- The only ways through / around all this that I’m aware of involve
(1) making real connections with real human beings whenever possible, not just job listings,
(2) continuing to try and try and try (ugh), and
(3) believing, deeply believing, that the hiring process is 95% not about you — which is a cruel truth, but also a good reminder not to internalize the way businesses treat you.
7/
A cruelty of all this is that it rewards the people who are already the most privileged, the most likely to believe in their own ability / worth regardless of external cues, perhaps the most likely to overestimate themselves.
When a job says “5 years of FancyFramework experience,” I guarantee you that there is a lopsided distribution of identity traits (male, white, etc) to those people who are applying anyway despite only using FancyFramework for 2-3 years. And I guarantee you some of those people who don’t meet the “requirements” will be under real consideration for the hire.
It’s a self-selection process that amplifies any inequality a person can internalize.
8/
At least one person says the original QP is satire, which I can easily believe:
https://hellinger.wtf/@holger/116829396745060640
The real evidence here is not “ha, this one company did a stupid, look at the screenshot;” it’s that, satire or not, when people see that listing, the common reaction is “oh, ha, yeah, that totally happens.” (I remember a listing that required 5 years of Swift experience just 1 year after the language was released.)
I do wish our hiring processes were more humane. But they’re not really for humans, are they?
/end
Here's how I interview anyone: first tell me what you're any good at, what you're really good at, what do people ask you to do.
Always find something good and useful in those people, whether or not you hire them.
I can't teach people to care but i can sort out a dozen people with disparate talents onto pretty much any project, this way, let them assume responsibility for certain aspects of the project.
At the org we're slowly assembling, the plan is to build the work around the people. Find good people you can trust to be diligent, give them a choice of problems to solve and resources to work with, and then let them figure out how to proceed.
I have, or more properly - had - a few peers, each of us had our skilz and we got the Gummint Rate at nice hotels.
@inthehands This explains much of the frustration that has led to me no longer bothering to apply for tech jobs.
Maybe the companies that use these broken processes will soon start to collapse under the deadweight of accumulated techbros? A girl can dream...
A lot of us are dreaming that dream. But it never ceases to amaze me how dysfunctional businesses can be and keep existing.
I’ve spent my entire life hearing the idea that private businesses are inherently more efficient than government presented as established fact, and I’ve always thought it was the most ridiculous, counter-factual and easily disproved assertion.
@inthehands I'm old enough to remember "10 years of Java experience" listings in 1999.
@inthehands In 1997 I recall reading a job posting (on Dice I think) that required 5 years of Java experience. I can't be certain, but do not think it was satire. (Sun released Java in 1995.)
@inthehands the over inflated timeline for experience is also nothing new in this industry. I remember people asking for 5 years experience with AS/400 in 1991. The only people with that experience worked at IBM in Rochester, Minnesota because IBM didn’t introduce the AS/400 until 1988.
I saw the same with programming languages in the late 90;s.
They were trying to poach people from the original dev team.
@inthehands Thanks, I needed to read this.
Because after nearly 180 job applications over the last several months, some of which I was really qualified for, I'm coming up with six replies so far.
3x rejections
2x standbys
1x we love you, but we still don't have funding
And dead silence from the rest.
Not gonna lie, it is really starting to get to me.
Jun 29, 2026, 1:43 AM@nuintari @inthehands Doesn't work for everyone, but have you considered working through a contract agency?
Benefits: you get to meet lots of different types of teams to see their work flow processes, and check out the Co., before maybe going direct.
Drawbacks: shitty benefits, usually lower pay, job churn.
One recruiter amalgamation site I use is ContractJobHunter.com which has a feature to spam the recruiters.
@nuintari @inthehands in 2008 recession I was tracking for awhile and it got too demoralizing. Now it's just fire and forget. I also learned that getting excited about one and putting my eggs in one basket usually meant some combination of heartbreak/disappointment/what's wrong with me self-talk. Shits hard enough so make it easier on myself anyway I can. I didn't land a job until 2011 searching on and off but mostly on. I feel like it's way harder now than it was then.
I remember seeing job listings that required 7+ years of experience in a 5-year-old programming language.
At one meet-up, I mentioned this to someone who worked at the company, and they told me that the company's CEO was obsessed with trying to poach members of the dev team that had created the language. :D
They also told me that same CEO was under-pricing the salaries, so no-one wanted to jump ship... 🤦
Jun 29, 2026, 1:19 AM@inthehands It's got worse now.. HR was bad but it's been replaced by AI. You can be rejected for a job without a human even seeing your application.
Of course applicants are now using AI too so you've got AI applying for jobs that AI is rejecting..
And nobody gets jobs.
Jun 29, 2026, 1:27 AM@inthehands Not IT but my ex wife wanted a job at a local shop. 2 hours a day sorting out the pastries, max. 10 hours a week if that, minimum wage.
She had to create an account on a site, and fill in an application that asked all sorts of stuff about her life, including invasive questions about her parents jobs and ages, and also do a Myers Briggs personality test. And agree that they could store that data for 10 years. Took about an hour. An AI rejected the application in under a second.
@tony @inthehands infuriating.
@tony @inthehands had an old classmate that was using an AI tool to apply for jobs. He was spitting out like three thousand applications a week. Got him non-stop interviews and offers. Same reasoning as you mentioned. "If they're gonna be indiscriminately rejecting and they want numbers in their pool, I'm gonna play that game too" was his take.
@inthehands That
@inthehands I would add that even if you know the people everything is always on the table regardless. More often than not your dealing with strangers most who think unethical, or illegal but without consequences, is ‘just business’. Has led me to some unforgettably hilariously awkward interviews where I caught the interviewer in lies or downright crimes.
@inthehands the hiring processes are for cattle.
@inthehands I think this sense of entitlement of disregarding job specs you don't meet comes with age. Back in the day I would scan job requirements looking for a reason to rule myself out and thus not apply. Now I see 'five years of FancyFramework' and apply anyway. Let them reject me - I'm not going to do it for them.
The only objective of applying is to secure the interview.
It does, but it also comes with (for example) social privilege. The gender divide even among my students about who needs to hear this is pretty stark; the men are far more likely to already be fudging the “year of experience” and just need the validation.
@inthehands I have no doubt that you are correct in that.
@inthehands @jimkennedy
100%, there are plenty of dunning kruger interview winners out there, I suspect mostly due to the confidence their privilege gives them
@jimkennedy @inthehands I was talking with my old coworker about this and how I don't apply for jobs that I don't feel I qualify for. She told me a story about how she was at a couple's dinner with her husband. One lady was saying how she really wanted a job but fell short on the experience. My friend was like oh ya that sucks. And both the men were like, "wtf just apply. I apply if the title sounds cool and that's it."
It was then that I realized the divide and my own self-sabotage.
I have personally been fighting the trend of listing required skills that are not really required. When we have been hiring I have said that we should rather have a very short list of required skills and use a wording about the following skills will be a plus for the rest of them.
We have had many applicants who did not have nearly the skill level we were looking for. And more than once have we interviewed candidates who did not have a clue about the things they put in their CV.
One thing that can really put me off about a candidate is when they overestimate their own skills. Maybe such a candidate is more likely to apply, but they are not likely to get the job if I am interviewing them.
A candidate acknowledging their own limits is a quality that I appreciate, but they do also have to have some skills that we can use.
@kasperd @inthehands A decade ago I was hiring for an entry-level tech position and I gave the HR rep a list of a couple of required skills and then eight "these would be nice to have/bonus points" skills. A week later zero resumés had crossed my desk and I called the HR rep. "Oh, we've gotten a bunch of applicants with the first couple requirements but none with all 10." I told him no more screening, just send me every resumé.
Jun 29, 2026, 1:13 AM@inthehands
I'm sure hiring for "most likely to overestimate themselves" will have no long-term systemic effects 😕
Jun 29, 2026, 1:56 AM@inthehands About privilege: What I've seen is firms hire from a pool of known/people with personal references before going outside, and most of this thread is about approaching from the outside.
That privilege pool often includes people who networked because they
- attended the same school like MBAs from Harvard, for instance)
- joined the same fraternity or sorority
- whose parents belonged to a yacht club, or any kind of social club
- etc... as the hiring manager
My suggestion is to stop applying as the outsider, and start networking.
@inthehands this seems apt here
@inthehands And apply to bad job postings! The worse the job posting, the greater your chances of landing the job.
@inthehands I have been hired 7 times in my career. The number of times I did not have a personal connection to someone on the inside (sometimes the hiring manager themselves) was zero.
One side effect is that I’ve internalized the idea that “I don’t interview well,” because I don’t otherwise get offers for jobs I think I’m qualified for. And twice that I know of I was being rejected and got reconsidered because of the personal connection.
@jpallas I think most people’s careers asymptotically approach this state as they go on. I don’t think I’ve been hired for a job or even a contract without some kind of personal connection or referral in this century.
Jun 29, 2026, 1:29 AM@inthehands One of the great blessings of open source — for a while — was that people could just start analyzing and writing code, and other people could evaluate them on what they actually did.
Jun 29, 2026, 10:29 AM@inthehands this number 3 is the Crux. I think.
It’s hard to wrap your head around, even for me, even this late into the game.