letter to what that role needed. In my life, I've maybe sent 25 applications, gotten 6-7 interviews, and been hired 4 times. Pretty good batting average, and I'm not by any means especially qualified or accomplished. For me, au…

How long ago did this last succeed?

Re: I automated my job application process

#154

Post by Aurornis »

salomon812 wrote: post #131

I'm a software manager that has been doing some form of interviewing/hiring for 13 years. I did two rounds of hiring software engineers last year, one in spring that seemed normal, and one in the fall that was was brutal. The fall hiring had a flood of applicants, and in retrospect, most seemed like AI was used in some way. For the fall round, I suddenly had a higher percentage of applicants that qualified after resu…

Over Christmas I met up with a friend who teaches part-time at a local college. He said he’s failed more people this year than the cumulative total of his entire past teaching career due to LLM abuse.

He doesn’t use LLM detection tools, but he says it’s easy to identify papers with warning signs of LLM use. For some reason, using ChatGPT for his specific niche topic overuses a few obscure, rarely-used words that most people wouldn’t even recognize. The ChatGPT abusers some times have these words appearing multiple times through their essays.

He’s also caught people who cited a lot of different works and books in their reports that were outside of the assigned reading, or in some cases books that don’t exist at all. Catching them is as simple as asking them about their sources or where they acquired a copy of the text.

I see a lot of parallels in hiring and talking to junior software engineers right now. We had a take-home problem that was well liked that we used for many years, but now it’s obvious that a majority of young applicants are just using LLMs to get an answer. When we want to talk about their solution in the interview, they “can’t remember” how it works or why they picked their method.

It’s really sad to me as a long time remote worker because I see far more blatant abuse from remote candidates. Like you, bringing people on site for interviews seems to instantly scare away the LLM cheaters, but it’s expensive and time consuming for everyone involved.

Re: I automated my job application process

#155

Post by cleanerbob »

salomon812 wrote: post #131

I'm a software manager that has been doing some form of interviewing/hiring for 13 years. I did two rounds of hiring software engineers last year, one in spring that seemed normal, and one in the fall that was was brutal. The fall hiring had a flood of applicants, and in retrospect, most seemed like AI was used in some way. For the fall round, I suddenly had a higher percentage of applicants that qualified after resu…

[dead]

Re: I automated my job application process

#156

Post by HarHarVeryFunny »

maccard wrote: post #147
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not your company, but it seems hiring companies brought this upon themselves with immediate AI rejects of qualified candidates, ghost jobs, ghosting candidates after interview, etc, etc. If it takes a qualified candidate 100's of applications to land a single interview, then can you blame someone for automating it? I'd say that having the initiative and ability to automate it well would make this guy a great hi…

I’ve been hiring for teams for a few years now, and I’ve heard people lament these things like you are. In practice I’ve not seen any of these “smart” scanning techniques used, it’s a recruiter comparing resumes to a checklist I gave to them (5-ish years experience, maybe a degree role dependent, or something that you think is super relevant, one of c#/java/kotlin, hiring for a mid level role so we expect some amount…

Sure - that's how things are meant to work, with recruiters providing a valuable filtering service, but it does seem that many companies are now using (poor quality) AI screening, as well as a slew of abusive application practices (the ghosting. etc), and it seems any mutual respect between hiring company and candidate is disappearing. I don't know what the solution is.

Re: I automated my job application process

#157

Post by em-bee »

imnotjames wrote: post #54
petesergeant wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t stop other people doing this, and not doing it if other people are is a disadvantage for me. Imprisoned in a dilemma of our own making.

What happens when you get an interview and spend time for a company you don't want to work for?

interview practice

Re: I automated my job application process

#158

Post by kmac_ »

petesergeant wrote: post #58
imnotjames wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What happens when you get an interview and spend time for a company you don't want to work for?

I’ll turn it down if further research shows I don’t want to work there? Why upfront my research if I’ll be ghosted anyway? Turning down interviews because “circumstances have changed” is hardly unusual

Ghost jobs on one side, ghost applications on the other. Some people will just send automated applications everywhere, every day, and check for responses. That leads to ghost responses, and the cycle continues.

Re: I automated my job application process

#159

Post by trod1234 »

I have a very nuanced view on this.

While I'm partially glad someone put this together and did this, having seen firsthand what an utter shit show that job hunting has been for the past two years with no offers, dismal conversion ratios (x100 -> x10000), and this with a decade of directly applied professional experience in highly regulated sectors, as well as having all my colleagues amazed at the competency of the work and solutions I put out (which has just been going to waste these past two years).

I'm still only partial on this; however, because I don't think this does anything but make the problem anything but much worse in the long run for everyone.

Individuals using this are simply just treading water with assistance while drowning others like them (without), and businesses will adapt to the flood of applications (by not even manually reviewing them) and bad actors will simply increase the noise.

The people left out (those not using AI), will not find any work. No work, no prospects, despite education, investment, and direct experience; this is unacceptable and leads to unrest, and eventually something akin to 1776. Similar jobless conditions were present leading up through the 1760s prior to the American Revolution.

I think it should come as no surprise that this is a hellscape when you depend on work to get food and other life necessities, and businesses that adapt sign themselves up for deflationary spirals of doom (not being able to find qualified applicants). People won't put up with it. You see people turning to crime in California over retail thefts, and then laws being passed making it more draconian, then violence becomes commonplace. Its a vicious cycle and its preventable if one is rational enough to see it.

The process people have been using is not good at qualifying people, and really most of what people are looking in specific jobs is magical thinking that doesn't correspond to their actual requirements. Time is limited; on both sides.

Now what is the underlying problem? It is that the same mechanism used by RNA interference in a cellular network, is being created by AI in a communications network from both sides of the participants creating interference so labor relations is sabotaged and fails from interference. I would not be surprised if many of those ghost jobs out there are actually digitally fabricated by China. They have the most to benefit from destroying the underpinnings of western society and driving people crazy in a pre-war footing setting.

If people are unable to regulate themselves, and this first goes to the producers in an economy, then laws need to be made so that those unintelligent people don't destroy society for everyone else.

Re: I automated my job application process

#160

Post by salomon812 »

xingped wrote: post #121
HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe not your company, but it seems hiring companies brought this upon themselves with immediate AI rejects of qualified candidates, ghost jobs, ghosting candidates after interview, etc, etc. If it takes a qualified candidate 100's of applications to land a single interview, then can you blame someone for automating it? I'd say that having the initiative and ability to automate it well would make this guy a great hi…

100%, this is a natural reaction to the situation companies have created. When you get a rejection response mere minutes after submission that claims "after careful consideration..." then of course I'm not going to spend any more time than that applying to any jobs anymore. Prove a human actually took the time to review my resume and I'll actually apply to your company like a human.

God, I wish I could respond to denied applicants like a human, but the threat of legal action prevents me from giving good feedback. I know it sucks, but I'm not sure what to do about this, and I'm already so burnt out from the hiring process as it is, it's hard to work up the strength to do this fight as well.

Not to mentioned I spend forever doing it, there's so many and I wouldn't want to do it halfway...

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