Whenever this subject comes up, predictably the answer here is always Blah blah blah network network network. For a demographic always looking for the scalable solution to a problem, HN seems pretty attached to the least scalable option. The numbers just don't make sense to me.
Let's generously assume that you meet and have excellent working relationships with 100 people at each of the 4 jobs you've had. Of those 400 people, say, conservatively, 50% think so highly of you that they'd be willing to stick their neck out help you with your next job search. Out of those 200 people, 50% are no longer working for that company. Out of those 100 people, let's optimistically assume you actively kept in touch with all of them over the years. Now, maybe 50% are working for a company where you'd actually like to apply. Out of those 50 companies, 20% actually have a job opening that fits your background. Out of those 10, maybe 2 actually know and can put you in touch with the hiring manager for that opening. And your success chance through the interview pipeline has got to be worse than 50%.
Tweak my numbers up or down a little, but I think it's a pipe dream for most workers: You have to have an enormous address book full of high-power contacts in order to end up at the end of the funnel with one or two who are both willing and able to successfully help you get a job. And once you've exhausted that network (all it takes is to blow a few interviews), then what?
Meh...working in the opposite direction, I just took two companies that, off the top of my head, would seem like attractive places to work (Stripe and AirBnB). Both have listed openings of the somewhat rare position that I'd be looking for (Engineering Manager). I went to LinkedIn and searched for each company and looked at just recruiting profiles. I found 12 and 8 mutual contacts, respectively, that I could easily ask to pocket a referral bonus in exchange for forwarding my resume along with a small recommendation note.
Granted, I make the effort to network, especially with people who I have enough of a working relationship with that they'd recommend me. But it seems just based on my quick sanity check, that networking could easily work well enough to find a job should I decide I need one. And that's not even counting the 4-5 unsolicited contacts per month that come in from recruiters that I was referred to them by someone I know.
Sample size of 1 and perhaps I distinguish myself more than others, but I can say with certainty that the effort I've put into networking means I won't have problems getting an interview in the current market. If the market tanks, the story might be different.
Dunno- I got my current job through exactly one connection. I wasn't even sure I wanted a job, at the time, but he kept pestering me to come in and interview, and eventually I did. I'm not unhappy about it- it's nice to have a paycheck.
You seem to be taking a somewhat minority position, based on replies.
I'm with you, but I think I see where others are coming from. I had job referrals before, and it can work. The dynamics of this are complicated, but the bottom line seems to be that networking works when it works, but not always or for everyone or in every job market. The reality is that lots of jobs get filled every day with a process very much like the one caricaturised in the piece.
Job-Worker matching as it's done today is haphazard, weird, biased... and almost certainly extremely inefficient.
But... I don't know that we have better examples matchmaking processes at scale. Do we? University selection? Dating? What's the scalable alternative?
> Whenever this subject comes up, predictably the answer here is always [...] network network network. [...] The numbers just don't make sense to me.
Yet networking, in one form or another, is how many if not most people land their jobs. Perhaps a poll is in order here?
I suspect your definition of what constitutes "a network" is what makes the odds you calculate look like a search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It's nothing like that.
If we did a poll right here, I would wager that more people got their current position through a third party lead or inside contact than through submission to an online job application.
Networking at work gets you promotions within a company. I've gotten two promotions and a 40% pay increase in the past three years, and I think a lot of it is from hanging out with people at work functions and talking to lots of people on slack.
The actual jobs I've gotten from networking were either family connections or people I met going to raves when I was younger, or people I talk to online about tech stuff.
I think you overestimate the investment required in a relationship to get a job. Meeting someone at an event and having a 10 minute conversation is often enough to bypass the job posting resume screen.
In my job search, I've been surprised by how often you submit a resume online, and then you don't even get a rejection email. It's a true "black hole" in that you never hear back, not even with a "no thanks". I think it's disrespectful of candidates to ask them to spend time filling out an application, and then leave them hanging because you're (presumably) too lazy to read it.
Insider perspective here: At a past employer, a Fortune 100 public company, the best roles were already slotted by senior execs for liked insiders and/or friends&family in the community. The job posting was just a formality, the end result was known well in advance of any job posting. Submissions to these job postings just languished because there was no one pressuring HR to sift through them, and it was well known inside that those positions were already filled.
From the outside, you just don't know. Very unfortunate because it creates hope for people who, in some cases, don't have any chance.
Not even that but I'm convinced some companies, like Twitter, have an automated rejection system. I remember submitted my resume online at like 3am PST and getting a response within minutes rejecting me saying I wasn't a good fit for the job (I met all qualifications). So, suspecting it was automated I waited a few days, completely changed up my resume and resubmitted it and it was rejected in less than a minute saying I wasn't the right fit for the job.
Resume submission systems are never good. Always always opt to send directly to a real email address (like in the who's hiring HN threads).
I had one recruiter asking me for the exact dates of my past contracts, four times. It took a great deal of patience to repeatedly explain that they are already in the CV, just next to the company name and job title. In the end, I had to screenshot and red-circle the areas. That was the aha moment.
I'm not sure if this is laziness or what. But it does tell me that they don't care very much.
Part of the reason is that rejected candidates tend to ask why they were rejected, which is a massive time sink. The logic goes that it's better to black hole than it is to be inundated with requests for reasons.
I very much agree. A few years ago I was searching for a new job and there was this one place specifically that had an opening that sounded like a perfect fit for my skill set. They had an extremely long application process that involved "Pre-Employment Testing" (something called Criteria?). Anyway, I spent hours working on this application only to never hear back.
Funny enough, after landing an even better gig, I randomly got contacted by one of their recruiters on LinkedIn asking if I would be interested in the opportunity they were still hiring for. No mention of the fact that I had already applied and never heard back.
I'm the total opposite. I absolutely hate rejection letters. They give me no upside feeling and they are all a downer. I'm applying to jobs because I sort of need one, not because I'm out to get social goodwill. This feeling of sinking "ugh" only worsens on days when I get 3 or more rejection letters.
If you do send a rejection letter, at least make sure it has proper grammar and spelling, and please send it within, idk, 6 months?
I have gotten some amazing rejection letters, but only after an interview. These are well-thought out, globally applicable to all rejections, and directly show why I wasn't a good fit. In sum, they were impossible to argue with. I've only received a handful of these, but they were worth keeping around for inspiration.
Please suggest your solution for the problem of receiving 1,874 resumes for a job posting and, 42 days later, finding your likely candidate on the 244th candidate you reviewed.
I wonder how often the "We're Hiring" links on companies landing pages are there only to make the business look healthy and growing while in fact the company is not hiring.
The worst is when you have to fill out countless repetitive and exhaustive applications for ONE job because they don't have enough a proper interface to indeed/LinkedIn/etc
I probably spent 7 hours on application paperwork for my current job. Complete with detailed personal history that had to be 100% accurate going back 10 years.
I had 3 other offers expire before I got my offer from my current employer. Then once I accepted it was another month before I knew if I passed the background checks. That wanted me to start a few days after I finally knew without giving proper notice to my current employer too!
Thankfully this only had one 3 hour casual interview and it was more a waiting game than endless hours poured into interviews for a job I might not get. I knew this would be a better choice than the other offers and I'm glad I did what I did.
I accepted an offer at a subcontractor at Gulfstream once. Crazy process, including them demanding I send all kinds of crazy info including SSN via email unencrypted.
Anyway, I spent several weeks asking them over and over when my start date was supposed to be, because eventually my soon-to-be employer's contract with GD was going to expire and I also wanted to give my current employer notice.
After a couple of months of this, I got fed up on a Friday and wrote an email telling them that I'm rescinding my offer and they went crazy and then kept calling me through the weekend and telling me I could start on Monday begging me to start...telling me I should just walk away from my current employer with no notice.
Walked away from that situation and never looked back. Glad I did it. My background check cost them nearly $500 and I imagine it hurt their relationship with General Dynamics. First clue should have been the fact their entire HR department was offshored.
Minus the dog learning to type at the end, sounds like my experience applying for jobs: submit application online to several places, get a "resume received" email, some automated email a few days later to get one's hopes up, and then get that denial email.
I don't want to hear some euphemistic email detailing how I was a very strong candidate but among a large qualified pool of applicants or how the team was impressed with my resume but unable to move forward at this time... just tell me I didn't get the job already and cut out all the flowery soup.
> ... just tell me I didn't get the job already and cut out all the flowery soup.
Amen to that. Recently I submitted five applications and four of them ended up as duds. What really annoys me is that I had to chase the recruiters to find out for myself that either the job is too senior or they forgot to take down the advert. The best one so far is when a recruiter claimed they never received my application when I got a confirmation email earlier.
Please guys, don't be lazy! Don't play games! Don't make me look desperate, geez.
I have almost 10 years of experience and I've been looking for a job for the last year. I've sent applications to some companies, carefully selected and for which I'm 100% enthusiast about. I've sent custom cover letters, I've been studied the product and provided feedback and improvements. And still I don't deserve even an email saying that I've been rejected.
With some companies I was exchanging email, providing all the info, and then suddenly I never received any further reply.
I think that it's good for the company to filter out candidates, but something must change, as candidates we expect at least a rejection email, especially when your life depends on it.
I'm more and more convinced that being a cog in some corporate machine is coming to an end. We've collectively refined corporate processes to the point that it no longer requires human ingenuity or creativity. This has all happened under the guise of making things more efficient so that a stock ticker will be less volatile and will consistently move up and to the right. The candidate tracking software that this article parodies is one example of such an automated and "efficient" system. One gets the sense that the recruiters are almost secondary. Soon a "dog" will really be able to screen candidates for a job.
I don't think I'm saying anything new here. The mechanization of such work has been happening for a while now and the smart move is to start planning for that inevitability. Anything that requires basic pattern matching and procedures is pretty much gone. My retirement account I think is currently managed by a "robo advisor". Hiring humans to do such mechanical tasks will start getting more and more expensive relative to tweaking some parameters in some neural network coupled maybe with some domain specific policy/optimization framework.
Personally I don't think this is such a bad state of affairs. Why should societal optimization tasks be handled with heroic human effort when we can just do it with math?
The best way to avoid the "black hole" is to not throw your resume into it in the first place.
Instead, use your professional networks and friends. Reach out to actual human beings. Find any way you can to bypass the bullshit online job application systems and HR departments.
When people (or programs) go through a stack of resumes, it's all about finding reasons to eliminate as many as possible as quickly as possible using the flimsiest of criteria. Of course it's going to create hard feelings but what should one expect when putting oneself into a giant horde of applicants?
I've been so thoroughly broken by naming schemes like "Gravity" or "Flaming Biscuit" or whatever, that I've basically trained myself (at least here) to read things like "Black Hole" as a project name. Imagine my brief consternation when I thought, "Who in their right mind would name a resume hosting service 'Black Hole'?!"... then saw the source and felt incredibly stupid.
Beyond that, let me just add my voice to the multitude shouting, "Holy shit, yes, and it's terrible!"
I recently deleted an issue in redmine while meaning to delete a comment. It had a confirmation popup saying "do you really want to delete this issue?". I thought "sure, in Redmine they probably call comments issues."
In my experience in searching for a job, companies invite for 3 interviews and a coding test, then decide the position isn't clearly defined, so they restart the entire process and ask you to re-apply. Then you go through 3 more interviews and another coding test, and then one more interview, then you never hear from the company again. Since the whole process took 4-months, you are now broke and homeless.
Counter point, I have gotten two job offers by just submitting resumes online. But I work in a state without tons of competing talent, so that could help.
For how ever many weeks you might wish to collect unemployment checks, you have to show that you're looking actively, in my jurisdiction. One might have a network of contacts but it's going to take some time for that network to lead to the kind of events that count as evidence that you're looking for work. On the other hand the black holes can lead to lots of events of that nature. So worst case, the black holes actually generate something (is Hawking radiation the right term?) that you can use to keep those checks coming.
I don't get why referral is counted for so much especially when there are referral bonuses which would encourage employees to refer basically anybody they know.
With all these companies having massive HR departments, I also don't understand how a resume goes unread or un-responded to when it takes maybe 10 minutes max to go through a resume thoroughly.
I have actually had really good experiences as both a job seeker and a hiring manager with Hired. Their platform makes it easier to keep track of candidates and makes it less likely they will fall through the cracks.
My experience with hiring in the past is that startups that do it completely internally with no HR or recruiter support are likely to get overwhelmed and drop the ball. Recruiters drive the process along but they are motivated to put any ass in the seat and are not usually completely trustworthy from either the job seeker or the client side. A marketplace solution like Hired, Vettery, etc makes the process lot more transparent and has a rhythm that helps keep hiring managers on task.
Of course I'm a programmer and I'm in NYC and what works for me, here doesn't work for everybody, everywhere.
Have been toying around with an idea of recruitment and job application service which would try to turn the tables and show candidates who's interested in them. So instead of applying, the first step would be a question from candidate to company saying "tell me more about this job". The company would then need to actively get back to the candidate. The advantage to the company would be a much larger pool of candidate contacts, although they would also need to work those contacts more.
It might not be a solution for jobs and company types described in this thread, but in many industries, company types and countries the lack of candidates is a much bigger problem than too many candidates.
> the first step would be a question from candidate to company saying "tell me more about this job". The company would then need to actively get back to the candidate.
Such a service exists. It's called Retained Search, an old-school, high-touch, high-feel service reserved for executive level, mission-critical roles. It's also expensive, 25-33% of first year target compensation. Naturally, companies are incentivized to use cheaper approaches first.
I've had a recruiter writing me to thank me for my application, but unfortunately blah blah résumé blah blah position blah blah. The thing is I had never applied to anything at her company nor sent her a résumé, I had just asked her a question once. Which she had never answered...
Humour (or humor in American English) is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement. The term derives from the humoral medicine of the ancient Greeks, which taught that the balance of fluids in the human body, known as humours (Latin: humor, "body fluid"), controlled human health and emotion.
[+] [-] ryandrake|9 years ago|reply
Let's generously assume that you meet and have excellent working relationships with 100 people at each of the 4 jobs you've had. Of those 400 people, say, conservatively, 50% think so highly of you that they'd be willing to stick their neck out help you with your next job search. Out of those 200 people, 50% are no longer working for that company. Out of those 100 people, let's optimistically assume you actively kept in touch with all of them over the years. Now, maybe 50% are working for a company where you'd actually like to apply. Out of those 50 companies, 20% actually have a job opening that fits your background. Out of those 10, maybe 2 actually know and can put you in touch with the hiring manager for that opening. And your success chance through the interview pipeline has got to be worse than 50%.
Tweak my numbers up or down a little, but I think it's a pipe dream for most workers: You have to have an enormous address book full of high-power contacts in order to end up at the end of the funnel with one or two who are both willing and able to successfully help you get a job. And once you've exhausted that network (all it takes is to blow a few interviews), then what?
[+] [-] curun1r|9 years ago|reply
Granted, I make the effort to network, especially with people who I have enough of a working relationship with that they'd recommend me. But it seems just based on my quick sanity check, that networking could easily work well enough to find a job should I decide I need one. And that's not even counting the 4-5 unsolicited contacts per month that come in from recruiters that I was referred to them by someone I know.
Sample size of 1 and perhaps I distinguish myself more than others, but I can say with certainty that the effort I've put into networking means I won't have problems getting an interview in the current market. If the market tanks, the story might be different.
[+] [-] Tagore|9 years ago|reply
But I think your math is off.
[+] [-] dalbasal|9 years ago|reply
I'm with you, but I think I see where others are coming from. I had job referrals before, and it can work. The dynamics of this are complicated, but the bottom line seems to be that networking works when it works, but not always or for everyone or in every job market. The reality is that lots of jobs get filled every day with a process very much like the one caricaturised in the piece.
Job-Worker matching as it's done today is haphazard, weird, biased... and almost certainly extremely inefficient.
But... I don't know that we have better examples matchmaking processes at scale. Do we? University selection? Dating? What's the scalable alternative?
[+] [-] paradite|9 years ago|reply
You need to realize that social life and networking goes well beyond your workplace.
[+] [-] jkaljundi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] afarrell|9 years ago|reply
It doesn't require you to risk anything to put in a referral. Maybe a referral + recommendation, but not just a referral.
[+] [-] crispyambulance|9 years ago|reply
Yet networking, in one form or another, is how many if not most people land their jobs. Perhaps a poll is in order here?
I suspect your definition of what constitutes "a network" is what makes the odds you calculate look like a search for extraterrestrial intelligence. It's nothing like that.
If we did a poll right here, I would wager that more people got their current position through a third party lead or inside contact than through submission to an online job application.
[+] [-] empath75|9 years ago|reply
The actual jobs I've gotten from networking were either family connections or people I met going to raves when I was younger, or people I talk to online about tech stuff.
[+] [-] jaredklewis|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkaljundi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] apsec112|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TuringNYC|9 years ago|reply
From the outside, you just don't know. Very unfortunate because it creates hope for people who, in some cases, don't have any chance.
[+] [-] BinaryIdiot|9 years ago|reply
Resume submission systems are never good. Always always opt to send directly to a real email address (like in the who's hiring HN threads).
[+] [-] jansho|9 years ago|reply
I'm not sure if this is laziness or what. But it does tell me that they don't care very much.
[+] [-] kintamanimatt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jneal|9 years ago|reply
Funny enough, after landing an even better gig, I randomly got contacted by one of their recruiters on LinkedIn asking if I would be interested in the opportunity they were still hiring for. No mention of the fact that I had already applied and never heard back.
[+] [-] dizzystar|9 years ago|reply
If you do send a rejection letter, at least make sure it has proper grammar and spelling, and please send it within, idk, 6 months?
I have gotten some amazing rejection letters, but only after an interview. These are well-thought out, globally applicable to all rejections, and directly show why I wasn't a good fit. In sum, they were impossible to argue with. I've only received a handful of these, but they were worth keeping around for inspiration.
[+] [-] loteck|9 years ago|reply
However, let's switch modes.
Please suggest your solution for the problem of receiving 1,874 resumes for a job posting and, 42 days later, finding your likely candidate on the 244th candidate you reviewed.
[+] [-] ryanSrich|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mixedbit|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smbullet|9 years ago|reply
Edit: I guess "black holed" isn't the right term since I did get an interview but you know what I mean
[+] [-] repeek|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rokhayakebe|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] eli_gottlieb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnarbarian|9 years ago|reply
I probably spent 7 hours on application paperwork for my current job. Complete with detailed personal history that had to be 100% accurate going back 10 years.
I had 3 other offers expire before I got my offer from my current employer. Then once I accepted it was another month before I knew if I passed the background checks. That wanted me to start a few days after I finally knew without giving proper notice to my current employer too!
Thankfully this only had one 3 hour casual interview and it was more a waiting game than endless hours poured into interviews for a job I might not get. I knew this would be a better choice than the other offers and I'm glad I did what I did.
[+] [-] busterarm|9 years ago|reply
Anyway, I spent several weeks asking them over and over when my start date was supposed to be, because eventually my soon-to-be employer's contract with GD was going to expire and I also wanted to give my current employer notice.
After a couple of months of this, I got fed up on a Friday and wrote an email telling them that I'm rescinding my offer and they went crazy and then kept calling me through the weekend and telling me I could start on Monday begging me to start...telling me I should just walk away from my current employer with no notice.
Walked away from that situation and never looked back. Glad I did it. My background check cost them nearly $500 and I imagine it hurt their relationship with General Dynamics. First clue should have been the fact their entire HR department was offshored.
[+] [-] chiefofgxbxl|9 years ago|reply
I don't want to hear some euphemistic email detailing how I was a very strong candidate but among a large qualified pool of applicants or how the team was impressed with my resume but unable to move forward at this time... just tell me I didn't get the job already and cut out all the flowery soup.
[+] [-] jansho|9 years ago|reply
Amen to that. Recently I submitted five applications and four of them ended up as duds. What really annoys me is that I had to chase the recruiters to find out for myself that either the job is too senior or they forgot to take down the advert. The best one so far is when a recruiter claimed they never received my application when I got a confirmation email earlier.
Please guys, don't be lazy! Don't play games! Don't make me look desperate, geez.
[+] [-] jellin|9 years ago|reply
With some companies I was exchanging email, providing all the info, and then suddenly I never received any further reply.
I think that it's good for the company to filter out candidates, but something must change, as candidates we expect at least a rejection email, especially when your life depends on it.
[+] [-] dkarapetyan|9 years ago|reply
I don't think I'm saying anything new here. The mechanization of such work has been happening for a while now and the smart move is to start planning for that inevitability. Anything that requires basic pattern matching and procedures is pretty much gone. My retirement account I think is currently managed by a "robo advisor". Hiring humans to do such mechanical tasks will start getting more and more expensive relative to tweaking some parameters in some neural network coupled maybe with some domain specific policy/optimization framework.
Personally I don't think this is such a bad state of affairs. Why should societal optimization tasks be handled with heroic human effort when we can just do it with math?
[+] [-] crispyambulance|9 years ago|reply
Instead, use your professional networks and friends. Reach out to actual human beings. Find any way you can to bypass the bullshit online job application systems and HR departments.
When people (or programs) go through a stack of resumes, it's all about finding reasons to eliminate as many as possible as quickly as possible using the flimsiest of criteria. Of course it's going to create hard feelings but what should one expect when putting oneself into a giant horde of applicants?
[+] [-] M_Grey|9 years ago|reply
Beyond that, let me just add my voice to the multitude shouting, "Holy shit, yes, and it's terrible!"
[+] [-] tormeh|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amgin3|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Tagore|9 years ago|reply
I actually refused to send my current job a resume. The conversation went like this:
Can you send them a resume?
No- here's my LinkedIn.
But can you send them a resume?
No- here's my LinkedIn.
OK, can you come in for an interview?
Interview.
A month passes.
Can you come in for another interview?
Interview.
Hired.
[+] [-] rhodysurf|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Overtonwindow|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cardiffspaceman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rampage101|9 years ago|reply
With all these companies having massive HR departments, I also don't understand how a resume goes unread or un-responded to when it takes maybe 10 minutes max to go through a resume thoroughly.
[+] [-] bgribble|9 years ago|reply
My experience with hiring in the past is that startups that do it completely internally with no HR or recruiter support are likely to get overwhelmed and drop the ball. Recruiters drive the process along but they are motivated to put any ass in the seat and are not usually completely trustworthy from either the job seeker or the client side. A marketplace solution like Hired, Vettery, etc makes the process lot more transparent and has a rhythm that helps keep hiring managers on task.
Of course I'm a programmer and I'm in NYC and what works for me, here doesn't work for everybody, everywhere.
[+] [-] jkaljundi|9 years ago|reply
It might not be a solution for jobs and company types described in this thread, but in many industries, company types and countries the lack of candidates is a much bigger problem than too many candidates.
[+] [-] JSeymourATL|9 years ago|reply
Such a service exists. It's called Retained Search, an old-school, high-touch, high-feel service reserved for executive level, mission-critical roles. It's also expensive, 25-33% of first year target compensation. Naturally, companies are incentivized to use cheaper approaches first.
[+] [-] wott|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akhilcacharya|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lukaszjb|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jkaljundi|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] batguano|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] good_vibes|9 years ago|reply