How have your recent job application experiences been?

No very good, I'm starting to believe that the so-called "shortage of developers" is just companies who have a terrible and frankly broken interview process, over-optimized to detect red flags no matter how small they are(I had been rejected for so many small things like "I didn't talk enough with the interviewers", "Your solution is good but you forgot this small edge case that we didn't mention ", "Your code was fine and it does solve the problem but we wanted to see you going the extra")

leetcode problems are silly but company us them as filters because they don't know any better but on the "Brightside" only take 1 o 2 hours of your life.

take-home challenges are worse because they require more hours to completed and sometimes companies just ghost or reject you without giving you any feedback.

By far the best way to skip all that nonsense has been with referrals, I believe its because if the new guy underperformed they can just blame the one who referred him

Had one today (at a large company) and the interviewer looked/sounded disgusted when I said I had a React app connected to a lone node server connected to the database. (MVP prototype).

They didn't understand why anyone would design a system like that and asked if I had the choice again, would I build it the same way. Their correct answer was micro-services up the wazoo.

I tried to explain that startups don't have budget or desire for massive infrastructure or are generally only interested in building a prototype to validate product market fit. Wasting money on ivory tower systems was a waste.

At no time did they ask if the system supported the workload or even how many users we had. Nope straight to build massively complex infra.

I've forgotten that a lot of s/w engineers who work in the real world/large companies, don't have any idea some of the pg mantras we all chant.

Major red flag. Pass. :/

Pretty tough so far. Discovery - mostly through job boards. I'm also struggling with some career direction questions and getting a response or scheduling an interview just makes me more anxious instead of helping. Seriously considering putting off the job search for a time when I feel better or I have a better idea about what I want to do.

I've also never personally experienced the tech trope of being in high demand, getting multiple great offers or amazing salary/perks. It seems a lot more uphill than the exepriences that other people share online.

Start-up idea I don't want to do, but would pay for money for: Applicant Tracking System, but for applicants. Employers pay for posting per usual, but applicants also pay $N/mo. An applicant can submit a small number of applications per week, but get information of where their application is in the process, including if they've been passed over. Employers are forced to use some sort of tiered system for progressing applicants through the process, or won't be allowed on the platform, and same with "posting a role just to see who applies".

Really, it just monetizes some equalization of the power/information assymmetry between applicant and employer. I know I would have paid easily over $100/mo during my last job search to know wtf was happening with each of my applications, even if it was just getting turned down. The black hole is such a waste of resources.

Or, at least, something like that.

I did a Phd in life sciences at Ohio State about three years ago, found it difficult to find a job in my field where I was living (Columbus Ohio), so spent $17k and 6 months doing an online data science course with New York Data Science Academy.

I have applied to around 100 positions, had three interviews and countless form rejection letters.

I am stuck working remotely or in the city I am in now so understand its been hard but I am just about to the point where I think I will not have a real "career" in my lifetime. I fluctuate between blaming my poor choice in going into the life sciences and the "economy" in general. Between unemployment, food stamps and living at my parents things are going pretty well but have basically given up on finding a meaningful job.

FWIW:

Every year I put in my resume at the lowest most junior software engineering role I can find at FAANG, but I never get passed the resume stage despite the fact that I have a bachelor/master in computer science and 2 years of working experience (1 in teaching web dev, 1 in software engineering). I guess it must be that I'm in Europe/European, it's tougher there? I applied for European places too.

I also applied to non-FAANG companies with its own issues (e.g. companies not replying or sending 40 hour code challenges), but it just hurts that I never got a test even by the companies I always wanted to work at when I was still at uni.

Because of that, I lost the whole "you're a new graduate!" thing and it made me directionless. Before Covid I applied for jobs for 1 year and failed. Then I got a job, which was amazing and I was really grateful for. Unfortunately, the founders felt I was too entrepreneurial and didn't stick enough to being just a programmer (note: I programmed 90% of the time) and had a big culture clash because of it, so I left. I can't work at a place where I know that I don't fit in the culture. Now I'm on the hunt again.

The whole process makes me feel inadequate while I know I'm not! I know a thing or two and have even way more to learn, that does not mean I'm inadequate. I was one of the most motivated students at uni, because I love an intellectual challenge and love working for a bright future. While I still cherish my love for intellectual challenges, I am not working for a bright future anymore. I don't see one.

I'm trying to help the programmer community by gathering up some data. If you have just a few minutes to fill out a form I've made I would appreciate it.

I'm going to take this data and come up with some solutions that benefits everybody with regards to interviewing and hiring. Everything I receive and put together I'll post somewhere for everyone. I have about 24 people so far. I'd love to get to 40 even.

Everything is anonymous.

https://forms.gle/7oZjGpbq7LtmG1xc8

_Note: I believe some of the questions are difficult to understand and I think there's one repeat question. I'm cleaning it up. Even if you could just do the initial questions (a handful of them), it's super helpful_

Is this board only for Silicon Valley people? I was looking for a cleared job over Christmas on the east coast. Applying internally I got rejections, applying to jobs from recruiters I got interviews and offers about 60% of the time.

I found that five years of experience in "programming" didn't qualify me for jobs that wanted three years of Angular, or Spring, or seven years total. I've still never had an interview with a programming test except my very first one that had FizzBuzz.

I was let go in the beginning of December so I'm currently highly motivated to find work. Not in desperate times yet but trying to look hard to find something so I don't reach desperate.

My best opportunities so far have come via LinkedIn recruiters, believe it or not. One recruiter got me interviews with two companies before the end of December. I had a code challenge and second interview with one of them, so pretty far in the interview process.

Otherwise looking at job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn listings. Some good opportunities there but I feel like applying is almost a waste of time. I almost never hear back. LinkedIn has a feature where it emails you if your application was even looked at, and I rarely get those emails. I got one outright rejection but otherwise just ignored.

I've also been targetting companies in related work to my previous experience or companies I would be interested in working for but none seem to be hiring.

I don't think there's any single silver bullet answer to job hunting, just have to try every avenue you can to dig up opportunities.

I wish I was better at networking.

My clients have been facing job searches 2-3x longer than in past years (mid-level managers, social media, even HR staffers. That's after having had the resume and LinkedIn Profile enhanced to a competitive level.

I've even following up one for some months. We had to halt everything for the Christmas holiday.

They gave me a technical interview recently which I felt I aced. Only for me to go read the question again I realised that what I felt was just supposed to manipulate an object could actually be a file that they meant.

I'm yet to hear from them, it's been almost 2wks now. But ever since that realisation my confidence has gone done like crazy.

ATM want to focus on building projects with minimal Algo tests on the side. Gets tiresome solving Leetcode all the time.

I keep getting amazing applicants but vastly overqualified for the roles for which I am hiring :(

good luck out there, guys.

I've really only just started recently (Full stack dev, small company, looking for 2nd job), maybe like 15 total apps so far. I have 2 rejects and whole lot of dead silence. I am in one popular company's pipeline though via a linkedin recruiter.

Not trying to find a job but a lot of recruiters message in Linkedin periodically!

Amazon keeps sending emails to do their automated tests... nothing different.

15 applications out since Jan 01 (trying to average 1 application a day)

4 interviews with different companies

6 total rejection emails

0 job offers

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Email in profile...

Recruiters on LinkedIn. Put some work into making your profile clean and concise along with good recommendations from past jobs.

Recruiters will sell you to the client, and help during rate negotiations. Good luck!

A friend of mine was rejected recently because the application architecture that he shared did not have much complexity :-)

Me: Why they unnecessarily need it to complex?