Is the situation really this bad?

[CREATIVE!11]

I might try experimenting by creating a second CV which contains only acronyms and some basic stuff - just so it hits all of the searches, to see if it makes a difference

It feels cheap AF, but... I don't see what else I can do..

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Here is some inspiration for your new CV, just be sure to put Mia Khalifa under your skills section and you'll be golden, that coding language is so hot right now....

On a more serious note, i'm pretty sure you can find a way to weave more of those types of buzz words into your CV, you should give it a shot and see if it makes a difference.

 

[Screeeech]

Reddit - Dive into anything

www.reddit.com

Here is some inspiration for your new CV, just be sure to put Mia Khalifa under your skills section and you'll be golden, that coding language is so hot right now....

On a more serious note, i'm pretty sure you can find a way to weave more of those types of buzz words into your CV, you should give it a shot and see if it makes a difference.

It's not actually a million miles away from my current one - but I'm gonna re-write it anyway, so I'll give this a go...

It's not a "me" problem, it's "getting a ******* interview" problem, once I can get though to that stage, I'm golden - it's just getting to that point, which seems almost impossible.

 

[Screeeech]

They constantly lie to you and everything "will be done tomorrow"

Yeah this was a problem at AWS. Many of the engineers of Indian and Arabic origin have this ethic where saying "no" or "I can't do this" is some sign of weakness. As a result they say "yes" to absolutely everything, even impossible silly things where there's no hope.

It buggers everything up, because when I say "No, this deadline of 15 minutes for 3 weeks work is silly, be realistic please" the project managers just run off and grab some foreign dude, who says "yes it will be done".

I then watch as the poor guy works till 3am 7 days in a row, and they take the service down and cause a sev1 fault when they run their change..

It's something I learnt from a next-level manager I had when I was in LA, he was a former top manager at Microsoft back in the windows 7 days. He pointed out that it's normally the inexperienced and more novice guys who say yes to stuff, normally the more sensible, experienced and higher quality people say no and learn to push back.

 

[HangTime]

released from their current roles (who have a habit of digging their feet in and saying 4 weeks)

Depends on the type of roles they are leaving but expectations need to be set here, 4 weeks is the absolute bare minimum I'd be expecting to wait for a new hire. Digging heels in would be 3 months notice and then maybe they want a couple of weeks off between jobs on top.

 

[HangTime]

I can tell usually within the first 5-10 minutes of an interview if someone is suitable for roles I've helped hire for. I would draw the line at 3 interviews, unless it was for a very high calibre role. Nobody wants it to become a job, to get a job FFS. Ridiculous.
I've got some tips for anyone who interviews from offshore or remote;

1. Get a decent mic. Test said mic with different people and be sure you are clear.
2. Get a decent camera and also test it. Turn it on.
3. Get a decent connection. No excuses.
4. Go somewhere quiet.

If you can't do 1 or 2 the interview will be terminated and you'll be crossed off our list as you obviously aren't a serious player and will have been told prior to sort this. Connectivity issues on a live interview can happen, but I'd be instantly suspicious that you'll be problematic in the future.

I have a bit of an issue in that I have good signal in my study (where I hold my standard work VC calls) but the lighting is terrible, light from the window behind me even with blinds drawn etc. For interviews I tend to do them from the kitchen (much better lighting but two floors below the router). Occasionally the signal is flaky.

One 3rd stage interview I was rejected from it basically conked out and I had to revert to audio only, I do sometimes wonder if that made any difference.

I've got no issue with many stage interview processes if they are arranged promptly. The job I'm just leaving I did phonecall with internal recruiter, 4x VC and 1x take home project, was still faster than another firm I was interviewing with at the same time.

 

[MissChief]

Depends on the type of roles they are leaving but expectations need to be set here, 4 weeks is the absolute bare minimum I'd be expecting to wait for a new hire. Digging heels in would be 3 months notice and then maybe they want a couple of weeks off between jobs on top.

it's an internal move from a team with nearly 200 staff members. Allowing 1 person to leave early won't even be noticeable. And they've never replaced them either, at least not directly.

 

[jon86]

I have a bit of an issue in that I have good signal in my study (where I hold my standard work VC calls) but the lighting is terrible, light from the window behind me even with blinds drawn etc. For interviews I tend to do them from the kitchen (much better lighting but two floors below the router). Occasionally the signal is flaky.

I believe that it's your responsibility as a WFHer to have a good WFH video and audio setup, and if that means buying a couple of cheap lights to make video calls better, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Some friends of mine went so far as buying a green screen, lighting, and setting up OBS for their video calls.

 

[AndyCr15]

It's funny how many people seem to position themselves with a bright window behind them, surely even if you initially (wrongly) think this is a good idea, you can see very quickly it's not good? (I get some people have no choice, but I'm sure many on laptops do this) Mind you, when someone hands me a phone and says 'can you take our photo' they often seem surprised when I say 'sure, but you don't really want the sun behind you, should we move?' and they seem surprised, so maybe people don't really get it? They think having the light in the shot is better? Anyway, a little OT...

 

[malachi]

Why dont they just blur the background while on calls?

Thats what I do when having remote interviews as I have to it from a restaurant shop at times.

 

[AndyCr15]

Why dont they just blur the background while on calls?

Maybe I'm being dim, what is this the solution to from the issues we've mentioned?

I mean, I don't disagree, generally it's a good idea.

 

[HangTime]

I did purchase a ring light that I use to improve lighting sometimes, but it doesn't completely fix the issue of having natural light behind me (I also blur/replace background but it doesn't fully mitigate the lighting).

As for why I have natural light behind me, it's because my (large) desk naturally fits in the corner of the room opposite the window and I sometimes need to use a large external monitor (I'm visually impaired, if someone is doing a screenshare it can be hard to read on a laptop screen). Moving the desk to the side of the room with the window isn't an option, because of the slope of the eaves (the desk has shelves on top so is about shoulder height, even if I removed the shelves a 32" monitor is too tall). The current location is pretty much the only place it can fit as two corners are blocked by eaves and the other corner would block the door from opening fully.

Potentially I'm going to move my study down to the ground floor which would fix the lighting but then the connectivity issue comes back as the internet connection I use for work is wired to the current study.

 

[Screeeech]

A recruiter called me yesterday and we ended up having quite a long chat, I asked him why is it so hard to even get an interview let alone get a job?

His reply was basically that we’re in a perfect storm at the moment, there are hardly any roles and shedloads of people applying for them.

He basically said, if he posts a role for a basic software/network engineer, senior - with a standard salary of £80k, within half a day he’ll have between 350-400 applicants.

Out of that 350-400 applicants, 98% of them will be complete dog **** and there will be 4-5 good ones worth interviewing.

 

[neverminder]

A recruiter called me yesterday and we ended up having quite a long chat, I asked him why is it so hard to even get an interview let alone get a job?

His reply was basically that we’re in a perfect storm at the moment, there are hardly any roles and shedloads of people applying for them.

He basically said, if he posts a role for a basic software/network engineer, senior - with a standard salary of £80k, within half a day he’ll have between 350-400 applicants.

Out of that 350-400 applicants, 98% of them will be complete dog **** and there will be 4-5 good ones worth interviewing.

This is bad. As an average dev without any big names under my belt, I stand no chance. I guess it's time to go look for peanuts on Upwork, if there's any left there at all.

It's absolutely ridiculous how the situation has changed radically in such a short time. I was able to get a job during the 2021 "Great Resignation" literally in a few days. Somewhat similar in 2022. 2023 so far looks worse than the Dot-com bubble.

 

[malachi]

From my side, I had a few interviews so it seems the market has started to pick abit....but only abit.

 

[Screeeech]

It's absolutely ridiculous how the situation has changed radically in such a short time. I was able to get a job during the 2021 "Great Resignation" literally in a few days. Somewhat similar in 2022. 2023 so far looks worse than the Dot-com bubble.

A lot of it is aftershocks from covid and the normalisation after the tech companies had a huge binge, then all ended up being too fat and had to cut numbers.

From my side, I had a few interviews so it seems the market has started to pick abit....but only abit.

This last 3-4 weeks I’ve had a lot more callbacks and enquiries so I do think it is picking up a bit, I have a new role now so I’m all good - but Jesus Christ, I’ve been hammering it for 6 months, it’s never been this bad..

 

[jonneymendoza]

Maybe AI is affecting our it dev industry?

 

[MissChief]

There is a real glut of applicants, many of the big guys, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Sales force etc have laid off thousands across the world.

 

[jonneymendoza]

There is a real glut of applicants, many of the big guys, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, Sales force etc have laid off thousands across the world.

Yea I heard about that.

Why was they laid off.

Its not as if people have stopped using twitter and Facebook...

And this goes to show that being a perm staff in IT is a waste.

Perm no longer gives you much job security

 

[jonneymendoza]

Can totally agree with this. Our engineering team have just been outsourced to India and they are awful. The sound quality is like they are living on the moon, and the constant beeping and chickens crowing in the background it's really hard to take any of them seriously. They constantly lie to you and everything "will be done tomorrow"

Yup. Shocking.

They need to stop hiring from abroad who are like this and hire locally or even within Europe.


Lots of European and local developers with talent getting there jobs lost due to recruiting from India etc to resources that are terrible at there job

 

[neverminder]

Yea I heard about that.

Why was they laid off.

Its not as if people have stopped using twitter and Facebook...

And this goes to show that being a perm staff in IT is a waste.

Perm no longer gives you much job security

The FAANG was up to some next level bullѕhit for a long time now. Such as hiring all the top talent despite needing it or not, only so that the competition couldn't hire them. Then they would give these people to work on some bullѕhit projects to keep them occupied, until the day when their skills could be needed. The bloat was absolutely insane.

And now of course hundreds of thousands FAANG devs were dumped on the market, scrambling for all those second tier non-tech companies that guys like me used to work for, and we are pushed out completely.