200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week • Hacker News Board

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#61

Post by Washuu » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 12:47 PM UTC

df wrote: post #45

on the other hand - I can't imagine I'm the only person to have been getting quite a few "come work for us" emails from Amazon via LinkedIn recently (two in the last month, six in the last year). The solicitations do not appear to be very carefully targeted - they seem to mention everything from machine learning to mobile app development.

An Amazon recruiter messaged me yesterday and in such:

1.) Used the wrong name repeatedly even after correcting them.

2.) Asking me to apply to a role that is a step down.

3.) "The position you are applying for is in Seattle." - After saying I was not interested in Seattle.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#62

Post by rb808 » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

brosinante wrote: post #34

peter303 wrote: post #7

There are people who prefer seasonal work. Maybe Xmas and summer gigs with rest of year off. Read the book Nomadland for details.

The industry has disconnected itself so much from actual human beings that "There are people who prefer seasonal work" is a valid response.

My wife does seasonal work. Retail related in last few months of year and tax stuff in tax season. She then has Summer off, its great.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#63

Post by delfinom » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 12:52 PM UTC

NoblePublius wrote: post #31

Not in Queens.

Even in Virginia they only forecast 25 jobs related to the new HQ next year, and maybe, just maybe if their PR magic ball says yes, there might be 25k jobs.....over the next decade PR firm fingers crossed

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#64

Post by inoop » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 12:53 PM UTC

vectorEQ wrote: post #44

rshnotsecure wrote: post #36

This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours. Desperate people from all over the US. I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore. Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in…

i just find it funny that theres posts about shortages of it people, and posts about a quarter of a million ppl applying to one company. who's lying. :D

Serious question, have you ever interviewed people for software engineering positions? It's quantity over quality.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#65

Post by shiftpgdn » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 12:53 PM UTC

cdolan wrote: post #54

rshnotsecure wrote: post #36

This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours. Desperate people from all over the US. I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore. Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in…

Not to hijack, but do you or your spouse have an opinion on the WSJ story about companies intensely curating their reviews (maybe even paying/threatening the employees and/or Glassdoor)? I noticed a local company I follow had fluctuating review counts between 30-45. I wrote a web scraper to see if reviews were being taken down, and for this company, over 20 1 or 2 star reviews have been taken down, but any new 5 star…

I had been contacted by a glass door rep about two years ago who "vaguely promised" they could remove our bad reviews if we signed up for one of their paid services.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#66

Post by ben1040 » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 12:54 PM UTC

cdolan wrote: post #54

rshnotsecure wrote: post #36

This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours. Desperate people from all over the US. I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore. Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in…

Not to hijack, but do you or your spouse have an opinion on the WSJ story about companies intensely curating their reviews (maybe even paying/threatening the employees and/or Glassdoor)? I noticed a local company I follow had fluctuating review counts between 30-45. I wrote a web scraper to see if reviews were being taken down, and for this company, over 20 1 or 2 star reviews have been taken down, but any new 5 star…

I used to work for a place where, during the 60 or 90 day check-in with HR after you got hired, HR would put a hard sell on you to write a Glassdoor review.

It had the effect of flooding it with 4 and 5 star reviews from people who hasn't been around long enough to see any downsides to their job.

Meanwhile, as the company began imploding, the folks jumping ship mostly didn't bother to write a 1 star review on the way out.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#67

Post by mindfulplay » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #47

If they have this many applicants then why are their recruiters always contacting me on LinkedIn? Is everyone applying really junior?

I would imagine they have one of the highest attrition rates ever for any tech company.

I am a lifelong Amazon customer but choose never to be an employee of theirs.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#68

Post by LandR » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 12:58 PM UTC

inoop wrote: post #64

vectorEQ wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i just find it funny that theres posts about shortages of it people, and posts about a quarter of a million ppl applying to one company. who's lying. :D

Serious question, have you ever interviewed people for software engineering positions? It's quantity over quality.

This is so true.

Expect to reject 95%+ of applicants.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#69

Post by hourislate » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 1:01 PM UTC

rshnotsecure wrote: post #36

This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours. Desperate people from all over the US. I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore. Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in…

>Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications

There are some major Corporations here in DFW, some that have hired 1000's of H1B's (Car companies, Airlines, etc). It doesn't surprise me that Americans are desperate for work.

Re: 200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week

#70

Post by cj » Thu, Sep 19, 2019, 1:02 PM UTC

cdolan wrote: post #54

rshnotsecure wrote: post #36

This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours. Desperate people from all over the US. I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for online job apps. Not anymore. Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in…

Not to hijack, but do you or your spouse have an opinion on the WSJ story about companies intensely curating their reviews (maybe even paying/threatening the employees and/or Glassdoor)? I noticed a local company I follow had fluctuating review counts between 30-45. I wrote a web scraper to see if reviews were being taken down, and for this company, over 20 1 or 2 star reviews have been taken down, but any new 5 star…

It’s worth mentioning that sometimes there are legitimate reasons for removing reviews.

Our company had a slew of negative reviews suddenly. Upon closer look, the reviewers were working in positions we had never employed anyone for. They were posting about an office they worked at in Israel (we are in the USA).

Turns out there was another startup in Israel who had a very similar name to ours. That company closed a big seed round and started hiring a bunch of people (and apparently they don’t treat their employees well, based on the reviews mistakenly left on our page).

The process of getting the reviews removed was a major pain. It requires multiple emails and phone calls with Glassdoor. Ironically, Glassdoor sales reps started up selling us on a premium Glassdoor account after we had a sudden uptick if views on our company (which were actually from people trying to see reviews for the other company in Israel) so we also leveraged the sales process to push Glassdoor into looking at the legitimacy of the reviews.

I definitely wouldn’t say it was an easy process. Glassdoor was, by default, resistant and skeptical about any complaint relating to a request to remove a review. It took multiple months (and persistence) to convince them the reviews were not for our company.

It’s easy to jump to conclusions about Glassdoor moderating reviews and removing bad ones. But also remember there are cases when reviews are not legitimate and should be removed.

(In addition to the example I provided above, another example is competing companies leaving negative reviews on competitor profiles to sabotage their hiring efforts).