> 2. FAANGMANGAMEME never hired that many truly exceptional people in the first place and you've fallen for corporate propaganda.
in my experience, FAANGMANGAMEME hires good people but they get placed on a weird career trajectory.
they learn how to work experience in enormous well funded company that has spent a fortune building fancy in-house tools for their dev experience, spend their time thinking about scaling problems that no other company will likely ever face, and all covered in ten layers of bureaucracy and "process".
if you hire a faang employee into your startup or normal mid-sized business, there needs to be a bit of a detox period where they have to learn what software dev is like for the rest of us mere mortals.
I don't doubt there are exceptional people working at BigCo at any role you or I can name, but by definition, it isn't possible that _everyone_ working there is exceptional.
> If I'm the owner of a business and I have hundreds of applicants for every job, I'm picking the one who looks least likely to cause trouble outside of work, assuming everything else is equivalent.
Interesting. If _I_ was the owner of a business, I would try to find the people, who have ideals, dedication, like understanding what they deliver, being thorough in their work, like to learn, etc.. Well rounded persons. Individuals, whom you can give a task and they will search and find a solution. I find the hyperallergic reaction to people who stand for something, anything actually, to be very superficial and short-sighted. Businesses which do that are bound to become mediocre, due to hiring mediocre yes sayers.
But then I am not a business owner, for a reason. I probably couldn't deal with all the crap one has to wade through to be a business owner.
As a small business owner, I look for people who can walk the line. Who understand that there's a bottom line, but also that we are not machine men with machine hearts.
I respect the candidates who stand for something and can pragmatically navigate the social space of work at the same time. I find that people who just want to shut up and lick boot don't end up being very creative problem solvers. It's easy to say for me as a small biz; different atmosphere in larger corps, but I can't subscribe to the reality presented by the cynical grandparent post here. I think we can be better than this.
Stuff does actually happen, out there in the real world. It's OK - even preferable - for people to engage with the world instead of ignoring it.
> Maybe the virtue signaling is still strong here and I'll get flagged
Having beliefs, a sense of morality, and a personality are actually not virtue signaling. Having a solid and informed perspective on the world is an important part of being a complete human being. It makes for better employees, too.
If I'm a shitty friend, I might give the same advice as what you just said. Just go find a company that is pro-{whatever you're supporting at the moment}.
If I think the problem is my friend, I might tell them what I wrote.
Having a solid and informed perspective on the world is an important part of being a complete human being.
I agree with this and I'd try to inform my long-term unemployed friend of what employers actually look for in the real world.
Having beliefs
I don't come across as someone who doesn't have beliefs, right? I have very strong beliefs in general. I also don't think my post says to throw out all your beliefs and values and free thoughts.
> Just go find a company that is pro-{whatever you're supporting at the moment}.
You give yourself away when you say things like this. Your phrasing here comes across as if you think that people who support social change are fickle and unprincipled, just following whatever is popular.
> I don't come across as someone who doesn't have beliefs, right? I have very strong beliefs in general.
Oh you do come across as having beliefs. Not ones that you seem willing to state or actually stand behind, though.
Your phrasing here comes across as if you think that people who support social change are fickle and unprincipled, just following whatever is popular.
No, this is not what I'm saying. I'm saying you need to do everything possible to present yourself as someone who is 100% dedicated to the company and not cause headaches and troubles. Anyone who is unemployed for a year should not be openly talking about controversial things on the internet or interviews or putting that stuff on a resume/blog.
>you need to do everything possible to present yourself as someone who is 100% dedicated to the company
This is wrong. You should strike a balance (that admittedly errs on the side of "I admire your business"). You absolutely do not want to be working for an employer who rewards "100% DEDICATION TO THE COMPANY" in an interview. That's absolutely sick. In fact, I'll go further: It is our duty to do everything we can to destroy the minority of leaders who demand this quality from applicants. This is a form of business every civilized nation should aggressively eject from their culture. It is an ignorant, incompetent, destructive form of business that other cultures have formulated in the 21st century based on a cartoon version of American business.
It entirely depends on the market. Starving and unemployed for a year? You gotta do what you need to do to survive. Let's take off those rose-tinted glasses.
You are an independent entity that will be selling your services to a company. If you want to maximize your potential customer base (employers), minimize your interest in anything that isn't relevant to the company making money. You want to maximize traits that make money, and minimize traits that lose money.
That doesn't mean throwing your values out the window, but does mean separating your personal life from your work life, and understanding that your opportunity window shrinks with each "non-negotiable" you require.
I’m a senior lead at a big (not tech) company and have had multiple people change jobs in the past few months for much better offers. I’ve had two places try to hire me in the past six months. Things were down for a bit with the rise of AI (I’d imagine a “wait and see” approach) but I’m personally seeing a lot of people trying to recruit now.
It's at least satisfying these company owners are feeling the squeeze of the end of ZIRP. Soon they'll realize that not only are there "hundreds of employees" vying for jobs but also hundreds of companies vying for customers, and the approach of picking the meekest mice to fill the slot means their application for a customer ends up in the shit-pile against one of the other 200 companies applying for a customer with employees with some balls.
I don't disagree with you. I've been saying for years here that we might see an increase in software engineering demand. There will be many more companies employing software engineers but companies won't need hundreds/thousands of engineers anymore.
Self expression at the workplace where you bring your home self to the office hadn’t been much of a thing if you were not your own boss till you had the likes of Sun, Netscape, etc where people were allowed liberties like bringing their pets to the office, pajamas to work etc., as a way to endear the employee to the boss. Once the mid teens hit and every company was letting the inmates run the asylum, it was no longer something that set a company apart. However now companies have the upper hand and are showing it by controlling your self at work. It’s a way to communicate who has the upper hand whether it makes sense or not. One has to know one’s context and act accordingly if you want to work within that system. If you become your own boss or become someone else’s boss you get to set the rules again.
But it is a sad state of affairs if you have to self-suppress you're freedoms to work. That is how freedom dies isn't it? Everyone fearful to speak or lose a job.
"Just shut up and code, have to get those gas chambers up and running themselves, so we can stick the rest of you lot into them."
> The most important one is your attitude. If this is an employer's market, you need to present as someone who isn't going to cause any trouble. No him/her. No entitled attitude. No I hate everything attitude. No I'm always the victim attitude. You need to present yourself as someone who isn't likely to sue your boss, or advocate to form a union, or walk out on your company for supporting Israel or Palestine or Ukraine or Russia or China or whatever propaganda is on TV at the moment
As you said, this isn't about OP who didn't mention any of these.
But honestly, I don't think most companies read applicants' resumes and interviews deeply enough to even derive "attitude" from them. There is such an overabundance of supply that they have to use coarse, blunt filters to narrow the incoming list down to something manageable. Getting noticed and not rejected by the layers of AI filtering is likely almost a pure numbers/luck game at this point. When you have hundreds of applicants at the top of the funnel per job opening, who has time to figure out whether one particular applicant has an undesirable attitude?
> When you have hundreds of applicants at the top of the funnel per job opening, who has time to figure out whether one particular applicant has an undesirable attitude?
I had a recruiter (from a company I previously went through the pipeline with, though did not get an offer, as a PM) reach out to me last week to assess availability and fit for a few options. I was looking at their Careers page in the background, couldn't see any Product openings. Mentioned that to them. "We're not even putting these up, or not yet. We wanted to look at people who we'd talked to and filtered before, versus getting over a thousand applicants per position if we post to the usual suspects."
The data shows that listed job openings are increasing, but the rate of hiring is decreasing. This appears to be a unique occurrence and appears to substantiate the observations in the post.
Search frictions are real lots of bad candidates clog up the market and your assessment process/ other things might not be getting who you need in the door.
How does this have anything to do with a sluggish job market? Do you think people are struggling to find jobs because they are too political? One can be a servile dog, and still struggle to land a role, it's not particularly correlated.
No one really goes into an interview speaking about politics, or propaganda, or unionizing. So there isn't much signal in telling people to not do that, most already bend over backwards to look like an ideal candidate.
Telling people to have a good attitude is easy to say, hard to do when you've been applying for 6+ months with no response and bills to pay.
Unfortunately, the advice that's most likely to help is something everyone already knows. Networking, practice, and luck play a huge role in a environment like this. And cut expenses as much as possible, just in case you need a cash cushion.
No one really goes into an interview speaking about politics, or propaganda, or unionizing.
They don't but humans are extremely good at picking up unspoken language. Not only that, employers and hiring managers will look you up, read your blogs, read your social media posts, and call your ex employers.
Call me ghoulish if you want. If I'm running out of money, out of work for a year, I'm giving you my best attitude. You won't find a more dedicated employee to your business than me. That's the attitude I'm taking to any interview.
If the market ever turns favorable for me, then I'll advocate for all those things you deem not ghoulish.
> Call me ghoulish if you want. If I'm running out of money, out of work for a year, I'm giving you my best attitude. You won't find a more dedicated employee to your business than me. That's the attitude I'm taking to any interview.
And again, what does that have to do with pronouns?
> If the market ever turns favorable for me, then I'll advocate for all those things you deem not ghoulish.
If you only stand for things when you think you have the advantage, then you stand for nothing at all.
It's important to point out that this advice can exist alongside the fact that it is OK (necessary to civilization, even) to criticize anything hellish in one's society (e.g. the very article this comment is responding to). The advice in this comment is not a counterpoint to the article.
We can do the miserable things that are necessary to secure our lives while also fighting to stop the people who are forcing us to do those miserable things.
Unrelated: When you say, "No him/her", I honestly can not tell what you are saying. I'm not being sly - I really can't tell if you're saying:
1. People should pretend to not be trans (scary, but a very common form of hatred).
2. Don't mention your pronouns even if you're not trans (which, ok, so maybe you roll your eyes when people do that, I don't even think that's insane - but what on earth does that have to do with having a bad "attitude"?).
For sure, it is not the same though. Also, ML algos will try to estimate the probability that you do anyway without your consent and with silent consent from the governments.
Sound advice, honestly, especially the "no I'm always the victim attitude" piece.
The more politically-charged parts of your comment apply to both sides - it's fine if you have political opinions, but nobody wants them shoved down their throats, or brought up at work. If you come across as someone who is going to put politics over work, or cause conflict, then people aren't going to want to hire you and deal with that.
You aren't ready to get that job until you've truly accepted your role as a genderless machine that turns salary into personal validation for the hiring manager.
I appreciate this sentiment and I think it's sad to sacrifice rights for money... but you know, sometimes you need money.
If unions were stronger and the government was more populist, etc., (speaking of the US), maybe this choice could have been headed off better... but it's too late for that this cycle.
OP is way overblowing it. You could tell by their “no him/her”. Way to be obviously transparent about his political orientation. Makes me sick that he’s basically saying “get back in the closet”. Sorry I went through that I my youth: I’m out and I’m not going back. And fortunately the last three companies I’ve coded at in 15 years were aligned with my progressive politics.
They are saying a very different, obvious thing if you don't want to be cynical. And I say this as someone with some very strong opinions about many things.
