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Comment by augment_me | Hacker News Reader

25 years in the industry and not building a social network that is able to find you a job somewhere is beyond a generational fumble

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Very, very few people are going to have a social network that does more than get a foot in the door.

Typically, referrals have positive impact like making sure your application gets looked at by a human and possibly tips a "maybe" into the candidate's favor for scheduling a phone screen or moving to the next round of interviews.

There are plenty of very talented people with large networks of former coworkers who will attest to their capabilities and give them referrals, who nonetheless are still struggling to find work.

The referral/interview is the point here, if you fumble the interviews its your own fault.

Exactly what I was thinking. Most competent people should just need a way past the ATS filtering bullshit. You have zero ideas what you're being excluded on when you apply through a public application portal. For all you know, the automated system didn't like the font you chose for your resume. There is zero visibility into it and why you're not moving to next rounds. With a foot in the door introduction, you're at least past the thing filtering out 95%+ applicants and can have a better opportunity to actually demonstrate strengths and skills. Most people don't get that much.

But obviously this only works when your network has jobs to offer in the first place.

I am a well networked person and I cannot offer any help to the numerous people (who are all great, many former colleagues or even alumni who could slot right in and help us) who are reaching out to me for even just a referral.

My employer has seen record breaking quarters and years and we have nothing open in engineering or even IT or support. In fact, I can already smell the blood in the water from the layoffs that are surely coming, probably shortly into 2027.

The kind of nepotism that gets you a job via your friend is mostly gone. I’m sure some high up executives or the ceo or board can still do that for their network but the most people can do nowadays is give you a referral and that barely even counts for anything nowadays.

I had two friends refer me for bog standard senior engineer positions with a stack I had experience with and they ghosted me with no explanation to my friends.

My other friends in faangs say if they refer someone they’re not allowed to be involved in the hiring process at all.

In other words, autistics should simply go away.

They seemed to have managed pre-internet somehow, so they will probably have to go back to something like that

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