Advice for applicants in the current market /u/capyluvr_21 CSCQ protests reddit

I graduated in 2023. It took me 7 months to find a job. Found a job in biotech, got miserable, hopped the ship from the lab bench to now as a remote tech worker.

I now sit as part on the interview panel as we hire for entry level position to our team and I have sat on the interview panel for mid-level position we were hiring for also. I know I have spent my fair share of time on this subreddit and I thought I would contribute back to the community.

Here are some advices/notes/and general thoughts to help you gain insight into the interview process. Note that this really might not apply in larger tech companies like FAANG as I’m speaking from a start-up/mid-sized company perspective. But general principles do apply.

Biggest Mistakes I See

• Interviewees are NOT specific about their project or their role or their impact. “I used R, Python, Java to help automate scripts and conduct EDA” is NOT specific. It’s really easy to tell when interviewees are throwing in tech jargons/buzzwords. But we can hear all of that and will still be unimpressed if we do not actually know what YOU did
  • “I scraped data from the NatGeo website and used R to clean up climate data that was ##### of rows/X GBs in size. I utilized Python JupyterNotebook to build X, Y, Z which helped in XXX. I then used Java for YYY. Overall, at the conclusion of this project I was not only able to learn ZZZ but the outcome was HHH. During this process I worked with dev/ops/product team” IS specific
  • The more specific you are about YOUR specific contributions the better
• Interviewees doesn’t sound excited about the company. Like come on, we literally had a guy that answered “well, you guys gave me the interview and the other guys didn’t” when asked “Why this company”. I cannot emphasize enough how culture fit is extremely important. You could have all the skills and if your future teammates who sat on the interview says “I don’t want to work with this person”, you will not move forward.
  • Candidates that show willingness to learn, eager for opportunities, and genuine excitement about the company generally has better impression on the interviewers
• Mention skillsets on your resume but unable to articulate how you utilized that in your job
  • If you’re going to lie, be good about it. Don’t say you used extensive statistics on your resume if you struggle to answer what confidence intervals are
• Misunderstand the job. If the job description says this role is a Sanitization Engineer that involves cleaning laundry and you tell us how excited you are to build dishwasher from scratch, low likelihood you will move forward.
  • Understand what the job is asking for. First 3-5 bullets are most important. Everything else is a wishlist/very minor

Things I notice as an interviewer

• If you’re reading off the screen, its definitely noticeable. Reading off the script is fine but most people are so focused on reading that they come off as robotic, boring, and monotonous
• As a former job searcher that has used every tactic offered on this sub, I definitely notice when people are using those tips and tricks such as “ask the interviewers as much questions as possible to run the time”. Interviews isn’t about filling the time, its about getting to know you. If you’re so vague when answering questions, asking interviewers 50 questions during the 40mins left will not help your case
• Using AI to send emails. Come on people lol, you’re polluting the environment to ask ChatGPT to write a thank you email?
• Again, if you’re talking just to stall time, just don’t. You’re only hurting yourself

Tips for interviews:

• Show enthusiasm. Does not matter if you have to fake it, please show enthusiasm and your excitement to be here
• Be articulate, tie your experiences together!
• Ask questions about the culture and the team when its your turn
• If you cannot answer a question, don’t panic. Simply saying “I am not sure, but I will look more into this/learn more/etc” is better than off-screen typing into GPT and saying an answer
• It’s okay to say “that is a good question” and take a pause before answering, it is not awkward.
• Kindness goes a long way. Once again, culture fit and likability is so important. You can teach someone what confidence intervals is, but you cannot gain a new type of work ethic/personality/aptitude overnight
• Those that are truly eager and interested are generally well-received. I wouldn’t apply to an oyster shucking company if I’m passionate about marketing camping gears

Additional note on resumes:

• Maybe this is true for FAANG that uses ATS to filter applicants, but there is definitely a real person reading your resume.
• The format doesn’t really matter a whole ton? I’ve seen resumes that comes in dogwater formats and the most ATS unfriendly layouts that makes it to screening. Just don’t make it crazy and make sure its in PDF always
• Keywords in white with 1pt font does not work
• Job titles are quite important, always the first thing I notice
• Please leave your photo out of your resume

I know the job market sucks. I know how helpless you feel, I’ve been there too. I know the anxiety, stress, hopelessness, uncertainty, and doubting if you’re even good enough. Trust me, you’re good enough. We received 1,000+ application for an entry level role that was open for 1 week. A big majority of them are people requiring visas or sponsorship that most companies don’t really do unless you’re FAANG/Fortune 500, so don’t be deterred by those Linkedin numbers.

I wish all of you luck and all it takes is 1 person to say yes to you. I hope that you will find the job that suits you very soon! And hopefully my tips/advice is helpful to some of you at least

I graduated in 2023. It took me 7 months to find a job. Found a job in biotech, got miserable, hopped the ship from the lab bench to now as a remote tech worker.

I now sit as part on the interview panel as we hire for entry level position to our team and I have sat on the interview panel for mid-level position we were hiring for also. I know I have spent my fair share of time on this subreddit and I thought I would contribute back to the community.

Here are some advices/notes/and general thoughts to help you gain insight into the interview process. Note that this really might not apply in larger tech companies like FAANG as I’m speaking from a start-up/mid-sized company perspective. But general principles do apply.

Biggest Mistakes I See

• Interviewees are NOT specific about their project or their role or their impact. “I used R, Python, Java to help automate scripts and conduct EDA” is NOT specific. It’s really easy to tell when interviewees are throwing in tech jargons/buzzwords. But we can hear all of that and will still be unimpressed if we do not actually know what YOU did
  • “I scraped data from the NatGeo website and used R to clean up climate data that was ##### of rows/X GBs in size. I utilized Python JupyterNotebook to build X, Y, Z which helped in XXX. I then used Java for YYY. Overall, at the conclusion of this project I was not only able to learn ZZZ but the outcome was HHH. During this process I worked with dev/ops/product team” IS specific
  • The more specific you are about YOUR specific contributions the better
• Interviewees doesn’t sound excited about the company. Like come on, we literally had a guy that answered “well, you guys gave me the interview and the other guys didn’t” when asked “Why this company”. I cannot emphasize enough how culture fit is extremely important. You could have all the skills and if your future teammates who sat on the interview says “I don’t want to work with this person”, you will not move forward.
  • Candidates that show willingness to learn, eager for opportunities, and genuine excitement about the company generally has better impression on the interviewers
• Mention skillsets on your resume but unable to articulate how you utilized that in your job
  • If you’re going to lie, be good about it. Don’t say you used extensive statistics on your resume if you struggle to answer what confidence intervals are
• Misunderstand the job. If the job description says this role is a Sanitization Engineer that involves cleaning laundry and you tell us how excited you are to build dishwasher from scratch, low likelihood you will move forward.
  • Understand what the job is asking for. First 3-5 bullets are most important. Everything else is a wishlist/very minor

Things I notice as an interviewer

• If you’re reading off the screen, its definitely noticeable. Reading off the script is fine but most people are so focused on reading that they come off as robotic, boring, and monotonous
• As a former job searcher that has used every tactic offered on this sub, I definitely notice when people are using those tips and tricks such as “ask the interviewers as much questions as possible to run the time”. Interviews isn’t about filling the time, its about getting to know you. If you’re so vague when answering questions, asking interviewers 50 questions during the 40mins left will not help your case
• Using AI to send emails. Come on people lol, you’re polluting the environment to ask ChatGPT to write a thank you email?
• Again, if you’re talking just to stall time, just don’t. You’re only hurting yourself

Tips for interviews:

• Show enthusiasm. Does not matter if you have to fake it, please show enthusiasm and your excitement to be here
• Be articulate, tie your experiences together!
• Ask questions about the culture and the team when its your turn
• If you cannot answer a question, don’t panic. Simply saying “I am not sure, but I will look more into this/learn more/etc” is better than off-screen typing into GPT and saying an answer
• It’s okay to say “that is a good question” and take a pause before answering, it is not awkward.
• Kindness goes a long way. Once again, culture fit and likability is so important. You can teach someone what confidence intervals is, but you cannot gain a new type of work ethic/personality/aptitude overnight
• Those that are truly eager and interested are generally well-received. I wouldn’t apply to an oyster shucking company if I’m passionate about marketing camping gears

Additional note on resumes:

• Maybe this is true for FAANG that uses ATS to filter applicants, but there is definitely a real person reading your resume.
• The format doesn’t really matter a whole ton? I’ve seen resumes that comes in dogwater formats and the most ATS unfriendly layouts that makes it to screening. Just don’t make it crazy and make sure its in PDF always
• Keywords in white with 1pt font does not work
• Job titles are quite important, always the first thing I notice
• Please leave your photo out of your resume

I know the job market sucks. I know how helpless you feel, I’ve been there too. I know the anxiety, stress, hopelessness, uncertainty, and doubting if you’re even good enough. Trust me, you’re good enough. We received 1,000+ application for an entry level role that was open for 1 week. A big majority of them are people requiring visas or sponsorship that most companies don’t really do unless you’re FAANG/Fortune 500, so don’t be deterred by those Linkedin numbers.

I wish all of you luck and all it takes is 1 person to say yes to you. I hope that you will find the job that suits you very soon! And hopefully my tips/advice is helpful to some of you at least