Ask HN: Feeling quite disheartened about job search, any advice?
Yeah, so I'm really feeling the negative side of the remote job market right now...can't help but feel pretty beat down. My savings are running out, and though I've tried lowering my expectations (like down to what I was earning when I first started as an engineer), I'm still getting no bites. TopTal is a race to, and scuffle at, the bottom, and I've probably spent more than a month on take-home assignments only to get demoralizing replies like "We liked your solution, but actually we decided not to offer this role". I have 8 YoE (mostly web apps) and am kind of facing a crisis of if I need to uproot my life and move. I don't have high living expenses, so I'm not at all expecting a big tech salary, but even still with low expectations I'm not getting many replies. My personal network hasn't been able to help either. I'm in the EU FWIW.
Any words of encouragement or advice or comfort? Feeling a bit down today.
147 comments
[ 5.5 ms ] story [ 395 ms ] threadsure, if i have no job, and i am broke, then almost anything else will do. however, switching into a new line of work is only feasible if it does not require years before i can earn enough to feed my family. as long as there is a chance at finding a job with my current skills, that pays enough, taking on such a risk doesn't make sense, unless i can actually afford doing so. in any other case my energy is better spent looking for jobs doing what i already know, where i can earn enough.
yes, that is the real challenge. the best thing to do would probably be to learn something new, while looking for jobs for your current experience. but balancing that can be tricky, especially if learning something new involves some kind of commitment to a training institution.
Everybody has the right to seek work that they are passionate about and they should do so even if it's tough. What would the work look like if nobody would be passionate about it? Maybe you have spent too much time in bad positions?
Did I say that it is?
The original poster was "in the EU", just like I am. It's entirely plausible that for them, like for me, language is a barrier to other jobs besides tech.
Came across this the other day, good resources hidden in links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IUUwdEw0RjTftvJv3LTA-7XI... (such as this: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a_l8V-R7i5UOJiCV_QUqK167...)
Everyone got bills to pay, can't blame anyone for lying. If you put ridiculously high expectations, this is what you get. Go full ham on little white lies. Exaggerate like they exaggerate about how fun the environment is to work in. If it were truly a superb place, the position was already filled to begin with.
From there, look for something else. The best thing to do (and I hate it) is start searching while being employed. Doesn't matter which job. Just do whatever and state you're overqualified (but try not to trash talk your current position). That way, you get some of your self-esteem back, you'll have less stress.
Seriously this is something you have to start figuring out. Nobody can get refused hundreds of times and not get into self-doubt. Once out of a few referrals, I actually take the time to write back to whoever refused, even if it's a dead mailbox, just so I can tell to myself hey buddy, look at how I can do this job. I take their offer line by line and tell them why I am the best to do it. Come to think of it, I should do that for cover letters.
If you want to go against the flow and change the world, sure, be honest all the time. Unfortunately, my experience is that on short-term (with regards to the issue at hand) you're better off with white lies. Yes, because 'everyone does it'. Do I like that? No, I don't, but it is what it is.
[Edit]
A quant analyst working at some firm was told to steal Bernie Madoff's lunch. When he realized Bernie was 100% accurate on his predictions and it was obviously bullshit, he told his bosses, and filed four appeals with the SEC, but no one would listen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_One_Would_Listen
Once I get pass HR and get to talk to an actual engineer I can reevaluate my lies and drive the interview into the areas I'm actually experienced with.
Also, interviewing is a game. Even if I'm not looking for a new job I just do it to practice and for fun. It feels pretty good to reject an offer and know your worth.
my next side project will be something using react, so i can add that to my CV.
then i can say i have more than a decade of experience in web development, and i am familiar with react.
of course, if they specifically want someone who has 3 years of react experience, then i am out. best i can claim is that i have worked on similar projects before and try to convince them that that experience is transferable.
Find joy in applying for new jobs, learning about system design and algorithms, or doing practice interviews.
If you follow the process, you will find that job.
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On a side note, I would encourage you to not lower your pay or communicate you will accept lower pay, because its a signal to employers that you're desperate, no one wants you, and they too should be cautious to hire you. As one of my old favorite managers once told me, "when I gave you that offer, I wanted you to walk in on your first day smiling"
Is there more context to this? Did the manager want you to walk in smiling even though a low ball offer was accepted, or want you to walk in smiling because you felt you got a good offer you are happy with?
I think he wanted me to feel good with the offer that they gave me. I really enjoyed working with him along with my raise by leaving my previous job.
And yeah, I haven't obviously made that signal, but I have definitely applied for "lesser" companies that I wouldn't have otherwise.
While this is often true: (1) some employers really do want the cheapest labour — they're not people you want to work for for other reasons, but they will hire you, and if you're short of money, some is better than one
(2) It's unclear what the market rates are. I'm also job hunting*, and I've seen people confidently claim the "going rate" for my experience level is anywhere from €75k to €114k. My experience with pay has always been getting huge rises followed by people shocked by how small the number is.
* If anyone's interested in hiring me: iOS senior, Berlin, been doing iOS since the first iPod with retina display came out
This sounds like a red flag for me.
Quite frankly, if you want to work as a developer right now then go add Java or C# to the list of language you know. A quick check on the local job listing site shows all Java and C#, and a single Rails developer, job posted. The Java and C# are frequently not for a single position, but multiple.
In my experience the companies that are currently hiring either expect you to be able to do some web app (front-end) work, or they have a smaller team of front-end developers supporting a large team of back-end developers.
One major issue I've seem with developers who focus to hard on web apps is that their understanding of infrastructure, deployment and configuration management leaves a lot to be desired. Not saying that that is the case universally, but it is less rare to encounter a Java developer who can't navigate database and web-servers.
Frontend (and mobile too) is pretty complex these days and a backend developer won't be able to do much there.
Similarly, full stack JS engineers doing node.js and react tend to have a good grasp of infra. When I interview I do a fang style system design interview and most candidates do well. The idea of "frontend engineers" doing a bit of css and jquery is largely gone.
Then, we can discuss whether the complexity is warranted, but that's another matter.
10 years ago banks were hiring contractors at top rate to fix their crappy java applications nobody wanted to touch, today they hire engineers to deal with their angular and react mess.
Might also be worth looking at University job boards if there's any Uni's in your town. I worked an academia job part time because it was all I could find, but I learned a lot and the work felt great compared to most office jobs. Might be a good stop gap for you, as they tend to be fixed term contracts I think.
It feels like though the market is somewhat in the doldrums now - I have no direct experience of current conditions but at my BigCo (deliberately not naming) hiring is basically stopped, even for backfill/attrition. Seems like companies are kinda spooked at the moment and not really hiring, and letting headcount naturally shrink.
Have you considered contract work? If companies are not hiring FTEs, they may still be looking for temporary contract work as that is lower risk for them.
Good luck.
Apparently, after remote was "the new normal" and "worked extremely well", now nobody wants it anymore for ... reasons?
Think about landing the job as a numbers game. There are a bunch of steps, connected into a pipeline. Roughly, it's 1. find offers 2. apply 3. prescreen 4. interviews 5. offer
At each step of the pipeline, you will have fewer and fewer offers that will remain. Your goal is to bring one through the whole pipeline.
Think about the pass rate. Say you got 3 offers, but two were bad, and you accepted one. That's 33% pass rate.
You got invited for interviews at 20 firms, and three ended in offers. That's a 15% pass rate.
You were sent 30 pre-screening questionnaires, and got 20 interview invites. 66% pass rate.
You applied to 100 jobs, and got 30 pre-screening questionnaires. 30% pass rate.
These numbers are made up. You can work on any step of the pipeline and try to do things differently to see if it improves your pass rate.
In your case, are you not getting enough interviews? Or are you getting tons of interviews but are not getting any offers (or are not getting invited to a 2nd interview).
If it's the first, maybe you need to devote attention to your resume, cover letter, LinkedIn profile.
If it's the latter, maybe better interview prep or coaching will help.
It's a numbers game. You have to keep trying, but also tweak the steps along the way.
If you have any concrete questions or would like some help, my contact info is in my profile.
This means that you can spend more effort on getting the job that fits you the best and none or less effort for other opportunities.
Whether implicit or explicit, humans will short-change or sabotage job applications they don't want.
[0] https://www.notion.so/templates/job-applications
I left the field but my friends tell me the market is brutal.
So maybe it's not you.
Update: I've been moving my resume over and I love how well made the website is, even little things like selecting a state and having the cities localized. This is really cool!
How do HNers take advantage of your offer?
FWIW, I emailed him and he replied within a few hours on what I needed to do to redeem his offer.
It will also give you a boost of confidence, an opportunity to build social proof about your work, and it may even end up scoring you a longer term engagement.
Good luck!
Some employers claim to be remote-first but favor employees who are close to one of their physical offices.
If you plan to continue spending time on personal projects or CV, maybe change your scenery and go to a nice cafe or similar. Maybe coworking spaces or new environments will unlock opportunities to network in ways you haven't thought of.
Keep your mind focused on the end goal and consider each step a learning opportunity.
Also, take this time to do things you might not have had the time to do before: learn a new programming language or tech stack or write that blog post you've been sitting on; you never know what doors this type of thing could open for you.
Best of luck!
we stopped hiring remote workers after experiencing massive amounts of employment fraud (multiple jobs, lying about who they were) and extremely low quality candidates despite good offers
With that said, what was the typical salary for one of those positions?
Employment fraud can't be avoided, monitoring performance is hard and the economy is harsh enough people feel justified pulling multiple jobs.
If they can keep up both of their jobs and the contract allows it, I don't see the problem.
The reality is that a lot of jobs don't require that much time and low performing people can go unnoticed for years.
Other people have said its a numbers game and they're right. You have to apply and again and somehow keep your spirits up. I hate it when I'm finding a job - I always feel like shit and that I'm worthless. Then I get something and I feel worthwhile again - it's all in one's own head and there's a skill I need to get better at about managing those feelings.
I think the key is to be slightly arrogant in your own eyes. Believe in yourself for no reason at all. "I know python but I'm not a great expert" BZZT....WRONG ANSWER "I know java" BING!!! RIGHT ANSWER. There's an element of projecting a confident and go-getter attitude. You can learn whatever you don't know, you can fix what you lack it's not a problem.
Another issue is that people are looking for different things and you can reword your CV to hook them. I've lost offers because I didn't sell myself on the right aspects of my experience before. You can learn something topical and put that on your CV if you find out that it's a hot item in your general field. e.g. if you do webapps then do you know react or is there something else that's a ticklist item with recruiters and companies?
I think it's also easier to get jobs with smaller companies - they've less budget and less staff and are probably more desperate. If you're not fullstack then do some basic fullstack example site and teach yourself enough to be just about useful.
> but even still with low expectations I'm not getting many replies.
Do not sell your skills cheap. If you have low expectations, seek for less qualified jobs while applying for what you feel you are meant for.
Many people went through more or less tough a situation. So do not panic. It is ok to go from failure to failure until the final success.
Some tips: Reach out to recruiters who have contacted you in the past. Sign up for online CV databases. Use your network and contact former colleagues to see if their companies are hiring. Work on a side project that excites you and makes you proud to change your mindset, or take an online course. Try to get excited about the challenge instead of thinking about giving up. I just watched a YCombinator video which, among other things, talks about not giving up too soon: https://youtu.be/al-15mMAS18.
Also, try to get feedback when you're rejected. Are you showing genuine interest in the job? Do you ask insightful questions, and do you submit take-home assignments without bugs?