Ask HN: Why do I keep getting rejected? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why do I keep getting rejected?

12 pointspdx_flyer18 comments

I have been looking for a new job for around four months and have had little success. One job rejected me after the final interview. But most jobs have either not replied to my application or I've been rejected a week or so after submitting my resume.

My current role is a mix of business development and product management. It's hard to describe on a resume or give measurable achievements. I've been looking at product management roles as well as general business development opportunities.

I don't know if I am being passed over due to my resume (it's three pages) or if I am not seen as qualified for certain roles or a mixture of both. Or if it's something else altogether like roles not really being available.

Any tips? Is my long(ish) resume the problem?

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> My current role is a mix of business development and product management. It's hard to describe on a resume or give measurable achievements.

The achievements for these roles should be easily measurable. Effectively and concisely communicating impact is also a core skill for both of them. Bluntly, if I saw a resume with this background that wasn't doing that, I would believe they weren't good at their role then or they weren't good at it now.

These sentences are highlighting some serious sticking point. I would focus on them, deeply questioning your beliefs about some situations.

Parts of what I do are quantifiable and I've highlighted that (deals won, etc) but lately we've been struggling due to the quality of the product and strides being made in the industry. Definitely not an excuse but it's made winning deals more difficult. For example, we are trying to enter the SaaS space but it is a new space for us and we're losing deals due to it.

On the product side is where I think I am struggling most to articulate things. In its current state, it's an MVP and we're pushing an investment case. The software is strong (and actually really cool) but we're still trying to get our first sale made.

The experience you’ve outlined of Product Management is not good: Product Management lives and dies by it’s ability to deliver in a high-impact way — “trying to get our first sale made” is not a good phrase to hear from a Product Manager, neither is “pushing an investment case”.

From what you’ve described, you’re someone with BD competency and an interest in Product Management, which you’ve been able to dip your toes into within your current role but haven’t gained meaningful experience of delivering successful software.

I think you’ll be best off picking a company with a strong product team, and join in a pure BD role with the opportunity to dip your toes into Product Management — and develop your skills within a positive environment, and evolve from there.

The key, when you’re new to Product Management, is to get into a company with a strong product, because even when you’re outside of the product org (i.e: pure BD role) you’re going to learn more about building a product than you ever will from being a product manager of a garbage product.

If you show up to a BD interview at a product company, and you bring with a history of successful BD, and a passion for Product and a long term aim to be deep into Product, you’ll be a standout candidate.

I appreciate the candor. It's hard to hear but I do really value the honesty. I don't present the "first sale made" stuff in my resume but it has come up in a few interviews.

My thought was that because this is a niche space maybe the lack of a sale wouldn't be a problem but it sounds like I need to focus on what you have mentioned, a product company BD role that allows me to learn the product and dive deeper into it.

I should say, for the avoidance of doubt, despite my negative tone: I think you’re in a good position, Product Management has a low bar for transitioning — and greatly benefits from soft skills — and so as long as you’re in the right organisation, with a good product culture, you’ll be able to progress your career very quickly.

The downside of the low bar for transitioning is that struggling companies will shoe-horn anyone who expresses an interest into Product Management and they’ll really, really struggle. A software engineer in a struggling company can live in relative ignorance, not so for a product manager, a product manager’s ability to work effectively is dependent upon the company functioning effectively.

If you can get into a good product company, in any role, you’ll be on the right track!

I never really appreciated this. The correlation between individual growth and company success is much looser for a software engineer than a PM. You can learn a ton for your first two years as a software engineer at a company that isn't going anywhere. Less so as a PM.

> It's hard to describe on a resume or give measurable achievements

You absolutely must give measurable achievements. Team size, number of documents authored, anything! Prove that you worked somewhere and didn't just take a paycheck for breathing.

> my resume (it's three pages)

Cut that down to one page.

> But most jobs have either not replied to my application or I've been rejected a week or so after submitting my resume.

You are still in the phase of your career where you are applying for jobs so rejection will be common. Apply for at least 3 jobs/day if you can find openings. Expect to put in hundreds of applications.

In niche technical fields, I don't think a 1-page resume will always do you justice if you have 10+ years experience (or > 3 jobs). Cynically, if they're looking for such people and yet want to play buzzword bingo with a resume I figure they're not really serious about niche/technical people or they are using the wrong methodology.

But then, for niche fields, "who you know" is critical and conference and other kinds of meetings can provide access to hiring managers w/o HR. Or, the recruiters are used to niche people.

BD + PM are quite different roles, other than solo founders, rarely would those two functions be performed by the same person. Being neither one nor the other might be a significant factor in high rejection rate.

Gonna need more information:

post up your resume or LinkedIn in a comment, happy to take a look (I work in recruiting)

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, this is where I figured I am falling short. It's due to the way our organization is currently structured and me being in charge of one of our products while also leading BD for some of our existing IP.

Let me remove some of the identifying information from my resume and I'll post it.

My guess is you are better than the people doing the hiring. I have done a lot of interviews and the people in charge are out of their depth.

When someone with a three page resume comes in it makes them feel inadequate.

Do you have the following?

- A github / gitlab profile with small to medium size open source projects

- A linkedin profile with 500+ connections

- A web portfolio featuring descriptions & visuals of at least 3 past projects, as well as a summary of your skills, professional experience, academic background, and personal hobbies

that is to ask: are you marketing yourself?

Why would a product manager need open source git contributions?

I dont do any of the self marketing things you ask for and yet I'm able to find jobs.

Op, its possible you need to have someone look over your resume to make it more appealing. Alternatively, it could be the job positions you are applying for.

An alternative, again for (more) senior people, is to be able to point to commercial packages xxx and yyy as "things I made a direct contribution to, specifically aaa, bbb and ccc".

Those who have worked in commercial code, particularly for a longer time, predate open-source or have been essentially forbidden to participate (ie, companies own my ideas). I have no particular desire to be litigated :-).

Those things can help, but for engineering, I've found them to have very little value. For someone in business development, I have no idea how those would help.

In my experience, no one gives a shit what's on your GitHub. You could have original code that's been starred that's also relevant to what you'll be working with on the job, but it's unlikely to have any impact. After all, how do we know you didn't just copy that code from somewhere else?

> A linkedin profile with 500+ connections

I've never heard of that as a qualification. Maybe it's considered weird if someone doesn't have a LinkedIn (which is also BS), but 500+ connections? Who actually has that many connections and not have them be mostly recruiters and randos?

After my 9+ years of experience, I have 165 connections on LinkedIn, and they are all people I've either worked with, went to school with, or met in person in a professional context. I guess I should up my game and just make a bunch of worthless connections?

> A web portfolio featuring descriptions & visuals of at least 3 past projects

Would be one thing for a designer, but this isn't really fair for those with an engineering background. Some of us work on projects where we can't disclose that we worked on them, myself included. Even if I could, it's the same problem with GitHub. Most people just don't care that you can say that you worked on something. I've worked on things that have millions of active users, and no one in charge of hiring gives a shit (not that I expect them to).

This isn't to say any of those things are bad, but the return on investment for open source projects and portfolios is staggering, IMO.

Couldn't this just be the current economic climate? Business people tend to have a harder time getting jobs than programmers, and when you remove jobs in an already very tight market you will have many people who don't get any jobs at all.

Budgets have been extremely tight this year and layoffs have been higher than usual. 2021 (aka The Great Resignation) was actually the sweet spot to find a job.

3 pages? Is that common in your profession? If it's not, why don't you trim your resume?

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