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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#601

Post by atoav »

I am not a hiring manager, but I will occasionally get asked to help with technical candidates in our org.

Any slight hint of AI prose could mean a direct No from me, let me explain why.

Our process is fair IMO:

1. one CV (if you apply to jobs you should have that one already)

2. a cover letter that shows that you know how to map your CV to our org and the free position. That cover letter could be text in the email you sent the CV in

3. (if invited) an 30 to 45 minute interview with a roughly 1:10 chance of getting in.

If you think you need to game that fair of a process you are the wrong hire anyways. That means the approx ten people who get invited are invited based on their (vetted!) CV and on their cover letter. That means your cover letter is read by a human who will judge your text.

I am not a fan of artificially driving up the effort canidates need to make when applying. I just want to know they informed themselves about my org and gave a few thoughts about the position they applied for (what job it is, why they like it, why they would do a good job etc.) - thst should not be a high bar to clear, but over 80% of candidates struggle even with answering that.

Re: I automated my job application process

#602

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ghaff wrote: post #100
the_snooze wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a hiring manager, I've chosen to opt out of this system altogether. Instead of public postings, I just poll my network and post job announcements in private channels in my professional community. Much higher signal-to-noise ratio.

Yeah, a lot of people here hate this but the few jobs I've gotten in the past 25 years or so were always directly through people I knew. The resume was pretty much pro forma. But, yeah, if you don't have a network you're in a more difficult position.

>But, yeah, if you don't have a network you're in a more difficult position.

The lesson people should take from this is you need to cultivate your network through your career. Sadly it seems most people would rather complain about how broken the system is.

Re: I automated my job application process

#604

Post by paulluuk »

salomon812 wrote: post #131

I'm a software manager that has been doing some form of interviewing/hiring for 13 years. I did two rounds of hiring software engineers last year, one in spring that seemed normal, and one in the fall that was was brutal. The fall hiring had a flood of applicants, and in retrospect, most seemed like AI was used in some way. For the fall round, I suddenly had a higher percentage of applicants that qualified after resu…

> Then, I decided to throw out anyone who heavily mentioned AI, LLM, or data science.

As someone who graduated in the field of AI (so it's on my resume), and is now working in the Data Science field, often with LLMs, this hurts. Although I'm not sure what role you're hiring for, so perhaps I wouldn't be in the list of candidates anyway.

Re: I automated my job application process

#605

Post by throwaway2037 »

lostlogin wrote: post #80
cute_boi wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that many processes, from interviews to real work, are increasingly manipulated. I've noticed a pattern with candidates employed by certain consulting companies, especially in Texas and New Jersey. These companies often recruit low-cost labor from India, craft fake resumes, and submit them to platforms like LinkedIn. During interviews, candidates use tools like HDMI dual-screen setups, ChatGPT, Otter AI, or…

What’s the outsourced work from India like? Anything worth having?

There are so many incredibly talented software engineers in India that want to stay in India for family/cultural reasons. The best setups I have seen have one very reliable senior person who experience working in EU/NA, then returned home. They can help with the cultural barriers with more junior hires. Further, if you pay 20% more than your competition, you can get way better candidates. My experience is also pretty similar with offshore teams in China, but their English skills are worse (on average).

Re: I automated my job application process

#606

Post by throwaway2037 »

Root_Denied wrote: post #587
zwnow wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The trick is to get a masters or MBA in the country where you want to live. Germany and Netherlands are excellent for this. You can find lots of jobs with no local language requirements.

Re: I automated my job application process

#607

Post by lukan »

hackernewds wrote: post #568
lukan wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't pay either (anymore), but is correct as well. (Via chatgot android app)

you're not on 3.5 anymore

Well, I use the free version and just checked, but I cannot even see what model is used.

Either way, if my cheap standard unpaid ChatGPT version gives the correct result, I don't think it counts as a valid catch anymore.

Re: I automated my job application process

#608

Post by n_ary »

Aurornis wrote: post #504
n_ary wrote: post #502

Without reading any comments below, I want to praise the author for fighting fire-with-fire. From what I hear from my new colleagues and ones laid off, the landscape got pretty dystopian. HMs want to minimize their effort to 1% by happily renting LLM services which work 10% of the times and put up weird garbage(please record a 10min video to tell us why we should hire you, please also upload a cover letter that we cl…

> I want to praise the author for fighting fire-with-fire. On the contrary, I think these automated application games are most likely to land interviews with the companies doing LLM-based hiring and interviewing. From what I’ve seen, the automated job application results are generally pretty bad. The few companies that get interviews are just bad at screening and interviewing, so even if you get in you’re going to be…

Not sure about US, but here in EU, most big ones use LLM(or AI!) based platforms to rank and summarise applicants. While I do not have a public stats, but I can tell it from my friends’ account that a rejection takes 1-3h after submission.

> I’m in a big Slack where people ask advice on hiring and interviewing. I can think of only one time someone asked about applying to a company asking for videos, and the advice was universally to skip that company.

I would very much like to name and shame but these are actually fairly prominent on my side of EU. When a bunch of people is laid off and they have a family to feed(or even a newborn recently), desperation can lead to not skipping regardless of whatever junk particular systems put up.

Re: I automated my job application process

#609

Post by lukan »

the_af wrote: post #457
lukan wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't pay either (anymore), but is correct as well. (Via chatgot android app)

ChatGPT-4 (free) on Android just told me: > There are two "R"s in the word "cranberry."

Same for me.

Good example to illustrate how LLMs work, if it is not correct for cranberry, but correct for raspberry or strawberry.

Re: I automated my job application process

#610

Post by SanjayMehta »

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…

> The only other way I've seen suggested to signal that I'm a real person with real experience is to know someone in the company who can vouch for me (which I almost never do).

The last company where I worked, employee referrals were the preferred mode of hiring. The referring employee would also benefit, on successful completion of the new hire’s first year.

You might want to revisit this aspect.

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