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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#521

Post by ta_1138 »

MrMember wrote: post #314

I'm seeing a lot of back in forth in the comments between hiring managers and employees discussing who is more responsible for the current situation, but from the perspective of someone looking for a job what should I be doing? I've been pretty aggressively looking for a job for the past six months or so. I have 10+ years of professional software dev experience so I've mostly been looking at senior dev positions. I h…

Today, the hardest part is to get to said first interview, because we are all flooded with fake resumes. Incomprensible amounts. So what you have to do is not send blind resumes, but get a warm intro from someone with a connection to the company that vouch that interviewing you will not be a total waste of time. Networks have never been more important.

Now, if on interview you pass rate is low, it's hard to say what you are doing wrong.

Re: I automated my job application process

#522

Post by theonething »

bovermyer wrote: post #375
biztos wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "can't afford to?" Because you can't possibly mean you think candidates are going to fly out for an interview at their own expense. Traditionally (i.e. pre-Covid) flying out a senior candidate was the standard signal that both sides were taking the process seriously. And for competitive hires, the quality of the hotel and the restaurants they were taken to and the seniority of the people who joine…

Speaking from the point of view of an interviewee rather than an interviewer... I would pay for flying out to someplace for an in-person interview on my own dime, if I thought I would get a reasonable return on investment. If the interviewer _expected_ that I would pay for a cross-country (or cross-border) flight myself, that would cast a shadow on the opportunity for me.

You're reasoning doesn't make sense.

You're saying that if an employer expected you to pay for the flight for an interview, that would be a red flag.

But then you say that as an interviewer, you would be willing to pay for the flight for an interview (if you thought it would be reasonable ROI).

The situation where you would be willing to pay for the flight implies that the employer would not pay for the flight (or else why would you pay for the flight?). So according to your own logic, that would raise a red flag (because the employer won't pay for the flight and expects you to). Then why would you be willing to pay for the flight to interview at an employer that is raising a red flag for you? Makes no sense at all.

Re: I automated my job application process

#523

Post by bitzun »

stackskipton wrote: post #188
pknomad wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a Platform Engineer and it feels like your experience mirrors mine. Like you, our challenge is filtering out large volume but also filtering out LLM abusers. We're not opposed to people using LLMs, when appropriate. I find that candidates inappropriately use it to circumvent the process and that is a big deal for me (and our team). We try to do the right thing(TM) by the candidates by creating minimal interview…

In our remote interviews, I've started pasting the question into meeting chat that I've already fed into ChatGPT. Mainly because some candidates do actually do better with reading and thinking but it's also just pure bait to paste into their open ChatGPT window. Since I've already got input on my side, if they start reading off ChatGPT output, they get a strike, two strikes and interview is ended. However, I do belie…

I discovered a new tactic where you ask a vaguely worded question on a niche subject, such that any seemingly off the cuff comprehensive answer must be ChatGPT. Asking something outside the candidate’s declared experience or following up on experience with tech they spoke well to will also reveal discrepancies.

Re: I automated my job application process

#524

Post by Aurornis »

irrational wrote: post #458
belinder wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was hiring manager for 3 positions about 4 months ago and the amount of fake applications out there was mind boggling to me. I would say 90% were either entirely fake or had the exact same generated ai text. It got so bad that we started only looking at resumes that had a working LinkedIn link. Also after so many bad resumes I started being very forgiving for the ones that didn't fully match the job requirements if…

I haven’t been job hunting since around 2002, so I’m completely out of the loop. Why are people submitting fake resumes? Are they hoping to get hired despite having no skills beyond using ChatGPT? But, what happens after that? They don’t have the skills to do the job, so what was the point of getting hired?

A growing scam involves people applying to remote jobs under fake or stolen identities. The work is then done by someone else or an agency that assumes the identity and collects the pay. They know it won’t last long so they try to target companies that look like someone could become another generic name on a spreadsheet for a year or two.

There’s also a rise of “overemployed” people who farm out second and third jobs. Again, they don’t care about anything other than collecting paychecks for a while until they go through the long onboarding, ramp-up, and PIP process, by which time they may have collected $100K for doing barely any work. They use fake backgrounds and resumes as a way to avoid their primary employer getting notified and as a sort of filter for companies who aren’t looking closely at the details. If you can trick them with a fake application, you’ll probably be able to trick them in the interview and then trick them into paying you for a long time too.

Re: I automated my job application process

#525

Post by pknomad »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #397
mvanbaak wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fellow Platform Engineer here, and I can relate 100% with your comment. We decided to stop announcing our engineering jobs and go back to mouth to mouth for sourcing candidates for now. It's a move I didn't want to make as, like you said, it means a lot of less networked engineers will not know about it and all. but for now this was the only way we got rid of the constant stream of letters from AI.

What is a "Platform Engineer"? I never heard that term before today.

Platform Engineers are operationally focused software engineers who focus on enablement of other software engineering groups through building self-service tooling and create unified platform for app deployment.

The cultural focus is placed on enablement of teams through self service, whereas DevOps is more about reducing silos and SRE is more about doing infra through the software engineering lens with metrics (SLO/SLA/SLI).

Re: I automated my job application process

#526

Post by pknomad »

uoaei wrote: post #412
pknomad wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I also limit myself on how many applications I see in a day (no more than 20 on a busy day, 50 on a not so busy day) so that I give every resume a fair read. A team can only do so much in a day. It's disheartening when you see a blatant AI use (and it goes into the trash bin right away).

Do you have a technical background? 50 seems quite low for someone to get the gist of the resumes and have a sense of the applicants. If recruiting departments really suffer at parsing about 50 apps per day per recruiter, I can see why this got so bad so quickly.

I do. Credentials-wise I have BS in one of the STEM and currently enrolled in MS CS with intent to pursue PhD in Maths/CS. I have around 8 YoE and worked from Series B startups to IBs.

I want to give everyone a fair shake (including reading cover letters) and for me, resume fatigue sets in if I read more than 50.

Re: I automated my job application process

#527

Post by pknomad »

abathur wrote: post #487
uoaei wrote: post #412

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a technical background? 50 seems quite low for someone to get the gist of the resumes and have a sense of the applicants. If recruiting departments really suffer at parsing about 50 apps per day per recruiter, I can see why this got so bad so quickly.

I think GP means they stop at this point to ensure that they are giving all of the resumes a pretty fair shake by being fresh. Afaik, any kind of slush-pile reading (including grading, which is probably the best researched) tends to get less fair as the process wears on the reader. GP isn't optimizing for finishing the pile, but for making the most of what's in it.

Yep. You got it.

Re: I automated my job application process

#528

Post by supriyo-biswas »

fijiaarone wrote: post #404
bb88 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Github copilot still sucks for writing complex code (algorithms or database queries, e.g.). Or trying to do unpopular things (like custom electronics using particular micros and driver chips). For unit tests, it's a godsend. Particularly if you write one unit test, and then it can write another in the style you wrote.

LLMs can’t write unit tests. They can’t even tell what you intend. If your code is already correct, you don’t need the unit test, if it’s not, the LLM can’t write the unit test. If you thing an LLM can write tests for you, you can be replaced by an LLM.

IMO, the main use case for LLMs in unit tests is through a code completion model like Copilot where you use it to save on some typing.

Of course, there are overzealous managers and their brown-nosing underlings who will say that the LLM can do everything from writing the code itself and the unit tests, end-to-end, but that is usually because they see more value in toeing the line and follow the narratives being pushed from the C-level.

Re: I automated my job application process

#529

Post by acheron »

Aurornis wrote: post #520
casenmgreen wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I left LinkedIn years ago, because everyone and their dog was copying my entire profile. I was happy for that info to go to potential employers, but not to random company and its canine friend. Then MS bought LI and I was so glad I'd left years ago already. I've seen one of two places have mandatory URL fields for LinkedIn profiles. One of the impressions I've been getting is that if you do not fit exactly into an re…

Who cares if someone is copying your profile? Having an established LinkedIn profile with their simple identity verification tool is such a trivial amount of effort for de-risking your job search that it’s hard to justify boycotting LinkedIn at this point. If an application looks suspicious for some reason, I’ll look for their LinkedIn profile as the second step. If I can’t find one or if the profile is also question…

LinkedIn locked my account for no reason awhile ago and apparently want me to send a photo of my ID to some sketchy “verification” third party. No thanks.

I’m glad it’s a trivial amount of effort for you, I guess.

Re: I automated my job application process

#530

Post by dimaor »

the only thing worth using LLMs here for is the cover letter.

maybe I'm wrong but turning HTML into structured data example by using an LLM is bug prone and lazy.

the real challenge parts are pretty basic as well..

don't get me wrong I am not judging automation, but using LLMs for these trivial tasks is IMO a waste of time as a software engineer.

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