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Comment by notsurenymore | Hacker News Reader

> Second, it's not you, it's the programmer labor market.

I keep hearing this, but then I’ll see the opposite, that the market has already corrected and it’s just incompetents that joined the industry in the times of low interest rates can’t get hired now. It seems about 50/50 what I see and hear.

> Third, to survive in the meantime, you may have to take a crap job for a bit

I’m definitely trying, but even this feels difficult in spite of the constant new about how great the general job market is.

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The general job market, for the overall economy, is good. That doesn't mean every sector is, and because Big Tech went on a hiring binge during the pandemic, then reversed gears in early 2023, we're out of sync with the rest of the labor market.

One good tactic is to have a friend or former coworker look at your resume, and let you know what they think. An outside pair of eyes can help. Also, perhaps find someone who can do a practice interview with you (again, perhaps a former coworker or friend in the industry who knows how these go), they may be able to tell you if you're doing something that is off-putting, without you even realizing you're doing it.

Just keep plugging away. You only need one job interview to go well, and if you keep making enough "shots on goal", you will get one, and then the number of misses before that will not matter.

> and because Big Tech went on a hiring binge during the pandemic, then reversed gears in early 2023

The last company I worked for definitely did this, so the layoff was no surprise, but what I don’t get is why I’m having trouble finding work at non tech companies. 3-4 years ago I could get interviews at F500 type companies no issue even from cold applications. Did they participate in over-hiring too?

Possibly, but they also got to fill all of their openings from those layoffs. When there are 2% fewer candidates than openings, it feels like a candidates' market; when there are 2% more (legitimate) candidates than openings, it feels the opposite. The good part of that is that it can go back the other way quickly. Just make sure you don't beat yourself down so much in the meantime that you don't look like a viable candidate when the opportunity comes. If you appear desperate in a job interview, it makes people suspicious that there's a problem they're not seeing. Work on being as calm and patient as you can, and just keep plugging away.

> I keep hearing this, but then I’ll see the opposite

Depending on who you talk to you will get wildly different assessments of the same information. Follow the money. Most of the people telling you its an employers job market are doing so because they want to hire you at lower rates and get your expectations down.

The right company matched with the correct skills and person can make both parties happy. The fact that we've been chasing this ghost for years doesn't mean it doesn't exist... its just really fucking difficult.

We were luckier before, I don't know how else to process it currently.

easy to be fat and happy when the money keeps flowing.

Normalcy in software engineering is when incompetents are getting jobs.

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