[noodle]

As someone on the other side, with open positions we're hiring for:

There are probably fewer job openings than there were, but I don't think my company or anyone in my network have changed HOW they're hiring, but we have definitely noticed a huge uptick in volume of applications. Earlier in the year, we were getting almost nothing. Now we're getting hundreds of resumes a week for each open position, and the bulk of each one of those resumes do not come close to even being in conversation range of the posted JD.

There's just a lot more to wade through from an HR and hiring perspective now, orders of magnitude more. It takes way more time/resources and is way more draining for the people involved.

I think my suggestion is, do what you can to stand out. Don't go overboard or anything, but if you're submitting your resume to an HR software or something, maybe try and find someone in the hiring chain on LinkedIn and email them directly either with your resume or just asking how its like to work there before you submit. Something like this.

[MentallyRetired]

I think this tech downturn is all a collusion amongst tech leaders to bring down software developer salaries. How are so many places hiring yet so many are laying off thousands, and most of them in tech/development? Even the places laying people off are still hiring those positions.

[noodle]

Well, to give you my POV - my company is still hiring because the business fundamentals are still strong. We're making money and using that money to pay people. But I have friends in network who had to lay off because they were hiring against VC cash instead of revenue, with the expectation of raising another round later. But they now don't expect to be able to raise that next round so easily so they have to slow their burn rates.

Money WAS cheap and easy for a while, and with everyone trying to use that money to grow, you could throw cash around easy to hire/poach/etc. and had to compete heavily for talent. Now you can't, money is much more expensive and tougher to get and you have to be more deliberate.

[vasili111]

> Money WAS cheap and easy for a while, and with everyone trying to use that money to grow, you could throw cash around easy to hire/poach/etc. and had to compete heavily for talent. Now you can't, money is much more expensive and tougher to get and you have to be more deliberate.

Why it changed? What happened?

[mindcrime]

The over-simplified answer is "The fed started upping interest rates, after having held them ridiculously low for about a decade."

There's arguably more to it than that, but when people talk about "cheap money" they mostly mean "low interest rates". If you just Google terms like "end of cheap money" you'll find lots of discussion on all of this.

Some examples:

https://www.ft.com/content/6d312b6c-9f74-4816-ad7e-7e797c5e0...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2022-11-30/what-s...

https://fortune.com/2022/12/28/investing-outlook-2023-fed-in...

https://www.reuters.com/breakingviews/end-cheap-money-reveal...

and so on.

[rsynnott]

A combination of fiscal policy (money is literally expensive at the moment, as central banks raise interest rates to combat inflation) and fear (a lot of people have been expecting a recession any day now for the last year, though it keeps getting postponed, and may yet be the recession that never was; while a good few countries dipped briefly into technical recession this year, fear of another proper global recession does seem to be abating a bit).

[yieldcrv]

basically the mechanism that the Fed uses to keep interest rates low involves creating a lot of new money and using that to buy bonds from other people, manipulating the market for bonds (high priced bonds = low interest rates).

Most of those bonds were government treasuries, but other bonds were corporate bonds - sheets of paper that say I'll pay you back in 10 years - and sold directly to the fed for newly created money. so the corporation printed money and got newly created money in exchange. they just have to pay it back in 10 years at like 2% interest a year. Many of those corporate issuers parked that money in private equity firms, or were private equity firms themselves, if they weren't directly hiring employees for pet projects - the private equity firm would be investing in newly formed pet projects.

All of that has stopped now, as the fed stopped buying bonds and doing the most to get interest rates high. Doing everything except selling the bonds they bought.

[hn_throwaway_99]

What you call "collusion" is what economists call "the market". Collusion doesn't even make sense here when it's so broad based. I could entertain collusion if it were a relatively small number of companies, e.g. in the Apple/Google etc. anti-poaching case. But here tons of companies had layoffs, and it's not hard to see why:

1. There was a ton of over hiring done during the pandemic. I don't think anyone really denies this. We were getting close to the "anyone that can fog a mirror" bar that I last saw during the .com boom.

2. Most people don't understand how the raise in interest rates makes it much more difficult to defend additional headcount even for companies that are hugely profitable. I won't go into the full economic theory, but the short of it is that when cash now earns ~5%, the bar for what new projects need to earn also shoots up. Obviously when cash was earning nothing people were much more willing to make highly speculative investments.

There is no collusion, and I think a lot of folks who didn't start in the job market until after the Great Recession never saw a downturn.

In a note of optimism, I'd argue that I heard all the exact same things during the .com crash, e.g. "they're going to ship all our jobs to India." Yet software dev salaries absolutely exploded in the past 2 decades since. I've talked to some folks who have already seen a marked improvement in the job market over the past month or so - not stellar by any means, but not as awful as it was earlier in the year. In other words, I'm really confident "this too shall pass."

[jorts]

More like everyone realized that they can trim down to improve margins without taking a lot of flack.

[polishdude20]

Yep, fire the devs after they've built the software. Fire them because the software is already built. Slowly your software grinds to a halt and dies because you release features too slow or your software starts to become very bad.

[fnimick]

By the time that happens the person who gets to tout the savings on their resume has already leveraged that for a salary bump somewhere else.

It's an unfortunate reality that if you're employed (not a founder) and you think more than a year or so out, you are going to be outcompeted by people who optimize for short term gain and leave before the bill comes due.

[myth_drannon]

And some of the fired devs go to work for the competitor or start their own business. This is a natural lifecycle of software. Slowly rot and let others grow.

[johnnyanmac]

sounds good, that's Future CEO's problem to solve. Who may or may not be current CEO. Current CEO gets a nice small bump in stocks and a good resume to jump off with.

[downrightmike]

Both

[shiftpgdn]

Tech leaders colluding with the government by abusing the H1B program and ultra-lax enforcement of anti-trust laws to absolutely crater tech salaries has been the name of the game for 15+ years.

[scarface_74]

The number of H1B visas in relationship to the entire market is just a drop in the bucket.

[slaw]

600k H1B workers is quite a lot.

[hattmall]

The overall quality of an individual employee has declined considerably. Mass hiring and layoffs are to an extent part of a more elaborate hiring process. Right now market dynamics are making this possible but as things tighten up there will be salary depression and more intern type roles coming back as the "hiring" process gets extended where previously it was compressed.

[hunterhod]

How would such a joint-coordinated effort work? Is such collusion possible at this scale?

[pkaye]

I don't think its collusion but its possible when one major tech company does it the others think its safe to do it too. But I also think many of these companies over-hired during the pandemic and even with the layoffs have more employees that pre pandemic.

[foobiekr]

Well, one arm of it is the H1-b program.

[trimethylpurine]

People are spending less time on social media so web marketing spend is down. Businesses are focusing on event based marketing. Web marketing is a very large part of the demand for front end. That's not collusion, it's basic economics.

[throwaway5371]

not really

it turns out you need half the people to do the same job

[scarface_74]

> I think my suggestion is, do what you can to stand out

Really, once you are unemployed and looking for a job, it’s too late to do anything to stand out. The time to do something to standout is while you are working.

How will emailing someone directly help if he doesn’t have a unique set of skills that helps him stand out? If he is just another generic developer (no offense intended I don’t know anything about him and that’s how I would have described myself until 5 years ago) why would emdilokb

[Mixtape]

> The time to do something to standout is while you are working.

This is an issue I ran into recently during my post-undergrad job hunt. Having exited college without an internship, it was difficult to distinguish myself in any meaningful way. In my opinion, major, career-defining work needs to be at least six months' worth of dedication to be of any importance on a resume. Most people don't have the savings to go that long between jobs.

I was fortunate enough to secure a well-paying internship over the next six months, but in all honesty I think I got lucky. It's tough out there if you don't have the existing background to set yourself apart.

[noodle]

Strongly disagree with this. Its very easy to stand out, in many different ways.

> How will emailing someone directly help if he doesn’t have a unique set of skills that helps him stand out?

Because they will indicate their very direct interest in the company in a way that people who are spray-and-praying 100s of resumes a day won't. Because they get to briefly demonstrate their soft skills to a potential teammate in a way that might not be conveyed in just a resume.

I'd hire a generic skillset developer who is a great communicator and teammate over a technical genius asshole who shreds teams apart 99.9% of the time. I've made this choice personally many, many times across my career as an engineering leader.

[scarface_74]

So what are these many ways to stand out that aren’t based on what you did when you were working?

> I'd hire a generic skillset developer who is a great communicator and teammate over a technical genius asshole who shreds teams apart 99.9% of the time.

How would you determine that if they can’t demonstrate their communication skills and their ability to work well with others based on their past experience - you know the standard “tell me about a time when…” questions?

[mixmastamyk]

Ha. I think back to all the times I had a "direct interest" in a company and it never amounted to anything. That and twenty nickels would buy a dollar.

[eikenberry]

While I agree it is better to look for work while working, I don't see how that impacts how you stand out in a hiring process. How can you leverage an existing job to stand out to a new potential employer (while looking, ie. short time scales)?

[scarface_74]

I meant while you are working taking on tasks and responsibilities that will help you stand out in the market when it is time to look for another job.

In other words, always keep an eye on the market and be prepared. That also means keeping a strong network, always answering emails and LinkedIn messages from recruiters and judging which ones are reputable and which ones aren’t and honestly, doing resume driven development.

[hellojesus]

How do you respond to LinkedIn recruiters when you're not in the market for a job?

Previously I had a colleague recommend taking interviews from recruiters to keep your interview skills high and market knowledge current. I gave it a shot but kept getting offers so stopped.

[scarface_74]

“I’m not really looking right now. But things can always change. Let’s talk. I’m always passively looking and the right opportunity may persuade me.”

[hellojesus]

Thanks!

[rootusrootus]

> bulk of each one of those resumes do not come close to even being in conversation range of the posted JD

I've wondered about that. Sometimes I see jobs that sounds super interesting, but I only match maybe 50% of the unique bits of experience they want. Then I see 200 applicants and think ... how many people are just applying for the hell of it, because the job sounds cool, even though they have none of the right experience?

[noodle]

> I've wondered about that. Sometimes I see jobs that sounds super interesting, but I only match maybe 50% of the unique bits of experience they want.

Really depends on what the company needs. We're willing to talk to a pretty wide range of people about some of our roles, while for others we need someone specific. Honestly I think 50% is not that bad. We get a lot of 0% resumes.

[paczki]

I'm always applying for the hell of it, because job descriptions are a mess anyways. These companies actively say they're entry level-junior level and then requires 6+ years experience. If they're gonna waste my time by just trying to get more eyes on their position to game the filter system, then I'm going to waste their time by sending my resume.

Let's not even talk about the companies that actively promote themselves as a remote position, and the chances of it actually being remote are about 10%.

[rsynnott]

Unfortunately, it depends on the company. Some job descriptions are sincere “we actually need this”; some are a wish list.

[jacobsimon]

recommend tailoring your resume to each job and highlighting the experiences/projects that are most relevant for that role :)

also applying to newly posted positions and using referrals when you can

[ransom1538]

I remember a report from facebook hiring, when they broke down how each person applied. It was something weird like %0.01 were hired by "walk in". Some person literally walked into FB headquarters and left with a job. I will say, if you walk into an office, you will NOT get ignored.

[eulers_secret]

I got my first job by walking in. It was at a medical center, and I just asked the receptionist for the IT department. Got routed all over the med center. When I got to IT I found the telecom manager was way over worked and needed help, but had no time to search. So he interviewed and hired me on the spot. This was in 2007.

I wouldn’t do that today, you won’t get past security at most places. It does happen, though.

[op00to]

That’s awesome! Nice initiative!

I got my first real tech job in a similar way. I was moving into a dorm at a state university (1999 or so) and the network was not working. No one around, so I went into the unlocked networking closet, found the IP for my floors switch, realized the ports were all disabled, got them enabled and passed out static IP information by the time the dorm networking manager got there. Was also hired on the spot!

[wing-_-nuts]

I know this sounds 'old fashioned' but you really want to work for a particular company, walking in has had a surprising success rate for me over the years. Some are absolute sticks in the mud about requiring the candidate to apply online, but in many, you can at least chat with someone in hr or a hiring manager about the sorts of positions they have available and what skills they need. This all but guarantees your resume will be looked at by an actual human.

[LinuxBender]

As others mentioned this will not work at FB. Their lobby is 100% security and always busy as it is a massive campus. The only way a FB employee is even there is if they are waiting to escort someone in for a scheduled meeting. Getting into the campus would not be useful either. Its like a little college town. Offices require badging in. This might work at smaller companies however.

[isbvhodnvemrwvn]

Of course you won't get ignored, you'll get escorted out by security. The likelihood of a hiring manager being in the office nowadays is also very low.

[Dirak]

This type of hiring is most likely reserved for Yann LeCun caliber talent. If you walk in to FB HQ without an appointment, 1) they wouldn’t let you in, and 2) you’d probably just make it awkward for the security guard

[throwaway2037]

Yeah, I agree. That "walk-in" was probably Yann having lunch with another intellectually famous friend. Someone recognized them and took the chance to interview them.

[dustincoates]

I actually got my first job out of college this way. I was trying to get a job in something completely unrelated to what I studied, so I was doing whatever I could think of to get noticed. I still can't believe it worked, but it set me on a good path, at least.

[kevin_thibedeau]

A past employer had a memorial page for its founder where one employee related a story of how he did this and ran into a man at the reception desk who accepted his resume and promised to pass it along but wouldn't give his name. He got the job and discovered that he managed to run into the founder at just the right time.

[galangalalgol]

I wonder what would happen if you somehow managed to find what coffee shop the hiring manager was working from that day and sat down next to them striking up a conversation. Obviously most of the ways you could do that are super creepy if not illegal, but then so is most of what FB and crew make.

[ryandrake]

Your comment reminds me of an awkward story: I worked at a company once where we were having trouble with Apple's AppStore review. The app was delisted and we were losing money daily. It was so bad the CEO came in and led a meeting to brainstorm what to do--all wild suggestions welcome, and worker-bee me got to be a fly on the wall. One of the VP-level execs mentioned in this meeting that he happened to know some breakfast or coffee shop where Tim Cook can sometimes be found before work. Well, the CEO loved this, and for a brief moment, "Physically accost Tim Cook in Palo Alto" was one of the leading candidates to solve our AppStore problem.

[cutemonster]

What did you do instead? Apparently you came up with something even better

[ryandrake]

Amazingly, what worked was: Actually read and follow the AppStore guidelines, rather than complain about how unfair the review was.

[metalforever]

We have an employee on my team that got a job this way a few years back. She is still with us and does good work.

[CodeSgt]

How long ago was this now?

[dustincoates]

16 years now. Not sure if it would be as effective today. I doubt it was truly effective even back then.

[bsima]

> Now we're getting hundreds of resumes a week for each open position, and the bulk of each one of those resumes do not come close to even being in conversation range of the posted JD.

What percentage of these resumes do you think are generated by GPT?

[noodle]

Honestly, I don't know. I don't see enough of the "not close, easy rejection" type resumes, I see things after they've been filtered. But I'll see if I can get an answer to that question.

[troyvit]

The last time I had resumes to look at it was a few years ago, pre-gpt. We had pretty a specific hard requirement (elixir experience), and easily 95% of the resumes had no mention of it. So I don't know if I'd blame artificial intelligence, more like natural stupidity.

[edit] And by stupidity I mean people who just spam every job they see trying to get a hit. Like what were you planning to do if you got the job?

[camdenreslink]

Learn Elixir? It's just a programming language...

[troyvit]

I don't pay people for that. Job description called for at least 3 years' experience, which I should've added to my post.

[whaleofatw2022]

> and the bulk of each one of those resumes do not come close to even being in conversation range of the posted JD.

Been seeing a lot of this too. Backend specific job, .NET, and we get a bunch of folks who are front-end devs with maybe python or node.

[neon_electro]

Do you make it clear that you will only accept candidates with strictly .NET experience? I've had plenty of reasonably positive experiences applying to places where I have the overall skill set (front-end or back-end) but do not have the exact tech stack the company uses as my strongest set of hard skills.

[ryandrake]

Both companies and applicants dance way out-of-step with each other on this.

Companies list 10 things as "requirements" but are willing to hire candidates without all of them. To me, requirement means must-have, but what do I know? Candidates know that companies are not serious about the requirements, so they ignore them and apply. But, some of the requirements are "must have" from the point of view of the company, but they never say it. And sometimes even if they say "Experience in obscure XyZ framework is a must!" they still may bend the rules if John Carmack-like talent applies. It's such a mess.

[PNewling]

>Both companies and applicants dance way out-of-step with each other on this.

100% agree with this. The previous commenter's company probably does want exactly those things, but as you said, some other companies have HR write the job postings and it is just a game of telephone with what the hiring team actually needs.

So they only way to find out is to apply, especially if you are currently unemployed you don't want to risk something just because you don't 100% line up to the position.

[surajrmal]

I'm curious why you wouldn't consider those people just because their existing experience doesn't 100% overlap your tech stack? Could they not be trained on how to write backend .net? Wouldn't the diversity of experience be helpful for your team?

[mettamage]

Yep they could but companies usually don't do it.

I've done it. OOP is OOP, there are only different flavors.

I wonder to what extent an OOP person would be able to do a Haskell job (or a similar functional language).

[scarface_74]

Anyone can learn a language. The .Net framework and the related ecosystem is huge. I’ve done front end work maybe a decade ago, I still do backend JavaScript and I know the basics of web technologies. But anyone would be a fool to hire me if they wanted a front end developer.

Even if I knew Java that doesn’t mean I could just jump in and start doing Android development.

[mettamage]

I remember jumping in and doing Spring Boot. I knew Java. It went well, it helped that I knew about NodeJS and Django.

[jaculabilis]

Man, I have backend-specific experience with .NET and all I can find are job postings for frontend, Python, and node. Where are your job postings?

[tmaly]

I am seeing the same thing. I have 5 open positions. This past week I have seen a huge uptick in applications. We have streamlined our process to 3 interviews. We do not do Leetcode.

Still with even a streamlined process, we were not seeing any senior Python developers for several months.