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All the jobs I failed to get

shkspr.mobi

131–140 of 180 posts

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#131
post #93
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>USD $100k is ~4 year experience software engineer salary. Not in the UK, though.

Point still stands. UK software engineer median wages are above UK national median wages.

not by much. software salaries in the uk are not that great. 75k is top top bracket for uk.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evaluate the areas of human interaction or places where some could be and try to make those better. Instead of just thinking that a technical challenge is there be all end all of recruiting. “ I used to work in tech recruiting. I guarantee you 100%, no one cares.” This does not reflect tech recruiting. People do care and while there are many hurdles to changing a process, we shouldn’t give up because its hard.

ok how does this address my example above about the most popular "inhumane" tech hiring complaint on HN. What are you going to do about that other than give up?

As a candidate? Tell them you don't do puzzles before talking to humans and to advance you to the next screen? It's not like those rules can't be broken or changed, they aren't laws of physics.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I took great pride in informing her that a) I made more than their proposed offer and b) I’d never work for a company who couldn’t operate with basic human decency in their recruiting process. I used to work in tech recruiting. I guarantee you 100%, no one cares. As a candidate your only option is to move on or write a bad glassdoor if you are so inclined and move on.

As a hiring manager, I care quite a bit about how candidates think of our process BUT I also know that most folks who bother to write something like 'basic human decency' to a recruiter, who usually has little power or status in a company, are probably not the people I want to hire. Nothing wrong with complaining but people often hurl needless insults when they've had a less than optimal time.

Why couldn't the feedback bubble up to someone who has enough authority to improve the process? No one expects recruiters to fix the company by themselves.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I took great pride in informing her that a) I made more than their proposed offer and b) I’d never work for a company who couldn’t operate with basic human decency in their recruiting process. I used to work in tech recruiting. I guarantee you 100%, no one cares. As a candidate your only option is to move on or write a bad glassdoor if you are so inclined and move on.

Recruiters...ugh. About 15 years ago I managed a software team and decided I wanted to consider new opportunities. I wasn't sure I was leaving, but I wanted to see what was out there. A recruiter saw my resume, called my workplace to speak to the hiring manager, and offered his services to help the company fill their soon-to-be-vacant development manager position. The recruiter was happy to reveal that I was consider…

Wow, just wow.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#135
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this. I recently graduated in May with a bachelors in CS and looking at LinkedIn has been very discouraging. I know it's unhealthy to compare yourself to others but it's hard, especially when you see a lot of other people having success. Before the pandemic I was banking on going to EYEO and SIGGRAPH to network with people in the creative technology space to break into it (my goal is to be a creative te…

On a larger note: I find looking into LinkedIn quite depressing. Everyone is happy and excited and successful. There is no real value in most posts. Rather, they’re usually a variation of this: ”#supergrateful and #blessed for meeting super inspiring %SomeoneImportant today #growth #entrepreneurship %hipsterstartup #nopause” I try to stay away from it as much as I can.

This is the way I think about Linkedin: It’s not really about networking. Most fruitful networking take place on other places. It’s mostly a way for recruiters to find people. The modern equivalent of a Rolodex. Which can be good for people who might want to get in touch with a recruiter that has something to offer them. (Some people don’t want do be contacted by recruiters and for those people Linkedin probably doesn’t have so much to offer.)

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#136
I like this quoted response:

You have reached the required standard, but we are unable to offer you a job immediately. We have placed you on a reserve list from which future appointments may be made.

When I was leaving academia it took a number of rejections before I realized that I wasn't being rejected because I wasn't qualified, but because the company only had one spot and I wasn't their top choice.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#137
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that a skill that is required for lots of positions?

I learned recursive programming decades ago in high school. (Solve the Towers of Babylon with recursive algo). So, yes. Somebody calling himself a programmer or engineer should be able to produce this.

To me this seems similiar to if you want to call yourself a physician, you need to be able to speak latin. Its true (at least need to pass an exam), but it is only signaling, and no just having a few latin derived labels.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#138
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think recursion is overrated. Does anyone here really write recursive functions in production? I mean it takes up stack space (which on some systems is a systemparameter), creates functioncall overhead and has rarely advantages. Trees have more natural recursive structures, but then you basically always have cache misses making your program orders of magnitude slower than if you can fit the data in a linea…

If you can take a problem where I'm thinking of a recursive solution as the interviewer, but you can come up with an iterative solution and explain why you think it's better, I would give you full marks.

Tell me, how many recursive functions are in your companies code base. (Or course you might not be allowed to tell; but do you know the number?)

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#139
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's really that standard, then wouldn't we just use a library for it to cut out a large portion of the development, testing, and maintenance?

If you can't do the curriculum standard, how will you build the non-standard? CS is very much an on-the-shoulder-of-giants field.

Then this still wouldn't be a great test. A person can use rote learning to memorize the standard portion but then be terrible when they are left to think for themself to create the non-standard.

I actually like fizz-bang interviews - just don't expect me to have algorithms memorized in a formal way. They give an interviewer the ability to see how the candidate translates the requirements into code, what their process is, how they think about the subject matter.

I agree about the shoulders-of-giants statement. That's sort of what I'm was getting at with my comment about using standard libraries. If I'm using pandas dataframes, there's no reason for me to build an algorithm/code to join multiple dataframes. If I were the interviewer, I would certainly view a candidate in a better light if they bring up this point rather than just jump into coding duplicate functionality.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#140
Lots of comments about how people are only transparent about their failures after they're successful.

There are plenty of reasons to conceal the failures in real time, but the two that jump to mind for me are:

1) not wanting your current employer to know you're looking, and

2) not wanting to advertise that you've been rejected to other future job prospects. (Could prime people into wondering "What's wrong with this candidate?" if you don't make it somewhere else.)

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