Cracking the Code of Interview Torture: The Senseless Process For Applicants Has To End
Questioning the reason behind the unreasonable dark market of jobs
I feel like I’m falling behind in my interview preparation. I feel bad because I have not practiced leetcode for a few weeks.
Not because I am lazy, on the contrary, I was learning a new language to “expand” my experiences to gain interviews.
The more days went by receiving only robo-reject emails (to my relentless multiple applications per week) the more defeated I felt.
Now with almost a month interview-free, and nothing in sight, what are the motivations of even trying to prepare for it?
My chance of finding a job is dead in the waters.
I hear the story above playing in my head all day long, and I am sure different versions of it are playing in many people’s heads as well.
Tech interviews are tough. Yes, it was tough 20 years ago. But it wasn’t so grueling 30 years ago when software engineers were still treated as humans.
Was it because of the fear of getting a few bad apples that can’t be fired if interview screening were relaxed? I guess that’s probably the original reason.
Even though the screening should be carefully crafted, lately it has become a true rat race.
Although some people are discussing it on the internet, e.g. Reddit, the majority of the job applicants are feeling the pain but hiding it.
Why are people ashamed of talking about the lack of authentic job openings and the lack of humane interview processes?
There is a natural tendency of us software engineers to blame ourselves for not trying hard enough when we can’t get hired.
But I feel this virtuous tendency of ours is being taken advantage of right now.
What used to be a 9 to 5 software job in the past is now advertised as if for astrophysicists + mathematicians + superhumans.
All we want is a job, and 9 to 5 jobs are the kind of jobs where you don’t need to pass medium-level Leetcode quizzes flawlessly.
The fun and the creativity used to be the thrill you get while working on the job and gaining that knowledge at the same time.
What autonomy and creativity we have had coding for a living are getting squeezed out by the insane competition during the interviews.
I believe the level of screening that is out there now is borderline draconian, and that is only one of the problems that needs to be sorted out for the current job market for tech.
A medium article like this reminded me of my own painful experiences.
The company got me to write code (which cost me a weekend) during an interview process. After X number of subsequent rounds that company eventually ghosted me, never mind the successful code review with their CTO.
Here are the resources related to this topic. Please comment and list more resources to be added to this list:
Thanks for reading and paying attention to the issue.
