2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer • Hacker News Board

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#91

Post by scruple » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 7:45 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #77

bluesroo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear that you haven't had to get an interview from a non-connection in the last year. It's a literal fucking nightmare unless you have connections that can literally hand you a job. I have 8 years of experience. TL;DR: Connections don't mean shit. Companies require multi-hour takehomes and then ghost you. Every reply is automated unless you are moving forward. Recruiters take a week to reply to even the most ba…

Respectfully I have never gotten an interview let alone a job via a connection in my life. I maintain zero contact with previous coworkers. Also I don't understand why you said I must have connections and then a sentence later say connections mean nothing. You are right though, it has been 16 months since I interviewed so things may be different.

Conversely, 4 of my 5 employers in the last ~20 years in this industry have been through my network. I'm still I interviewing, but the process has been relatively painless for me otherwise, especially in the face of anecdotes like the GP and the OP.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#92

Post by anon291 » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

ActionHank wrote: post #17

anon291 wrote: post #13

I'm a dev and I apply to like 8-10 roles each job cycle and usually get call backs on 4-5 and then offers from 2-4. I cannot fathom 2500 job apps or 46 job interviews.

Out of curiosity when last did you go through this? I've heard from a few friends that even dev is brutal right now with many places leaving listings open, but not filling them, hoping for a FAANG dev to come along.

Well I was laid off in January, Found a job in March, and am now in the process of interviewing again, since while this job is good, it's not in my preferred salary range or field of expertise.

Someone else mentioned FAANG levels of comp. My base comp is anywhere between 240 and 270k with these jobs + stock / options.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#93

Post by nunez » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 7:58 PM UTC

rickreynoldssf wrote: post #67

javajosh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of (morbid) curiosity - what was his objection to using a debugger?

Just that I used it at all. There's a contingent of engineers who feel using a debugger is a waste of time and or a sign of weakness. They're the ones who like to stare at code and "run it in their heads" and dump crazy amounts of "got here" into the logs. Evidently this guy is one of them.

I am personally not a fan of debuggers but I would never ding someone over using them unless it was obvious they couldn't debug without them.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#94

Post by bluesroo » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 7:59 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #77

bluesroo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's clear that you haven't had to get an interview from a non-connection in the last year. It's a literal fucking nightmare unless you have connections that can literally hand you a job. I have 8 years of experience. TL;DR: Connections don't mean shit. Companies require multi-hour takehomes and then ghost you. Every reply is automated unless you are moving forward. Recruiters take a week to reply to even the most ba…

Respectfully I have never gotten an interview let alone a job via a connection in my life. I maintain zero contact with previous coworkers. Also I don't understand why you said I must have connections and then a sentence later say connections mean nothing. You are right though, it has been 16 months since I interviewed so things may be different.

I mean, the timeframe was also important there. Yes, that 16 months makes a huge difference right now. That's the exact time that I basically walked through my interviews to 6 offers.

RE Connections: I meant they only matter if they are high up enough to literally hand you a position. Anything lower than that (i.e. an IC referral) was completely useless in 7 different companies.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#95

Post by nunez » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 8:04 PM UTC

wonderwonder wrote: post #50

With respect to OP, I think the real issue is the 46 interviews and only 1 offer, not the job applications. To sit through 45 interviews without an offer points to a serious weakness in the interview department. Instead of all the applications, they should have focused more of their time prepping for the interview. The ability to interview is the most important skill when it comes to getting a job, you can be the gre…

1. The OP is a PM, not a developer

2. The market is incredibly rough for non-eng tech at the moment. Completely believable that they are getting passed over by stronger candidates (of which there are many)

3. They didn't specify the interview stages they failed at, or that they even failed at all. Ghosting is a thing, especially with tons of recruiters getting laid off

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#96

Post by umeshunni » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 8:49 PM UTC

antisthenes wrote: post #90

umeshunni wrote: post #19

Job apps, especially if done on LinkedIn or on a company portal are essentially a black hole for your resume. The signal-to-noise ratio on applications that come in through that channel is so poor that unless you're a tiny company that gets only a handful of resumes, recruiters usually ignore them.

Company portal I agree, but LinkedIn? What if the recruiter reaches out to you and asks you to apply? Do you count that as a waste of time? In my experience, those have a much higher rate of response.

> but LinkedIn? What if the recruiter reaches out to you and asks you to apply?

I meant going to a company's LinkedIn profile and applying unsolicited.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#97

Post by umeshunni » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 8:53 PM UTC

rphv wrote: post #47

umeshunni wrote: post #19

Job apps, especially if done on LinkedIn or on a company portal are essentially a black hole for your resume. The signal-to-noise ratio on applications that come in through that channel is so poor that unless you're a tiny company that gets only a handful of resumes, recruiters usually ignore them.

Can you provide some data to support this? I’ve had good luck with applying through LinkedIn and company portals. What other channels are you thinking of?

In my experience, both as an applicant and a hiring manager, a warm introduction to a hiring manager or a referral works something like 10x better than an online application.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#98

Post by jmye » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 9:00 PM UTC

tennisflyi wrote: post #82

buildbot wrote: post #36

Have I been incredibly lucky my entire career? I don't think I've applied for more than 10 jobs at once. I have heard stories like this before - maybe the market has shifted drastically, or maybe spamming 2500 applications means each one is ... less good than one might think? Tailoring your application to each job has worked well for me at least. 46 Interviews is also a huge amount. I've done less than that my entire…

I’m not spending time to tailor my resume to get ghosted.

If not tailoring it still gets you interviews, then great. But if you're not getting interviews, and you're refusing to do basic things to help yourself, that seems silly and self-defeating, especially if it's an appealing role or company.

As a non-dev, I have between a 90-95% response rate when I do apply because I tailor my resume, and I apply to roles strategically and intentionally. I don't begrudge people who either have high success rates without doing that work, or who don't care about a lower success rate if it means spending less time on the process, but I don't get the people who hate the process so much that they intentionally torpedo themselves because of it.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#99

Post by javajosh » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 9:03 PM UTC

rickreynoldssf wrote: post #67

javajosh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of (morbid) curiosity - what was his objection to using a debugger?

Just that I used it at all. There's a contingent of engineers who feel using a debugger is a waste of time and or a sign of weakness. They're the ones who like to stare at code and "run it in their heads" and dump crazy amounts of "got here" into the logs. Evidently this guy is one of them.

Strange. Whenever I use a debugger I always get a lot out of it. The code never quite executes exactly the way you envision, even with passing tests. In Java, there is a strange emphasis on classes but I've always felt objects are more fundamental, and the debugger is the way to see them and their interactions.

Re: 2500 Job apps, 46 interviews, 1 offer

#100

Post by JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B » Mon, Jul 17, 2023, 9:08 PM UTC

rickreynoldssf wrote: post #48

I'm a 30+ year experience SWE. I had my own successful startup exit and after that I skipped FAANG to join the founding teams at other startups founded by Ex-FAANG big names. Unfortunately none of them panned out. I recently went through a series of interviews with a company that were dragged out over two months. Each went very well. My last interview was with a "Senior Engineer" who graduated in 2020 and had a littl…

You dodged a bullet. I’ve been coding for more than 20 and the difference between juniors and seniors is: seniors know how to use a debugger instead of randomly tweaking code and writing logs which is a massive waste of time.