I saw this yesterday on Reddit, and it made me want to scream. Finding a job in the modern era is truely a nightmare. It's basically either nepotism - you have to know someone somewhere to give a...
I saw this yesterday on Reddit, and it made me want to scream. Finding a job in the modern era is truely a nightmare. It's basically either nepotism - you have to know someone somewhere to give a recommendation on your behalf - or you have to turn yourself into a mini spam factory and submit literally hundreds of applications in the hope that someone will actually read your resume. In the meanwhile there are hundreds and thousands of conflicting advice that is supposed to help increase your odds but half of them are outdated, half of the remaining ones are simply not true, and half of the remainder of those are simply only true in specific cases, many of which are completely opaque to you, the applicant.
This is bang on and a problem from the other side as well. We're hiring for 2 positions at the moment and boy is it a slog. Because of the afore mentioned spamming problem, probably 1 out of every...
This is bang on and a problem from the other side as well.
We're hiring for 2 positions at the moment and boy is it a slog. Because of the afore mentioned spamming problem, probably 1 out of every 5 applications we get actually meet the requirements for the position. This is compounded by just how many people apply. We are a small startup, hiring for a very specific skillsets, using only 2 small job boards that are specific to climate related work. Within 5 days we've had over 200 applicants. We no longer use Linkedin, Indeed, or Ziprecruiter because we would end up with easily over 1000 applicants in previous rounds and we don't have the man power to actually sift through them all (plus they ended up providing a ratio of maybe 1:10 or 1:20 qualified candidate to not).
Because of how difficult that process is, suggestions or connections from within our network are gold. They have been vetted by someone we know and trust. My honest advice is to attend social events in your space or just reach out directly to companies you want to work for particularly when they don't have an open position. We have a backlog of folks who reached out because they like what we do and that will usually put them on the top of our list when we do hire. We know they actually want to work with us, not that they just need a job, and that they have the initiative to reach out and learn more. We do a lot of R&D so being willing to ask questions and reach out is showcasing skills rather than writing a sentence about it in their resume that I will miss when I skim it.
I totally agree, fuck our current system. I'm not sure how to navigate it better as an employer.
Speaking of bad advice, that’s some advice that people often get. “Apply to the job even if you know you don’t meet the requirements cause you never know."
Because of the afore mentioned spamming problem, probably 1 out of every 5 applications we get actually meet the requirements for the position.
Speaking of bad advice, that’s some advice that people often get. “Apply to the job even if you know you don’t meet the requirements cause you never know."
Well, it’s bad from a nash equilibrium standpoint, but from the point of an individual it’s still the optimal thing to do. Since if everyone else is shotgunning, and you’re not, then you’re only...
Well, it’s bad from a nash equilibrium standpoint, but from the point of an individual it’s still the optimal thing to do. Since if everyone else is shotgunning, and you’re not, then you’re only denying yourself chances. It’s just that in aggregate it produces a situation that’s bad for all candidates.
That said, im in the uk and the amount of jobs that ask for a certain amount of qualifications that genuinely dont require them is shocking. I had an out of hours house warranty call centre job...
That said, im in the uk and the amount of jobs that ask for a certain amount of qualifications that genuinely dont require them is shocking. I had an out of hours house warranty call centre job that I almost talked myself out of applying to because I dont have great exam results and am very inexperienced. Turns out you basically only needed computer proficiency, good phone manners, and to be open to actually absorbing the training. They were asking for 5 grade C or above exam results and 2 years experience in customer service in their needs, and their wants were 2 years experience in the insurance sector, and some IIC? certification
I know this is anecdotal and ive only been interacting with entry level sorta jobs but i think thats where the advice is geared towards. And I don't know if its companies wanting to maintain a certain image, or trying to keep out undesireables - but ive never been qualified for any of the jobs ive been hired for, to the point that theres a running joke in my circle of friends about who is the most unqualified for their job.
The problem is that the job descriptions are not written by the people who actually need to fill the roll, but by HR people and recruiters who know practically nothing about what they're doing and...
The problem is that the job descriptions are not written by the people who actually need to fill the roll, but by HR people and recruiters who know practically nothing about what they're doing and so they ask for things that are not actual requirements, are written as hard requirements when they are really nice-to-haves, or are simply impossible. You get a lot of ads that say "now hiring for entry level position; must have 5 years experience," and things like that.
I don't want to discount what you're saying but I had an anecdotal experience to the contrary. Our company went through an accelerator program at Google and after working with their HR team our...
I don't want to discount what you're saying but I had an anecdotal experience to the contrary. Our company went through an accelerator program at Google and after working with their HR team our job descriptions got much better. They taught us how to write the posts to be inclusive, how to only ratchet down on the qualifications we truly needed, and how to convey company culture through the post.
I was pretty surprised how thoughtful the folks putting together the job descriptions were. Granted this is google so maybe it's an outlier, but I figured it would be the stereotypical "I don't know anything, I'm just the conduit" vibes.
By and large it's very frustrating getting those applications, but I do think there is a case for doing this if you have industry specific knowledge. If someone with 3 years experience working on...
By and large it's very frustrating getting those applications, but I do think there is a case for doing this if you have industry specific knowledge. If someone with 3 years experience working on exactly the problem I'm trying to solve (let's say ML application on high resolution geospatial data), then I don't mind if they apply for a role asking for 5+ years. I usually give a 2 year grace period and then look at specific experience. If you can call it out in a cover letter specifically all the better.
Doing a first pass at ranking incoming job applications seems like it ought to be automated? Back when I started at Google, there was a project to apply machine learning to this. It didn’t work...
Doing a first pass at ranking incoming job applications seems like it ought to be automated? Back when I started at Google, there was a project to apply machine learning to this. It didn’t work very well and was abandoned.
Maybe it would work better now? But I think part of the issue is that there isn’t much signal due to job application optimization, and there’s a risk of systemic bias.
We've used those tools and they still tend to let through a lot of noise. Zip Recruiter had specific filters but we would get folks who technically had 6 years experience, but it would be like 5...
We've used those tools and they still tend to let through a lot of noise. Zip Recruiter had specific filters but we would get folks who technically had 6 years experience, but it would be like 5 years in banking and then 1 after they graduated from a coding bootcamp. They did't work great.
Also like you mentioned that process ended up pretty consistently giving us almost all male applicants compared to other methods that landed us at about 20% female candidates.
I'm very lucky to have used an excellent recruiter when graduating from college. TripleByte, back in its glory days, would pre-vet technical candidates themselves with a very competent remote...
I'm very lucky to have used an excellent recruiter when graduating from college. TripleByte, back in its glory days, would pre-vet technical candidates themselves with a very competent remote interview process. Then they would have you match with companies, fly you to california, pay for your hotel, pay for your Uber trips to each office and you'd get 5 back-to-back on site interviews packed into one week. These days they're just an average recruitment/job board platform. The business model wasn't sustainable.
But now I have a real professional network and don't need recruiters anymore.
In a survey of more than 1,000 hiring managers last summer, 27% reported having job postings up for more than four months. Among those who said they advertised job postings that they weren’t actively trying to fill, close to half said they kept the ads up to give the impression the company was growing, according to Clarify Capital, a small-business-loan provider behind the study. One-third of the managers who said they advertised jobs they weren’t trying to fill said they kept the listings up to placate overworked employees.
So, it doesn't explicitly say so (or at least not in the quoted material I've read), but it looks like this study is US focused (and, I suspect, largely Tech/IT focused). Anyone care to hazard a...
So, it doesn't explicitly say so (or at least not in the quoted material I've read), but it looks like this study is US focused (and, I suspect, largely Tech/IT focused).
Anyone care to hazard a guess as to whether this is primarily/exclusively a US issue, or EU as well? Or global?
Is it primarily IT? Or most/all industries and sectors?
I saw this yesterday on Reddit, and it made me want to scream. Finding a job in the modern era is truely a nightmare. It's basically either nepotism - you have to know someone somewhere to give a recommendation on your behalf - or you have to turn yourself into a mini spam factory and submit literally hundreds of applications in the hope that someone will actually read your resume. In the meanwhile there are hundreds and thousands of conflicting advice that is supposed to help increase your odds but half of them are outdated, half of the remaining ones are simply not true, and half of the remainder of those are simply only true in specific cases, many of which are completely opaque to you, the applicant.
This is bang on and a problem from the other side as well.
We're hiring for 2 positions at the moment and boy is it a slog. Because of the afore mentioned spamming problem, probably 1 out of every 5 applications we get actually meet the requirements for the position. This is compounded by just how many people apply. We are a small startup, hiring for a very specific skillsets, using only 2 small job boards that are specific to climate related work. Within 5 days we've had over 200 applicants. We no longer use Linkedin, Indeed, or Ziprecruiter because we would end up with easily over 1000 applicants in previous rounds and we don't have the man power to actually sift through them all (plus they ended up providing a ratio of maybe 1:10 or 1:20 qualified candidate to not).
Because of how difficult that process is, suggestions or connections from within our network are gold. They have been vetted by someone we know and trust. My honest advice is to attend social events in your space or just reach out directly to companies you want to work for particularly when they don't have an open position. We have a backlog of folks who reached out because they like what we do and that will usually put them on the top of our list when we do hire. We know they actually want to work with us, not that they just need a job, and that they have the initiative to reach out and learn more. We do a lot of R&D so being willing to ask questions and reach out is showcasing skills rather than writing a sentence about it in their resume that I will miss when I skim it.
I totally agree, fuck our current system. I'm not sure how to navigate it better as an employer.
Speaking of bad advice, that’s some advice that people often get. “Apply to the job even if you know you don’t meet the requirements cause you never know."
Well, it’s bad from a nash equilibrium standpoint, but from the point of an individual it’s still the optimal thing to do. Since if everyone else is shotgunning, and you’re not, then you’re only denying yourself chances. It’s just that in aggregate it produces a situation that’s bad for all candidates.
That said, im in the uk and the amount of jobs that ask for a certain amount of qualifications that genuinely dont require them is shocking. I had an out of hours house warranty call centre job that I almost talked myself out of applying to because I dont have great exam results and am very inexperienced. Turns out you basically only needed computer proficiency, good phone manners, and to be open to actually absorbing the training. They were asking for 5 grade C or above exam results and 2 years experience in customer service in their needs, and their wants were 2 years experience in the insurance sector, and some IIC? certification
I know this is anecdotal and ive only been interacting with entry level sorta jobs but i think thats where the advice is geared towards. And I don't know if its companies wanting to maintain a certain image, or trying to keep out undesireables - but ive never been qualified for any of the jobs ive been hired for, to the point that theres a running joke in my circle of friends about who is the most unqualified for their job.
The problem is that the job descriptions are not written by the people who actually need to fill the roll, but by HR people and recruiters who know practically nothing about what they're doing and so they ask for things that are not actual requirements, are written as hard requirements when they are really nice-to-haves, or are simply impossible. You get a lot of ads that say "now hiring for entry level position; must have 5 years experience," and things like that.
I don't want to discount what you're saying but I had an anecdotal experience to the contrary. Our company went through an accelerator program at Google and after working with their HR team our job descriptions got much better. They taught us how to write the posts to be inclusive, how to only ratchet down on the qualifications we truly needed, and how to convey company culture through the post.
I was pretty surprised how thoughtful the folks putting together the job descriptions were. Granted this is google so maybe it's an outlier, but I figured it would be the stereotypical "I don't know anything, I'm just the conduit" vibes.
By and large it's very frustrating getting those applications, but I do think there is a case for doing this if you have industry specific knowledge. If someone with 3 years experience working on exactly the problem I'm trying to solve (let's say ML application on high resolution geospatial data), then I don't mind if they apply for a role asking for 5+ years. I usually give a 2 year grace period and then look at specific experience. If you can call it out in a cover letter specifically all the better.
Doing a first pass at ranking incoming job applications seems like it ought to be automated? Back when I started at Google, there was a project to apply machine learning to this. It didn’t work very well and was abandoned.
Maybe it would work better now? But I think part of the issue is that there isn’t much signal due to job application optimization, and there’s a risk of systemic bias.
We've used those tools and they still tend to let through a lot of noise. Zip Recruiter had specific filters but we would get folks who technically had 6 years experience, but it would be like 5 years in banking and then 1 after they graduated from a coding bootcamp. They did't work great.
Also like you mentioned that process ended up pretty consistently giving us almost all male applicants compared to other methods that landed us at about 20% female candidates.
I'm very lucky to have used an excellent recruiter when graduating from college. TripleByte, back in its glory days, would pre-vet technical candidates themselves with a very competent remote interview process. Then they would have you match with companies, fly you to california, pay for your hotel, pay for your Uber trips to each office and you'd get 5 back-to-back on site interviews packed into one week. These days they're just an average recruitment/job board platform. The business model wasn't sustainable.
But now I have a real professional network and don't need recruiters anymore.
Woooooow, fuck that! Labor from unpaid potential applicants to facilitate the increased labor of overworked employees. Yay, capitalism.
And management/media outlets wonder why there are so many people who hate their jobs and are leaving...
So, it doesn't explicitly say so (or at least not in the quoted material I've read), but it looks like this study is US focused (and, I suspect, largely Tech/IT focused).
Anyone care to hazard a guess as to whether this is primarily/exclusively a US issue, or EU as well? Or global?
Is it primarily IT? Or most/all industries and sectors?