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I automated my job application process

blog.daviddodda.com

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Re: I automated my job application process

#161

Post by carlosjobim »

codegeek wrote: post #12

Nice. But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want. Flooded with auto submitted Resumes. I posted a job recently and got 100+ resumes in 2 days and 99% were not even remotely close to being a good fit. I struggled to sort through so many Resumes to find someone worth interviewing. The problem is that with so much noise, good candidates may get ignored or rejected by mistake. And the cycle continues. I get…

> But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want.

Job seekers do not care and should not care what you want. They want the job, you are paid to find the best candidate. Just arriving at a situation where you get flooded with hundreds of resumes, means that you or your organisation has failed with what you were trying to do. You should have had hand picked candidates ready in the pipeline when it came time to hire. You are a hiring manager after all.

Re: I automated my job application process

#162

Post by nsxwolf »

cute_boi wrote: post #53
imnotjames wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've run into the same thing. We don't even have the job posted publicly anywhere and we get >100 submissions per day. Many are duplicates. I've found some that with some minor research turn out to be foreign organized crime. A large number of them had the exact same cover letter with changes in the names and past jobs. Not only is it difficult to find candidates that actually fit the job role, it's hard to go throug…

It seems that many processes, from interviews to real work, are increasingly manipulated. I've noticed a pattern with candidates employed by certain consulting companies, especially in Texas and New Jersey. These companies often recruit low-cost labor from India, craft fake resumes, and submit them to platforms like LinkedIn. During interviews, candidates use tools like HDMI dual-screen setups, ChatGPT, Otter AI, or…

I keep holding out hope that one day my totally genuine, slightly rusty, slightly nervous, takes all 40 minutes to solve the Leetcode medium style will be seen as so refreshing and honest I’ll be an insta-hire.

Not yet!

Re: I automated my job application process

#163

Post by Aurornis »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #98
codegeek wrote: post #12

Nice. But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want. Flooded with auto submitted Resumes. I posted a job recently and got 100+ resumes in 2 days and 99% were not even remotely close to being a good fit. I struggled to sort through so many Resumes to find someone worth interviewing. The problem is that with so much noise, good candidates may get ignored or rejected by mistake. And the cycle continues. I get…

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…

> If it takes a qualified candidate 100's of applications to land a single interview, then can you blame someone for automating it?

Yes, a candidate is responsible for their own actions. This logic only sounds good until you’re on the hiring side and you see the stark difference between the LLM abuser applications and the people who are genuinely applying.

Those people who have to apply to 100s of jobs are probably in that situation because they’re spraying low-effort LLM resumes around and most hiring managers can see right through this game by now.

> I'd say that having the initiative and ability to automate it well would make this guy a great hire, if he hadn't already found a job!

Doesn’t work that way, in my experience. The people who game their way through the application process don’t suddenly switch to honest and high performing employees after they start. They continue the process of trying to min-max their effort given to the company, riding the line of finding how little or how low quality work they can get away with.

The mythical lazy applicant who suddenly becomes a brilliant and loyal employee isn’t realistic.

Re: I automated my job application process

#164

Post by maccard »

HarHarVeryFunny wrote: post #156
maccard wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My point is that that had been my experience hiring in a 10 person company and a 30k person company, and that the “suggested” AI screening isn’t happening - it’s probably that your application is the same as the other 300 applications that went in.

Re: I automated my job application process

#165

Post by nickff »

Etheryte wrote: post #126
nickff wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of the listing services actually do charge employers per applicant, unless they are rejected within a certain amount of time (usually 48 or 72 hrs).

The critical distinction here is that the employer pays, not the applicant. This direction works, that's roughly how all job boards work if you squint, but if it was the applicant paying, the incentives would be opposing.

This system still does incentivize the board to accept (or at least not deter) junk or fraudulent applicants.

Re: I automated my job application process

#166

Post by ghaff »

sensanaty wrote: post #112
pishpash wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Referrals and networking? When has submitting a resume to a portal ever been the way to find a job other than a cookie cutter one? Apply like a bot, work like a bot.

Referrals in my company basically just guarantee that the resume isn't immediately thrown in the trash, doesn't really help anyone's odds otherwise. I suspect in most companies it's similar, if they even get that much of a benefit (unless you're upper management (aka nepotism) I guess)

Nepotism is most associated with relatives although I guess it doesn't have to be. But I've definitely gotten several jobs through senior managers I had worked with which largely bypassed the whole HR system where it existed.

Re: I automated my job application process

#167

Post by DavidDodda »

euvin wrote: post #146
DavidDodda wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's how I got my new job offer!, I talked about this system I was building during a technical interview.

I've thought about the optics of talking about my own automatic job application system or including it on my resume, but I thought it'd be risky given the topic (like how listing your own startup is frowned upon, if I'm not mistaken?). Is it normally considered a bit risky or taboo?

well, it was during the technical interview, and it was just a couple of engineers doing the interview. I was just geeking out on all the problems I was solving (and creating).

and to be honest, I was too nerves to think about if it was risky or taboo.

Re: I automated my job application process

#168

Post by Aurornis »

salomon812 wrote: post #160
xingped wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

I tried giving honest and actionable interview feedback at first.

A scary number of candidates did not take rejection well and tried to use my feedback against me. I had people trying to argue that my feedback was wrong, someone stalking me across social media and trying to argue everything there, and eventually someone who threatened to use my feedback as the basis for a discrimination lawsuit.

So now we’re back to simple “we’re proceeding with other candidates” feedback.

If we’re going to play the blame-game, then you have to see the full picture. Many candidates can be awful and even vengeful. Many people do not handle rejection well.

Re: I automated my job application process

#169

Post by the_snooze »

Aurornis wrote: post #154
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…

>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.

Technology enables scale and reach, which solves some problems but also creates its own set of issues. I think you're right on with the solution: do things that are anti-scale. If you make things a bit more inconvenient, a bit more costly, and a bit more local, you create an environment where there's space for trust and humanity---values that don't scale.

Re: I automated my job application process

#170

Post by a3w »

"part 1", I hope he will do a "part 20" or ex post look at ideas like - start at 500.000 USD/year salary - go down until you get positive responses

and runs this script for ten years, even while employed.

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