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I automated my job application process

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Re: I automated my job application process

#771

Post by mholm »

dangus wrote: post #435
tennisflyi wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That investment isn't worth it to just be ghosted

I think you missed this part, emphasis mine: I spend a week or so deeply researching where I want to work and figure out how to get there role-wise. Figuring out how to get there means figuring out how not to get ghosted, not just blasting off a quick application and crossing fingers. I imagine that probably means reaching out to people in their network at the company, learning about their hiring practices and how pe…

When was the most recent time you tried this, and for what level of role was it? I believe this could absolutely be effective pre-2023, or for very high level roles. I don't think it's currently viable advice for ~Senior level engineers, who are currently competing against thousands of other applications, many of whom were generated specifically for the given role.

Re: I automated my job application process

#772

Post by rmbyrro »

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…

be creative in any kind of technical assessment

some people think SWE is about "logic". it is, in part, but the "engineering" in software is much more of an art than it is in other branches, like construction

the current sota AI is great at logic and terrible in creativity and actual engineering. if the technical assessment is not designed for you to show your creative engineering side, do it yourself, do more than you were asked, think about what would be relevant to that company in terms of engineering creativity and offer that

that's the best way I know of showing you're a real engineer, not an LLM operator, it's worked well for me in the job search process

good luck!

Re: I automated my job application process

#773

Post by robertlagrant »

geye1234 wrote: post #649
redmajor12 wrote: post #629

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this chaos fits Big Tech's claim that there are not enough American workers, so they can then turn around and onshore H1Bs from the hiring manager's hometown back in the old country.

Hundreds of comments, and this is the first one that mentions perhaps the primary root cause of the situation.

There often isn't a nefarious scheme. Humans are better at spotting patterns than they are at mass coordination.

Re: I automated my job application process

#774

Post by robertlagrant »

austin-cheney wrote: post #626
bane wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's absolute insanity. Something has to give, or we're about to see some big changes in how hiring is done. I don't want to retype my recent experiences, but I have a thread from about 6 weeks ago that goes into my specific details here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42137229 I was in a good position so I could take my time, but I honestly don't know what I would have done if I had needed a position quickly.

Software should have some universal competency baseline, like a license. If AI resume spamming is that straw that breaks the camel’s back then so be it. The best defense against AI would be a license number that identifies a person uniquely, provides their relevant job history from a database, proves some minimal common competency baseline, and confirms conformance to some ethical norm against known liabilities.

I've often thought that this would be an actually useful use of Blockchain tech.

Re: I automated my job application process

#775

Post by [deleted] »

robocat wrote: post #257
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.

Because MCSE was such a success? This article unintentionally perfectly rebuts the idea of licensing: https://mcpmag.com/articles/2005/05/11/the-death-of-paper-mc... Our industry is one where actual skills should and do matter, and much gatekeeping has been reduced. Professional rote learning is great for mandarin jobs where you are working within a static prescribed framework (legal, accounting, building codes). It…

[deleted]

Re: I automated my job application process

#776

Post by BadCookie »

lisp2240 wrote: post #573

We should use this to flood companies with applications for people who don’t exist and make it impossible to find real candidates. Then maybe they’ll reform this dumb process that doesn’t work well for anybody.

Companies would just lean even harder into hiring only friends of current employees, but I appreciate the sentiment.

Re: I automated my job application process

#777

Post by abc-1 »

pockmarked19 wrote: post #765
abc-1 wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Our industry is one where actual skills should and do matter [...] Professional rote learning is great for mandarin jobs where you are working within a static prescribed framework (legal, accounting, building codes). Saying things like this reflects poorly on our community and demonstrates a poor understanding on how much creativity and thought goes into legal and accounting. There's a reason there is a large pay b…

Creativity and thought going into accounting ought to be illegal. Albeit I am sure there is plenty of demand for “creative accounting”.

Nope nothing wrong about it at all. Some company’s may structure their business in certain ways to take various trade offs, exactly how software devs make certain trade offs. Then of course there’s shady and illegal stuff you’re getting at, but that’s a separate topic.

Re: I automated my job application process

#778

Post by jarsin »

OutOfHere wrote: post #315

As a candidate, I strongly believe in not applying, in letting the company find you. Applying is a waste of time. Also, one can get falsely accused of using ChatGPT in online interviews, so just don't start if the role doesn't have at least one on-site round. If you get ghosted or falsely accused anyway, report it on Glassdoor at once. Always also report the questions you were asked.

> If you get ghosted or falsely accused anyway, report it on Glassdoor at once

And why is glassdoor trustworthy?

I worked for a company that laid off 75% of their long term staff with zero severance right as glassdoor was getting popular. They off course got a bunch of deserving negative reviews. Within one year the company had buried all the bad reviews in a sea of obvious fake reviews.

Can't imagine what llm's are going to do for the entire fake review industry.

Re: I automated my job application process

#779

Post by dennis_jeeves2 »

captainmuon wrote: post #746
dennis_jeeves2 wrote: post #646

Earlier 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.

If you are not FAANG or some other large company, the question is not if somebody is "good". It is if they are "good enough". I feel there is often a bimodal distribution of applicants. Those who can do the job and those who are completely not suited. There is a shortage of workers, so you try to get as many as you can from the first bin. It doesn't matter if they are 10x rockstars or Joe Blub. You just try to sieve…

>It is if they are "good enough".

Thanks, that is the right way to put it.

I was picking on the person who was saying that there are not enough good candidates, where I have worked in most cases they were good enough, so it baffles me when people frequently say that there are not enough good candidates. I'm just wondering if my sample data is different from others . Again I think quantification of what is good enough will go a long way example: Must be a able to solve the fizz/biz example.

Re: I automated my job application process

#780

Post by ghaff »

no_wizard wrote: post #759
ghaff wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advice is probably to promptly ping obvious connections (which is what I did when I was laid off and it worked out). Failing that, depending on financial situation, either do unpaid work or become a barista.

That’s grim, to say the least. I also think it’s more proof that tech hiring is broken. When good candidates can’t reasonably get in front of hiring managers without an “in” that means they’re missing out on a lot of really good candidates. Think that’s the part that bothers me about tech hiring right now. You can’t even really get away messaging a recruiter at the company to start a conversation, I’ve heard from fri…

I'm not sure why you think this is something about tech specifically or even something recent. Most hiring has always been about knowing people and/or some other signal rather than walking off the street other than in a really would-be employee's hunting environment.

ADDED: To be fair, it's probably the fact that, in tech, junior people coming in without any real credentials or otherwise out of the blue at this point probably face a lot of headwinds--especially relative to the last decade or so.

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