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I automated my job application process

blog.daviddodda.com

671–680 of 884 posts

Re: I automated my job application process

#671
post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolute insanity. Something has to give, or we're about to see some big changes in how hiring is done. I don't want to retype my recent experiences, but I have a thread from about 6 weeks ago that goes into my specific details here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42137229 I was in a good position so I could take my time, but I honestly don't know what I would have done if I had needed a position quickly.

Software should have some universal competency baseline, like a license. If AI resume spamming is that straw that breaks the camel’s back then so be it. The best defense against AI would be a license number that identifies a person uniquely, provides their relevant job history from a database, proves some minimal common competency baseline, and confirms conformance to some ethical norm against known liabilities.

Every certification I have is numbered.

Re: I automated my job application process

#672

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The line isn't between detailed feedback and brief, uninformative feedback. The line is between saying something brief and saying nothing. Somehow, it has become standard to say absolutely nothing instead of telling people a simple no. I've even had situations where people said they wanted to keep talking to me, and then went completely silent.

But brief feedback is probably more likely to result in pushback / being sued by candidates, since candidates will feel like you didn’t properly consider them. The sad truth of the situation is that all the incentives for a company point in the direction of giving no feedback at all. This isn’t because hiring managers are sociopaths.

I'm not arguing for feedback, I'm arguing for an answer.

It's just common decency. "Sorry, we're not continuing" is not going to get you sued.

Re: I automated my job application process

#673
post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

no question there will be cat&mouse here but even more incentive for some stanford grads to charge premium for “unbreakable quantum-proof interview experience” :)

Re: I automated my job application process

#674

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an abundance of tech workers. There is a shortage of good tech workers. It is incredibly difficult, at the resume stage, to tell the difference. When you post a job online, you get hundreds of applications in a few days. Imagine you are a good tech worker. You applied to a company, along with 200 other people. Your resume gets swept into the trash because they had to automatically delete several applicants a…

>There is a shortage of good tech workers. I wish someone quantified what 'good' is. Ask 2 tech workers to rate each other and they are most likely to rate each other mediocre by each's standards. Each would nitpick on what the other didn't know.

This does not match my experience. Most of the time it's quite clear who is a high performer/multiplier in a team

Re: I automated my job application process

#675

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's like comparing your "AI customized resume" to shitting on the hiring manager's desk You'll be shocked to find out which performed better!

What's so bad about a "generic" resume? I assume this means one that just honestly describes your experience rather than tailoring it to the job applied for to make it seem you're a better fit than you really are. It's up to the person (hopefully) reading your resume to decide whether you're enough of a potential fit to take to the next step (technical screening call?).

A cover layer is there to show how you fit the role. This cannot be done with a genetic cover layer

Telling facts about yourself is done in the CV, not cover layer

Re: I automated my job application process

#676

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…

But this chaos fits Big Tech's claim that there are not enough American workers, so they can then turn around and onshore H1Bs from the hiring manager's hometown back in the old country.

then move abroad and get your dream job there?

Re: I automated my job application process

#677

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…

> 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…

Absolutely correct, just making laws themselves have little effect over anything. Enforcement is the key. For most laws that step is an afterthought. But there are creative ways to do it.

Re: I automated my job application process

#678

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…

Today, the hardest part is to get to said first interview, because we are all flooded with fake resumes. Incomprensible amounts. So what you have to do is not send blind resumes, but get a warm intro from someone with a connection to the company that vouch that interviewing you will not be a total waste of time. Networks have never been more important. Now, if on interview you pass rate is low, it's hard to say what…

What do you do if you don't have any way to get a warm intro? People still need to get a job even if they don't have connections.

Re: I automated my job application process

#679

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK job market is pretty screwy. I got made redundant back in March, applied for a bunch of stuff I matched profile for and maybe got 5-6 interviews off the back of it. The worst was the agency that lined me up for a contract role, got me to fill out all the paperwork only for the job to fall through because the client apparently never got budget signed off for the position.

> The worst was the agency that lined me up for a contract role, got me to fill out all the paperwork only for the job to fall through because the client apparently never got budget signed off for the position. I could be wrong, but I think that might have been a lie. I've heard it before, too, and I've come to doubt it; I think it too unlikely to be heard with such frequency as I do hear it. I've also had on three o…

I saw this on contract jobs which require a US security clearance. Maybe its frequent with single-customer projects.

Re: I automated my job application process

#680
post #262

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…

> 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…

People who are serious about doing remote work are going to pass on anything that indicates hybrid. The simplest screening technique is to give instructions within the job post to submit via email rather than the job board form. Even before LLM slop became the norm people were spamming their resumes with Easy Apply.
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