I made jokes about having a dead man's trigger that would automatically send out resumes as soon as a paycheck was not deposited on schedule. This is half of it right here.
I automated my job application process
681–690 of 884 posts
Re: I automated my job application process
#682> The secret to good cover letters? Context.
I know a lot has changed since I had to look for a job (a little over 4 years ago), but I disagree. The cover letter is the only opportunity to show some of your personality, not that you read the posting and tweaked your template to include details about the specific job you're applying for.
I have found that a good cover letter can be a game-changer. I landed my first dev job because the hiring manager/senior devs loved my cover letter. It's a great filtering mechanism for whether you'd be a good fit. I always throw a little humor in there, because I am not a very serious person and don't want to work at a place that expects me to be. When I had to do some hiring earlier this year, I would spend a few extra minutes reading cover letters to see if I could spot one that included something unconventional, but no dice. Every single one just followed the boring template from a cursory Google search of "how to write a cover letter".
Your resume isn't going to convey anything about whether you're the type of person that I want to work with. I had 200 resumes from people that were all capable of doing the job we were hiring for. If you're competing with 199 other equally skilled people based on resumes, a good cover letter could be a competitive advantage.
That being said, I know it's a very different hiring landscape these days, so my perspective could be completely wrong. But I imagine there are probably still hiring managers out there that take the time to read cover letters. If I decide to start looking for a new job at some point, I'll be spending a few extra minutes on my cover letter.
Re: I automated my job application process
#683Earlier quoted context omitted.
>There is a shortage of good tech workers. I wish someone quantified what 'good' is. Ask 2 tech workers to rate each other and they are most likely to rate each other mediocre by each's standards. Each would nitpick on what the other didn't know.
This does not match my experience. Most of the time it's quite clear who is a high performer/multiplier in a team
Missing the point by a large margin...
Re: I automated my job application process
#684Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is an abundance of tech workers. There is a shortage of good tech workers. It is incredibly difficult, at the resume stage, to tell the difference. When you post a job online, you get hundreds of applications in a few days. Imagine you are a good tech worker. You applied to a company, along with 200 other people. Your resume gets swept into the trash because they had to automatically delete several applicants a…
>There is a shortage of good tech workers. I wish someone quantified what 'good' is. Ask 2 tech workers to rate each other and they are most likely to rate each other mediocre by each's standards. Each would nitpick on what the other didn't know.
If they're both nitpicking then they are in fact both mediocre at best.
Re: I automated my job application process
#685> Submit resume + cover letter Does anybody here actually read _cover letters_? I almost never submit them, unless required. I feel it's a remnant of pre-digital age where you would apply _in-person_ and the cover letter makes it _feel_ personal.
Yes, I absolutely read cover letters. But I work in Germany which has different customs around applications, so maybe that's the reason. We get a lot of low effort applications so I look for something why the candidate wants to work at our place. Did they research the position at least a bit before applying? Do they have an idea about the work, and does it mention how they can contribute? If it looks like copy-paste…
> ...why the candidate wants to work at our place.
Sorry to be blunt, but - to earn some money to feed their family? Just like applicants are not unicorns, neither are companies - unless you are FAANG nobody really cares about your shitty company really. (Maybe not even if you are FAANG.) If the CV matches the JD, why do you have doubts if they have an idea about the work? They obviously haven't the faintest idea, but how could they (unless your code is open source).
From the applicant's perspective, they are applying to multiple places at once. Investing emotionally at step 0 (when they don't know if their CV will even be considered) is taxing, and unfair. Once there is a connection, you can expect them to invest more, but not until then. Because they will apply to 10 places, get ghosted by 5, get an automated NO response from 4 (usually a month later), and maybe, MAYBE they get an invite to the last one. Get a conversation started first and THEN expect investment.
Re: I automated my job application process
#686Earlier quoted context omitted.
And then you run into problems on the corporate side: fake job listings to build up resume databases for comparison shopping of applicants. Regulations in this area should have to cut both ways.
I would REALLY love if job postings had to go through a government clearing house. Only real jobs get posted. Only real applicants can apply. Bonus: jobs would have to be classified according to a single government standard, so it should be possible to search for a good job match by at least limiting the field and (allowed) location(s).
If you look at some of the problems of USA Jobs, you may not actually want this.
Re: I automated my job application process
#687Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean with licensing? What’s the difference to a university degree?
The paper ceiling is a silly gatekeeping done by those who have made it. I would be in favor of licensing knowing it would probably exclude me unless of course it does not require a university degree. I was not born into a family of means and being autodidactic allowed me to excel beyond my upbringing. The best path would be to have journeyman type of pathway.
No.
You'd still need to interview people because there's no license that will tell you who the good/great candidates are
Re: I automated my job application process
#688Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean with licensing? What’s the difference to a university degree?
Vocational education vs. academic. Basically you find a grad right now and make them do a coding test. Something is broken there. A degree could include the vocational qualification as a 1 year study, but having the vocation qualification alone would save youngsters a lot of money and reduce the burden on hiring. You could even still interview coding questions but the application process can remove the spam/ai bullsh…
And now you've moved the job of administering and evaluating coding tests to an organization that only does that.
Who would want to work at such a place? Why would I trust the opinions of people who work at such a place?
Re: I automated my job application process
#689It’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.
Yep, I've talked about this at length for years . We need to bring back the PE Exam to help guarantee some minimal level of competency in prospective applicants. https://ncees.org/ncees-discontinuing-pe-software-engineerin... But this is one of the most entitled industries in the universe. Even the mere notion of suggesting academic degrees, PE Exams and other forms of "gatekeeping" is tantamount to shouting Voldemor…
Most non software engineers do not have the PE.
Re: I automated my job application process
#690Earlier quoted context omitted.
And that's not even enough: A few weeks ago I had to interview someone who had what appeared to be a realistic profile. Everything that came out of their mouth was from chatGPT It was suspicious, but the ruse became clear when they shared the wrong screen, so we could see his prompt, and how everything we said was being read in. At this point every remote internet checklist has to include checks for humanity, because…
> At this point every remote internet checklist has to include checks for humanity, I genuinely don't understand this requirement. Isn't an interview exactly that? It's a conversation pretending to be about a technical problem/question/challenge but in reality its purpose is to find out whether you click with the person and would want to work with them. If some ChatGPT text can trick you then your process is broken a…
> If some ChatGPT text can trick you then your process is broken anyway
This is pretty unfair and seems like victim-blaming when we have companies spending billions of dollars to create these programs with the specific intent of trying to pass the Turing test.