Reject/ghost on all job applications with 8 YoE, what am I doing wrong?

Not the answer people in your situation like to hear:

- you are too hot for well over 90% of the roles up for grabs. - your expected salary alone may be enough a deterrent.

One thing hasn't changed: the recruiting scene has not improved, rather gotten worse.

Jack is a recruiting manager. He constantly needs people and the three projects he is on are far behind. HR just announced a wage cap and he will only be able to hire one engineer. 10 remotely relevant applicants, you are one of them, but the other 9 will say yes to start coding this impossible to complete set of features and won't make noise until there is room for a few more recruits. 3 of them seem like a good fit and he won't have to battle with HR like last time to offer twice what he would offer any other three who have a few years experience which should be enough to get moving with lambdas on AWS.

My tip would be to not give in and be as meticulous in your selection of roles to apply to as your technical expertise is.

Plenty of companies out there looking for exactly your level of experience and nothing less.

On the bright side, it may sound contradictive but more roles are open than ever for top tier talent. Compensations have more than doubled in the last 10y and hiring people expect more, add noise that has amplified even more than compensations and that's what the climate is like.

It takes several months to land a fitting role. Less than that you are very lucky or gave in for something subpar to your value

Your resume tells a story. What story does yours tell? If you haven't stayed very long at jobs, red flag. If you have done a lot of different things that don't relate to the job you're applying for, yellow flag. FAANG salary? Red flag. Mid-20s? Yellow flag (sorry, ageism is real: if they're looking for senior/leadership/etc that's unlikely to be found in someone in their 20s). Pay for a professional resume review and fix any problems they find, whether you agree or not. Keeping multiple resumes is best practice, and always write a good cover letter.

Focus on your professional network. Most of your jobs should be coming from referrals from coworkers, not cold-calls on a jobs board. This is the only way to continuously get hired regardless of the job market, and is very important as you get older (again: ageism is real).

Personal projects count for a lot for a software developer. Make sure you have at least a couple small projects that you maintain regularly. Contributing to open source is nice, but unless you're a major contributor, it isn't a big factor the way owning a project is. Make it really shiny: good docs, clean code, linting, testing, CI/CD. Using the latest tech is encouraging.

You're applying during a time when hundreds of thousands have been layed off at the beginning of an economic recession. It's gonna be hard for anyone but the most qualified candidates to land a job now. Just look for the jobs you're a shoe-in for, get employed, wait for a better role.

As an engineer who has worked as the hiring manager and directly looked through hundreds of resumes, I can say that with FAANG your resume probably would get pulled out of the stack. But maybe not. I found that, for better or worse, the only resume's that definitely got a look (and if they were above the bar, an interview) were ones that had a personal referral attached to them. It pulls it out of the stack. Frankly, I don't really apply for jobs without having a referral, I think it's often a waste of time. There's no guarantee your resume will make it out of a sea of others that look just like it otherwise.

Second, as other people have mentioned, sometimes FAANG can scare companies away. They see your resume and think "gosh, he's expensive, there's no way he'll sign at the rates we're offering". This happened to my father - MBA, 30 years of experience, he found that companies didn't want to hire him because he would "be too expensive" or "was more experienced" than they wanted.

Combination of those two factors could be it.

Nobody can tell you what might be wrong without seeing with their eyes. You would be more successful if you anonymously posted something like a resume or recent application that people could provide constructive feedback to.

I'll give you a 5 minute review if you find my contact information from my profile and send me your resume. I've publicly helped people land all sorts of tech jobs in the last few years.

If you have 8 years of experience, then you've never experienced what hiring is like in a bear market. Buckle up, because it's wildly different than the last 10+ years of "8 job applications, 7 interviews, 6 offers." We're going to be looking at ratios like 100:10:1 until tech companies stop mass-panicking. Learn to take rejection and ghosting in stride--it's not a judgment about you or your morals. I've got 20+ years of experience (almost 1/2 FAANG) and I get ghosted too. Fact of life--no big deal. You're probably not doing anything wrong at all. During the last two tech downturns, I was sending out ~50-100 resumes a day.

Recently I've been applying to remote jobs...

You and about 200,000 others. This is going to have a horrible impact on people's success rate.

It's hard to give specific advice without a resume, but I did want to comment on the '8 years experience / 4 year degree / mid-20s' combo a little. You may of course be the rare exception here, but broadly here's what I've seen with that kind of resume:

Many hiring managers will all but ignore any high-school level work. It's a nice positive signal to know that you've been interested in this kind of work for a long time, and stuck with it. However, I've seen many resumes that will claim "3 years" worth of experience before entering college, and when you dig in it frequently boils down to "I edited a few html pages for a total of < 100 hours when I was 16". I'm not saying that's necessarily the case here, but unless you have demonstrable projects on your resume from that period that prove otherwise, I'd probably avoid counting those as "years of experience" on an application.

Many hiring managers will even discount college internships, as the quality can vary significantly. This is less likely to be the case for you as you have that FAANG AAA brand recognition. I've also seen candidates do two 3-month summer internships and count that as "2 years experience" though, so you have to be careful about that.

Ultimately, some managers will see that you graduated in eg 2019 and therefore bucket you in with other applicants that have ~3-4 years experience. Nobody will believe a fresh 21/22 year old graduate getting their first job after graduation credibly has "5-6 years experience", for example.

Some may also see and accept 8 years experience at face value, but then they'll judge you at that level and compare you to other applicants with 8 years post-college experience. These days that includes many other folks from FAANG companies with equally impressive resumes who were recently laid off. Maybe the resume screener notices that you didn't make it to a certain level within 8 years (senior/mentor/manager/tech lead/whatever arbitrary metric they expect somebody with 8 full years experience to have achieved), which could be an elimination criteria for some. Finally, as many others have commented coming from FAANG usually implies a very high salary expectation, especially for folks with 7-8 years experience, so many companies likely literally can't afford you!

I assume you've worked with people during the 8 years, they know that you can get stuff done and is friendly to be around?

Definitely get in touch with them, let them know you're available.

Also, since everyone seems to be "trading up" when they get a new job, you might be considered overqualified in one or more senses..

From the view of someone hiring:

- Previous FAANG? = High salary expectations, our little shop not fancy enough for you.

- 8 years, done a lot, coding since childhood: High expectations to problems (this role is too boring for you, you'd jump ship first chance you get, waste of time for us to onboard you)

Use your network, explain you're looking for stability.

I remember an interview where the interviewer asked my current salary and told me "it didn't scare him" well.. it shouldn't ? looking back on it, I guess he expected that he'd have to outbid it (he wouldn't even, I dropped them for other reasons)

Was in the same boat in the beginning of the year, got +10 years of professional experience at some good companies. Got ghosted or rejected before the intro call a lot, despite matching 100% the job description, sometimes even ticking all extra/bonus points. It was very frustrating, especially since I never received any feedback on why... I guess it's because I hopped from job to job at a 1 year interval in the past years.

I ended up finding a really nice job via my network. Took some time but I'm very happy now. Ping me your LinkedIn or CV, the company I'm at is still hiring. My email is the same as my website in my HN profile, only replace the first dot with an @.

I have a similar resume to yours. 8 months ago I put my resume up on hired.com. I had to turn it off after about a week because I had so many interviews already and the requests kept pouring in. I ended up turning them all down because things seemed to stabilize at my job.

After getting laid off 3 weeks ago I turned it back on, and I have gotten a single response.

There are other indicators in my job search that tell me the market is much cooler, but this is the clearest.

I have also heard from people on the inside of other companies, that posted jobs are on hold, will actually go to internal transfers, or already have a backlog of applicants. This could explain the ghosting.

From recent experience applying for a remote job with 9YoE: I accepted a new job last week that I found after 3 full months of active looking (during all of the industry layoffs AND over the holidays) and submitting applications for 46 different positions (fun fact: it was the 45th application that offered me the job).

27 outright rejections, 13 I still have not heard back from, only 6 companies actually reached out to talk to me. I’ve heard it said that applying is a numbers game; I did not want to believe it, but my recent experience was exactly that.

My recommendations:

1. Work to distill what you actually want from a new opportunity and use that to ruthlessly filter opportunities. I applied to a ton of companies, but every single one of them met my checklist of career goals. I passed on hundreds of others that did not.

2. If you want practice finding out what you want, engage with recruiters on LinkedIn. I did not find my job this way, but it was helpful for me to workshop my communication and build up a good list of “do not wants” (can be as helpful in winnowing down opportunities as “do wants” or “must haves”

3. Try multiple job search sites to be exposed to interesting new companies. (Otta was useful for me and where I ultimately found my new company). Don’t limit yourself to only companies whose names you already know. I trawled LinkedIn regularly to see who my connections and their connections were working for to expose myself to new companies and industries.

4. Find a way to achieve balance in the search. Some jobs I really wanted, I spent more time on the application. Some jobs that I knew less about, I submitted resume only. Have hope, but don’t fixate on particular opportunities - that’s a recipe for disappointment. This isn’t necessarily great advice for someone recently laid off - I was still employed while searching, so adjust accordingly. Understand that it’s possible that some things have nothing to do with you: one company I really wanted to work for never reached out to me. Turns out they gutted their recruiting department in a recent layoff. It is what it is.

I wish you well in your continued search and hope you are able to find what you are looking for.

Edit: Attempting to fix formatting

Note: the tech market isn’t doing too hot, so don’t be too hard on yourself.

Applying to jobs can be a numbers game. Just keep applying.

Tune your CV to have keywords in each job application. Reach out to the recruiter on Linkedin and see if they can refer you. Have a trusted friend review your CV too.

I think I need more context. Do you only have FAANG names on your resume? How many jobs have you held in your career? Do you have a lot of experience interviewing? Are you applying for jobs in a different area/level? (Management or higher seniority) Are you hoping to jump to a radically different org? (FAANG -> startup)

I’ve been a hiring developer for a lot of my career and with more context I might be able to give you pointers.

Even in these times of many layoffs, I still get recruiters regularly contacting me. It’s mostly because they find my LinkedIn profile. I have the setting configured that I’m not looking right now, and my current job started less than a year ago, but they contact me anyway.

I assume you have your resume and profile fully up to date on there, and you have it indicated that you are actively looking for a job. Recruiters aren’t bombarding you?

I haven’t had success or responses from sending in job applications the old fashioned way since I used Craigslist to get a job in like, 2008. By all means keep sending them. There’s nothing to lose. But what you really want is to get an introduction from a recruiter, or a referral from someone you know. Have you asked your former co-workers if there are open positions at the places they are working?

I don’t know what type of role you’re looking for but I have hired for database-related roles in the past (I’m an IC now) and will be happy to review your resume and maybe suggest a couple of places for you to try if applicable, just contact me at the email on my profile.

I've noticed this as well. I'm a freelance iOS developer (or rather, subcontractor) with plenty of experience, in N/W Europe. Frankly, it's awfully quiet. I've been looking for a project since november last year, so that's approaching 3 months now. I'm getting antsy, I love developing but I can't concentrate and have to spend it on looking for a new client. One recruiter told me that she has a number of mobile devs looking for a project right now.

Besides contracting projects, I've been including regular jobs in my search now as well.

Even in the best hiring environment it’s not uncommon for you not receive a response to a resume. HR departments are black holes that suck up bazillions of resumes, do a light pass to discard any that aren’t an obvious (to HR) match, then throw away the rest. The traditional pleasantries be damned. Without seeing the text of your resume, my advice is to keep applying, make sure you have key words, skills, experience from the job description visible. Avoid any upfront salary discussion. A good recruiter can tell you if there are obvious issues with your resume.

You're likely doing nothing wrong it's just a saturated market of jobseekers. Supply and demand ebb and flow for most roles regularly. I simply think engineers have had a period of very high demand and lower supply for decades. Now that companies are finding ways to hire anywhere and everywhere (with or without a legal entity) supply has greatly increased and impacted demand. Just 2 cents from a recruiter hiring engineers for over 24 years. Also, remote jobs have the lowest talent demand (highest supply) because everyone wants them.

I’m in the same boat with roughly the same experience. The job market for engineers is night-and-day worse than it was a couple years ago. Back then everyone was hiring; now most companies have frozen hiring or are laying people off.

The most success I’ve had getting interviews has been with small startups. Try YC’s Work At A Startup if you haven’t already. The Who’s Hiring thread this month may also have some good leads. Best of luck

Interviewing is a game to be played. It's very much a funnel. Resume/cover letter applications get phone screens. Phone screens get interviews. Interviews get second interviews, until you finally get an offer. Where in the funnel are you getting ghosted? Step 1 or further down the line? Each step (stage) has it's pitfalls. Definitely think of this as a game, how can you play it better.

Nobody here can give you any meaningful feedback without seeing your resume.

Not sure how the job market is, but let’s start with the basics: Have you had some someone review your resume?

If not, my email is in my profile. :)

One thing for sure is the recruiting scene has not improved. There are plenty of companies looking for talent and there are plenty of open roles. The process has largely been 'gamified' for certain levels. I think it is important to note with 8 YoE going through the traditional recruitment process will definitely be harder than say someone in the first 4 years of their professional life. Traditionally if you're with 8 YoE and in the same field, when looking elsewhere for work you would largely be relying on your network by now. I don't mean to put you down by writing this but rather to suggest maybe trying to capitalize with your network instead of just your resume. If anything you'll still be selling yourself with the interview and further processes. Good luck

Use a recruiter. I understand the general consensus here is on the 'anti-recruiter' side, and there are a lot of low quality ones. And yes, it may be hard to know up front, but... play the field.

Contact 3-4 recruiting companies in your area, and let them sell you. You don't have to stop your own outreach either. Just get someone else trying to sell you as well. Asking professionals whose paycheck depends on getting you placed in a job may be more fruitful than asking random HN readers. :)

I don't necessarily recommend it as a 'use recruiters your entire career' but... I've had a couple good experiences that helped over the years. You also don't have to say 'yes' to anything they present.

How many applications have you put out? If it's less than 10, then this isn't surprising in my experience.

I'm wondering if in this environment FAANG is a detriment. It's possible with all the belt tightening that companies would rather go with cheaper candidates.

+1 that we don’t have much to go off of.

Mid-twenties with 7-8 years professional experience suggests you’re self-taught. IMO that’s a highlight, but could it be that in this tech hiring freeze economy, companies are filtering on undergraduate as a prerequisite?

I’m not sure if you’ve been paying attention but there have been layoffs across the entire tech industry the likes we haven’t seen since the dotcom bust, 20 years ago.

I suggest tempering your expectations right now until the large companies start hiring again.

The job market for tech is especially brutal right now. Most tech companies have frozen hiring or are actively laying off people. Perhaps look at trading firms or more traditional F500 companies, which still seem to be actively hiring.

It's a conservative market. Many companies are hiring defensively rather than trying to accelerate their growth. Hiring high profile engineers may not make sense for those companies since many projects are in maintenance mode.

What type of jobs are you applying for, can you share examples? Keep in mind that jobs advertised as remote on remote-centric job boards will be inundated with huge numbers of applications and so you should expect rejection even if you’re a great candidate.

The other possibility is that your resume is terrible for some reason — does the file open? Are you sending a PDF or some obscure file format that nobody could open?

Personally, I would not bother with jobs that are advertised as “remote” first, and instead I would focus on finding a great job match that can offer remote working — so that I’m not competing against thousands of people.

I've hired for a few remote startups in the past. It certainly could be your resume, but my offhand is that your FAANG experience prices you out of the remote market, either directly (you're telling them) or indirectly (recruiters know you'll be expensive).

I've hired ballpark 500 people in my career, talked to a lot of FAANG candidates, and hired only one. Comp expectations compared to experience was just always way out of alignment. Only reason the one got hired was because they were a great fit and very open about being willing and able to take a pay cut to go full remote.

Senior high-salary hiring is definitely happening at high numbers, but specializing and finding the right opening matters. We get a ton of CVs, but few in our advertised areas, and we know we can keep looking so everyone involved wins. If you don't have a network to find those jobs, I'd go through a recruiter.

FAANGs, banks, etc have hiring freezes and VC-funded co's don't even know if they can ever raise again: Unspecialized desperate learn-on-the-job well-paying senior hires aren't as big a thing right now

Surely not your entire problem, but at least one of those roundfilings of your resume could be anti-FAANG bias, or bias against a particular FAANG.

A recruiter for a hot technical-excellence company (the kind you might think would poach the strongest FAANG people), told me that an exec was explicitly uninterested in candidates from a particular FAANG.

(I forget the exact rationale, but it was something like a belief that people from there having learned the wrong lessons about engineering or product.)

Hi! I'm hiring right now for a backend role (and have hired for more than eight years). I'm happy to give constructive feedback about your resume. morley - at - daylight.xyz.

> I have FAANG names on my resume

If you mean company names, that doesn't mean much. Get referrals, as directly as you can manage but even just active endorsements when you can't. As your career progresses, more and more of your job search can lean on and might rely on referrals.

If you didn't make meaningful connections with people at your past jobs who can endorse or refer you, that's kind of a red flag in itself.

Not sure if anyone else has said this but: the timing is also pretty bad. A lot of companies have tight budgets for 2023 and I suspect people are waiting out Q1, maybe even Q2, before they start to spend too much, just to see how things shake out and if it's going to get better or worse.

So this may not just be about you.

Resume / CV is everything - as a manager who hires, I can discern quite a bit from one's resume style. Tell me about your work, not the number of languages you think you know.

Friends are important to the process; let them review your CV to see whether your description aligns with real life. Good luck!

The market is horrible at the moment. All the big tech corps are laying off thousands of people who have bigger potential at landing in a job as they have those big names in their CV.

I'm in similar shoes at the moment although I'm not only applying to fully remote jobs, but almost any job I see.

Looks like it's pretty bad out there. For the first time in a while I'm employed, but I'm destroying myself trying to show up for these meetings rather than working on anything remotely engaging. Have started applying but not even a call yet, recruiters have dried up.

IT is cyclical, there can be periods when it's harder to get work.

I started in Y2k, so internet bubble burst when I had only 1 year experience, then in 2008, I'd just switched from J2me to python before everything got tricky.

Both times had about a year out of work, it can be very boom and bust.

Today we got at Big Corp an e-mail, that pandemic is over and no measures are needed anymore. I think next step will be back to the office. Remote jobs will slowly disappear. I am very confident, that on-site applicants today are preferred over remote candidates.

Who's Hiring / Looking for a Job is about to post, sounds like perfect timing for you

You didn’t mention it in your post so I assume you have been applying to these positions online. I would try and work your network as much as possible here. With a decent resume, you’re almost guaranteed an interview if you get a referral.

Look at my post from last year. Most people told me there must be something wrong with me. Everybody is looking for red flags and reasons to dismiss and reject people. It's like cancel culture, but for people with experience.

> literally all of my applications have been rejected or ghosted

How many is "literally all"? What's the number?

After how many days of not hearing back do you consider an employer to have ghosted you?

Do you follow up with emails or phone calls to recruiters?

Need the full context around your resume/linked-in/personal site to be able to give you better info, but throwaway892238 covers the main bases.

Because most of the job now is just CRUD api kind of work. Who need FAANG experience for such work, at the cost of high salary ?

IMHO the shift is from job to gig. Did u try the gig Market instead of Job Market.

Fiverr/Upwork and the ilk

lot of work went to South America.

Could be a timing problem.

May get better in the summer. Summer is hiring season