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Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

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Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#211

Post by sethrin »

prolly_a_moron wrote: post #185
mooreds wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This! Meetups, conferences, and social events are all great places to meet someone who might know someone who needs you skills. Yes, the connection will be far weaker than any connection with a former colleague, but sometimes all you need is an inside connection to make your resume stand out just a bit more and to be that less of an unknown. Weak connections actually being you into vastly different networks.

We must live vastly different lives. Otherwise, why would anyone want to spend their spare social time in job hunt mode? Sometimes I want to foster relationships I already have, not eternally be working on new ones.

It's not "job hunt mode", it's "face time mode". You want to be visible, and you want people to be aware of your capabilities. If you're accomplishing that in ways that don't cut into your other social activities, that sounds ideal.

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#212

Post by rleigh »

lacampbell wrote: post #209
rleigh wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Because there are two extremes here: 1) Selectively applying only for positions in companies where you truly care about the specifics of the role and the overall purpose of the company, because you want a specialised role and/or professional progression. 2) Indiscriminately applying for anything which vaguely seems like you might be able to do, even if it's not a good match and you care little about it. I've not…

Where are you finding these jobs? I am talking about the context of online job boards. The descriptions are often quite vague or written by someone non-technical. I have no idea if the place would be a good place to work at just by reading them. So I really don't feel it's worth a lot of time to do a lot of research. I like my current job and I can't even remember what the job description said. Anyway maybe your tech…

It was a combination of company websites and academic job boards. In my case, this was ARM, jobs.ac.uk and a couple of others. I ended up in an academic software developer position, doing scientific image processing.

In the past, I have trawled through sites like Monster, Reed and other big generic sites, and generally been unsatisfied. I've had my share of generic and fairly boring positions from this route. You essentially have to take the best of all the rubbish that's on offer in an area that's practical to be. You're right that the descriptions are rubbish and next to useless, and I think in most cases this route should be avoided if at all possible.

But if you decide up front exactly which field you really want to work in, and then proactively look for companies working in that area which are hiring, or might be hiring, you can get something you really want and raise the chances of being hired as well. Particularly if you proactively reach out to groups which you want to work with; several people on my current team got hired after working for groups in other organisations doing related stuff--just being known helps, and being known to be doing good stuff helps even more.

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#213

Post by salesguy222 »

rhizome wrote: post #200
salesguy222 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lmfao dude, these days, if you want most people to take you seriously, you need to criticize AND suggest alternatives. Anything else is just complaining. I don't need to know the minutia of a specific field before I can criticize and suggest alternatives. An accountant does not need to know node before offering comments on site usability, feel, performance. Nobody is hiring them to execute a redesign. They're asking…

So you have to be able to fix something before saying it sucks? You must be busy in the "Counterfeit items on Amazon" threads.

Hmm, no that's actually the opposite of what I was saying! The parent above me seems to have been saying that?

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#214

Post by JSeymourATL »

jkaljundi wrote: post #129
ryandrake wrote: post #114

Whenever this subject comes up, predictably the answer here is always Blah blah blah network network network. For a demographic always looking for the scalable solution to a problem, HN seems pretty attached to the least scalable option. The numbers just don't make sense to me. Let's generously assume that you meet and have excellent working relationships with 100 people at each of the 4 jobs you've had. Of those 400…

Another article on the topic yesterday: https://www.fastcompany.com/3069166/i-built-a-bot-to-apply-t...

TRUE: “Out-of-the-box hires rarely happen through LinkedIn applications. They happen when someone influential meets a really interesting person and says, ‘Let’s create a position for you.’”

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#215

Post by JSeymourATL »

jkaljundi wrote: post #133

Have been toying around with an idea of recruitment and job application service which would try to turn the tables and show candidates who's interested in them. So instead of applying, the first step would be a question from candidate to company saying "tell me more about this job". The company would then need to actively get back to the candidate. The advantage to the company would be a much larger pool of candidate…

> the first step would be a question from candidate to company saying "tell me more about this job". The company would then need to actively get back to the candidate.

Such a service exists. It's called Retained Search, an old-school, high-touch, high-feel service reserved for executive level, mission-critical roles. It's also expensive, 25-33% of first year target compensation. Naturally, companies are incentivized to use cheaper approaches first.

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#216

Post by elbigbad »

Tagore wrote: post #125
jachee wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you waste a lot of people's time to lie to higher-ups.

Yep- don't hate the player, hate the game. I'm legally obligated to do so in some cases. That's what fiduciary means.

No it's not. A fiduciary duty is not the same as a legal duty. Though they can overlap.

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#217

Post by lacampbell »

rleigh wrote: post #212
lacampbell wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you finding these jobs? I am talking about the context of online job boards. The descriptions are often quite vague or written by someone non-technical. I have no idea if the place would be a good place to work at just by reading them. So I really don't feel it's worth a lot of time to do a lot of research. I like my current job and I can't even remember what the job description said. Anyway maybe your tech…

It was a combination of company websites and academic job boards. In my case, this was ARM, jobs.ac.uk and a couple of others. I ended up in an academic software developer position, doing scientific image processing. In the past, I have trawled through sites like Monster, Reed and other big generic sites, and generally been unsatisfied. I've had my share of generic and fairly boring positions from this route. You ess…

Sounds like you have more education in a specific field (image processing). You know the industry you want to be in and the kind of companies that have those positions. Similarly, those companies have strong ideas on the kind of people they want and you're a good match.

FWIW, 2/3 jobs I've found on job hunt boards have been pretty good. I'm much more interested in what the team are like and the environment than I am the specific problem domain.

You are probably right that networking is better though. I read somewhere that the time to start networking is not when you want a job - that comes across as being needy. I'm trying to do it more now, at a time where I'm comfortable in my role. I'm hoping it works both ways - I'll also find talented people I'll be able to recommend to employers or work with.

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#218

Post by 0xC0DECAFE2020 »

VLM wrote: post #183
madamelic wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I call it 'Ghosted'. Basically, you are talking, you both like each other and then suddenly you don't hear from the other person. I had a few companies ghost me and it was annoying. I don't entirely mind if I apply and just never hear back, I just get to laugh at them when they email me two months later asking for interview.

I've seen this as a strategy for H1B fraud, months after accepting applications everyone good is probably employed somewhere, so suddenly we've recently discovered there are no qualified local applicants for the job position H1B stamped approved. If you want to make the HR person extremely angry then feign interest and you've ruined their whole H1B process. Its kinda funny to do. Sometimes they'll slam the phone down…

Amazon does this all the time. I can't count on two hands the number of times I've seen them do this.

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#219

Post by rhodysurf »

BoysenberryPi wrote: post #204
rhodysurf wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point, I have gotten two job offers by just submitting resumes online. But I work in a state without tons of competing talent, so that could help.

What state if you don't mind me asking? I really want to just move out to the midwest or somewhere where there aren't a lot of programmers.

I live in RI and there are tons of jobs to fill with Navy engineering contractors. I just so happen to be a software engineer with an Ocean Engineering degree so it fits my mold better than most.

Re: Thanks for Submitting Your Résumé to This Black Hole

#220

Post by Tagore »

BoysenberryPi wrote: post #204
rhodysurf wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counter point, I have gotten two job offers by just submitting resumes online. But I work in a state without tons of competing talent, so that could help.

What state if you don't mind me asking? I really want to just move out to the midwest or somewhere where there aren't a lot of programmers.

New England (not a state, but let's not get too specific here,) but off the beaten track. Small town with a big University. There are really only about four companies around here who could credibly offer me offer me a job doing something I want to do at a rate I want to do it for.

That's a double-edged sword. On one hand I have to be pretty careful not to burn bridges or hop jobs, cause if I want to stay around here I'll run out of both quickly. On the other hand established developers around here all know each other, pretty much, so the network effect is very, very strong.

And that even means easy intros to people who work remotely for interesting companies elsewhere (which seems to be more and more a thing.) Just in the last month I've met people, through my local network, who work for places like Trello, Circle, etc.

The Circle guy in particular- well, he came up to introduce himself after a talk I gave, and some of what he's doing for Circle is very much up my alley, so if I wanted a different job or a remote job (I don't at the moment) I might hit him up.

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