Tell HN: My advice after I applied to 450 positions before getting hired

Re:Tell HN: My advice after I applied to 450 positions befor... by creer on Saturday August 30, 2025 @10:14PM (#45079741)

Layoffs are not a new thing. The 80ies were already seeing the combination of recurring layoffs at the same time as a thick book of open positions - for the same companies. Layoffs were frequent, openings were plentiful.

Resume processing software indeed was a problem from the start, at first leading to resumes stuffed with BS keywords.

I feel that what are (somewhat) recent are (1) the brazenness of the whole process, combined with (2) the time-intensive-ness of the interview process. All the way to different people applying and showing up for the job. That is new. Hundreds of responses for each and every job posting, that is recent. Just the lid on the coffin of a process that has been breaking for a while.

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Re:Tell HN: My advice after I applied to 450 positions befor... by ghaff on Sunday August 31, 2025 @07:59AM (#45082505)

Sending out lots of (literal) letters into the ether was certainly a thing out of engineering grad school in the early 80s. But other than on-campus interviews, there weren't a lot of options. And it actually worked.

But it did require some physical effort. I can imagine today the automation of everything makes similar approaches difficult.

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