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Ben Halpern
Ben Halpern Subscriber

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What’s the most frustrating thing about the process of looking for work or interviewing?

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doni profile image
Doni • Edited
  1. The plethora of recruiters who lead you on.
  2. Junior Dev Roles that requires 5 years of experience
  3. The lack of Junior Dev Roles
  4. Recruiters lying about certain aspects and perks of the job
  5. The interview process with no feedback
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rhymes profile image
rhymes

Hi Donita, so true, being a junior dev is a struggle these days.

This github repo We Hire Remote Jr. Devs might help.

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vineykumar90 profile image
Viney Kumar

Totally agree with (5). I have not had a single interview where the HR has gotten back to me with feedback, despite my asking with utmost politeness.
I feel this should be made mandatory as part of the interview process. If I were to interview someone, I would definitely want to let the candidate know the good and the things that need improvement (constructive criticism).

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nicostar26 profile image
Nicole Saunders 💻🌹

I can relate. I'm fairly new but know I can be productive but the lack of years of experience is why I get turned down. I have heard from a few recruiters and it's always lack of experience. I'm trying to overcome that by building as many projects as I can.

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ghost profile image
Ghost

^ This. Hang in there and build those projects Nicole.

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nicostar26 profile image
Nicole Saunders 💻🌹

Thanks will do! 😊

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keptoman profile image
mlaj

Here in Québec the shortage is big enough that they hire juniors for any roles. They pay them as juniors but expect intermediate or senior level skills. Getting a first job is hard enough, but now here we have to make sure the employers know that they are hiring a junior and that this is what they want.

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hwolfe71 profile image
Herb Wolfe

I can certainly relate to the first three. I haven't found a job via a recruiter, so I have no experience with 4, and my last interview was for my current role, just over 6 years ago, so I can't recall what 5 is like.

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rhymes profile image
rhymes

I found another resource full of summer 2019 internships

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waqardm profile image
Waqar Mohammad

I am in the same boat and can relate 100%

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renannobile profile image
Renan Lourençoni Nobile

Not having feedback about your interview or when you send your resumé and the company doesn't say anything, not even a rejection.

I'm aware that some companies receive hundreds of applications and can't answer all of them, but it is frustrating nonetheless.

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codemouse92 profile image
Jason C. McDonald

Agreed. It's almost impossible to know how to improve or make oneself more hire-able without that knowledge. I provide it to many applicants at MousePaw Media, but I've seldom received it from any company I've applied to.

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ghost profile image
Ghost

Yes! A company should always respect that you gave your time, and the nerves it takes to show up for an interview. These can be nerve-wracking, and that should be appreciated.

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puritanic profile image
Darkø Tasevski

Being interviewed about algorithms and the bleeding edge stuff, and then, when I've given chance to look at their code, it's just a damn spaghetti mess.

Also, so-called "talent hunters", I don't like the idea of being hunted 😄

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legoglass profile image
Flavio

code questions for a managment and mails job 😁

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sharpdog profile image
SharpDog

As a senior dev with 40+ years in many, many frameworks and languages:

  1. No feedback when you are turned down

  2. Do you want to move clear across the country for a 3-6 mos. contract ?

  3. Please complete this (20+ hour) project for free.

  4. Please take this basic skills test and you will be timed.

I really expect to have a conversation about my past experience and current interests/goals with the object of whether and how I can help the prospective employer. I would expect the employer or recruiter to check my references (they've stopped doing that for some reason).

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aspittel profile image
Ali Spittel • Edited

I haven't really done the traditional job search thing, but I get so annoyed with recruitment for positions that don't make sense. Like, I have no interest in becoming a junior java dev that's a contract role in Kansas. Just seems to be a waste of everyone's time, especially if the recruiter gets snappy if you don't respond to them.

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david_j_eddy profile image
David J Eddy

You get those Java in Kansas emails too? :)

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tennixpl profile image
tennixpl

Figuring out what their culture is really like.
"Are you lying about all this great stuff about working here you just told me" just never seems to come off right.

A company hiring and letting someone go quickly doesn't show up as easily as your resume having a one month job stint because it just didn't work out because of culture or values, or they said you would do one thing and dumped you somewhere else.

I keep a list of questions around on what to ask to get a better idea of the company for when I look for a new job next time.

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shaunagordon profile image
Shauna Gordon

Do you have anywhere that you've shared that list? This is one of my frustrations, too, and I'd love to have some options for questions to ask companies.

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tennixpl profile image
tennixpl

Sorry that notebook is an another state.

It was questions like
"how the team structure and work divided?" Trying to get out how big team sizes are and how they function. Is work organized and driven by clear leaders or is it a free for all.

If you get to talk to your potential future coworkers and not just HR and boss, ask them how they got the task to be in an interview. did someone drop by and say "hey we got a person in right now come join" or did they know in advance and get to schedule work around it and actually prepare. Did people respect their time and yours.

Do they actually respond to anything in particular to what you say?

I'll be biting the bullet soon and looking for a new job again. Ill have to dig up my old note and send them to you. Though since it hasn't been long I wont assume I am too successful, but life's to short to stay where its not fun and interesting in tech.

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jfrankcarr profile image
Frank Carr

From my job search last year and early this year.

  1. Ageism. I'd pass phone interviews, often multiple ones, only to get quickly dismissed when they figured out how old I was when they met me in person.

  2. Lack of timely feedback from interviews, especially after initial contact with recruiters and HR reps.

  3. Recruiters getting my name and number and calling about contract jobs I had no interest in or didn't have the appropriate skills.

  4. Misleading statements by recruiters. They seem to work on the philosophy that it's not a lie if they believe it.

  5. Recruiters who don't live in the same city who don't understand the length of commutes here.

  6. Pushy recruiters.

  7. Language trivia or code on a white board interviews.

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yaser profile image
Yaser Al-Najjar • Edited

Dealing with HRs who know a sh** about the industry.

Funny part is, I saw once a job post where they want someone who has 5 years of experience in AngularJS (its initial release is in 2016) 😂

update: I mean Angular2+... thx Eric for noticing.

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erikthered profile image
Erik Nelson

I agree with the sentiment, but Angular is definitely older than 2 years. Wikipedia says the initial release was in 2010.

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shaunagordon profile image
Shauna Gordon

Angular 1 (aka "AngularJS") was released in 2010. Angular 2 (aka "Angular") was released in 2016.

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erikthered profile image
Erik Nelson

I had a suspicion that might be the mismatch here. If the recruiter was asking for 5 years experience, I would venture a guess that's it's probably a place still using Angular 1.

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yaser profile image
Yaser Al-Najjar • Edited

My bad, I meant Angular2+ for sure, and it existed actually since 2014 (still less than 5 years): github.com/angular/angular/graphs/...

We both know that Angular1 is not really practical.

And we both know that Angular1 and Angular2+ have dozens of differences, two differnet creatures!

So yeah, the previous experience with Angular1 shouldn't count as "experience" for Angular2+

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shaunagordon profile image
Shauna Gordon

My date was going by its official release, which I think it more relevant when looking for X experience in Y tech. If you worked with/on a pre-release tech, that should be gravy. :)

That said, I have seen a posting requiring that kind of experience in Vue. They should have just said "we want Evan You." :D

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yaser profile image
Yaser Al-Najjar

😂😂😂

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walkhard13 profile image
Phillip Smith

I applied to an ad where they clearly stated they didn't care if you had RoR experience as long as you were smart enough to learn. A brief questionnaire afterwards asked about my experience with RoR and I responded that I had no experience with it. The questionnaire immediately terminated saying that I would not be a good fit for the job. 🙄

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kaelscion profile image
kaelscion

As a freelancer, it's the fact that there is really nothing that I personally can do to make potential clients care how I can solve their very real problems until their hair is on fire. Then it needs to be done yesterday, but MUCH cheaper than quoted because they weren't expecting the outlay...

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sduduzog profile image
Sdu

This made me stop freelancing an focus on my degree. I'm definitely going back to it now but I think having some sort of agreement form with stuff like "Agree to pay me extra for random deadlines"