I’ve been job hunting for months and you won’t believe how often I’ve had the exact same reply of “ohh this doesn’t reflect your skills we just wanted someone who matches our expectations more” ITS INSANE.
Don’t fucking sugar coat it just tell me what’s wrong so I can improve further applications ongg. But if you’re searching for someone with 5 years experience with <specific technology/field> and I bring 8+ and I’m still not good enough, I don’t believe you.
What they probably meant was “we already decided who was going to get the job before the recruitment process began. It’s someone we already know and like.”
I always tailor my resume to a specific job application, but then I habe mever had to fire off more than a handful of resumes at a time. Incredible how different job markets are for different professions!
The job market isn’t nearly as bad as the job-seeking process. Hiring managers don’t actually know what they want or what their businesses need done. Software is so hyper-specific and skills so conditional that you either needed to be onboarded straight out of college or get incredibly lucky in your job rotation to land on the one critical bit of information all the demand revolves around. Automated tools and services ingest a ton of spam that HR still needs to sift through. Recruiters are as happy to lure away your staff as help you find new people.
The jobs are out there. But it’s an absolute fucking mess to find them.
There was a job I applied to that wanted the exact thing I had done at my last job. Same tech tech. Same early startup. Same kind of project. They rejected me without even a phone screen for “someone more in line with their needs”.
They might be using monitoring services to reveal your recent salary, and rejecting you based on what they imagine you’ll accept relative to another person
A friend of mine is convinced they all feed into sketchy private data broker systems, and reject candidates based on personal and political stuff. Algorithm determines you’re kind of a lefty? Reject.
We have like no rights here in the US with regards to labor, so they can basically do what they want so long as they cover half of their ass.
I worry whether I should create a Facebook account just in case I need it for this reason… but then I remember that I’m not that desperate! (Though I will not judge anyone else who is.)
Yeah I’m probably suffering a little because I don’t have any real social media, and my GitHub is all private contributions for work. I should probably do some free work to show off there but I resent that
I applied for a job that asked for a very specialized, specific skill set, that at the time, literally only maybe 3 people in the world could have had (new endangered species stuff) I got rejected with an auto reply. One of those listings they have to do even though they had a candidate. I should have pressed the issue because looking back, I think they would have been required to interview anyone qualified.
Had the almost exact same thing happen. They wanted me especially because of the knowledge from my previous company. 3 interviews. Then, riight before they were gonna give me a coding challenge, I got the “uhm akschually naww” email.
There’s something especially soulcrushing about that. Makes you prefer the ghosting or the “we went with the better candidate” bullshit
Most coding challenges are stupid. You’ll have a job that’s just working on a basic ass API in front of the database, and they’ll be like “can you solve the traveling salesman problem?”. You don’t need to know if I can pull fancy algorithms out of my ass. You need to know if I can cover the basics and take feedback.
Though the last code challenge I had was “can you remove duplicates from this list of integers?”. I was like, "can I just convert it to a set?’ and they were like “…ok”. Didn’t get the role, but the pay was bad, it was in office, the company is surprisingly politically conservative, and they’re rewriting their codebase “to support AI development”. So maybe that sas for the best.
Our interview process has the candidate implement a couple (extremely simplistic) API routes, with the specific approach left up to the candidate. It’s more about having something they can talk through and evolve than it is about us looking for any specific approach.
Basically it exists as a way for us to have a starting point for talking about scalability topics, asking the candidate how they would evolve their implementation as we scale up the system. Does a pretty good job of giving us an idea of how they think through system design problems.
What helped for me was to talk to people/companies with whom I wasn’t applying for a job. I’m looking for a junior swe role (in this market). I’ve learned a few things from replies I got from actual applications, but I learned most by networking. For example, I went to this agency that only works with seniors, but I had a really great conversation. The guy was interested in me as a developer, but he couldn sell my lack of experienve to his clients. We had a great conversation about software, careerpaths and also about my job hunt. He gave some tips te rewrite my cv and how to stick out during applications. Since that day, I’ve gotten twice as many callbacks. No job yet, but i’ve got good prospects.
oh dude, you got rejected without an interview? they didn’t even look at your resume.
are you new to job hunting? i hire for my job. we reject 90% of applicants without even looking at the resumes, because we get so many and they are terrible. most applicants don’t even change up their resume for the job/company and it’s obvious.
the issue is that most applicant spam any/every job with the same generic resume and expect to get picked based on that. they won’t.
we pick people who actually have a relevant resume and cover letter and show us they actually want to work for us. crazy idea!
it’s so bad when i was running a volunteer org… we’d get constant spam for people seeking full time professional work… and to get paid like 80k/yr for volunteer positions… people are fucking idiots. we used to reply and be lik e’oh sorry we are volunteer only’ and they’d reply back and go to tell us to fuck ourselves… so we stopped trying to even bother and just send anything with a resume to the trash folder.
people whine online about not getting picked… but having been on the other end of it… you don’t get ‘picked’ because so much of what you are sending out is trash/garbage.
I’ve been job hunting for months and you won’t believe how often I’ve had the exact same reply of “ohh this doesn’t reflect your skills we just wanted someone who matches our expectations more” ITS INSANE.
Don’t fucking sugar coat it just tell me what’s wrong so I can improve further applications ongg. But if you’re searching for someone with 5 years experience with <specific technology/field> and I bring 8+ and I’m still not good enough, I don’t believe you.
What they probably meant was “we already decided who was going to get the job before the recruitment process began. It’s someone we already know and like.”
Or “we weren’t actually hiring anyone for the position, but we have to keep running interviews so that our competitors don’t know that”
when i was last searching so many people told me how nice my resume is and yet i was still passed over.
I always tailor my resume to a specific job application, but then I habe mever had to fire off more than a handful of resumes at a time. Incredible how different job markets are for different professions!
I often ask at the end of in-person interviews what I could improve upon. I normally get some good constructive feedback.
I’ve been job searching for 2 years (I was employed) then I got canned. The job market sucks even with the experience they’re asking for.
I’ve almost given up entirely. I think I’ve applied to every job I could find. Never thought I’d enter early retirement involuntarily like this haha
The job market isn’t nearly as bad as the job-seeking process. Hiring managers don’t actually know what they want or what their businesses need done. Software is so hyper-specific and skills so conditional that you either needed to be onboarded straight out of college or get incredibly lucky in your job rotation to land on the one critical bit of information all the demand revolves around. Automated tools and services ingest a ton of spam that HR still needs to sift through. Recruiters are as happy to lure away your staff as help you find new people.
The jobs are out there. But it’s an absolute fucking mess to find them.
There was a job I applied to that wanted the exact thing I had done at my last job. Same tech tech. Same early startup. Same kind of project. They rejected me without even a phone screen for “someone more in line with their needs”.
There’s no incentive for them to do a better job.
They might be using monitoring services to reveal your recent salary, and rejecting you based on what they imagine you’ll accept relative to another person
A friend of mine is convinced they all feed into sketchy private data broker systems, and reject candidates based on personal and political stuff. Algorithm determines you’re kind of a lefty? Reject.
We have like no rights here in the US with regards to labor, so they can basically do what they want so long as they cover half of their ass.
Damn that’s a conspiracy theory I’ll believe.
Also, I know for a fact they look you up on social media. I wonder if I keep getting rejected because I’m not active on any of that Facebook crap.
I worry whether I should create a Facebook account just in case I need it for this reason… but then I remember that I’m not that desperate! (Though I will not judge anyone else who is.)
Yeah I’m probably suffering a little because I don’t have any real social media, and my GitHub is all private contributions for work. I should probably do some free work to show off there but I resent that
I did free work on GitHub once. I made a porn mod for a video game and released the code on github under an alt account.
Sometimes I seriously think about whether I should tell employers:
“Have you contributed to any open source projects?”
“A little bit of Piefed stuff, but mostly gooning.”
I applied for a job that asked for a very specialized, specific skill set, that at the time, literally only maybe 3 people in the world could have had (new endangered species stuff) I got rejected with an auto reply. One of those listings they have to do even though they had a candidate. I should have pressed the issue because looking back, I think they would have been required to interview anyone qualified.
Had the almost exact same thing happen. They wanted me especially because of the knowledge from my previous company. 3 interviews. Then, riight before they were gonna give me a coding challenge, I got the “uhm akschually naww” email.
There’s something especially soulcrushing about that. Makes you prefer the ghosting or the “we went with the better candidate” bullshit
Honestly even coding challenges now… Do they even make sense anymore? You can teach people if they don’t have the right stack, but if they are a dick…
Most coding challenges are stupid. You’ll have a job that’s just working on a basic ass API in front of the database, and they’ll be like “can you solve the traveling salesman problem?”. You don’t need to know if I can pull fancy algorithms out of my ass. You need to know if I can cover the basics and take feedback.
Though the last code challenge I had was “can you remove duplicates from this list of integers?”. I was like, "can I just convert it to a set?’ and they were like “…ok”. Didn’t get the role, but the pay was bad, it was in office, the company is surprisingly politically conservative, and they’re rewriting their codebase “to support AI development”. So maybe that sas for the best.
Lol “can i just convert it to a set”.
I imagine someone felt really smart for finding that question and you just ruined their day.
Our interview process has the candidate implement a couple (extremely simplistic) API routes, with the specific approach left up to the candidate. It’s more about having something they can talk through and evolve than it is about us looking for any specific approach.
Basically it exists as a way for us to have a starting point for talking about scalability topics, asking the candidate how they would evolve their implementation as we scale up the system. Does a pretty good job of giving us an idea of how they think through system design problems.
honestly no clue, in my journey I’ve not once been asked to actually do a coding challenge yet.
What helped for me was to talk to people/companies with whom I wasn’t applying for a job. I’m looking for a junior swe role (in this market). I’ve learned a few things from replies I got from actual applications, but I learned most by networking. For example, I went to this agency that only works with seniors, but I had a really great conversation. The guy was interested in me as a developer, but he couldn sell my lack of experienve to his clients. We had a great conversation about software, careerpaths and also about my job hunt. He gave some tips te rewrite my cv and how to stick out during applications. Since that day, I’ve gotten twice as many callbacks. No job yet, but i’ve got good prospects.
ya, networking is my achilles heel
what’s wrong is you weren’t as hot or fun as the other candidate.
looks and personality matter way more than your resume.
Well for one if you only get my resume and decline immediately you can’t judge my humor as you’ve never interacted with me.
Gotta staple nudes to the front of it.
oh dude, you got rejected without an interview? they didn’t even look at your resume.
are you new to job hunting? i hire for my job. we reject 90% of applicants without even looking at the resumes, because we get so many and they are terrible. most applicants don’t even change up their resume for the job/company and it’s obvious.
the issue is that most applicant spam any/every job with the same generic resume and expect to get picked based on that. they won’t.
we pick people who actually have a relevant resume and cover letter and show us they actually want to work for us. crazy idea!
it’s so bad when i was running a volunteer org… we’d get constant spam for people seeking full time professional work… and to get paid like 80k/yr for volunteer positions… people are fucking idiots. we used to reply and be lik e’oh sorry we are volunteer only’ and they’d reply back and go to tell us to fuck ourselves… so we stopped trying to even bother and just send anything with a resume to the trash folder.
people whine online about not getting picked… but having been on the other end of it… you don’t get ‘picked’ because so much of what you are sending out is trash/garbage.
Wot.
Do you want us to give you a blowjob too? Is that what’s expected of us these days?