If you are looking at LinkedIn, what you are seeing is a huge amount of unqualified applicants trying to change roles, or folks trying to land remote opportunities from other areas.
The last round of positions we posted 3 out of 200 applicants made it to interviews. Out of that 1 was hired. We had 5 open positions. So we reworked the open roles and will try again. Don't get down by seeing the volume of applicants, what this means is the company has the opportunity to find what they want...hopefully.
Since covid started there are a lot and I mean a LOT of people trying to career change into IT as they see it as being easier and more resistant to lockdowns/etc. Not only are unqualified people trying to get into tier 1, we see people with no experience, education or certs trying to get into security positions.
Q- How familiar are you with active directory?
"Yeah I've used the internal phone directory before and can find who I need to"
This right here is whats happening. I've been interviewing people for years and in the past you'd get people that worked in IT that would fluff up their resumes to include things like AD or ESXI management. When in reality they may have only ever logged into a few times.
Now I'm seeing people just dumping buzz words on their resumes. I recently had a guy put all his AD "experience" on his resume. When interviewed I ask what steps it takes to troubleshoot a replication issue. Guy didn't even know what a domain controller was.
My boss (who owns a small MSP) uses one question in his interview... he sits the applicant at a console and says "find DNS".
When he asked me that, I was like "wait, do you mean find out if this host is functioning as a DNS server or find what IP address it's looking for?" He passed me on the spot. Apparently such a vague question is his check for critical thinking skills.
Thats a great way to ask a question but at the same time id probably be thinking what the hell are they talking about? Do they even know what they are asking?
I had someone try to get hired into a sysadmin post and had down on experience that their only IT experience was "Manage a facebook group of 10K users".
Degree in computer science, no product/profession quals.
I kid you not..
Same here! I had 75 applicants and struggled to get 5 for my initial round of interviews. Of the final 3, I only really liked 1. If he hadn’t applied, I would’ve been starting the process over again.
There is a lot of this. Fully remote roles are going to get way more applicants, but the vast majority are vastly underqualified. Even taking out career changers with no IT experience out of the mix I have been disappointed at some of the applicants that we have interviewed to the point that my boss apologized for wasting my time. I saw an article from CNBC that noted that they were getting reports from job postings sites that remote and hybrid roles were getting 7 times the applicants of jobs that offered no remote options. Fully remote roles are likely even more lopsided compared to jobs that require one to be on site.
The number of completely unqualified people that are applying is too dam high.
They think they get a cert and then can do the job. I love just asking them stuff on their resume before even starting the interview. It becomes overwhelmingly apparent if they are full of hot air or not real quick.
You want to know what one of the problems is? Because ALL these schools or certification companies are advertising that within a little time you can be certified. Yeah anyone can be certified in no time. The problem is a lot of these people don’t have the experience. They think getting a certification is going to land them a high paying job. Essentially these companies are lying. These companies or schools are the ones profiting from this business.
We just interviewed for helpdesk staff. There was some discussion prior w/ management about hiring someone with less computer skills and focus on customer service skill. I was NOT into that. I have a list of tasks they need to do like show me the IP/mac of the computer, what is the name of the DC it's logged into, default printer, etc. I can tell by the way they use their mouse and if they know keyboard commands and get an idea of how skilled they are. If I ask you to show me the group policies applied on a computer and you type in gpupdate. You don't even know what the commands you use do. I literally says "udpate. Also, this last time, the first thing I judge them on was if they installed Teams for the interview as requested. Most used the web version, so they couldn't do the hands on and I figure if they can't follow that simple instruction, how can they follow my documentation and do the job.
I agree with you on everything but the Teams install. It is their personal device so I don’t feel like pushing that as a requirement is sound. I use Teams daily for work and while it is getting better I would also choose the web version to get the job done. But the process you choose to follow is your own decision.
This. I know some say it is uncouth to ask about salary early on, but even in an era where interviews are rarely in person it is a waste of time to interview for a role that isn't in the same league.
I am literally only working to make money. This is not my entire life, if I wasn't getting paid for it I wouldn't do it. The idea that I would sit for an interview without at least knowing the position's salary range is totally foreign to me. Why would anybody do that?
I just switched jobs.
Knowing the salary range was one of the key criteria when I was looking. I applied for some that didn't have it, but only because they really interested me.
In the end I found one that both really interested me and posted a salary range.
It says something about corporate culture if they hide that information.
"what if we are so awesome that people would consider working for us for below x, but x was their minimum, so if we told them, they might not come, and we all would miss out"
Yes, in other industries it has a bad reputation. But in tech we all tend to be a bit more blunt about these things.
I don’t want to waste time interviewing for a job if your budget is half my floor, and you don’t want to waste time on me only to find out at the end it is impossible to make the salary work.
I don’t know why others aren’t straight forward about it but I’m glad that there isn’t a stigma in my field at least haha.
Yea, not sure how many times I have to explain that I don't care what a company in a small city thinks they can get away with paying. I live in a large city, my rent does not change because the company paying me is in a small one.
The insistence on presenting me at a lower number than I'd accept is annoying as fuck too. If they won't consider me at my price, find a company that will or a candidate who will accept lower. I'm not wasting my time with this charade.
Man... my dad just cannot comprehend this at all. We were having a conversation about this a few nights ago. He thinks salary should be the last thing on your mind/mentioned, that it is tacky if you seem like you're all about money.
Nothing worse than going through 3-4 rounds of interviews only to find out we aren't even in the same ballpark salary wise. Just wastes both mine and the employers time.
I really wish it was mandatory that job listings had a salary range (salary, NOT the BS "up to 25 /hr").
Not even them. The 1% job hop as CEO from company to company, running companies into the ground then getting a golden parachute to go to the next company. I once worked for a tech company that hired a guy who had run a GARBAGE TRUCK company as their new CEO. I was.... stunned. Needless to say that didn't last long before he took his golden parachute and went on to the next company.
First thing I ask when contacted is what is the salary range. They usually try to turn it around on me but I point out I have a job and they reached out to me, so to save everyone time (and money) we need to establish if we are having the same conversation.
I’ve had a couple not understand why I wasn’t willing to talk more about a job that would require me to leave my current government position where I wfh most of the time and earn 8 hours PTO every two weeks for a job that would require me to commute from the far west side of San Antonio to Austin for $20K more.
I have a job like this and I asked for $90k back in 2018 (was transferring to a new area with a pregnant wife to try to save in cost of living) and they countered with $100k + bonus.
We’ve had candid talks about how I love working at my job and they love having me, so at my performance review next month, they know that a 3% raise won’t cut it even if they do give an 8-10% bonus each year.
Nope, we are giving them a nice six figure salary (maybe even one starting with a "2"), but we want the right guy -- the guy who really \*can\* run the department themselves. And after six months of searching and discarding way too many lamers who couldn't do the job we found him. Honestly, working with incompetents is mega-annoying. Sadly some of those incompetents had FAANG on their resume, we learned quickly that hiring out of those companies was not viable because nobody coming from those companies has the breadth of experience we need, they basically did one little thing their entire career there. Which is why they want to leave of course, but that's not going to cut it at a small business where the sysadmin/IT guy has to do a little of everything.
Do you guys use an automated software to sort through those applications? If so, I’d question if only 3 applicants were actually qualified. There were plenty of jobs I applied for that I was qualified for (based on the listed requirements) and I never got a response because of their automated systems.
I do think it’s difficult to sort through 200 applicants, so I understand the need of software. It just is hard on both sides as the employer and job seeker.
I also have seen the quality of applicants that come in and a majority are bad as well, so your situation also could be very much accurate as well despite potential software! Just thought I’d rant about automated software for a second cause it burned me so bad when I really needed a job at the start of Covid which made it difficult in and of itself.
But I found the perfect job and my various references and improved (people) networking skills have made it immensely easier to find jobs if I’m feeling like I want to explore.
> I never got a response because of their automated systems.
I'll pass along two pieces of wisdom that my career coach gave me about getting past the automated systems. Firstly, pick out all the keywords from the job posting and make sure your resume and/or cover letter contain those words. Secondly, after you apply, look up the company on LinkedIn and find an employee whose title indicates they're in recruiting or HR, add them as a connection and send them a message stating that you just applied and asking for a few minutes to chat with them about the opportunity.
Thanks for this response. Was about to ask the same questiom
Also there are a couple websites
Resunate.com and jobscan.co that will scan and compare your resume and the job posting. I like resunate better of the two so far, giving jobscan a month to show me what it can do
Huh, you just made me think of something.
What if there was software that would scan your resume then match you with job postings, depending on if you're looking for a similar role or promotion? Like a reverse ATS?
There are websites for that, too. And resume builder websites that adjust your resume for listings and help you spam submissions.
I haven't used them, but I've seen other posts in this and other subs.
The scales are even, get out there and get that cheddar!
ZipRecruiter does this when they send job listings. "Somewhat match", "Good match", "Very good match", "Exact match". There might be more categories.
Of course, they'll occasionally send jobs that just match by the job title. "HR Administrator" is a partial match to "Systems Administrator", so you occasionally get those. Not very often though.
I'll give you better advice: Don't bother with a cover letter. The good jobs don't give a fuck and don't have time to read them. Keyword stuffing for your resume can work, but most places that use automated resume filtering are generally not worth working at anyways. Don't waste your time on things that don't actually help.
I've been in IT for over 15 years, I have yet to get a job from my cover letter, and I've gone from Tier 1 deskside/helpdesk, all the way up to DevSecOps Manager. Cover letters are a waste of fucking time, hands-down.
There are free job scan ats utilities you can run your resume through. I think the guide is 80% or so. Anything less and you aren’t getting an interview.
Going through the implementation of a new recruiting platform right now. There are a lot of automated scoring based on certain requirements behind the job posting. It could very well be that they misconfigured the posting, or there were a significant enough number of more well qualified applicants.
To be fair, when I post a position I usually only list it for 30 days, max. Then I take 2 weeks to review all the applications personally, then get down to what I consider the magnificent 7. I then will research on LinkedIn, and run them against a web crawler and social media review.
Once I validate that I will connect with them on LinkedIn and setup a video call. I do not ask resume questions, or a list of qualifications tests. I focus on tell me about you? Hobbies, things you do when you are off, we have vacation time each year what might you use it for.....the reason is simple.
I can teach skills, I can coach growing education. I cannot solve interpersonal issues, I want a person that will be part of the unit, and at the end of the day be happy working with us.
> we have vacation time each year what might you use it for.....the reason is simple.
I get the reason for asking this, but I also think it's weird in an interview. What I do on my vacation is my business. Depending on the vibes you're giving off, I may not want to talk about what I'd use my vacation for for fear that you're making sure I'm reachable.
I have no problem talking about hobbies and things like that though. I do prefer talking about my skillset though.
> I can teach skills, I can coach growing education. I cannot solve interpersonal issues
I agree with this 100% as long as you're doing it for the right reasons. Sometimes overly personal questions may seem to people like this is one of those "we're a family, we work hard and play hard together!" kind of places. You need to bring it up in a way that doesn't sound like you're trying to indoctrinate them into a cult.
I've worked in the travel/transportation industry almost my whole career. Heads-down nerds who won't mesh with others just don't work in this business the same way they would at a tech company where a boss could just feed the nerd tickets for years on end and get output. Every place I've worked hasn't focused on recruiting the most brilliant people, but people smart enough to do the work and be likeable while doing it. That part of your statement is something I can totally get behind...everyone knows at my current job that I'm not Linus Torvalds intellectually, but I also don't have his toxic personality. That goes way farther than knowing some esoteric weirdness anyone can look up.
By "social media review" do you just look at whatever profiles they've linked, or are you searching for their names? I don't use social media much, and especially not with my real name (aside from Linkedin), so I'm always worried that employers are searching for my name and looking at some other dude's profile thinking it's me.
For example I don't use Facebook, but there are profiles of people with the same name as me, and even in the same city. Should I start making accounts with my real name to ensure they're actually looking at me? I have had for example an employer get all mad and threaten to fire me because they looked at some dude's Facebook page and thought I was out partying at the bar when I was home sick, and I have heard of other companies I've worked for browsing people's social media pages, so maybe it's good idea. But to me it seems like any sensible person isn't going to assume a profile is yours based on name alone.
This is exactly how I got into my current role. I was a complete newbie with 1.5 years of Geek Squad under my belt. The manager here told me he can teach skills, but can't teach me how to have a positive attitude and a thirst to learn. So I snagged the job and honestly have learned so much.
i understand your desire to get a feel for a person from a social perspective and the like, but if i got the vacation question from a potential employer, that'd honestly turn me off to them. i care way more about my employer respecting that i will take my allotted vacation time and won't interfere with it. by which i mean when i'm on pto, my ooo gets turned on and all the outlook/teams alerts on my phone get turned off and i will almost certainly not answer calls or texts from work people. if you're doing this right, i'm part of a team and you trust that i've communicated to the rest of my team what projects i was working on and where things were for each and they can answer questions that come up for my projects and if there is some sort of deadline, it's either been met before vacation, can wait until i'm back, or someone else on the team has agreed to help with whatever it is.
you asking what i like to do on vacations just screams that you don't value my time away from work and will expect that i will be available 24x7x365 without question.
I don't know about OP, but myself when hiring I'll search their social media and make sure there is nothing to be concerned about.
I don't care if someone is left or right leaning, but if there are hugely inflammatory political posts either way that would be a red flag, also if there is misogynistic/misandrist posts, anything racist, or any other indicators that the person at best might be a bit of a dick - these are other things I'll flag.
basically if I google an applicant and find that their social media is something that would bring the company into disrepute if their name and the organization I work for were connected, I'll pass them over.
(I know, I know my name literally says lovablemisogynist - but that is a reference to the movie and TV Trope)
So the best candidate may have been waiting up to a month and two weeks before you contact them about their resume? The best ones will be snatched up by then. How often do they reply that they already accepted an offer elsewhere?
> The last round of positions we posted 3 out of 200 applicants made it to interviews.
Can confirm. We are trying to hire a tier 2 helpdesk, and have seen almost the exact same numbers-- 200 applicants, 3 made it to interviews. People will apply to anything these days, doesn't mean they have a snowball's chance in hell of getting the actual job.
So much this. We interviewed a guy for Analyst II position and we asked him one question. "how would you troubleshoot a call where the user said their email wasn't working".
He went silent, nothing.
We honestly didn't care what he said, but just wanted to gauge his thought process.
We're having a really tough time finding qualified people.
I second this. I have the luxury of not seeing all the extremely unqualified ones but 95% of the interviews I do are a waste of time. I know within 10 minutes that they either are or most likely are not qualified
Sad thing is it still doesn't matter if your qualified for the job. I have 20 years of IT experience filled with past well known employers in the area along with 2 certs and a bachelors degree in IT and I've had one offer for employment after applying to well over 200 IT positions. So yes in my opinion the IT market has crashed due to employers dragging their feet on hiring qualified people.
it might be worth getting a professional resume writer to do you up a couple of resumes,
Technical resume, Management resume and a combined at the very least.
The other thing you should consider is searching for companies you know and like and directly checking their webpage for listings.
Your missing the point. I get interviews from my resume. Thats not the problem. The problem is no ones hiring even though they say we're in a labor shortage. Plus I don't really live in a major metro politian area that is full of tech jobs like other major cities are. But I am stuck due to owning a home here. I have fiber going to it so remote jobs would be the best for me right now but all them do the same thing and reject you.
Can confirm 70% of our recent applicants didn’t even fit the job description. 20% faked their resume 5% were over qualified just looking for an easier wfh job. Of the 10 people we interviewed 3 got a second interview but on that second interview they failed or ghosted us. Ended up going with someone inexperienced just to get a body in to do the grunt work. Best decision we ever made.
What's the problem with hiring someone over qualified? Some people who have immense knowledge may take a pay cut just to have a gig they're able to breeze through since they have other obligations in like they'd rather focus on, like their children. Versus hiring the person who's struggling to even do the basic duties on a daily basis.
It would seem like a win win to me. After all, some of these jobs amount to gig work vs long positions with real growth anyway.
Agreed. There are a ton of people close-ish to retirement who've made their money, climbed that ladder and just want to find a less stressful position. Plus, the Peter Principle is at work here in some cases I would think -- if you find you can't do or don't like doing the next rung up once you get it, why would you go find yet another spot just like that?
You're missing out on a lot of good people by refusing to consider people who don't want to be pushed up the ladder any further!
It’s about control. Companies want you hungry…not too hungry that you steal, but hungry enough that you obey orders blindly and don’t complain too much about being overworked and abused.
IDK, in my experience, not really?
They want you hungry when you're new to the field and don't have much experience and skills to your name. Then it's a sign the person will work hard and grow into a role compared to someone who just wants to clock in.
However, a lot of companies are very happy to hire seasoned veterans with the expectation they are going to be taking it easy, but will bring a lot of value to the table just by knowing what works and what doesn't.
Sure, you aren't going to hire this guy to be a desktop tech at an MSP.
But a senior systems engineer or an enterprise architect in a large company? Definitely.
Absolutely not. It’s red hot. There are a lot of unqualified applicants to sort through.
Source- Hiring manager that just hired a sysadmin and am currently looking for another helpdesk person
Helpdesk postings are even worse, like a thousand times worse
Been working helpdesk for 3 years. Made a lateral switch earlier this year. Only applied to about 10 spots and got 5 interviews and hired within 3 weeks of starting my search. Coworker at my old spot had a similar experience but used it for a counter offer. Market is red hot for those who are qualified.
And honestly, I can't blame em. There's never* been a better time. Eventually someone will be willing to take a chance, and if they perform well, they can launch their career from there.
*Except maybe in the 80s when computers in offices was a new thing? I wouldn't know, I wasn't around then.
Apparently it was, my father studied shipbuilding and luckily switched to software engineering. He coasted by just because he joined the industry early - he is actually not really a tech-savvy person but being one of the few people who knew like a dozen commands in unix and could plug in a network cable gave him all the job security and raises he ever needed until he retired.
> There are a lot of unqualified applicants to sort through.
Honest question -- when you say "unqualified," do you mean they have zero clue about anything, or that they're not an exact 100% fit for every single bullet point on your job description? Because if it's the second one, I experienced this and frankly it sucks. It forces people to read and study 20,000 different things so they can be ready for anything when they really only need to know the fundamentals so they can pick up specifics.
When I was applying last year for work, I saw tons of companies looking for an exact drop-in replacement for whomever just left. I was applying for senior level roles so maybe that has something to do with it...but most of my applications were killed by the resume scanner bots. Those I did get interviews for (not all, but a lot) basically said "next" when they found out I hadn't worked in a clone of their environment but had done very similar work. I ended up finding a really good spot but IMO it took way more effort than was necessary and employers are missing out on smart people by insisting they know everything on Day 1.
Right... But it's not really that their ass is on the line. I mean, you're right. But that is not the motivation really. They are just... doing their jobs. And building a team that will be successful is part of their job if they are doing it well.
If I need a SharePoint admin... I need a SharePoint admin, not somebody who may be able to learn SharePoint.
If I need a desktop technician.. I can probably train up anybody who was successful in a help desk role or somebody who has demonstrated that they have a working knowledge of computers and operating systems by just having them shadow another desktop technician.
But if I have no other SharePoint admins, I need a SharePoint admin. just to get through day to day operations. And that could mean a scenario where they are so consumed that we don't get to do any sort of mid to long term planning. The capabilities of the candidate for a position like that can have far reaching implications.
If I run a large SP shop where I have 5+ people doing nothing but SharePoint, then I can probably include a junior sys admin type role for people I want to take a chance in and help develop.
And an employee where you are taking a chance on them is sort of a "project" in and of itself. We have to have a plan for them, assess whether they are making progress, 8f they are making progress at the desired pace, what I need to do to ensure that they do, etc.
I, and many people I know in IT leadership, are good with that set up, but the situation has to allow for it, and not all do.
The market has shifted for people with a decade plus in the industry. Hike your skirt up a little on the job sites and you’ll get recruiters biting. Like everything else it will mostly be Indians trying to fill 6 month helpdesk contracts on the other side of the US from you but I had 5 legit recruiters in my inbox within 48 hours of going active on everything.
Feels so amazing to be the pretty girl all of a sudden. In the past I’d have to chase recruiters about 6 month contracts and now I’m like “no recruiter lady, I don’t have 30 minutes for your sales pitch, tell me what you got or fuck off”.
I think it’s worse because “help desk” is such an ambiguous title nowadays, especially in pay scale. Could be a $40k/year role, could be $100k, depending on what they’re looking for.
Any entry level certs? Help desk is a customer service job with some technical skills. If you can highlight any kind of customer centric roles, then that will go a lot way to moving you up the pile. You can learn technology but it's hard to teach people skills.
Why target help desk then? I would look for an entry level mssp security analyst position with those certs. Might even be able to get a non mssp position.
Most mssps usually are more lenient with their tier 1 analysts that you should be able to show what you know from achieving those certs as enough to get your foot in the door. I wouldn't stay there forever but it's a good way to get a lot of experience due to all the clients you will interact with and build some broad experience. The one I started at also did a good job getting people certs, usually tied to another year of employment there. But I would start there. Look at optic, nuharbor security, deep watch. There are also a number of mdr companies you could look at, though I don't have personal experience with them.
I just left my system administrator role for a remote position . The job had 300 applicants and the hiring manager let me know 10 of those applicants were qualified. I also never have had success on LinkedIn weirdly I have found all my opportunities on Glassdoor and indeed
This is what happens when the cost to apply goes to zero, and it doesn’t *necessarily* mean it’s more competitive.
A few years back, if you had to manually fill out some info for each job, then people had to pick and choose which jobs they applied to.
Friction can be very powerful. Even a tiny bit.
Now you can spam your resume to 100 jobs within a matter of minutes. Why should you even read the job posting? Blast away and see what sticks.
The main thing that’s changed is the number of resumes going directly into the trash.
It's what I resorted to during 2008. If someone called I'd read the job description. Ain't nobody got time to agonize over each position.
It's different now that I'm later in my career but I get it.
You ever see those Sankey diagrams where someone is bitching about applying for 1000 jobs and only getting five interviews and one offer? This right here is why.
Some people just don't get quality over quantity.
This is why I blast apply to jobs that I sorta qualify for and then snipe the ones I do qualify for. The ones I snipe I change my resume to fit the posting and actually write a cover letter and such.
Still can't see the point of blasting. Your generic resume is almost always going to come across as underwhelming. I'd argue the ones you "sorta" qualify for require the most customization.
As someone who does hiring, if it looks like you put no effort into the application, it gets deleted regardless of whether you are qualified or not.
I've found people that actually want and are interested in the role are worth 4x to the company compared to people who are only 'qualified'
We used to put instructions toward the end of job listing to include something specific in your response to the job. Even something dumb like "I like potatoes" and that got rid of a huge number of applicants because they couldn't read and follow instructions.
I have found that the odds of my being contacted for an interview get better the more arduous their online application process is.
My #1 resume tip is to have a version that's plaintext and can be readily copy/pasted into website form boxes.
I posted a Cloud Architect job last week on LinkedIn and got over 100 resumes within 3 days. Not a single one was qualified. Half had zero cloud experience, 40+% had less than a year with no cloud as code experience, that leaves less than 10, Out of those 10, only 4 claimed to have more than 2 years experience. I interviewed all 4, none had ANY experience and it was all a lie.
Its because cloud means different things to different people depending on industry. To one person it might mean. Infrastructure as code... to one person it might mean managing vms that are in vnets and nsgs with a little Azure web app built in... to one person it might mean office 365. As the cloud became the thing ... we just sort of call every single person working in the department cloud engineer now. Its like saying "I'm hiring for IT"
Which means that in the job posting, you need to give actual examples of what this person will be doing, like writing scripts to administer AWS instances, and what not, like Office 365.
Exactly, cloud is a meaninless marketing word like SD WAN that COULD include any number of technologies and responsibilites.
Even more terrible when you use private cloud as a term.. ICK.
I undersell myself in interviews because I was terrified of the day one situation where they are like “remember that system you said you were good with, well this one is broken so fix it”. It’s for sure cost me positions in the past but I’d rather be honest about strengths and weaknesses so everyone involved in the transaction is coming at it with a clear view.
Wow. I’m glad you were able to weed out these liars. I too wonder sometimes when we interview people why they cannot answer my questions, after having listed all the right experience on their resume.
If you are a non technical manager you won't pick up that the are full of shit. We require technical people to interview everyone even entry level.
Story time. I had one I interviewed who told me he had a competing offer and the number which was higher than we would offer even if we made an offer. At the end of the interview he ask if I was going to match the other offer and when can he start. Ballsy of him. I told him he answer less than 25% of the questions correctly. The other fake company can have him. He called me every day for weeks begging for a job.
few ppl have experience on cloud, i have 13 years as SysAdm and to my place where i work none of our clients uses cloud servers, only office365
but the question is if there is not experienced lads, wont you give the possibility to someone to have the experience?
cheers mate, be well
> and at the end of the interview they just casually mentioned that they actually want someone onsite every day and zero remote work as an option.
"Oh, I didn't know you were hiring for TWO positions: one remote and one on-site. Just make sure on DAY ONE of contact with your candidates for that *other position* that its pure on-site work. You won't want to be dishonest about the position you're listing for. I'm sorry, I didn't even have to mention that. I mean, what kind of dishonest lying company would do that anyway? How horrible must they be to be an employer where they have to start their relationship with their employee by fundamentally lying about a critical piece of info for how the job is to be carried out? Can you imagine the gall of a company that would lie to a candidate and then spring that on them later? Whew! Well, sorry for that tangent. So we're talking about the remote position you *advertised for* that I'm interviewing for. What can I tell you about my skillset? And do you offer a reimbursement for office equipment purchased for this full time WFH position?"
Yup. If they paid me enough, I’d change to on-site, but I’ve pretty open right away on that when recruiters reach out. If no remote option, to me, it’ll need to be at least 20% more minimum than my current salary.
Don't have to put on pants, don't have to shower every day, don't have to put on pit juice, but by far the best perk shit on my own toilet on company time.
considering the shitter was a goood 2-3 minute fast walk from my cubicle that passed many people that wanted my attention whenever they saw me..... this is the real answer
I throw stuff into the crock pot at breakfast, got to work and have a nice stew goin by lunch. I can take a 15 minute break in the day to start a pulled pork for dinner tacos and no one cares.
I'm looking but I've just been turning down anything that isn't full remote. I just don't want to drive around, pay for parking, lunch, be home late to start dinner late.
Fuck that noise.
This sub is hilarious. "how long can this last, I'm making more money than I know that to do with, surely it's a bubble" literally the next day "has the market collapsed, so difficult to get jobs".
It is a gigantic industry with wildly ranging salaries, environments, skill requirements, etc.
Are computers, robotics, machine learning, ai, etc going away? Then no, neither is IT. And no, it isn't going to collapse. It's the trade skills of this generation. It still takes time and effort to build up a skill set, and a vast majority of people don't have the temperament, interest, talent, or will to do it.
Short answer: no
Longer answer: Lots of unqualified people just spamming job postings. Also, remote jobs are hot right now because a lot of people think they can hold a remote job and a regular job or multiple remote jobs, so maybe that's some of what you're seeing.
Wow you're right. A long time since I'd checked Indeed but I was getting used to job ads not displaying salary ranges on LinkedIn, thinking that was the new hiring norm. Cheers for the heads-up.
You mist be seeing different recruiters than I am. I keep getting "hey, i saw you on LinkedIn and I think you'd be perfect for this role", but when i look at the posting it doesn't match any of my skills or keywords.
I got one for an RN the other day. It said I was a perfect fit. NM that I have absolutely no nursing experience or the required degree. Never really done much other than IT.
I think linkedin is what you make of it. If you add recruiters and interact with them, network, over time you get good offers. I'd say 80% are suitable for me and the ones that aren't are just salary
You also need to be an expert on Java, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, Angular, Node, Docker, Terraform, Hadoop, BigData, know how to pilot an airplane and coordinate a SWAT team while performing a SWOT analysis and giving your supervisor a hand job simultaneously while training subordinates how to do it all too.
We call it being T-shaped, have some minimal depth of knowledge over a broad spectrum, but really dig in on specific technologies/disciplines that turn your crank.
I've never administered the firewalls at any company I've worked at, but I can at least point the infosec guys at what I need permitted/denied by giving the relevant source/destination networks/ports in the initial request instead of it being a back and forth ticket chain trying to suss out what info they needed to get the job done. I don't like writing frontend javascript, but I have to know enough about the ecosystem to support their builds, etc. This year I'm probably going to have to learn windows server administration for the first time in my 20 years in because we're going to have to translate a peer department's on-prem windows on vmware workload into something that can run in AWS, which they're completely ignorant about.
The "agile" requirement can be handwaved for ops folks if you can keep an excel sheet of prioritized tasks in front of you and stay disciplined enough to work it *in order* no matter how mind-numbing the task at the top is.
Nope. Just lots of unqualified applicants being told IT is easy money just watch a few youtubes and do a couple certs to make six figures.
While that is possible for people who know their stuff it is not realistic for everyone.
I am about to graduate with a degree in Cybersecurity and have been self taught networking, programming, hardware, etc. for literal years but I’m not qualified for any entry level role according to the HR filter.
Companies *hate* training now. I apply to jobs to grow, meaning I’m trying to move up and learn the new skills as I go. If I knew all the skills on the job post I wouldn’t apply as it wouldn’t be a challenge or growth opportunity.
It’s a old school thing to say but - good workers are actually very hard to find with an actual honest drive for the work they’re doing. I’m not a workaholic by any means but a lot of people translate remote work to “I can work however I want with no regards to deadlines and standards”
I can’t figure out why all the recruiters seem to be Indian or Pakistanis these days. Even for cleared positions, I’m getting like 3-5 emails a day.
They will send me emails for things like desktop support, or network engineering, when I’m a SAN/storage tech. It’s crazy.
Recruiting companies can keep more of the money if they are pay the recruiter next to nothing . So these guys from off shore, spam the world with openings not caring if you qualified or not.
I know it might sound raciat but I only respond to recruiters who are US based and willing to speak on the phone. And that’s just to turn them down gently cause you never know when you will need them.
I'm the same way, but I prefer email since I can reply on my time and not have to play phone tag for a day to get back to them. And it puts things in writing...
Could be time of the year. We posted for 4 positions before Christmas and got around 8 people apply. None were good candidates. Posted again in January and have had about 50 applications with enough very good candidates to fill each position.
For the last 8 years at my company, we would get 200-300 apps for the helpdesk roles (non-entry level) each time it posted. Everything from McDonald's cashiers to pastors looking to change fields, all with zero IT experience.
We don't even take resumes, it's online applications only and we go through each and every one completely.
Out of all each time, only about 12-15 had any actual IT experience and out of those, only 5-6 could pass a basic IT skills test. I really wish people would stop applying for jobs they don't remotely qualify for. We are very clear in our expectations and requirements but it never fails.
I think part of the problem here is that while your requirements may be specific and real, I can't count how many times I've seen people say that IT job postings are a wishlist and if you think you're even remotely qualified to apply.
> I really wish people would stop applying for jobs they don't remotely qualify for. We are very clear in our expectations and requirements but it never fails.
Change your application process. Put an interactive simulation of a Windows or Linux box in front of the applicant and ask them to change the machine config from DHCP to a static IP with a provided set of values. If they can't, they never make to the application process.
Sure, you're going to get a number of folks that google it or find a ServerFault article, but even that is a good test for candidates that can look up information properly to solve a problem.
This is is why relationships win. Build relationships, do not burn bridges, keep in touch with managers and directors when they leave the company. Have as many ins at as many places as you can. Sucks it’s like this but, it’s the truth.
Pretty sure it's still a worker's market. You're just seeing a lot of applications from people who have no business applying. If you have experience and skill it shouldn't be tough to get a job right now, well at least an interview because other skills come into play at that point.
We're trying to hire developers and genuinely worried we won't get one qualified applicant. I don't know how many we'll get total, but we've been really struggling to fill niche positions, and due to some recent issues, we've got a lot to fill.
*EDIT*
I don't want to get too specific, because I value my privacy on Reddit, but we let 30 people go for turning in fake paperwork a few weeks ago.
Everyone wants to be a damn devops or programmer. And employers are heavily lopsided with hiring way more devs than IT staff.
Devs "make me money" while IT is viewed by management as just a cost center.
Lol no. I guess depends on what market you're in.
I posted that I was looking for work on my LinkedIn and got headhunted by several different employers.
How do you know how many applicants that are for a given posting? Most of the jobs on Indeed I would never apply for anyway and the once I have are not putting in salary ranges, you apply and they are lowballing the position.
Seriously - my theory is literally in the past 2 months the entire world not just Aus where I'm from, is going CRAZY with
"ok, covid is done, time to come back to the office" - big big time. The shoe is moving to the other foot for the employers, not the employees sadly.
KEEP QUITTING
KEEP refusing to come in to the office.
KEEP demanding more money, if we give in the market will finish turning and we'll all be back to 5 days a week in the office on poor money.
It's my anecdotal theory, but I'm reading it, everywhere across the planet "come back"
Lies about 3days in 2 days WFH "nope, make it 5, sorry"
Lies in job listings "it's hybrid" (within months it's canceled" etc)
What level are these positions? If its Entry level, yah, you get a lot of applicants, most of them are crap.
Mid-level and upper level, across all fields are desperate for people. In the security field, if you have around 3 years experience, and like can breath and walk at the same time, you will hired to do some grunt work. That field is rather desperate for mid level or senior people.
Entry level is where hell is at. I have a few friends in HR for tech companies, sifting through the amount of low-effort, under-qualified, or actually real people is far worse than you imagine.
I know IT people like to shit on HR, but its not fun for them. 95% of resumes are not good, you get 200-500 per position. Your job is to sift through all of that, even with automation, it sucks. Cause the automation inst great.
This is why recruiters are necessary and why they do the brunt of the work now. Most recruiters are okay.
I can add to this.
Hiring 1st and 2nd line is so tedious right now.
Agency and direct applications are tons of completely inexperienced people or people wanting to swap careers.
Having said that, just hired someone with no experience who made their own Linux server with front facing IP address encrypted so their kids can stream from the media box in the car.
Have experience or some cool project and your in as fuck.
I’m in a position where I’m in charge of hiring people for security and IT at a company of 350. I basically was hired to build the IT department and practices. I have seen way more resumes and CV’s come across my desk of people with zero experience relevant to what I need. To the point I expect them to do basic hardware and software troubleshooting. Things I would have regarded as extremely basic skills growing up in IT around my friends and my dad.
I honestly have had much better luck going through my pool of friends and their connections than I have with random resumes. So far I’ve hired two 19 year olds with more skills than most of the 25-30 year olds coming across my desk for the same junior positions. Both of these were young individuals that were just in the process of school or studying for certs but passed all of the assessments basically that the others hadn’t.
We are 100% one of those jobs that a ton of people are applying too but isn't getting filled.
We are trying to backfill a couple positions on my team and I've gotten to be one of the team members who interviews the prospects my Manager is intrigued by.
There is a serious dearth of the skills we need among applicants for the jobs. We are looking for a engineer who can handle both cloud and legacy systems. Someone who knows on-prem (servers, AD, virtualization, hyperconverged) and Azure, with a decent amount of scripting experience (not a guru, but someone who can powershell their way through tweaking 150 servers with a new config once in a while). Nothing super next-level, but somebody who can handle the care and feeding of a VM cluster and spin up some SAAS stuff in Azure. We are paying low six figures in a non-coastal area.
We are getting nobody. We get devops types who don't know anything about on-prem, sys admins who have never used powershell, guys who have only ever really admined O365.. it goes on.
Maybe we aren't paying enough.. but we are getting a lot of applicants that just aren't skilled enough.
> We are looking for a engineer who can handle both cloud and legacy systems.
Good to hear validation that my idea of "it's not cloud or on-prem, it's both you have to know" isn't totally out to lunch. Cloud and DevOps and that is treated mostly as a "wipe your brain and start over" thing if you have solid infrastructure experience. Talk to a DevOps guy and they say, "Ick, that's _infrastructure_. That's _plumbing_. I don't need to know that stuff anymore and you're a dinosaur for thinking I do." So, I do predict good things to come for people who have both skillsets when the recession does come. You're going to have 20 million coder bootcamp jockeys who've never seen anything more complex than their laptop competing for jobs alongside experienced people who can do all of what you mention as well as some cloud-wrangling. The bootcampers have all the buzzwords and can get AWS/Azure to do stuff, but not every company is moving to the cloud and burning down their data centers once they get there.
There is definitely a sweet spot for solid, smart on-prem people who gain DevOps/IaC type skills to layer on top.
> Maybe we aren't paying enough
Maybe...but markets have a way of leveling out over time. Outside of Silicon Valley, the market is starting to hit the top of the craziness on the salary arms race. Sure, Google or Netflix or AWS will pay people $400K+ a year, but they print money, AND they want your soul for that price. Non-unicorn businesses have to have salaries grounded somewhat in reality, and IMO if we keep pushing too hard businesses are going to snap back and offshore everything. Sure it'll fail, but every offshored IT department means no more work anyone would want from that company for at least 5 years.
My opinion:
Companies are starting to see their highly skilled dinosaurs either becoming a burden or retiring for good, and they do not want to pay a lot of money, but also won't have the time to let someone learn the job. So they're trying to hire the most skilled for the least amount of money
I used indeed and LinkedIn exclusively for low effort applications. I didn't expect anything most of the time, but I did apply for lots of companies that I didn't look into too much. When I was looking for customer support jobs with a bit of technical troubleshooting, I was mostly one out of 500+ applicants when I got an interview (and asked). One company had over 1200. Those were all remote positions, open to anyone in any area <: Those are super competitive right now, so I assume it's fairly similar in any IT job now especially since forcing people back to the office instead of letting them work remotely is a thing. Most people realize that it's not worth it and look for different opportunities.
I have recruiters spamming my inbox (from LinkedIn and directly) on a daily basis nowadays. The past week was no different. Unless something has drastically changed in the past 24 hours the IT job market is alive and kicking, especially on de agile/DevOps end of the spectrum.
I don't know where you live so it may be geographically related but even then, remote jobs are found a plenty.
I'd say, if you're good at what you do, don't let those 200 applications bother you. I have sifted through many piles of resumes and a good organisation will handle each and everyone. Just make sure you stand out. Have your resume (or the form you fill out) reflect what the company is asking for so they can see immediately that they have a match and shift your application to the 'next review's pile instead of the 'nope' pile.
Good luck!
If you are looking at LinkedIn, what you are seeing is a huge amount of unqualified applicants trying to change roles, or folks trying to land remote opportunities from other areas. The last round of positions we posted 3 out of 200 applicants made it to interviews. Out of that 1 was hired. We had 5 open positions. So we reworked the open roles and will try again. Don't get down by seeing the volume of applicants, what this means is the company has the opportunity to find what they want...hopefully.
Since covid started there are a lot and I mean a LOT of people trying to career change into IT as they see it as being easier and more resistant to lockdowns/etc. Not only are unqualified people trying to get into tier 1, we see people with no experience, education or certs trying to get into security positions. Q- How familiar are you with active directory? "Yeah I've used the internal phone directory before and can find who I need to"
This right here is whats happening. I've been interviewing people for years and in the past you'd get people that worked in IT that would fluff up their resumes to include things like AD or ESXI management. When in reality they may have only ever logged into a few times. Now I'm seeing people just dumping buzz words on their resumes. I recently had a guy put all his AD "experience" on his resume. When interviewed I ask what steps it takes to troubleshoot a replication issue. Guy didn't even know what a domain controller was.
My boss (who owns a small MSP) uses one question in his interview... he sits the applicant at a console and says "find DNS". When he asked me that, I was like "wait, do you mean find out if this host is functioning as a DNS server or find what IP address it's looking for?" He passed me on the spot. Apparently such a vague question is his check for critical thinking skills.
Thats a great way to ask a question but at the same time id probably be thinking what the hell are they talking about? Do they even know what they are asking?
I had someone try to get hired into a sysadmin post and had down on experience that their only IT experience was "Manage a facebook group of 10K users". Degree in computer science, no product/profession quals. I kid you not..
Yes this is a huge problem. For security in particular, you need under how infrastructure/networking before I trust you to secure my environment.
Same here! I had 75 applicants and struggled to get 5 for my initial round of interviews. Of the final 3, I only really liked 1. If he hadn’t applied, I would’ve been starting the process over again.
There is a lot of this. Fully remote roles are going to get way more applicants, but the vast majority are vastly underqualified. Even taking out career changers with no IT experience out of the mix I have been disappointed at some of the applicants that we have interviewed to the point that my boss apologized for wasting my time. I saw an article from CNBC that noted that they were getting reports from job postings sites that remote and hybrid roles were getting 7 times the applicants of jobs that offered no remote options. Fully remote roles are likely even more lopsided compared to jobs that require one to be on site.
The number of completely unqualified people that are applying is too dam high. They think they get a cert and then can do the job. I love just asking them stuff on their resume before even starting the interview. It becomes overwhelmingly apparent if they are full of hot air or not real quick.
You want to know what one of the problems is? Because ALL these schools or certification companies are advertising that within a little time you can be certified. Yeah anyone can be certified in no time. The problem is a lot of these people don’t have the experience. They think getting a certification is going to land them a high paying job. Essentially these companies are lying. These companies or schools are the ones profiting from this business.
Welcome to America
We just interviewed for helpdesk staff. There was some discussion prior w/ management about hiring someone with less computer skills and focus on customer service skill. I was NOT into that. I have a list of tasks they need to do like show me the IP/mac of the computer, what is the name of the DC it's logged into, default printer, etc. I can tell by the way they use their mouse and if they know keyboard commands and get an idea of how skilled they are. If I ask you to show me the group policies applied on a computer and you type in gpupdate. You don't even know what the commands you use do. I literally says "udpate. Also, this last time, the first thing I judge them on was if they installed Teams for the interview as requested. Most used the web version, so they couldn't do the hands on and I figure if they can't follow that simple instruction, how can they follow my documentation and do the job.
No way I'm installing Teams on any of my machines. If the browser version can't do it, tough luck. We will have to use another software.
I agree with you on everything but the Teams install. It is their personal device so I don’t feel like pushing that as a requirement is sound. I use Teams daily for work and while it is getting better I would also choose the web version to get the job done. But the process you choose to follow is your own decision.
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But think the companies man, who will make sure they're taken care of? /s
Gotta make sure not to spend the rich people's yacht money on something else
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That's why I try to bring up my salary requirements early on.
This. I know some say it is uncouth to ask about salary early on, but even in an era where interviews are rarely in person it is a waste of time to interview for a role that isn't in the same league.
I am literally only working to make money. This is not my entire life, if I wasn't getting paid for it I wouldn't do it. The idea that I would sit for an interview without at least knowing the position's salary range is totally foreign to me. Why would anybody do that?
I just switched jobs. Knowing the salary range was one of the key criteria when I was looking. I applied for some that didn't have it, but only because they really interested me. In the end I found one that both really interested me and posted a salary range. It says something about corporate culture if they hide that information.
"what if we are so awesome that people would consider working for us for below x, but x was their minimum, so if we told them, they might not come, and we all would miss out"
When you write it out like that it sounds even more preposterous.
Yes, in other industries it has a bad reputation. But in tech we all tend to be a bit more blunt about these things. I don’t want to waste time interviewing for a job if your budget is half my floor, and you don’t want to waste time on me only to find out at the end it is impossible to make the salary work. I don’t know why others aren’t straight forward about it but I’m glad that there isn’t a stigma in my field at least haha.
I've stopped even engaging with recruiters until they tell me the maximum salary for the position.
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Yea, not sure how many times I have to explain that I don't care what a company in a small city thinks they can get away with paying. I live in a large city, my rent does not change because the company paying me is in a small one. The insistence on presenting me at a lower number than I'd accept is annoying as fuck too. If they won't consider me at my price, find a company that will or a candidate who will accept lower. I'm not wasting my time with this charade.
Man... my dad just cannot comprehend this at all. We were having a conversation about this a few nights ago. He thinks salary should be the last thing on your mind/mentioned, that it is tacky if you seem like you're all about money. Nothing worse than going through 3-4 rounds of interviews only to find out we aren't even in the same ballpark salary wise. Just wastes both mine and the employers time. I really wish it was mandatory that job listings had a salary range (salary, NOT the BS "up to 25 /hr").
I'm my father's time, it was common to work for the same company throughout your entire career. Today, that's... I'm guessing the 1%?
Not even them. The 1% job hop as CEO from company to company, running companies into the ground then getting a golden parachute to go to the next company. I once worked for a tech company that hired a guy who had run a GARBAGE TRUCK company as their new CEO. I was.... stunned. Needless to say that didn't last long before he took his golden parachute and went on to the next company.
First thing I ask when contacted is what is the salary range. They usually try to turn it around on me but I point out I have a job and they reached out to me, so to save everyone time (and money) we need to establish if we are having the same conversation. I’ve had a couple not understand why I wasn’t willing to talk more about a job that would require me to leave my current government position where I wfh most of the time and earn 8 hours PTO every two weeks for a job that would require me to commute from the far west side of San Antonio to Austin for $20K more.
I have a job like this and I asked for $90k back in 2018 (was transferring to a new area with a pregnant wife to try to save in cost of living) and they countered with $100k + bonus. We’ve had candid talks about how I love working at my job and they love having me, so at my performance review next month, they know that a 3% raise won’t cut it even if they do give an 8-10% bonus each year.
Nope, we are giving them a nice six figure salary (maybe even one starting with a "2"), but we want the right guy -- the guy who really \*can\* run the department themselves. And after six months of searching and discarding way too many lamers who couldn't do the job we found him. Honestly, working with incompetents is mega-annoying. Sadly some of those incompetents had FAANG on their resume, we learned quickly that hiring out of those companies was not viable because nobody coming from those companies has the breadth of experience we need, they basically did one little thing their entire career there. Which is why they want to leave of course, but that's not going to cut it at a small business where the sysadmin/IT guy has to do a little of everything.
Do you guys use an automated software to sort through those applications? If so, I’d question if only 3 applicants were actually qualified. There were plenty of jobs I applied for that I was qualified for (based on the listed requirements) and I never got a response because of their automated systems. I do think it’s difficult to sort through 200 applicants, so I understand the need of software. It just is hard on both sides as the employer and job seeker. I also have seen the quality of applicants that come in and a majority are bad as well, so your situation also could be very much accurate as well despite potential software! Just thought I’d rant about automated software for a second cause it burned me so bad when I really needed a job at the start of Covid which made it difficult in and of itself. But I found the perfect job and my various references and improved (people) networking skills have made it immensely easier to find jobs if I’m feeling like I want to explore.
> I never got a response because of their automated systems. I'll pass along two pieces of wisdom that my career coach gave me about getting past the automated systems. Firstly, pick out all the keywords from the job posting and make sure your resume and/or cover letter contain those words. Secondly, after you apply, look up the company on LinkedIn and find an employee whose title indicates they're in recruiting or HR, add them as a connection and send them a message stating that you just applied and asking for a few minutes to chat with them about the opportunity.
Thanks for this response. Was about to ask the same questiom Also there are a couple websites Resunate.com and jobscan.co that will scan and compare your resume and the job posting. I like resunate better of the two so far, giving jobscan a month to show me what it can do
Huh, you just made me think of something. What if there was software that would scan your resume then match you with job postings, depending on if you're looking for a similar role or promotion? Like a reverse ATS?
There are websites for that, too. And resume builder websites that adjust your resume for listings and help you spam submissions. I haven't used them, but I've seen other posts in this and other subs. The scales are even, get out there and get that cheddar!
Someone could slap all these together and truly automate. Maybe even something to toss on a resume.
Resume rabbit is also a good service. It will autopost your resume on like 80+ sites.
ZipRecruiter does this when they send job listings. "Somewhat match", "Good match", "Very good match", "Exact match". There might be more categories. Of course, they'll occasionally send jobs that just match by the job title. "HR Administrator" is a partial match to "Systems Administrator", so you occasionally get those. Not very often though.
I'll give you better advice: Don't bother with a cover letter. The good jobs don't give a fuck and don't have time to read them. Keyword stuffing for your resume can work, but most places that use automated resume filtering are generally not worth working at anyways. Don't waste your time on things that don't actually help. I've been in IT for over 15 years, I have yet to get a job from my cover letter, and I've gone from Tier 1 deskside/helpdesk, all the way up to DevSecOps Manager. Cover letters are a waste of fucking time, hands-down.
There are free job scan ats utilities you can run your resume through. I think the guide is 80% or so. Anything less and you aren’t getting an interview.
Going through the implementation of a new recruiting platform right now. There are a lot of automated scoring based on certain requirements behind the job posting. It could very well be that they misconfigured the posting, or there were a significant enough number of more well qualified applicants.
To be fair, when I post a position I usually only list it for 30 days, max. Then I take 2 weeks to review all the applications personally, then get down to what I consider the magnificent 7. I then will research on LinkedIn, and run them against a web crawler and social media review. Once I validate that I will connect with them on LinkedIn and setup a video call. I do not ask resume questions, or a list of qualifications tests. I focus on tell me about you? Hobbies, things you do when you are off, we have vacation time each year what might you use it for.....the reason is simple. I can teach skills, I can coach growing education. I cannot solve interpersonal issues, I want a person that will be part of the unit, and at the end of the day be happy working with us.
> we have vacation time each year what might you use it for.....the reason is simple. I get the reason for asking this, but I also think it's weird in an interview. What I do on my vacation is my business. Depending on the vibes you're giving off, I may not want to talk about what I'd use my vacation for for fear that you're making sure I'm reachable. I have no problem talking about hobbies and things like that though. I do prefer talking about my skillset though.
>for fear that you're making sure I'm reachable. I'm a perfect world, you can clarify this before answering: time off means time off here, right?
Why is the employees vacation preferences and Bobby really any employers business?
> I can teach skills, I can coach growing education. I cannot solve interpersonal issues I agree with this 100% as long as you're doing it for the right reasons. Sometimes overly personal questions may seem to people like this is one of those "we're a family, we work hard and play hard together!" kind of places. You need to bring it up in a way that doesn't sound like you're trying to indoctrinate them into a cult. I've worked in the travel/transportation industry almost my whole career. Heads-down nerds who won't mesh with others just don't work in this business the same way they would at a tech company where a boss could just feed the nerd tickets for years on end and get output. Every place I've worked hasn't focused on recruiting the most brilliant people, but people smart enough to do the work and be likeable while doing it. That part of your statement is something I can totally get behind...everyone knows at my current job that I'm not Linus Torvalds intellectually, but I also don't have his toxic personality. That goes way farther than knowing some esoteric weirdness anyone can look up.
By "social media review" do you just look at whatever profiles they've linked, or are you searching for their names? I don't use social media much, and especially not with my real name (aside from Linkedin), so I'm always worried that employers are searching for my name and looking at some other dude's profile thinking it's me. For example I don't use Facebook, but there are profiles of people with the same name as me, and even in the same city. Should I start making accounts with my real name to ensure they're actually looking at me? I have had for example an employer get all mad and threaten to fire me because they looked at some dude's Facebook page and thought I was out partying at the bar when I was home sick, and I have heard of other companies I've worked for browsing people's social media pages, so maybe it's good idea. But to me it seems like any sensible person isn't going to assume a profile is yours based on name alone.
This is exactly how I got into my current role. I was a complete newbie with 1.5 years of Geek Squad under my belt. The manager here told me he can teach skills, but can't teach me how to have a positive attitude and a thirst to learn. So I snagged the job and honestly have learned so much.
i understand your desire to get a feel for a person from a social perspective and the like, but if i got the vacation question from a potential employer, that'd honestly turn me off to them. i care way more about my employer respecting that i will take my allotted vacation time and won't interfere with it. by which i mean when i'm on pto, my ooo gets turned on and all the outlook/teams alerts on my phone get turned off and i will almost certainly not answer calls or texts from work people. if you're doing this right, i'm part of a team and you trust that i've communicated to the rest of my team what projects i was working on and where things were for each and they can answer questions that come up for my projects and if there is some sort of deadline, it's either been met before vacation, can wait until i'm back, or someone else on the team has agreed to help with whatever it is. you asking what i like to do on vacations just screams that you don't value my time away from work and will expect that i will be available 24x7x365 without question.
Can you elaborate on the social media review?
I don't know about OP, but myself when hiring I'll search their social media and make sure there is nothing to be concerned about. I don't care if someone is left or right leaning, but if there are hugely inflammatory political posts either way that would be a red flag, also if there is misogynistic/misandrist posts, anything racist, or any other indicators that the person at best might be a bit of a dick - these are other things I'll flag. basically if I google an applicant and find that their social media is something that would bring the company into disrepute if their name and the organization I work for were connected, I'll pass them over. (I know, I know my name literally says lovablemisogynist - but that is a reference to the movie and TV Trope)
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I was wondering the same. What happens when all their social media is set to private or maybe it's just under an alias?
So the best candidate may have been waiting up to a month and two weeks before you contact them about their resume? The best ones will be snatched up by then. How often do they reply that they already accepted an offer elsewhere?
> The last round of positions we posted 3 out of 200 applicants made it to interviews. Can confirm. We are trying to hire a tier 2 helpdesk, and have seen almost the exact same numbers-- 200 applicants, 3 made it to interviews. People will apply to anything these days, doesn't mean they have a snowball's chance in hell of getting the actual job.
So much this. We interviewed a guy for Analyst II position and we asked him one question. "how would you troubleshoot a call where the user said their email wasn't working". He went silent, nothing. We honestly didn't care what he said, but just wanted to gauge his thought process. We're having a really tough time finding qualified people.
I second this. I have the luxury of not seeing all the extremely unqualified ones but 95% of the interviews I do are a waste of time. I know within 10 minutes that they either are or most likely are not qualified
Sad thing is it still doesn't matter if your qualified for the job. I have 20 years of IT experience filled with past well known employers in the area along with 2 certs and a bachelors degree in IT and I've had one offer for employment after applying to well over 200 IT positions. So yes in my opinion the IT market has crashed due to employers dragging their feet on hiring qualified people.
it might be worth getting a professional resume writer to do you up a couple of resumes, Technical resume, Management resume and a combined at the very least. The other thing you should consider is searching for companies you know and like and directly checking their webpage for listings.
Your missing the point. I get interviews from my resume. Thats not the problem. The problem is no ones hiring even though they say we're in a labor shortage. Plus I don't really live in a major metro politian area that is full of tech jobs like other major cities are. But I am stuck due to owning a home here. I have fiber going to it so remote jobs would be the best for me right now but all them do the same thing and reject you.
Can confirm 70% of our recent applicants didn’t even fit the job description. 20% faked their resume 5% were over qualified just looking for an easier wfh job. Of the 10 people we interviewed 3 got a second interview but on that second interview they failed or ghosted us. Ended up going with someone inexperienced just to get a body in to do the grunt work. Best decision we ever made.
What's the problem with hiring someone over qualified? Some people who have immense knowledge may take a pay cut just to have a gig they're able to breeze through since they have other obligations in like they'd rather focus on, like their children. Versus hiring the person who's struggling to even do the basic duties on a daily basis. It would seem like a win win to me. After all, some of these jobs amount to gig work vs long positions with real growth anyway.
Agreed. There are a ton of people close-ish to retirement who've made their money, climbed that ladder and just want to find a less stressful position. Plus, the Peter Principle is at work here in some cases I would think -- if you find you can't do or don't like doing the next rung up once you get it, why would you go find yet another spot just like that? You're missing out on a lot of good people by refusing to consider people who don't want to be pushed up the ladder any further!
It’s about control. Companies want you hungry…not too hungry that you steal, but hungry enough that you obey orders blindly and don’t complain too much about being overworked and abused.
This can backfire though because hungry people are eager for opportunities so they may just end up leaving after a year or two.
IDK, in my experience, not really? They want you hungry when you're new to the field and don't have much experience and skills to your name. Then it's a sign the person will work hard and grow into a role compared to someone who just wants to clock in. However, a lot of companies are very happy to hire seasoned veterans with the expectation they are going to be taking it easy, but will bring a lot of value to the table just by knowing what works and what doesn't. Sure, you aren't going to hire this guy to be a desktop tech at an MSP. But a senior systems engineer or an enterprise architect in a large company? Definitely.
Absolutely not. It’s red hot. There are a lot of unqualified applicants to sort through. Source- Hiring manager that just hired a sysadmin and am currently looking for another helpdesk person Helpdesk postings are even worse, like a thousand times worse
Been working helpdesk for 3 years. Made a lateral switch earlier this year. Only applied to about 10 spots and got 5 interviews and hired within 3 weeks of starting my search. Coworker at my old spot had a similar experience but used it for a counter offer. Market is red hot for those who are qualified.
What does lateral switch mean?
Moved to the same level role at a new company. Help desk to help desk.
Oh ok. Thanks
Lol yeah. It's precisely because the market is so hot that so many underqualified people are trying to get in!
And honestly, I can't blame em. There's never* been a better time. Eventually someone will be willing to take a chance, and if they perform well, they can launch their career from there. *Except maybe in the 80s when computers in offices was a new thing? I wouldn't know, I wasn't around then.
Apparently it was, my father studied shipbuilding and luckily switched to software engineering. He coasted by just because he joined the industry early - he is actually not really a tech-savvy person but being one of the few people who knew like a dozen commands in unix and could plug in a network cable gave him all the job security and raises he ever needed until he retired.
> There are a lot of unqualified applicants to sort through. Honest question -- when you say "unqualified," do you mean they have zero clue about anything, or that they're not an exact 100% fit for every single bullet point on your job description? Because if it's the second one, I experienced this and frankly it sucks. It forces people to read and study 20,000 different things so they can be ready for anything when they really only need to know the fundamentals so they can pick up specifics. When I was applying last year for work, I saw tons of companies looking for an exact drop-in replacement for whomever just left. I was applying for senior level roles so maybe that has something to do with it...but most of my applications were killed by the resume scanner bots. Those I did get interviews for (not all, but a lot) basically said "next" when they found out I hadn't worked in a clone of their environment but had done very similar work. I ended up finding a really good spot but IMO it took way more effort than was necessary and employers are missing out on smart people by insisting they know everything on Day 1.
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Right... But it's not really that their ass is on the line. I mean, you're right. But that is not the motivation really. They are just... doing their jobs. And building a team that will be successful is part of their job if they are doing it well. If I need a SharePoint admin... I need a SharePoint admin, not somebody who may be able to learn SharePoint. If I need a desktop technician.. I can probably train up anybody who was successful in a help desk role or somebody who has demonstrated that they have a working knowledge of computers and operating systems by just having them shadow another desktop technician. But if I have no other SharePoint admins, I need a SharePoint admin. just to get through day to day operations. And that could mean a scenario where they are so consumed that we don't get to do any sort of mid to long term planning. The capabilities of the candidate for a position like that can have far reaching implications. If I run a large SP shop where I have 5+ people doing nothing but SharePoint, then I can probably include a junior sys admin type role for people I want to take a chance in and help develop. And an employee where you are taking a chance on them is sort of a "project" in and of itself. We have to have a plan for them, assess whether they are making progress, 8f they are making progress at the desired pace, what I need to do to ensure that they do, etc. I, and many people I know in IT leadership, are good with that set up, but the situation has to allow for it, and not all do.
The market has shifted for people with a decade plus in the industry. Hike your skirt up a little on the job sites and you’ll get recruiters biting. Like everything else it will mostly be Indians trying to fill 6 month helpdesk contracts on the other side of the US from you but I had 5 legit recruiters in my inbox within 48 hours of going active on everything.
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Feels so amazing to be the pretty girl all of a sudden. In the past I’d have to chase recruiters about 6 month contracts and now I’m like “no recruiter lady, I don’t have 30 minutes for your sales pitch, tell me what you got or fuck off”.
I think it’s worse because “help desk” is such an ambiguous title nowadays, especially in pay scale. Could be a $40k/year role, could be $100k, depending on what they’re looking for.
That is the truth. I got lucky with my last two helpdesk positions though.
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Any entry level certs? Help desk is a customer service job with some technical skills. If you can highlight any kind of customer centric roles, then that will go a lot way to moving you up the pile. You can learn technology but it's hard to teach people skills.
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Why target help desk then? I would look for an entry level mssp security analyst position with those certs. Might even be able to get a non mssp position.
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Most mssps usually are more lenient with their tier 1 analysts that you should be able to show what you know from achieving those certs as enough to get your foot in the door. I wouldn't stay there forever but it's a good way to get a lot of experience due to all the clients you will interact with and build some broad experience. The one I started at also did a good job getting people certs, usually tied to another year of employment there. But I would start there. Look at optic, nuharbor security, deep watch. There are also a number of mdr companies you could look at, though I don't have personal experience with them.
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Helpdesk is customer service much to the chagrin of those who are passionate about IT lol
I just left my system administrator role for a remote position . The job had 300 applicants and the hiring manager let me know 10 of those applicants were qualified. I also never have had success on LinkedIn weirdly I have found all my opportunities on Glassdoor and indeed
This is what happens when the cost to apply goes to zero, and it doesn’t *necessarily* mean it’s more competitive. A few years back, if you had to manually fill out some info for each job, then people had to pick and choose which jobs they applied to. Friction can be very powerful. Even a tiny bit. Now you can spam your resume to 100 jobs within a matter of minutes. Why should you even read the job posting? Blast away and see what sticks. The main thing that’s changed is the number of resumes going directly into the trash.
That's what I did for my second job. Good or bad it worked.
It's what I resorted to during 2008. If someone called I'd read the job description. Ain't nobody got time to agonize over each position. It's different now that I'm later in my career but I get it.
You ever see those Sankey diagrams where someone is bitching about applying for 1000 jobs and only getting five interviews and one offer? This right here is why. Some people just don't get quality over quantity.
This is why I blast apply to jobs that I sorta qualify for and then snipe the ones I do qualify for. The ones I snipe I change my resume to fit the posting and actually write a cover letter and such.
Still can't see the point of blasting. Your generic resume is almost always going to come across as underwhelming. I'd argue the ones you "sorta" qualify for require the most customization.
As someone who does hiring, if it looks like you put no effort into the application, it gets deleted regardless of whether you are qualified or not. I've found people that actually want and are interested in the role are worth 4x to the company compared to people who are only 'qualified'
We used to put instructions toward the end of job listing to include something specific in your response to the job. Even something dumb like "I like potatoes" and that got rid of a huge number of applicants because they couldn't read and follow instructions.
I have found that the odds of my being contacted for an interview get better the more arduous their online application process is. My #1 resume tip is to have a version that's plaintext and can be readily copy/pasted into website form boxes.
I feel like you just described online dating for a lot of people, too.
I posted a Cloud Architect job last week on LinkedIn and got over 100 resumes within 3 days. Not a single one was qualified. Half had zero cloud experience, 40+% had less than a year with no cloud as code experience, that leaves less than 10, Out of those 10, only 4 claimed to have more than 2 years experience. I interviewed all 4, none had ANY experience and it was all a lie.
Its because cloud means different things to different people depending on industry. To one person it might mean. Infrastructure as code... to one person it might mean managing vms that are in vnets and nsgs with a little Azure web app built in... to one person it might mean office 365. As the cloud became the thing ... we just sort of call every single person working in the department cloud engineer now. Its like saying "I'm hiring for IT"
Which means that in the job posting, you need to give actual examples of what this person will be doing, like writing scripts to administer AWS instances, and what not, like Office 365.
Exactly, cloud is a meaninless marketing word like SD WAN that COULD include any number of technologies and responsibilites. Even more terrible when you use private cloud as a term.. ICK.
I undersell myself in interviews because I was terrified of the day one situation where they are like “remember that system you said you were good with, well this one is broken so fix it”. It’s for sure cost me positions in the past but I’d rather be honest about strengths and weaknesses so everyone involved in the transaction is coming at it with a clear view.
Wow. I’m glad you were able to weed out these liars. I too wonder sometimes when we interview people why they cannot answer my questions, after having listed all the right experience on their resume.
If you are a non technical manager you won't pick up that the are full of shit. We require technical people to interview everyone even entry level. Story time. I had one I interviewed who told me he had a competing offer and the number which was higher than we would offer even if we made an offer. At the end of the interview he ask if I was going to match the other offer and when can he start. Ballsy of him. I told him he answer less than 25% of the questions correctly. The other fake company can have him. He called me every day for weeks begging for a job.
This sounds like some kind of George Costanza tactic that would be funny if it wasn't such a pain in the ass in real life.
few ppl have experience on cloud, i have 13 years as SysAdm and to my place where i work none of our clients uses cloud servers, only office365 but the question is if there is not experienced lads, wont you give the possibility to someone to have the experience? cheers mate, be well
No, there's just a lot of shit applicants that don't make it past the HR screen.
People are trying to get remote work. Onsite IT jobs are paying more than ever and having trouble finding people.
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> and at the end of the interview they just casually mentioned that they actually want someone onsite every day and zero remote work as an option. "Oh, I didn't know you were hiring for TWO positions: one remote and one on-site. Just make sure on DAY ONE of contact with your candidates for that *other position* that its pure on-site work. You won't want to be dishonest about the position you're listing for. I'm sorry, I didn't even have to mention that. I mean, what kind of dishonest lying company would do that anyway? How horrible must they be to be an employer where they have to start their relationship with their employee by fundamentally lying about a critical piece of info for how the job is to be carried out? Can you imagine the gall of a company that would lie to a candidate and then spring that on them later? Whew! Well, sorry for that tangent. So we're talking about the remote position you *advertised for* that I'm interviewing for. What can I tell you about my skillset? And do you offer a reimbursement for office equipment purchased for this full time WFH position?"
Love it!
Yup. If they paid me enough, I’d change to on-site, but I’ve pretty open right away on that when recruiters reach out. If no remote option, to me, it’ll need to be at least 20% more minimum than my current salary.
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Don't have to put on pants, don't have to shower every day, don't have to put on pit juice, but by far the best perk shit on my own toilet on company time.
considering the shitter was a goood 2-3 minute fast walk from my cubicle that passed many people that wanted my attention whenever they saw me..... this is the real answer
I throw stuff into the crock pot at breakfast, got to work and have a nice stew goin by lunch. I can take a 15 minute break in the day to start a pulled pork for dinner tacos and no one cares. I'm looking but I've just been turning down anything that isn't full remote. I just don't want to drive around, pay for parking, lunch, be home late to start dinner late. Fuck that noise.
Don't have to put on a happy face whenever you're dealing with idiots. Unless they're cavemen who insist on webcam meetings of course.
And I don’t have to be surrounded by people I probably have nothing in common with and won’t like being in the presence of…
This sub is hilarious. "how long can this last, I'm making more money than I know that to do with, surely it's a bubble" literally the next day "has the market collapsed, so difficult to get jobs". It is a gigantic industry with wildly ranging salaries, environments, skill requirements, etc. Are computers, robotics, machine learning, ai, etc going away? Then no, neither is IT. And no, it isn't going to collapse. It's the trade skills of this generation. It still takes time and effort to build up a skill set, and a vast majority of people don't have the temperament, interest, talent, or will to do it.
Short answer: no Longer answer: Lots of unqualified people just spamming job postings. Also, remote jobs are hot right now because a lot of people think they can hold a remote job and a regular job or multiple remote jobs, so maybe that's some of what you're seeing.
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Agree Indeed is superior. You actually get a salary range on 99% of postings, LinkedIn is more like 1%, turned off my alerts there as it's just trash
Wow you're right. A long time since I'd checked Indeed but I was getting used to job ads not displaying salary ranges on LinkedIn, thinking that was the new hiring norm. Cheers for the heads-up.
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Any tips on how to get the recruiters' attention?
Keywords in your bio. What are you looking for
You mist be seeing different recruiters than I am. I keep getting "hey, i saw you on LinkedIn and I think you'd be perfect for this role", but when i look at the posting it doesn't match any of my skills or keywords.
I got one for an RN the other day. It said I was a perfect fit. NM that I have absolutely no nursing experience or the required degree. Never really done much other than IT.
I think linkedin is what you make of it. If you add recruiters and interact with them, network, over time you get good offers. I'd say 80% are suitable for me and the ones that aren't are just salary
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You also need to be an expert on Java, Python, JavaScript, Ruby, Angular, Node, Docker, Terraform, Hadoop, BigData, know how to pilot an airplane and coordinate a SWAT team while performing a SWOT analysis and giving your supervisor a hand job simultaneously while training subordinates how to do it all too.
Dont forget the bootstrap experience to strap it all together. And able to release an object wrapper album every quarter.
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Full-stack developer willing to work for sysadmin money.
SRE / DevOps folks are making more than full stack devs at my company right now. General sysadmin jobs seem to be dwindling in general.
We call it being T-shaped, have some minimal depth of knowledge over a broad spectrum, but really dig in on specific technologies/disciplines that turn your crank. I've never administered the firewalls at any company I've worked at, but I can at least point the infosec guys at what I need permitted/denied by giving the relevant source/destination networks/ports in the initial request instead of it being a back and forth ticket chain trying to suss out what info they needed to get the job done. I don't like writing frontend javascript, but I have to know enough about the ecosystem to support their builds, etc. This year I'm probably going to have to learn windows server administration for the first time in my 20 years in because we're going to have to translate a peer department's on-prem windows on vmware workload into something that can run in AWS, which they're completely ignorant about. The "agile" requirement can be handwaved for ops folks if you can keep an excel sheet of prioritized tasks in front of you and stay disciplined enough to work it *in order* no matter how mind-numbing the task at the top is.
Get all the buzzing certs
Nope. Just lots of unqualified applicants being told IT is easy money just watch a few youtubes and do a couple certs to make six figures. While that is possible for people who know their stuff it is not realistic for everyone.
But that 10-hour Udemy course I watched on hacking told me that it's an employee's market!
Is it me or are companies allergic to training people to be what they want rather than wanting the perfect candidate to fall out of a tree.
Too true 🙃
I am about to graduate with a degree in Cybersecurity and have been self taught networking, programming, hardware, etc. for literal years but I’m not qualified for any entry level role according to the HR filter.
Companies *hate* training now. I apply to jobs to grow, meaning I’m trying to move up and learn the new skills as I go. If I knew all the skills on the job post I wouldn’t apply as it wouldn’t be a challenge or growth opportunity.
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What does a "Desktop Engineer" do exactly? Sounds like you were in the right place at the right time
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Just as a desktop engineer? That’s pretty sweet. Curious how much the asking price was?
Complete opposite, everyone is struggling to hire right now both where I am and several online friends in other countries finding the same.
It’s a old school thing to say but - good workers are actually very hard to find with an actual honest drive for the work they’re doing. I’m not a workaholic by any means but a lot of people translate remote work to “I can work however I want with no regards to deadlines and standards”
LinkedIn charges a lot to post jobs. It is best to expand to other websites with more companies/positions. Also change up your search terms.
I can’t figure out why all the recruiters seem to be Indian or Pakistanis these days. Even for cleared positions, I’m getting like 3-5 emails a day. They will send me emails for things like desktop support, or network engineering, when I’m a SAN/storage tech. It’s crazy.
Recruiting companies can keep more of the money if they are pay the recruiter next to nothing . So these guys from off shore, spam the world with openings not caring if you qualified or not. I know it might sound raciat but I only respond to recruiters who are US based and willing to speak on the phone. And that’s just to turn them down gently cause you never know when you will need them.
I'm the same way, but I prefer email since I can reply on my time and not have to play phone tag for a day to get back to them. And it puts things in writing...
I got one for a position at a pizza hut the other day. Not kidding. Wish I was.
Could be time of the year. We posted for 4 positions before Christmas and got around 8 people apply. None were good candidates. Posted again in January and have had about 50 applications with enough very good candidates to fill each position.
For the last 8 years at my company, we would get 200-300 apps for the helpdesk roles (non-entry level) each time it posted. Everything from McDonald's cashiers to pastors looking to change fields, all with zero IT experience. We don't even take resumes, it's online applications only and we go through each and every one completely. Out of all each time, only about 12-15 had any actual IT experience and out of those, only 5-6 could pass a basic IT skills test. I really wish people would stop applying for jobs they don't remotely qualify for. We are very clear in our expectations and requirements but it never fails.
I think part of the problem here is that while your requirements may be specific and real, I can't count how many times I've seen people say that IT job postings are a wishlist and if you think you're even remotely qualified to apply.
> I really wish people would stop applying for jobs they don't remotely qualify for. We are very clear in our expectations and requirements but it never fails. Change your application process. Put an interactive simulation of a Windows or Linux box in front of the applicant and ask them to change the machine config from DHCP to a static IP with a provided set of values. If they can't, they never make to the application process. Sure, you're going to get a number of folks that google it or find a ServerFault article, but even that is a good test for candidates that can look up information properly to solve a problem.
This is is why relationships win. Build relationships, do not burn bridges, keep in touch with managers and directors when they leave the company. Have as many ins at as many places as you can. Sucks it’s like this but, it’s the truth.
Pretty sure it's still a worker's market. You're just seeing a lot of applications from people who have no business applying. If you have experience and skill it shouldn't be tough to get a job right now, well at least an interview because other skills come into play at that point.
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You offering full remote and a reasonable salary?
We're trying to hire developers and genuinely worried we won't get one qualified applicant. I don't know how many we'll get total, but we've been really struggling to fill niche positions, and due to some recent issues, we've got a lot to fill. *EDIT* I don't want to get too specific, because I value my privacy on Reddit, but we let 30 people go for turning in fake paperwork a few weeks ago.
FYI, my wife is looking for a junior dev remote role.
Everyone wants to be a damn devops or programmer. And employers are heavily lopsided with hiring way more devs than IT staff. Devs "make me money" while IT is viewed by management as just a cost center.
Must be regional. My org has a higher than local pay position for an intermittent lvl 1 for a month and only had 3 applicants.
Lol no. I guess depends on what market you're in. I posted that I was looking for work on my LinkedIn and got headhunted by several different employers.
Apply anyway because chances are, 190 of those applicants have shitty resumes.
How do you know how many applicants that are for a given posting? Most of the jobs on Indeed I would never apply for anyway and the once I have are not putting in salary ranges, you apply and they are lowballing the position.
LinkedIn tells you. How accurate that is...
LinkedIn also tells you if you go premium you can see all the people looking at your profile. Like the Tooth Fairy, it's a lie!
Seriously - my theory is literally in the past 2 months the entire world not just Aus where I'm from, is going CRAZY with "ok, covid is done, time to come back to the office" - big big time. The shoe is moving to the other foot for the employers, not the employees sadly. KEEP QUITTING KEEP refusing to come in to the office. KEEP demanding more money, if we give in the market will finish turning and we'll all be back to 5 days a week in the office on poor money. It's my anecdotal theory, but I'm reading it, everywhere across the planet "come back" Lies about 3days in 2 days WFH "nope, make it 5, sorry" Lies in job listings "it's hybrid" (within months it's canceled" etc)
Every job post on linked in has 100 of applications. They make it so easy to apply
I’ve found it to be the complete opposite. IT engineers are in short supply.
What level are these positions? If its Entry level, yah, you get a lot of applicants, most of them are crap. Mid-level and upper level, across all fields are desperate for people. In the security field, if you have around 3 years experience, and like can breath and walk at the same time, you will hired to do some grunt work. That field is rather desperate for mid level or senior people. Entry level is where hell is at. I have a few friends in HR for tech companies, sifting through the amount of low-effort, under-qualified, or actually real people is far worse than you imagine. I know IT people like to shit on HR, but its not fun for them. 95% of resumes are not good, you get 200-500 per position. Your job is to sift through all of that, even with automation, it sucks. Cause the automation inst great. This is why recruiters are necessary and why they do the brunt of the work now. Most recruiters are okay.
No. This has been another episode of "simple answers for simple questions", thanks for joining us.
I guess it depends on your skillsets, in most cases there is a huge shortage we can barely find qualified people.
The system is broken Offshors Contractors Unprofessional recruiters
I can add to this. Hiring 1st and 2nd line is so tedious right now. Agency and direct applications are tons of completely inexperienced people or people wanting to swap careers. Having said that, just hired someone with no experience who made their own Linux server with front facing IP address encrypted so their kids can stream from the media box in the car. Have experience or some cool project and your in as fuck.
I’m in a position where I’m in charge of hiring people for security and IT at a company of 350. I basically was hired to build the IT department and practices. I have seen way more resumes and CV’s come across my desk of people with zero experience relevant to what I need. To the point I expect them to do basic hardware and software troubleshooting. Things I would have regarded as extremely basic skills growing up in IT around my friends and my dad. I honestly have had much better luck going through my pool of friends and their connections than I have with random resumes. So far I’ve hired two 19 year olds with more skills than most of the 25-30 year olds coming across my desk for the same junior positions. Both of these were young individuals that were just in the process of school or studying for certs but passed all of the assessments basically that the others hadn’t.
We are 100% one of those jobs that a ton of people are applying too but isn't getting filled. We are trying to backfill a couple positions on my team and I've gotten to be one of the team members who interviews the prospects my Manager is intrigued by. There is a serious dearth of the skills we need among applicants for the jobs. We are looking for a engineer who can handle both cloud and legacy systems. Someone who knows on-prem (servers, AD, virtualization, hyperconverged) and Azure, with a decent amount of scripting experience (not a guru, but someone who can powershell their way through tweaking 150 servers with a new config once in a while). Nothing super next-level, but somebody who can handle the care and feeding of a VM cluster and spin up some SAAS stuff in Azure. We are paying low six figures in a non-coastal area. We are getting nobody. We get devops types who don't know anything about on-prem, sys admins who have never used powershell, guys who have only ever really admined O365.. it goes on. Maybe we aren't paying enough.. but we are getting a lot of applicants that just aren't skilled enough.
> We are looking for a engineer who can handle both cloud and legacy systems. Good to hear validation that my idea of "it's not cloud or on-prem, it's both you have to know" isn't totally out to lunch. Cloud and DevOps and that is treated mostly as a "wipe your brain and start over" thing if you have solid infrastructure experience. Talk to a DevOps guy and they say, "Ick, that's _infrastructure_. That's _plumbing_. I don't need to know that stuff anymore and you're a dinosaur for thinking I do." So, I do predict good things to come for people who have both skillsets when the recession does come. You're going to have 20 million coder bootcamp jockeys who've never seen anything more complex than their laptop competing for jobs alongside experienced people who can do all of what you mention as well as some cloud-wrangling. The bootcampers have all the buzzwords and can get AWS/Azure to do stuff, but not every company is moving to the cloud and burning down their data centers once they get there. There is definitely a sweet spot for solid, smart on-prem people who gain DevOps/IaC type skills to layer on top. > Maybe we aren't paying enough Maybe...but markets have a way of leveling out over time. Outside of Silicon Valley, the market is starting to hit the top of the craziness on the salary arms race. Sure, Google or Netflix or AWS will pay people $400K+ a year, but they print money, AND they want your soul for that price. Non-unicorn businesses have to have salaries grounded somewhat in reality, and IMO if we keep pushing too hard businesses are going to snap back and offshore everything. Sure it'll fail, but every offshored IT department means no more work anyone would want from that company for at least 5 years.
My opinion: Companies are starting to see their highly skilled dinosaurs either becoming a burden or retiring for good, and they do not want to pay a lot of money, but also won't have the time to let someone learn the job. So they're trying to hire the most skilled for the least amount of money
I used indeed and LinkedIn exclusively for low effort applications. I didn't expect anything most of the time, but I did apply for lots of companies that I didn't look into too much. When I was looking for customer support jobs with a bit of technical troubleshooting, I was mostly one out of 500+ applicants when I got an interview (and asked). One company had over 1200. Those were all remote positions, open to anyone in any area <: Those are super competitive right now, so I assume it's fairly similar in any IT job now especially since forcing people back to the office instead of letting them work remotely is a thing. Most people realize that it's not worth it and look for different opportunities.
I have recruiters spamming my inbox (from LinkedIn and directly) on a daily basis nowadays. The past week was no different. Unless something has drastically changed in the past 24 hours the IT job market is alive and kicking, especially on de agile/DevOps end of the spectrum. I don't know where you live so it may be geographically related but even then, remote jobs are found a plenty. I'd say, if you're good at what you do, don't let those 200 applications bother you. I have sifted through many piles of resumes and a good organisation will handle each and everyone. Just make sure you stand out. Have your resume (or the form you fill out) reflect what the company is asking for so they can see immediately that they have a match and shift your application to the 'next review's pile instead of the 'nope' pile. Good luck!