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Why the Job Search Sucks

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Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#31

Post by justherefortart »

Filling out 7000 fields on taleo is comical.

It's why I use the hated recruiters now. I get to skip the BS of applying online. (At the employer's expense too!)

I miss the old days, you submitted your resume, then they called you for an interview. You interviewed and either got hired or didn't (they'd typically call and say if you didn't).

Why we need 80 layers of BS between the job seekers and employers is beyond me. I've also never seen a competent HR person in my 20+ years of working in IT. If you can't tell by their resume, HR isn't going to give you anything more so skip that stupid step as well.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#32

Post by morinted »

barryhoodlum wrote: post #12

"I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of tech companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS." You don't have experience 99% of employers want, and your response is to stubbornly write it off as a fad? Maybe that's got something to do with it? I…

"I hate what I don't understand"

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#33

Post by cantrip »

ronilan wrote: post #21

Employers should be required, by law, to compensate interviewees for their time at a rate equivalent to the job for which they are interviewing. (Macdonald’s, Goldman Sachs, line cook, VP legal, same law, everyone, everywhere)

Well then I would be a professional job candidate. I could easily fill my time with $300k+ job interviews that I can pass a phone screen for but am not fully qualified for.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#34

Post by thidr0 »

barryhoodlum wrote: post #12

"I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of tech companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS." You don't have experience 99% of employers want, and your response is to stubbornly write it off as a fad? Maybe that's got something to do with it? I…

That's like a company saying "We make a product, but 99.999999% of our target market want some feature we don't have. IDIOTS!"

Guess what, in this scenario, you (specifically your labor) is the product.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#35

Post by gloryless »

ronilan wrote: post #21

Employers should be required, by law, to compensate interviewees for their time at a rate equivalent to the job for which they are interviewing. (Macdonald’s, Goldman Sachs, line cook, VP legal, same law, everyone, everywhere)

Did you even try to play this out in your mind?

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#36

Post by azangru »

barryhoodlum wrote: post #12

"I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of tech companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS." You don't have experience 99% of employers want, and your response is to stubbornly write it off as a fad? Maybe that's got something to do with it? I…

I am actually wondering how many readers of the blog post rolled their eyes here. I am not saying that React is the best thing ever; there may be different arguments against using it, but man, this "CSS in JS" (or, alternatively, "HTML in JS") argument is not even funny anymore.

I would have discarded this as a meaningless complaint coming from a hardcore backend developer who is repeating the principles of single responsibility and separation of concerns he has heard in older days and has not yet had a chance to realize that a component is no lesser way of thinking about separation of concerns than an html or a css file. But judging by the appearance of the blog site, the author is a frontend developer, with pretty decent skills. I am confused.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#37

Post by ryandrake »

Chyzwar wrote: post #15
ionforce wrote: post #4

Isn't this one of those asymmetry things where the hiring company has no incentive to make the process pleasant? They hold all the power/keys etc. Before people jump in with "what about negative Glassdoor reviews" or "negative reputation", I'm saying that all things taken into account, the equation is still in favor of the company. I don't know.

It is complicated. My team is trying to hire but it is almost impossible to get a decent candidate. It is a massive time sink and still depends more on luck than anything else.

The hiring market is like a disfunctional dating market: A whole bunch of mediocre singles complaining they can't find supermodels of the opposite (or their preferred) sex.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#38

Post by dvt »

I've been unemployed for ~4 months now (by choice) and it's been the best time of my life. Yeah, I'm burning through my savings, but I can focus on projects that make me happy, I can focus on honing skills I actually care about, and I don't have to partake in endless meetings that serve no purpose whatsoever.

What I realized as I entered my 30s is that some people are okay with that. Some people are okay with endless streams of bullshit and office politics, with building sub-par products, and with anxiety-inducing whiteboard interviews. All they want is a paycheck and all is well. Last year, I discovered that I'm not one of those people. I tried hard to fit in that mold and just be happy -- but what makes me happy is fundamentally at odds with being a model "company man."

Why the job search sucks is that there's a lot more people in the former camp than in the latter. It's the same reason why most people don't start companies, don't try to write novels, and don't compose orchestras -- a fundamental lack of creativity. Unless one of my projects really takes off, I'll inadvertently have to get another "real job" soon, and even though I loathe the process, I'm happy that this time away from work really helped me reflect and figure out who I truly am.

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#39

Post by NetOpWibby »

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…

> If they don't meet your communication expectations, then it isn't a good match anyway. So don't wait. Move along.

You do realize this is like, every employer right? Or maybe I have bad luck.

Your last point is good and I thought about it for a good minute before I decided to go with it anyway because, if these companies don't care about me, why should I care about them? I'm already in the reject pile, right?

Re: Why the Job Search Sucks

#40

Post by pleasecalllater »

ryandrake wrote: post #30
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…

> Regarding whiteboarding, if the candidate argues with me about why we're using a particular API, I pretty much reject the candidate. (No, we can't use the new threading API, I want to see how you can learn this API. No, we can't use an ORM, I want to make sure that you understand how to use a database.) YUCK. One of the first things I will do when presented with a technical scenario is start questioning the problem…

I've tried that a couple of times. Of course it was a bad idea. The same as honestly answering questions. When I managed to get a nice job, it turned out that they also hired people for upper positions - who couldn't program, didn't know more than one language... and I still have no idea how they passed such a whiteboard test.
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