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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#651

Post by geye1234 »

robotnikman wrote: post #476
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…

Makes me wonder if we should just mail in our applications by snail mail at this point.

I've wondered the same.

Re: I automated my job application process

#652

Post by josephg »

lordnacho wrote: post #259
Aurornis wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried giving honest and actionable interview feedback at first. A scary number of candidates did not take rejection well and tried to use my feedback against me. I had people trying to argue that my feedback was wrong, someone stalking me across social media and trying to argue everything there, and eventually someone who threatened to use my feedback as the basis for a discrimination lawsuit. So now we’re back to…

The line isn't between detailed feedback and brief, uninformative feedback. The line is between saying something brief and saying nothing. Somehow, it has become standard to say absolutely nothing instead of telling people a simple no. I've even had situations where people said they wanted to keep talking to me, and then went completely silent.

But brief feedback is probably more likely to result in pushback / being sued by candidates, since candidates will feel like you didn’t properly consider them.

The sad truth of the situation is that all the incentives for a company point in the direction of giving no feedback at all. This isn’t because hiring managers are sociopaths.

Re: I automated my job application process

#653

Post by josephg »

LtWorf wrote: post #394
Aurornis wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Public job board listings have always been flooded with low-effort spam applicants, but AI tools have supercharged the problem. The saddest part to me is watching the AI and social media malaise infect young mentees. I’ve been doing volunteer mentoring for years. Recent cohorts have been infected with a sense that the job market is nothing more than a game that they need to min-max. It’s sad to see smart, motivated y…

In my whole career I've seen 0 correlation between effort and rewards.

How long has your career been? I’ve been doing software professionally for 20 years and the correlation I’ve seen is huge. Not necessarily inside a single company - but after awhile you get jobs from networking & people you worked with in the past. If none of your ex colleagues want to work with you again, it’ll become a lot harder for you to get hired & promoted.

Re: I automated my job application process

#654

Post by dallasg3 »

olddustytrail wrote: post #430
michaelt wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to the wealth disparities involved, a month’s Silicon Valley money is a years income for a scammer in a poor country. So just produce LLM-level code, make excuses, say you’re learning the code base, get lots of help from colleagues, turn in mediocre work, and if you can hang on for three months before they fire you - that’s decent money!

Hell, you might even get promoted to management!

> So just produce LLM-level code, make excuses, say you’re learning the code base, get lots of help from colleagues, turn in mediocre work

If they switched from doing all this to pressing people for estimates.

Re: I automated my job application process

#655

Post by blakeburch »

bfung wrote: post #500
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…

> I really am interested in the specific job I'm applying for. Are you doing anything that shows and differentiates your interest isn’t the same as all the automated “interest”? Ex: understand deeply some parts of the industry the company is in and how it can be improved w/tech? Or is it just “rust is cool”?

I've personally found that even when I do my best to exude interest in the industry/company through custom question responses or the cover letter that auto-rejection is still the most common end result.

I'm still amazed that the applicant tracking systems don't provide employers with stats like "time spent on application" or "time spent on website researching". At least this would be a signal towards higher interest.

Heck, I'd love a "fave 5" system for employers. Something to flag extreme interest in working for their company. Companies would probably love to have a list of high-intent people to recruit, regardless of their current employment status.

Re: I automated my job application process

#656

Post by noen »

cs02rm0 wrote: post #569
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…

I've been looking for a few months. I've got 20 years of professional dev experience, including in an eye-catching domain and haven't used LLMs in the process either. Since university I have never not been offered the first job I've applied for. For 10 years now I could ring any of the firms working in the niche I've been in and more or less set my rate. I still could, but I'm trying to get out of that niche into the…

Similar story here. 20+ years experience in leading dev, pm, and UX teams. Launched multiple 0-1 market leading products, worked with dozens of Fortune 500s.

Applied to more than a hundred positions - one phone screen and one interview.

Then I just went to my large network and within a week I have multiple opportunities - companies creating positions so they can hire me.

Spoke to a number of colleagues in recruiting and who are hiring for their teams - the number of ghost jobs, and frozen but posted positions is staggering. Something is fundamentally broken in the hiring world today.

Re: I automated my job application process

#657

Post by __oh_es »

teeray wrote: post #57

It’s astounding that we, as an industry, are so averse to licensing developers. It solves the resume spam problem and the repetitive LeetCode round(s) that every company now wants. We also don’t have to settle for the licensing process other industries have—ours can be more inclusive of alternative development backgrounds, while still providing a meaningful quality filter.

Surely CS degrees should suffice, yet we still have leet code testing?

Interested to hear if you have a different thought here

Re: I automated my job application process

#658

Post by sdenton4 »

robotnikman wrote: post #476
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…

Makes me wonder if we should just mail in our applications by snail mail at this point.

Or, better yet, literally knocking on doors.

Re: I automated my job application process

#659

Post by [deleted] »

chefandy wrote: post #650
celdon25 wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has already happened long ago with Google search results. The first tier of results is won by reasonably well-funded entities that provide a legitimate service, and have the means to optimize the signals feeding the search rankings, putting them higher than the next tier. The second tier of search results tends to be dominated by imitators that don't really add anything of value (SEO spam, blog posts that tell y…

Yes, that’s a good example, and I share your concerns. As an aside, I shudder thinking about what a heavily ‘SEO’d’ LLM experience would be like.

[deleted]

Re: I automated my job application process

#660

Post by itgoon »

quicksilver03 wrote: post #123

I'd prefer an application to automatically fill in my data in those junk ATS systems, such as WorkDay, that pretend to parse my LinkedIn profile or a PDF resume and inevitably makes me do all the copy-paste twice. A couple of years ago it was so bad that I stopped applying as soon as I saw that WorkDay crap pop up, regardless of the company.

For Workday, use a very simple resume. No columns, no bullet points (use asterisks), no tables.

There's usually an option to upload another file near the end of the form. After it has filled in the fields using your plain resume, delete it and upload the nicer one.

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