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2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

teamblind.com

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Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#51

Post by bdcravens »

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...

By most objective measures, $180k is very much on the high end for that role in the US. Markets vary of course, but the lifestyle you've setup for yourself doesn't determine what your skills are worth.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#52

Post by JohnFen »

samwillis wrote: post #41

The thing I would find hard is finding 2.5k job listings that I thought were compelling and would interest me, maybe I'm just picky?

Being pickier might actually help you here.

To apply for as many positions as the article claims means that you are basically shotgunning applications. There's going to be a large amount of wasted effort doing that as opposed to being "pickier" and applying for positions that actually look like a good fit for you.

I think it's counterproductive, personally. When I've been involved with hiring decisions, it was pretty easy to tell which applicants were actually applying for the specific position and which were basically mass-applying for every position they could find. The ones mass-applying would be among the first to be weeded out and much less likely to be called in for an interview.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#53

Post by SkipperCat »

mabbo wrote: post #15

I'm in a similar boat. 12 years experience as a dev, was previously making pretty darned good money for Canada. Laid off on early May. Starting a job on Wednesday that pays 60% of my old TC. It's tough times out there. That said, I had about 25 applications, and did interviews with only 7 companies.

Sorry your pay grade dropped that much. But this industry has peaks and valleys so there's a good chance you'll have an opportunity to get back to your previous comp levels. Best of luck to you!

One question - do you think your comp level was due to lack of experience with current "hot" skills/languages or do you think it was market factors of number of unemployed devs and the number of jobs in your region?

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#54

Post by bedobi »

I had a fundamentally similar but not THAT ridiculous experience looking for roles from around beginning of Feb to late April. 10+ years of experience on the backend, of both legacy and cutting edge tools, including 5+ years at a huge US publicly listed tech company. (not FAANG but not far off) Must have applied for hundreds of jobs, did lots of interviews, ultimately got a handful of offers and picked the best one. I'm happy but sheesh it was def far more work than in the past when people were screaming for talent. Things are tighter now.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#55

Post by JohnFen »

MH15 wrote: post #4
avnfish wrote: post #3

If this person was laid-off on Jan 1st and spent one hour on each application, that averages to 12.5 hours of non-stop job applying every day for 197 days straight

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?

Dang!

I can't think of a position I applied for that I didn't spend at least an hour working on the initial application. And an hour would be fast-tracking it.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#56

Post by JohnFen »

satvikpendem wrote: post #35
ribosometronome wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I spend a great deal of time on the cover letter, and I do modify my CV for the role (mainly to keep it to a reasonable length).

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#57

Post by JohnFen »

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 absolutely can be. It can also be a positive. It all depends on the company you're applying to.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#58

Post by JohnFen »

shagie wrote: post #33
CyanLite2 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$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), it…

> If you're not able to pay FAANG level compensation

Yes. There's also a pretty significant difference between FAANG and ordinary companies in terms of development process, business customs, etc. that I've seen present an insurmountable culture shock to people who only know FAANG.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#60

Post by JohnFen »

ActionHank wrote: post #17
anon291 wrote: post #13

I'm a dev and I apply to like 8-10 roles each job cycle and usually get call backs on 4-5 and then offers from 2-4. I cannot fathom 2500 job apps or 46 job interviews.

Out of curiosity when last did you go through this? I've heard from a few friends that even dev is brutal right now with many places leaving listings open, but not filling them, hoping for a FAANG dev to come along.

I'm not the OP, but I went through it last year. Outside of FAANG, the job market doesn't look bad at all, as near as I can see. And I didn't find any companies who seemed to be looking for FAANG devs, but it's hard to tell.
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