Isn't Canonical famous for having one of the worst candidate selection processes? Also, there's a lot of superstition and nonsense about how to succeed at interviews and job applications.
The author says he likes it. (???)
How (not) to apply for a software job
21–30 of 174 posts
Re: How (not) to apply for a software job
#22When you have a sub 1% chance of getting an interview, asking for a cover letter or some kind of non trivial time comitment is just wrong. IMHO a better approach would be to select lets say 10% of the candidates and ask only them.
[deleted]
Re: How (not) to apply for a software job
#23"but the written interview part (the part people seem to protest the most) I actually find quite useful." Yeah, not taking advice from this fellow. Good writing doesn't necessarily make you a good software engineer (and vice versa). Save this garbage for college applications.
It doesn’t necessarily make you one, but it’s a darn good indicator.
Re: How (not) to apply for a software job
#24Interesting to see that perfect grammar gives you penalties nowadays.
One candidate could read:
> they might have perfect grammar, but they’re incredibly boring, and they contain little or nothing from the candidate’s experience.
and walk away with the impression that "perfect grammar gives you penalties".
Another candidate might have interpreted it differently.
Guess which candidate will get hired.
Re: How (not) to apply for a software job
#25Software engineers using tools like ChatGPT isn't really about trying to game the system. It's more about how out-of-touch the old-school job application process feels. We really just want to make things easier on ourselves. We're in a time where we're all about automating the boring stuff. Why? Because we can. The whole idea of writing a cover letter feels ancient. Honestly, when I'm shooting out a ton of job applic…
> Honestly, when I'm shooting out a ton of job applications, it's a total drag to whip up a special cover letter for each one.
I've generally had more luck making a small number of applications with a short but carefully considered cover letter. It can just be a few sentences. Sometimes people think they need to spam applications because most of their applications are rejected; but in fact most of their applications are rejected because they're generic application spam.
A cover letter can be the least bullshitty part of an application (at least if you are applying to a small or medium sized company). You can truthfully explain why you are interested in the role and why you might be good at it.
Re: How (not) to apply for a software job
#26Isn't Canonical famous for having one of the worst candidate selection processes? Also, there's a lot of superstition and nonsense about how to succeed at interviews and job applications.
They have been derided for their interview process (though not, as far as I know, for their candidate selection), but that's not the point of the article. I'd love if it we stuck to discussing the content of the article: how to write when applying at any company.
If you could describe what superstition and nonsense you see in the article, that might be helpful.
Re: How (not) to apply for a software job
#27Earlier quoted context omitted.
We toss out anything that looks written by AI.
That's so dumb. Dismissing applications based on the tools used rather than the content and qualifications is a missed opportunity. The goal should be to evaluate the substance and authenticity of an application, not to play "guess if it's AI-assisted or not." There's real talent out there looking for opportunities, and they might just be using AI to help navigate a convoluted application process.
I disagree but it doesn't matter because I'm sure we're not the only ones who do it. I'm just telling you what you're up against.
Re: How (not) to apply for a software job
#28Canonical’s job application process is famously insane, so I wouldn’t personally put too much weight on anything in this blogpost.
Re: How (not) to apply for a software job
#29Software engineers using tools like ChatGPT isn't really about trying to game the system. It's more about how out-of-touch the old-school job application process feels. We really just want to make things easier on ourselves. We're in a time where we're all about automating the boring stuff. Why? Because we can. The whole idea of writing a cover letter feels ancient. Honestly, when I'm shooting out a ton of job applic…
To me, a good cover letter is about being actually motivated to apply to a specific job and then simply explaining why. AI doesn’t help because if you can articulate your genuine motivation as a prompt for an AI, you should just use the prompt as the cover letter which will be a lot more effective than using the AI-generated letter, as the AI will muddy your authentic motivation and diminish its impact.
Did anyone ever get hired by answering the question of "Why do you want to work for us?" with "Because I need a pay check"?
Because that's realistically like 80% of the motivation for most job/candidate pairings. In my case the remainder is usually like 15% "and it doesn't require selling my immortal soul to the devil" and 5% "your tech/problem is vaguely interesting".
Given the above, I feel like a typical cover letter is really an exercise in spin.