Live data from Hacker News

All the jobs I failed to get

shkspr.mobi

81–90 of 180 posts

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#81
post #38
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But is that a skill that is required for lots of positions?

Recursion is a fundemntal part of programming, beyond the self-taught junior yes I would absolutely expect every programmer to be able to do it. You learn it in highschool level programming classes & first semester intro to CS college courses. Even if they won't specifically need to use recursion in their next job it marks them as someone not serious or about programming.

Honestly I think recursion is overrated. Does anyone here really write recursive functions in production? I mean it takes up stack space (which on some systems is a systemparameter), creates functioncall overhead and has rarely advantages. Trees have more natural recursive structures, but then you basically always have cache misses making your program orders of magnitude slower than if you can fit the data in a linear structure.

I mean, I would be worried if a candidate is not shy to use recursion that this will blow up software perfomance. (But then probably after hire the senior will tell: dont use recursion here)

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#82

My final interview with AWS for a Sr PdM role went so poorly that they told me I had to wait 12 months to apply again. I feel like that’s some sort of accomplishment on its own.

They probably have a standard period to wait. Is this significantly longer than what other people have encountered?

Potentially. The person who replied to you before me said it’s standard, but I remember reading online somewhere at the time that 6 months was the cool off period.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#83
post #53
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry since when is over double the median wage 'decent'. Some people on this forum have their head in their arses when it comes to money.

If you're in a certain industry, you're typically looking at the median in that industry and not the national median. USD $100k is ~4 year experience software engineer salary.

>USD $100k is ~4 year experience software engineer salary.

Not in the UK, though.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#84

GoDaddy rejected me a year after I applied and only realized it when a recruiter was trying to input me into their system. I took great pride in informing her that a) I made more than their proposed offer and b) I’d never work for a company who couldn’t operate with basic human decency in their recruiting process. Because of that experience, I make it a point that every single candidate deserves a yes or no response…

> I took great pride in informing her that a) I made more than their proposed offer and b) I’d never work for a company who couldn’t operate with basic human decency in their recruiting process. I used to work in tech recruiting. I guarantee you 100%, no one cares. As a candidate your only option is to move on or write a bad glassdoor if you are so inclined and move on.

As a hiring manager, I care quite a bit about how candidates think of our process BUT I also know that most folks who bother to write something like 'basic human decency' to a recruiter, who usually has little power or status in a company, are probably not the people I want to hire.

Nothing wrong with complaining but people often hurl needless insults when they've had a less than optimal time.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#85
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I got out of college, I applied to about 250 jobs and only got 3 calls. Luckily one of those did pan out. I keep hearing how there's a war for technical talent. I guess I don't have any.

> When I got out of college, I applied to about 250 jobs and only got 3 calls. Luckily one of those did pan out. > I keep hearing how there's a war for technical talent. I guess I don't have any. When I left academia, I struggled for 6 months to get a job. Then, 6 months into my first data scientist role, my company had to downscale and the whole data science team (me included) laid off. I got three offers in two wee…

This is the reality. Having any work experience at all is huge. I thankfully/sometimes-by-accident worked 5 internships during my 4.5 years in my upper-middling college, and had no problem picking a place to work afterwards.

I had many friends who over-indexed on grades and had 0-2 internships. Many of them were really smart, but couldn't get the foot in the door for an interview.

Experience (including internships at legitimate companies) will get you past the the resume screen and recruiter call. From that point on, it's your interviewing skill that counts most.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#86
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I got out of college, I applied to about 250 jobs and only got 3 calls. Luckily one of those did pan out. I keep hearing how there's a war for technical talent. I guess I don't have any.

I think the problem is not that there isn't enough if it (this may or may not be true) but more that it is very hard to figure out where it is. There are probably a good number of people who aren't presenting themselves well, despite having the talent, and get lost in the many applicants that don't seem to know how to program at all. Finding the right people is really hard. I do think the need for technical talent is…

To add some more detail, my experience was during the mortgage meltdown and fallout from that.

I agree with your perspective. I also think there are issues on the recruiting side. Sometimes it seems like they don't know what they need and they just list a ton of unnecessary stuff in the list of required skills.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#87
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When I got out of college, I applied to about 250 jobs and only got 3 calls. Luckily one of those did pan out. > I keep hearing how there's a war for technical talent. I guess I don't have any. When I left academia, I struggled for 6 months to get a job. Then, 6 months into my first data scientist role, my company had to downscale and the whole data science team (me included) laid off. I got three offers in two wee…

This is the reality. Having any work experience at all is huge. I thankfully/sometimes-by-accident worked 5 internships during my 4.5 years in my upper-middling college, and had no problem picking a place to work afterwards. I had many friends who over-indexed on grades and had 0-2 internships. Many of them were really smart, but couldn't get the foot in the door for an interview. Experience (including internships at…

True. The only experience I had was as a freelance web and android dev.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#88

GoDaddy rejected me a year after I applied and only realized it when a recruiter was trying to input me into their system. I took great pride in informing her that a) I made more than their proposed offer and b) I’d never work for a company who couldn’t operate with basic human decency in their recruiting process. Because of that experience, I make it a point that every single candidate deserves a yes or no response…

> I took great pride in informing her that a) I made more than their proposed offer and b) I’d never work for a company who couldn’t operate with basic human decency in their recruiting process. I used to work in tech recruiting. I guarantee you 100%, no one cares. As a candidate your only option is to move on or write a bad glassdoor if you are so inclined and move on.

I'm hiring now. I don't think no one cares. Our recruiter is processing 400 candidates at once and relying on a lot of new hiring managers to follow a process. It's a lot of work to keep up and stuff does fall through the cracks. And we're a tiny startup.

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#89
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I got out of college, I applied to about 250 jobs and only got 3 calls. Luckily one of those did pan out. I keep hearing how there's a war for technical talent. I guess I don't have any.

Out of hundreds of applicants I screen, very few even have the skill to implement a standard algorithm with recursion in a language of their choice that I explain meticulously.

If it's really that standard, then wouldn't we just use a library for it to cut out a large portion of the development, testing, and maintenance?

Re: All the jobs I failed to get

#90
post #44
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot. In my case it would be better phrased as what didn't I fail at. I had zero successes this week.

I can't imagine that is true. And even if it is, acknowledging that is a success, good job! If everything seems to fail, we have to focus on the things we accomplish every day and just take for granted. Even if they're small accomplishments.

I didn't get the data loaded for my personal project, I didn't get my story completed at work, and I can't think of anything that I actually accomplished this week.
Post reply on HN