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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#401
post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i saw a tiktok where the guy had his phone propped up but not in view of his webcam, and basically the interviewer's mic was going through his phone on some llm and the llm was spitting out responses for him to reply to the soft questions his interviewer was asking. the interviewer also made him "quickly" turn on his screen sharing so he could see that his computer didn't have anything assisting him. i haven't done a…

But like.. what happens after this supposed trick? I don’t understand how they wouldn’t just be fired after the first week if they can’t actually do the job? Is it that they are applying to places where you don’t pair program?

Most places have such chaotic onboarding that it would take a few months to truly get signal that the employee knew nothing.

Re: I automated my job application process

#402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hiring manager for 3 positions about 4 months ago and the amount of fake applications out there was mind boggling to me. I would say 90% were either entirely fake or had the exact same generated ai text. It got so bad that we started only looking at resumes that had a working LinkedIn link. Also after so many bad resumes I started being very forgiving for the ones that didn't fully match the job requirements if…

I left LinkedIn years ago, because everyone and their dog was copying my entire profile. I was happy for that info to go to potential employers, but not to random company and its canine friend. Then MS bought LI and I was so glad I'd left years ago already. I've seen one of two places have mandatory URL fields for LinkedIn profiles. One of the impressions I've been getting is that if you do not fit exactly into an re…

Well LinkedIn does a lot of stuff around making sure the accounts are for real people. Kind of helps with many of the issues people are complaining about. I mean they can improve it, but they do some level of effort.

Re: I automated my job application process

#403

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…

    > When we want to talk about their solution in the interview, they “can’t remember” how it works or why they picked their method.
Sweet! That sounds like perfect signal for "used ChatGPT" to answer this question. So, you can send take home test, candidate sends reply (many from ChatGPT), then you do quick follow-up phone/video call to discuss the code. When you get the "signal" (should be quick!), then you immediately close the interview and move to the next candidate.

Re: I automated my job application process

#404
post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, not using LLMs might be a red flag. I wouldn't want a dev that is not open to this technology... The person you're replying to is a senior, not junior candidate. For junior devs who are still learning, LLMs are a great force multiplier that help them understand code faster and integrate new things. For senior devs, LLMs are a maybe-optional tool that might save a couple hours per week, on a good week. I would…

Github copilot still sucks for writing complex code (algorithms or database queries, e.g.). Or trying to do unpopular things (like custom electronics using particular micros and driver chips). For unit tests, it's a godsend. Particularly if you write one unit test, and then it can write another in the style you wrote.

LLMs can’t write unit tests. They can’t even tell what you intend. If your code is already correct, you don’t need the unit test, if it’s not, the LLM can’t write the unit test. If you thing an LLM can write tests for you, you can be replaced by an LLM.

Re: I automated my job application process

#405

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.

> 100%, this is a natural reaction to the situation companies have created Hiring manager here. I don’t like the situation either, but to honest a lot of what you’re seeing is a natural reaction to the shenanigans that applicants are doing. When you post a job listing and get 500 resumes from people who aren’t even close to qualified and obviously didn’t read the job description, you understand why we’re not sending…

  >When you post a job listing and get 500 resumes from people who aren’t even close to qualified and obviously didn’t read the job description, you understand why we’re not sending custom written rejection letters to every single application.
Then why not send the automated responses (or nothing) to the obvious spam appliers and save the feedback for the clearly more legitimate applications? If the argument is that so few applications are legit, then it should be proportionally few emails to send.

Awhile ago I applied to an internship at one of the larger, successful startups that most tech workers have heard of (several thousand employees). I got a response from a real person in a day. There's really no excuse for not being decent.

Re: I automated my job application process

#406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's not even enough: A few weeks ago I had to interview someone who had what appeared to be a realistic profile. Everything that came out of their mouth was from chatGPT It was suspicious, but the ruse became clear when they shared the wrong screen, so we could see his prompt, and how everything we said was being read in. At this point every remote internet checklist has to include checks for humanity, because…

Anyone affected by this and in the US might consider calling or writing to their congressman. The time to do that is now when the demand is high to bolster jobs but low for excessive laws. Nobody innocent is going to be wronged if this is made into a crime or otherwise regulated to put a stop to. The fake job applicants are only siphoning resources from the economy at the high expense of all other parties involved. T…

If I didn't know better I'd think this was satire. As far as I can tell the advocacy is for either companies to be empowered to sue people who apply to work with them (seems like madness) or to set up a situation where the government enforcement arm pro-actively goes out and harasses unemployed job seekers. Either way that sounds like a recipe for disaster for unemployed persons.

Re: I automated my job application process

#408

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…

What exactly you can do as a HM to make the life of a job seeker easy? I dare say nothing except to just make the quality of response better. Even after six rounds of interviews candidates who are not selected get not a single positive feedback and is treated like scrap with a soulless rejection. Beleive me as a job applicant I have zero sympathy for the corporates that hire me and I will use every thing at my dispos…

I agree with your sentiment. I am curious how this person will fare when they return to the job hunt. Then, they will see how adversarial the process has become, even for highly qualified candidates. Suddenly, AI looks like a good idea to game some of the process.

Re: I automated my job application process

#409

I'm seeing a lot of back in forth in the comments between hiring managers and employees discussing who is more responsible for the current situation, but from the perspective of someone looking for a job what should I be doing? I've been pretty aggressively looking for a job for the past six months or so. I have 10+ years of professional software dev experience so I've mostly been looking at senior dev positions. I h…

> So why should I keep doing what I'm doing when it's getting me nowhere?

I'd go the other way, towards more schlepping and less automation[0].

Are you reaching out to anyone in your network and asking if they know anyone who needs your skills?

Are you joining communities (online or offline) that match up to your skills and interests?

Doing either of these, so that you can be warm intro-ed to hiring managers by someone who knows you (or maybe knows someone who knows you) will typically get you to the front of the line.

That's the approach I would take if I were looking today. Too much noise otherwise.

0: Works for startups: https://paulgraham.com/ds.html

Re: I automated my job application process

#410

As someone who automates everything and normally loves this type of thing, my approach for job hunting has been way different. Instead of spray and pray, I spend a week or so deeply researching where I want to work and figure out how to get there role-wise. Everything 100% manual and focused, no more than 8 total companies. Maybe spray and pray works if you’re more junior, but later in your career you’ll want to be v…

When was the last time that worked for you and what's your background and the types of roles you were applying for?
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