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I automated my job application process

blog.daviddodda.com

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Re: I automated my job application process

#471

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 haven’t been job hunting since around 2002, so I’m completely out of the loop. Why are people submitting fake resumes? Are they hoping to get hired despite having no skills beyond using ChatGPT? But, what happens after that? They don’t have the skills to do the job, so what was the point of getting hired?

I can only think of a multiple-salary for onboarding period scam, where they llm all their job and get fired everywhere after a month with a couple years worth of money. You can’t really fire a hired guy without paying them at least once in US, can you?

Re: I automated my job application process

#472
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is surprising there isn’t some SaaS bullshit company that solves this problem. we have shit like Pearsons and whatnots when taking exams, I took few certification exams and it was like - install this thing that takes over my machine - 360 camera around to show my surroundings - no phone/watch/… One would think by now there’d be two Stanford grads with a SaaS shit taking care of this for $899/hr Last interview I di…

Startup idea to truly solve this would be large network of onsite test / interview centers. I had to do all my certs onsite in test centers in early 2000's. For one I had to drive 2 hours to take the exam. Seems like those test centers used to be in every mid size city in the country.

too expensive mate… we live in year our Lord 2024 - no one is building 2000 buildings that will be vacant as everyone is working from home (or India…) :)

this requires a simple saas solution - someone’s working on this for sure already as it is already a big issue

Re: I automated my job application process

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I half-way suspected that's what you were going for (testing-as-a-service) but my point still stands: it is a web-of-trust bootstrapping problem. For example, Otherbranch[1] exists, is a startup, and is trying to handle pre-screening candidates, but they seem to have very few companies that are currently using them. One would assume if they were solving a real problem then companies would be beating down their door t…

this ain’t about pre-screening at all, it is about solving a different kind of problem. if you have experienced it already, you haven’t interviewed anyone recently.

You are correct, I'm over here stuck on the applicant side, feeling like both sides of this transaction are suffering from the same lack of trust

I therefore fail to see how introducing another party that the hiring managers have to cede their trust to solves our mutual lack of trust

If your company (since your reply implies that you are at least "hiring manager adjacent") merely needs that testing center to start hiring people, I'm totally open to going on Monday and starting a company to provide that service. I even already have a 4k security camera system I can wire up the room to provide DVR access to your interview candidate's session

But my strong suspicion is that such a video camera enabled room for a fee is not, in fact, the obstacle to getting people hired

Re: I automated my job application process

#474
post #287
post #57

It’s astounding that we, as an industry, are so averse to licensing developers. It solves the resume spam problem and the repetitive LeetCode round(s) that every company now wants. We also don’t have to settle for the licensing process other industries have—ours can be more inclusive of alternative development backgrounds, while still providing a meaningful quality filter.

What do you mean with licensing? What’s the difference to a university degree?

Vocational education vs. academic.

Basically you find a grad right now and make them do a coding test. Something is broken there.

A degree could include the vocational qualification as a 1 year study, but having the vocation qualification alone would save youngsters a lot of money and reduce the burden on hiring. You could even still interview coding questions but the application process can remove the spam/ai bullshit to some extent. "Can they code?" is answered.

Re: I automated my job application process

#476

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…

Makes me wonder if we should just mail in our applications by snail mail at this point.

Re: I automated my job application process

#477

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? Why shouldn't I switch to an automated "shotgun" approach that applies me to as many jobs as possible to which I vaguely fit the requirements? I’m in a big semi-private Slack where people have been discussing CS application strategies for a long time (since before ChatGPT). The desperate people usually go through an arc where they try automated…

This is just the first pass. There are second pass strategies that could improve and are even more insidious: - review your generated CV pre-submission, make changes, do this a lot. Eventually you'll have a training set to fine-tune the model - throw 100-200 CVs at a job and see what sticks. That's your training set for that job. Now you have tuned the hiring manager's preferences. Follow up with your actual CV. Side benefit is it will jam up other candidates.

An arms race is afoot

Re: I automated my job application process

#478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What is a "Platform Engineer"? I never heard that term before today.

Latest rebranding of “sysadmin”, which became “devops engineer” or SRE a decade ago. It’s the people who shove kubernetes, datadog, and CI/CD tools into every corner.

Re: I automated my job application process

#479
post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Startup idea to truly solve this would be large network of onsite test / interview centers. I had to do all my certs onsite in test centers in early 2000's. For one I had to drive 2 hours to take the exam. Seems like those test centers used to be in every mid size city in the country.

too expensive mate… we live in year our Lord 2024 - no one is building 2000 buildings that will be vacant as everyone is working from home (or India…) :) this requires a simple saas solution - someone’s working on this for sure already as it is already a big issue

I hear you, and yes old school solution sounds absurd, but I suspect interview cheating will be on par with game cheating. Even if you install kernel level cheat protection systems the game cheater's still find ways around them.

These guys already developed an invisible desktop app to help everyone cheat on remote interviews.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42348147

Re: I automated my job application process

#480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this ain’t about pre-screening at all, it is about solving a different kind of problem. if you have experienced it already, you haven’t interviewed anyone recently.

You are correct, I'm over here stuck on the applicant side, feeling like both sides of this transaction are suffering from the same lack of trust I therefore fail to see how introducing another party that the hiring managers have to cede their trust to solves our mutual lack of trust If your company (since your reply implies that you are at least "hiring manager adjacent") merely needs that testing center to start hi…

11 out of last 12 candidates interviewed read their answers from chatgpt or the like. always same scenario, video call, interviewer never makes an eye contact and obviously is reading answers. last one I gave my cell and told him to call me, no speaker or bluetooth on the phone and hung up Teams meeting - mate never called back :)))

this is a pandemic already and tool is needed to establish that interviewer is not cheating. prior to today’s tools at interviewer’s disposal this was not really a thing - today it is a huge thing

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