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Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

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Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#51

Post by max_hammer »

worthless-trash wrote: post #46
banana-19 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got PIP'd twice, passed the first and took the money the second time. Some advice from my experience. Talk to your doc / therapist, you might be able to extend the medical leave. Apartments may take into account your bank account balance as something that helps your approval. If you decide to stay and do the PIP project, realize that it's really about putting a good plan together and executing to that plan, communi…

What do you mean "take the money" ? Is it some kind of payout to leave ?

In Amazon, you are intially put on Focus, i.e management start building a case against against your performance (Documentation).

Once focus period ends, you are given option to take Severance or Performance improvement plan (PiP).

Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#52

Post by mike503 »

mike503 wrote: post #50

Try being an (old school) sysadmin / platform / DevOps person that doesn't have terraform/ansible/python skills. Never needed it, always been overkill, and every single job wants it in the space now. I've made my own homegrown ansible type tools and everything else under the sun. But grown organically and not requiring learning a different DSL. I've worked in the industry so long everything recommends "senior" level…

Also, with those 3 languages try to find open source projects looking for bug fixes and such. That'd make for a solid portfolio!

Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#53

Post by ShamelessC »

max_hammer wrote: post #51
worthless-trash wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean "take the money" ? Is it some kind of payout to leave ?

In Amazon, you are intially put on Focus, i.e management start building a case against against your performance (Documentation). Once focus period ends, you are given option to take Severance or Performance improvement plan (PiP).

That is dehumanizing.

Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#55

Post by quickthrower2 »

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #33

Not to be dismissive of people in this position, but speaking as someone with a regular ass boring job outside of the bay area, saying you're "terrified" sounds like you're far more worried than you need to be. The standards at jobs around the country are so low, and people in general are so bad at their jobs. You might not LIKE the other work that's out there, but you could always find a software dev gig, or IT anal…

Yeah there is this parallel universe where you draw in connections and work the room etc. to hustle your way to great jobs. I am sure it is good and all but every job hunt for me starts with a job board or search engine and a fresh cv.docx and off we go.

Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#56

Post by xmcqdpt2 »

BaculumMeumEst wrote: post #33

Not to be dismissive of people in this position, but speaking as someone with a regular ass boring job outside of the bay area, saying you're "terrified" sounds like you're far more worried than you need to be. The standards at jobs around the country are so low, and people in general are so bad at their jobs. You might not LIKE the other work that's out there, but you could always find a software dev gig, or IT anal…

Maybe but if you are in the Bay area you have to get paid a Bay area salary. They could move out of SF but that's hard too. You have to change job but also get a new place, change doctors, your kids school, your partner might need a new job etc.

Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#57

Post by xmcqdpt2 »

mike503 wrote: post #50

Try being an (old school) sysadmin / platform / DevOps person that doesn't have terraform/ansible/python skills. Never needed it, always been overkill, and every single job wants it in the space now. I've made my own homegrown ansible type tools and everything else under the sun. But grown organically and not requiring learning a different DSL. I've worked in the industry so long everything recommends "senior" level…

You should learn ansible though, it's pretty transferable and works very well for non-cloud stuff too (in fact that's what it was created for!) It's pretty easy to use if you know shell. It might actually make your job easier.

Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#58

Post by zemvpferreira »

tinco wrote: post #40
zemvpferreira wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a hiring manager but I've interviewed/hired in the high tens to low hundreds of people on my own dime in the past decade. Many from cold applications. I intensely dislike this criteria and want to share my own: People who perform really well at their job is who I want to hire. Solid skills, team player, proactive attitude. I have no proxy for that except digging down on recent projects and personality while talki…

You've definitely hired more than me, and if you're interviewing as the owner of a company that makes you a hiring manager right? If not then I've got my definition wrong and I'm not one either. Are you saying that if you've got one candidate who has not worked on personal projects and/or leetcode, and one who doesn't, and their backgrounds are similar otherwise, and you've only got time to call one, you'd flip a coi…

I mean fair enough, all in the spirit of trying to help OP. I think your answer was definitely helpful and representative of many hiring processes.

Personally I can't remember a situation where side projects made a difference, except maybe for hiring interns. I care much more about learning how people behave in real work situations, to the point where side project isn't even a signal.

I don't obsess over perfect candidates either. I'll advertise/interview until I find someone competent and capable of growth. However those are rare enough (and the field in demand enough) that I haven't had to choose between candidates often. But if I do, I'll do my best to decide based on real work experience. Reality is messy, certainly I've bowdlerized my experience but I think that's directionally correct.

To summarize, I hope OP just goes at it and starts interviewing as much as possible after spending a few hours talking himself up. I'm sure he's good enough as it is to be hired. Same conclusion as you really :)

Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#59

Post by binary132 »

hotpotamus wrote: post #35
RomanPushkin wrote: post #15

In 2014, I relocated to the Bay Area with my spouse and one-year-old child, armed only with $9k USD and 2 bags of belongings for the whole family. I had secured a job, but unexpectedly, the company ran out of funds within six months. The first week after my termination, I was just lost in space and time, freaking out. Over the next two weeks, I applied to every possible software engineering job, sending at least a th…

Funny, when I’ve been laid off, I’ve been relieved that there’s no kid depending on me for food and health insurance and no spouse to divorce me. I think I’d have a breakdown if that were the case, but I guess we’re all different.

Pressure and responsibility tend to motivate people.

Re: Ask HN: Terrified I wont find another job

#60

Post by em-bee »

notabee wrote: post #37

Just to commiserate, I also had a health issue years ago that really threw my career off track. I managed to land a steady job after some long and stressful months and eventually got some treatment that got me back to 95% health-wise, but the job is way below what I think I'm capable of and it's really hard to get back out there and interview for something better. Unfortunately mentioning any kind of health issue dur…

are health issues among those forbidden topics that an interviewer is not allowed to ask about?

i definitely agree that mentioning health issues is a bad idea.

but how does one explain gaps if they are caused by a hospital stay?

i don't have any such gaps, but in my CV i only mention years, not months, so one job ends in 2012 and the next one starts in 2013 regardless of the month where that actually happened. if i get any pushback on that, i'd see that as a sign of trouble. besides in any gap i was freelancing anyways.

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