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The Lion, The Witch, and the audacity of recruiters
22 days ago
- Author describes two poor hiring experiences during their job search.
- First story: Hired for a trial week as a Senior Elixir developer but was assigned unrelated frontend browser extension work.
- Second story: Rejected after a lengthy interview process and asked to provide feedback while receiving none.
- Author criticizes recruitment practices like bait-and-switch tasks, long delays, and generic rejection emails.
- Notes a positive experience with a recruiter who gave personalized feedback.
- Concludes that the hiring market is flawed, with excessive demands on candidates.
Surprising lessons from my research scientist job search
17 days ago
- Only one or two papers typically matter during a job search, primarily for getting a foot in the door or deep dives during interviews.
- Interview rounds can be very diverse, including system design, parallel programming, and AI agent usage evaluations, beyond just LeetCode or behavioral questions.
- Work trials, which involve working on a task with a team for up to a week, are becoming more common and can disrupt interview preparation schedules.
- Timing is crucial in the job market, affecting opportunities based on viral work, research trends, headcounts, and exploding offers.
- Return offers for research roles are rare compared to software engineering, often dependent on headcount and team fit, even after internships or fellowships.
- Many interviews may not be directly related to your specific research topic, with a focus on general AI research fundamentals rather than niche areas like AI safety.
Apply Tracker, Free AI CV, Cover Letter and Job Tracker
6 days ago
- ApplyTracker is an all-in-one career intelligence workspace that helps organize job applications, build ATS-ready AI resumes and tailored cover letters, and scan 800+ company career boards for unlisted roles.
- It offers a free forever plan with no credit card required, ATS-compliant PDFs, and features like a drag-and-drop Kanban board to track application stages, set reminders, and analyze conversion metrics.
- The AI CV builder creates ATS-friendly resumes with one-click optimization, and the cover letter generator produces role-specific, high-converting copy with adjustable tone and automatic skill extraction.
- The tool includes real-time crawling of direct company boards (Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, SmartRecruiters) to surface remote and tech jobs first, along with salary and interview reviews.
- Key metrics include a 21.4% conversion rate, 4.2 days average response time, 50,000+ applications tracked, a 4.9/5 job seeker rating, and 85% higher interview rate.
Becoming a Research Engineer at a Big LLM Lab
2 days ago
- The author secured a research engineer role at Mistral after 18 months of strategic career development, emphasizing the difference between tactical (low-effort, high-return) and strategic (high-effort, compounding) actions.
- Personal timeline: defined goals, networked, upskilled (LeetCode, CS fundamentals), failed first application, quit job, joined Recurse Center, learned Rust, contributed to open source, wrote a paper, then applied in batches and got offers.
- Goal setting is crucial: define clear criteria for the ideal role (e.g., career inflection, rare skills, ownership, senior peers, IC path) to focus efforts and say no to compromises.
- Application playbook: batch applications, use network for referrals and insider info, schedule lower-stakes interviews first to gain practice.
- Networks rely on weak ties: build genuine friendships by doing interesting things, sharing them, and being open; online (Twitter) and offline (cohort programs) are effective.
- Career momentum requires building rare and valuable skills (career capital) and demonstrating an upward trajectory through projects, OSS contributions, publications, and CV entries.
- Interview types include initial screen, takehome, online assessment, coding interviews (LeetCode, API/system design, real-world), system design, culture fit, quiz, hiring manager, and reference checks—each with specific preparation strategies.
- The mental game involves managing rejection, uncertainty, and stigma; staying motivated by remembering the leverage and possibilities of job seeking.
- Tactics boil down to gaining an information advantage and acting on it, while strategy focuses on long-term skill building and proof points.

job search

The Lion, The Witch, and the audacity of recruiters

Surprising lessons from my research scientist job search

Apply Tracker, Free AI CV, Cover Letter and Job Tracker

Becoming a Research Engineer at a Big LLM Lab