[erehweb]

The OP thinks that candidates spending a lot of time on applications is OK, as long as the company shows respect by spending a lot of time themselves. I think this is mistaken - I care about how much time I have to spend, and am a lot less concerned about how much time the company takes.

There's a trade-off: if a company spends more time / requires more effort on an interview process, they can get a better signal on the candidate's abilities, but then they'll lose out on candidates who are unwilling / unable to commit this time. This might just be a hard trade-off in recruiting.

[Esophagus4]

Excellent point. And for anyone who’s been a hiring manager / recruiter, you know how many candidates you will have to sort through. And you want to waste as little of your engineers’ time making them do interviews if possible.

Internet applications have made it so easy to apply to a position, companies have to find (usually arbitrary) ways of filtering the pipeline.

It’s a very difficult problem to solve - Coinbase had 500k applications for 500 positions.

Edit: I’m very concerned about AI tools flooding the pipelines even more by sending out tons of automated applications. This is going to cause an arms race where the companies have to use more arbitrary methods to sort through candidates, and it will only make it harder to find good ones.

[ghaff]

You made your edit before I posted.

But, yeah, it's not that, back in the day, I didn't post a ton of application resumes and form cover letters to HR departments out of school--and even got non-form responses from a number (and an offer from one sight unseen though I ended up going with someone else even after insisting on an in-person visit). But my sense is that, as you say, there's more of an arms race as you put it going on today where--if you don't have some way of cutting trough the noise, such as through your network, it's a tough slog. Which is one reason the anecdotal evidence at least suggests it's tougher for people who have't developed a network yet.

[Esophagus4]

I meet a few college CS candidates, and I really empathize with what they’re facing now.

I feel like the industry is far tougher to get into now than when I joined.

I sent out maybe 10 applications, got a few interviews, and 1 offer.

I hear of kids now sending out dozens to hundreds of applications with few bites.

Makes me sad for the stress they must feel.

[ghaff]

Historically, I'm not sure that isn't fairly normal.

But compared to maybe the decade plus prior to a couple years ago for (especially junior) software developers, it seems like a tough market based on a lot of conversations irrespective of overall unemployment rates.

[_rutinerad]

Last time I was looking, a year or so ago, I sent out dozens of applications and got zero interviews. Last time I switched jobs, in 2022, I sent out the same amount of applications and >50% led to one or more interviews (and eventually two offers).

[scarface_74]

“Okay boomer” (said sarcastically - I’m 51).

In 2023, I was Amazoned after 3.5 years and found myself looking for a job. Even worse, by then I had moved to an area that was tourist heavy, but not really tech heavy and was looking for remote only jobs. The remote role at AWS just kind of fell into my lap.

Plan A: Leveraging my network. This led to two offers both architect level positions - one over the architecture and migration to AWS at f500 company and the other over the architecture of PE owned company that was doing rollup acquisitions (been there done that).

Plan B: targeted outreach to companies looking for expertise in a niche of AWS where at the time, I was one of the industry experts and was a major contributor to a popular official “AWS Solution” in its niche.

This led to two interviews and one offer.

I basically had three offers and a side contract within ten days of looking.

I’m not bragging, I’m old. I should have a network to lean on and a reputation. The point is that even with my experience, if that well above had run dry, I might have been screwed.

I also applied for hundreds of jobs during those two weeks while going through the interview process with my first hits. I heard crickets and for every job I applied to, it had hundreds of applications and my application wasn’t even viewed by most and my resume was only downloaded once (LinkedIn Easy Apply shows both).

I was not some old guy (well I am) with outdated skills. At the time I had over ten years of software development experience (on my resume) and 7 years of AWS experience including 3.5 working at AWS (ProServe) leading relatively complex projects.

[bryanrasmussen]

>The OP thinks that candidates spending a lot of time on applications is OK, as long as the company shows respect by spending a lot of time themselves

if I spend 6 hours and the company has 1000 employees does that mean they spend 6000 hours? If so I might consider it a reasonable line of argument, but I guess they don't spend anywhere near that.

[jaggederest]

I think it's reasonable to make a donation on behalf or provide an honorarium if someone makes it far enough into the process. Something like a $250 gift card or equivalent.

Not enough to make it worth farming interviews for compensation, but enough to show that the company appreciates that you spent 2-4 hours working on their take home.