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Comment by chrisseaton | Hacker News Reader

If you’re a FAANG level developer (very top of your field) then surely you’ve got a network of people you can ask for a job anytime rather than having to apply as normal?

I’m not even remotely FAANG level but if I wanted a job I’d email some people I know or Tweet that I’m looking - not fill in a form.

Have you tried working your network? Emailing some friends?

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Err this is obviously a bit of a thread now, but the point of my post wasn't asking for help, but rather pointing out that frustrations with the market, and the front door, as it were, are universal.

In the UK the market is pretty dumb. Folks are mainly looking for reasons to exclude you rather than focusing on the positives. Ergo, I fire and forget resumes and only really put effort into the ones that come back positively.

When I get past the gate keepers, I almost always get an offer.

So my point is, "hang in there".

I hate that there's so much talk about networks. There's a ton of talk about anti-discrimination, equity/equality, etc in other areas of HN.

What's the word for cronyism if the person is qualified?

It’s not cronyism - it’s people knowing your portfolio of work and abilities.

And at the end of the day - do whatever you need to within reason to put food on your own table. Don’t worry about someone else judging you for cronyism for feeding your family.

There's nothing wrong with networking, but if we're all agreeing that networking is important to having a job search that doesn't involve hundreds of applications, then let's just be honest about that. In particular let's make sure people who don't have that network and who do have to job search know what they need to do to get where they need to be.

I expect it varies enormously. I can readily believe that people with relatively straightforward in-demand skills, an easy to follow track record, and maybe the right schools can probably (in a reasonable economy) just turn on LinkedIn and let interview requests flow in.

Someone who doesn't really check boxes and doesn't have a network may have to play a numbers game.

On the other hand, more senior and more specialized people (both in and out of engineering) will often have a much smaller number of holes that they would fit properly in and just sending out resumes is unlikely to be nearly as effective as networking.

Yeah you’re also disadvantaged as a senior when you apply by a form - people will obviously think ‘why is this FAANG-level person applying blindly like that’ and think it’s off and discard your application.

This is an odd take given that the majority of remote software developer jobs I've found, with form applications, are specifically listed at the senior level or higher. Maybe you're suggesting it's something like Groucho Marx's quote "I wouldn't belong to a club that would take me as a member."

I think a FAANG-level developer would probably email a team they’re interested in working with.

Is that how it works? Imagine your typical 51-200 person company with your, I don't know, mobile, backend, product teams, whatever you call them. Is there some unspoken rule you pick up at FAANG or the Ivy League that the front door is for the unwashed and people in the know use back channels to get an invitation? If someone reached out to me and I redirected them to the careers page, would I be committing some kind of faux pas? I'm joking but only a little, I really don't know how those circles operate.

> Is there some unspoken rule you pick up at FAANG or the Ivy League that the front door is for the unwashed and people in the know use back channels to get an invitation?

Err yeah kind of. I always recommend people find someone in the team they want to join and reach out to them personally or via a mutual.

If you fill in the form without someone on the other end waiting to pick your application out of the firehouse it can get lost in the HR mystery machine.

I think that’s a pretty common opinion? I’ve never gotten a job with a blind application. I’ve gotten every job I applied to when I did it by reaching out.

At smaller places the HR mystery machine is one or two people with names and faces. If they're not passing resumes down to the tech teams then there is some problem that should be sorted out. The dynamic would have to be pretty broken for me to help some random stranger bypass the system everyone in the company has agreed to use. Plus, accepting back channel applicants could mess up relationships with external recruiters, or DEI hiring initiatives.

Also the teams in smaller places are not anything spectacular, just backend, frontend, data, whatever, with a lot of overlap, so the idea that someone would be aiming for a particular team, meaning whoever is working on that part of the stack this month, is also strange.

What you're saying makes sense with big, complex companies with huge HR processes and teams of varying levels of prestige and expertise. Probably a good idea if you're aiming particularly for a team at Google that works on a particular thing you like.

BTW, this isn't a FAANG/Ivy League thing. In fact, I expect that it's even more common in a lot of other areas. Friend of a friend jobs are incredibly common. If you're just trying to navigate the system from the complete outside by handing your resume around, you're at an incredible disadvantage.

My understanding is that GP wasn't talking about a friend of a friend situation, but approaching strangers on the team purely to bypass HR.

I'm certainly more likely to know people at a random large company, but I know a lot of people in the industry to various degrees from we've met at a conference to I've worked with them. If I were thinking of applying somewhere, one of my first steps would be figuring out who I knew there. I won't automatically refer someone if I don't think they'd be a good fit but if I know them well enough to have a positive opinion about them, I'll let them know what I know or can find out and put in a referral.

> if we're all agreeing that networking is important to having a job search that doesn't involve hundreds of applications, then let's just be honest about that

I think we already were? That's exactly what I said. Who do you think isn't being honest?

No one's lying but one of the grandparent comments said that they would change careers if they needed to send out 100 applications for a job search. If 100 applications is necessary for even a good developer without a strong network, that's a misleading recommendation.

I didn't call it cronyism. I asked what cronyism would be called if the qualifications were met.

The point is that giving preference to someone you know reduces or even eliminates the other person's opportunity. This is especially important for minority groups that may not have as many connections in a given industry. Sure, people do what they need to for work, but people skipping in line...

> but people skipping in line...

But picking someone to join your team isn’t taking the first person who appears in line.

No, but it is timeboxed and it's supposed to be taking the best candidate. Even internally at my company, you have people being selected for positions before the position is even posted. So yeah, you have someone skipping the process while you're standing in line for something that isn't even available.

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