Job search rejections (QA experience)
Hi all!
At the moment I am a QA in a large Chinese IT company.
But I started my journey in IT as a recruiter (2017-2018). Over the years there have been major changes.
When I worked in HR, my main problem was to “sell” vacancies to developers. In those days, each of them was worth its weight in gold. We were literally engaged in hunting: we pulled out emails from GitHub, knocked on LinkedIn from different accounts, searched for people through Facebook and Vkontakte. HeadHunter, of course, was also used, but his abilities were clearly not enough. I became a kind of traveling salesman in the field of IT, imposing myself on everyone. In a word, the market suffered for programmers, candidates for the middle position were considered even with minimal experience. Even if you take a two-month course, you won’t go unnoticed.
Then I was thrown out of this sphere for a couple of years and I found myself in something more humanitarian. When I returned, I saw a different picture.
First, there are many new IT professions. This is great.
Secondly, the market has stabilized. Programmers are no longer hunted so actively. Everything has become like in any other professions, where the interest between the employer and the employee is approximately the same. “You to me – I to you.” Everything is fair.
And then 2022 happened.
What I see around me.
Yes, experienced developers are still very much appreciated. But now it’s not enough to write a couple of pet projects for an offer to fly to you. You need to have years of experience to stand out from the rest.
HR collects dozens of responses every day. They no longer need to look for someone on their own. Good specialists swim into their own hands.
Well, the essence of the post – failures. I see how many candidates are shocked by the number of rejections that come to them. Now, even if you are 100% suitable for a vacancy in terms of skills, this does not mean at all that you will be invited even to the first stage with a recruiter. It also happens that you respond to a position and in less than a minute a refusal flies. That is, they didn’t even open your resume, they just kicked you right away.
And test tasks are gaining momentum. No, not the ones they give you during a technical interview. It has become fashionable to give assignments so that the recruiter simply opens your resume. That is, the employer, as it were, says: I am not ready to waste time studying your resume, first prove that you are worth it. Do you feel? The scales swung.
So why is this happening?
I highlight the following reasons:
People saw IT as a goldmine. And not only as employees, but also as an idea for creating an educational business. If earlier you had to go to university to gain knowledge, now there are so many courses that you can simply drown in them. Moreover, every second such platform takes advertising from bloggers who not only promote their site, but also promote the idea of leaving for IT.
You can see the world. For several years, we have been hearing how some of our acquaintances in IT went to spend the winter in Bali. Or he was invited to work in Silicon Valley, providing flights / accommodation / visas. And when 2022 began… Someone even saw in it the salvation of their lives. Good motivation, right?
Availability. It was 5 years ago that one had to rummage around in mathematics in order to be considered a good specialist. Now there are so many directions and ways of learning that the sphere has become one way or another accessible to the majority. You don’t even need to know programming languages well. Somewhere simple commands are enough, but in general, Google is enough. After all, the larger the market, the more knowledge is in the public domain. For the average salary will go, and then we’ll see.
Why am I doing this.
It’s time to admit that in a couple of years IT will cease to be such a promising topic, but will become like many other professions, where only powerful experience and knowledge will really be valued, and the “middle peasants” will not bathe in money and attention from companies. And this is not new. Each generation has its own profession, which, as it were, is higher than the rest. For example, my grandfather is a professor who devoted his life to teaching metallurgists, since scientists and hard engineers were valued in his time. He tried to pull all the children and grandchildren into his business, as he was sure that such specialists would be in demand for a long time to come. But now they do not stand out from the rest. And I feel the same will happen with IT.
My final advice is don’t put all your eggs in one basket and keep your finger on the pulse. We live in the most active time for changes. You can’t afford to be rigid. Look around, develop not only in your field. Who knows what lies ahead for us.
Also, don’t take rejection personally. Are you okay. It’s just that now there is no longer such a hunger for programmers, as we are still told in the media.
PS: maybe I just want to get rid of competitors, we will never know this)))
