
Ask HN: How do I understand the results of my job search? - definitegrunt
I&#x27;m in the middle of a job search. Here are some stats:<p><pre><code>  - 50 applications submitted
  - 21 no response
  - 3 no longer hiring
  - 11 rejected without interview
  - 15 first round interviews
  - 9 technical interviews
  - 2 rejected after technical interview
  - 2 onsite
</code></pre>
I have ~6 years of experience as a self-taught fullstack web developer with a bit more professional experience on the frontend, though I&#x27;m comfortable with both sides. I&#x27;ve had a senior level title. All of my performance reviews have been positive and I don&#x27;t have trouble doing the work. My current CTO said that I was one of the smartest developers on our team of 20. I got similar feedback from colleagues at my last company and I was promoted there 4 times in 3 years. I blog regularly about programming, including posts that have been on the front page of Hacker News. I spoke at a conference this year. I have a decent amount of work on Github, including some contributions to well known open source projects.<p>I feel like the numbers for this job search are not good but I can&#x27;t figure out what the problem is. A large majority of the companies rejected me without an interview, either sending a form letter or not response at all. There hasn&#x27;t been any feedback about why they&#x27;re not interested in me. This has been especially true of larger, more well-known companies. I&#x27;m completely qualified on paper but there&#x27;s no interest.<p>I&#x27;ve also started to lose confidence for technical interviews. They feel so arbitrary. Some times I do really well. Sometimes not. But in both cases, I don&#x27;t feel like my skills have been tested or demonstrated. When I do well, the stars lined up and when I don&#x27;t, they didn&#x27;t. The whole thing makes me feel increasingly insecure about my ability to build a career, even though I&#x27;ve demonstrated that I can do the work once hired.<p>Is this the average experience or is there something going on here?
======
marionzualo
IMHO (unfortunately) in tech the skills that allow you to succeed in a job are
different than the skills that allow you to get hired for a job. This is a
generalization, but I think that is what happens in most places.

@patio11 has written a bit about this:
[https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1086379271415713792](https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1086379271415713792)
@tqbf and Erin Patek [https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-
post/](https://sockpuppet.org/blog/2015/03/06/the-hiring-post/)

I think this leads to a lot of false negatives when interviewing. but if you
are applying you obviously want to increase your chances of succeeding so, you
have to know how to 'play the game'.

My recommendation to you would be: 1\. spend a lot of time preparing for these
tech interviews. Study how they are structured. There is a lot of material
online (blog posts) as well as books documenting what it takes to succeed. 2\.
there are some people that do paid courses on "how to interview at FAANG style
companies". they may be worth depending on the upside. Note that not all
companies have those types of interviews but if you are aiming for them it
makes sense to prepare the best you can.

~~~
faeyanpiraat
I’ve been doing coding interview exercises used at big corps. It is sent via
email daily.

They seem to be quite easy and after solving some, it feels like I’ve ‘seen
them all’.

You cannot be doing anything fancy in a short interview afterall.

If this is really how they filter programmers, it does not seem like a really
good way to measure one’s ability to create true value.

~~~
cpursley
What's the daily email you're using?

~~~
faeyanpiraat
Not sure about the url, but he does lots of youtube as the “tech lead”

~~~
bmn__
Shyu's sites: [http://techinterviewpro.com](http://techinterviewpro.com)
[http://algopro.com](http://algopro.com)

------
atomashpolskiy
I'm in the very beginning of a search for a new job now, but already feel like
things have changed a lot over the last few years, in some socio-economic
sense, that I can't quite put my finger on.

I never had any problems with passing technical interviews, so that's not what
bothers me. My gripe is with the job ads, that are 100% relevant to my
experience on paper, and yet somehow my applications seem to go into a black
hole.

I'm not comfortable with carpet bombing 100s of companies and hoping that
someone will hire me for some _arbitrary_ job. I want this _specific_ job. I
have pretty specific professional interests (in an area that I'm quite
experienced in) and aiming high, so there is not a lot of vacancies, that I'd
be willing to consider. After filtering for remote-friendliness, what I'm left
with is just a few positions. And yet, the seeming randomness of the process
makes it unlikely, that I'll be even considered to be put into the interview
loop.

One friend of mine, who happens to be a head of the HR at a medium-sized
company, told me, that for each publicly posted SWE job ad they get several
100s of applications. So they don't even bother to review the submitted
applications anymore (!). Instead, they merely wait for the recruitment
agencies to pick up the ad and find some reasonable number of "vetted"
candidates via their own channels and bring them in to an interview.

Overall, I think that the "market" for jobs depends a bit too much on the
middlemen lately. Needless to say, that most of these middlemen are not
interested in catering to candidates' aspirations, nor are they going to spend
too much time looking for a perfect match. The end result is (a) total mess
with regards to matching jobs to people and (b) little hope for proper career
progression, because the whole process is pretty much random.

~~~
definitegrunt
Interesting - I have been working with a recruiter but the results are very
underwhelming. Fortunately, I am not paying for the service.

~~~
brianwawok
You pay via reduced offers

~~~
badfrog
Do you have a link/reference that explains this?

~~~
manyxcxi
The gist is that the agency is going to demand a fee for bringing you in. A
lot of times it’s a percentage of your offer. Thus, you get a smaller offer to
offset or reduce the cost.

~~~
sokoloff
As a hiring manager for 15+ years, I’ve never nerfed someone’s offer because
they came from an agency, nor have I ever caught a whiff of this happening.

I am conscious of which roles I offer to outside agencies, but once I do, I
stop worrying about the cost and focus only on the value I can get from the
candidate. Those agency roles are some of the most competitive positions; I
don’t expect to be able to hire the best who happen to not realize that $0.75x
is smaller than $1.00x for positive values of x.

------
zakshay
For optimizing the top of the funnel, one approach which has worked well for
me in the past is to use LinkedIn to connect with EMs who are hiring (they are
looking for people like you), friends at other companies & and also accept
invites from 3rd party recruiters. Good 3rd party recruiters can specially be
helpful in reviewing your profile, and finding good fits. In the past they've
helped me discover some very interesting companies. Getting referrals via
TeamBlind is common as well.

Also keep in mind that hiring tends to be seasonal. Companies are generally
very aggressive at the top of the year, and by Oct-Dec things do slow down a
bit (but this is not always the case, for example if a company raised some $$$
in that period). In the past I've avoided applying to postings which are more
than 3 weeks old.

You could also try services like TripleByte, which flip the funnel, and help
you go directly go to onsites (there are some caveats though).

For the tech rounds, it's just more practice. _Unfortunately_ the interview
process is heavily biased towards people who practice, and has little to do
with your actual abilities - and you are competing against such folks. For
that I've found Pramp, interviewing.io, leetcode, educative (the grokking
algorithms and system design courses), GH system design primer, (our even
services like Outco.io) etc. to be very useful. The good thing is that atleast
in SV these bits have become fairly standardized now, and if you spend time
preparing, it significantly increases your hit-rate with everyone.

~~~
definitegrunt
One of the companies apparently used TripleByte for the tech screen. They gave
me a multiple choice test that I scored highly on (don't know the exact score)
and after that I started getting emails about completing the TripleByte
process. Is it worth it? I tend to assume these things are scams.

~~~
ravenstine
I had a pretty negative experience with TripleByte. This isn't to say that you
shouldn't try them out, since it's a pretty small time investment, but I
wouldn't do them again, in large part because I believe that simple networking
is way more effective for job hunting.

First, I got a multiple-choice quiz, which wasn't too bad except there were at
least a few of those "spot the problem with this code" questions that actually
had multiple problems but you could only pick one. That sucked, but I still
passed it.

After that, I got a technical interview over Skype with some stonefaced dude
who asked me almost nothing but computer science questions. I applied as a web
developer, so it really shouldn't have been surprising that I know the
difference between a binary tree and a binary search tree. The interviewer was
stone cold and had no sense of humor. The following day, I got a rejection
email.

Seems like yet another SV startup run by bros who want to disrupt an industry
and have no regard for their "human capital".

Hopefully that was a fluke or they've changed since. Keep in mind that my
experience is from 2 years ago.

All in all, I'm glad that I didn't get hired through Triplebyte because I
probably wouldn't have gotten my current job, which is an awesome one in terms
of the kind of work, the benefits, and the people.

~~~
TrinaryWorksToo
What feedback did they give in your rejection email?

~~~
ravenstine
The email was actually pretty long, which is to Triplebyte's credit. Although
who knows how much of it may have been algorithmically generated.

Here is an abridged version the sake of brevity:

 _Hey [Ravenstine]

Unfortunately, we're not going to move forward with your application right
now.

You did well in the Kanban problem. You talked well about HTTP. You write
really nice, idiomatic front-end code. You understand how to build the front-
end of a web application, and explained it well on our used car API problem.
And you were friendly and we enjoyed talking to you.

We didn't see the depth of knowledge that we look for in front end
programmers: you didn't show very deep knowledge of security or data
structures. On the used car problem, you didn't seem very knowledgeable about
backend web systems.

You might benefit from studying some of the following topics: Classic
algorithms and data structures. Basics of HTTP. Advanced Javascript things
like the ES6 features, async/await.

We recommend you study algorithms more deeply.

We think you're really high potential, and we'd love to talk to you if you're
still job searching in four months (we of course hope for your sake that
you're happily employed by then), or next time you want a job.

Best,

Triplebyte Team_

\---

Again, the fact that they provided this kind of feedback is actually pretty
good.

My problem is not only that I believe I was interviewed on the wrong
things(over half my questions were CS and algorithms but I was applying as a
web developer), but the feedback also isn't entirely accurate.

Could I shore up on algorithms? _Sure._

But look at this:

> You talked well about HTTP. [...] You might benefit from studying some of
> the following topics: [...] Basics of HTTP.

What the hell? Not only is that feedback contradictory, but it's horseshit. I
wasn't stumped on the HTTP questions, and all my answers about it were
accurate. I've written HTTP servers and have done some interesting things
cutting together audio and streaming mid-roll through HTTP, so don't tell me I
don't know enough about HTTP. _HTTP isn 't complicated._

> Advanced Javascript things like the ES6 features, async/await.

I'm not sure whether this is related to the question about promises in JS that
I was asked, but I don't see how because I explained their function
accurately.

> you didn't seem very knowledgeable about backend web systems

This one blows my mind. I had _way_ more experience doing backend than
frontend at the time. I don't know what I could have told them that would have
suggested that I effectively know nothing about how HTTP and backend
programming works.

\---

Maybe my diction was poor, idk. If it was, it didn't seem to stop me from
getting jobs outside of Triplebyte.

Perhaps I wouldn't have been as miffed about this if they had included
algorithm and CS questions in the initial multiple-choice quiz. I shouldn't
have gotten to the point of the interview only to find out that I didn't have
the knowledge required.

~~~
peteradio
I think that is more or less a canned response, got nearly the same thing
about a year ago.

------
bengarvey
You have an idea for how a fair and equitable job search is supposed to work.

It does not work like that.

Almost half of all jobs are filled through referrals by existing employees, so
if you're cold applying to a company you're at best, cutting your chances in
half and wasting your time.

You're also forgoing important information _for you_ if you don't know anyone
at the company you're applying to. How do you really know what it's like to
work there?

"The whole thing makes me feel increasingly insecure..." Don't get
discouraged! There are tons of really great opportunities out there.

~~~
Akababa
So, would you recommend OP go through a headhunter? I've heard mixed things
about them, mainly that they don't do much in exchange for taking 15% of your
first year salary.

~~~
ravitation
It sounds like he's suggesting OP should leverage his professional network,
especially since he's not looking for his first job. He's got a decent chunk
of industry experience, and should've built enough connections to get a couple
referrals to different places.

From my own personal experience, I got incredibly lucky finding my first job,
with a bunch of extraordinary people, through what was essentially a cold
call. Since that job, I haven't had a job that wasn't through some kind of
referral or secondary connection.

~~~
mooreds
> Since that job, I haven't had a job that wasn't through some kind of
> referral or secondary connection.

This has been a huge part of my job finding experience. Most of my work has
been found through previous connections. Keep in touch with these folks and
help them when you can. It's a good thing to do, and will pay dividends in the
future.

Other things that were useful (beyond my network):

* Contracting, because this lowers the risk on both sides. Of course you have to be able to handle the difficulties of contracting.

* technical meetups and getting to know hiring managers through these, which again lowers the risk because you're a known quantity (or at least more known). This is a long play, so join a Meetup now, way before you need to switch jobs.

------
sjg007
My take. You have a 30% success rate landing an onsite interview. That is
actually really good. You have had 9 technical interviews with 2 rejections
and 2 on sites and I assume 5 pending? So your on site is probably enriched >
30% even though it stands at 22% now.. My guess is that if you need to do
anything then maybe you just have to practice your onsite interview skills.
Maybe some of these are technical e.g. whiteboard problem solving or something
else.

Remember the goal here is to get through this with a job offer at the end. You
only need 1 offer. Also remember this is as much about the company as it is
about you. The companies/groups you have not had success with might be a total
mess.

Another thing to do is, if you have an opportunity, is to ask a lot of
questions about the interviewer in a social, friendly way. Be genuinely
curious about others. People love more than anything to talk about themselves.

\-- Also Apple and even Google have noted that their best individual
performers tend to be self-taught. I think that means that if you have the
skills and interest to learn programming you tend to be pretty good at
programming.

~~~
ryandrake
Also 15 initial interviews from 50 cold applications is astoundingly good. I
generally expect about a 10% rate, which would require 150 applications to get
this many interviews. I think there is nothing wrong with the top of the
funnel here. OP’s resume is likely great.

------
codingdave
You can ignore all the non-responses or anything short of an interview.
Sometimes listings aren't as real as they appear, and often it isn't you, it
is them... simply needing something different than what you are. You cannot
control that, and it isn't a judgment against you, so forget about all that.

What you should worry about is whether the hiring process continues after the
first interview. You moved on to tech interviews in more than half, which is
decent. Again, if half of them needed something different than what you are,
that is fine. Let it go.

But you only moved to an onsite about a quarter of the time - it sounds like
you may have a disconnect in the tech screen. It is difficult to say what
isn't working there without more info, but I'd focus your attention on that
step of the process.

And one side piece of advice - your blog posts, open source contributions,
speaking engagements.... those all are commendable. But mean little when it
comes to hiring you. Hiring managers want to know what accomplishments you had
in your work. How did you improve the business results of your former
employers?

~~~
istjohn
>> And one side piece of advice - your blog posts, open source contributions,
speaking engagements.... those all are commendable. But mean little when it
comes to hiring you.

This may very well be true. But I will say, as someone looking to break into
the industry, this is very surprising to me. I guess I should focus on acing
the technical interview?

~~~
throwawaytoday5
When I interview candidates who mention github contributions or courses
they've created/taught or talks they've given I never have time to look at it.
I'm literally told we're bringing someone on site maybe a day or two in
advance, mostly it's day of. I don't have much time to personally comb over
their resume sadly.

If you can bring this up during the interview I'd greatly appreciate it
otherwise don't assume these things (open source contributions, blog posts,
talks) will help you get interviews. What they may give you is the ability to
network with people who are hiring which gets you an onsite.

------
jakobegger
You said you applied to 50 companies. Did you send all of them the same CV?

When I was hiring, there was one thing that made candidates really stand out:
when they had previous experience that matched the job description exactly.

For example: I was hiring for a Mac app developer, and I got an application
from someone who had developed a Mac app and published it on source forge.
That's pretty much an instant hire.

The important part is not hide your relevant experience in a long, generic CV.
Once you have a few years of experience, you probably have a lot of stuff in
your CV, and most of it is probably irrelevant for the job you are applying
to.

So it might be worth it to shorten your CV, and strongly emphasize only the
parts that are relevant for the job you are applying to. Don't waste time
talking about stuff you did a few years ago when it's not relevant for the job
you are applying to.

~~~
kradroy
A concise resume is very appreciated. I normally have a recruiter filtering
resumes for me, but when hiring for a data scientist role I went through the
list myself. There were almost 400 applicants. I could only spend max. 30
seconds per resume to keep the task manageable. A few candidates bolded key
words in their experience section, which made it very easy to scan.

------
probinso
15 out of 50 is not a bad run for cold applications. we know that most jobs
that are listed are not real, and most companies looking for employees don't
list.

any company that is always hiring is equivalently never hiring.

As for the rest of your funnel, these seem like typical numbers. I assume this
is over the course of a little more than a month.

The biggest problem with interviewing self-taught programmers, is that their
vocabulary is often weak. This makes it very hard to test their practitioner
skill from a conversation.

If you are doing post-mortems on each of your interviews, I imagined that you
will land a position soon.

~~~
jacknews
"The biggest problem with interviewing self-taught programmers, is that their
vocabulary is often weak"

Would you mind explaining/elaborating this point?

~~~
gherkinnn
Knowing the concepts but not the corresponding vocabulary.

For example:

\- intuitively applying SOLID without knowing that there is a set of
principles

\- knowing how to play with closures without knowing the dictionary
definitions of “closure”

This makes interviewing a bit harder and might lead people to (falsely) assume
that the candidate isn’t any good.

~~~
badfrog
I have a masters in CS and have been working for a decade at highly-regarded
companies. I've never heard of SOLID and couldn't define closure precisely.

~~~
mettamage
I do know closures but got rejected on not knowing SOLID. And when the
interviewer explained it, the concepts were so easy to understand. I don't get
it why he couldn't infer that I'd be able to apply the principles after a bit
of practice.

~~~
badfrog
Sounds like it's a bad place to work anyway. Hiring people who can recite
definitions without evidence of being able to apply the concepts is a recipe
for building a terrible team.

~~~
gherkinnn
Seen it happen.

Very much like bike shedding: zealously insisting on <acronym> for every
triviality, never doing so for more complex situations.

------
myth_buster
I (full stack self taught engineer) recently accepted an offer. Here's my
biggest takeaways which you may already be aware of:

\- It's an imperfect system but a closest thing to a functioning one.

\- Referral is the best way in.

\- Apply early, within 24-48h of job posting. I setup a Tuesday/Thursday
morning schedule to check and apply for new jobs. Ignored stale job postings
(> 14 days).

\- Apply to jobs that fit your profile. If you want to switch to a different
stack, work on a project/course and add that to resume. That should get you
through recruiter's filter.

\- Spaced repetition is the real deal. The more interviews I gave the better I
became, primarily because I got more comfortable. It also helps internalize
all the concepts and bring it to your system A. Also experiment during your
interviews to see feedback and engagement. Most results are canned responses
so you have find signals elsewhere.

\- It's a search problem (numbers game). It's akin to finding a partner. Wider
the search the better. When it clicks it makes a world of difference.

The way I rationalized rejects, which is defeatist, was by thinking they know
what they are doing and it's better to be rejected than to be hired and be
miserable from being a bad fit. If nothing works, I for one know my worth and
will build something I value.

------
skrebbel
> _a self-taught fullstack web developer_

Don't underestimate how many firms rely on academic degrees for their initial
filter. It makes no sense, since few university programs turn you into a good
programmer, but it's true. This differs per geography but I'd say 50 to 80% of
companies will skip CVs without a proper degree if they have the luxury to do
so (i.e. sufficiently many applications). Quite some even when they _don 't_
have the luxury.

This works in your disadvantage, but in the end it'll just skew the numbers
and that's it. Don't take this as "get a CS degree first!" kind of advice,
more like: here's an explanation for at least 50% of your rejections (probably
even some you did multiple interviews with).

In other words: if you have no CS degree but can otherwise code as well as
people with a CS degree and similar experience as you, then this affects you
like so:

\- on the job: not at all

\- when searching for a job: you need to apply 2x to 4x more than others

It's not fair, but others might counter that having to spend 4-5 years in
college + be in debt for decades (if you're in the US) isn't fair either.

A final observation: I've found it satisfying to recognize that job hunting
(or employee hunting for that matter!) is essentially just sales. And the
thing about sales is that it's a numbers game. Reach out to 100 leads, get 10
talks, land 1 customer. Job hunting is similar. It's a shit job but you just
got to bite through it. Think about the years of college you saved and how
much less time the extra job interviewing is costing you than taking a CS
degree would.

~~~
glotgizmo
I'd agree with this, 12 years experience here but all self-taught. From
reccomendations I have gotten to final stage interviews with large silicon
valley companies (I am based in Derbyshire, UK), without recommendations I
rarely get a callback.

I found this increasingly an issue when applying for remote jobs.

Locally though, degree's don't matter because there aren't enough good
programmers, when there are lots of options it seems people will look for
degree's as an indication if you are "good enough".

~~~
badfrog
> Locally though, degree's don't matter because there aren't enough good
> programmers

Aren't programming salaries much lower in the UK than the US? If there's a
shortage, why don't companies start paying more?

~~~
glotgizmo
By locally I am talking mostly about the city Derby and county Derbyshire,
where I live. London and other big cities (Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester
etc.) are full of great programmers who are paid a much higher salary than
Derby(shire). Albeit, a much much lower salary than the US.

If you are from around here, you're main options are Nottingham (quite a good
city for programming jobs) or move away to a bigger city with more
opportunities, that isn't to say it's necessary and I have been forunate to
find good jobs where I live.

The success of applying between local vs remote jobs is staggering, and have
been told many times by local companies they really struggle to find decent
programmers (maybe salary is the factor here as you say!)

~~~
bosie
> Albeit, a much much lower salary than the US.

Can you define "much much lower" please? Is that by purchasing power (i.e.
university, housing, medical coverage)?

------
lettergram
A few things:

1\. I always work with recruiting agencies. Might sound odd, but they have a
direct line to managers and their incentives align with yours. To that end you
only submit a handful of resumes. I’ll submit some outside of the recruiting
agencies as well, but generally they get the bulk of my interviews.

2\. I always interview a few times a year (2-5), so I always have offers on
the table. This let’s you negotiate and keeps your skills up.

3\. Regarding your pass rate. You may not be applying to the correct roles and
/ or there are some other key-words you’re missing in your resume. Try to pack
keywords where you can, because NLP is used to filter resumes as a lot of
places.

4\. Find someone to professionally review your resume. A recruiting agency
will do this for free!

5\. Practice coding interviews on leetcode (website), cracking the coding
interview (book), etc.

6\. Practice mock white board interviews if you can, I actually have a 6ft
white board at home (for general use, but good practice)

7\. What you’re seeing is normal, you’ll always face rejection. If you’re a
dev, facing 50% to 90% rejection is fairly normal (From top of funnel)
depending where you apply and you’re skill set.

I for one always apply to the best jobs I can get. This means I face probably
higher rejection rates than average.

Note, none of this is really about your skill at the job. That can come into
play for high-end niche jobs, but full-stack developers will always face the
same default problem set, found on leetcode and the like.

~~~
Ocerge
2-5 interviews a year feels like a lot, but I _do_ recommend interviewing at
least once a year. I'm now ~10 years into my career (I have a CS degree as
well), and interviews scare the hell out of me and keep me sharp if I ever
need to get a job ASAP. Software interviews are largely bullshit, but if this
is what you want to do for a career, you have to play the game (or be so
overwhelmingly smart that it doesn't apply, but that's rare).

~~~
Yajirobe
What does it mean to interview at least once a year? If I already have a job,
why would I need to interview just for the sake of interviewing?

~~~
Ocerge
I mean, yeah. It’s a different skill-set entirely. Also forces you to go back
to CS fundamentals that you almost never use directly in industry (like
remembering what a red-black tree is or how Dijkstra’s works again). Once a
year really isn’t a lot.

~~~
Yajirobe
So you're suggesting applying for jobs just for the sake of interviewing? That
sounds mean and misleading to the companies that actually want to hire
someone.

------
vjpascal
Arriving a little late in the conversation and with a little of shameless
promotion... we are a small startup from Copenhagen who is about to launch a
product to fill this exactly niche. Our launch is scheduled for next Sunday,
but since this thread seems to fit our audience let's launch it now:
[https://www.voorjob.com](https://www.voorjob.com). (We still have rough edges
to fix and text to review but the MVP is usable at this point.)

Our idea is to offer a tool that - at first - aid the job seeker to keep track
of job applications, cover letter and CV variations and also provide some
insights about the process. Or saying in another form, we want to give you a
understanding of your job search. For later we are aiming to have more and
profound insights, allow the user to compare his journey with similar
population and maybe do some predictions before hand.

Our product is for the final user, the person living the experience of sending
100's of job applications, we felt that the market for applicant tracking
system is now really widespread, and we are aiming to give back some control
to the applicant.

Feel free to check our page:
[https://www.voorjob.com](https://www.voorjob.com) we are really interested in
any feedback that you can provide given you recent experience in job seeking.

Ps. If anyone have doubts we would be really happy to answer back, but since
this is literally our launch, first we are going to drink a bottle (or two) of
champagne :D

~~~
ekanes
Love the idea! Happy to chat sometime. We're approaching this from the other
side - a free hiring platform to help small (but growing) companies find
people based on more than just resumes. We're at
[http://www.happymonday.com/](http://www.happymonday.com/)

~~~
vjpascal
Sure thing, I would love to to chat with you, drop-me a line anytime: pascal
at voorjob.com

------
mharroun
Job hunting is like online dating, 95% will swipe left... and you shouldn't
let it get to you.

It takes luck, skill, and a personal match between you and a set of people at
a company. At the end of the day both parties must feel like they have a good
match.

Re: Tech interviews, unless you pore time into things like leet code and
"cracking the code interview" tech screen will always just be psudo random.

~~~
dennis_jeeves
I second what mharroun said.

Additionally:

\- having a Github project matters, but nobody looks into it the code.( nobody
looked into mine, because I was never asked about it.)

\- The ethnicity match matters, a interviewer from India will reject you
outright if you are a local American.

\- about the the luck part, I have one interesting observation. When teams are
desperate the bar is much more lower. Give enough interviews and you can be
assured that atleast one of them is for a position where they immediately need
someone. The downside to this, is that once you get the job, you will notice
that desperation for candidates most probably stemmed from a project not
meeting it's deadline and the team was hoping to throw in more bodies to
salvage it. You will be under tremendous pressure to deliver the
undeliverable. Do not let this get to you.

~~~
VonGallifrey
> having a Github project matters, but nobody looks into it the code.( nobody
> looked into mine, because I was never asked about it.)

Just because they didn't say anything does not mean they didn't look. I look
and take notes about what I see, but in the actual interviews I very rarely
talk about their GitHub. I mostly just stick to the script.

~~~
james_s_tayler
Can confirm. I have seen them being looked at.

------
tdumitrescu
In general, don't send out cold applications. Use the internet tools at your
disposal and find someone inside each company that you're interested in,
whether it's an in-house technical recruiter, engineering manager, or even an
IC engineer who has interests related to yours. Don't send a resume, just make
contact and feel them out about the potential of working there. This may lead
to an initial "soft" screen before you can get to codin' but at that point
you're in their pipeline for real. And you may also find out ahead of time
that what they're really looking for isn't very closely related to the job
postings you saw.

------
baron_harkonnen
Tech hiring has a changed significantly in the last few years. At the dawn of
the recent start up boom (2010ish?) the best things on a resume were a great
github profile, popular blog posts, and conference speaking. This is because
startups needed and benefited from unique developers who could individually
bring a lot of value to a company.

Small, disruptive companies benefit from having a handful of really great
individuals that can give them a competitive edge.

But as FAANG becomes the norm, hiring has shifted towards desiring good but
ultimately hot-swappable engineers. Being a talented individual developer with
something unique to offer has shifted from the ultimate asset to being a
liability. On small teams at companies that value unique skills, you being
featured on the front page of HN is a source of team pride. But on a team of
generic engineers it's a source of jealously and resentment. I've had more
then a few posts on the front page here and have personally witnessed these
two extremes.

As the Misfit's once sang "Is it time to be an android not a man" and the
answer is right now is leaning toward android. What can you do with this
information? There are two things you can do:

The first is to make yourself the shiniest android you can. Practice leetcode
(it's honestly a lot of fun) and get really good at technical interviews.
Learn to think like a robot: creative answers at non-creative places will hurt
you. Being an expert will hurt you. I have personally worked at a place
(fortune 500 company) where a case study was technically wrong so answering
with insight and understanding would cause you to fail. Instead think "how
would someone with less experience answer this?" because someone with less
experience wrote it. And realize that for robots this is a very stochastic
process so just keep applying.

The second is even better: target interesting, smaller companies that benefit
from you being the developer you are. These interviews will be easier and the
job will be more rewarding. The only catch is that currently the number of
these jobs is much smaller than it was 2-3 years ago. Compensation might also
be less (but doesn't have to be).

Don't let the occasionally negative comments here get to you. People have a
lot of anxiety about the job market so they'll want to make this your fault to
reduce their own anxiety.

Good luck! It will take more time than it used to but you'll get there!

------
iamsb
Have you had luck winning any referrals into the companies? Often that is the
best way to find work, unless you are in a location where your network is
limited.

If you are someone who is not good at networking and hence finding referrals
is hard, there perhaps other things you can look at.

After spending about 9 years working for myself, I decided to go back to work
for others. I was in a completely new country, and hence zero network.
Strategy I used was just find 5 employers and figure out what exactly they are
looking for. Be very knowledgeable about their culture, tech, people, and
work. Having (some) sales background was quite useful, as doing research on
prospects was a known quantity.

I used a copy writer to help me write my resume and 5 different cover letters
which target these companies. All of them were a great match for me. Out of 5,
I was able to get technical tasks for 5. Successfully complete it for 4.[1]
Land interviews, pair programming sessions with all. I rejected two companies,
and got offers from other 2.

If you are dealing with external recruiters, remember it is in their best
interest for you to land the job. So ask them lot of questions on what to
expect in the interviews. See if they can connect you with someone who has
gone through the interview process or better yet is hired by the company.

If internal interviewer, then you can still ask lot of question. Specific
questions like which skills do you expect me to demonstrate during the
process? Is there any specific background reading about the interview process
you can point me to?

Glassdoor also often has lot of interesting information on interview questions
and process at large companies.

And do not worry about rejections. I know it feels really bad, but sometimes
you have to see that they are rejecting you because you are not a match for
them. And hence they are not a match for you. Creator of homebrew was rejected
by google in a technical interview. :) Sometimes companies value one type of
technical knowledge (say abstract/theory), and you might value different type
(getting things done).

[1] The company where I failed technical task - reasoning was too many
comments in the code and checked in generated files in git. Hardly something I
personally would have worried about as an interviewer, but again everyone has
different criteria. I have seen people give bad reviews for programming tests
because formatting was un-java like, or overuse of the final keyword.

------
larnmar
Not that many jobs, especially good ones, are filled by applicants replying to
want ads. You should be leaning on your personal network more and on “job
applications” less.

------
linuxftw
Upload your resume to the job boards. I've had almost no success applying
through the standard process, but when companies or recruiters reach out to
me, it's been ~ 75% offer rate with jobs I followed through on.

> I can't figure out what the problem is

Companies don't know what they want and are incapable of hiring the best
talent.

My advise is to find the tech you want to work on, and apply to those jobs. If
you're short on skills in those areas, github and personal projects with go a
long way if you already have general programming experience.

> feel increasingly insecure about my ability to build a career

This is a real problem for the industry. If you're focused on the front end,
you're disposable I think. That area is completely commoditized and easily
done by outsourcing. Focus on the infrastructure and the backend if you want
to be in high demand.

------
lostdog
Where you're located might make a big difference in what advice is applicable.

I suspect that something about your resume is throwing people off. Definitely
have someone technical review it.

From your interviews, do you have some sense of what's going wrong? Is there
difficulty in getting through the technical challenge? Is the code possibly
messy in some way? Or maybe you aren't hitting it off well with the
interviewer? If you can't figure it out, then maybe a friend will be willing
to mock interview and give some suggestions.

Finally, if you perform well on the job, then interview at a place with a
coworker who thinks highly of you. Their reference can help get you through
any bumps in the interview process, and they might even be able to pass along
more detailed feedback.

~~~
definitegrunt
I've had a couple people review my resume but they were all non-technical.
That's a good suggestion.

In the two technical interviews I failed, one was an algo question that I
bombed. I choked and everyone understood it was no-go. The other was a
practical coding exercise that I failed but I didn't get any feedback. I can
guess why but I'm not sure what was expected. I don't think anyone could have
done the exercise perfectly in the time given, so I went with one set of
trade-offs. Maybe I'm wrong and I'm just too slow, or maybe I chose the wrong
trade-offs.

------
samfisher83
According to the statistics you way above average in terms of response rate.

[https://zety.com/blog/hr-statistics](https://zety.com/blog/hr-statistics)

    
    
        1 in 6 candidates who applied for a job were asked for an interview.
        (Jobvite 2017 Recruiting Funnel Benchmark Report)
    

Your response rate is 3/10\. I think you are doing pretty well.

~~~
definitegrunt
This is disconcerting for me. I'd expect to be more hireable as my career
progresses. But this doesn't seem to be happening.

~~~
yardie
Lots of my friends in this point of their careers are having a hard time
moving. Everyone is looking for a senior SWE. No one wants to really pay for
it.

Also, as a recently returned American expat. It was really, really hard.
Things that were important to me while working in Europe, like GDPR, had no
equivalent in the US. I turned to old alumni friends to get me in the door.
That proved more effective than spraying resumes.

------
caseyf7
Unfortunately, a trend that I’ve seen in recent years is listed jobs that are
not real opportunities. They may be either:

Listings intended to show investors, current employees, and others that the
company is growing.

H1B required listings that are effectively taken.

Positions that executives want filled so the manager lists them with no
intention of actually hiring anyone.

I’m sure there are many other reasons why applications are not getting a
serious review.

------
brunojppb
My experience is That being part of of the local community, go to meetups, get
to know people from different companies and making more friends in the field
is way more important than applying for jobs. At the end of the day, a
recommendation will throw you in front of the queue and sometimes you skip the
interview process entirely.

------
SQL2219
An Amazon recruiter messaged me via LinkedIn. He thought he had an opening
that fit my profile. He sent me a link to an online test/questionnaire. The
content of the test: Active Directory, Linux Commands, Exchange Server - not
even the same ballpark as my skill-set, as my background is SQL Developer.
Half way through the test I was bombing, I just quit, it made absolutely no
sense. I suppose it makes no sense unless you have another agenda, like using
it as proof to say: "we can't find qualified workers"

------
perl4ever
I reread this to see whether you currently have a job, and it appears you do,
right?

Maybe there has been a cultural shift back to viewing "job hopping" as
undesirable. After all, given the generally improved market, more people than
ever are quitting jobs, so maybe there is a backlash. Or maybe people just
kind of implicitly feel like the job market is good for now, and it won't
last, and maybe the people who are out of work or underemployed should be
preferred over those who are just climbing the ladder. This could be
considered exploitative [by employers looking for cheap hires], but it also
could be a moralistic thing.

Everybody says applying to 50 (or hundreds) of jobs is normal, but I don't
think I've ever done that, including when I graduated from college. The last
time I was unemployed, it took I think ~a dozen applications and maybe 3 or 4
interviews.

I've made an effort to connect with recruiters on LinkedIn for years, but I've
never gotten a job that way, although I've gotten phone screens at Google and
other interesting places. Dice only produces recruiter spam these days for me,
although I got two jobs from corporate recruiters finding me there in the
past.

Your stats make it unclear what happened after the technical interviews. If
you were not rejected at the technical interview 7 times, and you got to the
next step twice, then what happened to the other 5 instances? Were there any
offers that _you_ rejected?

~~~
ryandrake
> Everybody says applying to 50 (or hundreds) of jobs is normal, but I don't
> think I've ever done that, including when I graduated from college. The last
> time I was unemployed, it took I think ~a dozen applications and maybe 3 or
> 4 interviews.

I’ve always used the approximate rule of thumb: 10%-10%

Out if 100 applications, you'll probably get 10 interviews, and out of 10
interviews you’ll probably get one offer. This has been approximately
consistent with my results for 20 years.

~~~
perl4ever
Yeah, but maybe if people were more selective in applying, they would get a
higher percentage of responses and waste less of everyone's time. I don't
think I'm a particularly good candidate, it's just that it seems easier to
read a hundred ads and apply to one or two that are the best suited than
applying to dozens.

------
ryangittins
> 50 applications submitted

This is an enormous red flag to me. Submitting dozens of applications almost
certainly means you're not putting the required thought and attention into
each one. For any given job application, you should be spending a good amount
of time analyzing the job posting and researching the company and tweaking
your resume so your accomplishments and responsibilities match what they're
looking for.

You did PHP and JS at your last job but you're applying for a JS job? Cut down
the PHP mentions and emphasize your JS-related accomplishments. You worked on
e-commerce but you want a job at a content/publishing company? List an
accomplishment or responsibility related to the handling of product content.

If you're doing it right, you should not have time to submit 50 applications.
The shotgun approach is lazy and ineffective.

For the record, you're far from the only one who suffers from the shotgun
approach. It seems extremely common, and as such, the "why isn't it working"
question is very common.

~~~
Frost1x
IMHO, tailored resumes are a waste of time in the current market.

I was recently looking for a position in a new area where I had virtually no
network connections and had to deal with the current hiring system. At first,
I used the tried and true tailored approach, but after being completely and
utterly ghosted by what seemed legitimate and reasonable postings after
investing hours into each, I reverted to the shotgun approach across groups I
had some interest in and finally had success landing interviews.

Now, after working in the area awhile and establishing some connections for a
small network, I have multiple projects and more interesting opportunities
than I have time to give popping up. If you don't have a network, it's a
complete mess to deal with right now.

~~~
ryandrake
This is correct. You need to carpet bomb your resume everywhere. A large
percentage of ads are fake and/or you will be ghosted after applying, so any
time spent tailoring your resume to these is wasted. And you don’t know
beforehand which ones they are.

------
algaeontoast
I’m still going through this process after my team at a FAANG was killed off.

Granted, I can at least get interviews. But with each rejection, even when I
make it to on-sites that seem to go well, I just walk away feeling like I suck
or should do something else.

It’s really hard to keep going like this at times... painful to see new grads
out leetcode me / interview into FAANG right out of school :(

~~~
op00to
man, remember when we were kids, and everything was so easy? now we're MIDDLE
AGED (PERSON)[1] and those young whippersnappers are breezing in.

[1] [https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/middle-aged-
ma...](https://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/middle-aged-man/n9951)

~~~
algaeontoast
I’m actually only 3-4 years into my career.

------
muzani
Yup, this seems about average. I get awesome reviews in person as well, but it
doesn't show up in the results.

I feel like it's a numbers game. Technical interviews are a mess all over the
board. It's sort of the joke where someone knows something is done wrong, so
they do things differently, which is just as bad.

You'll probably have to keep trying your luck, hoping you find a company whose
star developer just died or started a startup and they're desperate to fill
the spot. Or someone who has this perfect vision of an engineer which fits you
exactly.

I tried to optimize my job search the same way, and what worked for me were
the things I hadn't optimized for. Like I've fine tuned my script for YC's job
listing when I was actively searching, and yet two of them offered an
interview when I wasn't searching. Maybe people who fine tune their resumes
and cover letters feel 'off' somehow. It seems to work a bit like dating - the
more stats you collect, the weirder you seem.

------
nercht12
Have a look at this advice: [https://www.busymonk.com/how-to-get-a-software-
job/](https://www.busymonk.com/how-to-get-a-software-job/) While it's intended
for new grads, there are a number of items on it that we often
miss/forget/neglect.

------
pinewurst
If it means anything, my experiences are similar with perhaps even more
mystery at the end re lack of reasons for rejection. It’s as if so many are
happy to pass on a more than competent candidate on the off chance that the
next one will be even closer to their Platonic ideal of perfection.

~~~
definitegrunt
Sorry to hear that! It's not very fun.

------
jacob_rezi
Hello - I founded Rezi - a free resume software for applications at large
companies. If you need another set of eyes on your resume, just let me know. I
am happy to offer my advice

[https://rezi.io](https://rezi.io)

------
cool-RR
The problem was apparent on the second line of your post: "applications
submitted". Submitting your CV is a loser's game.

If you're a good developer you likely have developer friends who work for
different companies. These can also be people you've collaborated on open-
source projects with, or met at conferences. If you've made a good impression
on them, tell them that you're looking for a job. Either they'll be interested
in getting you hired to their company and getting a reference bonus, or they
could hook you up with friends of them who are looking for developers.

------
ricc
I also tried a similar active method of looking for a new job but I also never
had much success. I have better luck with applying "passively" instead. I
would suggest for you to:

1\. Set up online profiles in as many "resume" websites as you can find and
let it work for you, i.e. let recruiters find you and contact you.

2\. Get out there and meet other people, and not just online but also through
in-person activities that you enjoy. I was referred to and subsequently got
hired in one company because the drummer of a band I joined is friends with
the CEO.

------
eastbayjake
@OP - this sounds pretty frustrating, but similar to the experience I had in
SF technical interviewing circa 2013.

And now that I'm an interviewer, I've made it a project to promote questions
and processes that make people feel (1) they had a chance to demonstrate real
skills that are important to doing the job (2) they experienced what it's like
to work on my team and feel excited about it.

Happy to chat in more detail if you're interested, even if our firm is not the
right fit for what you're after... contact info is in my profile.

------
jakub_g
Some info that would be helpful to understand your situation more:

\- which country are you based in? (each country's job market is wildly
different); are you native of that country?

\- do you apply in response to job ads, or find companies you like and apply
even if there are no openings?

If I can advise something regarding no responses: finding a recruiter (on
LinkedIn etc.) and talking to them directly might yield better responses than
applying via a blackbox website (although this is just my gut feeling).

~~~
definitegrunt
\- I'm a U.S. citizen based in the U.S., though my most recent work experience
is in a foreign country. I'm applying to jobs in the major tech hubs. I have
previous experience in one of those locations. \- All applications in response
to ads.

I've been working with a recruiter but they haven't done much for me. Very
generic resume feedback (e.g. "Here's an example of a good resume. Just
compare yours.") and no feedback from recruiter when companies turn me down.

~~~
100-xyz
The recent experience in a foreign country may affect you negatively. I moved
back to the US after about 15 years in China and had a difficult time getting
a job in the USA. But now that I have my most recent job in the US things are
much better.

As for your stats, they look normal. It's a numbers game and the interviews
have a large element of luck - some will click well, most will not. In the
end, its just a shit job!

------
bad_login
I have landed a new job recently and during the job search I also did
statistics.

For context I am 30 year old french, had my one and only job for 6 years doing
PHP (sf2, postgres, redis, solr, rest), I have a 2 year degree where in europe
most people have a 3 to 5 year degree.

Here is my statistics to applying to ads on indeed:

France: \- application: 40 \- noreply: 20 \- phone screen: 7 \- interview: 3
\- landed: 1

Luxembourg (french speaking): \- application: 18 \- noreply: 9 \- phone
screen: 5 \- interview: 1 \- landed: 1

Remote (europe): \- application: 7 \- noreply: 5 \- interview: 0

Spain(5)/Portugal(2)/Uk(2)/Switzerland(1): \- application: 10 \- noreply: 1 \-
phone screen: 5 \- interview: 3 \- landed: 0

My takes over are:

\- Cover letter doesn't increase my chances of having a reply.

\- Changing my CV after the feedback of a recruiter (he asked me to lie by
omission) didn't improved my chances.

\- I don't apply to company I recognize the name. If I do lots of people do
too therefor there is a lots of better candidates than me and the company can
afford to run me through many interviews.

\- I don't apply to company that do more than 1 interview, they have too much
time on their hands to find a reason not to hire me.

\- I don't apply to company that specifically ask for a 3 to 5 years degree
even if I fit the rest of the requirements.

This last job search (the one that landed my first job 7 years ago wasn't a
bliss either) made me feel extremely under-confident in my capacity to grow my
career even having a job.

~~~
croisillon
Unsolicited advice: apply to companies who require a longer degree. After a
couple years what you studied doesn't matter any more, experience is king.

------
thirdtry
I am also searching now, so here are my statistics after four months searching
Silicon Valley for a combo hardware/software job, with masters degree, and
lots of experience (old :-) 75 applications 48 companies employ someone I know
27 companies I applied without knowing anyone 13 phone interviews 6 face-to-
face interviews zero face-to-face interviews at companies where I don't know
anyone zero offers so far one company is at the offer stage (perfect fit, I
have worked with the hiring manager for years-- he ought to offer) four
companies are currently between the first interview and the offer stage.

Other interesting observations: one company called back for a second interview
after six weeks. I thought they had ghosted me.

Another company (highly qualified) called for a second interview after three
months.

There was a company that listed reasonable requirements on their ad, and then
in the phone interview they wanted someone with extreme talent. Why waste my
time? Why waste their time? Don't put hard requirements in the "nice to have"
section please!

------
brown9-2
This is tough for anyone to answer without seeing what your resume looks like.
It’s possible to have amazing experience but present it poorly.

------
grezql
you have to show them that you are different from the other candidates. The
reviewer will go through a bunch of applications, if yours dont stick out then
chances are low they will pick you.

Here are some tips:

\- call them on the phone and pretend you have some relevant question about
the job. Then slightly introduce yourself so when he/she goes through the
candidates you will be remembered.

\- the recruitment people are like you and me, nobody wants to see a boring CV
and a application text that screams "please hire me". Sometimes I dont even
upload the CV, I just link them to my github and linkedin profile and instead
write short but mesmerizing applicant text. Keep it short. Its like when you
read the comments section on HN or news papers. You skip the long comments
because its just too much and instead read the one-liners. The same applies
here.

-this is optional but having published projects are bonus. Like if you have app on appstore or websites/startups and things to show for it certainly will catch their attention.

------
eanthy
I think the process also depends on your location. Seems like this is for US.
In London, UK you can easily get noticed and start the process, but 100% of
the time they give you a test to do before any interviews. The problem arises
here, because even if you do the test perfectly there is 90% chance you will
never hear from them again. You basically end up wasting your time doing some
test just to never get any contact/feedback from them. On that last note I've
never got a feedback from any interview process even when I've asked. Assuming
you are the 10% they contact back, then you go for a face-to-face and the
interview there is a tech interview and barely any HR part. Only the tech part
of the interview matters and if you pass it you get job, if not - you never
hear from them. Anywhere well outside London they don't even do test/tech
interview, you just do an HR one and high chance of getting it.

~~~
sys_64738
Any work you do to get hired by a company is billable work so invoice the
company for your time.

------
thecleaner
What did you do as a full stack dev ? If you are run of the mill fullstack dev
with no core deep knowledge of anything specific like databases and just know
how to hack together code by researching libraries on npm or maven central or
pypi, people wont hire you after 6 years because some entry level guy could do
it cheaper.

~~~
definitegrunt
I have deep knowledge of the underlying technologies, mostly deep knowledge of
the languages. But my experience is that most interviewers do not care about
this. They want to hear about your last project using their laundry list of
libraries. Everyone wants me to assure them that I am a "React expert" or that
I have "used AWS" and no one cares about the papers I've read recently or the
first-principles, ground-up projects I've done. The only time anything
approaching specialized knowledge comes up is when people ask trivia
questions.

~~~
akeating
I think that's a concrete area for you to explore. When I hire, I'm often
looking to hire to fill a specific skill gap on a project. I look for the
specific skills I need right now and for skills I think will help the employee
grow into other / more senior roles. But in the initial assessment I'm look
for indications that the candidate can hit the ground running and be
productive in a relatively short period of time. Of course sometimes I can't
find the exact right candidate end-up broadening the filter. The learning for
you here is to focus on selling you abilities in what the hirer is looking
for. The rest are nice-to-haves.

------
alfromnexhealth
You sound like a good fit for NexHealth. Shoot me an email at
alamin@nexhealth.com. I'd love to chat.

------
seqizz
Also be aware that some companies keep a listing open for all times, just to
fill their pool to use when it's needed. I've been getting "are you still
looking for a job" mails even after a year of the original application (most
of them was no-response).

------
quickthrower2
Seems similar to my experience. The 9-2 technical to on-site is the only
concern I’d have. Maybe dissect if those technical interviews could go better?

That said maybe the ratio is because you are aiming high, so it could be a
good sign. A 1-1 ratio could show going for too easy jobs.

------
hef19898
First, I'm not in the tech sector, so take what I say with a grain of salt as
industries are different. That being said, in Germany that seems to be a
rather good quota of returns from my experience.

Regarding the companies rejecting you right away, my experience is that a lot
of times it is either some particular key word that is missing or some other
little detail they don't like. Hard to tell so as I don't know which companies
rejected you.

The more important question is whether these have been your dream jobs and
employers. If not, just keep in mind you do not need dozens of job offers but
the one you really want.

May I ask why you want to change jobs? Seems like you are rather appreciated
where you are right now.

------
rmetzler
If they asked you for what you want as compensation, I would guess it was too
much for what you bring to the table.

You never mention what exactly you did, but it sounds like JavaScript and
nodejs from your username. I don’t know how often you switched companies but
if you switched more than 2 times in your 6 years, there might be a risk of
„you build it but you don’t want to maintain it“.

I also got a similar vibe from some of your comments. Some of them sound like
„I know the concepts, I build my own better React“.

It’s really not something I would like to hear in a technical interview.

There is less info in this post than on your CV, so please excuse when I read
too much into it.

~~~
vsareto
>I don’t know how often you switched companies but if you switched more than 2
times in your 6 years, there might be a risk of you build it but you don’t
want to maintain it.

Consultant shops build things for businesses all the time without maintaining
them (and businesses pay lots of money for it, way more than an individual
candidate), so that shouldn't really be on any hiring manager's mind. Job
hopping is a rational response to tech companies unwilling to give raises that
match market salaries.

Plus if you have someone that can build things but hasn't maintained them,
your company can be their first experience.

~~~
rmetzler
I work for a consulting company and we build lot's of applications. You're
right, it's much more about building something quickly with a team of
experienced devs than it's about maintaining. But they hire a company
especially because we have the capacity to still complete the project in the
specified time frame, even when devs leave. Also they don't need to hire a
whole team and don't have much risk.

I understand the reasoning to want to make more money, but to me job hopping
regularly with less than 2-3 years stay, it's a bad sign. It can happen, and I
also have seen people who realized two month in a new job that this doesn't
work out for them. This is nothing to be ashamed of, but when I see a resume
of someone having 5 jobs in 5 years, I probably would pass on them.

But I'm in Germany and maybe that's just me and in the US it's very different.

------
dannykwells
Wait, does this mean you have 7 which ghosted you after the technical? That is
unusual. I would follow up with those. I have always gotten a response, in
both directions, after a technical.

Also these numbers look very reasonable to me. 9 technicals out of 50 is a
good rate, esp for coming from an overseas company as you said you did.

Finally, are you using the modern tools like Hired, etc? Do you have LinkedIn
gold? Are you actively networking and getting internal referrals? Are you
going to meetups, esp those run by companies of interest?

Getting a job is not just about sending resumes into the void and waiting.

------
dominotw
>I've also started to lose confidence for technical interviews.

have you been leetcoding? if not, start now. read teamblind threads on job
search.

forget about your github projects, blog posts, conf talks ect. Almost noone
will look at those.

good luck.

------
p1esk
You will benefit a lot more from HN if you post your resume here for review.

~~~
definitegrunt
Maybe I will at some point, not in connection with this post.

------
100interviews
Your experience is not uncommon. A former coworker of mine has a few relevant
posts/talks on this:

My recent job search adventures:

[https://medium.com/@arctansusan/my-adventures-in-job-
searchi...](https://medium.com/@arctansusan/my-adventures-in-job-searching-
for-senior-engineer-roles-7050e1c2b1a5)

Rants and Ruminations From A Job Applicant After 100 CS Job Interviews in
Silicon Valley

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzz5AaCWMps](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzz5AaCWMps)

------
WomanCanCode
Yes, I was in the job market recently. It is absolutely devastating how
terrible the software development hiring process is. There's almost no job in
the world where you are humiliated so much and goes through such an agonizing
process to proof yourself. I'm a mother of a small child, and don't have that
much time to work on creative puzzles or study so many entry level computer
science stuff that only a 'fresh graduate' would know.

------
sundayedition
Two of my last 3 positions have been a recruiter reaching out to me via
LinkedIn.

75% of my attempts to find my own via job applications result in no response
(your stats are better than mine), with zero feedback at one point or another
(ghosting).

If you're not using recruiters, you should be. The discussion you get let's
you sell yourself a little better than you can with a paper application only,
and they often have additional info you won't find in the job descriptions

------
jypepin
Where are you located? I just finished a job search with about the same
experience as you in SF and 50 applications submitted makes me think that you
might not be approaching this the best way possible, assuming you are in a
tech location.

It seems like you went for quantity instead of quality. The opposite seemed to
work well for me (personally, not trying to say its the only way).

I'd be happy to chat more, feel free to reach out. my email is my username at
gmail.

------
hartator
Send me your resume at julien _AT_ serpapi.com.

Regarding your issue, I won’t overthink it. A lot of things can go wrong that
just outside of your control.

------
mettamage
> Is this the average experience or is there something going on here?

I'm experiencing this as a college grad with 1 year web dev experience
(similar accolades as you but then 1 year) and 1.5 year teaching experience.

IMO it's the interviewing thing that's completely bullshit.

Also if any company on HN is reading this, please reach out to interview this
person for a frontend position.

------
mister_hn
I feel pretty the same.

10 years experience as Full Stack Dev, passed all the tech interviews also for
some of the FAAMG group, but I was rejected after the "behavioral" interview.

I don't know what to think. I believe it is an excuse to reject candidates
with higher compensation requirements.

------
janbernhart
It's hard to say WHY just looking at the numbers, but I agree the numbers
indicate something is off, or you're just very unlucky at the moment. I'm a
tech recruiter myself, perhaps I can help with CV check or a video chat? use
my username +85 AT gmail)

------
gorbachev
15/50 is pretty good actually.

------
ITB
I’ve performed thousands of interviews. Happy to talk and help you debug the
issue.
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/bercovich](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bercovich)

------
hsuresh
I have been working on a product in this space, and I'm aware of the
situation. I'd love to help, and also learn from your job search process, can
you drop me an email? (I couldn't find email in your profile)

------
tsjq
>A large majority of the companies rejected me without an interview, either
sending a form letter or not response at all.

sounds like they're doing it for compliance, so that they can hire H1B people
at super low wages

------
michaelwda
Just recently indeed.com scraped our website and posted a job on our behalf.
My email address started receiving resumes for our IT services division and I
figured they were in the loop so I trashed them.

~~~
ceautery
I believe you’re supposed to keep applications on file for a year.

------
therealdrag0
I have similar credentials (and praise from coworkers), and I had similar
experience to you earlier this year. It sucks, but you'll come through the
other side.

------
vkaku
I can tell you that jobs are based on your talent - but also whom you know.

Just focus your energy on the things that work, and apply for jobs where you
think you get what you want.

------
dawnerd
Honestly I’d just find a recruiter have have them do the heavy lifting. The
good recruiters will have direct relationships with various companies.

------
awareBrah
Maybe you should get someone to review your resume.

~~~
definitegrunt
I've gotten feedback from two recruiters and a little from one interviewer.
Most of it was generic. The interviewer suggested adding more skills.

~~~
dennis_jeeves
The initial screeners ( people or software) of resumes look for keywords. So
put in all those keywords that you think are relevant even if from a skill
perspective they are trivial. For example basic skills related to xml are
easily learnt by most developers in a very short time. Ideally no employer
should ever be asking for 'xml' skills but they do. So, in this example that I
gave, make sure that you put the 'xml' keyword in your resume.

------
kome
your job search is well above average from my point of view. you seem to be
quite successful, and those numbers are great.

------
ummonk
You have enough experience to apply through interviewing.io

Triplebyte is also good. Also ask around with ex-colleagues for referrals.

------
vbtemp
Let's check the basics:

1\. Do you have a LinkedIn profile, clearly listing your skills,
accomplishments, and experience? Also with a clear, professional profile
picture? Do you link to your Github page (and vice versa).

2\. Do you have an account on StackOverflow careers?

3\. Does your resume look crisp and clean (using a good template), with
readily available information about skills and experience?

After this, remember that straight-up _applying_ to companies is well known to
be the LEAST effective way to get a job.

The better way is to let companies - or at least recruiters or hiring managers
at specific companies - approach you (usually LinkedIn, StackOverflow is
better). This involves a lot of tending to your professional social-media
profiles, love it or hate it.

The best way is of course to get hired by someone you know from prior
successful professional collaboration who makes an opening at their company
specifically because they want YOU.

TLDR, give a lot of attention to LinkedIn, GitHub page, StackOverflow careers
profiles. Let people approach you. Don't fling out resumes to hundreds of
companies like a frisbee.

------
francescopnpn
Leetcode+Referrals/cold app Series A,B,Seed companies

------
lugg
Looks like you're not working with a recruiter. (Not a bad thing)

Going off my sample size of three, yes, that looks like the average
experience.

It's just a numbers game/funnel like anything in sales.

The 50 applications thing is one of the reasons I get really annoyed at people
who claim software Devs have it so easy (we do) but when asked how many jobs
they applied for last week it's like, oh I applied for 5 jobs over the last 6
months.

Here I am writing and sending 10 unique, researched cover letters every day.
No wonder I get hired in under two weeks.

