[donatj]

I've been casually job hunting for a couple months since rounds of layoffs started at my company.

I've applied to umpteen places and haven't had a single callback. In my twenty+ years working as a dev, this is the worst I've seen it since about 2005.

[forducks]

Laid off from tech and out of work for two years. Thousands of applications. Ran out of contacts, luck, savings, patience, everything. I start my retail career next week earning $12/hr. I can't even provide for my own rent and utilities anymore, even after moving.

I almost can't believe it's come to this, sometimes. But another part of me says that's just ego talking, and anyways plenty of others are also desperate for any and all scraps to feed themselves. Problems like mine aren't difficult to come by.

[sqircles]

Recently went on the market after my employer of 16 years went to shit. Got lucky with a hybrid gig that is really WFH 98% of the time after 120 applications and 26 interviews spread out over 15 companies. It was a roller coaster that I do not recommend.

[mathiaspoint]

I was laid off recently but I typically keep applying even while I'm employed since I don't think of employment as stable.

It seems better now than it was two years ago.

[khernandezrt]

I’m in the same boat. I’ve been employed since 2019, got laid off 3 weeks ago. I’ve applied to over 70 jobs and not a single has replied other than to reject me. This is brutal.

[sqircles]

The thing that seemed to work best for me was reaching out to dev shops in my area and starting a conversation even if they didn't have a position posted. Go to meetups and talk to people, join their discord, etc... and job fairs, as lame as they seem, produced contacts for me that are still reaching out "just in case" even though I found a position eventually.

What's old is new again. Get those soft skills warmed up and go out and shake hands.

[saguntum]

Job fairs are super underrated. When my spouse and I were a bit in flux years back for where we were going to live long-term, we ended up living in the city where we met which is very much not a tech hub - only a few big companies that hire engineers - despite spouse applying to various places in SF, Denver, and Seattle.

He landed the local job first by going to a career fair that I randomly discovered on Twitter. Affected the whole trajectory of our life.

[sqircles]

I believe they're the current "cheat code" to the hiring process. If you get called up for an interview after talking to a company at a career fair, there's a good inclination that you have already passed or at least have a leg up on the "culture fit" part of the interview.

With hundreds to thousands of people spamming every job posting under the sun the second it is posted, just getting your credentials read by a human is a major barrier right now that career fairs help alleviate.

[ethbr1]

Belated reply for posterity: another cheat code for job fairs is pre-researching the companies there.

Typically, attending companies are listed (or you can ask an organizer for a list). Do some quick searching and type up a summary.

Company name. What they do. 1-2 questions. Emphasis on companies you've never heard of!

You'd be amazed how many doors open when you walk up to a recruiter for a small, specialized company and know exactly who they are and what market they're in. (Remember: that poor person has probably spent all day explaining that to everyone else)

[Smeevy]

I completely agree with you. All the best jobs I've had have come from personal relationships.

[abnercoimbre]

I'm sorry to hear that. I have close friends who are brilliant (and seniors) but spent 6-8 months finding a new job. Plan accordingly.

[ulfw]

There are no jobs. I've done this for two years now. Bunch of bullshit job ads or referrals to jobs that turn out never got approved internally. Tech hiring is gone, especially in non-direct-engineering roles such as Product, Design, Project/Program Mgmt etc

[tennisflyi]

Good luck. Reddit job hunting(?) sub has it pegged at ~400 applications, IIRC

[danans]

I'd caution from reading too much into numbers like this. 400 applications is borderline spamming, putting quantity over quality, which employers would notice.

It can be far fewer if you have a focus/specialty and specific industries that you target.

No doubt though, it's a slog right now. My recent process was around 10 applications - which became 3 interviews - and the last 2 were offers, one that came via a recruiter. Even this is a marked increase in difficulty vs 4 years ago.

[xboxnolifes]

I have sent out 1200 applications with a roughly 15% response rate. Of those 15%, ~85% were instant rejections.

[saelthavron]

Being deliberate hasn't helped me. Hell, I've learned quite a bit about this one company. In my last interview, I asked a question that surprised the interviewers. It was about something they had yet to start work on which came up in another interview for a different position which I had already been rejected for. They still rejected me. At this point, I'm guessing I'm black-balled.

[danans]

I've been there, but just because you did things the "right" way and got rejected from one company doesn't mean you should throw away what worked. After all, they did interview you for a second role after the first one.

That said, especially in a tough labor market, finding a job is like dating, and the vibes matter a lot. While you control your side of the vibe, you don't control the other side. Technical people especially often don't want to think about the interpersonal factors, but they are a real part of the process.

[saelthavron]

> I've been there, but just because you did things the "right" way and got rejected from one company doesn't mean you should throw away what worked. After all, they did interview you for a second role after the first one.

Several rejections by multiple groups. I'm pretty sure I won't get an interview from there for a while. I've not been interviewed by the same group for more than one position. Continually getting rejected and failing to achieve more than one interview per group is not what I call working.

> That said, especially in a tough labor market, finding a job is like dating, and the vibes matter a lot.

Thus, it makes perfect sense to just throw your resume at everything that moves. Vibes seem to matter more than fit. I interviewed at another place where one of the interviewers just had a week or two worth of tech experience. They were somehow a test lead. They couldn't answer a single question about testers interact with developers or how they test. I'm sure I was labeled as problematic because of my questioning even though I had zero knowledge of the lack of experience until after a few questions. The person they hired had zero experience outside of university classes. No internships. No personal projects. The position wasn't listed as a junior position.

> Technical people especially often don't want to think about the interpersonal factors, but they are a real part of the process.

It's the only aspect I've been thinking about for over a year. The "technical interview" is often a joke so I can't help but think they are using it as a hidden "vibe" interview.

[lovich]

It would be difficult for employers to notice since they are also spamming job postings en masse

[yetihehe]

And after auto-rejecting one hundred people because of faulty filters they say "Why are there no good candidates?".

[Ferret7446]

It is definitely a MAD arms race. Bad actors on both sides force everyone to aggressively spam/filter