I think the observation @Ernie Hsiung made about "no one wants to hear my special snowflake story when they can hire a sure-thing" is absolutely spot on, and I think there are a bunch of different truisms like that about the job market that people should consider as a sign of a storm.
I just interviewed someone who was a tech team leader, then spent a couple of years as an engineering manager. My questions were geared toward whether or not this person was too "senior" to be useful.
When you're hiring people to write code, the more leader-of-people you are the less in-the-weeds you've been (often), and what company ABC wants right now is drop-in in-the-weeds velocity-driving talent - not thought leadership.
It also doesn't do to hire from the spill of FAANG (MAANG?) lay offs, because when you work for a big company - well, the breadth of your experience is really quite narrow, so you're not a great fit for an upscaling startup that requires the wearing of many hats (and a lack of luxury).
Suddenly, the criteria you're looking for is hard to find. Optionally, you can train people up: but because you don't want to sink current velocity by coaching-up entry- or mid-level engineers, you pass on them, too.
What’s more, a job description is _content_ on a content-glutted internet, and it's really quite hard to target the job description to the cohort of applicants you want, so you tailor your hiring process to weed the onslaught of applications, and you can't help but favor first-come first-serve. You also rely hard on recruiters.
One recruiter told me that the best thing you can do is make friends with recruiters. That "once you are responding to job postings, you're already probably at the back of the line."
The thing that scares me is that I can barely market a podcast with an advertising budget - how am I suppose to market myself?
Thanks for your honesty, Ernie. You are not the only person with substantial experience in the tech industry who finds themself with very few opportunities due to some "unconventional choices" along the way.
The application, interviewing and testing hoops seem perfectly designed to break most applicants, and there's always a "there's lots of jobs if you have the right skills" jerk waiting to lecture you in the wings. There is no room allocated for independent thinkers.
The tech industry is a heartless game of survivor island, and once you're voted off there's often no way back on. Every mass layoff increases supply and reduces demand. We've seen the masks coming off in recent months as to exactly how toxic the industry is, and now tech/AI is eating many of the most viable fallback plans (writing, etc.) so these are difficult times for many people, even if most keep quiet about their struggles.
Thanks for sharing - I am just starting in the job hunt game and am finding it frightening and frustrating. I get advice from my Millennial and Gen Z kids on job searching as they seem to do it almost constantly (layoffs and shitty jobs seem to be a staple for kids their age at this time). One idea from them is to do job hunts and interviews at least once a year, so you can see what the markets want. My youngest son's contract just expired from google (on Christmas Eve - Merry Christmas!), and he will do things like apply to up to 15 jobs a day.
That's right. Now he is 25, a UX designer, and much better at finding jobs than me - currently spending the weekend at his girlfriend's place. Really grown up now!
I wish I could make your job search easier, but it's always been brutal for me. I don't know what the trick is. It's really like the whole thing is a big game. I hope someone has the sense to see all you offer and that it happen soon!
I think the observation @Ernie Hsiung made about "no one wants to hear my special snowflake story when they can hire a sure-thing" is absolutely spot on, and I think there are a bunch of different truisms like that about the job market that people should consider as a sign of a storm.
I just interviewed someone who was a tech team leader, then spent a couple of years as an engineering manager. My questions were geared toward whether or not this person was too "senior" to be useful.
When you're hiring people to write code, the more leader-of-people you are the less in-the-weeds you've been (often), and what company ABC wants right now is drop-in in-the-weeds velocity-driving talent - not thought leadership.
It also doesn't do to hire from the spill of FAANG (MAANG?) lay offs, because when you work for a big company - well, the breadth of your experience is really quite narrow, so you're not a great fit for an upscaling startup that requires the wearing of many hats (and a lack of luxury).
Suddenly, the criteria you're looking for is hard to find. Optionally, you can train people up: but because you don't want to sink current velocity by coaching-up entry- or mid-level engineers, you pass on them, too.
What’s more, a job description is _content_ on a content-glutted internet, and it's really quite hard to target the job description to the cohort of applicants you want, so you tailor your hiring process to weed the onslaught of applications, and you can't help but favor first-come first-serve. You also rely hard on recruiters.
One recruiter told me that the best thing you can do is make friends with recruiters. That "once you are responding to job postings, you're already probably at the back of the line."
The thing that scares me is that I can barely market a podcast with an advertising budget - how am I suppose to market myself?
Thanks for your honesty, Ernie. You are not the only person with substantial experience in the tech industry who finds themself with very few opportunities due to some "unconventional choices" along the way.
The application, interviewing and testing hoops seem perfectly designed to break most applicants, and there's always a "there's lots of jobs if you have the right skills" jerk waiting to lecture you in the wings. There is no room allocated for independent thinkers.
The tech industry is a heartless game of survivor island, and once you're voted off there's often no way back on. Every mass layoff increases supply and reduces demand. We've seen the masks coming off in recent months as to exactly how toxic the industry is, and now tech/AI is eating many of the most viable fallback plans (writing, etc.) so these are difficult times for many people, even if most keep quiet about their struggles.
Thanks for sharing - I am just starting in the job hunt game and am finding it frightening and frustrating. I get advice from my Millennial and Gen Z kids on job searching as they seem to do it almost constantly (layoffs and shitty jobs seem to be a staple for kids their age at this time). One idea from them is to do job hunts and interviews at least once a year, so you can see what the markets want. My youngest son's contract just expired from google (on Christmas Eve - Merry Christmas!), and he will do things like apply to up to 15 jobs a day.
When we did 8Asians together wasn't your youngest son, like, nine?
That's right. Now he is 25, a UX designer, and much better at finding jobs than me - currently spending the weekend at his girlfriend's place. Really grown up now!
I wish I could make your job search easier, but it's always been brutal for me. I don't know what the trick is. It's really like the whole thing is a big game. I hope someone has the sense to see all you offer and that it happen soon!