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Why the Job Search Sucks

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Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#101

Post by scarface74 »

Clubber wrote: post #41
codingdave wrote: post #13

> At least I know not to waste my time waiting on you. So don't. If they don't meet your communication expectations, then it isn't a good match anyway. So don't wait. Move along. > These tests and whiteboarding are not indicative of your skill level No, they indicate your ability to work and talk through problems. I'm not sure where this idea that whiteboarding is about skill level came from. You can cram/study algor…

>But you can't fake the thinking process, or how you approach a problem. You can't fake your communication style. And that is what doing it in a stressful situation shows - how do you really think and communicate under pressure? Totally different type of pressure. You're assuming timeline pressure and social pressure is the same thing. It is not. >does anyone ever get a better result in their job search after ranting…

Totally different type of pressure. You're assuming timeline pressure and social pressure is the same thing. It is not.

If I'm applying for a senior developer/architect position, I should be able to think of a high level solution on the spot. When I was looking for a job a year or so ago, I thought I was interviewing for a regular developer position. I didn't realize I was interviewing for a lead position and they were looking for someone to create a development department from scratch. The first thing my now manager asked me was what steps I would take in the next 3-6 months to create the department.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#102

Post by scarface74 »

NetOpWibby wrote: post #80
tahw wrote: post #75

The job search sucks for this guy because he's a front end developer that isn't keeping up with front end developer trends. Which is the thing people pay front end developers to do.

Actually, it sucks for a lot of people. Keeping up with trends !== building a todo app with said trend. Do you really expect anyone to create a new app with the new hotness every time a "Show HN: My framework" is announced?

Yes. If there are people who are getting hired over him. It's not about what's fair.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#103

Post by Clubber »

scarface74 wrote: post #101
Clubber wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But you can't fake the thinking process, or how you approach a problem. You can't fake your communication style. And that is what doing it in a stressful situation shows - how do you really think and communicate under pressure? Totally different type of pressure. You're assuming timeline pressure and social pressure is the same thing. It is not. >does anyone ever get a better result in their job search after ranting…

Totally different type of pressure. You're assuming timeline pressure and social pressure is the same thing. It is not. If I'm applying for a senior developer/architect position, I should be able to think of a high level solution on the spot. When I was looking for a job a year or so ago, I thought I was interviewing for a regular developer position. I didn't realize I was interviewing for a lead position and they we…

>The first thing my now manager asked me was what steps I would take in the next 3-6 months to create the department.

Thinking and describing it is a lot easier than coding it on a whiteboard. I explain ideas to problems all day. I don't code it on a piece of paper and hand it to the board.

If it's an important problem, I actually take some time to roll it over, as should anyone solving any important problem.

White boarding code is a farce used by people who don't have any better ideas.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#104

Post by Clubber »

cantrip wrote: post #92
Clubber wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, if you were paid market rates for interviews, you'd have to do a lot of interviews to net $300K. I don't see how that is possible, ignoring the fact that doing that would be about as fun as gold farming on WoW circa 2007.

Never did I say I'd be making $300k per year. $100k a year to do three 5 hour interviews a week for $300k jobs? I would do that in a heartbeat.

Still highly unlikely. There are only a few cities that offer $300K jobs and they talk to each other. Most of them probably use just a handful of recruiting firms. Your name would get around. You could maybe change it, but I still doubt you'd get more than a few hours every few days, then it would dry up.

You'd have to interview about 12 hours a week (including Christmas and Thanksgiving), every week at only SV type companies and only for $300K jobs and pull it off for a year without getting caught before you hit $100K.

Highly unlikely.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#105

Post by RafiZ »

Job search sucks for many reasons and for the most part it's the hiring companies to blame for. However, this is a given situation which will not change any time soon. Instead of ranting, candidates should put some time in researching what the companies they're applying to are looking for and act accordingly - e.g. personalize their resume to match job descriptions, anticipate interview questions and do mock interviews. Some resources that can help in the process:

[1] https://www.glassdor.com (to find out interview questions asked by companies)

[2] https://www.jobscan.co (to optimize your resume against job descriptions)

[3] https://www.pramp.com (a peer-to-peer mock interviewing platform for software engineers)

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#106

Post by NetOpWibby »

scarface74 wrote: post #102
NetOpWibby wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it sucks for a lot of people. Keeping up with trends !== building a todo app with said trend. Do you really expect anyone to create a new app with the new hotness every time a "Show HN: My framework" is announced?

Yes. If there are people who are getting hired over him. It's not about what's fair.

That still doesn’t equal years of experience.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#107

Post by pinewurst »

neosavvy wrote: post #79
pinewurst wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a mostly remote worker, you still have to get by a lot of the screening BS - and commonly awful HR treatment - before you can start work. Also many places think they can pay a lot less for a remote person.

Do you use many of the services like Hired / Vettery or Remote seeking these gigs? I'll be honest I just haven't put much effort into it quite yet - still trying to arrange a few other projects in the event one of them takes off. I am just resided to the "if it doesn't exist - make it yourself" but it sure is taking a lot of patience out of me to make it so.

I've not had good luck with Hired, but I haven't been a developer in quite a long time. Mostly it's been "make it yourself" which is unfortunate, I agree.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#108

Post by jsoc815 »

bitcrusher wrote: post #98

The level of pure bullshit that is part of the hiring process these days is mind-boggling. An recent example: I interviewed for company X, where I spent an entire day with more than a dozen engineers, answering the same types of questions over and over again: "Here's our platform, how would you fix it". At every turn, I would speak about X,Y,Z issues that would need to be solved and how this or that technology might…

> I basically gave them a free day of consulting.

Exactly. (I mentioned this in my response to the OP.)

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#109

Post by neosavvy »

NetOpWibby wrote: post #85
neosavvy wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been forced to implement atoi and itoa functions in interviews, and albeit I agree with you that it's silly, I think they are just looking for a positive attitude. I try to hype myself up with a "thank you sir may I have another" once I get through solving what I think is a silly question. I remember being asked to solve a linked list problem with callbacks in JS where a service returned a Node and the API call…

That...sounds absolutely dreadful. I'm happy for you but that doesn't sound like my cup of tea.

I think it just happens when younger folks do the interviewing, they don't know how to interview so they grasp for what they know.

Just seems that every big firm does it. Recently I had a take-home assignment - spend like a week at night working on it only to be kind of insulted by the folks who interviewed me. They didn't even spend 5 whole minutes looking over my work. I was far more frustrated with that than I was being asked to implement a Linked List in front of someone on the spot.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#110

Post by gwbas1c »

cantrip wrote: post #24
gwbas1c wrote: post #18

One thing about feedback: Too much feedback helps candidates game the system. This ultimately leads to bad hires, who end up getting fired. It hurts the process overall. When interviewing with a good interviewer, he (or she) knows that whiteboard sessions / tests / projects are just hypothetical situations. If I throw an unfamiliar API in front of you, and you ask certain wrong questions, I know you're not going to w…

These all seem like highly subjective criteria, which is the whole problem with the way hiring works in first place.

You might think it's subjective, but it's more like people arguing over whether it's a 6 or a 9. There's only one right answer.

In this case, I'm trying to filter out the morons, and people who can't disagree and commit. The idiots who argue with me that we should use a different API (for the interview question) get rejected immediately. The actual programming question is pretty mindless and any competent software engineer should be able to figure it out in under 10 minutes.

But the bigger reason is that in an engineering situation, people who argue over subjective things often times just waste everybody's time. Certain decisions were made and there is really no good reason to go back and revisit them.

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