Ask HN: Those who have recently undertaken a job hunt, what was your experience?

So it's both impossible and very very easy.

I think tech hiring is going to be a knife fight for a long time, because we're long past the point where only the thoroughly interested are looking for jobs in this industry, and there's so much money in the field that competition is high enough for people to take "towers of hanoi in optimized big o" interview tests seriously (probably because they cut the candidate field down to a manageable number)

>For those that have gone remote, any specific insights?

Be ready to manage your time, it's very easy to let 15 minutes off for chores turn into blowing off a whole day.

I started looking casually for a new position last July, then in earnest last October, and then my previous contract ended in middle of February and I "lucked" into a new contract in middle of March. ("Lucked" because I was contacted out of the blue by a good recruiter for a good firm, but also that contact was somewhat the result of a lot of prep work I had done.)

I'm a generalist developer with small-firm management experience, 45, still picking up new stuff all the time despite working in tech for over 20 years, and with some decent extracurriculars.

I sent out many, many applications. A percentage of them required homework of varying kinds -- tests or generating and filling out a profile that contained all the same data as my resume. Most of those never resulted in an interview, so it was all wasted effort.

I had several promising leads evaporate at some point during the interview process because the company changed their mind about the position. Other interviews never provided any feedback whatsoever.

My current contract is for a firm that needed someone with extensive PHP experience, which I have, but they were a Ruby-only shop and needed to do a technical evaluation on me. So, I spent a week preparing for that interview until I was reasonably comfortable with basic Ruby, only for it never to come up during the interview after all. And, like, these seem to be pretty good people overall -- it's just emblematic of the state of things.

I very, very nearly quit tech to start working towards becoming a personal trainer, and may still do so at the end of this contract. In my view, getting hired right now is in some ways even harder than it was during the dotcom bust of the early 2000s. If you are a specific kind of person -- 20s, maybe some college, and experience at a FAANG, and "senior" or "lead" after just a couple of years in the industry -- then you might have some options.

Hiring processes are fractally broken though. People are getting hired, there are jobs available, but there are also hundreds of applicants for any position within a few hours of the position opening, and because hiring processes are so broken, it's quite hard to stand out as an applicant.

I have a similar experience to the previous comment, applied to about 50 jobs and got 2 interviews. Removed all dates from my resume and now I'm getting interviews left and right because they can't tell how "senior" I am.

Recently a friend hooked me up with a friend of his who is working on an AI accelerator chip startup on a shoestring. So I guess I'm about to start working on that. No pay, just equity, but there's a huge amount of money sloshing around in this space right now and who knows, maybe he can get some funding? Interesting stuff to work on, anyway, even if it doesn't pan out.

I guess the takeaway here is that it's surprisingly easy to find a gig that only pays in equity.

Economic realities mean there’s quite a bit of downward pressure on CAD right now, so this is likely to continue to be a good deal on both sides for quite a while.

I’m still getting approached by recruiters for Canadian-based remote roles like it’s 2021.

Make sure that your contract specifically mentions that you'll work remotely. Otherwise your boss can always change their mind down the line.

I’m looking for a front end position - it’s never taken me more than four or five months in the past, and I have more experience and sharper skills now than ever before… and it’s been almost eight months currently. Maybe only 50% of applications out of hundreds even prompt a “thank you but no” form email. It’s almost never personal either, since everyone proxies their hiring process through big job board sites.

It’s insane how little personal engagement with actual humans is happening, I’ve never experienced a job hunt like this before, it’s really making me wonder what I’m doing wrong. Usually I do a few interviews, find a spot that seems promising, and jump right into another contract. I don’t know why it should be different this round.

My advice is to just keep working on it - send out resumes, write cover letters for the ones that look promising, A/B test different resume formats, and just keep at it. Something will work eventually.

10+ years experience in infra, very well rounded, lots of projects to show off my skills. Out of the hundreds of apps I've put in in the last year, maybe 5 call backs, got passed on in 2 interviews (was legitimately not what they were looking for, can't blame them).

It's brutal out there. I wouldn't waste your time tailoring resumes or cover letters. The call back ratio is so low it's just not worth it.

The actual process has been just as bad too. Lots of jobs have hundreds of applicants, regardless of the amount of experience or number of skills required. Many won't get back to you at all after applying, meaning the only way to tell if the job has been filled is if it vanishes from online portals. And even for those that do respond, it feels there are a lot more companies rejecting candidates at the drop of a hat, or ghosting them after the first or second stage of the interview process.

Recruiters do seem to have started calling more often than earlier though, so it seems like there may be a tiny bit of improvement compared to the end of 2023/start of 2024. But still, in this climate, my advice would be to only change job if you're very confident things will work out, and to rely on contacts and networking rather than formal application processes. Any option to skip the 'apply to an online listing with hundreds of other candidates and pray' setup is going to be a lifeline about now.

Anyway: I was poached by a former peer for his new department. I marked my interest on business social media and the requirement for remote. "Interviewed" with one place, the new one, as a formality.

Networks have never failed me, but they aren't very communicable/useful to others... either. Plant seeds regardless of the sun

2020 was my best year ever job wise, I was making a stupid amount of money. In 2023 I took a massive pay cut, we're talking over 50k, but it's still better than nothing.

Now I'm somewhat close to my peak, fully remote. Not the most I've ever earned, but in very comfortable.

Just get recs and do contracting on some projects. It’s a clusterfuck now.

I'm optimistic that the closer we get to summer, the better the response rates will be.

TL;DR: Mixed bag

MAANG companies (excluding N) are requiring relocation and RTO (hybrid, near an office). Also, their tone has shifted to where their recruiters feel like they hold a monopoly on in the business relationship power dynamic.

Perhaps shrinking corporate real estate holdings of properties and lease should be prioritized over burdening employees with additional relocation, commuting, and housing costs.

Offered pay or benefits seem lower too. I've dismissed a few companies for being below my range & have seen others here say the same.

I have had two companies basically admit they have never had the outpouring of candidates they have had lately but I question the real value & experience of those candidates. When I'm looking at GRC roles, a fairly niche field, that have had 150 - 350 applicants, I can't help but feel the market is being flooded by juniors or maybe just resume-spamming tools.

I really believe companies are trying to be too picky because of the pure inflated applicant numbers. For example, one particular company refused to even consider me for the position because of a hybrid 3 day requirement imposed by their leadership. That's despite me having a shared military background with a current team member, again, deep domain expertise & project ownership, and an interest in the company so that I would have likely been on the lower of their salary range just to work with them. They are still hiring for that role so I'll be honest, I don't get it. Another company got to the interview with their internal recruiter (& of which I had been invited too by their Head of Application Security) and they then decided to list their must haves for the position in their first round, something which wasn't listed on the job post (and their must-have language requirement was a barely a familiarity note on the job post).

But all in all salaries seem lower, I saw a government Information Security Assurance role for 50k - 75k the other day, for 3 - 5 years experience-- I was making that at entry level with 0 years of experience. Heck, at that point I would take a junior SWE position which would probably pay more & then just go do either software engineering again or look outside of tech for management roles.

I don't know, all I can say is I'm not personally lowering my own standards just because companies are. I think my next position will see me entrenched awhile, until this job market changes or until I find my next unicorn role that meets my demands. Like someone else said here, it just isn't worth tailoring your resume anymore- the time commitment is too great & its all about beating the ATS system. Internal recruiters & HR barely understand our resume anyway, a fact which has made the first rounds a real pain. Case in point, the eventual position I accepted I interviewed with the CTO first-round & it was a much more productive interview for both sides then any of my other HR first rounds have been.