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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#511

Post by Aurornis »

fasa99 wrote: post #477
Aurornis wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

This is just fear mongering. If a job posting got spammed with 200 fake resumes from multiple fake applicants then the first thing we’re doing is cancelling our job postings with whatever service is so poor that it can’t reject basic spam attacks like this.

Honestly, I think people vastly overestimate how much hiring managers use AI for filtering. Blaming AI for rejections has become a common coping mechanism because it’s easier to think that a broken AI filter rejected you instead of the company making a valid decision to go with someone else.

> throw 100-200 CVs at a job and see what sticks

If your experience wasn’t good enough the first 10 times, doing another couple hundred rounds of LLM word manipulation isn’t going to make it better.

Re: I automated my job application process

#512

Post by mathieuh »

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…

It’s the same for me. When I read people say they send hundreds of job applications I don’t understand how that’s even possible. Any time I’ve been looking for a job I usually find maybe five jobs that actually interest me and I think I would be a good fit for, and then another five that I maybe don’t quite meet the all the requirements or don’t seem that interesting but it’s near enough that I might as well give it a go. I usually don’t make all those applications at once because I find managing more than about three applications to be a hassle.

As far as I can recall I’ve never not had an interview from an application.

I do generally use recruitment agencies so maybe that’s a factor.

Re: I automated my job application process

#513

Post by charlie0 »

Gigachad wrote: post #320
imnotjames wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you suggest?

Resumes must be dropped off at the office in person.

YEAH! Go back to the old Boomer ways of applying, lol. How ironic, but this seems preferable over the current sh*tstorm.

Re: I automated my job application process

#514

Post by Aurornis »

celdon25 wrote: post #386
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…

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…

> Nobody innocent is going to be wronged if this is made into a crime or otherwise regulated to put a stop to.

Good luck.

The applicants doing fake job applications do not care about your laws at all. Many might be in foreign countries. They might plan on applying with stolen identities.

Making a law isn’t going to change a thing. Even if you did, what company is going to spend resources tracking down the likely fake identity of someone applying for a job just to hand it to law enforcement for them to ignore in their backlog forever?

Re: I automated my job application process

#515

Post by Aurornis »

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.

> If I didn't know better I'd think this was satire.

It’s actually a constant them on HN to imagine that passing laws will magically make problems disappear. The realities of enforcing the law or even identifying perpetrators are imagined to be the easy part.

Re: I automated my job application process

#516

Post by Clubber »

MrMember wrote: post #314

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…

>to signal that I'm a real person with real experience is to know someone in the company who can vouch for me (which I almost never do).

You ask your friends/past colleagues if the company they currently work for has any openings. If you've worked hard, solved problems and are good to work with, it's a good way to get further employment.

Re: I automated my job application process

#517

Post by nosioptar »

biztos wrote: post #312
bovermyer wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this approach. In this field, unless you're hiring a junior engineer, you can have a reasonable expectation that a potential candidate will fly out for an interview even if it's a 100% remote job. If they refuse, well, there's a chance it's just because they can't afford to. The chance is far greater, though, that you dodged a bullet.

What do you mean by "can't afford to?" Because you can't possibly mean you think candidates are going to fly out for an interview at their own expense. Traditionally (i.e. pre-Covid) flying out a senior candidate was the standard signal that both sides were taking the process seriously. And for competitive hires, the quality of the hotel and the restaurants they were taken to and the seniority of the people who joine…

> What do you mean by "can't afford to?"

Cat boarding is pricey. I couldn't afford it right now, even for a very short trip. I doubt any job would offer to pick up the tab.

Re: I automated my job application process

#518

Post by celdon25 »

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.

Ah, the ol’ “manufacture an argument that wasn’t made, then shoot it down it in front of an audience” trick. I suppose I’ll be advocating for the outlawing of those kinds of comments, and anything else deemed as misinformation next.

A more realistic scenario would involve no enforcement by the government (except perhaps in extreme cases, like with the 'spam king' back in the day). ChatGPT's terms of service would already cover it under the "shall not be used for illegal activity" language, and it would be just enough of a deterrence to benefit a larger number of people without creating new problems. But I wasn't advocating for a specific solution, just a call to a congressman. Despite their faults and flaws, they're probably still going to do a better job than I am at making the call, or maybe it won't even be a priority for them and they'll do nothing.

Re: I automated my job application process

#519

Post by mjevans »

maccard wrote: post #150
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.

If I get 500 applications to a role and spend 1 minute writing each person a personalised no sorry, that’s 20% of my week just writing rejection emails (never mind actually reviewing the resume). I’ve hired for 3 companies for engineers from entry level to staff level, and for non technical candidates for other departments. Applicant tracking systems like greenhouse send me an email for every application that comes t…

Maybe it is time for a set of unions or guilds to do that certification for you.

Re: I automated my job application process

#520

Post by Aurornis »

casenmgreen wrote: post #384
belinder wrote: post #351

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…

Who cares if someone is copying your profile?

Having an established LinkedIn profile with their simple identity verification tool is such a trivial amount of effort for de-risking your job search that it’s hard to justify boycotting LinkedIn at this point.

If an application looks suspicious for some reason, I’ll look for their LinkedIn profile as the second step. If I can’t find one or if the profile is also questionable, I move on. LinkedIn is far from perfect, but it’s at least some signal in a world where the noise level is rising fast.

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