For anyone currently stuck in the grind of endlessly applying for jobs, I completely understand your frustration. I’ve been job hunting for the past three months, and it’s been painfully repetitive and time-consuming. Applying via LinkedIn often feels like throwing your resume into a sea of 1,000+ other applicants, even with daily alerts turned on.
What worked better for me was following founders, recruiters, and other key connections. I’d wait for them to post about roles in their network and apply directly. This strategy landed me a few interviews.
To make this process less manual, I built a tracker that highlights posts from people sharing roles with their private networks. It’s free, so feel free to check it out if you’re in the job market.
I’m also testing video-based applications, which let you track who’s viewing your resume and profile. This feature is paid to help cover server cost.
Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and hopefully this helps you land a role!
We're seeing a flood of fake AI generated job applications basically DDOSing our hiring funnel. Not sure how widespread it is but it has become enormously frustrating to sift the complete garbage from the good resumes. I'm sure a lot of good people have been accidentally filtered out
It's rough out there right now. Also, not even sure what the benefit or angle is for spamming fake job applications. State actors trying to sabotage?
Edit: We can tell that some of the applications are fake because we have people fail background screenings and often the attached LinkedIn profile is using AI generated images and job histories that don't add up.
Having a project you are trying to turn into a business is often a red flag. A company considering hiring you wonders if you will jump ship as soon as you have the opportunity to go full time on your own project
Indeed, the title given here doesn't seem to appear on the page at all, which makes this seem like clickbait. The title should be changed to 'Private jobs board' or similar.
But then no one would click on it or upvote it. I assume a lot of people vote and comment without clicking the links on HN. Would have been better as a 'show hn' post - Dallas_b below is the op and also made the site but I don't think they make that very clear in their post.
I still have nightmares about going back to the getting my foot in the door stage. I was fresh out of college, and over the next six months I sent hundreds of applications and did tens of interviews.
This was 2006 so the landscape was a little different. I had less direct competition here, but outsourcing was in full swing. I had actually been advised by my high school's consoler not to go into programming because "all the jobs are going to India".
One interview that had gone particularly well was a couple miles from where I now live. Everyone I spoke to seemed very enthusiastic and understood I was right out of college. They never called. Every single time I drive by I tell my wife that I am still waiting for them to call me back. I googled them a few years back and they had gone out of business.
The private college I attended had a department dedicated to job placement, and they would check in with me every couple weeks after I graduated. They were sold as "working directly with employers to place students" but they never had anything like that for me. Honestly, their pushing was a big piece of why I didn't give up. I didn't want to lie to them and I didn't want to let them down.
Crazy, I got hired at the same time directly out of high school from my first job application. Just a casual interview with the startup founder (yes I had a code to show/a portfolio) and that was it. The only job placement help I got was the school counselor threatening that I'd be the "smartest guy in [my] gang" (in all fairness to her, I had been a smart guy in a gang).
People and their life histories are incredibly different!
I will check out this tool later, but given the title of the post.
I know this is something that my parents have told me before, but being on the market myself right now. It feels like there is really only so much time I can spend looking for a job. In the first week or 2 I am catching up on all of the jobs already up but after that only so many new jobs are posted.
It feels like I can spend at most an hour or 2 a day actually applying. Sure add in calls/interviews. I say this currently being unemployed. At some point there is nothing else to look at.
I am curious if people are really spending 40+ hours applying to jobs a week? I am finding I am spending most of my time brushing up on tech and working on side projects to keep my skills up.
There's been a flood of third-party job boards on HN recently. As a job searcher, is there any reason to check any of these job boards in addition to Indeed?
From what I've seen I don't think there is a lot of 'exclusivity' of job posting on one platform or another, perhaps timing of jobs going live...
I suggest setting up the daily alerts on LinkedIn with your role title, doing the same for Indeed as well. I check BuildIn as well every few days just for good measure as they claim to have good hiring rates for tech.
Also see if there is any value in what I've built as well.
I switched to becoming a data analyst. It's odd, I feel more appreciated too as I'm clearly the most technical person on the team. I help them with certain hard skills and they teach me certain soft skills (and certain domain specific hard skills), all the while I feel more closely connected to society since I'm working in a marketing department.
For me, an ambiverted software engineer in Europe, it's definitely been a good move.
What helped me getting the job is that I did 2 bachelor programs at uni, one in psychology, the other in computer science with a business minor. I feel that data analysis is a mix of psychology and computer science while the marketing department is the business part. The path to becoming a data analyst wasn't clear, I simply applied to job postings that I vibed with, I didn't really care about the role. If the job vacancy itself seemed fun, I applied.
I didn't do that enough, in retrospect I should've done it a lot more. That'd be the advice I give myself: just read a lot of job vacancies and just trust your intuition about which one you vibe with (aka feel good about).
>> FYI: It takes between 3-12 months to find a contract in the UK in the IT space now.
Is that because the market rates have changed? I'm in the US and there is definitely a rate-filltime curve. At a certain rate, filltimes become almost immediate, because it makes sense to just hire for option value. However, at 2021 rates, I can see that filltime would be long. (NOT saying that the market clearing rates are actually living wages for on-site positions, but thats the challenge of an inflationary market with employer advantage.)
Or is there some regulatory barrier (e.g. mandatory notice periods?)
In the UK. Freelance. A major client put their project on hold and (looking to fill gap) its been a long time since I saw so few opportunities for things I used to find it easy to get work in (e.g. Django, which can be boring but has always been solid bread and butter).
[+] [-] Dallas_B|1 year ago|reply
What worked better for me was following founders, recruiters, and other key connections. I’d wait for them to post about roles in their network and apply directly. This strategy landed me a few interviews.
To make this process less manual, I built a tracker that highlights posts from people sharing roles with their private networks. It’s free, so feel free to check it out if you’re in the job market.
I’m also testing video-based applications, which let you track who’s viewing your resume and profile. This feature is paid to help cover server cost. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated and hopefully this helps you land a role!
[+] [-] sunjieming|1 year ago|reply
It's rough out there right now. Also, not even sure what the benefit or angle is for spamming fake job applications. State actors trying to sabotage?
Edit: We can tell that some of the applications are fake because we have people fail background screenings and often the attached LinkedIn profile is using AI generated images and job histories that don't add up.
[+] [-] WarOnPrivacy|1 year ago|reply
With full recognition of the challenge you're having, I'll append that the difficulty level ratchets up from there.
The first thing my kids learned after high school is that ~100% of job portals silently discard applications from 1st-time job applicants.
And from that point, the difficultly levels ratchets upward further for the most minor of criminal records.
Past that there are any number of hidden, algorithmic blackmarks against applicants, from wrong zip codes to sub-stellar credit reports.
Finally, there's one nearly unhireable class, people who interview poorly (ex:freeze up).
[+] [-] upghost|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] verdverm|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] codalan|1 year ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html
[+] [-] ErikAugust|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ljf|1 year ago|reply
But then no one would click on it or upvote it. I assume a lot of people vote and comment without clicking the links on HN. Would have been better as a 'show hn' post - Dallas_b below is the op and also made the site but I don't think they make that very clear in their post.
[+] [-] prettyStandard|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] donatj|1 year ago|reply
This was 2006 so the landscape was a little different. I had less direct competition here, but outsourcing was in full swing. I had actually been advised by my high school's consoler not to go into programming because "all the jobs are going to India".
One interview that had gone particularly well was a couple miles from where I now live. Everyone I spoke to seemed very enthusiastic and understood I was right out of college. They never called. Every single time I drive by I tell my wife that I am still waiting for them to call me back. I googled them a few years back and they had gone out of business.
The private college I attended had a department dedicated to job placement, and they would check in with me every couple weeks after I graduated. They were sold as "working directly with employers to place students" but they never had anything like that for me. Honestly, their pushing was a big piece of why I didn't give up. I didn't want to lie to them and I didn't want to let them down.
[+] [-] hansumfarang|1 year ago|reply
People and their life histories are incredibly different!
[+] [-] nerdjon|1 year ago|reply
I know this is something that my parents have told me before, but being on the market myself right now. It feels like there is really only so much time I can spend looking for a job. In the first week or 2 I am catching up on all of the jobs already up but after that only so many new jobs are posted.
It feels like I can spend at most an hour or 2 a day actually applying. Sure add in calls/interviews. I say this currently being unemployed. At some point there is nothing else to look at.
I am curious if people are really spending 40+ hours applying to jobs a week? I am finding I am spending most of my time brushing up on tech and working on side projects to keep my skills up.
[+] [-] xnx|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Dallas_B|1 year ago|reply
I suggest setting up the daily alerts on LinkedIn with your role title, doing the same for Indeed as well. I check BuildIn as well every few days just for good measure as they claim to have good hiring rates for tech.
Also see if there is any value in what I've built as well.
[+] [-] melvinroest|1 year ago|reply
For me, an ambiverted software engineer in Europe, it's definitely been a good move.
What helped me getting the job is that I did 2 bachelor programs at uni, one in psychology, the other in computer science with a business minor. I feel that data analysis is a mix of psychology and computer science while the marketing department is the business part. The path to becoming a data analyst wasn't clear, I simply applied to job postings that I vibed with, I didn't really care about the role. If the job vacancy itself seemed fun, I applied.
I didn't do that enough, in retrospect I should've done it a lot more. That'd be the advice I give myself: just read a lot of job vacancies and just trust your intuition about which one you vibe with (aka feel good about).
[+] [-] surfingdino|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] TuringNYC|1 year ago|reply
Is that because the market rates have changed? I'm in the US and there is definitely a rate-filltime curve. At a certain rate, filltimes become almost immediate, because it makes sense to just hire for option value. However, at 2021 rates, I can see that filltime would be long. (NOT saying that the market clearing rates are actually living wages for on-site positions, but thats the challenge of an inflationary market with employer advantage.)
Or is there some regulatory barrier (e.g. mandatory notice periods?)
[+] [-] graemep|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] nickvec|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] Dallas_B|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] stavros|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] class700|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] kussenverboten|1 year ago|reply
[+] [-] ezra0r|1 year ago|reply
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