New way to interview? Have the final four applicants interview in front of each other, attend a social together, etc

[Pablo]

I do. It forces the applicants to put on pants.

Jdeere and I are filing a lawsuit. Employers need to accommodate the unpantsed people.

 

[zzyzzx]

I do. It forces the applicants to put on pants.

You are really limiting your potential candidate pool that way though.

 

[John105]

It’s been a long time for me as I’ve been at my position going on 14 years. 2 contractors were hired on my team after 1+ years. I don’t agree with it they were strung along but good they got hired as they wished. One that I just spoke with this past week said about the same, almost 200 applications and he was unemployed 7 mos prior to getting the contract position with us. I feel it’s not very easy to find good candidates so despite the daunting numbers, I feel if a person is a good worker with integrity they know they will be hired somewhere. There are so many people making tons of money doing nothing. It’s called work from home. I get it, nobody should share here nor with strangers that they found a way to steal a paycheck

 

[CKN]

It’s been a long time for me as I’ve been at my position going on 14 years. 2 contractors were hired on my team after 1+ years. I don’t agree with it they were strung along but good they got hired as they wished. One that I just spoke with this past week said about the same, almost 200 applications and he was unemployed 7 mos prior to getting the contract position with us. I feel it’s not very easy to find good candidates so despite the daunting numbers, I feel if a person is a good worker with integrity they know they will be hired somewhere. There are so many people making tons of money doing nothing. It’s called work from home. I get it, nobody should share here nor with strangers that they found a way to steal a paycheck

Until you are past 40. Respectfully-being at your present position (congrats BTW) is shielding you from the horrors of age discrimination.

 

[Dave Hess]

I've been looking for a new job as a senior software engineer for a while now and it's a pretty terrible experience. All the way from HR staff that don't recognize skills/talent and just check off keywords that jump out in a resume, to every other company wanting you to create an account to login and apply for that specific opening, to poorly automated systems rejecting resumes or parsing them half incorrectly.

Guys with 2 years of experience getting positions that they have no business getting while guys like me who to just want to write software get passed on because "At your age, why aren't you in management yet? This looks like a red flag".

Anyone in the field writing code (or close to it) should be able to look at my resume and judge the quality of the candidate; I've done some pretty unique and (what I consider anyway) impressive things, but you have to get through the HR employee and the automated system and they don't see "tech-skill-of-the-month" on it whereas this guy over here with 2 years experience has it so we'll just hire them instead. Doesn't matter that you've demonstrated the ability to learn whatever you need to (or that every software engineer is always learning new tech skills anyway).

Its not even a wage thing. I've tried purposely keeping the wage numbers low-ish vs my experience, they don't care. I can work from home cheaply as I've done that for 20 years now and can stay motivated and productive, so I'm not worried primarily about wage, but it's all about checking those tech-skill boxes apparently.

And since I have no linked in profile or git hub history, you may as well not exist either.

Jobs posted 2 days ago on linked in: "see how you compare to 100+ candidates". Oh really, guess I'll just not waste my time with that one then.

The whole thing is beyond depressing.

Would you consider a career change ?

 

[John105]

Until you are past 40. Respectfully-being at your present position (congrats BTW) is shielding you from the horrors of age discrimination.

I think you are right. In 2015, after 5 years at my employer, my entire dept was eliminated (my expertise was Lucent/Avaya G3R).

Today I work with Zebra products and have managed to become advanced with them. I don’t know but I’d like to think I could walk into Costco and quickly understand what they do (unsure what the pay would be). Over/under says I’ll retire with my present co by my calculations less than 10 years….who knows…

 

[hemioiler]

Would you consider a career change ?

I have yes, its good to keep options open. Everything from high school teacher (math/computers) to housing construction to landscaping to driving a semi. But honestly I'm a better software guy than I'll ever be at many other things in life, and with the years of building skills I'd hate to throw it all away; it seems to be the more logical choice.

 

[Pew]

I have yes, its good to keep options open. Everything from high school teacher (math/computers) to housing construction to landscaping to driving a semi. But honestly I'm a better software guy than I'll ever be at many other things in life, and with the years of building skills I'd hate to throw it all away; it seems to be the more logical choice.

My boss (in his 50s) on my consulting side gig was a software engineer for Motorola, GM, and Alcatel-Lucent and he said the same thing as you. He liked the money but hated the stress so now he has a small 2-1/2 person IT consulting company but teaches at a few local colleges. If he's bored, he'll use Robert Half to find a temp job.

 

[John105]

I have yes, its good to keep options open. Everything from high school teacher (math/computers) to housing construction to landscaping to driving a semi. But honestly I'm a better software guy than I'll ever be at many other things in life, and with the years of building skills I'd hate to throw it all away; it seems to be the more logical choice.

Good attitude! Driving a truck is on my bucket list and I think I will actually be able to do it. What isn’t? Moving and storage. I should not sell myself short but I think I’d fail at that as a job….

 

[y_p_w]

I have no problem in social setting, but I won't do it for interview with other candidates (only with other interviewers). What is the point of playing candidates against each other? Other than to see how you can sabotage each other or how you turn the table against another candidate, I don't see the point.

The surviving candidate would be toxic employee who would turn a peaceful workplace toxic, not worth the stress.

One of my first interviews in the industry was a mass interview of new college grads although it as one on interviews in a hotel ballroom setting with dividers. It felt like a bunch of convention booths and it got rather loud where one interview bled into the other. After all interviews were over there was lunch and then a reception. We were taken on a tour by fairly new employees. Certain at that point the interviews were over and there was no competition. Of course it would have been possible to really mess things up with something inappropriate.

I was the local and a couple of the others wanted to go see a movie and I knew the area. It was certainly not where we were trying to outdo each other.

I remember one interview that was scheduled at a specific time, where there were two candidates for the same job, including me. We interviewed in separate rooms, but for lunch we met up with other non-interview employees who seemed to be there just for a free meal. It did occur to me that it was possible to lose any chance of landing the job by saying the wrong thing.

 

[hemioiler]

Good attitude! Driving a truck is on my bucket list and I think I will actually be able to do it. What isn’t? Moving and storage. I should not sell myself short but I think I’d fail at that as a job….

I think I'd get a kick out of driving truck for a few years! Getting out and seeing something different every day, I always loved driving farm tractors and other machinery. Worst part about this job for me would be city traffic, backing them up in tight spots. My RV is bad enough lol. Some of these guys are amazing, backing up 2 trailers ("b train") at once around corners in tight city roads.

 

[Owen Lucas]

20 years ago you would have multiple job offers and recruiters harassing you. Now job hunting has been turned into the Battle of Thermopylae.

 

[John105]

20 years ago you would have multiple job offers and recruiters harassing you. Now job hunting has been turned into the Battle of Thermopylae.

Haha I had to remind myself 20 years ago was 2004….

1999 as Y2K approached it felt that way although I only had 2 job offers in hand, in early 1999. I chose Phila over Temple, TX. Back then if they wanted to interview a candidate they FedEx’d plane tix and rental car papers. When I took the job at a healthcare, in IT, every week there were about 10 new hires. This went on for 6 mos.

 

[John105]

I think I'd get a kick out of driving truck for a few years! Getting out and seeing something different every day, I always loved driving farm tractors and other machinery. Worst part about this job for me would be city traffic, backing them up in tight spots. My RV is bad enough lol. Some of these guys are amazing, backing up 2 trailers ("b train") at once around corners in tight city roads.

Exactly a coworker who used to drive told me stories of picking up from Hunts Point, NY. Backing in amongst 100 other trucks at the terminal…I’ve not experienced air brakes nor engine decompression, I think that’s part of the big rig experience

 

[Speedbird001]

(Pre-RONA): Colleague of mine was forced to retire... First actual face-to-face interview for an American Airlines Sales job was the same thing: 4 dudes side by side on folding chairs being interviewed by 2 company persons. He said it was weird and uncomfortable as hell and had no interest whatsoever in the job after that. Can't say I blame him... outside of some kind of military, political or 3 letter agency job I would say this is highly inappropriate

 

[Dave Hess]

(Pre-RONA): Colleague of mine was forced to retire... First actual face-to-face interview for an American Airlines Sales job was the same thing: 4 dudes side by side on folding chairs being interviewed by 2 company persons. He said it was weird and uncomfortable as hell and had no interest whatsoever in the job after that. Can't say I blame him... outside of some kind of military, political or 3 letter agency job I would say this is highly inappropriate

What do you mean forced to retire ?

His employer downsized him and he was given early retirement package?

Lots of companies wanting to get rid of the higher paid employees.

 

[andrew_j]

I've been looking for a new job as a senior software engineer for a while now and it's a pretty terrible experience. All the way from HR staff that don't recognize skills/talent and just check off keywords that jump out in a resume, to every other company wanting you to create an account to login and apply for that specific opening, to poorly automated systems rejecting resumes or parsing them half incorrectly.

Guys with 2 years of experience getting positions that they have no business getting while guys like me who to just want to write software get passed on because "At your age, why aren't you in management yet? This looks like a red flag".

Anyone in the field writing code (or close to it) should be able to look at my resume and judge the quality of the candidate; I've done some pretty unique and (what I consider anyway) impressive things, but you have to get through the HR employee and the automated system and they don't see "tech-skill-of-the-month" on it whereas this guy over here with 2 years experience has it so we'll just hire them instead. Doesn't matter that you've demonstrated the ability to learn whatever you need to (or that every software engineer is always learning new tech skills anyway).

Its not even a wage thing. I've tried purposely keeping the wage numbers low-ish vs my experience, they don't care. I can work from home cheaply as I've done that for 20 years now and can stay motivated and productive, so I'm not worried primarily about wage, but it's all about checking those tech-skill boxes apparently.

And since I have no linked in profile or git hub history, you may as well not exist either.

Jobs posted 2 days ago on linked in: "see how you compare to 100+ candidates". Oh really, guess I'll just not waste my time with that one then.

The whole thing is beyond depressing.

I ended up in that market shortly however became aggressive in terms of reaching out to recruiters /listing of position and got my “shot” in FINTECH which is hard for places to hire outside US for. I am older Developer however left out anything before 2010 on resume (irrelevant) and also dates on education.

HR does some weeding however key thing is figuring out what a company actually wants. A recent query by a friend hiring (Engineerkng manager) was no visa and a single specific word in job oauth and he weeding 200 resumes to 9 reduced it 3 resumes quickly. HR handed him 7 irrelevant applications.

Save your interesting work for interview, no one wants to read it unless applicable to job you apply to. Make it concise as possible. keywords can cover it off placed into a machine readable resume.

 

[GMFan]

This sounds more like a reality TV drama show than a normal interview process. I’d run away from this employer - they seem nuts.

 

[Speedbird001]

What do you mean forced to retire ?

His employer downsized him and he was given early retirement package?

Lots of companies wanting to get rid of the higher paid employees.

We downsized via reorganization, by no coincidence he had all his retirement "Points"; his area was absorbed by another; there were no other jobs for him to move to and he was forced to retire... A FEW years earlier than he planned I think, but not the end of the world... Probably improved his quality of life really. (Airline business is brutal).

 

[JHZR2]

Once I was in the final group for a Senior position. The selection was made. For some reason they had all of us go to dinner with one of the higher level sign off dignitaries. It was weird, but all were cordial. I think it was more a validation that the signatory person could see all folks and verify that the selection was legit.

In the end it was a poor choice and didn’t pan out well. But it was a weird situation.