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Ask HN: Why is it so hard to apply for jobs?

3 pointsby coneonthefloorabout 2 years ago
Why is it that in order to apply for a job as a software engineer I am forced to sign up to a company&#x27;s online recruitment portal. Where I then upload my CV, only to find out in the next step I have to fill out little boxes with my relevant experience. Then fill out more boxes with arbitrary questions, completely unrelated to the job I am applying for.<p>I swear I abandon the recruitment page as soon as I see the &quot;workday&quot; logo pop up, or I am redirected to a &quot;careers portal&quot;. Just give me an email address to send my info to.<p>I have spent time building up my portfolio and CV over the last decade. It shows all my experience and relevant skills, in a way that represents me as a developer.<p>Yet when I eventually turn up to an interview, after hearing back 6 weeks later. The people conducting it have never been sent my portfolio site or relevant work. And I will then be asked some &quot;right or wrong answer&quot; tech questions. Which any dev would just google at the time and do not give an indication of skill, but rather memory retention...<p>I will then get an email saying that I do not have the relevant experience in a technology I have actually contributed to and worked with for 10 years.<p>This is a rant, but really the recruitment process sucks, and interviews are pot luck.

3 comments

andrewfromxabout 2 years ago
I like to think of them as &quot;stand up comedy gigs&quot;. You go, you try and kill it in the live coding set and sometimes you do, but sometimes you bomb. It&#x27;s a numbers game. Get up on stage more and more and eventually you&#x27;ll kill and they&#x27;ll make you an offer that day! But it&#x27;s VERY repetitive. Just like comics are sick to death of their own jokes they&#x27;d told 1000 times, boy I do not like to hear my self speak sometimes.
tlbabout 2 years ago
Applying cold to jobs sucks, and need only be done by people new to the industry. Since you&#x27;ve been working several years, ask people you&#x27;ve worked with that are now at other companies for warm intros to their managers. And network outwards from there, to friends of friends.
epirogovabout 2 years ago
perhaps because we are dreamers looking for truth in a resource like this, but the employer has a business to run and has too limited a resource for a dreamer.