but it is a hirers' market

Having the upper hand (imaginary or real) should not play a role here. This is a bad place for expectations of entitlement.

I guess like you said: common courtesy, don't waste my time or yours. Why send an email if its' not worthy of a response?

The former is certainly true; the latter, probably not.

I'd simplify to: "It's a rational strategy that maximises coverage."

Being rejected is unpleasant in any context; one way to minimise the unpleasantness is to downplay the value of any one interaction.

If you make a big effort, the disappointment is magnified. This is why the first and most important advice to folk on dating sites is "message and move on". Otherwise you're going to get bitter, which is even more self-defeating.

Rejection is painful because of the "simulation heuristic" -- imagining yourself enjoying working at the place / going on dates with the person.

The simulation heuristic works the other way too. You can easily imagine being disappointed by the new restaurant. You know what? Let's just go to Shmookey's, we always go to Shmookey's on Thursday and get the steak.

edit: actually, no, simulation heuristic isn't quite right. Sunk cost fallacy? Someone help me out here.

Of course, the counter to that is that taking a dump in a thousand baskets also leads to no eggs.

While the quote is very funny and I give you that, the analogy doesn't fit. A more apt analogy would be - throwing your eggs without care in a thousand baskets, chances are most eggs will break.

How would you describe emailing a hiring manager/developer with something like "lol, give job pls?" Not very egg-like at all...

It's a hirees' market at the rockstar level, as always.

SF, New York, London, Amsterdam, Berlin, etc. all have huge talent shortages. Even developer markets that were relatively soft in the past such as Poland and India are starting to become competitive as the war for talent becomes more global.

I think of those who understand algorithmic reasoning (i.e. understand loops, assignment, etc.) they also fall into two categories. Those who can understand more abstract programming concepts (indirect referencing, recursion) and those who can't - you can definitely still be a good programer without understanding those but it will limit the areas you can work in.

Indeed, I haven't met any programmer who couldn't understand recursion when explained in clear terms, same goes for indirect referencing.

If I had to divide the programmers who really understand algorithmic reasoning into two categories, those would be

- A: those who program because it's their job,

- B: those who program because it's their passion.

I believe this grouping is more helpful to explain differences.

https://student.brighton.ac.uk/mod_docs/cmis/past%20papers/c...

You wrote students, while I meant professional programmers. It's not because some people have a tougher time learning those things (whatever the reason can be) that they have no change to get them by the moment they are active professionals.

This said, if I tried to apply your grouping to the people I have been interviewing last year, I would have approximately 100% of them in one category, hence my comment.

Because they are shown examples, instead of taught how, people memorize how to do stuff, instead of learning it from principles.

Take the classic question, recursively reverse a linked list.

You will see a lot of people making false starts, or trying to reverse the list in some way like they would reverse an array, or even repeatedly walking the list to the end.

But if you understand some simple rules about recursion, it's fairly easy to figure out how to do this on the fly. And that is so much better then memorization, because you can explain why you are doing things.

first you are reversing, so you're moving backward, which means you calls your function, then do assignments. If you were doing something moving forwards, like printing in order, you'd print first, then call the function.

Now we need to worry about the end, and the beginning.

First, the beginning, which happens after we have recursively walked the list.

Now, we want to walk to the last node before null, and we need a place to store what we return. so assuming we have something like this in c 'node * recursivereverse(node * current)' and a node structure with next as the next link (we never touch our data)

our test is if (current->next) node * newbeginning = recursivereverse(current->next); else return current; //some assignments go here;

return newbeginning;

Then we just need to figure out the assignments.

Now, people may get tripped up and try to use the new beginning... but then they have to walk it to the end... but the current node already knows the node that comes after it.

so we assign current->next->next = current; IE the node that was previously after the current node now points to the current node as it's next. And that's fine for all the rest of the list, until we get to our original beginning node. We need to worry about the new end.

Since it's going to the end, we need to point it to NULL, otherwise it will point to it's predecessor, meaning we'll have an infinite loop at the end of the last two nodes.

Easy way to deal with it is to just assign the next of the current node to NULL, for each node.

so we add to current->next->next = current; current->next = NULL;

and then you have a reversed linked list. This makes certain assumptions about the list (like it has at least one node, and isn't circular), so don't just copy this for your interview.

So with some simple rules, I figured out how to reverse a linked list. But those simple rules aren't taught, or at least, I came up with them for myself after I became a computer science tutor at my college, because I needed people to understand recursion.

So I guess my point is, it's not that people can or can't understand recursion, it's whether they are taught to think about things in the right way.

Now to a certain extent, we need to teach people to generalize, but if you teach people a general rule (always worry about the beginning and end of any data structure, and that's important for everything, including memory management and debugging) and a recursion specific rule (call the function first to reverse, call the function after to use the current order), and they can generalize.

Too often people come to program with the ability to copy code and get it working (and that isn't anything to denigrate, because it's not simple), but lack the understanding of how to think about things in a deeper way.

static MyLinkedList<T> ReverseLinkedList<T>(MyLinkedList<T> linkedList) { if (linkedList.Next == null) return linkedList;

  var newTail = linkedList.Next;
  var reversedList = ReverseLinkedList(linkedList.Next);
  newTail.Next = linkedList;
  linkedList.Next = null;

  return reversedList;
}

In my mind, a link list is a bunch of nodes with arrows pointing right. To reverse the list, all I need to do is point the arrows to the left.

6(ish) lines of code later, and I've got a recursive reverse method.

Probably because this is similar to the Linux kernel programming style. Many of us learnt C from the kernel or projects that follow it's coding style.

  perl -pi -e 's/^(\t+)/"  " x length($1)/e' recurse.c

If that statistic is true, I would say that they probably understand algorithms very well, can prove the runtimes, know which data structures to use and why, etc. What they can't do is actually implement it in working code, or write anything else outside of those concepts, like writing a graphical user interface or writing a simple website using some popular language + framework.

When start-ups, profitable ones, are offering £35k + bonus + stock options (worth £0), for senior developers, in Central London, there's not a talent shortage.

Similarly skilled developers are getting £35k+ & bonus outside of London, where the cost of commuting/living is significantly cheaper, in established companies with full benefits packages, that don't expect them to work 50 hour weeks. Inside London, those devs who are working in finance are getting paid £45k+, big bonus, gym, laundry, etc. thrown in, with the same workload expectation.

Experienced (and good) Senior iOS developers in London are regularly being offered less than £40k.

No surprise many talented staff have left London, for equivalent salaries, less stress and cheaper cost of living (especially as they hit the age where kids appear in the picture).

No surprises many younger devs look at the £25k starting salary in London, where transport and rent will cost them £1000/month, vs. £25k out of London, where it will be more like £500/mo, and decide that London is not worth losing £6k/yr after tax.

While there are certainly companies trying to hire iOS developers at 40k, there are also companies trying to hire iOS developers on 80k+ and iOS contractors on day rates of £500/day.

What you're probably seeing is selection bias. That is the crappy jobs (i.e. low pay) stay on the market far longer than good jobs. Hence you end up thinking that crappy jobs represent a large proportion of the job market than they actually do simply because they stay around longer.

But if I go and search: http://www.technojobs.co.uk/search.phtml?page=2&row_offs...

You will see most senior dev roles advertised with a range, that seems to average out about £45k. That's for the whole country, and London seems no different.

Personal experience with London based recruiters was that despite jobs advertising £60k, the number that the recruiter had from the client was actually lower. When asked about the requirements for getting the top end of the pay scale, "Well, they really only want to pay low 40's", was something I heard time and time again, and caused me to not apply, time and time again.

Crappy jobs? Maybe.

EDIT: Also, I've seen an expensive corporate salary survey (shh, don't tell HR), and whilst London mid-senior people have seen a good bump to their salary in the last 2-3 years, the averages there were approx: junior ~£28k, mid-level ~£36k, senior ~£47k, architect ~£60k, dev lead ~£72k).

As someone working in finance in London, this seems way too low. I'm on 97K and bonus has been 50% for the last 4 years. Contracted before and made more after tax.

I can't believe that startups hope to attract talent with 35K + bonus? But I also doubt you're right about 45K jobs in finance being anything but entry level.

http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/jobs/london/c++%20developer.do

(me? c++, perl, python, unix, front office, could price an option with Hull open, or an IRS, but not going to try anything like a Vol swap without Quant Assistance. There, another vague datapoint).

That's before you start looking at contractor rates...

http://www.technojobs.co.uk/search.phtml/php/searchfield/loc...

There are a few above 40, but they don't sound mid-level/generic.

All of the people that I know who work in London (not just in banks) are earning at least £35k+, almost always more than that. These are newly graduated developers, with lots of room for advancement.

Conversely I know very few developers outside of London who are earning close to £35k, outside of London its much more likely to be research (ARM etc) and they tend to pay ~£28k

Most grad jobs in London will top out at £30k.

http://www.technojobs.co.uk/search.phtml/graduate-developer/...

Those that are higher are not real "junior" jobs - there's one that advertises "up to £50k", but then asks for 3-5 years experience. 5 years good experience puts you at the top end of mid-level.

There are a few finance jobs, that are looking for junior quant. developers. Yes, they are advertising above £30k. But they don't make up the bulk of the jobs on offer.

(And yes, I have a lot of anecdotal evidence too, for outside and inside London, having spent my early years working for a company with offices in Bath/Bristol/Reading, and the obligatory London "HQ").

But to me, they are the outliers, of what is a market that is generally not paying much of a premium above outside London salaries (I knew some architects on £70k, waaaay outside of London, and many seniors on £50k + bonus).

And I didn't want to make the comparison, but yeah, these numbers are terrible compared to what you will find in the major USA cities.

You misread my statement. A competent mechanical engineer graduate attending college in the past 5 to 10 years has more CS experience and coding ability than most CS graduates. The talent shortage, as it were, comes from restricting your view to the CS and CE fields.

To review, this is what i wrote (emphasis added): "Many people, especially coming from an engineering background, have the requisite programming and computer science experience to do what you need."

I might agree if you change your statement to "Many people, especially coming from an engineering background and who have an interest in programming, have the requisite programming and computer science experience to do what you need."

what fractions of ME and CS graduates would you say are competent, out of curiosity?

I'd be very appreciative of any leads you could offer to top tier companies (FB, Google, Amazon, MS, mid-sized YC companies). My contact info is in my profile.

The school does do quite a bit to get us in front of people, but students also take the initiative to get intros. Many in the initial class went to start-ups.

This is the school: http://hackreactor.com/

> WE’VE GOT CONNECTIONS

> Breaking into the tech industry can be hard on your own. We’ll help you craft a portfolio, guide you through practice interviews, introduce you to companies at our hiring day, and walk you through your job application process.

Their connections have brought top-rate speakers from Heroku, Pinterest, Twitter, TapJoy, Coursera and others and the connections did get more companies in the door than we have graduating students. That list just doesn't include some companies that stuck to more conservative screening practices.

I commented here to connect with those seeking skills I and my classmates have to offer, not to solicit criticism from the peanut gallery. I love Hack Reactor.

No they are not. One would think it's easy to find smart people who can learn new things, but I've dealt with both young and senior developers (by senior I mean writing code 15+ years) and was amazed how most of them feel comfortable being completely ignorant of new technologies/libraries/frameworks/best practices/whatever.

I've met a rockstar the other day, and could feel him being the one I'd hire immediately. It happens once or twice a year for me.

You might not call them rockstars, but in my book, they are.

I don't know how to judge that comment.

It is true that if you take anyone who is competent and ask them to teach you something that they learned in the last year, they should be able to come up with something. If not, then you've likely got "1 year of experience, 15 times". However my experience of people who think that they can judge people in the way you are judging them will judge by asking random questions about random technologies. Which is basically rolling the dice - if the person is exploring the same things that you are, then they get the gold star, otherwise you are convinced that they don't.

Let me give you a concrete example. You ask me what my primary language is. Perl, but right now I'm doing a bit of work in C++. Now you know that I'm a dinosaur because I'm using archaic languages. But don't notice that I have actually programmed in a host of other languages, and at this point learning the latest language is not going to help me be better at what I do. If I need it, I'll learn it then.

You ask me something about promises and jQuery and I draw a blank. I never liked front end work, and I've been working on back end stuff for the last decade. Boom, I'm a dinosaur in your books. But ask me what I'm reading, and you'll find out that I'm working through a book on hierarchical Bayesian modeling. I've also been doing some thinking about how people fail to understand the statistics behind A/B tests, and have been working on a series of articles that a lot of people seem to like.

In short, it is likely that you would quickly judge me poorly. Yet I believe that this reflects more on your judgement than my abilities.

Coders have misconstrued fizzbuzz into a whiteboard pissing contest because they want a binary yes/no interview framework... But that causes them to miss the forest for all the trees.

So at the end of the day, it's not really about experience, it's the attitude.

I only know "Promises" because I saw that on HN recently. However the concept behind JavaScript promises is one that I've seen before (I first saw it buried in a sideways way inside of http://search.cpan.org/~karasik/IO-Lambda/) and the name "promises" already has a spot reserved in my brain for their use in infinite streams. Therefore if someone mentions JavaScript promises to me again in 6 months I'll draw a blank.

There are some code samples linked in the articles in http://elem.com/~btilly/ab-testing-multiple-looks/index.html if you want to look. I wasn't writing that code for anyone except myself, so it isn't particularly pretty. (It did get the job done though.)

They are probably equally amazed that you are not able to discriminate between fads and/or half-assed rehashes of decade-old technologies and actual new technologies.

You should hire someone if they will create more value than it costs to employ them. That's it. It is irrational to do anything otherwise.

So many SV companies seem obsessed with creating islands of purity.

I've spent the last 3 weeks reading documentation around qt 5 in preparation for some 5.1 mobile development I plan on doing, for example.

(In case you thought these issues didn't affect you: http://bugs.python.org/issue13703)

First and foremost, it's fun for anyone interested in engineering to begin with. Second, for programmers, it gives you a tactile experience of programming, and a real respect for what Assembly language really is and what it does, why a compiler is important, how interpreted languages are run differently, and why optimizing your code is important.

You will never know the direct effect that this secondary understanding will have, but the unknowable effects here will be wholly positive, I guarantee it.

I remember one semester in college where it clicked for me... I was taking CS61C, machine structures (basically learning C and how it translates to Assembly) and EE40 (basically learning electronics and how silicon works, and how processors work at an electronic level) and suddenly I understood at least on a basic level how everything worked. The code you type in gets compiled to ASM which gets loaded into memory which the processor loads instruction-by-instruction into registers which are represented by the states of transistors which are loaded each clock cycle by the switching of voltages on a germanium-doped silicon plate which causes the voltage to swing at a certain predictable speed at a given frequency which is controllable and engineered to tolerances which put the whole thing in sync. Holy shit. And each part can be understood in isolation, combined, and it makes sense. It's engineering at its best—break down the problem, understand the tolerances, rinse (with a HF acid wash) and repeat. No single part of it is beyond the realm of understanding, but together they build a system of such complexity, and it's amazing and beautiful that it all works as well as it does.

Knowing this—yes, it makes me think about programming differently.

Because, yes, I'm relatively comfortable not caring about technologies that will return to complete obscurity within 6-18 months.

That seems like a pretty low bar.

I consider it a low bar to have repositories on GitHub or answers on StackOverflow yet the fact is that in London this group numbers in the thousands. This isn't all of the talented people but it gives you an idea of the rarity.

The answer makes that into a complex statement, and if your company can solve that problem, then it has solved a great many problems.

A lot of this coming from being able to expect/plan for future enhancements/changes than the one-off output. My own personal reference with this comes from managing several projects with local and overseas teams with varying degrees of experience.

Exponential effectiveness can only come from improving maintainability, readability and reducing code size. Fact that minimalistic approach also diminishes original development time is only a minor side effect. By the way, a true rockstar developer most of the time reduces code size and improves readability while adding features.

So when you see next time a commit, that adds features and reduces code size, - you know who you are dealing width.

My manager is very similar--his mind works about twice as fast as mine, and he's very productive. He'd never, ever call himself a "rock star" though.

Edit: It is especially weird when the post then refers to people with an engineering background, since those people are more likely to be working on low-level embedded coding.

The first part of the story is convexity, also known as the "10x phenomenon": http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/03/14/gervais-macle... . This is generally a good thing, but it's bad in the context of rapid scaling (which is what most VC-funded startups are trying to do) because convexity creates a need to fill specialized job queries fast. In a saner world, companies could hire a generally smart person and give her 6 months to train up. Most VC-funded startups either can't afford that, or don't think they can. They want "plug and play" and that necessitates purple squirrel queries, which creates a job market that leaves them just as unhappy as employees.

It sucks for both sides, but the upshot is that when you get a job, you're generally paid well (perhaps to compensate for the wonky purple-squirrel queries, companies going out of existence, and high turnover).

Incidentally, as bad as our job search latency is, I think it's worse for regular managers at the same pay level. In managerland, the going assumption is that it takes 1 month to find a new job per $20k; for us, it seems to be 1 week per $20k if actively searching. The biggest mess for us is the stereotype that makes active searching dishonorable because "good developers never look for jobs" (which isn't true).

The reason for the Resume Blizzard is that it's free to send one. It also gives companies the right to indulge in the myth that they're hyperselective because "we only give an offer to 1 in 500 candidates". It's technically true, because 485 of those were resumes merely scanned for some bullshit reason to reject (e.g. last job was too long/short, state undergrad, lack of buzzwords).

Here's an idea that I had: an online-ed website where you get credits for completing coursework, and sending a resume has a non-zero cost in credits (which is refunded if unopened). It's the best way that I can come up with to make front doors work again.

   "Dear Anthony, Thankyou 4 ure notes in LinkedIn about
    contacting u - much easier to know that you're approached
    all the time. U r too experienced for my role, but if you
    know of any mid level Python / Linux developers happy 2
    discuss referral $$if I can place them:) Happy Friday!"

a) Hello, you do Python, do you want a job? (with no position details, salary, reason to join, etc.)

b) a) followed by a clumsy attempt to fish details of my contacts (I don't connect with recruiters).

So, er, yeah - "Ha ha, profession!"

In LinkedIn I've been contacted by recruiters from Amazon, Google, Toshiba and Voyer International and all of them have been quite professional.

I'm not saying "I have this message from a recruiter, therefore all recruiters are scum." It's a reminder.

I don't particularly care whether it is an employer's market or an employee's market. My rule of thumb is that if your email is going to jobs@foo.com, you can send anything you want. But if you are sending an email to a person by name, it is a matter of courtesy to write a personal note.

Likewise, if that person replies to you from their personal email, you deserve more than an obvious form letter, even if it's just a single sentence.

I feel it is a more personalized chat :)

But is this true?

> it is a hirers' market

I hear a lot about the war for talent and devs having to beat away recruiters with a stick.

> Take the time to actually read the posts: just because a listing contains the word "developer" does not mean it's a software developer. Business Developer != Software Developer!

Fun fact: this mistake apparently gets made on the hiring side too -- last November there were some jobs posted on StackOverflow Careers with titles like "Children's Development Programming Executive" (it was for developing children's tv/video programs).

Both the jobs on offer and the people applying are quite specialized and mostly just looking for a very good match given the massive up-front costs of hiring or taking a new job.

Personally I think it's mostly silly too. If we cut the BS we're talking about a trade of money for skills. If the linkedin has relevant information which you can see, I think it does the job. If it doesn't, then that's a good reason you can probably skip that candidate.

Also I'm sure I won't get any fans here for saying it but I rarely apply for jobs that don't talk remuneration in the ad. Sure I want an employer that fits and I'd rather be working on something I find interesting but ultimately if I wasn't after making money, I wouldn't be working for other people.

I didn't apply anywhere, but if I had, I would certainly write a well thought-out cover letter because I would rather not apply to everyone and I understand my chances are quite a bit lower than the company's expected talent level of the baseline applicant, so I would want to focus on places where I have a semi-decent chance. If you are applying to a job via HN, then it is a given that the company is setting a high bar for talent.

But we also have to keep in mind that's only a mail : an article won't be read. So, even if we fall in love with some startups (HN startups have such amazing projects, I spend hours reading your blogs about your work), even in this case we can't send a poem in your honor. The letter have to be well balanced.

... and that's how I spent four hours for sending only one letter to one company. Faith in the fact that the good work pay, you know what it is.

I don't know if this behavior is normal but I would expect a bit more from hirers advertising on HN. Especially when they ask for very specific things that I know I got on my CV.

I've been unemployed for nine months, though I've only been seriously applying for jobs in the past three. (I consider the first six months a well-deserved vacation. Employers apparently consider it the mark of the unemployable. C'est la vie.) I've received exactly zero (0) replies to job applications that weren't automated "we got your application" e-mails. Even at a company where my CV was handed directly to a manager by a friend who worked there, the manager stopped communicating with me after his initial "we'd like to set up a time to talk to you" e-mail.

I completely understand that employers get bombarded with applications for every single position they post. (When our department posted a [low paying] Linux sysadmin position, we received over 100 applications, of which maybe 25 had anything to indicate that the applicant had ever used a computer, let alone Linux.) But a simple "thanks but we're not interested" e-mail would certainly be nice when you've been eliminated as a candidate for a job...or were never actually a candidate to begin with.

The silence of the job search quickly becomes deafening.

It can be disheartening, because when I'm looking for work, I also spend a lot of time on applications and generally only apply to one or two companies at a time so I can devote attention to the interviews et al. Also I'm not usually looking for any job so trying to hit as many companies with my CV as possible is not my modus operandi, but it feels like that would be more appropriate, or at least get a better rate of return on effort applied to the process. :/

Yeah, everyone can say: I am a good team player. And every HR can say: Our company provides the best working environment. Hypocrisy on either sides leads nowhere, but it seems like it's still the expected standard.

I think that a linkedin profile can be enough. And if the profile isn't publicly accessible, there might be a good reason: privacy. So why not simply ask? At least it would show that the application is being processed. Or perhaps there's an option somewhere on Linkedin which let a user directly grant access to his profile to people handling job offers when they apply, and you just rant about those not seeing that option.

I'm not sure if it's now a hirers' market or not; I'm not out for a new job at the moment, but I would never, ever send an email without tailoring it specifically for the place I'm writing to. At the least I'd go to their site, see their products/services, look at the demos and look into their history.

  >"Hi, saw your listing on HN, here is my LinkedIn. Call me."
  >...just BCC all the emails in the Who's Hiring thread.

Email isn't Twitter with more chars.

Instead, we work with the candidates to coach them on how to present themselves to a company and how to improve their CV/resume. As it turns out, most of our applicants are excited about the opportunity, but they've never been taught the basics of how to hunt for a job. I'm not sure why that is. Are programming jobs always so plentiful that people assume no effort is required? (Actually, that is sort of true. I came to programming after a decade of mostly service jobs and I'm inundated with recruiters without even trying, but I still remember my days of living on pot pies and ramen, so I put effort into applying).

TL;DR: many people dream of living and working in Europe and I'm handing them the opportunity on a silver platter, and I still get the "here's my CV" three-word emails.

What kind of place do you come from in which jobs are rarer than developers? Aren't you normally paying recruiters through the nose to access me?

(For the record, I'd write a good message if I felt like the job was for A-listers, but the reality is I just read a lot of them and I can tell that most of these places aren't there.)

Having said that good jobs seem as rare as good developers...

You like it when they play hard to get, eh?

If you really want to reach this type of employee, you'll have to send individualized notes saying you have an open position, that you already understand the person's capabilities and why your company would be a great place for them to work.

tl;dr If you expect to reach the best employees by putting a few paragraphs on Hacker News, you're doing it wrong.

I've always wondered what might have been though... I had received a very tentative hiring offer from someone at Intel about 9 years ago... which had been just a few weeks after I'd finally joined the nuclear Navy.

Given that, I can't say I'm surprised that many people feel that what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander...

With the same token that you say HN is not a CraigsList, when an HN-responder puts an effort in going through their product and writing a personal note inquiring about a possible opportunity at their company, posters should have the courtesy to respond to the responder acknowledging that in-spite of their good/bad profile they can't hire him/her.

I know these two advices are from me to you and you to me. All the remaining folks who have been one-liners will continue to be so.

Btw, I am a graduating student from IIT Delhi, who have applied to many startups that interested me with a personal-note and list of projects I have done with clickable-links. While about 10% of posters responded saying that they did like my profile but can't take it further because of visa, remaining 90% never responded.

While I am not the best engineer, when my detailed & clear personal application doesn't get an acknowledgement reply, I can imagine why responders are just sending one-liners. If posters want to hire, they will hire from one-liners. No point of detailed-personal application.

On a side note, my profile with links to projects is https://gist.github.com/sravfeyn/13534c67812183235a2c/ I am hunting for an engineering position at a start-up with product-innovation.

I will have it proofread by my friends.

No no no, they're doing it right.

All those lame responses? You think you're gonna get better behavior after hiring?

It's not a response so much as an organization intelligence test. You hire 'em, you get what you deserve.

Finding a job isnt a game of percentages. Or atleast finding the right job isnt (imho). Find the 2-3 jobs you really want and spend the time to make the recruiter believe you could actually sell for their company one day.

This shouldn't be that surprising - if indeed you're looking at a pool of highly qualified people you should expect to see less effort in applications.

There's a line to be drawn at being professional, but if the individual is experiencing extreme demand for his/her services, do not expect them to sell you that hard.

> "I've seen several employers set up "nerd hurdles" that require potential applicants to do something that takes a modicum of effort (and talent) before they can apply -- e.g. coding challenges"

I'd be careful about this. I've done some of these when they tickled my fancy, and I've done them when I was impressed by the company enough that I actively wanted to work for them.

Almost everyone in the HN Who's Hiring posts are not in the above category. I'm sure you're working on cool stuff, but one paragraph is not enough to get me to salivate at your position, and not enough for me to invest a considerable amount of time.

If you want applicants to put in more effort, consider marketing yourself as someone worth said effort. It is most certainly not a buyer's market right now (not in the HN crowd anyways). Most Who's Hiring posts don't even include anything meaningful about the employer.

"We're in SF and looking for a Rails guy" is not a very compelling sell.

I lost a couple of hours (yes, I bother to write an proper answer) writing mails only to find out that interns from overseas are not welcome.

That hurts.

from my side of the table, when I was interviewing (about 6 months ago), probably 8 out of 10 startups that I applied to and interviewed for didn't bother to contact me again - not even a polite "thanks but no thanks". I'm not arrogant enough to think I'm the perfect fit for every company I apply to or even that I aced every interview, but I would think common decency dictates at least a response or acknowledgement after an in person interview.

Two sides of the same coin, in my opinion.

This advice/note/rant just clarified a potential reason for the differential.

Please folks I get that you are in demand but not pasting even a link in the email is just plain lazy and a little rude. You don't realize it but you are actually competing with 30 other people per listing, HN gets more exposure than you think...

Dear Applicants: Why would you send me what is very obviously the same cover_letter.doc that you send everyone? What do you think it says about you as a candidate if you couldn't be bothered to replace "Dear Hiring Manager" with my name? And that little informal note in the body of your email ("Hi, saw your ad on X. See my attached cover letter and resume"), that effectively becomes your cover letter. It's the first thing I read when you apply. Make me want to open your resume right away.

So what should you write in the cover letter? Not single right answer, but here's an idea: Most jobs--especially at startups--are really about solving a problem that the hiring company has. Sure, the job title might say "DevOps Ninja" but if you read carefully you can figure out that what's really going on is the company has grown rapidly and needs to get serious about its messy, hacked-together infrastructure. Address this in your cover letter. Talk about how organized you are and how you once recabled a data center in a weekend, etc.

Because we demand that everyone guess what you want and turn the sales knob up to 11, you are getting a lot of applications from people who could better disqualify themselves, and lots of dishonest bullshit to filter in applications. If we would all be more honest and just say what we mean then this would all be easier.

When I have an OKC account, my strategy is just to write the first half-funny sentence or two that come to mind, shoot off the message, and move on.

Even when I apply for jobs and write a cover letter, what do I do? A dating site message with a funny accent.

    Dear Companyboss,

    I write in reply to your advertisement of <date> in the Foobar Herald.

    I am <skills/titles>. While working at <previous employer> 
    I used <technology/skills>.

    I have included my CV and I look forward to your reply.

    Yours &c &c

I would say it's definitely an hiree's market. I've removed my profile pretty much everywhere I have ever put it up, and still get 3-5 contacts a day. This is without the newer projects I've been working on (and newer technologies/frameworks).

I think that given how much developers are simply pursued by recruiters who put in no effort, I think that a few sentences and an up to date resume are an appropriate introduction.

Oh so true.

The much scarier prospect is if that applicant actually read this and sent you a real cover letter. The applicant hasn't actually improved their poor skills, they've merely learned a trick to conceal them. This makes it harder to filter them out and you'll end up wasting more time on them if you brought them in for an interview. Ever scarier, while juggling 100 other startup tasks, you might let a bad candidate slip through the cracks, into the interview process, and then actually hire them. You just lost about 1,000 company workhours across your team in trying to cajole the bad person into being useful before you finally give up and let them go.

Sadly, when posting the spec to some of the worse job forums (e.g. Gumtree), almost all the applications are like that. Some do not even bother to write a note at all. They just attach their CV, and that's it. It's hard to believe that there are people out there who think that such an approach will get them any kind of decent job.

Ask for a resume, that's it. You can shoot a note back asking "Tell me more about yourself." if you want to know more. Then it's worth the time to write one up. Then you can ask for references, and transcript, etc., if that's your thing.

To be fair, the job ads I place specifically tell you what to put in a cover letter. So if you reply without one, then it's a super quick filter to see that you didn't even read the ad.

If you don't want the job enough to read the ad, I don't want you enough to read your resume.

It's an unreasonable demand. You're not the only place that I am applying. Either I send all fifteen of you a generic cover letter (which is likely no better than not sending one), or I customize it for each of you, which probably takes about another hour per application. It takes you 5 minutes to read.

If you like my application, I have to cut time out of my work day for everyone at your company to call me back, usually at least three times (recruiter initial contact, manager contact, technical phone screen). After that, I take a couple of my paid vacation days off work for on-site interviews. I have to make arrangements for someone else to look after the kids because I'm out of town overnight and the wife does shift work. I have to work a few more weeks to replenish those vacation days if it doesn't work out. All the while, I still have timelines and can't tip my current manager off that I'm looking elsewhere. Again, multiply this by a few companies - maybe three or so get to that point. That's costly, but necessary and understandable. At that point, there is serious consideration for a working relationship, so such demands on a candidate's time are more reasonable. And don't forget, at least one of you likely has some sort of programming assignment or problem set that you use after the phone screen, which I will spend several hours on.

To top it off, I'm going to guess that you don't even have the decency to post salary range in your ads. And, your recruiter is going to try and ask me about my salary history, but fail to mention the budget for the position, and my first indication won't come until there is an offer letter.

So, anyone who does this, thanks for self-selecting!

Seriously, try hiring someone, the influx of irrelevant applicants and those who won't take even thirty seconds to read your ad is truly dispiriting. If you make even the tiniest effort with your application, you will stand out, guaranteed.

If it sounds like I'm complaining, it's not because I'm frustrated, but because it's slightly offensive to see that being demanded. In my experience, their internal recruiters monitoring inbounds are usually ringing me before my finger is even off the send button. They don't seem to look for or care about a cover letter, and I haven't had trouble getting offers, even from top tier companies. And honestly, I don't even think I'm that impressive. From what I can tell, anyone who has fogged a mirror at a half-respectable tech company already will at least get a phone screen these days.

When I was previously involved in hiring, I don't recall ever seeing cover letters on inbounds either. When asked in person by potential candidates, I always told them not to.

You and I may disagree on this point then; I consider what you describe to be a cover letter.

In my experience, their internal recruiters monitoring inbounds are usually ringing me before my finger is even off the send button.

Honestly, I think you include more than you're letting on. Whether it's a short sentence in your application email, something tailored in your CV, or a short cover letter - basically, stuff you think is unimportant because it takes you 30 seconds to do, for maybe a grand total of a few minutes per application, and so you assume that other people are also doing this.

I think that the sheer number of people who make zero effort means that even small stuff like including the person's name, if listed, at the top of the email really does make a difference.

Interesting - I don't see this as an offensive request at all. As I see it... the company is looking for a new employee who best matches their ideal description. A cover letter merely gives you another opportunity to demonstrate your suitability for the position, in a format that is more personal than a CV.

When I made "writing targeted cover letters for each role" part of my application procedure my success rate increased dramatically. I know there are specific instances where I got asked for an interview based mostly on my cover letter, and not on my CV.

I guess different parts of the industry have differing expectations in this regard.

I'm not a recruiter who throws resumes at a text processor and sends through useless people to the employer because of some random keyword. I'm the employer who's looking for quality people who are interesting.

In judging that, your resume is fairly useless compared to a cover letter.

I've applied for about two dozen jobs in my life. I have about a 33% success rate getting an interview and have got the job at every interview but one. Having now been a hiring manager for the past five years, I believe that's down to the fact that I don't just pump out bland useless resumes to people. (And I avoid recruiters!)

TL;DR; Here's my advice: If you're applying to a large corporation or via a recruiter, the cover letter is probably useless. But if you're applying directly (or to a HN post!) then spend a few minutes explaining yourself.

The average time of inspection of a resume is 15 seconds, so it seems it's a two-way street.

Heh, quite. Although from my experience, receiving a hundred CVs featuring C# application development alone when you've requested PHP will have a significant effect on the average reading time ;)

A line as simple as "I like the sound of product X and think my skill in Y could be useful." makes you stand out way more than you might think.

Why are people writing their cover letters in Word? Unless it is specifically stated otherwise, the cover letter should be in the body of the email. (http://jobsearch.about.com/cs/coverletters/qt/emailcover.htm)

"Hi, saw your listing on HN, here is my LinkedIn. Call me."