[PainfullyNormal]

> Then the interviews were basically friendly meet&greets but super informal, not a single coding test or take home assignment

I have 20 years experience and this is completely alien to my experience. I've gotten lots of job referrals over the years, but all it did was get my foot in the door. From there, it was the standard interview process with whiteboarding and take home tests. What am I missing here?

[jlokier]

Heh. The most amusing referral I had, which I didn't ask for, caused me to get a surprise email from HR saying "we have received an internal recommendation from X about your interest in our position of mechanical engineer; to proceed with your application, please send your CV to...". I had to write back and say "I'm not a mechanical engineer, I wasn't applying for that role or any other role, and I didn't ask for a referral. However, here's a list of great relevant experience your robotics software division might be interested in, on the offchance."

Two weeks later I got another surprise email from HR again, saying "this is to let you know we have rejected your application for a web developer role..."

Needless to say, it's not a company I'm interested in actually applying to.

[sanderjd]

For me the difference has been the size / stage / ... prestige? of the company. Referrals have been a foot in the door and no more for me at very mature, well known, in demand companies, but more of an immediate hire at smaller, earlier, or obscure companies.

[AndyNemmity]

Not sure. The majority of comments from Seniors with 20 years of experience so far (including myself) are of the same type.

Friendly meet and greets that are informal, no coding test or take home assignment.

My best guess is your job referrals aren't from senior level people, while ours are. The CTO is the one who wants me. Or the top Senior who has control of the process.

But I'm just guessing. The norm for me is informal conversation.

[justrudd]

For me (20+ year club):

1.) Senior Dev referred me, and they had a remarkable relationship with management - informal chat and offer that afternoon

2.) Senior Dev referred me, and they had a normal relationship with management - regular interview

3.) CTO referred me - informal chat with them and the CEO, offer letter handed to me at the end of the chat with the CEO.

So I've found that it really depends on who is referring you and what type of relationship they have with the person that controls the money.

edit: fixed formatting.

[PainfullyNormal]

1) Senior Dev referred me to his hiring manager. Regular job interview from there.

2) Hiring Manager I worked with for a few years prior agreed to give me a job. Ghosted me a week later.

3) A guy I worked closely with for 2 years later became a medium-sized startup CTO. I asked him for a job. He said yes, then referred me to the hiring manager. Normal interview from there on out.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Just to clarify: I'm not complaining. I have no problem going through job interviews to prove myself. But, it would be nice if I could figure out what I'm missing and not have to do that. Maybe it's a difference in reputation? I'm not seen as the hotshot. I'm the go to guy.

[AndyNemmity]

Agreed, well said. I could make a similar list as you did, but it's essentially the same.

VPs, and CTOs most often, informal chat, offer.

[ghaff]

Yeah, the last couple of jobs in particular it wasn't getting a standard referral through the HR system. The first we were clients of a technology analyst firm CEO who I knew quite well and had met and spoken with at many events. The second was someone who had been clients of ours at the consulting company. In the first case, the "interview" was a lunch. In the second, it was a semi-normal hiring process but I talked to the most senior folks, starting with a chat with the product head, first.

Really haven't had a "normal" hiring process since first job out of grad school (shudder) 25 years ago.

Not dev per se but technology role.

[js2]

I have 26 years experience and mine matches svillar in not having anything other than pro-forma interviews literally since my first job from college.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31817596

[jlokier]

The last seven job offers I got, "interviews" were friendly chat style with no coding test or assignment.

Some of them asked a string of technical questions, some did not. Where there were technical questions I enjoyed answering them, it felt like a fun conversation and was interactive with the interviewer, and I was surprised how easy I found them, so they didn't take long. Some did a screen share with me where we looked over some code and I explained what I was reading to them. All felt easy going. In my opinion, this made them skilled interviewers.

There have been a few times where I didn't even realise I was being interviewed. I thought we were just chatting about common ground in some field of interest. One was a chat in a pub that someone invited me to at short notice. And then a surprise offer appeared. The surprise offer has happened to me twice, and both were great opportunities I'd be a fool to decline.

Also, in recent years I noticed the best offers came from companies I had not sent a CV/résumé to (and therefore didn't have to tailor one, stress out over it etc). They were happy to go from my LinkedIn profile and other information they could find online, or asked me to send some specific info about my experience in an email (one or two paragraphs).

Due to this realisation, when I get messages from unknown recruiters asking cold, "<random job description>, if interested send me your CV/résumé", I treat the request as a signal of a lower quality opportunity, and am unlikely to reply. It's probably better to wait for a serendipitous great opportunity, but I'm aware the market can change and luck is a factor, so I don't take this for granted.

So, between jobs, I spend the time on study, practice, skilling up, R&D on my own projects, etc so that "luck favours the prepared", then reaching out for conversations without a particular agenda. In practice the good opportunities end up being inbound, perhaps an indirect effect of my outreach rather than direct.

Not "applying". Job ads are a big turn off. High effort, low likelihood of good result.

To the Ask HN author: For someone who had experiences like me, your job ad is one in a sea of tens of thousands of job ads, and it's very easy to scroll past. It doesn't help you that some professional career advisors say the worst way for a candidate to get a great job is via job ads, and seniors have of course had more years to internalise this advice.

There are a small number of skilled recruiters and would-be employers who know how to reach out and almost blindside me into having been interviewed before I realise I have, and then I'm starting to be excited. They are removing obstacles and nudging me forward, usually into something I wouldn't have applied for, which is exciting if I like where it's going.

Those people stand out and win by removing much of the friction. (Like good sales.)

Another factor which you can change is formality.

Imposter syndrome or performance anxiety can affect applications. A person may be a very smart and experienced senior, confident they could make a big, positive difference at your company, but fear that they won't perform in the "right" way when hazed during test-heavy rituals, unless they refresh specific skills - something they don't have time to do, or even know which exact skills to be fresh on. Are you going to ask them C++17 trick questions when they've only been doing C kernel development recently? Who knows.

They imagine your take-home or interview tests will not be the kind of thing they've done recently, and that they'll face nit-picking, either by cocky yet wrong interviewers with a childish mindset, or seasoned people much smarter than themselves. Remember, the smartest people tend to doubt themselves. Tech's tendancy to cycle through frameworks, tech-du-jour and (mandatory but sometimes terrible) "best practices", and talk about it as though everyone "should" know adds to this anxiety.

That's friction too. They're probably in no hurry. Scroll down to the next ad. Close tab.

Informality is a way to break past that, lowering the stakes while getting the conversation started.

You can change this factor if you can find a way to strike up "friendly chats" with people outside any formal job process, and then mindfully guide the ones you like through your assessment process with care.

[phil-martin]

A close friend of mine once told me:

"You are ALWAYS being interviewed"

I didn't really understand what she meant, until a couple of years later a good opportunity came up from seemingly nowhere. I couldn't figure out how or why it happened, and it eventually ended up from a half dozen links in recommendations over the span of a year or more, all happening in the background.

I really enjoyed reading your comment, everything there resonates strongly.

Impressions matter, people and networks matter, and being honest to who you are and being brave enough to show that to the world in a respectful way pays off in the long run.

And to tie it back to the original poster, instead of relying on job ads, also engaging with networks of people to find others can be hugely beneficial. These networks are bidirectional. People will make recommendations based on how your company behaves and what it is like to work there.