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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#411

Post by paxys »

jakewins wrote: post #328
swang wrote: 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?

Get hired. Go through onboarding. Collect your hiring bonus. Get a few weeks for your first project and fail at it. It gets written off as "they're just new here". Use some "unlimited" vacation time. Get more projects and keep failing at them. Get put on a new team because the eng director wants to give you another chance, and repeat the whole process. Eventually get put on a PIP. Show no improvement at the end of it. Accept a severance in exchange for "resigning" and signing an NDA/liability waiver.

At a large company it is possible for this entire process to draw out for 3-6 months, and you collecting >$100K in in that period.

Re: I automated my job application process

#412

Post by uoaei »

pknomad wrote: post #151
Oras wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

Do you have a technical background? 50 seems quite low for someone to get the gist of the resumes and have a sense of the applicants.

If recruiting departments really suffer at parsing about 50 apps per day per recruiter, I can see why this got so bad so quickly.

Re: I automated my job application process

#413

Post by etimberg »

swang wrote: post #291
cj wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also switched to only on-site interviews. My initial technical screenings are still done remotely. Pro tip for anyone hiring engineers for remote positions: Tell the applicant that there “might be” an in person technical assessment, even if you know the process will be 100% remote. The amount of fake candidates at the moment is insane. The only thing that makes fake candidates self-select out is knowing there’s t…

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…

Generally that's why the soft skills questions generally want a response in a STAR (situation, task, action, result) format. It's a lot harder to lie about a story and keep yourself consistent through a back and forth.

Re: I automated my job application process

#414

Post by XenophileJKO »

margalabargala wrote: post #334
randomNumber7 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't stand out from an LLM then why can't it do your job? Also, not using LLMs might be a red flag. I wouldn't want a dev that is not open to this technology...

> 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…

I kind of feel like it is the inverse in many ways.

As an experienced engineer, I know how to describe what I want which is 90% of getting the right implementation.

Secondly, because I know what I want and how it should work, I tend to know it when I see it. Often it only takes a nudge to get to a solution similar to what I already would have done. Usually it is just a quick comment like: "Do it in a functional style." or "This needs to have double check locking around {something}."

When I am working in the edge of my knowledge I can also lean on the model, but I know when I need to validate approaches that I am not sure satisfy my constraints.

A junior engineer doesn't know what they need most of the time and they usually don't understand which are the important constraints to communicate to the model.

I use an LLM to generate probably 50-60% of my code? Certainly it isn't ALWAYS strictly faster, but sometimes it is way way faster. On of the other things that is an advantage is it requires less detailed thinking at the inception phase which allows my do fire off something to build a class, make a change when I am in a context where I can't devote 100% of my attention to it and then review all the code later, still saving a bunch of time.

Re: I automated my job application process

#415

Post by the_snooze »

edmundsauto wrote: post #400
paradox460 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only withdraw, but post publicly about said company. That's so beyond the pale it's gotta be a joke

I’ve flown myself out for interviews at companies that were dream jobs. Think: sports industries, not insurance companies. They tended to be small and didn’t have the resources to put together reservations (and would have taken months to figure out budgeting situations) Yes, I wanted to work for them so badly it was well worth the risk. Sometimes you see opportunities and want to pay for them.

>They tended to be small and didn’t have the resources to put together reservations (and would have taken months to figure out budgeting situations)

This makes no sense. If they can't afford a one-off line item like travel arrangements, how can they possibly make payroll reliably? You're describing either a company with no financial buffer, or one that's asking prospective applicants to subsidize them.

Re: I automated my job application process

#416

Post by lukan »

silisili wrote: post #381
hibikir wrote: post #371

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…

Start every interview asking the candidate how many rs are in strawberry.

Apparently outdated, ChatGPT 3.5 answers correctly here.

Re: I automated my job application process

#418

Post by belinder »

roenxi wrote: post #406
celdon25 wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

AI has made hiring especially in technical industry an absolute shit show. I agree with parent comment that ideally government could do something about it but agree with you on how would you even do that. Maybe if they required all the job board companies like indeed and glassdoor and LinkedIn to properly vet candidates else those companies would be fined, but it's hard to imagine a solution that doesn't also hurt unemployed legit human beings

Re: I automated my job application process

#419

Post by olddustytrail »

zero-sharp wrote: post #338
randomNumber7 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't stand out from an LLM then why can't it do your job? Also, not using LLMs might be a red flag. I wouldn't want a dev that is not open to this technology...

>If you can't stand out from an LLM then why can't it do your job? I downvoted your post because this is a complete nonsequitur.

If you reply to a comment I believe it cancels your downvote.

Re: I automated my job application process

#420

Post by the_snooze »

paxys wrote: post #411
jakewins wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Get hired. Go through onboarding. Collect your hiring bonus. Get a few weeks for your first project and fail at it. It gets written off as "they're just new here". Use some "unlimited" vacation time. Get more projects and keep failing at them. Get put on a new team because the eng director wants to give you another chance, and repeat the whole process. Eventually get put on a PIP. Show no improvement at the end of it…

Signing bonuses almost always have clawback provisions, and I've never heard of someone getting severance from being fired for cause (performance). The only way I can see your scenario playing out is if the employee has some kind of real leverage over the company (e.g., family connections, political backing, etc.).
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