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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#581

Post by Root_Denied »

ghaff wrote: post #130
programjames wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The smaller scale in the past made it so managers either knew (at least by reputation) the person submitting the resume, or it was not too expensive to find out. Nowadays, jobs are getting 100x as many applications, most of which are far lower in quality. University admissions has followed a similar trend, going from 5–10 being "spray and pray" twenty years ago to 20–30 applications nowadays. However, it didn't incre…

The "solution," such as it is, is that companies strongly bias towards referrals and managers towards people they personally know. And, from some conversations I've had, that is exactly what is happening. With the result that it's tough for junior people with no real networks (OK maybe their school is a signal) because companies really don't want to sift all the junk they're getting and I don't really blame them.

The weird thing to me is that I don't see this happening at the large FAANG companies - referrals don't seem to move the needle whatsoever anymore, and not just for me but for quite a few of the people in my network.

On the flipside I'm not finding good resources to find startups to apply to that don't have hundreds of applicants already. There's no good answer the market has come up with as far as I can tell, so everything just gets worse for everyone as a result.

Re: I automated my job application process

#582

Post by throwaway2037 »

Traubenfuchs wrote: post #27
nsxwolf wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s our alternative? It doesn’t seem to be “carefully consider and apply to a handful of highly relevant postings”. I don’t see the downsides for candidates to play the numbers game.

Hiring and placement agencies that do prescreenings and provide CVs in standardized formats to employers and them getting paid according to how much salary the hire will get. win-win-win situation for every party, they got me my last two jobs in Vienna

I work in an industry where this practice is universal. That said, why don't more of these companies complaining on this thread try that model? I know the reason: Cost. Instead of wasted hours of their staff's time, they are faced with a realistically large bill that most managers would like to deny. For me, head hunters find me on LinkedIn.

Re: I automated my job application process

#583

Post by normie3000 »

mettamage wrote: post #567
ripped_britches wrote: post #33

As someone who automates everything and normally loves this type of thing, my approach for job hunting has been way different. Instead of spray and pray, I spend a week or so deeply researching where I want to work and figure out how to get there role-wise. Everything 100% manual and focused, no more than 8 total companies. Maybe spray and pray works if you’re more junior, but later in your career you’ll want to be v…

So do you network yourself into the companies then to get an interview? Or do you apply online? I'd like to know more about a manual approach. I think both approaches are valid. I took the automated approach to online dating, married now. So that worked out. Taking the automated approach for companies will probably work in a similar fashion as online dating. However, unlike online dating, I feel very strong targeted…

> Targeted approaches don't work with online dating

What would a targeted approach to online dating be?

From GP:

> spend a week or so deeply researching where I want to work and figure out how to get there

Replace "where I want to work" with "who I want to date" and it sounds concerning.

Re: I automated my job application process

#584

Post by Root_Denied »

Plasmoid wrote: post #266
robocat wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> both sides or the governments can step in and start regulating How could regulations help? Both sides already have good incentives to match positions to candidates; yet we are collectively failing.

Only sort of. Lots of employees are only looking for any job and the adverse selection nature of hiring makes the typical job seeker pool look worse than average. On the company side, only some people in the organization are strongly aligned with hiring. The vast majority are indifferent or even somewhat negative as new hires mean more work.

More than that, the incentives are inversely aligned - companies want to hire a "good match" for as little as possible, and applicants want to be hired at the maximum possible rate.

Re: I automated my job application process

#585

Post by anon_e-moose »

charlie0 wrote: post #533
mattm wrote: post #509

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only works for desperate people. Sr people or people with other options would not take that risk.

But we've just established in this thread that even senior people are having difficulty findings jobs. This has nothing to do with desperation. Temp contract works both ways, if an employee doesn't like the company or finds another job within the 2-3 months, they are free to leave. This is more than fair.

Relationships between an individual and a corporation are fundamentally asymmetrical. They can only be made equal by heavily favouring the single human side.

Re: I automated my job application process

#586

Post by throwaway2037 »

pmarreck wrote: post #25
codegeek wrote: post #12

Nice. But as a hiring manager, this is the last thing we want. Flooded with auto submitted Resumes. I posted a job recently and got 100+ resumes in 2 days and 99% were not even remotely close to being a good fit. I struggled to sort through so many Resumes to find someone worth interviewing. The problem is that with so much noise, good candidates may get ignored or rejected by mistake. And the cycle continues. I get…

Meanwhile, I am flooded with recruiter "opportunities" that are nowhere near my capabilities. There's noise all around happening. Maybe the problem is that spamming people is free.

How do they contact you? Email, social media, or LinkedIn? If LinkedIn, it is definitely not free. Recruiters pay a hefty fee for the right to contact people outside their network.

Re: I automated my job application process

#587

Post by Root_Denied »

zwnow wrote: post #361
narnarpapadaddy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If one is not currently employed as an engineer? Frankly, seriously consider a career change. The ladder has been pulled up for entry-level positions due to AI, interest-rates, etc. This will come back and bite us as an industry, but it’ll be 10 years from now and most people can’t wait that long. I can’t speak for everyone, but 3000+ applicants for a single opening is typical at my org. The odds of any given individ…

Oooooor work in Europe. Plenty of work here. I still get 1 job offer per 1 application.

My 5 year plan is to move to the EU, but it's a process. You're not going to be doing it as your next job hop from the US if you haven't been planning for it.

Re: I automated my job application process

#588

Post by throwaway2037 »

programjames wrote: post #120
ghaff wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Applicants have long sprayed and prayed even when it involved sending physical letters. Some of the current systems have decreased the effort per company applied-to but, for entry-level employees, it was rarely a carefully-targeted thing for new professionals. It was always a numbers game to some degree although admittedly the scale and tools involved have changed.

The smaller scale in the past made it so managers either knew (at least by reputation) the person submitting the resume, or it was not too expensive to find out. Nowadays, jobs are getting 100x as many applications, most of which are far lower in quality. University admissions has followed a similar trend, going from 5–10 being "spray and pray" twenty years ago to 20–30 applications nowadays. However, it didn't incre…

About uni apps in the US: Most people limit the number because there is a modest fee associated with each. I doubt it is 2-3x since last generation.

Re: I automated my job application process

#589

Post by throwaway2037 »

ghaff wrote: post #387
the_snooze wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Absolutely, it's very rare for an undergrad to be on a paper. But that's what makes it such a strong signal: it shows they had the grit and maturity to contribute to a research effort to completion, in a team with people more experienced than they are. In an interview, it gives them something non-trivial to talk about and be proud of. That's very likely a strong junior candidate.

There are a ton of things you might look at for a newly graduated undergrad beyond grades: research and other academic projects, sports teams, editor on a newspaper, etc.

Why are sports teams important signals?

Re: I automated my job application process

#590

Post by ruuda »

I'm an engineer at a company of about 70 people (about half of that engineers), and I personally review most applications to our engineering roles. About 60-70% of applications we receive are low-effort or automated spam of the kind generated by the author. We have screening questions that ask to describe a personal experience in your own words, specifically without LLM, and yet almost half of the applications we get have LLM answers, or a cover letter that is just an LLM-generated reflection of the job ad. Regularly the same candidate applies to all engineering roles, and then a few weeks later again, and again.

We use Recruitee, and ironically it doesn't have good automatic ways of filtering out the kind of spam generated by the author. On busy weeks, I spend about an hour per day screening and responding to applications. About half that is wasted on low-effort applications and automated spam generated by people like the author, and a significant part of that are repeat offenders. Nowadays I send one warning, and then I ask Recruitee support to ban the person, which due to implementation reasons on Recruitee's end prevents the person from applying at any company using Recruitee. It's harsh and I often feel bad about it, but after having to deal with this nonsense for multiple years now, I'm so sick of it, and I just ran out of patience.

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