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Ask HN: Who's getting their job applications rejected?
136 points by typeofhuman 8 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 193 comments
I'm in the US. I tell you what, it's been a tough season for me. I've applied to a dozen positions (senior, full-stack or backend) at mid-to-large companies. Not start-ups. I've interviewed and solved the problems yet I keep getting rejected.

Is anyone else having a similar experience or is it just me?




I work at Grafana, and we be hiring, I posted on the Who's Hiring in January and that was a big mistake. I've posted before (probably 6 times a year as I miss the 1st sometimes) and had few to no responses, but in January I had over 50 responses in the first few hours, and it continued to elicit responses for the next week.

Employers are swamped right now, there are a lot of people seeking few positions. I've gone from giving personal replies and spending time on most applicants, from spending time sourcing, to just trying to keep up with the inbound applications.

It's obviously a very hard market right now, and I feel for those who are searching in this climate.


There is no real way to handle the influx of applications these days since it's so easy to apply, especially on platforms like LinkedIn. I just take the first X and try to find a qualified applicant. I'm at a small company, we simply can't process 1000 resumes.


I've heard other people talk about this dynamic. Companies have generally made it very easy to apply. Especially in the current market this means you have increasingly desperate candidates sending out hundreds or even thousands of resumes. Which in turn means companies are applying simple heuristics or "AI" to massively filter the number of resumes that a human even glances at. Which of course reinforces the cycle because it becomes a massive numbers game to even reach a person.


It's even more self-reinforcing than that. There are lots of applicants, so companies don't take the time to communicate the status of the application, so it's not viable for candidates to wait for communication before sending out another resume. If you're applying for jobs you can probably apply for 4-5 per day if you're taking the time to research each company and write individualized cover letters & customize the resume for each, more if you're not doing that much work. If it takes a company an average of a month to send any communication back, the candidate will have applied to over 100 positions before they hear back from the first one.

I last applied for jobs several years ago, and there are still dozens of companies I've not gotten a rejection from. A "fire and forget" strategy of sending out hundreds or thousands of applications is the only thing that makes sense to do if you're not getting a job through networking.


Yup. Whenever people post stuff like "I sent out 1000 applications and haven't received a response" I always think - if you so easily sent out thousands of applications then so did everyone else, which means companies are dealing with an overwhelming volume of applications for each position and you aren't really standing out in any way.


Also, that person sends his/her CV to any job ad they see, even if there is a 30% match in the reqs. I got a friend with IT Audit background. He has spent ALL his life doing IT Audit, and while some skills are transferable, it doesn't make sense he applies for a CISO role. Yet he applies to every job ad that has the words Audit, Security, Compliance. Only to be rejected from all.


A former boss told me that this is how you make sure only to hire lucky people.


I had a role open for a sr. Sys admin.

I got 150+ applications per day.

At some point, you just have to close the window. I can only realistically do 10/25 résumé per day and still do my job.

All most all hiring has a strong element of luck. I've hired really good engineers that can't write a resume or aren't self promoting enough in an interview and they seem kinda flat. But they roll in and make good decisions, good products, good documentation and they are easy to work with.

If I could, I'd talk to everyone on the phone for a few minutes to get a feel but I can't do that either.


If a machine isn't doing a lot of pre-filter, I'm going to be doing a first pass filter on some really lazy heuristics.


Of course, and that right there is luck of the draw. Didn't list the specific thing I need help with? Might not make it to the list of 20 I look at. Not because I wouldn't hire someone for not listing it, or demonstrating they can Lear quickly but jiet be cause I have a limited amount of time.


Or it's look at schools. See if any of the companies pop out and they spent some time there. Obvious exact skills match. The resume isn't too long. Whatever I can get in a 30 second skim.


Ah. Hiring for the Teela Brown gene. I love it.


Google limits you to three applications every 30 days


Interesting.

Adding an application-cost to the dynamic seems to be one sensible approach to applicant-spamming.


It really makes you consider. “I want to do this job or this job is the most realistic one for me to get” instead of just buying tons of lotto tickets to get a google interview


This is ultimately the common factor in spam mitigation. If the costs of transmitting or submitting a message are nil, then the spammer will submit them.

It's also why reducing costs of communications can backfire in all kinds of obnoxious ways. I remember getting my first email account, nearly forty years ago now, and being able to communicate near instantaneously, and with no cost, to ... a very, very, very small handful of people.

Even in the corporate world of the early 1990s, email addresses were sufficiently rarified that for the most part you'd communicate with a few colleagues at the same firm, and perhaps some contacts at other companies, if you were in a technical position (as I was at the time).

I can distinctly recall being in a bookstore in the late 1990s the first time I heard a mother talking with her daughter about a new friend the daughter had made, and the mother asking if the daughter had shared her email address.

Other than cost imposition, the best suggestion I've had for information overload is to have a cheap, unbiased, low-cost, no-regrets information rejection capability.

Earlier mentions: <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37440218> and <https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22208255>.

Of course, for established contacts you'd want to override that.


Everyone.

I am a very senior PM with two big name tech companies on my resume, and the track record of bringing multiple products from zero to one and creating revenue (and even profit!) from them.

In the old days, I had recruiters in my LinkedIn, I would breeze through the first 30 minute screener calls, and get lots of call backs. My hit rate for job applications for non-FAANG cold applies was fairly high.

Two months ago when I was looking, I was getting basically zero job application responses, half my screeners ghosted me, and I had very few recruiters reaching out. I think maybe 3 in 3 months-ish.

I got very lucky and landed a job, but it was a mild pay cut, and the company is basically on fire

Both them and my previous massively growing employer are not hiring ANYONE, even software engineers, which is the easier role to get picked up for.

My buddy who’s unemployed in PMM, can’t get a call back from anyone. It’s really bad


Any idea / feeling, on if this is temporary?

I just have hard time understanding how 1 year ago, everyone was hiring SE and now nobody is. Shouldn't this be indicative of some huge economic meltdown? But economy isn't melting down. Can skills mismatch suddenly be so dramatically different? AI is great but it can't have this much impact already. Could over-hiring during Covid really have this much impact?

It just feels like there is something shifting below the surface.


My take is that for one reason or another (and I wouldn't count premeditated evil genius as high on the list of reasons), the FAANG and adjacent companies have been hiring the developer equivalent of people to dig holes and fill them up for a few years now. Think about it - does Google really need teams of developers with something on the order of half a million in total compensation each in order to develop some new product that they're going to cancel in a year or two?

Essentially, you've got an oligarch class in the US/World with more money than they know what to do with and it gets put to weird uses. Tech/VC seem to be the sexiest use of that money and so it gets directed in that direction and comes out everywhere. ZIRP exacerbates it. And it seems the end of ZIRP and other effects finally pop the bubble. What really sucks is when your family's healthcare is dependent on your employer playing the above game.


We were in a complete bubble the last couple of years. If you didn't work before the bubble, your perception of reality is entirely skewed. The mania was due to two things - tech companies outperforming everything else on the SP500 and easy credit for start ups. The response was over-hiring, a huge number of bootcamp grads, and everyone who could pivoting to an IT degree. Worries about the economy (record debt, etc) are just the icing on top of the tech over-saturation cake. Other, way overstated bubble is "AI destroying jobs". It's not reality, but the perception is there.

In short, it probably won't recover to bubble territory in the next 20 simply due to the huge supply of devs. On the other hand, the field does require some education, some IQ threshold, some persistence, etc, so there will be ok-paying jobs for a while. But again, if you started working circa 2021-2023, you will need to adjust your expectations.


Too many dumb ideas were overfunded (or funded at all). A lot of the bigger tech companies got into an overhiring and overpaying competition. And, as you say, companies are just being cautious for the future.

And it really goes beyond 2021-2023. The tech job market for the last decade or more has not been normal in the sense that tech jobs, especially on the US west coast (though also quantitative trading), have paid well out of line with pretty much every other STEM position which was not historically the case. When I was a product manager back in the day, I'm pretty sure the computer system hardware and software people were paid pretty comparably as I probably was as well.

I think there are questions about where adtech goes. If it has a major downturn, some companies are going to really feel it.


This isn’t due to AI, it’s due to layoffs and policy. Money isn’t free right now so companies have to turn a profit instead of over hiring and there are simply a ton of super qualified people competing for a smaller number of jobs.


It's unlikely to be permanent, it's just a cycle. The economy seems fine right now, but leading indicators (e.g. yield curve) suggest a recession is inbound. So everyone is playing it conservative. We'll get past the recession and things will pick back up again like they always do.


We've all secretly been benefiting from the dreaded "trickle down economics" which has shifted as interest rates have increased. What percent of HN users salaries are actually paid by the revenue from the customers of their business rather than burning down investment funding?

Most of us have had high paid jobs funded by some billionaire VC burning their wealth on unprofitable ventures, because they were willing to lose 10 bets to win 1.

Today, investors (whether VC, private equity, public markets) want to own businesses that are profitable or can reasonably be expected to be soon. Correspondingly, far fewer jobs paying six figure salaries while the company loses millions of dollars for their investors/owners.


Speak for yourself, I built the architecture that enabled a business to go from 50 mil to 3 billion revenue in the last 4 years and I have zero equity and a midwest salary. Really need to think about my life choices.


Similar. Saved company a few millions.

I compensated by taking the occasional long lunch.

Sticking it to the man.


The economy is melting down, but nobody is saying it out loud.


I was laid off in January and have been regularly applying every week as a requirement for unemployment. So far zero responses, which is hard because it sounds like more experienced devs are on the market and will land jobs before me.

I did see my former employer was looking for someone in India or Eastern Europe to fill a dev position requiring my exact stack. I do wonder if taking whatever pay cut down to the lower salary they’re presumably offering would have been worth it for both sides.

As it stands, I’m in a mild panic about my future career despite knowing I’m capable. I may end up using my CPA to switch back into accounting for the time being. Or perhaps start up my own thing. Hopefully things get better after a short amount of time.


> I’m in a mild panic about my future career despite knowing I’m capable. I may end up using my CPA to switch back into accounting for the time being

Having started my career in the shadow of the dotcom bust, I can say that this is exactly what most technical workers did. I started my career outside of tech and most of my grad school classmates were people trying to find a new career outside of software.

Many of the people I knew in this situation who were truly passionate about software ended up eventually returning, but quite a few others found the alternate career more satisfying in the long run.

The problem right now is that nobody else has really abandoned their tech career, still too early with too much money on the line. This means the signal to noise ratio for hiring is abysmal. If this keeps on long enough that software is no longer cool (and more importantly, not as high paying), it will be easier to reenter the industry.

Till then the only people that won't be struggling to find work are people with good networks and/or really standout backgrounds.


I am very senior, and am getting ghosted too. Not even a reply.

Considering AI advances, I think I will be fully unemployable in 4-5 years. I am making plans for exiting IT and maybe starting my own company or buying land and growing food.


The market is really tough right now. I'm just starting to look for full-stack positions in London, this time last year I was receiving lots of offers constantly, but now it's a very different story.

I've so far only contacted one recruiter I trust, and even he only had one job I could apply to.

BTW, if anyone is looking for a full stack web dev in London (TypeScript, React, Next, Node / Bun / Deno, even a bit of Rust), you can contact me at https://www.lajili.com).


I have not from the perspective of seeking emplyment, but from the smaller mid-size employer side (200 employees, robotics) we have had to reject a number of candidates. Normally this is based on a resume review (so as not to waste people's time), but sometimes it does come out in interviews. My main challenge, and I'm not saying this is the case for you - I'm just offering the perspective on the other side, has been finding individuals/developers who plan committed to the company for the long haul (e.g. 5, or ideally 10 years) - not just a year or so. Learning our code base and the underlying math requires a significant investment, and we've had a rash of folks come in, learn what they can, and then depart, leaving us to repeat the cycle all over again. It's taking a toll, so we're actively seeking people who are committed to the long run so that the energy we invest in education has a decent return.

Again, not saying this is the problem you're facing or that every company needs to have long-duration and less-transient staff. This is just one issue I'm seeing and it's possible that it could potentially be a contributing factor.


No candidate is interviewing for a job already having made up their mind about whether they are going to stay for 6 months or 10 years. If you are trying to somehow filter on that you are just wasting your own time.

People stay or quit based on factors during the job. Is the salary good? Is the company growing? Are their career goals being met? Is the management competent? Are they feeling burnt out? Focus on all of these and retention will automatically go up.


Maybe a junior straight out of boot camp doesn't know what they'll be doing in six months -- but generally people have some kind of intent, eg, "I'd like to have a stable job for the next three years" or something along those lines.

I don't think GP is asking a candidate to know whether they'll stay for years at GP's org -- they're asking that the candidate have the intention of staying ~somewhere~ for a longer stint.


I'm not saying this is the case for you, but often when companies have recurring problems with retention it's because of some underlying issue: culture, perceived lack of professional development opportunities, low pay, etc.

These issues might affect even new hires joining with the best of intentions.


(Writing this to address the several similar astute responses)... You're not wrong that there is an underlying, systemic, contributing issue on our companies side affecting retention. Our compensation/benefits are well above industry standard and our culture is very friendly and transparent (and I came from a place that was not thos things). In exist interviews, most employees are just saying that they want to expand their skiĺls by working in a new field (or something that aligns more deeply with their interests), and I certainly don't fault them for that. I think we could probably thwart that loss of talent if those feelings about wanting to grow professionally were recognized earlier and we worked together on a plan to achieve those goals. Maybe, maybe not.

I'm relatively new myself (1.5 yrs in) and we're in a growth phase, but the organization lacks structure for communication to flow efficiently. It's a problem we are actively working to fix via restructuring. That being said, when a candidate resume is received and there is a history of job-hopping, we will generally pass on that resume.


> Our compensation/benefits are well above industry standard

I've definitely heard companies saying this when it wasn't the case, "industry standard" means different things to different people I guess, and also depends what country you're hiring from.


I mean it is extremely likely it is a problem with the company. We don't know how many "a rash of folks" is but sounds like at least 3 or 4 and at that point it's not just bad luck. Most people don't want to work somewhere for a year and leave, they do it because something better comes along.


Changing jobs often was a common advice though to ramp up your salary.


Which is only the case because the companies don't keep current employees' pay up to market rate. It's a problem with the company.

When the market rate salary increases 5-10% a year, year over year, and you're giving 2-3% raises, it's no surprise people leave for a 30% range after a few years.


Are you giving 5-10% raises every year to keep folks in line with market rate for new hires? Are you giving large bonuses that meaningfully affect people's lives? I've worked places where the "bonuses" were $500 or $1000 for people paid $150k/yr.

Very few people interview thinking "I'm going to take all the info I can here then leave in a year." Most people want to work somewhere for a long time and become an expert and master their craft. The most rewarding job I had I was there for almost 8 years and the last 2-3 I was really in the zone and felt like I could do anything.

There's an old saying about how if you're constantly smelling shit you need to check your own shoes. If a bunch of people come then leave, look at your own house first before assuming it's something wrong with them.


> and we've had a rash of folks come in, learn what they can, and then depart, leaving us to repeat the cycle all over again. It's taking a toll, so we're actively seeking people who are committed to the long run so that the energy we invest in education has a decent return.

In my experience this may be a sign that your company does not offer anything that retains people.

If people conclude that there is no growth opportunity and/or that the overall conditions are poor they will leave within 2 years even if they want to be committed for the long run.


I agree. This can partly be caught by screening - serial job hoppers may not be a good fit - but it’s more commonly a reflection of lack of dedication to the employee. I’ve been at my current job going on 11 years, it’s not like I planned on that, it’s that it’s a great place to work with smart people, interesting work, good pay, and just the right balance of pressure and work/life balance. If people aren’t hanging around, you are probably missing one or more of these components. I have seen senior staff evaporate from places when they merge and some component vital to employee well-being goes away. Companies that provide all this are definitely the exception, not the norm.


Inline with many adjacent comments, I think companies could genuinely do more to offer an incentive to stay for the long haul. What worked for past generations isn't enough in the current age where inflation/cost of living have significantly outpaced wages.

On a nominal basis I would expect to make more money in 10 years by switching companies every few than sticking around at one company for the duration. Beyond that, a lot of companies don't really care about what kind of growth/trajectory you want. It seems most employers are looking to fill a role and could care less about growing/developing your talent in new/existing ways.

Employers will need to really make an effort to understand their employees and connect with their needs/wants for them to stick around for the long haul. Maybe that's a tall ask, but offering a salary/healthcare/retirement is the norm now and isn't necessarily competitive in itself.

Can I really count on my employer to honor my well-being and interests or are they going to string me along until they don't need me? I think it's perfectly fair for employees to do the same, it's a two-way street.


In the 60's and 70's, people stuck around for the long haul to collect their pensions.

Once that game ended, all bets were off.


How many people looking for jobs though have a 10 year stint with a company on their resume? It's probably pretty uncommon outside of some traditional tech employers like IBM where I know people who have been there for 25+ years.

On the other hand, if the resume is all 1-3 year segments, yeah, there's no reason to think you're going to be different.


I'm not the OP but I think you're looking at it backwards. It's not that you're looking for a 10 year commitment, it's that you're looking for someone who isn't planning to leave in 1-2 years. At my place we actively discard resumes of people who never stick around for longer than 2 years even when they're a good candidate. The investment we put into the hire and the amount of pain caused when someone leaves means it is difficult to hire those people. We've never hired to increase or maintain headcount, we have always aimed to fill specific positions.

As a side effect, a good 10% of our employee base is at 10+ years (including me at 12) and around half the company is at 5+. Which is incredible considering the company is only 17 years old.


What kind of organization culture do you have where someone leaving after two years causes an "amount of pain" and you have to spend considerable resources on-boarding new hires? That sounds like a deeper problem to me.

I tend to work pretty short stints at places, but in the vast majority of cases am shipping things to prod the first week or so and building and releasing revenue generating products in the first 6 months. Most of the places I've left, even after a short tenure, are continuing the work I started just fine and generally get lasting value from a even a year of my time.

With few exceptions, most of the teams I've left are sad to see me go, but that doesn't diminish the befit my time there has provided.

On the other hand most of the people I know that have worked 7+ years at a place aren't particularly engaged in the products and certainly aren't keeping up with major industry trends/changes/etc, and generally just go to work each morning without leaving much of an impact. Even at places like Google, most of the 10+ year people (with some notable exceptions) are the "rest and vest" types.


10 years might not be common though I see a few. I generally feel better seeing 3-5 years stints.


I've got a 10 year stint on the resume, but I doubt for various reasons I will ever have another. After that experience, I've learned the importance of jumping before the layoff hits, though of course that's very hard in the current market.


I have a 9-year and a 10-year stint on my resume. I am not looking for a job, though.


I'm coming up on 10 years in my current position, and there are a lot of people just like me at this company. As well as a number of lifers with 20+ years at the company. It doesn't seem all that uncommon, but this is just an established mid-size software company that owns their niche, and not a silicon valley tech darling.

I'm starting to gear up for a job search myself, and I'm definitely going to be looking for quality places where I think the odds are good I can do another 10 year stretch happily. I don't job hob any more.


Pay enough so it doesn't make sense to hop jobs.


At this point, pay whatever you think just below market is and let candidates know they get a 10-15% raise at 6 months and 12 months, and 5-10% at 18 months and 24 months. Show them a comp schedule for their targeted salary, and give them a decent signing bonus with a repayment policy if they quit in the first year.

Solves the problem of hires wanting to jump ship even if they started 10-20% below their target salary but know that committing can get them decently above their target salary in a year


I would never trust a company to give me a raise like that. Management would just deny it when they want to save money on payroll.

I’ve had so many people promise things and have someone else them prevent them from following through.

I’ve had a department head reporting to the CEO try to keep me but HR wanted me gone. HR knew how to play politics and I was gone.


Ask to get it in writing. Then you’ll see how serious they are.


This.

Actually, I'm suggesting the top-level poster explicitly state they do this, so candidates know they aren't fucking around.


insert meme *Don't give me hope*

In an idealist world, you're the perfect employer and I should be your employee. I want to believe that these employers exist but my conventional wisdom says, they are just textbook version, real world is different.

A little bit about me: In my 12 yoe (still at same place with steady growth), worked 6 years for one team, built a framework. one SE was dumping his new projects and moving to fresh ones while I get to maintain them, soon moved to different team. I stayed, maintained, stabilized, scaled, tuned, left only after then to different team (actually I'm the only one) to work on a new product. Again same situation, many have joined and left, few after 1 year and none of them contributed anything significant to the product. None of them cared about the product or the company, just optimizing for their career and pay. But then what's the passion in it if you don't care about what you've built and make it better.

I'm now pivoting to new team (don't know yet) planning to build something again from scratch. I'm optimizing for my passion, but some where deep inside I'm worried about my future prospects because of long haul.


We need more devs like you.


thanks. I want to see more devs like me. I call it - owners mindset.


Wanting someone who will stay for the long haul makes sense, but it leaves me as an unemployed engineer with two options:

- Stay unemployed until I find a job that seems interesting enough to work there for years. Apply, get rejected because companies don't like hiring unemployed people.

- Get a job that I don't like, then be constantly on the lookout for an opportunity to leave. Get rejected because I haven't been on my job for long enough.

What should I do?


If you need the money, get the job that you don’t like, but then spend your time looking for the job that you’ll find interesting anyway. Life is too short to not earn your living with something you find interesting.


Leave. If you have an opportunity to, then by definition it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been at your current job.


That's an interesting perspective. I wonder if the screening rejections/silence have anything to do with the history seen on the resumes; eg, 10 yrs of experience in 1 to 2 year stints, vs having worked in only two orgs but for say 4 and 6 years.

I've always heard that the best strategy to raise your salary is to change jobs every couple of years. Could this be the flip-side of that?


Purely from an economics point of view, yes job hopping tends to net you larger pay raises and promotions.

I think the flip side is that you won't build a reputation with 1 year stints at 10 companies. I currently work with a VP of product who's only stayed max 1 year at their last 6 companies, and I can feel the lack of engagement and ownership since the day they joined. So I definitely resonate with GP's point.

What makes everything worse is that at the end of the day, you'll never get straight feedback from someone on why they left so soon. Laying bare all the issues serves little purpose when you're leaving a company, so I end up thinking most companies have very skewed views of retention and hiring. It's not an open conversation since both parties have selfish interests.

Everyone needs to think for themselves what they're maximizing for. For me, I feel like my reputation is worth way more than any single job, so I try to avoid jumping around too much.


Yes change jobs every few years to raise salary and gain breadth. But it is crucial, nay critical, that at some point you stay somewhere for 4 years or more.

Nothing teaches you software architecture like dealing with your own crap from 3+ years ago. You cannot call yourself an experienced engineer if you haven’t done this.


When I was hiring yes it absolutely was something I looked at. If a candidate had only 1-2 year stints at a bunch of places, why would I expect my experience with them to be any different?

And yes, it there is definitely a mindset that jumping companies frequently is the best path to higher salary. There is even some truth to that, people who don't know you may value perceived potential higher than the company that knows you well. That said, if you do it too much you do risk ending up in the "jumps ship too frequently" pool and you'll start to be overlooked.

I wasn't looking for 5-10 years from an employee, I don't think that's realistic today. But somewhere in 2-4 for sure. Jumping after 4 years is pretty common as it's a frequent vesting cliff, even at large companies.


Yes one down side of job hopping is people will be hesitant to hire you if they are looking for someone more stable


Sure. If I look at a resume with 1-2 year stints, I ask myself if it's OK if this person leaves after a couple of years. There was one case where a hiring committee I was on basically said "Yeah, they're worth it" (and they actually ended up staying a lot longer). But, generally, the answer is no.


Retention is a problem with your company, not with candidates.

If you need people to stay 5 years then give them a gracious 5 year vesting schedule


Money and interest. There's only one reason we all work; to make money so we can pay bills. Otherwise we'd just sit at home and work on our own personal projects all day. You want people to stay 5-10 years, you have to keep their pay better than market. Secondary to that, you have to have interesting projects to work on.


Seems everyone is making guesses or assumptions, so I'll just ask - why do you believe new hires are leaving so quickly? Have any of them explained why? If so, what is their feedback like?


How do you filter for that at the resume/interview stage? Beyond just looking for resumes that don't have a lot of jumping around?


Even that's not a great signal. I have a strong preference for staying longer at a place, but that's not always possible.


It could be wise to favour the candidates with poorer interview skills, as they're less likely to be able to leave.


So when you say it’s mostly at the resume phase, does that mean if you see a lot of 1-2 year stints you move on?


Sounds like you want to recruit and retain like a bank.


Good luck.

The age of committing yourself to a company for ten years is over. That’s a recipe for obsoleting yourself ten times over. You’ll also miss out on the best talent, since by definition they have lots of options. I wouldn’t want to work at a place that filters by that criteria, on that basis alone.

It might seem like this is a reasonable thing to you, especially right now that the season is tough for programmers. But it’s an illusion.


Best talent that constantly rotates is useless when the projects you work on demand long term input from people with deep knowledge of existing systems. It's like hiring champion 100 meter sprinters to run marathons...


About 5 recessions in my life's rear view mirror and looks as if we're in one now. For those of you new to this, and if we're in-fact in a recession:

- Almost any job is preferred over no job at this time.

- Some cities in the US are a bit less impacted by recession (eg. Omaha, Nebraska), or have labor shortages because the area offers zero glamour and zero Starbucks.

- Technical skills are needed by USGOV, directly and generally not via body shops. Your country needs you if you're in the US.

- US has a shortage of skilled blue collar labor. Welding, electricians, plumbing, fabrication, etc. Manufacturing in the US is on the rise, though likely never to achieve the rhetorical aims of policy makers. Consider a career change.

Recessions are an inescapable event in any economy, and we were/are overdue. Bad times separate well run and well capitalized businesses from those less so. Such times reward productivity innovations. And, those of you resilient enough to persist & position yourselves smartly - get rewarded during the next boom cycle.


The current situation is absolutely nowhere near a recession. That being said, recessions are measured in very aggregate terms. In aggregate, the US and world economists are in a boom by any broad measures. But during a boom, some sectors or regions can be doing much worse than everyone else. I'm honestly not even sure tech is in much of a downturn. We've just gotten used to extreme boom times and this is now just kinda mediocre.


If this isn’t a recession I fear it’s just the new normal of being an employee in the modern world. Tech stocks have literally never been higher and yet they continue to lay off % of staff. Ridiculous.


It’s definitely a recession for US based tech workers


I really, really don't think so. Not in absolute terms. A lot of people got used to life on easy street with remote work and sky-high salaries. I think that has made a lot of software people complacent and picky. If you want a job, any job to put a roof over your head, it's still easier than the national average and the national average is also really, really good. The current data says the unemployment rate for software engineers is just 2.4% which would probably still qualify as a labor shortage.

https://www.comptia.org/newsroom/press-releases/tech-industr...


I am having a tough time... I am a systems administrator who also has experience teaching and coding, but I am looking at systems admins / engineering positions only. I consider myself highly experienced in Linux / Unix. A few years back, I could just word of mouth say I was looking and have offers. Now, nothing.

Lots of ghosting after the 2nd or 3rd interview. Very few positions for Sr. Systems admin / Engineer that I see as of late, much more "full stack or devops", but they really want a full time developer with a lot of front end experience. I do not really create web-applications, though. So it is tough.


This describes me as well. I’m almost to the point of grinding leetcode and learning react or some such front end. I have no AWS-esque type skills or anything scaling/web related.

My last pref. review I was told “you’re the guy we ask to solve problems 10x harder than the other devs. Anyone can patch a bug, we always ask you to figure out the things nobody else can.” Which unfortunately doesn’t translate well on a resume or in an interview.


Especially in something like the current market, being a highly-regarded "fixer" (or whatever you want to call it) probably doesn't get you past first-level screens looking for specific skills/experience. One of the reasons networks are so important.


Build a small web project on AWS using Terraform, and Node/React running on a container platform with a full cicd platform.

I have your background and doing this increased my scope and kills significantly.


Do this, and get a certification or two in lower level AWS/Azure and you'll have a job within 2 months.


I will take this advice to heart. Thank you.


Agree with this notion. Being a "systems engineer" in the past was akin to a sysadmin- jack of all trades. Sure, with experience you specialise and you need to make that shine on linkedin and the like. But now any use of the word "engineer" relates to dev/full stack work, including understandings of cloud technologies.

However. If you _Are_ a seasoned "sysadmin", you can pickup the cloud stuff. It's a different paradigm but if you have skill, you can do it. Time to learn new stuff!


Have you considered being a deployment specialist? I'm not sure if that's the term everyone else uses, but we have had like 1 candidate apply and are desperate for more applications. It would require a lot of travel, or living near Sacramento, CA though.

You can email me in my bio for more questions, referral to this role: https://apply.workable.com/ccri/j/AF5E000507/


Only a dozen? I applied to 37 jobs when I was hunting, and had a note on each one tracking who I’d talked to and what the next step was, plus to-do tasks to follow up with each on certain dates.

It was psychically exhausting.

But then I went from have 0 good news to having 3 jobs racing each other to make offers. Go figure.

This is a challenging time to be an applicant. Hang in there! Also, completely ignore LinkedIn as a source for jobs to apply to. It’s worthless. Each opening I looked at had captions like “be sure not to pass on this opportunity so amazing that 437 people have already applied to it! Subscribe to LinkedIn Platinum or whatever to boost your chances!” It’s basically an RPG with pay-to-win loot drops. Don’t get into their feedback loop. It’ll drive you nuts.


Sounds an awful lot like the dating site/app subscription fees model, they lose money if you ever find love.


Hit that nail right on the head.

In those terms, LinkedIn feels like “click here to win a date with Taylor Swift!” Realistically, that’s not gonna happen. (Not the the least because my wife would kill me before date night even if I won. Sorry, Taylor! Maybe in the next life!) I’m not going to be the #1 candidate in that stack. Well, someone has to be, true, but the odds just aren’t great.


Same. Applied to dozens of positions, and only got rejects. Not even a screening interview... Weirdest reject was when I applied to a position where I had 100% match with all the tech requirements (including niche ones), had relevant soft skills and had an industry experience. I highlited all of it in my cover letter, and still got a rejection.


I can relate. Two days ago, I found a perfect match in a niche but complex fintech sector I have experience in as a Engineering Manager and IC. I applied with a tailored resume and cover letter that addressed every single point and desirable skill in the job listing. I found the hiring manager and emailed them an intro where I briefly re-iterated my alignment with everything in the job details. I even got someone I had worked with previously to refer me to an upper-level manager at the hiring company.

I saw over 100 people applied for the role, but it's hard to imagine many (if any) other folks had the same direct experience with everything the role entailed. Yesterday, I got a cold rejection email. I was shocked enough to reply asking for any feedback on why I was not being considered based on how well my experience and achievements matched the role - I don't expect an answer.

I am also seeing a high percentage of cold rejections at later stages in the process than I am used to. Where the last interview step was usually down to 1-3 candidates, it's now down to 3-8.

It's just my opinion, but I think the huge volume of applicants is leading to them to go way beyond the job they are hiring for. Like, they post a position for a front end engineer with 3 years React experience and they end up with a 10+ year FS engineer, a FE engineer who worked for 7 years at Facebook, a BE with 8 years experience and 2 years of FE/FS, or a contractor in RU with 10+ years.


Yeah I’ve got this myself. Earlier this year I applied to 30-40 places, got 8 interviews and not one follow up or offer. I have >10 years professional experience, the last few building and leading teams of engineers, and was rejected by one place in particular because they were “looking for significant experience”


I'm guessing your career started during the asset bubble (that we're arguably still in)?

Historically speaking, just because you "solved the problems" doesn't mean you "get the job".

When I first started working (not originally in tech, but plenty of tech places did this too) this is how (professional, skilled) jobs were filled:

- Position posted with a deadline for submissions (usually 2 weeks to a month out, sometimes more).

- Organization waits until all applications are received.

- Resumes/Cover letters are reviewed.

- Calls to screen candidates.

- 1/2 day to full day onsite scheduled (depending on level of role).

- 1 candidate gets selected from the pool who made it to the final round. It was also not uncommon that the organization would decide that none of the candidates had the qualifications they were looking for and they would simply, wait and start the process over in 3 months.

It was much closer to buying a house in a hot sellers market than tech hires in the last decade.

This world of continuous hiring where the goal is to maintain a headcount rather than fill a role is fairly exclusive to the recent tech boom where growth was what mattered most. It's historically normal to get to the final onsite and still lose the offer because competition beat you out.


I wrote a reply to a person who was having a similar problem in another forum. I'll copy my post here.

I am a ML Engineer working at a big Co with 15+ YoE. This is how things are going for me:

* I started looking in September last year. So far I had 3 complete loops. One rejected me and two down leveled me.

* Although recruiters reach out a lot, more than half of them ghost me.

* When I started looking I used to ask for salary bands. Most companies top of band was around half of my current comp, so I declined. Now I'm saying yes to just about anything, just to prove to myself that I can get a job offer.

* Particularly in the ML space, requirements from companies are simply insane. One company was hiring a role doing exactly what I'm doing in the same domain. They rejected me because they wanted someone who was an expert at all of software engineering, data science and this particular domain, and apparently I'm not good enough. Oh, there is also this company who rejected me at the screening phase because I had "only" 6 years of experience with their particular technology instead of 8.

Draw your own conclusions about how good or bad the job market is.


For the past year it's been a hirer's market. Applied to 30 positions I'm perhaps overqualified for, all form letter rejected. Recruiters ask me for a call, I reply back and say what's a good time, ghosted; we actually scheduled a time, I'm ready and waiting, ghosted. The positions are listed but nobody's in a hurry to fill them.


You have to wonder if remote work is starting to bite developers.

10 year ago I started a business that had hundreds of engineers in London and New York.

I am now starting a new one and this time I am hiring talent from all over the world now that it is more acceptable for us and our clients.

Surely this must be a factor in people in expensive western markets?


> Surely this must be a factor in people in expensive western markets?

Yea, this was/is my main fear with remote work. It will "even out" the pay ranges across the globe...not perfectly (due to language, timezone, regulatory, and general cultural barriers), but the imbalance will be less severe as western salaries come down and int'l salaries rise from the new demand. I expect this to happen over the course of 5-10 years, not overnight, but seems like the early signs are already there now that Covid is 4 years old.


Even within the US and maybe western Europe (though that works better from the east coast). If you want to live in San Francisco (or Aspen), good for you. But there's very little reason for me to pay you a premium to do so if I'm a remote company. (There's some. I might not be able to hire people in California otherwise. But my observation is that's actually the unstated process at a lot of companies these days.)


On the other hand, I read stories online where people claim that it's hard/impossible to get promoted as remote employees. I wonder if these constraints will loosen as well.


Depends on how many non-remote are left. Certainly the locals won't be promoted if they haven't been hired in the first place, because the position was filed by a remote.

I guess we'll see less developers getting promoted in total, with more of the higher rank positions filled from lines that aren't as remote as development.


There will be a lot of churn along the way, companies will all try various things and find strategies that work for them. I just think, on average, salaries for "western" software engineers will stay flat or trend down over the next decade.


This is what I've been warning people about since I was at a company acquired by private equity. They straight up told us that if a job can be done from home, then it can be done from India. I got my layoff not too long after that.


> They straight up told us that if a job can be done from home, then it can be done from India.

Company leadership could be done from home during covid, right?


I mean, when the big one came, they were pretty brutal to a few of the C levels too. They got a brief mention on the call at least.

I always assumed that the PE overlords take a dozen or so executives and lock them in a room with half a dozen knives and tell them to figure it out on their own, but it's possible I'm a bit overly cynical and have a vivid imagination.


They get lucrative agreements with big contracting houses to backfill those roles for cheaper than the onshore cost. PE overlords have us running on a fte/contractor ratio mandate. I can only assume it’s due to money and the ability to rapidly reduce headcount on demand.


The counterpoint, of course, was "we have special skills that you can't outsource; we're paid as much as we are because of the value we provide"

It was absolutely maddening to see mass-scale denial in real-time.


Not your problem anymore but wonder if that turned out to be true. I have my doubts.


It's still a going business at least, and obviously India is chosen for cost above any other concern. That ethos showed up in a lot of decisions made by the private equity guys, so it's hard to say exactly which change caused the decline. Certainly in some sense the company is a shell of its former self, but maybe it's more profitable than ever, or maybe the PE guys are extracting lots of money from it? I assume they're making money somehow.


I think it is more to do with the massive rise in code academies and bootcamps over the past decade.

There are just a lot of barely skilled people in the industry with minimal passion. Hiring processes haven't caught up yet to filter for quality in this environment.


Last years I worked for a SJ-headquartered public company with spectacular compensation. While I was still there they stopped hiring in CA and the gossip was about TX. But on my team new roles were opened in Europe instead (surprisingly, not Eastern). The layoffs were concentrated in the Bay Area too. I heard that since then they started looking for even cheaper locations.

I have recently seen large American companies where managers/team leads are full-time employees while their teams are mostly contractors from LatAm. And even those managers are not on PST. They advertise "W2 contract-to-hire" roles here in the US though.


This happening was obvious (to me) the minute every engineer started clamoring for remote work.

Compensation packages and hiring processes were traditionally very regional. I remember having a very hard time finding work in a city I wanted to move to because I was not physically there.

Now they are not.

The push for remote work from our own was the second biggest "fuck you; I've got mine; should've been born earlier" moment I've ever seen in tech right behind OpenAI and Microsoft (whose engineers are paid extremely well) touting how well ChatGPT can replace engineers.


Companies have tried and failed to outsource their employees for more than 10 years.

It shouldn’t be different now. They reduce WFH to manage employees better (stupid but that’s what they think), but WFH is still accepted where I live (France, up to 3 days a week).


It's not just the price I think. Also dwindling acceptance of less than 100% skill match due to how remote makes the candidate pool much larger. Expect even more "openings" that aren't really open unless that one imaginary prince in shining armor shows up.


This is something I have been wondering about a lot. How can companies pay so much for engineers i Silicon Valley when you get the same level of engineers in Europe for 1/3 the price. And provable 1/6 of you look more to the east or asia.

Sure, there might be some kind of network knowledge going on in Silicon Valley, but now with work from home, that's pretty much fading away.


Yeah going thru the process of 5-7 interviews just to get lowballed or ghosted is pretty draining. I’m guessing it’s just a tough market and I’m getting edged out by other candidates or companies have so many applicants they can offer less than I asked for during screening.


In Germany: this was my experience late last fall as well. It's not that I got no offers, it's just that the ones I got (2) were at least 30% below what I had asked for. It's definitely employer's market right now.


This is going to put fuel on the fire. I run a startup, we hired two devs out of Eastern Europe at 60k each that are absolutely phenomenal. We’d love to hire American but can’t afford it. I know many other companies doing the same (nyc based seed/preseed startups). With ai, high interest rates, and covid accelerating remote hiring, I don’t see this recovering.


Ding ding ding, this right here is a big part of it. Previously it was very rare for vc funded startups (which are the main source of decent tech jobs apart from big tech) to hire from abroad, but now it’s more the norm rather than the exception (just look at the HN postings, tons of latam)

The remote work movement chickens have come home to roost


The model I'm noticing becoming more popular is a highly skilled US based team lead and exclusively Latam seniors and mids.

The reason to have some US devs is that the Latam hires are technically contractors and they need US engineers to hedge against the risk a change in Argentina tax law forces employees to quit.

Im sure it's very difficult to be a US based junior or mid right now.


I’m seeing the same trend. You get the benefit of the same general working hours. We tend to only have 2-3 in house engineers and an equal amount of contractors. Those contractors are unlikely to ever be more than a senior.


I mean it hits the seniors hard too - you’re talking about a 50% or more reduction in this type of job compared to before


Yes. You need an expert based in the USA to manage the technical solutions. This is the pattern that works


I can confirm, Eastern/Central Europe devs are phenomenal value for money.


My company regularly outsources large projects to Eastern Europe. Almost perfect English, great developers, projects get done on time, and the pay is a fraction of US developers.


Hang in there. I feel the tables are about to turn as AI eliminates junior positions. You'd need people who understand business, potential issues, and architecture at a higher level. Which usually means people who are more senior. My advice would be to repackage your skills. Don't compete on things that a junior developer can complete at a lower cost.

I didn't make this up - I'm in my 40s and use Generative AI for most of my work today (currently with a custom toolset that I'll open source soon). There will be some work which will require human ingenuity, but most software patterns have been done before by someone else.


I said the similar and was lit up here with respect to using AI.

We do not need any more juniors or more staff provided the current staff embrace the time saving that the AI, LLM, etc can provide.


I've been tracking my job applications since 2020.

I'm not having applications rejected as much as I'm having them get ghosted.

My percentage of ghosted applications is up 25% from 2022 and 20% from 2020, while my number of outbound applications is up 40% from 2022 and 45% from 2020.

Like many folks here, I used to get a good amount of inbound recruiter activity prior to 2023, but that's all but stopped. That channel is _barely_ picking back up again.

The good news is that applications following up from referrals have gotten me interviews fairly consistently. The bad news is that places with open headcount are harder to find.


As someone who is trying to hire for server-side and devops roles, we are getting pickier. We have a lot of incoming.

A lot of it is spam and people who clearly are using AI to fill in our form. One applicant didn’t even bother to remove “ChatGPT:” from the answer.

Of the remaining applicants I do feel that even those with years of experience at big companies are kind of hothouse flowers. They are skilled at using complex and costly frameworks, but they are often missing what I used to think of as the basics.

A lot of those frameworks are themselves ZIRPs! I kind of think the current generation has been cheated a bit. If I were starting out today I don’t know how I would have learned anything.

We had a candidate who detailed some of their achievements at their previous employer, things like “I got this third party service to feed their logs into that third party service”. And they are not wrong, this was a titanic effort and they had to navigate complex change procedures to get it done. But… this isn’t what I’m hiring for.

Candidates are also under a lot of pressure. I read an application the other day which was clearly human-written, but they gave two or three word answers to essay questions. The answers were actually correct, just not with the kind of detail we wanted. But I imagine that we were one of ten applications the guy filled out that day. In this environment I don’t know how much time I can legitimately expect a candidate to spend on us.


Is there anything applicants can do to better provide what you're looking for? Obviously giving more complete answers, but anything else that would help you find the right person? And the other way round, is there anything you might change to get the right people to find you?


We'll probably just work our personal networks harder.

Personal networks didn't work as well during bubble/ZIRP times because everybody good was employed and either they already made more than what you were offering, or were holding out for a company that paid more.

Nowadays everybody knows someone good who has been laid off or is worried about being laid off. Or maybe they made major lifestyle changes during the pandemic and now they'd have to move a small family from Omaha back to the Bay Area.

As for screening questions, there's never going to be an automated way that detects AI or AI-influenced answers, for obvious reasons. There are countermeasures I have in mind but I'm not sharing them here.


Other side, I put out a job req for a remote react dev position a month ago and got 1k applications in a week. 95% were automated spam.


Why would spammers apply for a job?


How do you know the spammers and job seekers are separate groups?


I've just talked to a guy who started a recruiting agency in Moscow last November just b/c the industry is thriving. The salaries are high. According to his assessments this market will be high during the next 2+ years.

Also he's been interviewing some Russian-speaking candidates willing to relocate from the US, Israel and Germany. Among the candidates are Russians who have been living there for 15 years. Their reasons to leave: bad attitude towards Russians at all levels, unwillingness to pay taxes that are used for war against Russia, lack of actual freedom of speech, and LGBT propaganda starting from 1st grade elementary.

Regarding quality of life here, for instance, even a PHP mid can get around 280-320k RUB/month net. Head of arch can get 1200k. And 300-400k RUB/month even in Moscow has greater purchasing power than 5-7k EUR/month net in, say, Munich. Plus, long-term prospects, stable economy, healthy food, high-quality affordable internet, good and cheap public transit, instant person to person money transfers, great digital government services, strong combat-proven army with best in the world air defense etc and beautiful women…


A dozen applications is not very much. Anecdotally, I've heard from a few folks that the funnel these days looks something like this: 100 applications -> 10 interviews -> 1 offer. Doesn't mean that you should be shotgunning your resume to every conceivable job (this happens a lot right now and hiring managers are overwhelmed), but it is a numbers game and you need to widen the top of the funnel.


I bumped into one of the people who interviewed me for my current job, said hi, and introduced myself to remind him who I am. We had a nice chat and he begged my forgiveness for not recognizing me at first: he’d personally interviewed 32 other people for the spot.


I have no remorse for hiring managers. The length of time it takes to make it through the hiring process they have fomented makes the shotgun approach absolutely necessary if you want to get hired (at all) in a timely manner.


One thing I think a lot of folks (even senior, seasoned people) incorrectly assume is that if they don't get a job offer it means they weren't good enough for that job when it's very rarely the case. I've helped interview for several of my jobs, and been in charge of technical interviewing at one, and by the time you're doing a 2nd or 3rd interview we already know you're "good enough," now it's just trying to decide between however many people are left. At that stage it is as much luck and law of large numbers (12 is not large when you get hundreds of apps for any single position) as anything else. It sounds brutal, and it is, but you're looking for any reason to eliminate someone so you can get closer to an offer. As a company you're also competing with other companies who might be moving faster or able to give slightly better offers.


Ha! Just got rejected from a process in the EU (not desperately looking) cause of a super nit picky coding challenge project. The project worked exactly to spec, I just overlooked the use of a third party package on a (Django) DB model to replace the "created_at" field.

Oh well! My 4 hours of coding was not totally a waste.


I was recently applying during the summer of '23 for roles in The Netherlands. I was on about 14 interviews before I landed my current role. Company #5 offered me a role, but then changed the position from lead to engineer and cut the salary significantly after telling me I had the role. I'm not sure if it's just because of European holidays or the bad economy, but replies could take weeks and there were very few roles available. I'm seeing more roles these days and a trickle of recruiters reaching out, but 6 months ago it was barren. I put a lot of the failed interviews due to me having to cast the net wide to get any interview. Times have definitely changed. London however still seems active and hungry.


It seems to be getting better. When I posted jobs in November I was getting roughly 100 applicants a day with maybe 10-20 of decent quality. Now I'm getting roughly half that, but that still means 50 applicants a day, out of which I'll talk to maybe 1-2 people.


All of this sounds disjointed. Employers saying they can't handle the influx of applications, while job seekers say I've applied, followed through, matched all the keywords and still got rejected. I will give you that 1-3 times is probably normal, heck! 12 is probably pretty relatable. But how about 300? Because my wife has applied to 300 plus jobs since may 2023, when she was laid off in a RIF(Reduction in Force) She works in marketing and has been in data cloud marketing since its inception. she has been rejected from numerous jobs, even ones she's interviewed with, and even ones where she has received referrals from people who both work at the company, or work with the company. So, someone explain, how a company that is supposedly slammed with resumes and applications, gets a person cherry picked for the position they are offering and still doesn't get it. And you can say she didn't interview well, but most say they are rejecting for job history (her last 3 jobs were all start ups that either were bought out or tanked due to low market share and marketing and sales were always the first to get let go). So, somebody make it make sense!


from my exp. hiring for ages, they interview lots of people, then it goes quiet - nothing comes of it.

6 months later you hear some nepotistic hire takes the position.

maybe companies prefer people they know rather than 1000s of applicants.

also a toxic culture of seeking perfection and a cargo culting attitude prevalent among many senior/lead engineers and managers. maybe justified, i dont know and i dont care anymore.


I have a theory that a lot of the jobs listed are to prove you tried to find qualified candidates before you hire a developer's friend.

In defense of hiring friends: If the referer is considered a trustworthy employee, it's probably going to be your highest information hire.


Same for me. I have a PhD from a top ten university in Computer Science, with publications, and strong but shorter work history.

I interviewed with a well-known startup here on HN that required a lengthy application material submission, which I spent a few hours on. Then talked with the CTO and felt the conversations went well. After two conversations I was ghosted.

Submitted to a large software company in Washington state which indicated they had "up to 100% remote" for specific roles. In the application I indicated "not available for relocation" and have only received automated rejection emails for them. I mention that last point because I suspect that may have been the reason.

I have also applied to roles from the last few Who's Hiring posts in positions that are more of a stretch for my line of work but with overlap in core technologies, but have not received so much as a conversation. One just silently rejected my application (I had to view in their workday site to see what the status was).

On the other hand, large companies like Google, Apple, etc. are (or were) very eager to move forward to interview me, even for multiple roles. But I cannot relocate and had to inform the recruiters I am unfortunately inflexible with this. Ironic, I find.

NVIDIA, Meta, many smaller companies (gitlab, duckduckgo, kagi, and other startups found here) seem to be the only tech employers that explicitly advertise remote work is okay with them. But some roles in the smaller companies aren't always a great match for my interests (maybe the culture would be, so I am trying to keep an open mind).


I was laid off in May 2023 from one of the bulge-bracket banks. Had been doing founder-focused lending on shares of private companies. I'll tell you that I've applied to probably 1,000 jobs since then (across the spectrum of opportunities), and these days rarely get even an acknowledgement of the application or even a rejection. It's basically full-on corporate ghosting.


Getting ready to retire pretty soon and had a handle on a few very part-time things more to keep my hand in rather than to make money. Anecdotally, all that seems to have sort of fizzled away. Nothing was too formal in any case and not a big deal. But I think the message is to focus on things I want to do that don't require getting someone to pay me.


Well, I'll say this - I've gotten a lot more responses this month than ever before. Although I have to turn them down because the positions are onsite only.

Luckily I'm employed full-time. But my pay isn't good at all, so I've been exploring other options.


Applied(and went thru the all the ropes) twice in the last 6 months for Java software engineering positions(senior) in two companies respectively.

Rejected the first time, low-balled below my communicated expected salary the second time.

The interview processes felt a lot like tech hazing - multiple interviews, a coding assignment, and an arbitrary review of said assignment compared to the job responsibilities. At the end, I felt plenty invested(both emotionally and timewise) to the point that I amused the idea of accepting the low-ball offer. I guess that even might have been the company's strategy.

I continue with my freelance work and looking.

*edit: I am in the EU.

Best of luck with your search!


Around the start of this year, I did around five interviews for a 160k role, then got ghosted for about two weeks before getting rejected for "not being a startup culture fit". I think they just liked someone else better and gave me a generic reason, but it hurt that I got all the way to the final stage of the application process and still didn't make it. Delayed my job search by about a month, made me dream up all sorts of future plans that I'll never actually be able to afford. Devastating.


I know this is a odd niche part of the job market but if you have system admin experience and have an engineering degree look at most large electrical utilities or contracting firms for design, they need people that understand how to setup a server and how to build virtual machines and how to configure a switch. But their HR departments are very selective about the degree has to be engineering. They are in person jobs though so that might not be for those who have gotten use to the remote work life.


Who is responsible for creating, marketing and selling Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) software?

Is it staff in HR departments comprised of what HN likes to call "non-technical people"?

Did so-called "non-technical people" seek a 10x increase in the number of applicants and then enlist software developers to make it happen.

What is the story behind the spread of "ATS".


Lots and lots of rejections over here. I've also had 3 rejections from final stage interviews in the last couple months.


I’ve heard from a lot of people that this is happening and as a hiring manager myself when I do have an open role I see a lot more good applications than I saw say, five years ago, which means I’m rejecting a lot of people that have great experience. I’m working at a startup, so it seems to span most company sizes.


Given the recent "treatment" from recruiters, I'm inspired to start something like a Glassdoor but for individual recruiters.

There's far too many recruiters (internal and agency) that behave poorly and or act unethically.


Are you willing to relocate to Central Virginia or to Salt Lake city Utah? We can't seem to find good backend SWE candidates, especially senior ones.

My email is in my bio if you want to apply, also, I could give you some actionable feedback on your resume based on what I'm seeing a lot lately.


Do you accept full time remote candidates? Frankly, you’re not going to lure away Bay Area SWEs with VA or UT salaries, but you might well be able to hire someone in Tennessee.

I had TN specifically in my mind because I had a remote coworker from there at my SF startup. He was a great guy and super talented, and lived on a beautiful farm he had no intention of leaving. That’s the guy you want to be targeting. Hire my old neighbors from Missouri. That brilliant kid in Nebraska. Someone from Iowa, although I don’t know why you’d want to do that, go Huskers. Take advantage of all the things we scrambled to build out to make full time remote jobs completely feasible these last few years.


Hang in there, everyone. This is what happens when interest rates are high, LPs prefer to plow money into fixed income or public markets and VCs with what little funds they have prefer to be in AI. 2011-2022 was an unusual golden age for software engineers with 2021 being the absolute peak. The current state is an usual low while the overdose is wearing off.

This is not you - this is just the nature of the cycle. You got to enjoy the high but how you have to survive the lows. Conserve cash; do work for comp that you once thought was once below you. The good times will come again. Don't get too down about it but also don't get too stubborn about maintaining what you once had.


Ultra-low interest rates like in the past 15 years are historically an anomaly: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3f/Federal_... Nobody knows how it will develop in the future.


> You got to enjoy the high but how you have to survive the lows.

But I have been in the same employer for the last 6 years, so I didn't get to enjoy the high :/


some people get high on 6 years of steady employment. Are you still working there?


There have been a lot of redundancies this past year, which means there are more people on the market and many companies are having a freeze/restraint.


https://gocoderemote.com/

I built this to help developers find jobs. May be of use.


Nice. Where do you get the job listings from?


- Apply to more than just dozens of job postings - Polish your resume - Add projects to GitHub - Go to in-person tech events - Set LinkedIn to #OpenToWork - Contact design studios with a direct link to your portfolio - Go on Monster, Indeed, Dice, etc. and publish your resume and tweak your profile - Talk to other devs and humble yourself for any opportunity they may have for you


It was the same in here. I needed to accept a job with over 1 hour commute; but hey it's a job.


Not rejected as per say, but about 12 months ago I applied for a role in Intercom. Strangest, downright oddest interview shuttle bus I've ever hopped on.

First up was a screener with one non technical recruiter, final question of the interview was something like "would you be open to other roles too?". I said sure, but I was mainly interested in the role I applied for.

End up moving to the next stage with a technical interview, same question at the end of that.

Third interview was with someone else for a completely different role. I asked what about the first role and the recruiter put me back on a screener with the same non technical guy I had talked with the previous week.

This guy then said they'd filled the other role I didn't initially want, that the role I had originally applied for was still open but if I'd consider other roles again. I responded that I'd actually like to try for, you know, the role I'd actually applied for in the first place. Recruiter says sure...

Then silence, haven't heard from them in about a year.


Sounds about right. Hiring pipeline is probably too long to guarantee anything, but most people don't work out, so recruiters want to keep good leads in the pipeline as long as possible, just in case something comes up. Never attribute to malice that you can attribute to (in this case organizational) incompetence.


Their business is in the doldrums.


To everyone struggling to get hired:

Start your own thing.

Seriously.


Might as well ask the hungry to start their own farm


Ideally you’d both remedy the current situation but also start building for the future.

The best time to start a business was five years ago, the second best time is now.


If you are struggling to get hired AND have a massive financial cushion AND have the right connections in the industry to get funding for your project AND are at a stage in life where failure will not have real consequences.

Most people out there need to put food on the table for their families and make rent next month, and so don't have the above luxuries.


I’m not talking about VC-funded moon shots, that’s your bias showing.

And it’s not a luxury, it’s a necessity for a knowledge worker, imho.

Working on my own (non-monetized, small, used by no-one) stuff has created a string of achievements that created a positive psychological feedback loop during a very dark time.

Additionally, it let me work on things that then let me pivot in a completely different direction compared to what I was doing before and make money this way.

Personal development is good. Even / especially if you need to whore yourself out at the same time.


This only really works if you have a way to pay the bills outside of your salary, or are young enough to live with your parents or on a buddy’s couch.


If you worked (not just starting, please don't make a company if so) in tech you should have large enough savings to be able to do what rrr_oh_man is proposing.


From the perspective of a hiring manager at a mid-size company, I'm not at all surprised. I'm having a tough time getting backfills approved when we have voluntary departures, all my opens were cut, and the goal is "do way more with way less".

HR has already frozen salaries - no increases for existing employees, and they're already starting to cut salaries for newly posted positions.

When you do get a position posted you get a ton of applicants: one of my managers hired for a senior SWE and had to filter through over 700 resumes. And you can't meaningfully filter that, at best you take a sample and pick from there, so plenty of good candidates are going to end up on the wrong end of a "select all, delete". This also lets HR be way more aggressive, so offers before that were a negotiation have turned into "take it or leave it" up front.

I mean, it kinda makes sense... ZIRP is over, free money is gone. And plenty of companies are going to be like mine and servicing debt payments from growth and acquisitions with an interest rate that has tripled over time.

The real sentiment right now is "batten down the hatches".


> "take it or leave it" up front

I have also encountered this - salary negotiation with HR/recruiter at first contact. This was before any interviews or coding tests, at a point when I only had the vague job posting as a guide for the role. There seemed to be two filters: a remoteness/WFH/RTO test; and a low-ball salary bludgeon.

As Groucho Marx almost said, I'm very glad I don't work for a company like that :)


Me too. My company isn't that bad – yet?. But in 2022 I remember employees regularly countering on the offer and squeezing out significant %age increases to base. Now the offer is the offer.

Could be worse, I guess. Other managers I've talked to have said that their organizations are actively running the numbers on salary cuts to "normalize" wages after things heated up so much in 21-22.


Its tough out there. I have a degree from Cambridge, 10 years of (quant) experience at hedge funds and banks and im still getting rejected too. I will only say 12 applications isnt that much these days, keep persevering and you will hit your stride soon enough. Good luck.


Yeah, as an interviewer at a large tech company, it’s not uncommon to get 300+ applications for a role (if it’s remote OK and we don’t set many pre-filters), do a dozen phone screens, and 4 interview loops to fill a single position.

In the relatively awesome market in 2021 I did 70+ applications, 10+ screens, 4 loops, and ended up with 2 offers. And that was all as an internal transfer, with tends to be a little easier.


Do you have a resume?


Depends whos asking (actually of course I do), my email is on my profile.


I got my Commercial Driver's License and am going to start driving a Semi-Truck. I aged out of the Silicon Valley crowd years ago, even though I still have technical chops.

Zed Shaw points out that coding is a "super power" that can be used outside the tech echochamber to great effect: https://learnpythonthehardway.org/python3/advice.html


That may be true in theory, but it's more likely no one is going to care about your ideas. "Interesting ideas, but we pay you to bring the load from A to B, now get back to work."


I've actually been thinking about this. Seems like a lot of local jobs require a CDL (post office, parks department, bus driver, etc). How was your experience? It seems intimidating, but lots of people do those jobs, so must not be as bad as I think.


If i may ask, what made you switch your field?




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