- 50 interviews, 1000+ applications → 4 response -> 0 offers (just pure ghosting, even for unpaid work).
- multiple companies asking for “10+ years” in tools that are 5 years old.
- one role asking for frontend, backend, fullstack, and devops basically 4 engineers in a trench coat.
it feels like the system optimizes for keywords, not skills. sometimes i wonder if job posts exist just to harvest free take-home projects or bug bounties. (yes, that happened.)
curious: how are others navigating this market? does ghosting ever end, or is this just the new normal?
Yes and no; what do I mean with that...yes, it looks like the system it's fundamentally broken and at the same time, no it's not because it has always been this way, thus the expected output.
The problem with it right now is that history repeat itself, as the current market symptoms are the same (more or less) as those back in 2000 when dot com bubble was about to burst!
They were asking for unrealistic stuff and you could tell from the amount of money poured in the tech industry that something was completely off, which eventually confirmed everyone's suspicion.
I have been looking for a job myself for a while now and let me tell you, it's a complete mad chaos out there, especially with the AI frenzy everyone and their mother is talking about.
Hold on tight, don't stop and keep on looking for anything, until the storm calms down.
Good luck!
When HASN'T hiring been broken? I looked back (70's on) and found that networking was my main source of interviews, and jobs, if you exclude a certain fruit company, in my career.
Employers just found a new failure mode, (AI) and I see no improvement in sight, except some ideas regarding proof of work.
Hoping this gets better, but not optimistic.
It has needed complete reinvention forever.
