Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#91

Post by steve1977 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:25 PM UTC

gcanyon wrote: post #82

adeon wrote: post #35

The author says they've been applying to thousands of jobs. This is the resume the author is linking in the article: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v2sv6ev393z9fkk62v1hw/Paul-Fu... I wonder, if this person's main method of applying has been online forms where you click the "upload resume", he puts this resume in and then everything fails from the start because the ATS is unable to read it. It looks like the text in t…

When I was applying, I had a situation where sometimes the ATS system would show me as Geoff and other times as Geo, with no clue why. Obviously, that's not a fatal issue, but it was indicative of other problems with my résumé, and I saw those in the auto-generated job histories. Pixelmator Pro just released a feature where it can open PDFs to show you the internal structure. I opened my résumé and sure enough "Geoff…

How did you create the PDF? Sounds a bit like the ff is a ligature (i.e. not simply two f’s, but like one special character consisting of two f’s)

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ligature_(writing)

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#92

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:25 PM UTC

gcanyon wrote: post #82

adeon wrote: post #35

The author says they've been applying to thousands of jobs. This is the resume the author is linking in the article: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v2sv6ev393z9fkk62v1hw/Paul-Fu... I wonder, if this person's main method of applying has been online forms where you click the "upload resume", he puts this resume in and then everything fails from the start because the ATS is unable to read it. It looks like the text in t…

When I was applying, I had a situation where sometimes the ATS system would show me as Geoff and other times as Geo, with no clue why. Obviously, that's not a fatal issue, but it was indicative of other problems with my résumé, and I saw those in the auto-generated job histories. Pixelmator Pro just released a feature where it can open PDFs to show you the internal structure. I opened my résumé and sure enough "Geoff…

[deleted]

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#93

Post by hyperman1 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:27 PM UTC

adeon wrote: post #35

The author says they've been applying to thousands of jobs. This is the resume the author is linking in the article: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v2sv6ev393z9fkk62v1hw/Paul-Fu... I wonder, if this person's main method of applying has been online forms where you click the "upload resume", he puts this resume in and then everything fails from the start because the ATS is unable to read it. It looks like the text in t…

I got the advice to imagify all the text in resumes, because some recruiters would 'upgrade' the text before sending it to companies. Next thing you know, you have 5 new skills for things you've never heard about that somehow happen to perfectly match whatever $random_corporation$ needs.

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#94

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:28 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #70

adeon wrote: post #35

The author says they've been applying to thousands of jobs. This is the resume the author is linking in the article: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/v2sv6ev393z9fkk62v1hw/Paul-Fu... I wonder, if this person's main method of applying has been online forms where you click the "upload resume", he puts this resume in and then everything fails from the start because the ATS is unable to read it. It looks like the text in t…

Any good resume submission system should be capable of OCR. But what is this guy? Sounds like he's a designer, a communications specialist, team leader, and project manager. Just all over the place. I'm not sure what I'd hire them for. Edit: why disagree?

[deleted]

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#95

Post by tennisflyi » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:28 PM UTC

tkiolp4 wrote: post #13

Im my more than 10 years of experience as a software engineer, I’ve never used once indeed.com. It always looked to me as a place where 90% or more of the job ads are either scam or of very little quality.

> very little quality

Even then you get nothing - just ghosted.

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#96

Post by rvbissell » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:29 PM UTC

hdjjhhvvhga wrote: post #12

> Now, it’s pretty early to be dropping an Einstein quote, but I’m doing it anyway: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” While the quote is catchy and viral, and fits many situations, Einstein has never said that. Call me biased, but when you work in tech, you need to be precise.

"Don't believe anything you read on the internet" -- Abraham Lincoln

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#97

Post by WirelessGigabit » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:29 PM UTC

Indeed is a virus that needs to die as soon as possible.

It has contributed to a situation where a normal resume now is worthless. It has caused massive inflation of what we write.

Everybody who doesn't excel at selling themselves ends up lower on the chain. But that absolutely doesn't mean they're a bad fit for the job.

And then there are the stupid personality tests. What are they looking for if I have to click the same buttons on 2 separate screens?

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#98

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

Want to start by saying I do really empathize with this person. But I can't help but shake my head a little when I read way too unnecessarily long missives like this (I admit, I only got a couple of paragraphs in before I bailed) and think "this person just doesn't get it."

Some points:

1. First, to start, I have a ton of empathy for this person being in an extremely challenging field. He essentially did internal communications for JP Morgan for the last 10 years of their career or so. Any sort of "content creation" role that doesn't have a direct tie to revenue is going to be under the knife at most companies these days. These roles are also the ones that are most in jeopardy due to AI/ChatGPT. There was a recent Washington Post article where it highlighted some copywriters who basically lost their jobs to ChatGPT. It's not "coming", it's already here.

2. Small not-so-secret: if you are beyond the age of 30 or so, and you are a relatively high level professional (this person listed VP on his resume), you should be worried if you don't think you'd be able to get your next job through your professional network. That is, most jobs at this level may put out a job req on Indeed (often for legal reasons), but it's likely to be filled by a referral. Even if it's not a referral, it's very likely that the applicant knows someone through their network (even if a degree or two away) that can serve as a better reference.

Whenever I see missives like this where the author is semi-baffled their "Send my resume to 1000 open positions" approach didn't work, I'm not surprised.

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#99

Post by tennisflyi » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

valdiorn wrote: post #45

How come I keep reading these types of posts, hearing these stories, yet I've never experienced anything remotely close to this? Job hunting has always been the opposite for me; being inundated by sharks trying to aggressively recruit me. --- For reference; here's a quick summary of my job history: Mid 20s, I was working for a retail bank in Iceland (where I'm from), doing ASP.NET and C#. With about 4 years of experi…

You're desirable. Congrats. (Of course you don't recognize it.) Most people are most people/average trying to eke out a living .

Re: Why Resumes Are Dead and How Indeed.com Keeps Killing the Job Market

#100

Post by mightybyte » Sun, Sep 17, 2023, 7:33 PM UTC

Some years ago I was moving to a different state and looking for a job. I ended up doing interviews at six different companies. Five of those came from direct personal connections (mostly via coworkers) and one came from generic search / cold application. After the interviews, I got five offers. The only place that didn't give me an offer was the one from the generic search. It also paid significantly less than the others and simply didn't seem as interesting. My takeaway is that cultivating a network of people who you've worked with and enjoy is invaluable for increasing your options when you come to new decision points in your career.