Who's getting their job applications rejected?

I work at Grafana, and we be hiring, I posted on the Who's Hiring in January and that was a big mistake. I've posted before (probably 6 times a year as I miss the 1st sometimes) and had few to no responses, but in January I had over 50 responses in the first few hours, and it continued to elicit responses for the next week.

Employers are swamped right now, there are a lot of people seeking few positions. I've gone from giving personal replies and spending time on most applicants, from spending time sourcing, to just trying to keep up with the inbound applications.

It's obviously a very hard market right now, and I feel for those who are searching in this climate.

Everyone.

I am a very senior PM with two big name tech companies on my resume, and the track record of bringing multiple products from zero to one and creating revenue (and even profit!) from them.

In the old days, I had recruiters in my LinkedIn, I would breeze through the first 30 minute screener calls, and get lots of call backs. My hit rate for job applications for non-FAANG cold applies was fairly high.

Two months ago when I was looking, I was getting basically zero job application responses, half my screeners ghosted me, and I had very few recruiters reaching out. I think maybe 3 in 3 months-ish.

I got very lucky and landed a job, but it was a mild pay cut, and the company is basically on fire

Both them and my previous massively growing employer are not hiring ANYONE, even software engineers, which is the easier role to get picked up for.

My buddy who’s unemployed in PMM, can’t get a call back from anyone. It’s really bad

I was laid off in January and have been regularly applying every week as a requirement for unemployment. So far zero responses, which is hard because it sounds like more experienced devs are on the market and will land jobs before me.

I did see my former employer was looking for someone in India or Eastern Europe to fill a dev position requiring my exact stack. I do wonder if taking whatever pay cut down to the lower salary they’re presumably offering would have been worth it for both sides.

As it stands, I’m in a mild panic about my future career despite knowing I’m capable. I may end up using my CPA to switch back into accounting for the time being. Or perhaps start up my own thing. Hopefully things get better after a short amount of time.

The market is really tough right now. I'm just starting to look for full-stack positions in London, this time last year I was receiving lots of offers constantly, but now it's a very different story.

I've so far only contacted one recruiter I trust, and even he only had one job I could apply to.

BTW, if anyone is looking for a full stack web dev in London (TypeScript, React, Next, Node / Bun / Deno, even a bit of Rust), you can contact me at https://www.lajili.com).

I have not from the perspective of seeking emplyment, but from the smaller mid-size employer side (200 employees, robotics) we have had to reject a number of candidates. Normally this is based on a resume review (so as not to waste people's time), but sometimes it does come out in interviews. My main challenge, and I'm not saying this is the case for you - I'm just offering the perspective on the other side, has been finding individuals/developers who plan committed to the company for the long haul (e.g. 5, or ideally 10 years) - not just a year or so. Learning our code base and the underlying math requires a significant investment, and we've had a rash of folks come in, learn what they can, and then depart, leaving us to repeat the cycle all over again. It's taking a toll, so we're actively seeking people who are committed to the long run so that the energy we invest in education has a decent return.

Again, not saying this is the problem you're facing or that every company needs to have long-duration and less-transient staff. This is just one issue I'm seeing and it's possible that it could potentially be a contributing factor.

About 5 recessions in my life's rear view mirror and looks as if we're in one now. For those of you new to this, and if we're in-fact in a recession:

- Almost any job is preferred over no job at this time.

- Some cities in the US are a bit less impacted by recession (eg. Omaha, Nebraska), or have labor shortages because the area offers zero glamour and zero Starbucks.

- Technical skills are needed by USGOV, directly and generally not via body shops. Your country needs you if you're in the US.

- US has a shortage of skilled blue collar labor. Welding, electricians, plumbing, fabrication, etc. Manufacturing in the US is on the rise, though likely never to achieve the rhetorical aims of policy makers. Consider a career change.

Recessions are an inescapable event in any economy, and we were/are overdue. Bad times separate well run and well capitalized businesses from those less so. Such times reward productivity innovations. And, those of you resilient enough to persist & position yourselves smartly - get rewarded during the next boom cycle.

I am having a tough time... I am a systems administrator who also has experience teaching and coding, but I am looking at systems admins / engineering positions only. I consider myself highly experienced in Linux / Unix. A few years back, I could just word of mouth say I was looking and have offers. Now, nothing.

Lots of ghosting after the 2nd or 3rd interview. Very few positions for Sr. Systems admin / Engineer that I see as of late, much more "full stack or devops", but they really want a full time developer with a lot of front end experience. I do not really create web-applications, though. So it is tough.

Only a dozen? I applied to 37 jobs when I was hunting, and had a note on each one tracking who I’d talked to and what the next step was, plus to-do tasks to follow up with each on certain dates.

It was psychically exhausting.

But then I went from have 0 good news to having 3 jobs racing each other to make offers. Go figure.

This is a challenging time to be an applicant. Hang in there! Also, completely ignore LinkedIn as a source for jobs to apply to. It’s worthless. Each opening I looked at had captions like “be sure not to pass on this opportunity so amazing that 437 people have already applied to it! Subscribe to LinkedIn Platinum or whatever to boost your chances!” It’s basically an RPG with pay-to-win loot drops. Don’t get into their feedback loop. It’ll drive you nuts.

Same. Applied to dozens of positions, and only got rejects. Not even a screening interview... Weirdest reject was when I applied to a position where I had 100% match with all the tech requirements (including niche ones), had relevant soft skills and had an industry experience. I highlited all of it in my cover letter, and still got a rejection.

I can relate. Two days ago, I found a perfect match in a niche but complex fintech sector I have experience in as a Engineering Manager and IC. I applied with a tailored resume and cover letter that addressed every single point and desirable skill in the job listing. I found the hiring manager and emailed them an intro where I briefly re-iterated my alignment with everything in the job details. I even got someone I had worked with previously to refer me to an upper-level manager at the hiring company.

I saw over 100 people applied for the role, but it's hard to imagine many (if any) other folks had the same direct experience with everything the role entailed. Yesterday, I got a cold rejection email. I was shocked enough to reply asking for any feedback on why I was not being considered based on how well my experience and achievements matched the role - I don't expect an answer.

I am also seeing a high percentage of cold rejections at later stages in the process than I am used to. Where the last interview step was usually down to 1-3 candidates, it's now down to 3-8.

It's just my opinion, but I think the huge volume of applicants is leading to them to go way beyond the job they are hiring for. Like, they post a position for a front end engineer with 3 years React experience and they end up with a 10+ year FS engineer, a FE engineer who worked for 7 years at Facebook, a BE with 8 years experience and 2 years of FE/FS, or a contractor in RU with 10+ years.

Yeah I’ve got this myself. Earlier this year I applied to 30-40 places, got 8 interviews and not one follow up or offer. I have >10 years professional experience, the last few building and leading teams of engineers, and was rejected by one place in particular because they were “looking for significant experience”

I'm guessing your career started during the asset bubble (that we're arguably still in)?

Historically speaking, just because you "solved the problems" doesn't mean you "get the job".

When I first started working (not originally in tech, but plenty of tech places did this too) this is how (professional, skilled) jobs were filled:

- Position posted with a deadline for submissions (usually 2 weeks to a month out, sometimes more).

- Organization waits until all applications are received.

- Resumes/Cover letters are reviewed.

- Calls to screen candidates.

- 1/2 day to full day onsite scheduled (depending on level of role).

- 1 candidate gets selected from the pool who made it to the final round. It was also not uncommon that the organization would decide that none of the candidates had the qualifications they were looking for and they would simply, wait and start the process over in 3 months.

It was much closer to buying a house in a hot sellers market than tech hires in the last decade.

This world of continuous hiring where the goal is to maintain a headcount rather than fill a role is fairly exclusive to the recent tech boom where growth was what mattered most. It's historically normal to get to the final onsite and still lose the offer because competition beat you out.

I wrote a reply to a person who was having a similar problem in another forum. I'll copy my post here.

I am a ML Engineer working at a big Co with 15+ YoE. This is how things are going for me:

* I started looking in September last year. So far I had 3 complete loops. One rejected me and two down leveled me.

* Although recruiters reach out a lot, more than half of them ghost me.

* When I started looking I used to ask for salary bands. Most companies top of band was around half of my current comp, so I declined. Now I'm saying yes to just about anything, just to prove to myself that I can get a job offer.

* Particularly in the ML space, requirements from companies are simply insane. One company was hiring a role doing exactly what I'm doing in the same domain. They rejected me because they wanted someone who was an expert at all of software engineering, data science and this particular domain, and apparently I'm not good enough. Oh, there is also this company who rejected me at the screening phase because I had "only" 6 years of experience with their particular technology instead of 8.

Draw your own conclusions about how good or bad the job market is.

For the past year it's been a hirer's market. Applied to 30 positions I'm perhaps overqualified for, all form letter rejected. Recruiters ask me for a call, I reply back and say what's a good time, ghosted; we actually scheduled a time, I'm ready and waiting, ghosted. The positions are listed but nobody's in a hurry to fill them.

You have to wonder if remote work is starting to bite developers.

10 year ago I started a business that had hundreds of engineers in London and New York.

I am now starting a new one and this time I am hiring talent from all over the world now that it is more acceptable for us and our clients.

Surely this must be a factor in people in expensive western markets?

Yeah going thru the process of 5-7 interviews just to get lowballed or ghosted is pretty draining. I’m guessing it’s just a tough market and I’m getting edged out by other candidates or companies have so many applicants they can offer less than I asked for during screening.

This is going to put fuel on the fire. I run a startup, we hired two devs out of Eastern Europe at 60k each that are absolutely phenomenal. We’d love to hire American but can’t afford it. I know many other companies doing the same (nyc based seed/preseed startups). With ai, high interest rates, and covid accelerating remote hiring, I don’t see this recovering.

Hang in there. I feel the tables are about to turn as AI eliminates junior positions. You'd need people who understand business, potential issues, and architecture at a higher level. Which usually means people who are more senior. My advice would be to repackage your skills. Don't compete on things that a junior developer can complete at a lower cost.

I didn't make this up - I'm in my 40s and use Generative AI for most of my work today (currently with a custom toolset that I'll open source soon). There will be some work which will require human ingenuity, but most software patterns have been done before by someone else.

I've been tracking my job applications since 2020.

I'm not having applications rejected as much as I'm having them get ghosted.

My percentage of ghosted applications is up 25% from 2022 and 20% from 2020, while my number of outbound applications is up 40% from 2022 and 45% from 2020.

Like many folks here, I used to get a good amount of inbound recruiter activity prior to 2023, but that's all but stopped. That channel is _barely_ picking back up again.

The good news is that applications following up from referrals have gotten me interviews fairly consistently. The bad news is that places with open headcount are harder to find.

As someone who is trying to hire for server-side and devops roles, we are getting pickier. We have a lot of incoming.

A lot of it is spam and people who clearly are using AI to fill in our form. One applicant didn’t even bother to remove “ChatGPT:” from the answer.

Of the remaining applicants I do feel that even those with years of experience at big companies are kind of hothouse flowers. They are skilled at using complex and costly frameworks, but they are often missing what I used to think of as the basics.

A lot of those frameworks are themselves ZIRPs! I kind of think the current generation has been cheated a bit. If I were starting out today I don’t know how I would have learned anything.

We had a candidate who detailed some of their achievements at their previous employer, things like “I got this third party service to feed their logs into that third party service”. And they are not wrong, this was a titanic effort and they had to navigate complex change procedures to get it done. But… this isn’t what I’m hiring for.

Candidates are also under a lot of pressure. I read an application the other day which was clearly human-written, but they gave two or three word answers to essay questions. The answers were actually correct, just not with the kind of detail we wanted. But I imagine that we were one of ten applications the guy filled out that day. In this environment I don’t know how much time I can legitimately expect a candidate to spend on us.

Other side, I put out a job req for a remote react dev position a month ago and got 1k applications in a week. 95% were automated spam.

I've just talked to a guy who started a recruiting agency in Moscow last November just b/c the industry is thriving. The salaries are high. According to his assessments this market will be high during the next 2+ years.

Also he's been interviewing some Russian-speaking candidates willing to relocate from the US, Israel and Germany. Among the candidates are Russians who have been living there for 15 years. Their reasons to leave: bad attitude towards Russians at all levels, unwillingness to pay taxes that are used for war against Russia, lack of actual freedom of speech, and LGBT propaganda starting from 1st grade elementary.

Regarding quality of life here, for instance, even a PHP mid can get around 280-320k RUB/month net. Head of arch can get 1200k. And 300-400k RUB/month even in Moscow has greater purchasing power than 5-7k EUR/month net in, say, Munich. Plus, long-term prospects, stable economy, healthy food, high-quality affordable internet, good and cheap public transit, instant person to person money transfers, great digital government services, strong combat-proven army with best in the world air defense etc and beautiful women…

A dozen applications is not very much. Anecdotally, I've heard from a few folks that the funnel these days looks something like this: 100 applications -> 10 interviews -> 1 offer. Doesn't mean that you should be shotgunning your resume to every conceivable job (this happens a lot right now and hiring managers are overwhelmed), but it is a numbers game and you need to widen the top of the funnel.

One thing I think a lot of folks (even senior, seasoned people) incorrectly assume is that if they don't get a job offer it means they weren't good enough for that job when it's very rarely the case. I've helped interview for several of my jobs, and been in charge of technical interviewing at one, and by the time you're doing a 2nd or 3rd interview we already know you're "good enough," now it's just trying to decide between however many people are left. At that stage it is as much luck and law of large numbers (12 is not large when you get hundreds of apps for any single position) as anything else. It sounds brutal, and it is, but you're looking for any reason to eliminate someone so you can get closer to an offer. As a company you're also competing with other companies who might be moving faster or able to give slightly better offers.

Ha! Just got rejected from a process in the EU (not desperately looking) cause of a super nit picky coding challenge project. The project worked exactly to spec, I just overlooked the use of a third party package on a (Django) DB model to replace the "created_at" field.

Oh well! My 4 hours of coding was not totally a waste.

I was recently applying during the summer of '23 for roles in The Netherlands. I was on about 14 interviews before I landed my current role. Company #5 offered me a role, but then changed the position from lead to engineer and cut the salary significantly after telling me I had the role. I'm not sure if it's just because of European holidays or the bad economy, but replies could take weeks and there were very few roles available. I'm seeing more roles these days and a trickle of recruiters reaching out, but 6 months ago it was barren. I put a lot of the failed interviews due to me having to cast the net wide to get any interview. Times have definitely changed. London however still seems active and hungry.

It seems to be getting better. When I posted jobs in November I was getting roughly 100 applicants a day with maybe 10-20 of decent quality. Now I'm getting roughly half that, but that still means 50 applicants a day, out of which I'll talk to maybe 1-2 people.

from my exp. hiring for ages, they interview lots of people, then it goes quiet - nothing comes of it.

6 months later you hear some nepotistic hire takes the position.

maybe companies prefer people they know rather than 1000s of applicants.

also a toxic culture of seeking perfection and a cargo culting attitude prevalent among many senior/lead engineers and managers. maybe justified, i dont know and i dont care anymore.

Same for me. I have a PhD from a top ten university in Computer Science, with publications, and strong but shorter work history.

I interviewed with a well-known startup here on HN that required a lengthy application material submission, which I spent a few hours on. Then talked with the CTO and felt the conversations went well. After two conversations I was ghosted.

Submitted to a large software company in Washington state which indicated they had "up to 100% remote" for specific roles. In the application I indicated "not available for relocation" and have only received automated rejection emails for them. I mention that last point because I suspect that may have been the reason.

I have also applied to roles from the last few Who's Hiring posts in positions that are more of a stretch for my line of work but with overlap in core technologies, but have not received so much as a conversation. One just silently rejected my application (I had to view in their workday site to see what the status was).

On the other hand, large companies like Google, Apple, etc. are (or were) very eager to move forward to interview me, even for multiple roles. But I cannot relocate and had to inform the recruiters I am unfortunately inflexible with this. Ironic, I find.

NVIDIA, Meta, many smaller companies (gitlab, duckduckgo, kagi, and other startups found here) seem to be the only tech employers that explicitly advertise remote work is okay with them. But some roles in the smaller companies aren't always a great match for my interests (maybe the culture would be, so I am trying to keep an open mind).

All of this sounds disjointed. Employers saying they can't handle the influx of applications, while job seekers say I've applied, followed through, matched all the keywords and still got rejected. I will give you that 1-3 times is probably normal, heck! 12 is probably pretty relatable. But how about 300? Because my wife has applied to 300 plus jobs since may 2023, when she was laid off in a RIF(Reduction in Force) She works in marketing and has been in data cloud marketing since its inception. she has been rejected from numerous jobs, even ones she's interviewed with, and even ones where she has received referrals from people who both work at the company, or work with the company. So, someone explain, how a company that is supposedly slammed with resumes and applications, gets a person cherry picked for the position they are offering and still doesn't get it. And you can say she didn't interview well, but most say they are rejecting for job history (her last 3 jobs were all start ups that either were bought out or tanked due to low market share and marketing and sales were always the first to get let go). So, somebody make it make sense!

I was laid off in May 2023 from one of the bulge-bracket banks. Had been doing founder-focused lending on shares of private companies. I'll tell you that I've applied to probably 1,000 jobs since then (across the spectrum of opportunities), and these days rarely get even an acknowledgement of the application or even a rejection. It's basically full-on corporate ghosting.

Getting ready to retire pretty soon and had a handle on a few very part-time things more to keep my hand in rather than to make money. Anecdotally, all that seems to have sort of fizzled away. Nothing was too formal in any case and not a big deal. But I think the message is to focus on things I want to do that don't require getting someone to pay me.

Well, I'll say this - I've gotten a lot more responses this month than ever before. Although I have to turn them down because the positions are onsite only.

Luckily I'm employed full-time. But my pay isn't good at all, so I've been exploring other options.

Applied(and went thru the all the ropes) twice in the last 6 months for Java software engineering positions(senior) in two companies respectively.

Rejected the first time, low-balled below my communicated expected salary the second time.

The interview processes felt a lot like tech hazing - multiple interviews, a coding assignment, and an arbitrary review of said assignment compared to the job responsibilities. At the end, I felt plenty invested(both emotionally and timewise) to the point that I amused the idea of accepting the low-ball offer. I guess that even might have been the company's strategy.

I continue with my freelance work and looking.

*edit: I am in the EU.

Best of luck with your search!

Around the start of this year, I did around five interviews for a 160k role, then got ghosted for about two weeks before getting rejected for "not being a startup culture fit". I think they just liked someone else better and gave me a generic reason, but it hurt that I got all the way to the final stage of the application process and still didn't make it. Delayed my job search by about a month, made me dream up all sorts of future plans that I'll never actually be able to afford. Devastating.

I know this is a odd niche part of the job market but if you have system admin experience and have an engineering degree look at most large electrical utilities or contracting firms for design, they need people that understand how to setup a server and how to build virtual machines and how to configure a switch. But their HR departments are very selective about the degree has to be engineering. They are in person jobs though so that might not be for those who have gotten use to the remote work life.

Who is responsible for creating, marketing and selling Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) software?

Is it staff in HR departments comprised of what HN likes to call "non-technical people"?

Did so-called "non-technical people" seek a 10x increase in the number of applicants and then enlist software developers to make it happen.

What is the story behind the spread of "ATS".

Lots and lots of rejections over here. I've also had 3 rejections from final stage interviews in the last couple months.

Are you willing to relocate to Central Virginia or to Salt Lake city Utah? We can't seem to find good backend SWE candidates, especially senior ones.

My email is in my bio if you want to apply, also, I could give you some actionable feedback on your resume based on what I'm seeing a lot lately.

Given the recent "treatment" from recruiters, I'm inspired to start something like a Glassdoor but for individual recruiters.

There's far too many recruiters (internal and agency) that behave poorly and or act unethically.

Hang in there, everyone. This is what happens when interest rates are high, LPs prefer to plow money into fixed income or public markets and VCs with what little funds they have prefer to be in AI. 2011-2022 was an unusual golden age for software engineers with 2021 being the absolute peak. The current state is an usual low while the overdose is wearing off.

This is not you - this is just the nature of the cycle. You got to enjoy the high but how you have to survive the lows. Conserve cash; do work for comp that you once thought was once below you. The good times will come again. Don't get too down about it but also don't get too stubborn about maintaining what you once had.

There have been a lot of redundancies this past year, which means there are more people on the market and many companies are having a freeze/restraint.

https://gocoderemote.com/

I built this to help developers find jobs. May be of use.

- Apply to more than just dozens of job postings - Polish your resume - Add projects to GitHub - Go to in-person tech events - Set LinkedIn to #OpenToWork - Contact design studios with a direct link to your portfolio - Go on Monster, Indeed, Dice, etc. and publish your resume and tweak your profile - Talk to other devs and humble yourself for any opportunity they may have for you

It was the same in here. I needed to accept a job with over 1 hour commute; but hey it's a job.

Not rejected as per say, but about 12 months ago I applied for a role in Intercom. Strangest, downright oddest interview shuttle bus I've ever hopped on.

First up was a screener with one non technical recruiter, final question of the interview was something like "would you be open to other roles too?". I said sure, but I was mainly interested in the role I applied for.

End up moving to the next stage with a technical interview, same question at the end of that.

Third interview was with someone else for a completely different role. I asked what about the first role and the recruiter put me back on a screener with the same non technical guy I had talked with the previous week.

This guy then said they'd filled the other role I didn't initially want, that the role I had originally applied for was still open but if I'd consider other roles again. I responded that I'd actually like to try for, you know, the role I'd actually applied for in the first place. Recruiter says sure...

Then silence, haven't heard from them in about a year.

To everyone struggling to get hired:

Start your own thing.

Seriously.

From the perspective of a hiring manager at a mid-size company, I'm not at all surprised. I'm having a tough time getting backfills approved when we have voluntary departures, all my opens were cut, and the goal is "do way more with way less".

HR has already frozen salaries - no increases for existing employees, and they're already starting to cut salaries for newly posted positions.

When you do get a position posted you get a ton of applicants: one of my managers hired for a senior SWE and had to filter through over 700 resumes. And you can't meaningfully filter that, at best you take a sample and pick from there, so plenty of good candidates are going to end up on the wrong end of a "select all, delete". This also lets HR be way more aggressive, so offers before that were a negotiation have turned into "take it or leave it" up front.

I mean, it kinda makes sense... ZIRP is over, free money is gone. And plenty of companies are going to be like mine and servicing debt payments from growth and acquisitions with an interest rate that has tripled over time.

The real sentiment right now is "batten down the hatches".

Its tough out there. I have a degree from Cambridge, 10 years of (quant) experience at hedge funds and banks and im still getting rejected too. I will only say 12 applications isnt that much these days, keep persevering and you will hit your stride soon enough. Good luck.

I’ve heard from a lot of people that this is happening and as a hiring manager myself when I do have an open role I see a lot more good applications than I saw say, five years ago, which means I’m rejecting a lot of people that have great experience. I’m working at a startup, so it seems to span most company sizes.