Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I automated my job application process

blog.daviddodda.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

871–880 of 884 posts

Re: I automated my job application process

#871

Post by Kerbonut »

confidantlake wrote: post #826
Kerbonut wrote: post #431

I wonder if a type of escrow service could help solve the problem of hiring managers getting flooded with low effort applications and simultaneously solve the problem of applicants being passed over when they are obviously the most qualified for someone else who looks good on paper but who is actually mediocre. There could also be a case for some kind of ante that applicants have to contribute to when they apply. Pas…

I would get rich posting ghost jobs and winning the whole pot for myself every time.

I was thinking the job poster would have to put up the bulk of the pot, let's say a 20% "signing bonus" that is distributed amongst the finalists (job offered). Applicants would each stake a small amount each, which would be shared amongst the applications who are dropped out at each gate prior to job offered gate, say 20% of it is shared amongst the first round as an example. It would have to be structured to mitigate gaming the system on both sides, e.g. professional applicants who drop out after job is offered (never accepting a job).

Re: I automated my job application process

#872

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

ddalex wrote: post #720
Aurornis wrote: post #514

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody innocent is going to be wronged if this is made into a crime or otherwise regulated to put a stop to. Good luck. The applicants doing fake job applications do not care about your laws at all. Many might be in foreign countries. They might plan on applying with stolen identities. Making a law isn’t going to change a thing. Even if you did, what company is going to spend resources tracking down the likely fake…

> applicants doing fake job applications … stolen identities What I don’t get is what’s the economic incentive for this behaviour

- It can be a side effect to keep your unemployment insurance which is conditional upon proving you are sending applications at a given pace. I'd probably need to apply to random jobs if I qualified for it because there isn't a role opening in my niche weekly to fullfil the criteria here. I never had to because I was ineligible for other reasons every time I was unemployed and could have used support but that's a whole other can of worms)

- I heard its a thing to get n jobs you're not qualified for to get at least the first few month salary "for free" (as an individual or as a pawn from a larger organized fraud). Not sure how common or how much truth there is to it though.

Re: I automated my job application process

#873

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

hansvm wrote: post #545
irrational wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven’t been job hunting since around 2002, so I’m completely out of the loop. Why are people submitting fake resumes? Are they hoping to get hired despite having no skills beyond using ChatGPT? But, what happens after that? They don’t have the skills to do the job, so what was the point of getting hired?

You can often work days to years before people catch on that you are (a) unqualified, (b) underqualified, (c) not legally allowed to work in a particular jursdiction, (d) overemployed, (e) leaking company secrets to ChatGPT, .... On top of that, you have a number of people who are just trying to get hired and perhaps are skilled, but the market is so shitty (in part because of the AI resume slop) that they're resorti…

What I find mind blowing is how unqualified people manage to land jobs while qualified people may not even land an interview. How does this even work?

Re: I automated my job application process

#874

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

no_wizard wrote: post #750
wsintra2022 wrote: post #744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that’s the gold standard for finding engineering (software) and work. Get out into the world by attending meet-ups about technology and start contributing to real world open source projects or volunteer at the many projects looking for devs. It may not be a job overnight but it will keep you busy enough to not stagnate and you will also open yourself to bumping into someone who may be looking for someone at o…

Both this and the OP you responded to are good advice if you aren’t in a situation where you needed a job yesterday. What about situations where you were laid off and can’t really wait months to get a new one?

I guess the idea is to do this while you are employed so that you already have the connections when you need them. I can't think how anyone finds the energy to do this after a day at work though. You may also build this at work via former colleagues, but it depends a lot of the type of org and specific job.

Re: I automated my job application process

#875

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

blakeburch wrote: post #655
bfung wrote: post #500

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.…

wouldn't poeple just flag everything as their fav 5 and put high numbers of hours not actually spent on the application? unless the system can track all a candidates applications, this seems moot, and if it did track all that yuk no thank you, i don't need more tracking in my life to solve a problem we created artificially. Plus it is probably easy to game for anyone with a minimum of programming skills...

Re: I automated my job application process

#876

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

newsclues wrote: post #594
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…

Networking to make contact that can help you get past the HR filter is the new skill set that is essential not job application automation. Meet people and form connections.

agreed, last application i sent, i had an informational with the hiring manager. They told me to email them my resume in addition to the official submission process so they can tell HR to find and flag my application for interview.

I didn't get the job, or even an interview despite that and the hiring manager never bothered to tell me why. (one of their direct reports told me its because i was vastly overqualified)

I feel stuck in a limbo where my title doesn't reflect the seniority i operate at so i'm not getting interview for senior roles based on automated filters i guess, but jobs i do get interviews for, I was told no because because i was overqualified for the role more than once.

This includes being overqualified for the FTE equivalent of my current job as a contractor in the same company and org. But there's no roles opening at the seniority level they'd hire me at and I can't just rage quit on a 6 figure salary just because I should be making double even as a junior as an FTE by now. So they won't hire me for the work I already do but have no problem keeping me on for half the pay as a contractor. But at least I have a job?

Re: I automated my job application process

#877

Post by BehindBlueEyes »

XenophileJKO wrote: post #414
margalabargala wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, not using LLMs might be a red flag. I wouldn't want a dev that is not open to this technology... The person you're replying to is a senior, not junior candidate. For junior devs who are still learning, LLMs are a great force multiplier that help them understand code faster and integrate new things. For senior devs, LLMs are a maybe-optional tool that might save a couple hours per week, on a good week. I would…

I kind of feel like it is the inverse in many ways. As an experienced engineer, I know how to describe what I want which is 90% of getting the right implementation. Secondly, because I know what I want and how it should work, I tend to know it when I see it. Often it only takes a nudge to get to a solution similar to what I already would have done. Usually it is just a quick comment like: "Do it in a functional style…

As someone learning programming with an llm, its 50-50 as to whether it saves or costs me extra time.

This is mostly because if i don't know that i'm asking for the wrong thing, the llm won't correct me and provide code that answers the wrong question and make things up to do that if needed.

Sure i learn by debugging the llm's nonsensical code too, and it solves my "don't want to watch a 2h tutorial because if i just watch the 10minutes that explain what i want to learn, i don't understand any of the context". But it's not much faster with the llm since I need to google things anyway to check if it is gaslighting me.

It does help understanding errors i'm unfamiliar with and the most value i found is pasting in my own code and asking it to explain what the code should do, so i find errors in my logic when it compiles but doesn't have the desired effect. And it will mention concepts i'm lacking to look them up (it won't explain em clearly but at least it's flagging them to me) in a way youtubers earely do.

Still haven't made up my mind if it is a net positive as it often ends up getting on my nerves to wait 10min for a fluff intro before it gets to the answer. Better than a 20min fluff video intro on youtube maybe?

Re: I automated my job application process

#878

Post by throwawayq3423 »

michaelt wrote: post #370
dallasg3 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the scam? Get a job they can’t do…continue to get paid?

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!

Yep, with very little upfront cost needed.

Re: I automated my job application process

#879

Post by throwawayq3423 »

cj wrote: post #367
dallasg3 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s the scam? Get a job they can’t do…continue to get paid?

1 paycheck of just a few thousand dollars USD is a lot of money in other countries. The scam is hold on to the job for at least 1 paycheck. It’s a expensive for companies to (legally) fire people, so if you get hired you typically can get at least a few grand even if you do zero work.

> It’s a expensive for companies to (legally) fire people

Maybe in Europe, in the US it's an email.

Re: I automated my job application process

#880

Post by blakeburch »

BehindBlueEyes wrote: post #875
blakeburch wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.…

wouldn't poeple just flag everything as their fav 5 and put high numbers of hours not actually spent on the application? unless the system can track all a candidates applications, this seems moot, and if it did track all that yuk no thank you, i don't need more tracking in my life to solve a problem we created artificially. Plus it is probably easy to game for anyone with a minimum of programming skills...

The thought process was tracking all candidates (not having a user-submitted number). That tracking is already happening for most marketing analytics. I'm surprised I haven't seen it show up on the job application side.

As for the fave 5 idea - I don't see an easy way to game this if it's tied to a single user account. You would only be seen as prioritizing the company to the employer if you're actively prioritizing them. Most people are applying to way more than 5 companies simultaneously and don't know where their application stands for the company. It would be too risky to try and rotate it continuously.

Post reply on HN