{"id":35805,"date":"2026-10-19T07:54:03","date_gmt":"2026-10-19T12:54:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/?p=35805"},"modified":"2026-10-19T07:54:55","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T12:54:55","slug":"more-on-job-hunting-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2026\/10\/19\/more-on-job-hunting-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"More On Job Hunting 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ghost jobs.  Scams.  Rolling job posts for places that are not really hiring but would be happy to have your information if they do.  H1B posts, where they just want to prove to the government that American citizens cannot do the job.  Job platforms whose goal is for you to respond to <em>their<\/em> &#8220;job posting&#8221; to enter your information in their system, and they&#8217;ll apply to a job with someone else and then count you as one of their users for financial touts and then spam you three times a day with links to jobs you&#8217;ve already seen and\/or applied for (but the links are to their platform, and if you apply through them, it&#8217;s success for them whether or not your application gets kicked out for being submitted by a third party&#8211;and your individual application gets kicked out, too).<\/p>\n<p>Oh, and copy-and-paste errors from companies who might actually be hiring.<\/p>\n<p>You see this in URLs, where job postings are appended with <code>-clone<\/code>, and the job posting title and responsibilities are nothing like those that would have been cloned.  You get repeated questions, especially the demographic ethnicity\/sex(erm, gender)\/disability\/veteran status questions, sometimes in two different forms (dropdown-lists <em>and<\/em> checkboxes).  And, once in a while, a knockout question that should not apply to the job you&#8217;re applying for.<\/p>\n<p>Like a QA job whose requirements are:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\n<b>Essential Functions<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Design and execute comprehensive test plans and test cases for new features and system enhancements.<\/li>\n<li>Lead regression testing efforts to ensure stability across releases.<\/li>\n<li>Collaborate with developers, product managers, and business analysts to clarify requirements and resolve design issues.<\/li>\n<li>Document and manage detailed defect reports, including reproduction steps and severity assessments.<\/li>\n<li>Participate in Agile ceremonies and contribute to sprint planning and retrospectives.<\/li>\n<li>Maintain and enhance automated UI and API test suites.<\/li>\n<li>Analyze test results and provide actionable feedback to development teams.<\/li>\n<li>Contribute to the development and documentation of QA processes and standards.<\/li>\n<li>Mentor junior QA testers and support their professional development.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Education and Experience<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Associate\u2019s or Bachelor\u2019s degree in an IT-related discipline, or equivalent work experience.<\/li>\n<li>5+ years of experience in software QA testing, preferably in healthcare or financial services.<\/li>\n<li>Experience working within Agile frameworks and collaborating with cross-functional teams.<\/li>\n<li>Hands-on experience with front-end test automation tools and frameworks; Playwright preferred.<\/li>\n<li>Hands-on experience with back-end (API and database) testing, including load testing tools; JMeter preferred.<\/li>\n<li>Hands-on experience testing mobile applications using tools such as LambdaTest.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Skills<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Proficiency in SQL and working with relational databases.<\/li>\n<li>Strong written and verbal communication skills.<\/li>\n<li>Strong critical thinking skills, including the ability to analyze data, interpret requirements, draw logical conclusions, and develop effective solutions to complex problems.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>And a question on the application, probably a knockout question, is:<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/bsgfx\/knockoutquestionmicrosoft.jpg\"><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Do you have at least 3 years of experience in Microsoft cloud engineering, endpoint management, systems administration, or a related role?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Well, I have an A+ certification which is so old that the A+ people don&#8217;t recognize it any more (more like <em>Alpha<\/em>+, amirite?), I&#8217;ve had networking and sysadmin classes (albeit in the 1900s, essentially, so onboard computers for horse-driven traps&#8211;and the fact that he uses &#8220;traps&#8221; instead of &#8220;carts&#8221; or &#8220;buggies&#8221; underscores how old he is!), and I have managed home networks and devices on those networks in a variety of Windows versions as well as Linux and Mac.  And I have recently done a &#8220;computer repair&#8221; which I might recount which would have Rob beating me with a helmet like General Patton (perhaps to be recounted soon).<\/p>\n<p>I could not say &#8220;yes&#8221; to this question because my experience was not professional, and so the resume might not go from the ATS to the ATS AI much less anyone who could interpret what&#8217;s on my resume.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve written about <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2026\/08\/11\/i-might-as-well-recycle-some-linkedin-content-here\/\" target=\"_new\">knockout questions before<\/a>.  I&#8217;ve also started thinking that my resume might look fake in 2026 because it&#8217;s filled with <a href=\"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/18\/beholding-the-swath-of-destruction-in-my-wake\/\" target=\"_new\">companies that don&#8217;t exist any more<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Oh, the things I&#8217;ve seen, and, oh, the things I see.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ghost jobs. Scams. Rolling job posts for places that are not really hiring but would be happy to have your information if they do. H1B posts, where they just want to prove to the government that American citizens cannot do the job. Job platforms whose goal is for you to respond to their &#8220;job posting&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3334,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3334"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35805"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35805\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35807,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35805\/revisions\/35807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brianjnoggle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}