
Why the Job Search Sucks - NetOpWibby
https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2017/why-the-job-search-sucks
======
kaspm
A candidate we passed on reached out and asked for more specific feedback
about why we passed. I happened to have some time over the holidays and agreed
to provide him with some additional information personally and to meet up for
coffee.

> It's not you: The first thing I told him was that 80% of whether you get
> hired at a company is nothing you can do anything about. It depends on the
> company, your skills, their needs gap, the timing, the manager, so if you're
> batting .200, that's pretty good.

The second thing was that there were some really basic stuff to make sure
you're doing every time you interview that you CAN control to narrow that gap
further:

> Dress: wear dark jeans, nice shoes, a button down dress shirt. This outfit
> is almost never "too fancy" or "too casual". If the company requires more
> fancy than that, might want to question if you're a good fit (unless you
> like wearing a suit _shudder_ )

> Give Specific Examples: Always try to start your answer with a summary, then
> give a specific example then abstract it into a generalized theory. Don't
> start with the generalized theory and never give specifics

> Know your stuff: If you list something on your resume, especially in a
> recent job, make sure you can not only explain it but that you have an
> opinion about it and that you've considered other opinions.

Edit: the outfit above applies mainly to men, I'm less versed in what the
equivalent would be for women. If someone wants to add that, I am sure it
would be helpful.

~~~
NetOpWibby
See? This! This would make the job search process a lil' less opaque.

~~~
SilasX
How? That's just general "how to do well" advice, it doesn't help explain
which of the reasons were relevant to a particular rejection.

And even that comment doesn't give an example of a shortcoming relative to one
of those bullet points.

I mean, from the comment it sounds like kaspm literally told the candidate:
"hey, sometimes it just doesn't work out, you should be glad at 'batting
.200'.". I don't see the actionable feedback.

~~~
kaspm
Ah sorry, this is a good point.

Edit: I added the specific examples of each item that I gave the candidate but
decided to remove them so as not to expose them publicly should this candidate
read hacker news.

People can PM me if they'd like to know more information about the way this
particular candidate could have benefited from the above.

~~~
web007
I'm interested in the details, but I don't see PM info in your bio.

Please reach out to twitter@web007 or ryan at geekportfolio with anything you
can share - I'm working on a side-side-side-project for increasing
employability, and this kind of info is exactly what I want to promote.

~~~
kaspm
I see that the contact info is private. Will do

------
bitcrusher
The level of pure bullshit that is part of the hiring process these days is
mind-boggling. An recent example:

I interviewed for company X, where I spent an entire day with more than a
dozen engineers, answering the same types of questions over and over again:
"Here's our platform, how would you fix it". At every turn, I would speak
about X,Y,Z issues that would need to be solved and how this or that
technology might be applicable in a broad case. Diligently, in every session,
the interviewers were taking copious amounts of notes about what I was
saying... NOT how I was doing on the interview, but rather, the content of
what I was saying. "How do you spell Corfu?" (as an example).

At the end, they told me they really liked me, and would have an offer for me
in the next day or two... Two days passed and they called with "We're sorry,
but you're just not technical enough for us".

I basically gave them a free day of consulting.

I'm not sure HOW to fix the problem, but it is definitely getting worse.

~~~
expertentipp
Encountered such situation couple of times. Pokerface interviewers asking in-
depth questions (e.g. domain knowledge, not necessarily data structures or
algorithm smartassery), with minimal feedback. Learning basically. Quite
cynical because it's good to talk basically, exchange knowledge and experience
- I've always taken it as a common sense. Once I detect pokerface jokers I
answer "no clue" for the simplest questions.

~~~
NetOpWibby
You made me realize I’ve been in interviews like that too. This is frustrating
to think about. I’m gonna try the “no clue” method with these people, the
interview’s a wash at that point.

------
dvt
I've been unemployed for ~4 months now (by choice) and it's been the best time
of my life. Yeah, I'm burning through my savings, but I can focus on projects
that make me happy, I can focus on honing skills I actually care about, and I
don't have to partake in endless meetings that serve no purpose whatsoever.

What I realized as I entered my 30s is that some people are _okay_ with that.
Some people are okay with endless streams of bullshit and office politics,
with building sub-par products, and with anxiety-inducing whiteboard
interviews. All they want is a paycheck and all is well. Last year, I
discovered that I'm _not_ one of those people. I tried hard to fit in that
mold and just _be happy_ \-- but what makes me happy is fundamentally at odds
with being a model "company man."

Why the job search sucks is that there's a lot more people in the former camp
than in the latter. It's the same reason why most people don't start
companies, don't try to write novels, and don't compose orchestras -- a
fundamental lack of creativity. Unless one of my projects really takes off,
I'll inadvertently have to get another "real job" soon, and even though I
loathe the process, I'm happy that this time away from work really helped me
reflect and figure out who I truly am.

~~~
NetOpWibby
Having the privilege of being unemployed _by choice_ sounds amazing.
Unfortunately, I was blindsided by my employment and didn't have enough to
just take it easy all this time. Thankfully, unemployment exists and I've been
able to pay my important bills on time.

This experience has reshaped how I think about savings though, that's for
sure.

------
codingdave
> At least I know not to waste my time waiting on you.

So don't. If they don't meet your communication expectations, then it isn't a
good match anyway. So don't wait. Move along.

> These tests and whiteboarding are not indicative of your skill level

No, they indicate your ability to work and talk through problems. I'm not sure
where this idea that whiteboarding is about skill level came from. You can
cram/study algorithms. But you can't fake the thinking process, or how you
approach a problem. You can't fake your communication style. And that is what
doing it in a stressful situation shows - how do you really think and
communicate under pressure?

> Maaaaan, go fuck yourself.

Hmm. OK, you are being honest about your feelings, but... does anyone ever get
a better result in their job search after ranting about it online? Does an
employer ever call you and say, "Well, we were on the fence, but after seeing
you F-bomb other companies, we decided we liked you!" I'd save these rants for
AFTER you get a job.

~~~
jaredcwhite
Not a fan of the OP's language, but in terms of the overall rant, actually I'm
absolutely going to be more interested in hiring somebody who is calling it
for what it is. Lengthy and convoluted interview processes and non sequitur
whiteboard sessions are the scourge of the industry. The more programmers
revolt and refuse to accept these bizarre practices, the better.

~~~
jarsin
The number 1 reason I don't actively look for new jobs anymore is because of
what the hiring process has become. I refuse to go through this BS unless I
absolutely have to.

All these companies screaming they can't get good candidates. IMO a major part
of it there are tons of people that no longer want to go through it so they
are not actively looking like they did in the old days.

These big tech companies have seriously damaged this entire industry with all
this bullshit. Yes I blamed the big companies because they get all the press
and everyone copies them.

------
barryhoodlum
"I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of tech
companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old
JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is
ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS."

You don't have experience 99% of employers want, and your response is to
stubbornly write it off as a fad? Maybe that's got something to do with it? If
you have zero experience, how do you know it's gross?

~~~
azangru
I am actually wondering how many readers of the blog post rolled their eyes
here. I am not saying that React is the best thing ever; there may be
different arguments against using it, but man, this "CSS in JS" (or,
alternatively, "HTML in JS") argument is not even funny anymore.

I would have discarded this as a meaningless complaint coming from a hardcore
backend developer who is repeating the principles of single responsibility and
separation of concerns he has heard in older days and has not yet had a chance
to realize that a component is no lesser way of thinking about separation of
concerns than an html or a css file. But judging by the appearance of the blog
site, the author is a frontend developer, with pretty decent skills. I am
confused.

~~~
Clubber
As a mostly back end developer, snazzy front end templates are either cheap or
free.

~~~
magnetic
Could you please provide some pointers to those? Thx.

~~~
Clubber
Google "free html5 templates" or replace html5 with your preferred framework.
Here's one.

[https://themewagon.com/theme_tag/free/](https://themewagon.com/theme_tag/free/)

~~~
magnetic
Thanks!

------
zer00eyz
FTA: "These tests and whiteboarding are not indicative of your skill level,
they are approximations of what you can do with what is likely to be limited
information and ambiguous scope."

If I'm going to make you get up at a white board (and I might) it isn't going
to be to write code on it. We don't hand designers white board markers and say
"draw monkey draw" \- because it isn't their medium and neither is it ours.

If I am going to get you up at the white board it is going to be to show me a
diagram (probably database) or how you think something "should flow" (boxes
and arrows) to see if you can COMMUNICATE a concept. If you can't do that then
we have issues -- because at some point your going to have to do that very
thing to convey an idea to a colleague and if you can't we have a PROBLEM.
There isn't really a "right" answer to this setup, but there are plenty of
wrong ones - ones that show you either lack basic knowledge or communication
skills needed to do the job.

~~~
matthew3
I like this explanation, I hadn't put it into words before but it feels
intuitively correct. For most positions, your ability to communicate what
you're doing to the rest of the team is _way_ more important than your ability
to write fancy code, or do something like a sample project that isn't our
actual day-to-day-codebase. That communication is what's going to keep the
team disciplined design wise, keep things consistent, and keep the codebase
extensible. And keep morale up since everybody is capable of getting on the
same page with everybody.

Dealing with ambiguous scope is the single biggest thing I want in a
candidate, so if you don't like dealing with that, you're not going to like
working with me anyway. But here's the thing, from my perspective: when's the
last time you worked with product or business people who gave you 100% perfect
information and specs up-front and then didn't change them? If you can build
in a way that allows for future change based on the needs of the
team/company/market, then you're very valuable.

> I've never met someone who performs exceptionally well with thinking on the
> spot in front of people they've never met when the grand prize is gainful
> employment.

I also want to know, based on this line, _how many people the author has
interviewed themselves._ Cause I've interviewed a few (it's at least in the
100+ area) and have seen as many people do well in that sort of environment as
have frozen up. Not uncommon for them to do better than I'd expect myself to
do, either, algorithmically - but neither does that always translate directly
to an offer, if they're bad at the communication or wrinkle-handling parts.

------
dmm
""" I state upfront that I have zero React experience because 99.999999% of
tech companies want someone with 18 years of experience with a four-year-old
JavaScript framework. I'm being facetious here but that requirement is
ridiculous for a fad. Writing CSS in JS? GROSS. """

React is just a library for mapping state to ui elements, right? I've been
using react and all of my css lives in separate .css files. Is that not
typical?

Maybe they are just venting frustration but maybe blowing off what employers
want is indicative of other issues or a bad attitude.

------
phantom_oracle
The reference point for gaining employment is that dude who wrote Homebrew and
got rejected by Google for being unable to "invert a binary tree on a
whiteboard" [1]

Unfortunately with this and many other articles I've read on HN over the
years, the common theme is that decent/good programmers are not making it past
HR.

Everyone that wants to work in tech should instead navigate through the
meetup/social space and build up a decent network for this kind of thing.

Anecdotally, at 1 interview I went for, I knew the hiring manager and our
"interview" was a 15 minute casual chat. That's it.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768](https://twitter.com/mxcl/status/608682016205344768)

~~~
matthew3
Maybe I've been just unlucky with how many times I've had to google for weird
"brew doctor" type incantations to make it happy, or with how (un)smoothly
I've found it + a Mac compared to using real actual Linux, but is it outside
the realm of possibility that you can make something a lot of people find
useful for some situations _and still not necessarily be qualified for or
entitled to every job out there_?

If it's truly because there was an algorithm question with no correlation to
what the team worked on, that sucks. But I've seen the other side of enough of
these rants to take any single anecdote with a giant grain of salt.

There's a few potential audiences for rants like this, but most of them are
unproductive. Other frustrated people don't have influence to change things,
and hiring managers _not_ experiencing hiring issues don't have incentive to
listen to you. The group you need to find, if this is how you're feeling, is
the hiring managers who _aren 't_ having luck right now. Maybe because their
company doesn't have as much name recognition, or as much money to offer, or a
sexy office location in the Bay Area, whatever. They're gonna need to expand
their pool to compete, and that's where potential matches are. It takes a lot
more leg work and sales work of the "here's why I don't fit exactly what
you're looking for but why you should be confident in my ability to get there
fast" variety, but it can be accomplished - I did it about 7 years ago,
myself, to get from the land of "boring jobs" to the land of "interesting jobs
building 'interesting' experience," and have seen other people pull off the
same path since then. You also generally will do better starting in a smaller
environment like that with more face time with the key players in the company,
than as another line-level cog at BigCompany.

~~~
Cyberdog
> Maybe I've been just unlucky with how many times I've had to google for
> weird "brew doctor" type incantations to make it happy, or with how
> (un)smoothly I've found it + a Mac compared to using real actual Linux,

Have you tried MacPorts? But more to the point…

> but is it outside the realm of possibility that you can make something a lot
> of people find useful for some situations and still not necessarily be
> qualified for or entitled to every job out there?

Let's drop the dig regarding entitlement for a moment. Shipping a nontrivial
tool like Homebrew and getting pretty much every Mac power user (except me and
a handful of other MacPorts holdouts) using it should show far more
qualification for an engineering position than inverting a binary tree on a
whiteboard. Software is a complete system and process involving decisions and
unsolved problems, even if those problems are "how do we solve these problems
in a better way than they are already;" inverting binary trees is… an
algorithm. One I can probably find with ten seconds and a search engine should
I ever need it.

Granted, perhaps Google was hiring for a position where knowing how to invert
a binary tree off the top of your head is crucial. Who knows. And I'm sure
there are people out there who know that as well as how to create, ship, and
maintain a useful product. But if I personally were looking for someone to
hire, I know which would impress me more.

By the way, for those wondering, if you're ever asked to invert a binary tree
on a whiteboard, here's how to do it:

1\. Draw binary tree on whiteboard

2\. Remove whiteboard from wall

3\. Rotate whiteboard 180 degrees

4\. Reattach whiteboard to wall

INTERVIEWHACK

------
ResearchAtPlay
When looking through job postings I watch out for this type of statement:
“Only short-listed candidates will be contacted.” which means that I can’t
expect any reply if I am not selected for an interview. Dear recruiters, this
is not OK, ever!

I put a day or two into a job application. (Which may be excessive, but it
leads to a high conversion rate). Preparation includes researching the
company, their products and projects, their history and my possible
contribution – and tailoring my application package to their needs. If the
company can’t be bothered to write me a short email “Nope, sorry. HR.” then
that company is not worth my time.

In effect, “Only short-listed candidates will be contacted” tells me: “1) We
are too lazy or incompetent to set up a mass email reply. 2) We don’t care
about candidates enough to save them the time and stress of unnecessary
follow-ups.” By extension, I will assume that company does not care about its
employees either and has effectively disqualified itself from my becoming a
part of their team.

------
ronilan
Employers should be required, by law, to compensate interviewees for their
time at a rate equivalent to the job for which they are interviewing.

(Macdonald’s, Goldman Sachs, line cook, VP legal, same law, everyone,
everywhere)

~~~
cantrip
Well then I would be a professional job candidate. I could easily fill my time
with $300k+ job interviews that I can pass a phone screen for but am not fully
qualified for.

~~~
ronilan
First, good for you. Second, if the transfer of wealth from employers with
300k+ jobs to the public does not lead them to change their practices, than
even better for you. Go get the money. But, for the vast majority of people
and employers, your special case is irrelevant.

There exists a very inefficient, unbalanced social practice. Needs a
regulatory nudge. Simple law. California goes first. The world follows.
Onwards.

~~~
cantrip
The interview process would certainly change as a result, so who knows if one
could interview full time sustainably.

But I don't think it's a special case. Good software developers are by nature
great at hacking systems and plenty of them would find it more profitable to
keep interviewing rather than work a regular job.

If it does need a regulatory nudge, paying people to interview is the most
naive way to do this.

~~~
ronilan
“They say we offer naive answers to complex problems.”

Just paraphrasing something from my sons leadership project ;)

~~~
cantrip
Google tells me you're misquoting Hucci lyrics.

~~~
ronilan
I think you are misreading the SERP.

------
thenewestkid
It was nice to randomly find your name here (: Good luck with the interviews,
I totally agree with your points. Your blog improved a lot since I last
checked it! (The NX framework guy)

~~~
NetOpWibby
Haha, hey man! Yeah, I've been improving it bit by bit.

------
jph
If you can imagine each interview as a good way to learn about the people at
the company, and also about the company's processes, then you can triage as
you wish.

As an example you could ask openly about the company's hiring processes,
rankings, followups, and the like. If you receive answers that satisfy your
preferences, that's great; otherwise, you can move on to prepare for the next
company.

~~~
NetOpWibby
Y'know what jph? I'm gonna try that.

------
PretzelFisch
I hate not getting feedback and the time it takes now to interview. On the
other side of the desk, I have regretted not putting up the same code
challenge and whiteboard sessions with people I interviewed and hired.

~~~
NetOpWibby
Yep, it's a massive time sink. I'd want tips on how to make that time _matter_
or be utilized better.

------
apple4ever
He makes a lot of good points, many which I have experienced and resolved to
never do.

All my applicants know within a few days of whether they are getting an
interview.

All my first round interviewees know the next day if they are getting a second
round interview.

All my second round interviewees know the next day if they are hired.

As you see above, there is only two rounds. There isn't any white boarding,
because I find it a waste. For web developers, I ask a very simple one page
site to make.

I try hard to make sure the applicants at least know where they stand pretty
quick. Because I've been on the other side of that.

~~~
NetOpWibby
Your last point is quite telling.

I think a majority of the people making hiring decisions in these companies
have never been where I'm at (and where you've been).

------
tschellenbach
This is an area were AI could really help improve discovery. I see more and
more job sites leverage personalized feed technology similar to the Facebook
and YouTube. One could argue its perhaps more useful for job sites :) Also
check out this blogpost: [https://getstream.io/blog/personalized-job-feeds-
machine-lea...](https://getstream.io/blog/personalized-job-feeds-machine-
learning/)

------
ionforce
Isn't this one of those asymmetry things where the hiring company has no
incentive to make the process pleasant? They hold all the power/keys etc.

Before people jump in with "what about negative Glassdoor reviews" or
"negative reputation", I'm saying that all things taken into account, the
equation is still in favor of the company.

I don't know.

~~~
Chyzwar
It is complicated. My team is trying to hire but it is almost impossible to
get a decent candidate. It is a massive time sink and still depends more on
luck than anything else.

~~~
ryandrake
The hiring market is like a disfunctional dating market: A whole bunch of
mediocre singles complaining they can't find supermodels of the opposite (or
their preferred) sex.

~~~
ionforce
So there should be optimal pairing... I guess the problem is if both sides are
exercising minimums. "I don't want the best of the shitty programmers
remaining, I want someone with at least this much experience."

I don't want some random company, I want a supermodel!

------
RafiZ
Job search sucks for many reasons and for the most part it's the hiring
companies to blame for. However, this is a given situation which will not
change any time soon. Instead of ranting, candidates should put some time in
researching what the companies they're applying to are looking for and act
accordingly - e.g. personalize their resume to match job descriptions,
anticipate interview questions and do mock interviews. Some resources that can
help in the process:

[1] [https://www.glassdor.com](https://www.glassdor.com) (to find out
interview questions asked by companies)

[2] [https://www.jobscan.co](https://www.jobscan.co) (to optimize your resume
against job descriptions)

[3] [https://www.pramp.com](https://www.pramp.com) (a peer-to-peer mock
interviewing platform for software engineers)

------
tahw
The job search sucks for this guy because he's a front end developer that
isn't keeping up with front end developer trends. Which is the thing people
pay front end developers to do.

~~~
NetOpWibby
Actually, it sucks for a lot of people. Keeping up with trends !== building a
todo app with said trend. Do you really expect anyone to create a new app with
the new hotness every time a "Show HN: My framework" is announced?

~~~
scarface74
Yes. If there are people who are getting hired over him. It's not about what's
fair.

~~~
NetOpWibby
That still doesn’t equal years of experience.

------
sheeshkebab
I think the answer to age bias (that author referred to) is remote work. No
one gives a shit how old you are if all you need is code, slack, email, and
zoom/webex.

Or so is my experience.

~~~
pinewurst
Speaking as a mostly remote worker, you still have to get by a lot of the
screening BS - and commonly awful HR treatment - before you can start work.
Also many places think they can pay a lot less for a remote person.

~~~
neosavvy
Do you use many of the services like Hired / Vettery or Remote seeking these
gigs?

I'll be honest I just haven't put much effort into it quite yet - still trying
to arrange a few other projects in the event one of them takes off.

I am just resided to the "if it doesn't exist - make it yourself" but it sure
is taking a lot of patience out of me to make it so.

~~~
pinewurst
I've not had good luck with Hired, but I haven't been a developer in quite a
long time. Mostly it's been "make it yourself" which is unfortunate, I agree.

------
NetOpWibby
OP here, I just realized the year slug was 2017 and it's clearly 2018. Updated
link is here: [https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2018/why-the-job-search-
sucks](https://thewebb.blog/thoughts/2018/why-the-job-search-sucks)

Thanks for the insightful responses!

------
gwbas1c
One thing about feedback: Too much feedback helps candidates game the system.
This ultimately leads to bad hires, who end up getting fired. It hurts the
process overall.

When interviewing with a good interviewer, he (or she) knows that whiteboard
sessions / tests / projects are just hypothetical situations. If I throw an
unfamiliar API in front of you, and you ask certain wrong questions, I know
you're not going to work out. If you "get it" and can move forward, I know
you're going to be able to learn all the weirdo stuff that you need to learn
in order to do the job.

But, something I learned when I was in a similar situation: Companies that
demand a LOT of upfront, grueling time in the interview process should be
avoided. Once a call drags out beyond 45 minutes, or the coding test is just
too time consuming, it's time to walk away.

Regarding whiteboarding, if the candidate argues with me about why we're using
a particular API, I pretty much reject the candidate. (No, we can't use the
new threading API, I want to see how you can learn this API. No, we can't use
an ORM, I want to make sure that you understand how to use a database.)

~~~
ryandrake
> Regarding whiteboarding, if the candidate argues with me about why we're
> using a particular API, I pretty much reject the candidate. (No, we can't
> use the new threading API, I want to see how you can learn this API. No, we
> can't use an ORM, I want to make sure that you understand how to use a
> database.)

YUCK. One of the first things I will do when presented with a technical
scenario is start questioning the problem's parameters, including API choice.

Interviewer: "Show me how you'd store a list of items in C++." Me: "Well,
depending on the expected usage pattern I'd reach for one of the standard
library's containers like std::list since it is time tested, robust, and comes
with the compiler." Interviewer: "No, er, I mean if you don't have
std::list... I want to know you can implement something from scratch." Me: "Am
I really going to be working on a project without the language's library?? You
generally don't want someone's hand-rolled linked list in production code."

I guess not wanting to waste the company's time re-implementing a wheel makes
me a bad candidate.

~~~
neosavvy
I've been forced to implement atoi and itoa functions in interviews, and
albeit I agree with you that it's silly, I think they are just looking for a
positive attitude.

I try to hype myself up with a "thank you sir may I have another" once I get
through solving what I think is a silly question.

I remember being asked to solve a linked list problem with callbacks in JS
where a service returned a Node and the API call to the next node in a list.

I had to just build a function to traverse the async list - I'd have wanted to
just redesign that API, but instead I had to solve their silly problem.

I got the job, and it was all due to forcing myself to have a positive
attitude and being happy to solve the problems vs questioning why one would
ask it.

~~~
NetOpWibby
That...sounds absolutely dreadful. I'm happy for you but that doesn't sound
like my cup of tea.

~~~
neosavvy
I think it just happens when younger folks do the interviewing, they don't
know how to interview so they grasp for what they know.

Just seems that every big firm does it. Recently I had a take-home assignment
- spend like a week at night working on it only to be kind of insulted by the
folks who interviewed me. They didn't even spend 5 whole minutes looking over
my work. I was far more frustrated with that than I was being asked to
implement a Linked List in front of someone on the spot.

------
expertentipp
> Writing CSS in JS? GROSS.

Similarly jsx is writing HTML in JS. The whole evolution of web was to
separate, modularize, componentize the concepts (DOMs, CSS, JS, HTML5 APIs,
templates etc.), what on fucking earth happened?

~~~
ng12
The goalposts moved. We went from building websites to building SPAs, and the
biggest problem there was reusing/abstracting/modularizing logic.

------
huydotnet
Hey, just wanna stop by to say hi! I was in the same situation, the company I
working for ran out of cash for no reason and I got no paycheck since November
too :(

~~~
NetOpWibby
Damn, that sucks. I hope we both find an awesome place to work soon!

------
jsoc815
> Coding/design tests

Left tech years ago, but assumed that many/some of those tests and sample
projects were employer attempts to procure free labor w/o any of the burdens
(liability) of internships and employment.

> Rounds of interviews

Perhaps its helpful to look at the whole process from a different vantage
point. Saw an article on CNBC a few days ago about the importance of,
essentially, seeming desperate and wholly committed to whatever position it is
one is applying/interviewing for. Seem too smart... too ambitious... have
options for doing something else if this doesn't work out... etc? Don't expect
to get hired. I can actually attest to that.

Anyway, the implication is that if you are still available and willing to go
through rounds of interviews, you probably aren't 'all that desirable' in the
first place. Yes, there is some irony there. But I know this having spoken w/
a # of HR people.

> Feedback:

\-- Dear Paul,
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
NO.--

Yeah, that would be, at a minimum, courteous, but... Workers are for the most
part, commodities. As such, feedback isn't merited. Could say more here, but
won't.

> How to deal

Obviously, each person's situation is different, but my experience tells me
the best solution is to position oneself for independence (as much as is
possible in a society). While in my last job, I pretty much decided that I'd
focus on (hopefully) not needing another job. And while I didn't get
everything right, I think that mindset and planning was instrumental in me
pretty much being able to walk away from a job market that is pretty stacked
against the typical applicant.

I know tech is supposedly immune to such stacking, but... Last year I listened
to an applicant's conversation with a recruiter. The applicant was getting
robbed, so much so that a guy, who I think was/is homeless, told the applicant
as much. I mean are people really going through all this work to get paid
$25/hr... in California???

Yikes!

------
angarg12
But, why does job search sucks?

I feel like I need to hear the other side of the story to get the full
picture.

~~~
Clubber
Companies can't tell the difference, get bad candidates and are then afraid to
fire them, even in "at will" states.

Companies think this rigamarole will separate good candidates from bad
candidates.

------
gloryless
The tone of this whole post tells the actual story.

~~~
NetOpWibby
You sound like the dismissive companies I ranted about.

------
justherefortart
Filling out 7000 fields on taleo is comical.

It's why I use the hated recruiters now. I get to skip the BS of applying
online. (At the employer's expense too!)

I miss the old days, you submitted your resume, then they called you for an
interview. You interviewed and either got hired or didn't (they'd typically
call and say if you didn't).

Why we need 80 layers of BS between the job seekers and employers is beyond
me. I've also never seen a competent HR person in my 20+ years of working in
IT. If you can't tell by their resume, HR isn't going to give you anything
more so skip that stupid step as well.

~~~
scarface74
Why the "hated" recruiters. Only once in the past 20 years have I even thought
about getting a job without a recruiter. I applied for 17 jobs through
recruiters in my last job search and I knew the technology stack and the
salary they were willing to pay before ever starting the process. Out of the
17, only one wasn't interested in starting the process, I got three offers
within a month and none of the other 12 rejected me, I took myself out of the
running when I found a company I liked.

At no point was I just twiddling my thumbs waiting to hear back. The
recruiters always knew where I was in the process. One day, I had 6 phone
screens with different companies. Another day, I had a morning interview and
an evening interview.

I'm not trying to brag about myself, when you have a recruiter it's just so
much easier finding jobs you are qualified for. They've also worked with the
company before so they can prep you a little more for the interview.

Also, you hardly ever walk into an interview knowing whether the salary you
are expecting is in line with what they are willing to pay without a
recruiter.

~~~
bb88
I concur.

1) Every time I talk with a recruiter, salary is the first thing brought up.
It saves so much time to go through an interview process only to find out
they're going to pay you 30% below market value.

2) A recruiter brings you an job position that you did not know about in the
first place usually. There are thousands of companies in an area, and not all
of them post to the job boards you're looking at.

3) Using the recruiter means the company is motivated to filling that
position. They need someone now and the usual means of getting people in to
interview in that company is broken.

4) Developing a relationship with a recruiter is valuable, because they know
what's hot, and what companies are willing to pay.

