> It depends if you want to work for a company that hires based on [X]

Must we always presume malice? I'm so tired of this piece of conjecture.

Big companies have layers of candidate filtering because of _scale_, not because they unanimously and comprehensively don't know how to do hiring in the right way.

I can see how this might look malicious from the POV of someone who hasn't been involved in every part of the hiring process (as the OP clearly hasn't) but it's no coincidence that the most respected companies with the most talented engineers all read from the same hymn book.

Anyone involved in hiring on either side of the table also needs to understand that companies aren't looking for their soul mate in every role they hire for, and that noone is sitting around pondering the 10x dev who might have been.

Good enough processes for getting engineers/hires of the desired quality or higher: this has always been the goal. Anything more is corporate masturbation; something to scoff about in LinkedIn posts and appeal to those who, as I said, must always assume malice.

I don't care about what kind of company it is. I just want someone to give me money in return for service so I can feed my family.

I can’t speak about the current job market. But once you get experience and build a network and a reputation, you can start being real picky.

On top of that, once you “get in a position of f*%# you” (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xdfeXqHFmPI) your shit tolerance level starts going way down.

Keyword matching is exactly what recruitment companies do, even the good ones, and I worked directly for one of the best ones in London.

What criteria are you using to define 'best'? I'd have thought "can't be replaced with a simple regex" would be a reasonable heuristic, but if you're right then that can't be it...

You're right, scrub 'best'. In their particular area of recruitment, the largest and arguably best known in london. (No names if you don't mind).

I only worked with local recruitment companies back i the day. I’ve met plenty of recruiters in their office an for lunch.

This was pre-remote work. Even now, I wouldn’t just random work with recruitment companies. I work with people. I would reach out to a recruiter on LinkedIn and start a conversation.

Honestly though, at this point in my career, I doubt that I would ever go through a third party recruiter again just because I do have a network.

In no desirable company has the hiring manager enough time to read every resume that comes in as they get spammed with them. They all go through an automatic filter, then an HR/recruiter filter before reaching the hiring manager. So if you don't pass those filters you're not getting to the hiring manager.

This is not true. Basically only large, non-tech enterprises use the keyword stuffing automated scanning process.

Source: I don't do this, and basically never get a call back from anyone using Taleo, but almost always get call backs from Big Tech/startups with humans that look at resumes (tbh I suspect my pdf format also causes issues here).

Not the case where I live in Europe (German speaking countries). From what I've been told by people in HR, lot of people desperate to emigrate from Africa and East-Asia will spam every tech company with applications even if they don't fit the job requirements or the company doesn't offer visa sponsorship so even small-ish companies use automated filters as they get too many applications that don't fit the job description and overwhelm the short staffed HR department.

Also, what is a "tech company" to you? Does making SW & HW scanning and moving devices for the semiconductor, automotive and shipping industry not count as "tech"? I feel like SV has stolen the word "tech" from "technology" to now mean "disruptive VC funded mobile web start-up founded to make money on advertising, skirting regulations and tracking users", the same way cryptocurrencies have stolen the "crypto" from "cryptography".

Yeah I'm in Ireland, mostly applying to consumer tech companies run out of the US, so quite different.

That being said, a lot of my roles have come through external recruiters so maybe that's what saves me.

It's odd that Ireland wouldn't see the same spamming though, given that we're an English speaking country with lots of tech roles.

How do you know your companies haven't gotten spammed? If you come through human recruiters then you bypass any automated filtering system.

Because I've never heard anyone talk about it, and I talk to a lot of recruiters, both internal and external.

Did you ask them about it? Maybe it's not something they just bring up?

Also external recruiters don't use autolatric filtering systems since they usually just fish people via LinkedIn. It's mostly the companies own application websites that use these systems as they're the ones getting spammed, not the external recruiters.

Given that I've hired a bunch in big tech so have been talking to recuiters very often (and that I've done LinkedIn sourcing for said companies) I honestly don't think this appears to happen in Ireland.

Which is odd, maybe something to do with the fact that Ireland isn't in Schengen?

> if you want to work for a company that hires based on

I've found that engineering culture rarely matches how HR/recruiting works, especially as companies grow but even in startups often times.