I'm guessing #7 contributed to the fact that it took the author 1 year to find another job. If you're desperate, you can most likely find an _okay_ job in 3 months. If you don't have the luxury to wait for a "good" job, finding a job tends to happen faster.
I'm in similar shoes to the author here, and am glad to hear you show some understanding for this.
I interviewed with a quite promising company beginning of December, only to immediately get the written feedback (after the first call) of
"Well I know a lot of SWE in this town and none of them are struggling to find a job - so if you've been looking for X months, surely there's something wrong with you - and anyway, we've already signed a contract with someone else in the 5 days since we last spoke."
(To be fair to them - I had mentioned how frustrating it was to simply get "no" as negative hiring feedback and asked them to elaborate if at all possible)
I take it as a "well, bullet dodged" moment, but I am not going to lie and say it didn't sting.
This sort of thing is pretty common. It happens in both directions, if you're employed job offers line up, if you're available there must be something wrong with you. Highly frustrating. A couple of takeaways: unemployed < freelancers < has a job < has a prestigious job. So if possible and you're on the job market at least fill the time freelancing so you don't end up with the 'unemployed' status because hiring managers are going to see that as a way to excuse themselves, from that point forward they look at employing you as taking a risk, which, as a rule they are trained to avoid. VCs suffer from the same disability: the start-up that has a deal on the table will have multiple parties trying to get in on the deal, the start-up that is just pitching is probably somehow faulty or someone else would have given them a terms sheet long ago. They see no inconsistency in this. Also, you don't necessarily have to inform them of your feelings and the fact that you've been rejected more than once. Best of luck there!
>"so if you've been looking for X months, surely there's something wrong with you - and anyway, we've already signed a contract with someone else in the 5 days since we last spoke."
I think letting them know you are currently unemployed is a mistake. Frankly your current state of affairs is not their business. You can always tell them that you are ok but looking for a better job. Very simple and understandable. Yes it is a lie but it is the only reasonable option. Telling perspective employer to sod off and not to stick their nose into your internal situation is not going to do you any good. Telling that you are out of job and looking will immediately put you into unfavorable position. Treat yourself as a business in this particular case. Businesses have zero problems lying to each other / their employees for as long as it does not break a law.
There's really no way to hide you're currently unemployed, or at least not employed in the tech field, unless you make up an entire fantasy world. Not only will you have to put the lie into your resume, and maybe provide fake references, but you'll also get tons of interview questions about skills and projects and challenges from your current job.
>"There's really no way to hide you're currently unemployed"
It is absolutely trivial.
>"but you'll also get tons of interview questions about skills and projects and challenges from your current job"
Your last job unless it is 10 years old should provide all of the answers. Any really identifying details should not be asked / answered as the employee is normally under NDA.
Same for references. Reference from "current job" can simply be refused. I can hardly imagine employee going to their boss and asking for a job reference while still working.
Anyways I am independent and run my own company. Maybe I am not up to date about how deep the US employers are able to stick their fingers up that proverbial hole.
While interviewing in the U.S. you'll get a lot of casual questions about your current job, such as what you like best about it, what skills you use there or why you want to leave. These will come from the recruiter, the manager and your future peers. These are both technical and social questions. Refusing to answer any of these questions would be very weird socially, and even very restrictive NDAs should allow you to at least speak generally about what you're doing.
>"While interviewing in the U.S. you'll get a lot of casual questions about your current job, such as what you like best about it, what skills you use there or why you want to leave. "
These fall perfectly into experience with last job. Does not have to be current. And all those questions you asked are trivial. Also I've never dealt with the recruiters. I have always searched and found perspective companies myself and no they were not Amazon big type. If I could not speak with the owner I would simply walk away - not my kind of place.
My first programming job in Canada - I just simply walked into the office and asked to speak to the owner (I knew it was small 20 person consultancy).
Since 2000 I am on my own but I still find clients and have interviews. Just a different type of interview of course.
> I had mentioned how frustrating it was to simply get "no" as negative hiring feedback and asked them to elaborate if at all possible
Don’t do this! You’re inviting feedback from someone who is basically a complete stranger, who has an undisclosed set of “standards” they’re judging you against, and who might not actually be very good at assessing talent. The odds of getting a “false signal” are high.
I've honestly made enough of a positive experience to recommend doing it.
Sometimes people just genuinely tell you things like "there wasn't enough detail about X on your CV, but we took a chance and called you anyway" - that tells me that I can improve my chances for a callback in the future by adding more detail (if I get that same feedback 2-3 times).
You're right though in that a looooooooot of hiring people also have no clue what they want to see.
Asking for feedback is okay if you're in the right mindset. Understand that unless you completely failed something, it's probably them, not you, and any feedback you get should be seen as likely rationalizing a decision they made for who knows what reasons. So as long as you don't take the feedback too hard or too personally, you might get some ideas for how to improve your chances with the next employer.
Just curious, what do you define as an _okay_ job? Would you be willing to pay the opportunity cost to take it?
For what it's worth, I thought the same. I applied to over 50 companies and not all of them were FAANG by any stretch of the imagination. I'll admit I'm not the best at interviewing, which certainly was a factor. But even as I broadened my search to the "okay" roles, I still had difficulty landing work.
Coming off my own job search, my take is that the era of remote work has fundamentally changed the entire process. I'm going on 24 years of professional experience and applied to more jobs in that search than in the rest of my career combined. Prior to this year, I've had exactly two applications that didn't result in an interview, and only 3 interviews that didn't result in offers.
In this past search, I applied to about 50 jobs and had 4 interviews. According to LinkedIn stats, most of those jobs had 30-200+ applicants. The results of those applications were:
~12 screens with recruiters that resulted in rejection
~ 8 rejections w/no conversations
~20 no reply whatsoever
~ 3 rejects in first round
- 1 second round reject
- 1 final round reject (a nearly 2 month process!)
- 1 offer for about 50% of my previous salary, but a more more interesting role
- 2 replies indicating a desire to move forward that came 6 weeks after my application, and after I'd accepted a job.
My takeaway is that it's a numbers game now. In the past, I was very highly targeted in my searches, but now that the doors are wide open to everyone across the country for many roles, it's about getting someone's eyes on your resume, and that requires a certain level of aggression in applying.
> Just curious, what do you define as an _okay_ job? Would you be willing to pay the opportunity cost to take it?
If I didn't have enough money to pay for food/rent, I would take the first offer. Fortunately, I've never been in that situation.
> I applied to over 50 companies and not all of them were FAANG by any stretch of the imagination. I'll admit I'm not the best at interviewing, which certainly was a factor. But even as I broadened my search to the "okay" roles, I still had difficulty landing work.
If you're thinking about the distinction between FAANG and not FAANG, then we are talking about completely different levels of _okay_. I'm talking about non-tech companies, where you'd most likely be working on internal tools or whatever. Maybe you'd be writing crappy Jira/Confleunce/whatever plugins. Or gluing together one internal system to another internal system, etc.
I consider _okay_ to mean a job that pays enough money to cover rent/food.
It would be great if you could share your insights about finding work at these non-tech companies, either here or at my recent post at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34108841. I've applied to far over 50 places and would be satisfied with that sort of thing at least for the near term.
You're looking for a remote job. The sort of companies I'm thinking of most likely won't do remote. Maybe it's different now in the era of COVID, but I suspect they'll still be "asses in chairs, look busy" type places.
Go on monster.com (or any other job search site), type in "programmer" (or "<language> programmer" if you only have experience in a single language) and start applying. If you don't recognize the company name or what they do, that's good. If you're looking for a consultancy gig, then you probably want to look out for keywords like "government" or "client". If you're looking for a non-tech company, then you need to google the company name and see what field their in.
If you know Java, you can probably search for "Jira programmer" or "Jira developer" and find a pretty cushy gig writing those. If you know PHP, then search for "wordpress developer". If it's python, search "Django developer" etc.
Yes, remote only if at all possible. I'm surprised that non-tech companies care about looking busy, since tech is a cost center for them and I would guess they're hiring grudgingly at best.
I've looked mainly on LinkedIn and some smaller job boards, not Monster or Indeed or Dice or any of those.
Another thing is that I'm avoiding complex applications, the ones where you're immediately asked to create an account and once you do they ask you for a ton of information like every job you've had in your life. Are the jobs you're talking about often gated behind these applications?
> Are the jobs you're talking about often gated behind these applications?
Most likely, you'll start to recognize the different software companies use to track job applications.
My only experience was helping someone out when they got laid off. They had a mortgage to pay, a new born and a wife that quit her job to look after the new born.
Being picky about job application software wasn't a the top of our list. I think we applied to over 500 ads over the course of a few days, basically every single commutable job. I think from those, there were 20 interviews and 3 offers.
Some of the software automatically scans your CV and populates stuff. If it can't do it properly, restructure your CV until it can. You might need a few different CVs for different software.
I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you don't sound very serious. Or at least not desperate (which is probably a good thing).
If you're looking for a job full time, you should spend a few hours a day grinding leetcode and a few hours a day filling in those shit applications. Obviously I don't know you or you situation, I have no idea if this is good advice for you or not.
You can judge for yourself whether I'm serious or desperate or not. If your standard is 500 applications within a few days, then no. I can't even comprehend that. Are we talking like 10-15 applications per hour?
I don't care about the software as such, but so far I'm not desperate enough to provide detailed information about every job I've had since I was a teenager, every reference up front, agree to legal statements, or whatever else they might insist on, knowing I could be fired later on if I get any of it wrong, just to maybe get the first 30 minute phone call from a recruiter. On top of this is the simple logic that any employer that puts up all these barriers is probably not really interested in hiring anyway. More work for less reward, so that my time would be better spent looking for more likely positions.
That said I'm willing to have my mind changed on this. Maybe all of these jobs are actually super eager to hire despite being so hostile to applicants.
> Are we talking like 10-15 applications per hour?
Pretty much, around 5 minutes per application.
>provide detailed information about every job I've had since I was a teenager, every reference up front, agree to legal statements, or whatever else they might insist on, knowing I could be fired later on if I get any of it wrong
Either you're completely overthinking it and you can just omit a bunch of stuff, or you're applying to some job that requires security clearance and they use those questions to prescreen. I remember the application for some defense contractor was too painful and we gave up.
But if it's some standard jobvite or whatever form, just fill it in. Only include relevant tech jobs and your university education (if you have a degree) and move on.
If it's really that big a deal for you, shortlist 50 jobs from those job search sites. Then go to /r/slavelabour and pay someone $15 bucks to apply for you (given your CV and email).
> That said I'm willing to have my mind changed on this. Maybe all of these jobs are actually super eager to hire despite being so hostile to applicants.
It's more likely that at some point that bought a license for the applicant tracking software and they'll use it forever. They probably have it on some default settings so it's not the best for tech jobs. That doesn't mean they aren't serious about hiring.
But those job aggregator sites are a bit shit, they'll have listings for jobs that are already filled or no longer available.
We may be talking past each other. I'm talking about applications for unremarkable positions at large corporations where the application forms are either branded by the company or done through something like iCIMS, Taleo or Workday. You create an account and then you're faced with several steps asking for who knows what. The experience question might be "List all past jobs starting with the most recent" with no date limit. Later on you'll have to agree that you answered everything fully and honestly or you can be fired. Maybe I'm a fool for taking that seriously but the meaning is straightforward to me.
These are also the sorts of positions I think people are talking about when they talk about HR being a barrier, filtering on keywords, or how important it is to network around them before applying. So I don't think it's a matter of the company being stuck with software they can't do anything about, instead the hostile and opaque application process mirrors their actual hiring process, or at least I assume so. I'm happy to hear if you have any insight from the recruiting side at these places.
> List all past jobs starting with the most recent" with no date limit. Later on you'll have to agree that you answered everything fully and honestly or you can be fired. Maybe I'm a fool for taking that seriously but the meaning is straightforward to me.
This is the most standard thing ever. The ycombinator job board[0] works the exact same way. No one is going to fire you if you leave out that you worked at Pizza Hut when you were younger. They will fire you if you claim to have worked at Google but never actually did. Or if you claim N years of experience in some technology despite never using it. Just make sure your CV matches what you enter into the software and that you're not lying on your CV, that's it.
> I'm happy to hear if you have any insight from the recruiting side at these places.
I have experience working on the recruiting side of a fairly large company that used Jobvite (which is why I mentioned it, first piece of software I could think of) for their application tracking system. It asked you the same sort of questions, even some really stupid ones like your Myers Briggs personality type, despite me arguing very strongly against it.
Yes, HR would do some filtering, they probably filtered out good candidates and let many bad ones through to the next stage to get filtered by the hiring people. This shouldn't stop you from applying, who cares if you get filtered out by HR at X% of the time? You'll get through 100-X% of the time, and if you apply to a lot of places, that'll be a lot of people looking at your CV. An application should not take you longer than 5-10 minutes, it's not a big investment of time.
> instead the hostile and opaque application process mirrors their actual hiring process, or at least I assume so
Yes, the hiring process will be shit. But it's not intentionally hostile, it's "hostile" because that's the way it's always been and there's too much momentum to change it. I'm certain the Myers Briggs questions turned off many good candidates. I would immediately close a job application if it was asking stuff like that (assuming I wasn't desperate). But the company was genuinely looking to hire good people. I feel like you underestimate how difficult it is to change anything at a large company where tech is a cost center :).
There are many tech jobs out there that just ask you to send in a resume and cover letter and answer some questions. Saying it's technically possible to get an interview from sending out an unfocused 5-10 minute application to a big corporation using something like Taleo is not a strong argument in itself to do that.
I can respond to this having gone through a similar process in the past few years. There’s ok and there’s the (IMHO) more common bad. I turned down several offers myself, for reasons ranging from ‘not wanting to be the public advocate for something I didn’t believe in’ to ‘discovering the leadership were crypto scammers’.
The bar can get very low! Look into local low prestige consulting companies if you’re really desperate for something. I worked at one after moving to the US and the hiring bar was extremely low and I was working there a few days later
I agree. I was hired over a year ago to a similar place that's since been acquired by a Big IT Consulting Company. One benefit of that situation is that a) I can kinda just blend in and do my job quietly without attracting much notice, and b) the hiring bar was insanely low, the easiest interview-to-offer pipeline I have ever fallen through. I'm not planning to stay forever, but they're paying my bills and giving me work so for now, I'm content to stick it out, maybe through the end of next year even.
For both your and the GP's comment, it would be great if you could share some details on how job searching with "local low prestige consulting companies" works, either here or in a recent post I made at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34108841.
I was about to say the same thing. #2, #4, and #7 partially contradict each other.
I think you can go faster if you use third-party recruiters, as much as I often despise them. Try to pick out one or two individuals within recruiting firms that are not awful. They're out there. Recruiters are given the jobs that corporations need a warm body to fill now.
Yes, you can absolutely always quit that un-ideal job and completely omit it from your resume. I don't see the wrong role as a good reason to turn down a job when you have bills to pay.
My other feedback on this article:
I wish it generally talked about unemployment insurance. It can be a complicated process, and I wonder if the author had any success there.
#1 should is a part of the basic life skill of understanding the difference between coworkers and friends. I do have friends that started as coworkers, and they did a lot more than help with the mechanics of getting laid off. I do agree that it's not a life skill that is taught very well.
If you want to turn coworkers into lasting friends, you need to be proactive and invite them to do things outside of work.
#3, I'm just not sure I agree with it. Getting interviews is an excellent indicator. At the very least it means that your resume is attractive. I don't think it's very common for companies to waste their own employees' time interviewing people for roles they aren't serious about filling.
My rule of thumb is that if you get beyond the recruiter and talk to the hiring manager, the company is serious and intends to fill the role. Maybe they get around to it or maybe not, we all know how priorities can change.
#5 seems like a waste of time. Either you know someone who is a hiring manager or you know someone who can refer you through a company's referral system. I think those are the only two activities that are productive. I wouldn't want to get any of those requests in my LinkedIn Inbox.
Writing open source software is a waste of time with respect to job hunting unless you are looking to build a portfolio. Your time is better used physically applying for jobs (which takes a legitimately solid amount of time).
#6, totally agree with that. The author absolutely overshared, and should have known better. Corporations want to know that you can keep secrets. Transparency is almost never in the best interest of a company.
As I mentioned above, I'd only agree with #7 if you have runway/a spouse earning income.
I'd almost replace #8 with "enjoy being laid off." Spend some days doing activities meant for joy, especially if you've exhausted your job application pipeline for the moment. I'm almost hoping I get laid off, I love not working, and I loved all the stuff I got to do the last time I was laid off. I played two video games the whole way through and read an entire novel, which are things I rarely get through when I'm employed.
I've had very little luck with third-party recruiters myself, personally. My take is that because the job is theoretically easier to get, there is much more competition, and the recruiters are more ruthless in removing applications that don't meet the exact specifications from their client.
Also it pains me a little for you to say that reading one book is a big sign of having lots of free time. Maybe you're not a huge reader but I hope you normally do stuff you enjoy, reading or not, whether you're employed or not, if you don't mind my saying so.
I'm just not a huge reader. It's far down my usual list of free time activities.
Basically, the fact that I had enough free time to finish a book and do all the things I like to do higher on my list was one of the joys of unemployment.
