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2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

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Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#31

Post by wonderwonder »

ribosometronome wrote: post #23
MH15 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never spent close to an hour on a job application. In senior year of college I probably sent 200 out at 10? minutes each?

10 minutes? To find the position, see if you fit, customize your cover letter and resume to well fit, and go through their portal? I could see maybe with aid of a GPT this being possible nowadays but still non-trivial.

I generally change jobs every 2 years for the last 15 years. I have never used a cover letter. Your mileage may vary but I think they are generally ignored.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#32

Post by geodel »

tayo42 wrote: post #22

I haven't applied to as many places but its defiantly demoralizing. Looking at pay cuts feels so bad too. Its not like life stops being expensive. Rent keeps going up, prices for homes out of reach, food keeps getting more expensive, especially eating healthy, gas, electricity bill. it never ends. then you need to listen to some soulless hr robot tell you 180k is to much...

Yeah, 180K is so low, it should be a crime. 90% percent of people I know make more than that. And I know tens of people in the world.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#33

Post by shagie »

CyanLite2 wrote: post #6
frontman1988 wrote: post #2

The market is bad but one factor is that the quantity of Product manager jobs is much less than the number of dev jobs by a factor of 10-20x so it's much more difficult to find highly compensated jobs for them.

$200k+ total comp for a product manager is pretty good. I wonder if previous experience at FAANG is becoming a negative factor in the hiring process. Run-of-the-mill Fortune 500s aren't going to pay Meta money ($475k+) for a product manager. More like $120-150k. And maybe they're looking to avoid the expectations (read: entitlement) from those who are used to those kinds of outsized salaries.

> I wonder if previous experience at FAANG is becoming a negative factor in the hiring process.

It can be. If you're not able to pay FAANG level compensation, hiring someone who is taking a pay cut to work for you is often just them getting a paycheck until they get another job back at FAANG level.

If this is done before they're contributing positively (onboarding and domain knowledge acquisition takes some time), its a loss (and they've likely commanded higher compensation based on their previous experience).

Unless you are specifically after the knowledge that they bring in, for a company hiring it can be better to hire someone with less prestigious names in their experience who can do the job and is more likely to stay for a few years before jumping to another job.

If they came from making $400k total compensation per year, and you can only offer them $150k salary (and no stocks), its more than likely that they'll be looking for the next position on the day after they start.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#34

Post by zucked »

Aurornis wrote: post #14
javajosh wrote: post #7

$475k TC for a product manager role? I am clearly doing something wrong in my career.

$475K was their old compensation, prior to being laid off. Great product managers are very valuable. Having someone who knows the customers and the market inside and out helps a company focus their roadmap on the highest value features and products. If you're paying 50 engineers and their managers to work on products, having one highly-paid person dedicated to scrutinizing every last detail of the roadmap to make sur…

As someone who drifts in and out of PM roles, this. The very nature of Product Management is quite squishy in practice. I don't have a scientific number on this, but in my experience out of a group of 10 PM's, there are 1-2 great ones, 2-3 decent ones who will likely be great if they keep at it, and the balance are people who want to work in "tech" but only have soft skills.

The commonality in the best PM's I know is having more than a passing knowledge of the domain they work in.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#35

Post by satvikpendem »

ribosometronome wrote: post #23
MH15 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never spent close to an hour on a job application. In senior year of college I probably sent 200 out at 10? minutes each?

10 minutes? To find the position, see if you fit, customize your cover letter and resume to well fit, and go through their portal? I could see maybe with aid of a GPT this being possible nowadays but still non-trivial.

Who writes cover letters or modifies their resume per role? It's all spray and pray.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#36

Post by buildbot »

Have I been incredibly lucky my entire career? I don't think I've applied for more than 10 jobs at once. I have heard stories like this before - maybe the market has shifted drastically, or maybe spamming 2500 applications means each one is ... less good than one might think? Tailoring your application to each job has worked well for me at least.

46 Interviews is also a huge amount. I've done less than that my entire career combined. I agree with others, something else may be off here.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#37

Post by zucked »

geodel wrote: post #32
tayo42 wrote: post #22

I haven't applied to as many places but its defiantly demoralizing. Looking at pay cuts feels so bad too. Its not like life stops being expensive. Rent keeps going up, prices for homes out of reach, food keeps getting more expensive, especially eating healthy, gas, electricity bill. it never ends. then you need to listen to some soulless hr robot tell you 180k is to much...

Yeah, 180K is so low, it should be a crime. 90% percent of people I know make more than that. And I know tens of people in the world.

[flagged]

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#38

Post by vsareto »

buildbot wrote: post #36

Have I been incredibly lucky my entire career? I don't think I've applied for more than 10 jobs at once. I have heard stories like this before - maybe the market has shifted drastically, or maybe spamming 2500 applications means each one is ... less good than one might think? Tailoring your application to each job has worked well for me at least. 46 Interviews is also a huge amount. I've done less than that my entire…

>I agree with others, something else may be off here.

IMO Blind is generally full of shit

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#39

Post by tannerc »

buildbot wrote: post #36

Have I been incredibly lucky my entire career? I don't think I've applied for more than 10 jobs at once. I have heard stories like this before - maybe the market has shifted drastically, or maybe spamming 2500 applications means each one is ... less good than one might think? Tailoring your application to each job has worked well for me at least. 46 Interviews is also a huge amount. I've done less than that my entire…

In my experience, when you’re applying to hundreds or thousands of jobs, odds are you aren’t clear on what your strengths are and what you want from your career.

And, unfortunately, that often comes across in a résumé and application.

Much better, I think, to spend time better conveying your strengths and interests as they relate to a specific job (or type of job). You’re much more likely to get the interest of relevant recruiters and hiring managers in this way.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#40

Post by Mc91 »

scarface_74 wrote: post #12
guhidalg wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also don't need FAANG-level competence. F500 companies would rather pay consultants and contractors truckloads of money than hire a few FTEs at FAANG rates. Ostensibly the reasoning is that it's easy to cut back spending on vendors than to lay people off, but I think a stronger reason is that tech salaries are so high that you'd have software engineers being paid more than some executives at these companies.

Enterprise/CRUD devs - where the overwhelming number of developers work - are making between $80K - $170K in most major cities in the US. That’s what I did the majority of my career so it’s not meant to be an insult.

I live in a US metropolitan area with 2-3 million people, at a Fortune 500 company.

Junior/associate devs, hired out of the internship program usually, can make less than $100k TC (some even make less than $80k). Most of them say it is hard to live on that salary with an apartment, car, student loans and wanting to have a life.

Most of the standard SWEs make more than $100k TC. I've been told the TC for standard SWEs maxes out at under $170k at our company.

Seniors TC starts around $140k, and goes up above $180k.

Leads/Principals I'm not as sure of. Maybe for every 20 associate/SWE/senior we have one lead. I believe their TC is north of $200k.

As the standard dev is either an SWE or senior SWE, that band is probably $100k-190k. With some associates/juniors making less, and some leads/principals making more.

The H1Bs make about 10-15% less than the non H1Bs.

In India, if our programmers make the equivalent of $30k that is a lot. The company wants to hire more Indian programmers but there are timezone problems, language problems, skill level problems and other problems.

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