
200k people applied for jobs at Amazon in a single week - onetimemanytime
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/200000-people-applied-for-30000-open-jobs-at-amazon-in-a-single-week/
======
rshnotsecure
This is not unusual. My spouse works for Glassdoor. Entry level programmer
jobs in Texas will get 2000 applications (not bots) within about 72 hours.
Desperate people from all over the US.

I think at one time the advice to “play the numbers game” was correct for
online job apps. Not anymore.

Even more saddening, Glassdoor uses a temp/test sample job ad. It’s for cat
sitting. $15/hr. That will get hundreds of apps in 48 hours if someone forgets
to take it down (is only supposed to go up for 60 mins max but things happen).

~~~
cdolan
Not to hijack, but do you or your spouse have an opinion on the WSJ story
about companies intensely curating their reviews (maybe even
paying/threatening the employees and/or Glassdoor)?

I noticed a local company I follow had fluctuating review counts between
30-45. I wrote a web scraper to see if reviews were being taken down, and for
this company, over 20 1 or 2 star reviews have been taken down, but any new 5
star reviews stay.

~~~
ben1040
I used to work for a place where, during the 60 or 90 day check-in with HR
after you got hired, HR would put a hard sell on you to write a Glassdoor
review.

It had the effect of flooding it with 4 and 5 star reviews from people who
hasn't been around long enough to see any downsides to their job.

Meanwhile, as the company began imploding, the folks jumping ship mostly
didn't bother to write a 1 star review on the way out.

~~~
rapind
I experienced this too. In fact it was within the first couple weeks of being
hired that you were _encouraged_ to post to Glassdoor (and a Linkedin post
that they curated).

Definitely rubbed me the wrong way, but besides that they were really great
people. I don't know if they realize what bad taste this is, just don't care,
or if it's really just one person with too much influence creating policy.

This was a while ago, so I can only imagine it's become more prevalent. I've
come to believe this is pretty much accepted behaviour for SV companies, and I
wouldn't put much weight into Glassdoor reviews beyond just checking for red
flags.

~~~
ben1040
I've also definitely sorted by date on Glassdoor and ignored any reviews that
looked like they were posted all at once.

On more than one occasion I've seen a blistering one star review, followed by
a bunch of positive reviews that all came in within days. It was clearly a
situation where someone at the company saw the low score, had an "uh-oh
moment," and called in the cavalry to write positive reviews.

------
tryitnow
Great clickbait. The first sentence provides crucial context - Amazon wants to
hire 30K. So they had, on average, about 7 applications for every job.

That actually doesn't seem so great.

It's even less impressive when it's incredibly easy to get a ton of low-
quality matches when recruiting.

So if Amazon execs wanted to tout a big number of applications they could just
advertise these positions in a wildly aggressive way so as to get a ton of
poor quality matches. And I'm willing to bet this is exactly what they did.

This actually makes me a lot less inclined to work at Amazon - it seems like
they're just playing a numbers game, not really trying to recruit for cultural
fit.

I wonder how many of these people will be laid off within 3 years of being
hired.

~~~
simonh
They were hiring in 6 cities, so that's an average of 30k applicants per
location. That's a heck of a lot for a single community, even in a large city.
How many businesses get tens of thousands of job applicants at a single
location?

One of the locations is Arlington Virginia, the future location of HQ2, but
they're only hiring 400 there now. In future they expect that will go up to
24k, which is about 10% of the population of the city!

~~~
dwild
Sure 10% of that city, but there's quite a bit more population in under 30
minutes of driving.

I did a 15 miles radius arround Arlington on that tool [1] and it say
2,787,933 people, thus closer to 1% of the population.

[1] [https://www.freemaptools.com/find-
population.htm](https://www.freemaptools.com/find-population.htm)

------
df
on the other hand - I can't imagine I'm the only person to have been getting
quite a few "come work for us" emails from Amazon via LinkedIn recently (two
in the last month, six in the last year). The solicitations do not appear to
be very carefully targeted - they seem to mention everything from machine
learning to mobile app development.

~~~
aripickar
I’ve gotten those and I work for Amazon. The recruiters spam everyone.

~~~
harry8
and trash amazon's reputation.

Can't even do a mail merge from 1983, wow, AI ML expertise at amazon on show
there. I bet it makes you feel valued as an employee too.

------
harry8
Is that an audited number? Smells like a corporate pr piece...

~~~
jdc
Bingo.

[https://www.google.com/search?q="Thousands+of+job-
seekers+fl...](https://www.google.com/search?q="Thousands+of+job-
seekers+flocked+to+one+of+those+employment+fairs+this+week+in+Arlington+County,+Virginia"&filter=0)

~~~
klohto
Current media recycles headlines to save on work cost. When you have to churn
out 20 articles per day, you don’t have many options left. This doesn’t prove
anything.

~~~
jdc
It's good enough for me unless someone can show that the sites in the results
are owned by the same company.

Edit: The articles seem to be completely identical. That's a _lot_ of
recycling!

~~~
filmgirlcw
CBS offers a wire-service of sorts to many of its affiliates so the same story
is reposted lots of different places, similar to the AP.

~~~
conjectures
'Wire-service' as C20 jargon for copy pasta.

~~~
filmgirlcw
No...it’s a syndication agreement.

------
zxcvbn4038
Sounds more likely jobs offered in one of the rural areas. I love shopping
Amazon and I love their technology even more but their work/life balance is
terrible. Their tech guys live in fear, real fear, of being someplace without
WiFi. I’d probably only last a year - I go to all the parent/teacher
conferences at my kids school and that clearly goes against the grain at
Amazon.

~~~
noego
Everyone I know at Amazon works 8 hour days, completely disconnect when they
finish with work, and have tons of flexibility for working from home when
family related issues arise.

I don't doubt that you know specific people who are having the opposite
experience - Amazon culture varies a lot based on which vp/director you work
for. But your friends' experience isn't indicative of all tech employees.

~~~
burger_moon
I worked for Amazon until earlier this year. They worked everyone hard as
fuck. Even principal engineers worked nights and weekends. It was the worst
experience of my life.

For people reading these comments you need to understand these people who say
it's blown out of wack and FUD (lmao no) it isn't. And typically the people
who get themselves into positions where their job is butter at Amazon is
because they threw a bodies on the fire to get there.

It's an awful company to work for if you're a deg. It's even worse if you're a
warehouse employee.

When people go on the record stating they have to piss in Gatorade bottle
because they don't get sufficient bathroom breaks it's not FUD it's a shitty
employer. /Rant

~~~
noego
Why do you think that your anecdote should trump someone else's? I know a
large number of people working at Amazon, and they have had the opposite
experience as what you're describing. Making vast generalizations like _" They
worked everyone hard as fuck. Even principal engineers worked nights and
weekends"_ are so ridiculous, they just make you sound silly to anyone in the
know.

------
theomega
Only slightly related: If I open the link on my iOS device, music playing
stops (Spotify). Somehow CBS manages with their useless auto play videos to
kill my background music playing. Should this be possible? I thought there is
no auto play video on IOS?

~~~
bobsoap
On Android, in Firefox, they cover the bottom third of the screen with a
permanent notification that you can't close and contains two links: open in
CBS app, and open in Chrome.

Looks like they don't really want my traffic. Oh well.

~~~
jnmandal
What's funny is actually that "chrome" option was just a stand in for
"browser". I was also in Firefox and I clicked "continue in chrome" and the
notification just went away. IIRC Reddit was first site to do this.

------
domnomnom
For 30k open positions

~~~
rokalakt
Less than 4 applicants per seat. Pretty low.

~~~
gberger
Huh? 200,000 / 30,000 = 6.667 _

~~~
raxxorrax
Huh? 200,000 / 30,000 = 6.667

I firmly believe we are getting closer and closer to the truth here...

~~~
ddalex
6.666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666666

------
astura
If they have this many applicants then why are their recruiters always
contacting me on LinkedIn? Is everyone applying really junior?

~~~
mindfulplay
I would imagine they have one of the highest attrition rates ever for any tech
company.

I am a lifelong Amazon customer but choose never to be an employee of theirs.

~~~
GreenJelloShot
> I would imagine they have one of the highest attrition rates ever for any
> tech company.

Pretty much this.

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hi41
My friend’s wife took almost 8 months to find a production support job. Why
are jobs so hard to get these days? Is it because competition is so high and
for a single job there are 20 applicants?

~~~
jimbob45
\- H1Bs are cheaper to hire and take the place of American jobs (though to a
far lesser degree than you'll hear during this upcoming election

\- Everyone is preparing for a recession (for the last three years now)

\- Jobs are posted online and get tons of applicants now. That makes it easier
to switch cities and not have to go through a period of unemployment but that
also means they get tons of applicants. Are many of them bots? You bet.

~~~
azemda
>Are many of them bots? You bet.

Why would someone create bots that apply to jobs? Just nuisance or any
intention behind it?

~~~
droidist2
Bots? Andrew Yang is right, the robots are gunning for our jobs!

------
peter303
There are people who prefer seasonal work. Maybe Xmas and summer gigs with
rest of year off. Read the book Nomadland for details.

~~~
brosinante
The industry has disconnected itself so much from actual human beings that
"There are people who prefer seasonal work" is a valid response.

~~~
rb808
My wife does seasonal work. Retail related in last few months of year and tax
stuff in tax season. She then has Summer off, its great.

------
avgDev
I had a recruiter reach out to me 3 times now about the job in the new HQ at
the alexa team. I'm not interested but I am not surprised so many are
applying. Amazon is hiring really aggressively right now.

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thorwasdfasdf
I'm just glad their new headquarters isn't in New York or California: that
would've been terrible. Arlington housing prices are already at 500$/sq foot.
i really think they could've still picked a better place.

------
williamDafoe
People are listening to too much government propaganda. The percentage of
Americans employed is actually EXTREMELY low! The gov press releases EXCLUDE
all those unemployed pesky minorities with a category called "discouraged"(=
non white) workers! Excluding this recovery, employment is at a 35-year low!

[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO)

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apexalpha
This is an ad for Amazons job fairs.

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williamDafoe
The funnel at my company in my division for software is 700:3.

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flyGuyOnTheSly
And this is why amazon workers are abused. Supply significantly outpaces
demand.

~~~
dymk
That’s not really abuse then if so many people want to work there. They know
what they’re getting themselves into.

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NoblePublius
Not in Queens.

~~~
delfinom
Even in Virginia they only forecast 25 jobs related to the new HQ next year,
and maybe, just maybe if their PR magic ball says yes, there might be 25k
jobs.....over the next decade _PR firm fingers crossed_

------
chiefalchemist
> But Craig Newman, who also lives in the area, said he's looking forward to
> the increase in commuters. "One of the jobs I'm working at now is an Uber
> driver. I hope Amazon comes to the area and brings in a lot more traffic."

Wish for MORE traffic? The race to the bottom is over, and...no one has won.

