Looking for a Job Is Tough

Sometimes I feel like you guys live in alternative universe. Nothing about the "bad" interview sounded too atypical. Sure it's annoying, but not uncommon enough to be exceptional.

I don't mean to discount anyone's unpleasantness but you'd be surprised how much worse the rest of the world is.

That's kind of the point, the "typical" experience is actually pretty bad for job hunters

Software engineers are used to companies fighting over them. Now we're in a market where it's normal to have lots of experience yet be unemployed for months. So it's a shock for many (though not atypical when compared to plenty of other fields of knowledge work, as you note).

Try to get a job in finance, accounting, marketing, law, or other kinds of engineering. 7+ rounds of interviews, weird pop-psych questions, even getting a reply/meeting is a problem ...

How about ghost jobs? This is a newish phenomena and wonder if it affects other sectors than IT.

Applying to and taking a new job requires bidirectional approval and sense of fit. The way a company conducts its interview process is a reflection of the corporate culture and sometimes is enough to erode the sense of fit on the applicant's side. If the interview process is a disorganized mess, why should the applicant believe the rest of the company is any different?

Yeah, months between professional jobs has historically been completely normal if you couldn't interleave continue working and job searching. The meme (even if exaggerated) of rage-quitting a software job on Monday, sending out some emails, and having a few higher-paying offers by the end of the week is a complete aberration.

(Oh, and historically in many cases, it might also have involved moving across the country.)

I was talking to multiple people at an event fairly recently and there was general consensus that tech was in a "weird" place right now relative to the past decade or so.

Generally I agree but but when the bills keep stacking up and savings getting depleted it gets harder to be picky.

"It's bad everywhere" or "it's worse elsewhere" does not mean it's not bad

"Other people have it worse" is not a compelling reason to make people believe their own shitty situation is good

Maybe we could improve the interviewing in all industries?

But we could start with Software since that's where most of the people on this board work

I don't think SWE interviews are bad. And I have no idea who's the "we" that's supposed to fix it globally.

The solution to this problem is regulations.

If employers were obligated to pay prospective employees for their time then they wouldn't waste time

Agree but sometimes smaller organizations have allot going on and not enough people to stay on top of it all. These can be the best opportunities.

I was talking to someone who is applying in another industry and they were bemoaning having to list a bunch of references on their resume, and having to call all their references to talk about the businesses that might contact them, what to say, etc.

Leetcode stuff sucks, but it is kind of nice being an industry where I can have no college degree and no references, but over the course of a few 1 hour interviews demonstrate competence.

Or the past? I wasn't around back then, but I've heard the 2001 recession was the same.

I got really lucky even if my comp was pretty mediocre for a number of years. But it was pretty much nuclear winter and many people (not just developers) left the tech industry.

Do you think that SWE interviews are perfect and could not possibly be improved?

I personally think there's a lot of room for improvement in interview processes, regardless of if they are currently "bad" or not, they certainly could be better

I also don't think things ever really improve broadly as long as there are enough people who think "that's actually not that bad"

In tech, I've tended to provide references. Don't know if they were ever called but I had them lined up. And pretty much all my jobs have been through my network in any case.

I don't think it's perfect, but I truly don't think it's bad. I had a few experiences that I didn't like and so I walked away. And I don't think there's a reasonable way to regulate what makes SWE interviews bad.

Very much a new-ish thing but quite pervasive. I see it all the time. Massive amounts of jobs are being posted to drive competition or to make the company look like they are growing, but there's no intention to hire anyone.

? ghost jobs have been a phenomenon for years.