Ask HN: Is the market bad, or am I having the worst luck job hunting?
I got laid off at the start of the year, and ever since then, I've been applying constantly but have only gotten one interview. Before being laid off, I held a job as a front-end dev for the previous 5 and a half years.
I've had my resume looked at by three different services (TopResume, Indeed, Levels.fyi) and am currently subscribed to Resume Worded, which scores my resume. Despite all these efforts, I keep receiving rejection emails.
So, I just wanted to reach out and see if anyone else has had any similar experiences with applying for jobs.
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[ 5.1 ms ] story [ 420 ms ] thread[0] https://resgen.app
10 free resumes per month seems too generous. Also, $7 is very low for a paid plan, when your users are likely to churn as soon as they find a job. If this tool is really as valuable for job hunters as it aims to be, they should gladly pay three times that amount.
A couple years back employers were begging to hire seniors in a heartbeat, now its nearly impossible to get an interview. I am wondering if I should retake the CISSP and just abandon software for corporate security.
Either that or the salaries will be going down.
I don't know if you're looking for advice or just anecdotes here, but I'll share some thoughts for what might be happening...
Frontend development has changed a lot over the last 5 years. Obviously I don't know what skills you have, but a few years ago it was common for companies to be looking for a "frontend developer" with just HTML5, CSS & jQuery experience. These roles basically don't exist anymore. Typically a frontend developer today would be someone who's got experience with a modern JS framework like React (or similar), knows TypeScript, has experience writing tests, possibly has some experience with dev tools like Storybook or docker, etc... At least this the kind of thing I typically see companies recruiting for these days.
The last 5 years also haven't been very representative. The tech job market from around 2016 on has been very strong and there was a huge under supply of labour (especially during the pandemic). Today tech companies are cutting jobs, or slowing their hiring, meanwhile your average 12 year old has done some basic HTML and JavaScript coding. Just knowing your way around HTML and CSS isn't going to land you a job anymore – companies can afford to be much more selective.
If you're not even getting interviews you can assume your resume is the problem. Again, I don't know what skills you have but you either don't have skills that are being sought after or you are not showing your experience in a way that highlights those skills well on your resume.
It may also be that you're applying for roles that are beyond your experience level. In my experience if you've been a developer for 5 years that would typically mean you're a bit better than a junior developer, but unlikely to be a senior. A couple of years ago you may have been able to land a senior developer role, but today the market is far more competitive and you'll have people with well over a decade of experience applying for these roles in most cases. I know it sucks but you may want to look for roles which require a little less experience even if you believe you're worth more. It's far better to be employed and in a role where you're growing your experience than being unemployed. You can always look for something else when you have the experience you need or when the market picks up a bit.
The fact you've been out of work for about 6 months now would be sending huge warning flags to me if I were a recruiter. Recruiters want to place candidates that are in demand and as harsh as this may sound a 6 month gap in your employment will suggest you are not an ideal candidate. I would seriously consider coming up with a back story to explain why you've been out of work for this long.
Some will disagree with this, but you should think of your resume like an Instagram profile – only show the things others want to see, and don't be afraid to represent yourself in a slightly exaggerated way. Obviously you need to be able to do what you say you can do, but you need your resume to give a good impression of you and your experience if you want any chance of getting an interview. So for example, if I was the primary dev on some project I'll typically say that I "led" the project on my resume. I'll also always include things like "senior" & "lead" in job roles because, "Lead software engineer" looks way better than "Frontend developer" imo. Minor things like this can make a big difference and help your profile stand out from the rest.
I guess to concluded though, the market isn't that bad that you should be getting at least some interviews. It sounds like your resume is bei...
This time, there are the dark clouds of AI and lots of economic instability, along with higher interest rates to deal with. Not to mention record corporate debt.
Also this time is much different because coding was marketed as a way to just go to bootcamp and get rich, so it brought in hundreds of thousands of people on the low end.
Much diff than the dot com bust IMO.
I would warn people against blaming the market entirely for their problems finding work. I've seen stats suggesting that most tech employees who have lost their jobs have been able to find work within a couple of months. My own experience suggests this is the case. It's harder for sure, but it's far from impossible.
If someone's been looking for 6 months and are not even getting to the interview stage something else is going on. To blame it on the market would deny themselves the opportunity to self reflect on why they're finding it difficult. I've seen a lot of that this year.
Reach out to former co-workers and see if their current companies have any openings.
It's tough to stand out in a stack of 200 applicants without a connection.
Is your front-end stack or experience too narrow? What are you using for frontend. Are there more front-end languages you have experience with that you could broaden your search/resume?
Have you done any backend? Is now a good time to learn Rails or Laravel?
Can you seek out any alternative job boards that are more specific for your niche? Linked and Indeed are the most saturated with applicants.
Freelance and Contract work might be an option to stay active and show on your resume. Show Consulting as your current gig from when you left your last job.
Lastly you could reach out to your old company if it's a place you'd like to go back to, not sure how things left off. A lot can change in a year.
I'd assume you're not actually hiring "thousands" of people, which means that a very large percentage of those "more or less qualified" applicants are not passing the interview rounds.
Since it's logical to assume that you'd actually want to hire someone for those open roles, it's not too hard to see where the disconnect is.
Of course, I don't mean "you" in the sense of you, personally, and I don't intend this to be a personal attack of any sort, but it really does say something about how utterly insane people on the hiring side have gotten in the past few months.
You can disagree with me on that, and that's fine, but stay with me for a second here... if there's an open role, presumably they'd be better off with someone filling it than having it stay open for months on end, right? And, given that the candidate pool has been recently enriched with people who were recently employed and would not normally be out on the job market (remember, these are "more or less qualified" candidates, at least according to their resumes), I have a hard time believing the disconnect isn't that companies either think it's a good time to go unicorn hunting, or they don't actually want to hire at all for some reason.
But, again, unicorn hunting only works out in a tiny percentage of cases, because the supply of unicorns is low, and the real unicorns probably are not the ones out there pounding the pavement. I can't even begin to explain why any sane company would post a job listing in good faith and then never hire anyone for it, given that they're supposedly inundated with reasonable-looking candidates.
So, what's the deal here? If you have the explanation, I'd love to hear it, because I've been on the hiring side, and you can damn well bet I wouldn't devote my time to resume screening and interviewing if I didn't think we were actually going to hire anyone.
I stayed with you. Here's the non-sequitur. New positions appear on an ongoing basis and the latency from opening to accepted offer is non-zero.
Context. Seriously.
Context. Seriously.
Going more macro, there are 1000 people out of work applying to every job. There are only 100 jobs open across all companies. The same 1000 people apply to all of them, only 100 get hired. 900 people post on forums they can't get a job.
This doesn't need to be a conspiracy theory. If there are fewer jobs than there were last year (particularly in sectors like junior dev and FE eng) there are going to be people who don't get hired.
One open position, 1000 resumes received, pick a handful to interview, hire 1 after a few weeks, 999 come to HN to ask if the job market is tough and say they can't get hired anywhere.
No need for some weird conspiracy theory.
Assuming the number of available roles isn't a limiting factor, you probably applied for ~1000+ jobs in that time. (1 job per hour * 40 hours/week * 4.3 weeks per month * 7 months)
Is that right? If so, where have you had drop off in your funnel? Are you getting dropped before or after the recruiter screening call?
If after, then the problem may not be your CV.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36901965
By the time you've filtered out suitable jobs, researched the company a little, written a cover letter, customized your CV, gone through their application process/questions, sometimes even a test, you're looking at 3-4 a day quality applications at most.
The market is effectively dead. Even if you set your sights extremely low. Even corporate suit-and-tie programmer jobs are drying up. I don't know what I'll do if I lose my job. Construction, maybe. I can't be without health insurance so I am always terrified of markets where it might take months to get a new position.
I am a contractor and for the most part it's still, thankfully, a meritocracy. So experience is, in my opinion, the biggest factor.
I have no doubt that sometimes, perhaps for the entry-level roles, they will discriminate against age but for senior roles, due to the cost of the candidate and the potential damage they can do, a younger candidate without the experience, could affect them badly.
I think the best description is "give me a piece of tech and I can probably figure it out"
As a full stack developer, you were expected to be able to do system administration for Linux, setup and configure Apache httpd server, work with MySQL (create tables, know SQL), and work in a language that typically started with 'P'. The way that CGIs (and Php) worked implied that you did front end and backend work as necessary... though front end didn't have the same degree of complexity that it does now.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LAMP_(software_bundle)
Full-stack adds the front-end, and that's why you won't find js devs that can configure nginx, because they've been surfing on that "full" part of "full-stack" for years but it really just means you can do node and JS.
Writing the page to do front end navigation was part of the expectations of the fulls tack developer. They may not be a web designer, but the "ok, this is what the designer wants the page to look like - here's the HTML that I need to write to realize this" was part of writing the perl (in my case) CGI to make it spit out the proper html in the proper spot... and you really can't do most php without doing front end development as an integral part of it.
The definition of full stack has changed over the years as the stacks have changed and more emphasis is on the front end as front end libraries and frameworks have evolved to take more of the heavy lifting for presentation.
I don't even know what the overlap between people that are looking for jobs at my level and people who have managed huge teams is... everyone I know who have managed teams that large is on massive comp packages at FAANG type companies.
It's all very confusing, it made me feel like I've picked the wrong field. I have been lucky enough in my career that I have a long runway, but I'm also not rich enough to retire and do something crazy like buy a farm like I've seen other people in my situation do.
Very frustrating situation, I have been trying to work on my own projects but I'm not a natural salesperson so it takes a lot of effort to motivate myself to do things like cold calls or even cold emails.
Best decision I ever made.
But senior workers were getting too full of themselves a social agents for good and political status quo is coddle the government agents and their lobbyist/think tank leaders.
Now it’s templated to some dependency imports, leetcode, some well known TF; they can backfill with lower paid newbs.
I’m working on a Linux distro where the install sets up an LLM and boots to GPU accelerated 3D viewport where a little entity acts as my chatbot.
Goal is to show the world we don’t need corporate controlled software.
Post your resume in a comment here maybe? And as much as it sucks shoot a little lower? Are you you only applying to house hold tech companies?
We really need to make "employment at will" illegal.
Personal anecdote from Russia (I hold expired Russian passport and have many friends from there). Auto-translated from chats (reach out if you're curious getting the origin link):
=== 8< ===
Another moment. When I was completely desperate to find a job here in our region, I published a CV on the Russian HH.ru. And there is a lot of activity there. In one day, they wrote to me vk, sber, yandex and several other fairly well-known offices. And all as one are looking for remote employees, but for some fucking reason that is not clear to me, I have to be on the territory of the Russian Federation. That's just an exception with Yandex. They can arrange in Serbia. But you also have to go there.
=== >8 ===
I don't know what they did to the US economy, so now it's even worse here than it is in Russia.
(I'm in RF at the moment)
I know someone who did the same and then spend ~6-7 months outside Russia. Within RU, they work remotely and have never visited the office even. As a sidenote, not only did they get the job, but their income progression has been 1.5x since they joined as a newbie within 1 year.
I worked as a cybersecurity engineer for 2 years and I've applied for over 300 _entry level_ developer jobs over the last few months and still haven't heard back from most places. It's definitely not just you!
I've heard from family and friends that are still in the tech field that most companies still have a hiring freeze in place and that this will probably stay in place for the remainder of the year, maybe even into Q1 or Q2 of next year.
The best idea right now might be to get _any_ job (even entry level positions) and just hunker down while we wait for the market to recover before we can apply for jobs that are more commiserate with our experience levels.
I decided to go back to school and get my Masters in CS while I wait and I'm also planning on doing some web or app development on the side just to pad my resume a little.
I'm sorry I can't help any more, other than to say that you're not alone in this :)
I'd love to be employed, but a low IC position (haven't done that in 13-14 years) for 60-70% less pay (the last one who contacted me) is a bit of a tough pill to swallow in a market with (last year) 10% inflation.
Once in a job, you are more employable. And employers are for sure not entitled to their worker's unquestioning loyalty. So I see nothing wrong with moving positions if a better one presents itself.
don't hate the player, hate the game...
That is in contrast with a few years ago where a man changed his resume to be of a black lesbian and started getting calls.
This sounds more like a porn movie script. “Hardcore All-Girl Positive Discrimination XVII”
Where do you even put the lesbian part? College extracurriculars?
https://fi.money/blog/posts/faang-company-layoffs-what-cause...
- I see a couple of corporations on your resume, do you have experience working in a startup environment?
- ...
If you have Blind app access, try to search for "I really thought after Google, I should be employable" post
TC 0. how's that.
Well, I can see the employer side as well
"After Google" you'll complain about the lack of chef on site, about how the automation tools are not quite like how it was in Google, how "oh in G we used to do that differently" etc
https://babylonbee.com/news/former-twitter-employee-cant-see...
last 4 FED my company hired are ex-sales/ex-whatever bootcampers (yes my company is cheap).
remote working is the final nail.
still few good FED jobs but you have 10,000s expert leetcoders fired by faang to compete.
These could be managers, people on your team, people on OTHER teams, vendors, salespeople you've spoken to, anyone.
Ideally, you should ALWAYS keep in contact with people you've worked with, even if it's just emailing them "Happy Birthday!" every year for the rest of your life, but the best time to plant a tree was ten years ago, the second best time to do it is now.
A warm referral is the best way to get a job. It's tough doing cold outreach. Good luck!!!
I suspect the importance of networking and the likelihood of ageism are often related.
Everyone's experience is different?
Everyone knows that interviews have high false negative rates (depending on your hiring criteria). You have to mentally guard yourself that interviews are not a complete judgement of you; they are at best a small pinhole view into your capabilities.
The downvotes you got were undeserved. For most job markets: If an ideal candidate is interview-disabled, their odds of being hired are dismal.
Or random people from my past sending me happy birthday ever year.
I am probably not social enough to understand that, but that sounds like a lot of work just to stand out as kinda weird.
No, it's not "cold", the point is that you had contact with them, they know you. It is totally normal to say, "hey not sure you remember me but we worked together on XYZ project in 2017, and I noticed you're at a company now that is interesting to me, can we grab a coffee to catch up?"
> plus basically creating a list of 'humans you might have use for in future' and their birthdays for your personal benefit.
No, keeping track of people you enjoyed working with and reaching out to them periodically is not "keeping a list of humans you might have use for in the future", it is having a network of professional connections that you haven't lost touch with.
I think something you might be missing here is that this is not a unidirectional selfish benefit. You know what I love? When people I enjoyed working with reach out to me. I'm glad they kept track of me and I'm glad they thought to reach out, and I'm glad to both catch up personally and see if I can be helpful to them professionally.
This is what makes the world go 'round, and it's not weird distasteful or nefarious, it's a very good system.
In the last 20 years I’ve interviewed for exactly one job, and that was my first one out of university. Since then it’s always been people I know offering me new positions. People don’t just hire a random person off the street unless it’s some MegaCorp sausage machine or they’ve exhausted all other options.
Look you can follow this disengaged, unsocial approach, but it’s suboptimal.
I hear this every so often, but do you mean that literally? It's so far outside my reality I can't believe it still happens.
I've never seen anyone get a job at an established company without SOME kind of interview. Even Guido van Rossum (creator of Python) has needed to do some interviews when changing companies.
Even if they are the hiring manager at a new company I've never seen them be able to completely bypass the HR process in that way.
As for the HR process, yes there’s always HR. It’s usually a few days after the chat and just a formality to tick the boxes and explain leave policies, the medical cover, run background checks, but HR really has never had any influence over the decision.
It helps you also because most people aren’t sociopaths and will pay it forward. It’s a way for you to build your own network.
Your career is often only as strong as your network.
IMO it is absolutely not weird to ask connections if they can refer you for a job? The company even pays me bonuses for successful referrals! (Well maybe that's over now, I haven't checked recently)
What, why? This is what professional connections are all about! Sure it is weird when like a social friend from childhood reaches out with an ulterior motive, but it's not weird when professional connections reach out for professional reasons. You're the weird one on this one :) And you're probably limiting your own career with this hang up.
I love it when past colleagues reach out. Even if I'm not personally hiring or don't think they'd be a good fit for my current company, I probably know of other people and companies to introduce them to.
So if any of those people reach out to me looking for connections, I'll absolutely do so because I also expect they'll return the favour when I need it. It's worked out for me before.
You don't have to invite them to your wedding. But having a brief if awkward friendly interaction and then passing on a referral for a posting or letting them know about some opportunity you may have heard of isn't "socializing", it's just a career skill.
We're all in this together. Being able to have a career that doesn't suck depends in large part on networking, not on your coding skills.
Yes. I'm not sure this is the thread in which to do it, but I think this is an important thing for the "Rah Rah WFH" type folks to consider. Networking over Zoom/email/chat definitely isn't rare or impossible, but is a lot more limiting & difficult than in person.
Also some of the most long-standing software industry relationships I have are people I met back in the early-days of the Internet (early 90s) on MUDs/MOOs/IRC/Usenet etc.. and have never met in person.
But personally I am sick of WFH for other reasons and would love to go back to in person if the local options were better. (But also just sick of working, generally :-) so...)
But I can definitely see it could be tricky for introverted types, or people just starting their career.
What I want more than anything is a stronger separation between domestic and professional workspace.
It just never happened to me, I picked my jobs myself, bootstrapped my companies without promoting it in a inner circle.
In fact most people I know got their job by just applying for it or recruiting companies.
I wonder where I would be at if I had networking skills, when my coding skills already brought me everywhere I wanted to be.
Maybe it's cultural, maybe it's just my social circle.
People don't like feeling like a tool other people use to get what they want.
Or do you mean reaching out at all for a referral? This is simply because HR and managers love knowing that someone, ANYONE, likes you enough to be willing to work with you again.