Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

arxiv.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 598 posts

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#131

Post by Lammy »

oriel wrote: post #17

A question I've had on my mind for a while now, watching this progression of fake or poisoned jobs, and miles of automatic systems to navigate: At what point do people consider the well poisoned? Where they just check out and stop applying, to specific companies or in general, because its very very obvious that there isnt actually a valid hiring market at all. I ask this question, because I've already passed this thr…

I'm already there with the monthly HN hiring threads. Not one of those companies over several years ever responded to me, even the ones where the listing felt tailor made for me, even the ones that literally said they respond to all applicants. They're a total waste of time lol

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#133

Post by bane »

I'm about a year into a mid-effort level job search. I work in a somewhat specialized technical field and am fairly senior (I think in FAANG-ese I'd be an maybe an L7 if I understand their levels correctly). So this means I'm looking for management, director, deputy CTO or CTO positions depending on the company. I have a track record making my company lots of money, and opening up new opportunities worth many multiples of that. So the deck is already stacked against me as most positions are for jr or mid engineers, but I have a proven track record of growing responsibilities and (in my market) fairly recognizable success stories.

The search has been absolutely atrocious. Unlike anything I've ever seen before in 30 years of working in tech.

* I used to be able to simply pull on my network and get a position within 2 or 3 tries. Total job hunt time, under a month.

* The last time I had to go through this was pre-COVID, and I used a mix of my network and cold applications (around 50). I only heard back from 2 of the cold submissions and my network pulled me in to where I am today. Total job hunt time, around 4 months.

* I'm almost exactly 1 year in now, over 700 applications, people in my network can't even get responses for referrals. I've made it to 4 interview funnels, including stupidly exhausting FAANGs, for positions ranging from CTO to consultant filling a contract slot. 2 solid offers, both at least 40-60% below my current market rate. One executive recruiter ghosted me after we started discussing Total Compensation Packages.

I even had a friend post a position at their company, using my resume as the hiring template. Then they personally referred me to that position. I never received a call, and they never received any candidates.

It feels like being personally blacklisted, but it's affecting everybody I know.

The furthest I've gotten has been by hunting down corporate and executive recruiters directly, but I've had two recruiters get laid off halfway through the matching process. One FAANG recruiter has even contacted me hoping I could help them find a position.

Something is broken somewhere. Companies are starving for talent, and talent is starving for companies. The online applications sites are clearly filtering out people, but there appears to be massive churn in the recruiting side as well.

/r/recruitinghell is very representative of things I've seen.

I did notice that hiring activity has picked up since the rollover of the FY. Several 6-7 month old applications stirred somebody to contact me in the last month or so with a "great fit" that turned out to have nothing to do with my skillset.

My story is finally drawing to a close however, I've just negotiated a good position at a new firm and am setting a start date.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#134

Post by motohagiography »

ghost jobs are analogous to (the now illegal practice) of spoofing trades in equity markets, where they exist to manipulate the market to get an information edge about price and availability of the commodity (talent).

even though I think it's wrong, and in a consistent regs regime it would be illegal, like spoofing in other markets, it's the artifact of incentives created by outdated regs and conventions that didn't keep up with the scale of tech.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#135

Post by mithametacs »

echoangle wrote: post #130
mithametacs wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a serious comment? Use your intelligence.

Yes, this was serious. If someone says: > This isn't ethical. It shouldn't be legal. But it is. It actually means „ok, it actually is illegal, but it’s not properly enforced“?

Dawg, not every sentence someone says is 100% literal all the time.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#136

Post by projectazorian »

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #83
indoordin0saur wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, this isn't clear to me. Are the interviewees citizens? So you're interviewing citizens to prove that there aren't any who can fill your jobs but even when they clearly could fill the job you don't hire them? Seems like the requirement of proving "there are or aren’t any residents or citizens that can fill the job" is going to be near impossible for the government to enforce

Yes, h1b hiring practices have been shady at best for atleast a decade. For everyone that just doesn’t want to fire a coworker there is someone taking advantage of cheap labor that is easier to control under the threat of deportation. The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line, but it is commonly used to save money through exploitation. A long time ago…

> The h1b program is supposed to be for people at the top of their field so they can skip the normal visa line, but it is commonly used to save money through exploitation.

Incorrect - such people already qualify for green cards under the "alien of extraordinary ability" criterion. At least in theory, anyway.

There is no "normal visa line" btw, unless you mean the green card diversity lottery, which people from eg. India and China don't even qualify for.

> A long time ago I read an hn comment that suggested h1b visas should go to the highest paying jobs, with the logic being that if they are such a rare talent they should probably be getting paid more.

This is in principle a good idea although I suspect that if actually implemented employers would figure out how to game the system just as they do now.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#137

Post by happyopossum »

oriel wrote: post #17

A question I've had on my mind for a while now, watching this progression of fake or poisoned jobs, and miles of automatic systems to navigate: At what point do people consider the well poisoned? Where they just check out and stop applying, to specific companies or in general, because its very very obvious that there isnt actually a valid hiring market at all. I ask this question, because I've already passed this thr…

IME, it’s been a crap system for decades. 7 of my last 7 jobs (over ~25 years) have been obtained through “my network” - ie former coworkers who enjoyed (tolerated?) working with me and were happy to make referrals, reach out, or in other ways help when I was looking for a new job. And often when I wasn’t looking.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#138

Post by mxuribe »

Simran-B wrote: post #12

Some IT service corporations that are known for a very high employee churn rates often post the same position a dozen times, for each of their office locations. Sometimes it's a 100% remote job, and they still post it multiple times with different locations. They probably litter job portals this way so that they can compensate for the frequent personell changes. They are impossible to miss.

Ah, i thought the multiple posting in different locations was to be able to show or hide the salaray range depending on U.s. state-level legislation related to that...also, in those cases where maybe if the role is remote, maybe they only want to hir candidates in a somewhat near/adjacent area to one of their offices.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#139

Post by coliveira »

mikeocool wrote: post #94
marban wrote: post #8

Is everyone ignoring the fact that companies do this to make themselves look bigger than they are compared to the competition and/or to pretend economic success?

I wonder who this is effective signaling mechanism for. Any investor that's on the board is going to have access to data that tells the real story (or if they don't they're neglecting their fiduciary duty). Any potential investor that's going to lead a funding round is going to do enough diligence to see what kind of financial shape they're in. And if the company doesn't have money to be increasing headcount, it'd lo…

There are well know ways to solve these issues. For example, companies have always used the strategy of firing the "bad" workers after a few years and then hiring more to replace them. Even though there is hiring going on, the net difference may well be zero or negative. Nobody would suspect this by looking just at the number of people being hired.

Re: Why is it so hard to find a job now? Enter Ghost Jobs

#140

Post by morpheuskafka »

fjni wrote: post #87
echoangle wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It shouldn't be legal. But it is. How is that legal? If you think the local applicant can do the job, you legally can’t hire the H-1B over them, right?

OP already hired H-1B in the past and that person is working for them now. OP is now in the process of doing a green card application for said employee. They can't move forward with the GC application because there are other qualified citizens/residents, but they don't have to fire the existing H1B employee. That's how I understand OP, if that's legally true or not, I don't know.

You're correct that they are under no obligation to fire the employee on the H-1B. (In theory, they are applying for a "new" job, and them not getting it for whatever the reason isn't an issue for their current job and status.)

However, what OP is missing is that rejecting the US citizen application based on their citizenship is still likely a prohibited discrimination case regardless of what they do with the existing employee.

Post reply on HN