Well, mine has (and is) still going from June if that tells you anything. I left my old company at the beginning of May and have been looking ever since. I've gotten some great connections and some unofficial offers, but nothing solid has come up yet. It seems everything out there I would have to move four hours for or requires an additional 5 years of experience for the same pay. Just nothing that has checked the boxes for me yet. It has been mentioned on this board (or maybe the B&I board) before, but all of these 100% remote jobs get to cherry-pick from applicants across the country.

That being said, keep your head up. I'm still confident I'll find the right fit sooner rather than later, and you will too. Just have to keep pinching pennies in the meantime, haha.

SmithAg18 said:

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Well, mine has (and is) still going from June if that tells you anything. I left my old company at the beginning of May and have been looking ever since. I've gotten some great connections and some unofficial offers, but nothing solid has come up yet. It seems everything out there I would have to move four hours for or requires an additional 5 years of experience for the same pay. Just nothing that has checked the boxes for me yet. It has been mentioned on this board (or maybe the B&I board) before, but all of these 100% remote jobs get to cherry-pick from applicants across the country.

That being said, keep your head up. I'm still confident I'll find the right fit sooner rather than later, and you will too. Just have to keep pinching pennies in the meantime, haha.

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I think you are right. I am in the Midwest and there is nothing here in my field that is worth it. I have to look at Bay Area or Seattle. I get calls from there for Remote but what I realized is I am competing with people from all over the country. And as smart as I like to think I am, I am not the smartest in the country :-D. So it's actually harder than a normal non-remote search. Prior years it was not easy but would take me 2 months.

Luckily, I am in good shape financially with income and no debt so that takes some stress off. I am still employed but I hate the mundane stupid duties and the toxic culture.

My immediate worry is to get my elder kid to apply to college by the Nov 1 date and not drop the ball there. Maybe next year summer I just pack up and move West and then look there.

What are you looking to do and who for? I used to work at Salesforce and am still in the industry.

ORAggieFan said:

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What are you looking to do and who for? I used to work at Salesforce and am still in the industry.

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I do Product Management, but want to get into Product Mgmt for Machine Learning/AI products. I know some through coursework and am beefing up my knowledge nowadays. Being in the midwest is an Achilles heel. Most companies here collapse after a few years or have toxic work cultures because nothing much is happening of impact.

I was thinking of trying for contract work in the right area and get some more experience. I get calls so one of them might work out.

infinity ag said:

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ORAggieFan said:

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What are you looking to do and who for? I used to work at Salesforce and am still in the industry.

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I do Product Management, but want to get into Product Mgmt for Machine Learning/AI products. I know some through coursework and am beefing up my knowledge nowadays. Being in the midwest is an Achilles heel. Most companies here collapse after a few years or have toxic work cultures because nothing much is happening of impact.

I was thinking of trying for contract work in the right area and get some more experience. I get calls so one of them might work out.

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Lots of companies opening up for remote roles now with Covid. Salesforce used to be office only for Product Management roles, but they ditched that recently.

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infinity ag said:

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The quality of recruiters seems to be hitting new lows.

My experience with them is that when they find you, and you are in the running, they act like you are their best buddy. Then after the interviews, if their client decides "to move ahead with other candidates", then they completely lose interest.

If you are lucky, they may send you a bland reject email. If you ask for feedback, there won't be any response. In most cases there won't be any rejection either, they have moved on without telling you.

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Sorry youve had some bad experiences with recruiters, but you have to realize that recruiters are also talking to hundreds of other candidates at the same time. Recruiters dont have time to chit chat and bs with every candidate that comes their way. If you arent selected for one of their jobs, you are basically of no use to them and vice versa. Unless they are recruiting for those specific roles over and over, there is no reason for you to continue to follow up with them. You didnt get the job, so move on.

Recruiters arent the be all end all. Some jobs I went through a headhunter, other jobs I applied on my own, other jobs I used my Linkedin network. Utilize all 3.

Ive gotten some pretty harsh feedback from interview teams regarding candidates. If I were to tell this specific feedback to candidates, the company could be open to a lawsuit. Ive seen candidates interview horribly, stutter, sweat profusely, smell, ramble on and on, talk about themselves too much, act arrogant, dress like crap, the list goes on and on. How could I tell any of this to a candidate without hurting their feelings, or them possibly getting mad. Thats why most recruiters are shy to give feedback to candidates who interview.

infinity ag said:

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ea1060 said:

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infinity ag said:

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The quality of recruiters seems to be hitting new lows.

My experience with them is that when they find you, and you are in the running, they act like you are their best buddy. Then after the interviews, if their client decides "to move ahead with other candidates", then they completely lose interest.

If you are lucky, they may send you a bland reject email. If you ask for feedback, there won't be any response. In most cases there won't be any rejection either, they have moved on without telling you.

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Sorry youve had some bad experiences with recruiters, but you have to realize that recruiters are also talking to hundreds of other candidates at the same time. Recruiters dont have time to chit chat and bs with every candidate that comes their way. If you arent selected for one of their jobs, you are basically of no use to them and vice versa. Unless they are recruiting for those specific roles over and over, there is no reason for you to continue to follow up with them. You didnt get the job, so move on.

Recruiters arent the be all end all. Some jobs I went through a headhunter, other jobs I applied on my own, other jobs I used my Linkedin network. Utilize all 3.

Ive gotten some pretty harsh feedback from interview teams regarding candidates. If I were to tell this specific feedback to candidates, the company could be open to a lawsuit. Ive seen candidates interview horribly, stutter, sweat profusely, smell, ramble on and on, talk about themselves too much, act arrogant, dress like crap, the list goes on and on. How could I tell any of this to a candidate without hurting their feelings, or them possibly getting mad. Thats why most recruiters are shy to give feedback to candidates who interview.

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Thanks for your comments. It seems like you are a recruiter from what I can discern, so this is good to hear.

I disagree with you about the first part. Yes, I do realize they are talking to 100s of candidates, but it's also part of their job to do their jobs professionally. Since they have taken the trouble of contacting candidates themselves, it is also their responsibility to put an end to it. Where did you get from my post that I was looking to do idle chit chat with a recruiter? All I am asking is for them to be professional and let me know that I did not get the job. One company recently did that after 4 rounds of 1-hour interviews and 1 presentation they made me do. They had great reviews about all my 1-1 interviews. The presentation seems to have killed it. But what was suspicious is they wanted me to tell them how they should improve their business and what they should invest in. And they wanted to record my presentation. Free consulting? I asked them for feedback since I came to the final round, but they just ignored my email. Like Amazon, they could be professional and say they do not give out feedback.

Back in 2016 when I was looking, I got 3 offers. I picked one and sent out an email to the others thanking them for their time saying I would not be taking their offer. Close the activity in a professional way, what if I had just ignored them?

Some companies have strung me along for months before saying they were not going to move ahead. In that case, at least the hiring manager/VP emailed me himself to apologize.

I am currently responding to good companies that contact me, and I apply on my own via Linkedin as well. The issue is not that, the issue is that many recruiters don't know how to professionally close a recruiting activitity. They find it easier to ghost candidates. The other day I saw a recruiter complaining that candidates don't show up for interviews, or accept and then don't show up for the job. She was pilloried on Linkedin asking her to look at how recruiters treated candidates before coming on and complaining. Looks like this problem is pretty widespread.

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Ok, I agree with you. A recruiter should let you know if you didnt get selected for a job or not.

Are you reaching out to recruiters after the interview asking for an update? I always tell candidates to reach out to me once a week if they dont hear from me, I will always respond if someone messages me.

And yes, candidates ghosting companies a huge thing now lol. I see it all the time, more than ever before. 10 candidates apply to a job today, and only half of them will respond to you. A lot of them also wont show up to the interview.

The ghosting thing works both ways on the recruiter and candidate side.

infinity ag said:

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I interviewed with a SF based company for the past 3 weeks. Had 1 interview with Recruiter, then 3 with managers in the company for an hour each. They all gave good reviews. Then I had to do a case study presentation this week. One was about a product I had worked on, and one was about my recommendations on products that they should invest in. Hmm. I was a bit suspicious on the second part. Then they asked if they could record my presentation.

I was pretty pumped that I would get the job.

I got a reject after all the good reviews from earlier. Were they just getting free consulting from me? One guy wanted to know lots of details about the internals of the product I had worked on. I said it was confidential information for the company. Seems sneaky to me.

Yesterday I asked them for feedback. No reply, after 24 hours.

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I looked at Glassdoor yesterday and checked out interview reviews for this company.
Someone in Dec 2020 complained exactly about what I saw. They were interviewed for a Product role and had 4 interviews and then the company wanted the candidate to do a presentation prescribing what the company should do next - features, investments etc and prescribe a priority and business impact.

I found 2 other reviews complaining about the same. And no one got an offer. I didn't either. So looks like this is a scam to get free consulting and they keep the job open forever.

So I applied to a position at ZILLOW about a month ago. 2 weeks later I got a call. Spoke to the recruiter for 30 mins, he said looked good, will pass my resume around to the hiring manager. 2 hours earlier, I had seen a news report that Zillow Offers division had stopped buying new houses. This was their model, buy and flip. I did not want to ask him as it was asking something negative about the company.

I did not hear back from the recruiter so I emailed him twice. No reply at all, he was just ignoring me.

Then on Tue, I heard the news that they shut down Zillow Offers and laid off 2000 people (25%). Now it all makes sense. They probably put my position on hold and he did not want to tell me.

I guess I dodged a bullet. Either I would have wasted my time talking to them, or if I had gotten it and then gotten laid off, it would have been a hassle.

infinity ag said:

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So I applied to a position at ZILLOW about a month ago. 2 weeks later I got a call. Spoke to the recruiter for 30 mins, he said looked good, will pass my resume around to the hiring manager. 2 hours earlier, I had seen a news report that Zillow Offers division had stopped buying new houses. This was their model, buy and flip. I did not want to ask him as it was asking something negative about the company.

I did not hear back from the recruiter so I emailed him twice. No reply at all, he was just ignoring me.

Then on Tue, I heard the news that they shut down Zillow Offers and laid off 2000 people (25%). Now it all makes sense. They probably put my position on hold and he did not want to tell me.

I guess I dodged a bullet. Either I would have wasted my time talking to them, or if I had gotten it and then gotten laid off, it would have been a hassle.

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He was probably laid off! Thats why you never heard back. Recruiters are always the first to go in a layoff.

ea1060 said:

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infinity ag said:

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So I applied to a position at ZILLOW about a month ago. 2 weeks later I got a call. Spoke to the recruiter for 30 mins, he said looked good, will pass my resume around to the hiring manager. 2 hours earlier, I had seen a news report that Zillow Offers division had stopped buying new houses. This was their model, buy and flip. I did not want to ask him as it was asking something negative about the company.

I did not hear back from the recruiter so I emailed him twice. No reply at all, he was just ignoring me.

Then on Tue, I heard the news that they shut down Zillow Offers and laid off 2000 people (25%). Now it all makes sense. They probably put my position on hold and he did not want to tell me.

I guess I dodged a bullet. Either I would have wasted my time talking to them, or if I had gotten it and then gotten laid off, it would have been a hassle.

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He was probably laid off! Thats why you never heard back. Recruiters are always the first to go in a layoff.

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That thought crossed my mind. My interview with him was on 19 Oct, I emailed him on 28 Oct and the layoff announcement came on 2 Nov. I am not sure if he got laid off before they made the big announcement. I did not get a bounceback and in any case if this is true, all emails to him should be handled by someone else.

Some years ago, I was working with another recruiter from a different company. Had 1st round of interviews. Then no news. No replies to emails. Then I saw on Linkedin that she switched jobs! No one bothered to take on her ongoing work. I was interested in the company so I managed to contact the hiring manager who thankfully replied and she called me in again but they didn't seem very interested, and I ended up getting rejected.

Zillow is notorious for treating candidates poorly. Many years ago, I interviewed with them and they ghosted me. Many emails resulted in no response. Luckily it was all tracked on jobvite. I wrote an angry review on glassdoor which attracted the attention of the HR VP who asked the reviewer to write to her. I did, and sent her all the information. The very next day I got a call and email from the same recruiter apologizing and claiming she was "busy". Sure you were.

I was expected to be blacklisted but I have received emails from them since then.

I hope the recruiters who are now looking for jobs get a sense of what it is to be on the other side of the fence and learn some empathy for their next jobs.

infinity ag said:

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Zillow is notorious for treating candidates poorly. Many years ago, I interviewed with them and they ghosted me. Many emails resulted in no response. Luckily it was all tracked on jobvite. I wrote an angry review on glassdoor which attracted the attention of the HR VP who asked the reviewer to write to her. I did, and sent her all the information. The very next day I got a call and email from the same recruiter apologizing and claiming she was "busy". Sure you were.

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Haha man, you really hate recruiters huh? Im a recruiter and do you know how many times Ive applied for jobs/interviewed, and never gotten a call back, ghosted by recruiters, strung along, promised offers that never came, etc? TONS. Probably more than you.

Its all part of the game. Dont take it personally. Just move on to the next one. If I dont hear back from the company after interviewing and theyre not returning my emails, I assume they found someone else and I move on. No hard feelings. Maybe they will reach out to me in the future about another job.

Thats why you cant put all your eggs in one basket and always need to have a plan b,c,d,e,f,g,h etc.

Quote:

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Haha man, you really hate recruiters huh? Im a recruiter and do you know how many times Ive applied for jobs/interviewed, and never gotten a call back, ghosted by recruiters, strung along, promised offers that never came, etc? TONS. Probably more than you.

Its all part of the game. Dont take it personally. Just move on to the next one. If I dont hear back from the company after interviewing and theyre not returning my emails, I assume they found someone else and I move on. No hard feelings. Maybe they will reach out to me in the future about another job.

Thats why you cant put all your eggs in one basket and always need to have a plan b,c,d,e,f,g,h etc.

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No, I don't hate recruiters. I hate bad recruiters. Just like I hate bad plumbers, bad programmers, bad auto mechanics.

I am not asking for white-glove service. You don't even have to call and tell me that I did not get the job. Even feedback is not needed to be given. All I am asking for is reasonable engagement while I am in the running and at least a stock email when I am rejected.

I am in the thick of job hunting so I am meeting many recs, and there is a clear distinction between good and bad recruiters.

You are right though. I am more thick-skinned these days... don't mind my ranting here too much. I figure that if I don't hear of the next steps in 7 days after our last contact, the job is gone so I mark it as "Abandoned" in my spreadsheet and filter it out. However, it does get frustrating the deeper you go into the process and invest 3, 6, 10 hours into interviews and then you want the job and nothing happens. I just had a 3 hour session with 3 interviewers in addition to 3 hours on Wed, and the company is well known and I hope I get it. Let's see.The rec has done a good job of keeping in touch. Exhausted today. It was good timing as my boss is on vacation so I don't have to worry about blocking off a 3 hour slab during the day.

It's going pretty poorly. Not getting any traction on these applications. Figured it might be time to hire a resume service and/or career coach. Looking to potentially exit the lending space so need a revamp on everything. I'm also that guy firing off applications from jobs I see on LinkedIn. Not sure if that's a successful strategy to begin with.

Potentially looking to relocate from Denver to Dallas within the next 12 months which complicates matters.

Some companies have an automatic reply once a job announcement closes to inform those who didn't make the cut. I'm not sure how difficult it is to program that, but it seems as if that is a good solution to show at least some common courtesy, no matter how generic the reply is.

Maybe it would cut down on those emails to recruiters inquiring on the search also. Either way, those emails seems to be ignored. It may not be personal to you, but if someone takes the time to apply to a job why can't that same respect be applied by a simple reply?

Would you take it personal if I only sent you my resume and did not apply through the company's website? I'm sure some HR person would, but it appears to be a one way street.

I'm going through the worst interviewing phase that I can remember. I started looking around casually more than a year ago - Aug 2020. Not actively looking but I would take any good calls I got. Nothing worked out, I came to several final rounds where I talked to 6-8 people in successive interviews. I continued to stay "open" all through this year and did many interviews reaching various stages. I did one with Amazon where the hiring manager moved me ahead, and they scheduled me with a bunch of people over 2 days. Then they canceled it saying they hired someone internally.
From September of this year, I decided I had to switch urgently so have been actively searching. Getting a lot of calls, some of them good that I pursued. Did some final rounds too.

Just got a reject email from a well-known company that I was hoping to get. Did 7.5 hours of interviews with them. Pretty bummed. Confidence taking a hit, as I have typically always gotten a job within about 2 months. The difference is I am older now and the jobs I am interviewing for are remote jobs with nationwide competition unlike earlier.

texan12 said:

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Some companies have an automatic reply once a job announcement closes to inform those who didn't make the cut. I'm not sure how difficult it is to program that, but it seems as if that is a good solution to show at least some common courtesy, no matter how generic the reply is.

Maybe it would cut down on those emails to recruiters inquiring on the search also. Either way, those emails seems to be ignored. It may not be personal to you, but if someone takes the time to apply to a job why can't that same respect be applied by a simple reply?

Would you take it personal if I only sent you my resume and did not apply through the company's website? I'm sure some HR person would, but it appears to be a one way street.

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I agree with what you're saying and in an ideal world this would happen. But you also have to realize most internal recruiters are stretched thin. Internal recruiters are working on 30-40 job openings at a time with thousands of candidates applying. It's almost impossible to reject every single candidate all of the time. It is what it is.

I've been on the job search plenty of times. I've applied to hundreds of jobs in my career. If I don't get a response back, which is typically what happens, I don't take it personally. I just move on to the next one. I recommend you guys do the same.

infinity ag said:

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ea1060 said:

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I agree with what you're saying and in an ideal world this would happen. But you also have to realize most internal recruiters are stretched thin. Internal recruiters are working on 30-40 job openings at a time with thousands of candidates applying. It's almost impossible to reject every single candidate all of the time. It is what it is.

I've been on the job search plenty of times. I've applied to hundreds of jobs in my career. If I don't get a response back, which is typically what happens, I don't take it personally. I just move on to the next one. I recommend you guys do the same.

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We may be talking about different things here.

You seem to be talking about situations when a candidate applies to a position and hears nothing back. This typically happens to Amazon positions that I apply to. That is not the problem since there was no interaction from their side and no time spent (other than to apply).

The problem is when a company spends hours with a candidate and then decides they don't want to hire at some point and completely ghosts the candidate. They don't respond to emails or messages asking for status. "We had many candidates" is not a good excuse. I think this is wilful and disrespectful just because they are in a position to do it, so some sort of power trip. All a candidate expects is a canned response that "they are going with other candidates". I got one such yesterday after spending 7.5 hours in interviews. Felt bad, but they told me quickly where I stood. No complaints.

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I was responding to texan12's comments.

I also agree that in an ideal world after you interview, if you did not make the cut you should be given the courtesy of a rejection email/letter. But if it doesnt happen, then dont get butthurt about it! Its part of job searching. Not everything will go your way. Just keep at it.

I was laid off last year and unemployed for 4 months. I applied and interviewed for so many jobs, a lot of them never responded to me after the interview. So what, I just kept on applying and interviewing until I found a job.

I've been in Recruiting for over 4 years now and I always try my best to reach back out to candidates to let them know we'll be passing and that I'll keep them in mind for other roles. Some times I actually do get to loop back around and offer them a similar position.

There are some that slip through the cracks, but most Recruiters don't do it on purpose. Like someone mentioned before, we're working with tons of candidates (I'm hiring a Salesperson and have had over 150 applications for this one opening) and sometimes we just forget. I have 15 open requisitions right now, 10 of which are warehouse roles, so I get bombarded with candidates for those.

On the flip side, if you show no interest or make no effort in an interview, I'm not going to return the favor and give you the courtesy of a call. I just cut the interview short.

Big Johnson Ag said:

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I've been in Recruiting for over 4 years now and I always try my best to reach back out to candidates to let them know we'll be passing and that I'll keep them in mind for other roles. Some times I actually do get to loop back around and offer them a similar position.

There are some that slip through the cracks, but most Recruiters don't do it on purpose. Like someone mentioned before, we're working with tons of candidates (I'm hiring a Salesperson and have had over 150 applications for this one opening) and sometimes we just forget. I have 15 open requisitions right now, 10 of which are warehouse roles, so I get bombarded with candidates for those.

On the flip side, if you show no interest or make no effort in an interview, I'm not going to return the favor and give you the courtesy of a call. I just cut the interview short.

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Ive been recruiting for 11 years and I always try and reach back out to candidates as well. With that said, Im sure there have been times where I might have missed someone or forgot to return their call or email. Agree, its never on purpose.

A lot of people want to paint the recruiters out to be the bad guy when we are just trying our best to fill the damn job lol.

I about to start looking for an upgrade myself. I haven't been at my role as long as I'd like to, but it seems like a good time to sniff around.

The Chicken Ranch said:

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I about to start looking for an upgrade myself. I haven't been at my role as long as I'd like to, but it seems like a good time to sniff around.

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I think this time is very good to start applying. Budgets being put together for next year.

ea1060 said:

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A lot of people want to paint the recruiters out to be the bad guy when we are just trying our best to fill the damn job lol.

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Yes, but it's how some recruiters go about filling the damn job is what we are discussing. If companies treat candidates like trash, they get treated like that as well when the tables are turned in the economy.

I have seen recruiters whining and complaining on Linkedin that candidates are so disrespectful with their ghosting, or even accepting an offer and not showing up. Who can fault the candidates when companies behave badly? Same rule works both ways.

Congrats!

Can you share how you were able to get your foot in the door to interview for this position? Recommendation from a coworker, linkedin application, etc?

My job search has been pretty slow.

Looking for a head hunter in tech supply chain / Ops if anyone has a recommendation.

Noble07 said:

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Congrats!

Can you share how you were able to get your foot in the door to interview for this position? Recommendation from a coworker, linkedin application, etc?

My job search has been pretty slow.

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Thank you!
I had been looking off and on since July 2020 but it was COVID time so I didn't get too many calls. I must say I got a bit over-confident so I was doing certifications and other things and not spending a set amount of time a day applying. In fact I never applied. I got some calls through Linkedin and did some interviews including some that went to the final round but none of them resulted in an offer.

By September 2021, a year+ later, I was getting desperate as my situation at my workplace was getting untenable so I decided to do an active job search. Only that seems to work for me. I got a lot of calls from companies and did almost an 4-5 interviews a week and some final rounds with 6-hour interviews and some presentation rounds but nothing worked. I was getting dinged at the final stage for many good companies. At this time I was applying both through Linkedin, AND responding to good calls I got via Linkedin. I had set up targeted alerts on Linkedin for the kinds of jobs that I wanted - which was Product Management on Machine Learning products. I applied to everything that had that title, even jobs that were junior in experience to where I am. I have been doing general product management for 10 years and that isn't going to be very useful so I need to catch on to some specialized area and this is the best one for me. So I applied for this job rather than them finding me. I started to maintain a spreadsheet of all my interviews. I had 4-5 companies "open" at the same time around early November.
I applied on 1 Oct and they called me on 18 Oct and I talked to the recruiter first. He sent me the hiring manager based in SF. I had a call with him which went well and he asked me why I was applying to a junior job considering I was more senior. I told him I was interested in the area of work and the company and title mattered little to me at this point. I wanted to work in an area I wanted to learn and enjoy. Then I had 6 more interviews with other team members. After an agonizing delay over Thanksgiving, the recruiter called me to say that they were working on an offer through HR with a better title and salary. I think they are actually opening a new more senior job, and assigning me to it rather than hire me to the one I interviewed for. I am waiting for the offer details, it's been delayed as many are out.

So all I did was persevere and take my search very seriously and do it actively. Even then it took me 3 months. I did not go through any referral or anything. With Remote jobs, you are competing against everyone in the country so keep that in mind. It is harder. My job is remote but how I got it is out of ordinary. I am okay with whatever they offer me as I am looking to get my foot in the door in AI/ML work. I figure 1 year of real experience and I should parley it to a Director job.