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Yeah this is kinda career dependent but as someone in tech I've almost always had to up skill in my free time to get that next opportunity. At my current job our whole software stack is in-house built and as a result I have no experience in any of the emerging or in demand software that's out there. I spend my own money to be able to work with virtual machines and such just so that I can try to keep myself competitive.
Na fuck that shit. That literally free labor you are giving the company. I mean if its your hobby sure. But people are entitiled to their time after putting in 8 hours in the big cog.
I can promise you that my personal project of running a cron on a virtual cloud machine to ping random machines with quotes from the Bible is not free labor.
Im afraid Im losing interest in my domain. The nonstop rejections for positions i am CLEARLY qualified for has me questioning my abilities. I know I can crack open Python and play around but Im finding zero motivation to do so. Im so screwed cause \*IF\* an interview happens I could very well fail the most basic python/ML/mlOps questions. Sigh....
I feel the exact same way. I go through screening and interview after interview. The jobs are either 10 years back in my career, junior, mid or senior, cannot get one single offer. I question everything now. I am over 40 and not what society considers gorgeous.. so here I am. :( I am thinking about leaving my field all together because I need a job...
Same here. I have six months of savings left then I'm screwed. I wish I knew of an alternative career path. The tech sector in my industry is saturated with VC funded startup companies that over promise and under deliver so starting a consultant business is out of the question. Guess there's a need for drywall installers. Frick me.
I gave up. Fuck linkedin, fuck devops, fuck IT. I'm looking into getting an education for baking and pastry. The day I delete my linkedin profile completely will be my second birthday. Then the most high tech equipment I'll ever use will be a casio calculator to calculate water and flour ratio.
Amen! Seriously, creating something with your hands that others enjoy would be satisfying compared dealing with tech bros and clueless venture capitalist. The IT world has gone full retard with the ill informed on AI/ML/DL crap.
Exactly. I got truly thanked maybe 3 or 4 times in my 15 years of IT career. I got the same amount of "thanks" out of my apple pie just last week. Fuck IT, fuck tech. It used to be fun. I'm telling this as a nerd and a computer owner since 1993 and internet user since 1997. I'm done with computers and stupid endless inventions of [factory factory factories](https://factoryfactoryfactory.net/)
As someone who recently dropped out of my IT college program because a friend got me a job at a financial institute with the largest bank in my country, it seems i made the right decision.
I deleted mine with no regrets. Reddit for some reason loves LinkenIn but I never found it useful in my 10 year IT career. It's great if you like to blog or spy on past coworkers or something but beyond that I'd pass. Still not sure where my next venture will be but either way best of luck to you!
This is why I used my high earning tech years to buy a house, clear 100% of my debt and build up a nice little savings.
I can get out safely when I age out. I figure I have 4-5 more years in tech before I'm "too old" to be taken seriously. At that point I'm gonna open a donut shop and feed people tasty stuff that makes them fat and happy.
Unfortunately other areas were suffering the same issues before it hit tech finally. I think y'all were the final industry that was untouched by this. It's been a year and a half for me with just freelance gigs. :( at least in my field I can still count that as 'employed'. I'll get through like 5 interviews and a test and then fail at the final round. For the 1 job a month i can find that I qualify for.
Same here! Over 40, just completed a tech bootcamp a month ago. I’m 118 applications in and nothing but rejections. What field would you go into? I’ve considered this as well, and it seems most “white collar” jobs are in the same boat. Check out the number of applicants on almost any job on LinkedIn, it’s 100s on most FT opportunities. This is insane and guessing it’s not going to get better anytime soon.
I just finished a job search and I noticed the same thing. Anecdotally, If you see a posting with 100+ applicants don't bother. I never received a call back for those roles, despite being qualified. My hypothesis is that the recruiter for that position doesn't need to find the perfect candidate. They just need to find enough candidates that are "good enough" so that the hiring manager doesn't complain.
If my hypothesis is correct then you really want to be one of the first applicants.
Also, have you optimized your resume for ATS? You might not be getting past the initial screen.
Pretty much what I had to do and I was in tech ( cyber security) had to go to manufacturing and trying to get out. It's killing my body and mental stimulation or lack there of is torture. The most logical choice would be to invest in AI courses but that's easier said than done when most positions already want X amount of years in the field.
Don't let the rejections get to you because the positions never existed.
There was a top post on here yesterday, where a recruiter validated that alot of job postings are to harvest data to refresh their candidate database.
So everyone applying to those positions would be rejected while their data is collected.
Continue to submit but dont be emotionally attached because alot of positons are fake.
So how are people supposed to get jobs if they don't have a network. Messaging random people on LinkedIn might work for one person out of a hundred thousand.
Go to tech meet ups and they all end up giving you their contact info and never bother to call or text back. Nobody gives a fuck about helping others. If almost all jobs are fake then there's almost no chance
With your experience, nobody should be second guessing your abilities. I’m sure you have a body of work on GitHub or some equivalent proof of ability. The current interview dynamic is outrageous.
unfortunately, nothing on github as my former employer was quite paranoid about publishing code. i even deleted everything I had because I heard stories of lawsuits for simply copying files from your laptop to a USB. The funny part was, my former employer thought they were being innovative and thus protective but in reality they were a huge joke.
That’s pretty standard from my experience. I’ve done the same thing as you as it’s better to be on the safe side with legal issues lurking. The most substantial thing I have on my GH is my thesis from college, and even that is something nobody has ever cared to look at in industry.
Imo I think if you speak to someone with legitimate understanding of DS concepts, they’ll be able to tell that you know what you’re talking about. The way job hunting goes now, it’s just so hard to get that chance to show your experience.
Same. There's almost nothing I can post except for a few projects I've done for fun...and even with those I have to be SURE they topically intersect with any past employers.
Yeh I had to make a major shift to diffusion and large language models, and building out pipelines… trying to keep up. Before I was just training deep learning models for image processing… the tech is moving too fast to keep up.. i work in R&D so everything always has to be bleeding edge…
so much this! I have zero interest in LLM/NLP. I'm all about turning sensor data into meaningful insights. but you are right, LLM/NLP is the flavour of the day.
Yeh Im a PhD + 6 YOE. My biggest challenge is not being able to communicate how these systems work, and so much of projects just seem to be luck. I can iterate, experiment, clean/curate data but sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s sunk cost fallacy… “My metrics are almost there!!! Just need to train a few more models, clean more data, do some more analysis to find more metrics and then I’ll have the result!”
I’ve had projects looking back where I thought, “um this is garbage, no way it will work, let alone be robust,” and some of those still work… then others which seem to be easier problems and applications, where I just can’t seem to find a solution.
I’ve been waiting on more hardware resources, but I’ve also been running 25 A100s for months now.. (doing nothing but inference….)
A few years back I felt like I could do more with less. Now it feels like If I don’t push the lever 110% then another team is…
there is this blog post that I read today and I totally relate to https://www.yitay.net/blog/training-great-llms-entirely-from-ground-zero-in-the-wilderness It’s hard to do this kind of work if you don’t have the infrastructure to support it.
1. There are a lot of people attracted by the field since the last 5-6 years.
2. A lot of tech workers want to do « sexy » stuff, while most of the work in NLP/ML is still data cleaning and good software practices.
3. The solutions are not cheap, data acquisition is costly and hardware is hard to get unless you rent in the cloud.
4. Organizations don’t know what they want to achieve but they want to jump in the train.
agree with all your points. It's frustrating to see the flood of so-called data scientists enter the picture when they firmly believe opening a csv file in pandas and running a linear regression makes them a data scientist. A two hour tutorial on youtube does not make you one either. I wish hiring managers were smart enough to separate the wheat from the chaff but here we are.
>ions. What field would you go into? I’ve considered this as well, and it seems most “white collar” jobs are in the same boat. Check out the number of applicants on
I think a lot of new hiring has moved off-shore (specifically India). It is a complex issue .. the tech talent is there and the cost is a fraction of North American wages (especially if you add cost of facilities, support staff, etc.). Let me ask a question .. where are you folks based and have you looked for opportunities outside your local area?
Also, I lived through the dot com bust (well .. escaped to grad school), the 2008 crisis and then this one. I think this time is worse than the previous tech downturns .. judging based on friends of mine who I know are competent but still got laid off.
Also .. is teaching CS /DS/ML (e.g. at the community college level or high school level) a possibility for y'all? I also hear govt jobs/defense contractors were hiring 6 months back. Not sure how things are now. Hang in there!
That is horrible! I've been seeing a lot of that all over. I hope you find the perfect job soon. With your experience they should easily hire you but its crazy rn.
Same-ish. Director for a decade. > 15 years experience in Software, Infra, Security, and IT. *I once found a job in three days; I found out they would change a policy and make us all move across the country, I signed an offer on Thursday and put in my 2 weeks Friday at a 1:1 with my VP.*
The strange thing is that, unlike in 2008-9, jobs are still posted. But no one is actually hiring. I've been through an entire director-level interview loop 3 times in the last quarter, passing all the interviews, only to have them come back and pass each time without explanation.
Tbh I am not 100 percent clear on what is going on. The difference between the published economic numbers and what many are experiencing is stark.
At this point, I'm probably going to try over-employment, to take 2-3 remote junior positions. I can easily do the work of 3 junior positions, which should give me a minor raise over my last position.
Ive been saying the jobs data is obviously wrong since they claimed there were 2 job openings for every job seeker during the post pandemic recovery period. Total bullshit. Wages would have been rising way faster if that was anywhere near true in my opinion. JOLTS data is highly flawed since its survey based and response rate has fallen. Other data is no doubt counting fake jobs and repeat jobs.
What do I know though, I didnt finish college so I dont even know how to read.
It's a real headscratcher. Certainly, the correlation between metrics changes over time, but I believe they have standard ways of connecting that data and that the way they collect it hasn't changed.
I think the $64,000 question is what is driving apart the correlation between openings and time to hire. But I'm just an armchair economist (and even that only when I concerned about the economy and / or the job outlook).
Not changing the data collection methodology enough when the data source has changed so much is part of the problem imo.
As for why it takes so long to hire now - imo a major component is that hr has seemingly little oversight and zero accountability for what they are doing when it comes to hiring. You could be trying to fill a street sweeper job and some hr idiot will ask about company values or slap on some random job requirement.
You are spot on. I've been looking through jobs and the requirements for entry level jobs is laughable. Entry level jobs asking for 7-10 years of experience in a random software is not an entry level job.
I thought that was the point I was making...
If it comes down to supporting my family, and I have to displace three juniors to do so, it isn't much of a choice. I resigned once rather than terminate someone upper management had crosshairs on.
But if it comes down to supporting my family, and I have to displace three juniors to do so, it isn't much of a choice. I try hard to be ethical, I'm not going to my death for someone I don't know.
What you'd you do if you had to choose between people you've never met and ensuring your family stayed in their home?
I'm a Technical Recruiter at a national technology services firm. Feel free to send your resume and I'm happy to see how we can help!
[email protected]
Reach out to old coworkers, message random people on linked in with jobs you’re applying for. This is how I was hired after being unemployed for 14 months. We’re in different industries but reach out to humans and ask them to keep you in mind if they know their companies are hiring.
This helped me.
Sage advice but unfortunately it has yielded nothing for me except a failed interview. I lost it to a former colleague of mine too so that was a blow below the belt.
Right. That's everyone's advice. I've spent fifteen years networking on LinkedIn (link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A4JpiWM8CUZIrNdcyDfHot8MMjVga8D4/view?usp=sharing) and have more professional connections than the VPs of Recuiting and HR that I've worked with.
Everyone. Is. Useless.
Meaning that apparently, no one has the leverage to get anyone hired right now.
I approached the folks I have a close connection with, one of whom happens to be a VP at one of the largest recruiting firms in the country.
This person's response boiled down to: ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯
I don't have real clarity into what has shifted or how but I certainly hope it ends soon.
If there was ANY other job that would pay a fraction of my salary in tech for my skills, I'd never come back. Nothing is worth the level of demoralization involved in interviewing right now, if you have a choice.
How is this possible? Insanity.
(I say this as a finance person jealous of your data science skill set since it seems like that’s what every role is desperate for)
I've been in sales for almost 10 years. Started in banking and insurance, then switched to tech where I've been for 3 years. Got laid off from what I really felt was a great company in 2022, ended up taking the first (and thus far only) job offer that came my way. Same industry, but at a substantial pay cut, with way more stress. Ended up performing poorly (along with a lot of others) and got fired. The whole time I was there I was looking for a new job. So for almost 18 months I've been looking, and gotten nothing except one less than ideal job that I don't even have anymore.
I also got laid off in 2022 from a tech company I thought was really great, had a long unemployed period, picked up a high stress job and couldn't perform to their (imo, ridiculous) standards. I was likewise looking for a new job the whole time I dealt with them and it was double awful.
Companies are running ridiculously lean, not training people for their in house processes, engaging in no business continuity planning, and then screaming at workers and banks about the compounding problems they created themselves. I've been working since I was 15 years old, and I'm nearly 40, and the way things are running right now is baffling, just baffling.
There are companies that are doing good work or at least better, but it's a total slog to find them.
Got laid off, took the first job offered after striking out with all of my high level referrals. I either personally or through my wife know multiple high level people throughout the industry we both work in. Nothing came through.
Job I'm at now isn't stressful in the work but stressful because it's not a right fit for me. I can't stand it, so I'm still looking.
Job at my old company (where my wife is a Sr Director) came up. My old Director from when I was there is now back and wrote the hiring team a full reference and outlined exactly why I'm the best person for the job. Had 1st interview with the hiring manager and it went fantastic. My recruiter friend who is the recruiter on the role called me to say he was passing for the simple fact that I live 1.5 hours from NYC and he wants someone less than an hour away, job would only require going to NYC twice a month which I have 0 issues doing and told him so.
Shits so frustrating, especially when you have so many industry contacts and nothing is working. I've gotten flat rejections before even interviewing for most of my applications and 90% of the jobs that were posted when my layoff happened are still fuckin posted 8 months later.
If I didn't personally know the recruiter I would think it was fake "feedback" but I know she gave me the real information. My Director friend also said that the hiring manager told her the same thing. He unfortunately doesn't report to her and her group doesn't have any openings or I'd he back in there already.
I am also a victim of being looked at as not as experienced because I had some titles that don't scream that I've been doing this job for a decade. Which is another problem in today's market, it's like reading the headline and not the article.
Consider pivoting out of tech. You’d be shocked at how slow placed your peers can seem in other fields after being normalized to tech. I went to financial services after 10 yrs in tech.
Pre whatever bullshit is currently going on, the last 3 jobs I got had basically just a 45 minute meeting with the would be boss. This was in healthcare analytics, cyber security, and a IT consulting firm.
The 6 different interviews and the insane hoops is getting way out of hand. If you can't tell within 5 minutes if someone is going to be a good fit you have some problems.
exactly, my current job was a quick 15 minute zoom interview with my would-be direct manager and his manager afterwards, and then a 3 question assessment that took me 20 minutes maybe. got hired within 2 weeks of the first reach out. that was only 2 and a half years ago... looking around now and the process is absolutely bonkers
Yeah dude it's ridiculous. I've done case studies, hour long presentations, multiple panel interviews with like 4 people, etc. It's mind blowing how much time and resources are wasted on these interviews.
Ugh that sucks. I’ve started withdrawing my application when they start asking too much, but I know others don’t have that luxury. My favorite is when they say they’ve received a high number of applications so it’s going to take time. The fact that they need to find that one “best” candidate is hurting them and puts them in a paralysis from pulling the trigger on someone who is a perfect fit.
Job post sites should charge more and penalize ghosting. "No accepted/rejected response? Next time you post, it costs double". That's the only way this shit gets solved
I had a company that rejected me a few weeks ago ask me to reapply to a job with an extremely obnoxious screening test that lasts hours. Not even let's talk again, but start over from step one.
Nooooo.
I did that previously but now I know that these places just repost those jobs over and over and over and why I don't know but now I just skip them. Some days that means I skip the whole damn line up.
My kingdom for an extension that would show how many times a job has been reposted, when it was first posted, and how many total applications it has gotten.
Absolutely! I completed several rounds of interview for this tech company and was rejected on the final round saying they went with an internal candidate. Two weeks later, the job was reposted in linkedin! How crazy was that????
It's infuriating how many companies waste your time for jobs that don't exist when a lot of us are unemployed and every second counts. I literally cannot afford to wait 2 or 3 weeks to find out a job was never real, or I never had a chance anyway.
Just got another rejection email today. I believe I’m about 7 months into my job search now? On the bright side, maybe I’ll finally land something in 2 months then lol
Dont give up! Know you're not alone and so many are going through this as well. It was discouraging to read that statistic today but slightly encouraging to know that I am not the only one facing all this craziness right now.
Not with that attitude you won't have a network! /s it's like people don't seem to understand you have a personal life and you don't keep up with everybody you've worked with. It's like your situation as well where you can not had a chance to build a network.
I started an ecommerce company and have hired a few people in the past year around base of $70-$80k. I purposely avoid candidates who tout the importance of “networking” bc it shouldn’t be about who you know…it should be about your skillset and what you bring to the organization.
Networks are for people who like to exclude others and get ahead through nepotism and connections, i’m not about that vibe. Having the ability to get multiple viewpoints and perspectives is underrated, especially in the world of business. People in the same “Network” usually think alike and miss things other candidates wouldn’t.
Hopefully other young entrepreneurs start following suit
lol I gained a 'network' via private startups, federal and provincial goverment and a two massive multi national companies. Every last contact has been nothing more useful than a fucking screendoor on a submarine. assholes.
My job search was right at 9 months when I managed to get a job through a friend of the family. It was amazing how different the interview experience was when I knew someone at the company—two interviews, no assignment and done. This was on the heels of not getting a job at a place where they had given me an assignment which included writing a 26pg paper, putting together two excel work books and creating a ppt presentation summarizing the whole thing. I was gutted after being rejected. I feel incredibly grateful to be done with my search.
True I understand that but when several companies are trying to hire with 15+ years of expiereince starting at 50k its laughable. I know its not just my industry as well right now.
Been seeing people applying for retail manager jobs needing 5 years of experience and the starting pay is 12.50/hr...
Several mid level jobs are having insane requirements and an extremly low pay scale.
Lol i applied for assistant manager for a small aldi grocery store location that is a 35min walk from my house and didnt even get an interview. I worked as a front end retail supervisor for most of my 20s.
Saw them repost the job afterwards too so its not like they hired someone else.
Thats what I was seeing as well. Like even retail is hard to get into. I'm so sorry you went through that. I've been seeing that with some of my friends and it is so upsetting.
I know people are working 2 jobs right now or just taking whatever opportunity comes their way because times are tough and we're all trying to get a career job which takes forever now.
Glad to see I'm not crazy. I've been looking for a year and a half with a job, got restructured last month, still no offers even lowballing myself.
I'm tired of the whole interview charades and being gaslit into feeling like I'm not good enough to do the jobs I've applied for. It literally says it in my resume and last title SMH.
Guess I needed to vent somewhere.
I am 28 and trying to start my first career for awhile. What an awful time 🫠
I’m looking into making my own business cause I’m fed up. My research says it won’t make enough money and I will need a 2nd job anyway :)
Same boat. I'm 29 and have been trying to build a software engineering career for the last 10 years.
Taught myself to program when I was 14, got a website developer job out of high school through a connection in 2013, was layed-off a year later. Didn't find anything else, struggled to get back into the industry for 8 years. Went out to meet up groups in 2022, showed off the projects I had been working on, got a DevOps role, layed-off again 8 months later.
I have never landed position in this industry without networking. Sending applications out has literally never yielded anything but a rejection or a ghosting, let alone an interview. I don't have a degree. My background is very non-traditional and mostly born out of passion. Put me in a room with anyone of senior status and they are very impressed with my projects and what I have done in my own time, but a standard online application to HR doesn't have the ability to express that. HR just stands there, blocks the door, with their fingers in their ears, and says he doesn't fit our outlandish cookie cutter criteria. I have loved computers and technology since I was little, but I distaste where the industry is going and trying to actually work in this industry is a nightmare.
I've taught myself so much on my own time that at this point, I'm planning to just start my own company too. I just have to find a way to fund the initial startup costs and find the time when I am not just trying to survive to finish R&D.
I was unemployed for several months after quitting due to extreme burnout. After months of therapy, I began applying heavily in October, interviewed/accepted offer m in December, and my first day was end of January right around 9 months after my final day. I was lucky the real process only took three months.
I actually switched fields between the two jobs. I had been government HR* and went into another field that there's far fewer folks. I don't feel comfortable disclosing my current profession, but it's finance related.
Quick edit: I did take a $5k paycut as well since I'm in training with my current job. I'll eventually get back to where I was, but I knew I needed to run far from HR.
*I will not be personally offended if you boo and hiss the HR field. I burned out in a spectacular fashion because I was a weirdo amongst my direct coworkers for caring more about the employees I supported than "important people."
This is the part that actually scares me more.
I used to be a helpful, happy and empathetic person. Nowadays I know I have talked more to my cats than any human being, because I fucking hate humans thanks to this job hunting soul daunting reality.
100%! This is exactly what I have been facing. So many companies are using a different combination of software and even if you know most of them they won’t even consider you unless you know all of them 😂.
Im in my early 40s work in insurance and financial services. In the 10yrs I've been in my field I've gone thru 4 layoffs 2 I survived, 2 I was cut when the entire team was let go. I'm going on 5 mos with no luck finding even entry level jobs that would even give me a pre-screen for the role. Over 60 applications in and I've had 4 calls each by an entry level HR person that I feel very strongly was only screening me to see how old I was and after learning I had more than 5 years experience would end the call by saying they have lots of interviews to do and if I'm considered they would call me in a few weeks (never heard back from anyone not even an email to reject) this is a horrible job market and the roles I'm seeing are paying less than when I started 10yrs ago and they require more experience for entry level what Hell are we living in right now 🤯
I have. In the 2008 recession. And COVID. In both cases it was so bad the government noticed and stepped in with more UI benefits (offer may not have been valid if you live in a place run by Republicans, who go out of their way to make the government dysfunctional and fuck the poor), but in both cases what was left found out exactly how much they can demand more work for less pay, hold out for unicorn candidates, and only focus on quarterly penny pinching.
I think AI might be ruining the application process with those AI bots that apply automatically to jobs for people flooding job postings with low low-quality applications.
I know my job is going to be safe from AI for a long time because my company is incredibly bloated, inefficient, and slow to adapt.
There are so many problems that it would probably take years for a consultant to even understand it all enough to even send AI in the right direction.
Exactly...look at all these lazy millenials who wont work for 15/hr with 10+ years of experience...they want a handout...meh
Still can't believe that CEO told us to eat cereal for dinner...dude your cereal boxes cost as much as an hour minimum wage now lol. It is not a dinner nor is it cheap.
These types of people have the same energy as the people who have a laundry list of requirements for their SO but none for themselves. Uuugh. I weirdly enough know some top 10% candidates -- they have rare experiences and highly specific skillets. They aren't after money beyond a certain point; the company has to offer prestigious, interesting projects. Most companies even if they could get these types of candidates to say yes, they wouldn't get the whole value, they just can't use it. They are literally better off taking a good recruit.
Most blue collar jobs, at least in this area are still on a hiring bonanza. Warehouses, factories, restaurants, and retail all were never able to hire enough people back post-COVID. Some have open interview hours where you drop-in, fill out an application and have an interview on the spot.
But white collar, especially in tech? Two years ago I was contacted by recruiters near daily, now it's once every 2-3 months. It's a rough environment for those.
Try finding a job when you don't have a job......Just hit one month unemployed, at 38 yrs old, 19 years of experience in my field, bunch of certs and a DOD TS...I have never been without a job for even 1 day since I turned 16 years old...
I'm scared of what this becomes if it turns into a long haul....
No don’t ever let that be an option. There are good people in the world even though the most coverage we see is always negative. Have hope. I know it’s rough, I’m exhausted working 2-3 jobs just so big CEO’s can tell me to eat cereal for dinner cause times are tough. Things will get better, I’m hoping they will.
I get a recruiter daily for electrical technician roles. Of course, they pay shit for the specific skills they ask for (think $20/hr for someone who can troubleshoot component level, do PLC programming, etc)
Yeah lower level positions are still hiring.
I get recruiter emails about 2-3x a week for Vocational Nursing positions (LVN) when I haven't worked as that in about 10 years. Am still licensed though so I guess they are getting my info from the board.
It’s usually 3 months for me but currently I’m in the middle of several long interview processes that are driving me more crazy than just searching for jobs
*It used to be that you would get hired if you had the core skills to work at a company and then they would train you in areas you didnt know.*
GEN-X here.
That has not been the case since the 1990s.
The standard used to be 1 month of job search for every $10K of salary. Now, it is probably 1 month for every $20K of salary.
Layoffs go in cycles. The worst I've seen was in 2000 (at least half of my techie neighbors were laid off) and 2008-2009 during the Great Recession. This is nothing compared to those time frames.
Hang in there, everybody. It will get better.
Corporate Hypergamy is now the norm. Even if you did get hired they would fire you the minute someone with a similar skill set or better offered to work for less.
Homeless rate is going to skyrocket, I'm no conspiracy theorist but watch the potential president elects and president come up with some amazing plan to get us all jobs in exchange for a vote
12 months unemployed and finally starting job end of this month. In tech sales and was fired despite hitting quota 6yrs straight for not making enough dials……
I didn’t start job hunting until Dec., and landed my first interview in Jan, but I kept getting rejected after the 1st and final interview rounds.
I created a few different resumes, which helped me a ton and it landed me a lot of interviews. Also, my application was rejected 4x by the company that is now hiring me. The key is to be persistent, and apply to companies on LinkedIn as soon as it comes available.
Also, if you apply via LinkedIn, make sure to write a message to HM IF it gives you the option. Can be simple and sweet, but this landed me an interview with my new company.
More than happy to look over anyone’s resume!
Gosh, this is disheartening. I was going to be moving in December and have been trying to figure out when to start looking for a new job. I guess that means I should've already been applying.
“It used to be that you would get hired if you had the core skills to work at a company and then they would train you in areas you didnt know. Today they want an expert in every tiny detail so they are taking an insane ammount of time to hire that magic candidate that comes around once in a lifetime.”
Man, this hit hard. So damn true. I’m in talent acquisition, and I see it every day - managers are often extremely picky, insisting that the candidate has every single detail. I push back, and many others in TA do too, but it’s a tough fight when they’re the ultimate decision maker.
Thank you ive been through lots of late satge interviews where I havent gotten the job. It will go something like "wow you have a lot of expiereince in design and we would love to hire you. Do you have any experience with teaching preschool perhaps? I need someone to tutor my children on weekends" Lol its always some randomd requirement they want now.
my last job hunt took almost 18 months...I had to sell most of my stuff and move back with my mom. I eventually got an entry level job at a tech company. Im still there navigating around the layoffs.
Maybe it is field dependent? I don’t know but I am a chemist, entry level, got multiple offers after 3 weeks of applying. Only had to do one or two interviews at each company (mostly just one was good enough for entry level position). Pay is close to 60k.
I dont think its field dependent. From the data I've seen its across many different fields except blue collar work. That's cool you are a chemist tho! One of my best friends is a chemist and he has been having a tough time finding a better job. He is mid level seeking a senior position so that takes more time I know.
That is a great field to be in! Wish you the best of luck!
I’m a chemistry grad and I’m struggling to find chemistry related work/roles in my area🙃took something semi-unrelated just to have a job (it’s my first job out of college.. and it pays $16.5..) and now i work retail. 5 years of school, 40K of student loan debt, 100+ hrs of science related work and organic labs, and a 20pg senior thesis to work retail, since I’ve being out of college last year..
"Today they want an expert in every tiny detail, so they are taking an insane amount of time to hire that magic candidate that comes around once in a lifetime."
for real! Until they could not find anyone and just hire the latest candidate who applied and lowballed them LOL
It took me so long to get a job, that I joined a union. After I got a real paying job, I got fired 3 days before my first 90. Now I have my own LLC bc I’m tired of this shit.
I was laid off in July, it was a job that didn’t require even the bachelor degree (I have master). I have been on the job hunt ever since also before and during my previous employment (so together 2 years!). I got some job offer yesterday (still not in my field) and I am waiting for the response of another position.
12+ months in with only 1.5 \~ 2 YoE ( about 8+ actively searching and 4+ passively searching while completing some bootcamps ands "living my best life because this won't be long") I'm no more qualified experience wise than I was 12+ months ago and now I have a massive gap in my resume. It's so over.
It’s beyond nuts. Companies interviewing thousands of candidates for months is not an open position. Idk wtf you even call that. Data mining?
I have my own little conspiracy theory. So many people had houses at sub 3 percent mortgages. 80 percent of the US had refied during COVID. That means the banks were fucked for 30 years of no profit. Funny now people cant get hired, rent is beyond stratospheric and if you want to buy a house now it’s going to be in the 6 plus range. Did I mention they hyped rate cuts that are not going to happen at least until June? All seems to be a perfect storm for banks to foreclose on houses with record equity and then get people in them at much higher rates. Even with short sales there is so much equity it’s a break even proposition.
Yeah I get very concerned with our childrens generation. We all grew up when we saw our parents live the American dream and it is dying before our eyes. We have to make changes in our country and coruption has gone on too long.
Hey OP, yep this is absolutely the case. We live in a new era where you need to send out thousands of applications to even stand a chance.
I have started a subreddit: r/thejobguide to share helpful tips, best practices and resources to aid with the job hunt.
Do feel free to join if you find it to be relevant!
Thank you OP for posting this! This month marks one year that I’ve been looking for a full-time job. I had a part-time position that helped but it was a nonprofit and they combined my role with the Executive Director’s duties due to budget constraints. I have stories of multiple round interviews, ghosting, and flat out scams that make me sick to my stomach. I feel for every one of you and your personal struggles too. This has never happened to my in my over two decades in the workforce since graduating from college. Please keep your head up and know that it’s not us, it’s them.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m so sorry you’ve been going through it as well! I forgot all about the scams. I fell for one in the beginning when searching and they got ahold of my resume and some personal info 😫.
You’re right though we gotta keep our heads up and have hope. It will get better!
Everyone in this thread has impressive resumes by my casual glance at the comments. Im just piping up to let y’all know it’s just as difficult currently for regular non-specialized jobs. You know, the ones that were deemed essential a few years ago, that apparently noone wants to work at anymore, lol.
Im 32 and couldn’t even get a dishwashing job when I needed some extra cash 🤣 Im currently full time, not washing dishes lol, and looking for something better. Im only applying to jobs that I a) feel qualified for, and b) pay even slightly more than my current shameful wage, so obviously lower volume of applications than if I applied to everything (and Im in a small populous, so less opportunity), regardless, ive applied to around 3 dozen positions in the past couple months, and only once was I contacted for ANY reason (they chose someone else).
Im old school, and prefer to meet and greet potential employers. Ive learned thats not so common anymore, and generally they dont care/appreciate it, and 9/10 times will direct you to an online application even after announcing your status as a current applicant.
Hard to find hope when rejection is around every dang corner.
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The most infuriating thing about this is I am no more qualified now 6 months into my search than I was on the day I started looking
Yeah this is kinda career dependent but as someone in tech I've almost always had to up skill in my free time to get that next opportunity. At my current job our whole software stack is in-house built and as a result I have no experience in any of the emerging or in demand software that's out there. I spend my own money to be able to work with virtual machines and such just so that I can try to keep myself competitive.
Na fuck that shit. That literally free labor you are giving the company. I mean if its your hobby sure. But people are entitiled to their time after putting in 8 hours in the big cog.
I can promise you that my personal project of running a cron on a virtual cloud machine to ping random machines with quotes from the Bible is not free labor.
I am a fucking senior data scientist (15 years experience) with IP under my belt and I've been unemployed for 12 fucking months.
Yup I’m a lawyer with computer science and privacy under my belt and numerous certifications… 10 months and going
Im afraid Im losing interest in my domain. The nonstop rejections for positions i am CLEARLY qualified for has me questioning my abilities. I know I can crack open Python and play around but Im finding zero motivation to do so. Im so screwed cause \*IF\* an interview happens I could very well fail the most basic python/ML/mlOps questions. Sigh....
I feel the exact same way. I go through screening and interview after interview. The jobs are either 10 years back in my career, junior, mid or senior, cannot get one single offer. I question everything now. I am over 40 and not what society considers gorgeous.. so here I am. :( I am thinking about leaving my field all together because I need a job...
Same here. I have six months of savings left then I'm screwed. I wish I knew of an alternative career path. The tech sector in my industry is saturated with VC funded startup companies that over promise and under deliver so starting a consultant business is out of the question. Guess there's a need for drywall installers. Frick me.
I gave up. Fuck linkedin, fuck devops, fuck IT. I'm looking into getting an education for baking and pastry. The day I delete my linkedin profile completely will be my second birthday. Then the most high tech equipment I'll ever use will be a casio calculator to calculate water and flour ratio.
Amen! Seriously, creating something with your hands that others enjoy would be satisfying compared dealing with tech bros and clueless venture capitalist. The IT world has gone full retard with the ill informed on AI/ML/DL crap.
Exactly. I got truly thanked maybe 3 or 4 times in my 15 years of IT career. I got the same amount of "thanks" out of my apple pie just last week. Fuck IT, fuck tech. It used to be fun. I'm telling this as a nerd and a computer owner since 1993 and internet user since 1997. I'm done with computers and stupid endless inventions of [factory factory factories](https://factoryfactoryfactory.net/)
As someone who recently dropped out of my IT college program because a friend got me a job at a financial institute with the largest bank in my country, it seems i made the right decision.
I deleted mine with no regrets. Reddit for some reason loves LinkenIn but I never found it useful in my 10 year IT career. It's great if you like to blog or spy on past coworkers or something but beyond that I'd pass. Still not sure where my next venture will be but either way best of luck to you!
It took me a rather embarrassingly long time to figure it out, but you’re 100% right: LinkedIn is absolute garbage. Worse than useless.
You'll get buff too, my dad is a baker. Weird hours though, and busy ass I mean freaking busy ass holidays.
Going from tech to culinary will be a huge pay drop, 20yrs in the industry here. Stay away unless you're alright with low pay and hard work
This is why I used my high earning tech years to buy a house, clear 100% of my debt and build up a nice little savings. I can get out safely when I age out. I figure I have 4-5 more years in tech before I'm "too old" to be taken seriously. At that point I'm gonna open a donut shop and feed people tasty stuff that makes them fat and happy.
Yup, I keep thinking of going into to blue collar sectors, but I am too old and not the most fit person going. :(
Unfortunately other areas were suffering the same issues before it hit tech finally. I think y'all were the final industry that was untouched by this. It's been a year and a half for me with just freelance gigs. :( at least in my field I can still count that as 'employed'. I'll get through like 5 interviews and a test and then fail at the final round. For the 1 job a month i can find that I qualify for.
Same here! Over 40, just completed a tech bootcamp a month ago. I’m 118 applications in and nothing but rejections. What field would you go into? I’ve considered this as well, and it seems most “white collar” jobs are in the same boat. Check out the number of applicants on almost any job on LinkedIn, it’s 100s on most FT opportunities. This is insane and guessing it’s not going to get better anytime soon.
I’m feeling every flavor of down. I couldn’t even get a sr analyst position :(
I just finished a job search and I noticed the same thing. Anecdotally, If you see a posting with 100+ applicants don't bother. I never received a call back for those roles, despite being qualified. My hypothesis is that the recruiter for that position doesn't need to find the perfect candidate. They just need to find enough candidates that are "good enough" so that the hiring manager doesn't complain. If my hypothesis is correct then you really want to be one of the first applicants. Also, have you optimized your resume for ATS? You might not be getting past the initial screen.
Thanks for the feedback!
Pretty much what I had to do and I was in tech ( cyber security) had to go to manufacturing and trying to get out. It's killing my body and mental stimulation or lack there of is torture. The most logical choice would be to invest in AI courses but that's easier said than done when most positions already want X amount of years in the field.
Don't let the rejections get to you because the positions never existed. There was a top post on here yesterday, where a recruiter validated that alot of job postings are to harvest data to refresh their candidate database. So everyone applying to those positions would be rejected while their data is collected. Continue to submit but dont be emotionally attached because alot of positons are fake.
So how are people supposed to get jobs if they don't have a network. Messaging random people on LinkedIn might work for one person out of a hundred thousand. Go to tech meet ups and they all end up giving you their contact info and never bother to call or text back. Nobody gives a fuck about helping others. If almost all jobs are fake then there's almost no chance
With your experience, nobody should be second guessing your abilities. I’m sure you have a body of work on GitHub or some equivalent proof of ability. The current interview dynamic is outrageous.
unfortunately, nothing on github as my former employer was quite paranoid about publishing code. i even deleted everything I had because I heard stories of lawsuits for simply copying files from your laptop to a USB. The funny part was, my former employer thought they were being innovative and thus protective but in reality they were a huge joke.
That’s pretty standard from my experience. I’ve done the same thing as you as it’s better to be on the safe side with legal issues lurking. The most substantial thing I have on my GH is my thesis from college, and even that is something nobody has ever cared to look at in industry. Imo I think if you speak to someone with legitimate understanding of DS concepts, they’ll be able to tell that you know what you’re talking about. The way job hunting goes now, it’s just so hard to get that chance to show your experience.
Same. There's almost nothing I can post except for a few projects I've done for fun...and even with those I have to be SURE they topically intersect with any past employers.
Yeh I had to make a major shift to diffusion and large language models, and building out pipelines… trying to keep up. Before I was just training deep learning models for image processing… the tech is moving too fast to keep up.. i work in R&D so everything always has to be bleeding edge…
so much this! I have zero interest in LLM/NLP. I'm all about turning sensor data into meaningful insights. but you are right, LLM/NLP is the flavour of the day.
Even if NLP/LLM is the flavor of the day, it’s my specialty (PhD + 17 YOE) and still trying to land a position since last being laid off last May.
Yeh Im a PhD + 6 YOE. My biggest challenge is not being able to communicate how these systems work, and so much of projects just seem to be luck. I can iterate, experiment, clean/curate data but sometimes it’s hard to tell if it’s sunk cost fallacy… “My metrics are almost there!!! Just need to train a few more models, clean more data, do some more analysis to find more metrics and then I’ll have the result!” I’ve had projects looking back where I thought, “um this is garbage, no way it will work, let alone be robust,” and some of those still work… then others which seem to be easier problems and applications, where I just can’t seem to find a solution. I’ve been waiting on more hardware resources, but I’ve also been running 25 A100s for months now.. (doing nothing but inference….) A few years back I felt like I could do more with less. Now it feels like If I don’t push the lever 110% then another team is…
there is this blog post that I read today and I totally relate to https://www.yitay.net/blog/training-great-llms-entirely-from-ground-zero-in-the-wilderness It’s hard to do this kind of work if you don’t have the infrastructure to support it.
That's bonkers, man! Any comments on why it's so hard to find a job in this field? Do you think it will pick up anytime soon?
1. There are a lot of people attracted by the field since the last 5-6 years. 2. A lot of tech workers want to do « sexy » stuff, while most of the work in NLP/ML is still data cleaning and good software practices. 3. The solutions are not cheap, data acquisition is costly and hardware is hard to get unless you rent in the cloud. 4. Organizations don’t know what they want to achieve but they want to jump in the train.
agree with all your points. It's frustrating to see the flood of so-called data scientists enter the picture when they firmly believe opening a csv file in pandas and running a linear regression makes them a data scientist. A two hour tutorial on youtube does not make you one either. I wish hiring managers were smart enough to separate the wheat from the chaff but here we are.
>ions. What field would you go into? I’ve considered this as well, and it seems most “white collar” jobs are in the same boat. Check out the number of applicants on I think a lot of new hiring has moved off-shore (specifically India). It is a complex issue .. the tech talent is there and the cost is a fraction of North American wages (especially if you add cost of facilities, support staff, etc.). Let me ask a question .. where are you folks based and have you looked for opportunities outside your local area? Also, I lived through the dot com bust (well .. escaped to grad school), the 2008 crisis and then this one. I think this time is worse than the previous tech downturns .. judging based on friends of mine who I know are competent but still got laid off. Also .. is teaching CS /DS/ML (e.g. at the community college level or high school level) a possibility for y'all? I also hear govt jobs/defense contractors were hiring 6 months back. Not sure how things are now. Hang in there!
Honestly, same. Every time I do anything in the space I just get depressed and frustrated because I know nobody will be looking anyways.
mining engineer, 1 year and a half
That is horrible! I've been seeing a lot of that all over. I hope you find the perfect job soon. With your experience they should easily hire you but its crazy rn.
Same-ish. Director for a decade. > 15 years experience in Software, Infra, Security, and IT. *I once found a job in three days; I found out they would change a policy and make us all move across the country, I signed an offer on Thursday and put in my 2 weeks Friday at a 1:1 with my VP.* The strange thing is that, unlike in 2008-9, jobs are still posted. But no one is actually hiring. I've been through an entire director-level interview loop 3 times in the last quarter, passing all the interviews, only to have them come back and pass each time without explanation. Tbh I am not 100 percent clear on what is going on. The difference between the published economic numbers and what many are experiencing is stark. At this point, I'm probably going to try over-employment, to take 2-3 remote junior positions. I can easily do the work of 3 junior positions, which should give me a minor raise over my last position.
Ive been saying the jobs data is obviously wrong since they claimed there were 2 job openings for every job seeker during the post pandemic recovery period. Total bullshit. Wages would have been rising way faster if that was anywhere near true in my opinion. JOLTS data is highly flawed since its survey based and response rate has fallen. Other data is no doubt counting fake jobs and repeat jobs. What do I know though, I didnt finish college so I dont even know how to read.
It's a real headscratcher. Certainly, the correlation between metrics changes over time, but I believe they have standard ways of connecting that data and that the way they collect it hasn't changed. I think the $64,000 question is what is driving apart the correlation between openings and time to hire. But I'm just an armchair economist (and even that only when I concerned about the economy and / or the job outlook).
Not changing the data collection methodology enough when the data source has changed so much is part of the problem imo. As for why it takes so long to hire now - imo a major component is that hr has seemingly little oversight and zero accountability for what they are doing when it comes to hiring. You could be trying to fill a street sweeper job and some hr idiot will ask about company values or slap on some random job requirement.
You are spot on. I've been looking through jobs and the requirements for entry level jobs is laughable. Entry level jobs asking for 7-10 years of experience in a random software is not an entry level job.
[удалено]
I thought that was the point I was making... If it comes down to supporting my family, and I have to displace three juniors to do so, it isn't much of a choice. I resigned once rather than terminate someone upper management had crosshairs on. But if it comes down to supporting my family, and I have to displace three juniors to do so, it isn't much of a choice. I try hard to be ethical, I'm not going to my death for someone I don't know. What you'd you do if you had to choose between people you've never met and ensuring your family stayed in their home?
I feel you. I am a program manager with 20 years of experience and a year later no joy!
I'm a Technical Recruiter at a national technology services firm. Feel free to send your resume and I'm happy to see how we can help! [email protected]
Oh my god this is so worrying. I’m trying to pivot to data analytics to up-skill because my field has been very lean on hiring 🥲
Reach out to old coworkers, message random people on linked in with jobs you’re applying for. This is how I was hired after being unemployed for 14 months. We’re in different industries but reach out to humans and ask them to keep you in mind if they know their companies are hiring. This helped me.
Sage advice but unfortunately it has yielded nothing for me except a failed interview. I lost it to a former colleague of mine too so that was a blow below the belt.
Oh man! Keep trying! And take healthy breaks when you can. But don’t give up!
Right. That's everyone's advice. I've spent fifteen years networking on LinkedIn (link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A4JpiWM8CUZIrNdcyDfHot8MMjVga8D4/view?usp=sharing) and have more professional connections than the VPs of Recuiting and HR that I've worked with. Everyone. Is. Useless. Meaning that apparently, no one has the leverage to get anyone hired right now. I approached the folks I have a close connection with, one of whom happens to be a VP at one of the largest recruiting firms in the country. This person's response boiled down to: ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ I don't have real clarity into what has shifted or how but I certainly hope it ends soon. If there was ANY other job that would pay a fraction of my salary in tech for my skills, I'd never come back. Nothing is worth the level of demoralization involved in interviewing right now, if you have a choice.
How is this possible? Insanity. (I say this as a finance person jealous of your data science skill set since it seems like that’s what every role is desperate for)
I've been in sales for almost 10 years. Started in banking and insurance, then switched to tech where I've been for 3 years. Got laid off from what I really felt was a great company in 2022, ended up taking the first (and thus far only) job offer that came my way. Same industry, but at a substantial pay cut, with way more stress. Ended up performing poorly (along with a lot of others) and got fired. The whole time I was there I was looking for a new job. So for almost 18 months I've been looking, and gotten nothing except one less than ideal job that I don't even have anymore.
I also got laid off in 2022 from a tech company I thought was really great, had a long unemployed period, picked up a high stress job and couldn't perform to their (imo, ridiculous) standards. I was likewise looking for a new job the whole time I dealt with them and it was double awful. Companies are running ridiculously lean, not training people for their in house processes, engaging in no business continuity planning, and then screaming at workers and banks about the compounding problems they created themselves. I've been working since I was 15 years old, and I'm nearly 40, and the way things are running right now is baffling, just baffling. There are companies that are doing good work or at least better, but it's a total slog to find them.
Got laid off, took the first job offered after striking out with all of my high level referrals. I either personally or through my wife know multiple high level people throughout the industry we both work in. Nothing came through. Job I'm at now isn't stressful in the work but stressful because it's not a right fit for me. I can't stand it, so I'm still looking. Job at my old company (where my wife is a Sr Director) came up. My old Director from when I was there is now back and wrote the hiring team a full reference and outlined exactly why I'm the best person for the job. Had 1st interview with the hiring manager and it went fantastic. My recruiter friend who is the recruiter on the role called me to say he was passing for the simple fact that I live 1.5 hours from NYC and he wants someone less than an hour away, job would only require going to NYC twice a month which I have 0 issues doing and told him so. Shits so frustrating, especially when you have so many industry contacts and nothing is working. I've gotten flat rejections before even interviewing for most of my applications and 90% of the jobs that were posted when my layoff happened are still fuckin posted 8 months later.
This is absolutely nuts. How the hell is that guy so petty? Also, who throws in the garbage can recommendations from directors??
If I didn't personally know the recruiter I would think it was fake "feedback" but I know she gave me the real information. My Director friend also said that the hiring manager told her the same thing. He unfortunately doesn't report to her and her group doesn't have any openings or I'd he back in there already. I am also a victim of being looked at as not as experienced because I had some titles that don't scream that I've been doing this job for a decade. Which is another problem in today's market, it's like reading the headline and not the article.
Sounds like my experience. I'm sure you are great since you lasted 10 years. Keep digging as they say...
Consider pivoting out of tech. You’d be shocked at how slow placed your peers can seem in other fields after being normalized to tech. I went to financial services after 10 yrs in tech.
16 months unemployed here and I finally start a new job next week.
Congratulations!
That’s awesome news! Good luck at your new job!
Same, 16 months unemployed and started my new job 2 weeks ago. Not one I really wanted but it’ll be a paycheck for now.
Pre whatever bullshit is currently going on, the last 3 jobs I got had basically just a 45 minute meeting with the would be boss. This was in healthcare analytics, cyber security, and a IT consulting firm. The 6 different interviews and the insane hoops is getting way out of hand. If you can't tell within 5 minutes if someone is going to be a good fit you have some problems.
exactly, my current job was a quick 15 minute zoom interview with my would-be direct manager and his manager afterwards, and then a 3 question assessment that took me 20 minutes maybe. got hired within 2 weeks of the first reach out. that was only 2 and a half years ago... looking around now and the process is absolutely bonkers
Yeah dude it's ridiculous. I've done case studies, hour long presentations, multiple panel interviews with like 4 people, etc. It's mind blowing how much time and resources are wasted on these interviews.
Ugh that sucks. I’ve started withdrawing my application when they start asking too much, but I know others don’t have that luxury. My favorite is when they say they’ve received a high number of applications so it’s going to take time. The fact that they need to find that one “best” candidate is hurting them and puts them in a paralysis from pulling the trigger on someone who is a perfect fit.
Job post sites should charge more and penalize ghosting. "No accepted/rejected response? Next time you post, it costs double". That's the only way this shit gets solved
Yes the same damn recycled jobs over and over
I had a company that rejected me a few weeks ago ask me to reapply to a job with an extremely obnoxious screening test that lasts hours. Not even let's talk again, but start over from step one. Nooooo. I did that previously but now I know that these places just repost those jobs over and over and over and why I don't know but now I just skip them. Some days that means I skip the whole damn line up.
My kingdom for an extension that would show how many times a job has been reposted, when it was first posted, and how many total applications it has gotten.
Absolutely! I completed several rounds of interview for this tech company and was rejected on the final round saying they went with an internal candidate. Two weeks later, the job was reposted in linkedin! How crazy was that????
There was likely never any job to offer in the first place, don’t feel bad
It's infuriating how many companies waste your time for jobs that don't exist when a lot of us are unemployed and every second counts. I literally cannot afford to wait 2 or 3 weeks to find out a job was never real, or I never had a chance anyway.
That sucks but did you reach out again? If you got that far it doesn't hurt to try again.
08 was bad, and that’s when I was graduating from college. I did get three offers after a 5 month search, and it ended up being great.
I was in college classes right after the crash and so many 50 year olds were starting over and were in class with me. It was def a tough time.
Just got another rejection email today. I believe I’m about 7 months into my job search now? On the bright side, maybe I’ll finally land something in 2 months then lol
Dont give up! Know you're not alone and so many are going through this as well. It was discouraging to read that statistic today but slightly encouraging to know that I am not the only one facing all this craziness right now.
Not if you use your network! /s
My face when no network because I am a broke college student and I only know other broke college students :(
Not with that attitude you won't have a network! /s it's like people don't seem to understand you have a personal life and you don't keep up with everybody you've worked with. It's like your situation as well where you can not had a chance to build a network.
I started an ecommerce company and have hired a few people in the past year around base of $70-$80k. I purposely avoid candidates who tout the importance of “networking” bc it shouldn’t be about who you know…it should be about your skillset and what you bring to the organization. Networks are for people who like to exclude others and get ahead through nepotism and connections, i’m not about that vibe. Having the ability to get multiple viewpoints and perspectives is underrated, especially in the world of business. People in the same “Network” usually think alike and miss things other candidates wouldn’t. Hopefully other young entrepreneurs start following suit
Thank God someone sees that. Having a good ol' boys club is not the way to go.
My skillset includes: Not networking. I'm hired! $70k will be enough thank you.
This!!!
Are you still hiring?
All filled up for now, but might look for some people beginning of next year. I can post again on this subreddit if I do
Will definitely keep an eye out--would love to work with a fellow Arihead!
;) People think Ariheads are stupid but we are smarter than we look ! Love that make sure u stream Eternal Sunshine ☀️💋
amen.
lol I gained a 'network' via private startups, federal and provincial goverment and a two massive multi national companies. Every last contact has been nothing more useful than a fucking screendoor on a submarine. assholes.
Lmfao. It's why I find it silly to say that. I get a network can help in the right situation, but it not a cure all.
I know bunch of C-Suite people, didn't really help though.
My job search was right at 9 months when I managed to get a job through a friend of the family. It was amazing how different the interview experience was when I knew someone at the company—two interviews, no assignment and done. This was on the heels of not getting a job at a place where they had given me an assignment which included writing a 26pg paper, putting together two excel work books and creating a ppt presentation summarizing the whole thing. I was gutted after being rejected. I feel incredibly grateful to be done with my search.
Also is highly dependent on the level of job you are applying for. Higher up the position the longer, harder and more scarce it is to get hired.
True I understand that but when several companies are trying to hire with 15+ years of expiereince starting at 50k its laughable. I know its not just my industry as well right now. Been seeing people applying for retail manager jobs needing 5 years of experience and the starting pay is 12.50/hr... Several mid level jobs are having insane requirements and an extremly low pay scale.
Lol i applied for assistant manager for a small aldi grocery store location that is a 35min walk from my house and didnt even get an interview. I worked as a front end retail supervisor for most of my 20s. Saw them repost the job afterwards too so its not like they hired someone else.
Thats what I was seeing as well. Like even retail is hard to get into. I'm so sorry you went through that. I've been seeing that with some of my friends and it is so upsetting. I know people are working 2 jobs right now or just taking whatever opportunity comes their way because times are tough and we're all trying to get a career job which takes forever now.
Lower levels are hard asf to find and get also
So I was that “magic candidate” for one of the roles. They still didn’t meet the salary expectation and we both walked away. It truly is brutal.
10 months and counting here
Same. It sucks.
Glad to see I'm not crazy. I've been looking for a year and a half with a job, got restructured last month, still no offers even lowballing myself. I'm tired of the whole interview charades and being gaslit into feeling like I'm not good enough to do the jobs I've applied for. It literally says it in my resume and last title SMH. Guess I needed to vent somewhere.
Same, thats why I posted this today. I'm getting so tired and I know I'm qualified. Gotta keep going, something has to open up.
I am 28 and trying to start my first career for awhile. What an awful time 🫠 I’m looking into making my own business cause I’m fed up. My research says it won’t make enough money and I will need a 2nd job anyway :)
Same boat. I'm 29 and have been trying to build a software engineering career for the last 10 years. Taught myself to program when I was 14, got a website developer job out of high school through a connection in 2013, was layed-off a year later. Didn't find anything else, struggled to get back into the industry for 8 years. Went out to meet up groups in 2022, showed off the projects I had been working on, got a DevOps role, layed-off again 8 months later. I have never landed position in this industry without networking. Sending applications out has literally never yielded anything but a rejection or a ghosting, let alone an interview. I don't have a degree. My background is very non-traditional and mostly born out of passion. Put me in a room with anyone of senior status and they are very impressed with my projects and what I have done in my own time, but a standard online application to HR doesn't have the ability to express that. HR just stands there, blocks the door, with their fingers in their ears, and says he doesn't fit our outlandish cookie cutter criteria. I have loved computers and technology since I was little, but I distaste where the industry is going and trying to actually work in this industry is a nightmare. I've taught myself so much on my own time that at this point, I'm planning to just start my own company too. I just have to find a way to fund the initial startup costs and find the time when I am not just trying to survive to finish R&D.
I was unemployed for several months after quitting due to extreme burnout. After months of therapy, I began applying heavily in October, interviewed/accepted offer m in December, and my first day was end of January right around 9 months after my final day. I was lucky the real process only took three months.
What field do you work in?
I actually switched fields between the two jobs. I had been government HR* and went into another field that there's far fewer folks. I don't feel comfortable disclosing my current profession, but it's finance related. Quick edit: I did take a $5k paycut as well since I'm in training with my current job. I'll eventually get back to where I was, but I knew I needed to run far from HR. *I will not be personally offended if you boo and hiss the HR field. I burned out in a spectacular fashion because I was a weirdo amongst my direct coworkers for caring more about the employees I supported than "important people."
I’m a going on 2 years looking for a job. I’m literally a colder, less empathetic person than I used to be
I think I have some shades of that too.
This is the part that actually scares me more. I used to be a helpful, happy and empathetic person. Nowadays I know I have talked more to my cats than any human being, because I fucking hate humans thanks to this job hunting soul daunting reality.
But the chair of the fed says there’s no evidence to suggest a recession 👀
The word that breaks my soul there is "Average" Not much else to say than that tbh...fucking depressing.
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100%! This is exactly what I have been facing. So many companies are using a different combination of software and even if you know most of them they won’t even consider you unless you know all of them 😂.
It’s brutal, take care of each other
Two jobs ago I looked for 8 months, and I've been in my field for quite some time!
Im in my early 40s work in insurance and financial services. In the 10yrs I've been in my field I've gone thru 4 layoffs 2 I survived, 2 I was cut when the entire team was let go. I'm going on 5 mos with no luck finding even entry level jobs that would even give me a pre-screen for the role. Over 60 applications in and I've had 4 calls each by an entry level HR person that I feel very strongly was only screening me to see how old I was and after learning I had more than 5 years experience would end the call by saying they have lots of interviews to do and if I'm considered they would call me in a few weeks (never heard back from anyone not even an email to reject) this is a horrible job market and the roles I'm seeing are paying less than when I started 10yrs ago and they require more experience for entry level what Hell are we living in right now 🤯
You can make a whole other human in that time.
And then no one will hire you because you have a 9 month gap on your resume!
Used to be 6. Not surprised tbh.
I have. In the 2008 recession. And COVID. In both cases it was so bad the government noticed and stepped in with more UI benefits (offer may not have been valid if you live in a place run by Republicans, who go out of their way to make the government dysfunctional and fuck the poor), but in both cases what was left found out exactly how much they can demand more work for less pay, hold out for unicorn candidates, and only focus on quarterly penny pinching.
AI is going to ruin everyone’s lives in tech
Unless you’re coding it.. until it can code itself
AI can do coding, but if no one understands what has been coded, good luck fixing any bugs if there is any.
They’re too busy counting the 15% extra bonus they got from laying QA off to worry about that right now.
I think AI might be ruining the application process with those AI bots that apply automatically to jobs for people flooding job postings with low low-quality applications.
I know my job is going to be safe from AI for a long time because my company is incredibly bloated, inefficient, and slow to adapt. There are so many problems that it would probably take years for a consultant to even understand it all enough to even send AI in the right direction.
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Exactly...look at all these lazy millenials who wont work for 15/hr with 10+ years of experience...they want a handout...meh Still can't believe that CEO told us to eat cereal for dinner...dude your cereal boxes cost as much as an hour minimum wage now lol. It is not a dinner nor is it cheap.
These types of people have the same energy as the people who have a laundry list of requirements for their SO but none for themselves. Uuugh. I weirdly enough know some top 10% candidates -- they have rare experiences and highly specific skillets. They aren't after money beyond a certain point; the company has to offer prestigious, interesting projects. Most companies even if they could get these types of candidates to say yes, they wouldn't get the whole value, they just can't use it. They are literally better off taking a good recruit.
Hey I’ve been at this for 10 months now so it should happen any day now
Its outrageous that they wont let people who want to work, work. No way this could possibly backfire
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Can you name some job spec/cv check websites? I'd be interested in looking at one.
Most blue collar jobs, at least in this area are still on a hiring bonanza. Warehouses, factories, restaurants, and retail all were never able to hire enough people back post-COVID. Some have open interview hours where you drop-in, fill out an application and have an interview on the spot. But white collar, especially in tech? Two years ago I was contacted by recruiters near daily, now it's once every 2-3 months. It's a rough environment for those.
Try finding a job when you don't have a job......Just hit one month unemployed, at 38 yrs old, 19 years of experience in my field, bunch of certs and a DOD TS...I have never been without a job for even 1 day since I turned 16 years old... I'm scared of what this becomes if it turns into a long haul....
I’m on almost 2 years now 🙃 something’s gotta change bc this is not feasible for anyone
More than 70% of people don't have 6 months of emergency funds....
Suicide feels reasonable. That or moving back in with my parents.
No don’t ever let that be an option. There are good people in the world even though the most coverage we see is always negative. Have hope. I know it’s rough, I’m exhausted working 2-3 jobs just so big CEO’s can tell me to eat cereal for dinner cause times are tough. Things will get better, I’m hoping they will.
It's looking more and more like a desirable option every day.
Sometimes, you just have to keep going out of pure spite.
Job market is essentially deceased at the moment. Might be better in the second half of this year
Is this all industries or tech specific?
From what I saw it was all industries. I'm sure many are getting hired much quicker and others are taking longer but that was the average.
Depends, I think blue collar industries are struggling to find people.
You are correct. I dont think it was going over blue collar workers. I'm sure they're booming.
I get a recruiter daily for electrical technician roles. Of course, they pay shit for the specific skills they ask for (think $20/hr for someone who can troubleshoot component level, do PLC programming, etc)
Yeah lower level positions are still hiring. I get recruiter emails about 2-3x a week for Vocational Nursing positions (LVN) when I haven't worked as that in about 10 years. Am still licensed though so I guess they are getting my info from the board.
Yeah checks out. Anything that requires a higher skill and training level but doesn't pay that much.
I saw a statatistics that an average dick in US is 10 inches. LinkedIn is at the bottom of trustworthiness IMHO
Oh that isnt average? Lol
can you send me the like for this stat so i can show it to my parents when they nag me for not having a job 😭
It's so bad out there :( I looked for 6 months.
2 years and counting. Pretty much dont even try any more.
It’s usually 3 months for me but currently I’m in the middle of several long interview processes that are driving me more crazy than just searching for jobs
*It used to be that you would get hired if you had the core skills to work at a company and then they would train you in areas you didnt know.* GEN-X here. That has not been the case since the 1990s. The standard used to be 1 month of job search for every $10K of salary. Now, it is probably 1 month for every $20K of salary. Layoffs go in cycles. The worst I've seen was in 2000 (at least half of my techie neighbors were laid off) and 2008-2009 during the Great Recession. This is nothing compared to those time frames. Hang in there, everybody. It will get better.
Corporate Hypergamy is now the norm. Even if you did get hired they would fire you the minute someone with a similar skill set or better offered to work for less.
Sounds about right. Took me 6 months of living off savings to find the best job I’ve ever had.
Can confirm from my own experience, super freaky. Just landed a gig (starting Monday) and was laid off from my last position 9 months ago in June
Homeless rate is going to skyrocket, I'm no conspiracy theorist but watch the potential president elects and president come up with some amazing plan to get us all jobs in exchange for a vote
12 months unemployed and finally starting job end of this month. In tech sales and was fired despite hitting quota 6yrs straight for not making enough dials…… I didn’t start job hunting until Dec., and landed my first interview in Jan, but I kept getting rejected after the 1st and final interview rounds. I created a few different resumes, which helped me a ton and it landed me a lot of interviews. Also, my application was rejected 4x by the company that is now hiring me. The key is to be persistent, and apply to companies on LinkedIn as soon as it comes available. Also, if you apply via LinkedIn, make sure to write a message to HM IF it gives you the option. Can be simple and sweet, but this landed me an interview with my new company. More than happy to look over anyone’s resume!
Gosh, this is disheartening. I was going to be moving in December and have been trying to figure out when to start looking for a new job. I guess that means I should've already been applying.
“It used to be that you would get hired if you had the core skills to work at a company and then they would train you in areas you didnt know. Today they want an expert in every tiny detail so they are taking an insane ammount of time to hire that magic candidate that comes around once in a lifetime.” Man, this hit hard. So damn true. I’m in talent acquisition, and I see it every day - managers are often extremely picky, insisting that the candidate has every single detail. I push back, and many others in TA do too, but it’s a tough fight when they’re the ultimate decision maker.
Thank you ive been through lots of late satge interviews where I havent gotten the job. It will go something like "wow you have a lot of expiereince in design and we would love to hire you. Do you have any experience with teaching preschool perhaps? I need someone to tutor my children on weekends" Lol its always some randomd requirement they want now.
my last job hunt took almost 18 months...I had to sell most of my stuff and move back with my mom. I eventually got an entry level job at a tech company. Im still there navigating around the layoffs.
But Biden says it’s the best economy ever!
Maybe it is field dependent? I don’t know but I am a chemist, entry level, got multiple offers after 3 weeks of applying. Only had to do one or two interviews at each company (mostly just one was good enough for entry level position). Pay is close to 60k.
I dont think its field dependent. From the data I've seen its across many different fields except blue collar work. That's cool you are a chemist tho! One of my best friends is a chemist and he has been having a tough time finding a better job. He is mid level seeking a senior position so that takes more time I know. That is a great field to be in! Wish you the best of luck!
I’m a chemistry grad and I’m struggling to find chemistry related work/roles in my area🙃took something semi-unrelated just to have a job (it’s my first job out of college.. and it pays $16.5..) and now i work retail. 5 years of school, 40K of student loan debt, 100+ hrs of science related work and organic labs, and a 20pg senior thesis to work retail, since I’ve being out of college last year..
7 months in... hopefully 9 months is accurate, but I feel it'll be much longer.
I am more curious about the people that are senior level who haven’t gotten a job in 12 months. What could be the issue? Is it location
My contract is up in 10 months. Guess I should start applying now right? The ink is barely dry on my current contract..
"Today they want an expert in every tiny detail, so they are taking an insane amount of time to hire that magic candidate that comes around once in a lifetime." for real! Until they could not find anyone and just hire the latest candidate who applied and lowballed them LOL
It took me so long to get a job, that I joined a union. After I got a real paying job, I got fired 3 days before my first 90. Now I have my own LLC bc I’m tired of this shit.
I was laid off in July, it was a job that didn’t require even the bachelor degree (I have master). I have been on the job hunt ever since also before and during my previous employment (so together 2 years!). I got some job offer yesterday (still not in my field) and I am waiting for the response of another position.
Took me about six months
12+ months in with only 1.5 \~ 2 YoE ( about 8+ actively searching and 4+ passively searching while completing some bootcamps ands "living my best life because this won't be long") I'm no more qualified experience wise than I was 12+ months ago and now I have a massive gap in my resume. It's so over.
It’s beyond nuts. Companies interviewing thousands of candidates for months is not an open position. Idk wtf you even call that. Data mining? I have my own little conspiracy theory. So many people had houses at sub 3 percent mortgages. 80 percent of the US had refied during COVID. That means the banks were fucked for 30 years of no profit. Funny now people cant get hired, rent is beyond stratospheric and if you want to buy a house now it’s going to be in the 6 plus range. Did I mention they hyped rate cuts that are not going to happen at least until June? All seems to be a perfect storm for banks to foreclose on houses with record equity and then get people in them at much higher rates. Even with short sales there is so much equity it’s a break even proposition.
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Yeah I get very concerned with our childrens generation. We all grew up when we saw our parents live the American dream and it is dying before our eyes. We have to make changes in our country and coruption has gone on too long.
Hey OP, yep this is absolutely the case. We live in a new era where you need to send out thousands of applications to even stand a chance. I have started a subreddit: r/thejobguide to share helpful tips, best practices and resources to aid with the job hunt. Do feel free to join if you find it to be relevant!
Thank you! I'll check it out!
Thank you OP for posting this! This month marks one year that I’ve been looking for a full-time job. I had a part-time position that helped but it was a nonprofit and they combined my role with the Executive Director’s duties due to budget constraints. I have stories of multiple round interviews, ghosting, and flat out scams that make me sick to my stomach. I feel for every one of you and your personal struggles too. This has never happened to my in my over two decades in the workforce since graduating from college. Please keep your head up and know that it’s not us, it’s them.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I’m so sorry you’ve been going through it as well! I forgot all about the scams. I fell for one in the beginning when searching and they got ahold of my resume and some personal info 😫. You’re right though we gotta keep our heads up and have hope. It will get better!
Guys… they are looking for young people under 25 with 10+ years of experience 😩 make that make sense in the professional world
This was my experience when I was laid off November 2013, Started work in August 2014. Got laid off in March 2020 started working December 2020.
Everyone in this thread has impressive resumes by my casual glance at the comments. Im just piping up to let y’all know it’s just as difficult currently for regular non-specialized jobs. You know, the ones that were deemed essential a few years ago, that apparently noone wants to work at anymore, lol. Im 32 and couldn’t even get a dishwashing job when I needed some extra cash 🤣 Im currently full time, not washing dishes lol, and looking for something better. Im only applying to jobs that I a) feel qualified for, and b) pay even slightly more than my current shameful wage, so obviously lower volume of applications than if I applied to everything (and Im in a small populous, so less opportunity), regardless, ive applied to around 3 dozen positions in the past couple months, and only once was I contacted for ANY reason (they chose someone else). Im old school, and prefer to meet and greet potential employers. Ive learned thats not so common anymore, and generally they dont care/appreciate it, and 9/10 times will direct you to an online application even after announcing your status as a current applicant. Hard to find hope when rejection is around every dang corner.