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I'm Begging for Work

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Re: I'm Begging for Work

#301

Post by rev_bird »

ecliptik wrote: post #293
skimpycompiler wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Twitter?

Mostly because many job sites (greenhouse.io and lever.co) ask for a twitter link along with LinkedIn and Github. I've found the more interesting you can make yourself when applying, the more likely you will get a follow up interview. You don't need to be a 140-char Shakespeare, just follow some influences and projects you're interested in, re-tweet things you find useful and if you have anything of substance you've…

My problem is that I tweet a lot, but seldom about technical stuff that would actually be interesting to an employer, so when I do tweet some neat new devopsy thing, it's buried between four tweets about how I'm scared of the police and mad at the Phillies for trading somebody. It's really tough for me to find a balanced tone on this thing, because I can never decide if it's a personal or professional feed.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#302

Post by rev_bird »

coldtea wrote: post #290
DanBC wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not surprised that candidates put their photos on resumes or their information sites. I am surprised that a CEO publicly declares photos to be useful. A photo is clearly bullshit - there's no useful information in a photo (unless it's "here I am accepting $PRESTIGOUS_AWARD last year") - and it raise risk of discrimination claims.

> there's no useful information in a photo There's lots of useful information in a photo. A talented HR/CEO can size up a lot of things from it, even from the way the candidate is dressed in the photo. "Hmm, too old, too quirky looking, doesn't look a good fit for our culture, fucking hipster I hate them, too slopilly dressed don't like working with such guys" etc.

I'd wager half of the observations of this "talented HR/CEO" are illegal.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#303

Post by rev_bird »

thomasahle wrote: post #118
mmaunder wrote: post #25

Time to get your game face on. I'm a CEO, we're hiring but not in your skill area. Having interviewed a lot of candidates lately and looked at many more, I wanted to give you my 2c on getting into extremely hirable shape fast: Update your LinkedIn profile as someone has mentioned already. Sweeten it up, get a great looking but professional profile pic up there, get kudos from friends, etc. Do the online profile clean…

Is it worth it to go to a photographer? Or does that signal narcissism?

Personally, I'm freaked out seeing a LinkedIn profile that is complete, but in a way that signals they might have actually paid someone to make it look that way. I've seen great profiles that really give me a good feel for what someone is up to, but others, like with a cheesy school-photo, just seem like marketing material.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#304

Post by rev_bird »

flippant wrote: post #134
Kiro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How was he abused? He got a reasonable salary for someone with no prior experience or education.

He was led on with the promise of a better salary.

THIS right here is the part that drives me up a wall. Earlier in my (admittedly still pretty short) career, I'd probably have done dev work for free, if only to get some "official" experience and work with some devs I could learn from. But it's an entirely different situation when someone is working for far less than they're worth because they're being lied to. That's not a CEO giving someone a leg up despite lackluster credentials, that's just a CEO stealing labor under false pretenses.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#305

Post by rev_bird »

mcv wrote: post #252

"Why the fuck didn’t he just tell me what I’d be getting from the beginning?" Because then he'd have been out of a couple of months of cheap labour. You got screwed. He set out to screw you right from the start. It sucks. Not the entire industry is like that, but your boss is clearly an asshole. And worst of it is that there's no way to get payback, because what he did is probably totally legal where you live.

There are still plenty of ways to get legal payback, though not in a "slash his tires" kind of way. Personally, I'd LOVE to add this company and its managers to my list of "assholes to never work for." The only pressure we can assert on manipulative employers is to refuse to be their employees. Eventually they'll have to either shape up for fail.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#306

Post by rev_bird »

UK-AL wrote: post #238

You really need to detach yourself emotionally from work. You need act less with emotions and more rationality. When people promise something x in the future, without any official contract I automatically assume that its not going to arrive. It's just carrot. Expect the worst, and be a bit stoic. In many ways less gain now, is better than larger potential gain later because of the risk you take. Don't try to forceful…

> When people promise something x in the future, without any official contract I automatically assume that its not going to arrive.

This was a painful realization I had to make, and I've pretty recently acted on it even though my employer probably had genuinely positive intentions. It was a short-term change that I'd have loved, but they wouldn't put anything in writing -- even an email -- about a long-term commitment that this would be my new job. I had to not believe them.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#307

Post by pauleastlund »

jfoutz wrote: post #162
cplease wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my corner of the industry, all attention is not good attention.

All attention is monetizable. Maybe you become the finance guy who may have laundered money for the narcolumbians, or maybe you become the lawyer that kept the mob boss out of jail. But that's perception, not necessarily reality. In any case, you're the guy that gets to charge more because you have more clients. I'm kind of curious, if you're willing to give a general corner of industry. I can't think of anything tha…

I mean, I take his point that some kinds of attention are really bad. I knew mchurch at Google and that whole debacle was a pretty up-close look at just how bad they can be.

I just don't think this case is analogous. mchurch became instantly infamous with all Googlers, which made him radioactive in a big swath of the upper tier of the software industry, not just in NYC but also CA and other tech hubs. In contrast, this guy posted one thread to Hacker News that (from what I can tell) is fairly anonymized. Maybe folks close to him will recognize that this is his story, and maybe in his local dev community word will get around that he wrote it. But he's looking for remote work, and I think it extremely unlikely that he'll go to apply for a remote job a year from now and they will somehow connect him to this post.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#308

Post by rev_bird »

gambiting wrote: post #174

"And no one started at $40k. The general consensus was that maybe I hadn’t gone to college, but I had proven myself in the past 8 months. I deserved the same starting salary as everyone else, which was about $75,000 " Holy fuck. I work as a full time C++ developer with a couple years of experience now and I make $30k/year. And I have a first class Masters Degree in compute science. Games industry man.

> Games industry man.

It's a small market with a zillion people who want to work in it. They benefit from "paying" people with "working in the industry they love." That said, $30,000 for 40-hour weeks is now literally less than minimum wage in some states. Seems suspiciously low.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#309

Post by azernik »

Bonogongo wrote: post #87
nilkn wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you've had a bad experience with a former employee, but this is not blackmail. That's just standing up for himself. The OP was working there contingent on his boss's promise of a raise, and both parties knew this, including the boss. In fact, the OP was remarkably generous towards his boss by doing something very foolish: knowingly taking an unlivable wage out of trust that the boss would live up to hi…

It sounds like you have done this in the past, and it is blackmail. And I understand that you don't want to see yourself as a blackmailer. "I'm more worth than that" and leaving is standing up. "Give me more money or I leave" is blackmail. "Regarding your Wikipedia quote, leaving a job in which you are abused and underpaid is not at all unjustified." Leaving is not the blackmail part, threatening to leave is the blac…

"Give me more money or I leave" is negotiation (specifically, an ultimatum), and is a perfectly legitimate tactic. Standing up and leaving is throwing a tantrum (or a last resort if the ultimatum fails) - doing so without first telling the other party your problem and giving them a chance to fix it is completely unprofessional.

WRT your definition of blackmail, I'm getting "the action, treated as a criminal offense, of demanding money from a person in return for not revealing compromising or injurious information about that person." It's a VERY specific term having to do with hidden information.

What you cited seems closer to the definition of extortion ("the practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats"), but frankly, as long as what you're threatening to do is legal, that's business.

Your relationship with your employer is first and foremost a business relationship - they are not your best friend, your family, or your surrogate father. You have no obligation to play nice with their feelings.

I understand your impulse to not give in to an employee that demands like this, but you need to drop the moralizing BS - what you're saying is "they know what they're worth and I can't afford to pay that, so I'll only hire employees who don't know what they're worth". Sound accurate?

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#310

Post by AdieuToLogic »

hwstar wrote: post #299
AdieuToLogic wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's grossly unprofessional to disconnect an employee without any due process or policy. In the US, it depends on what state the company is headquartered. Many are "right to work" states, which means any employee can be fired so long as it is not for reasons such as age, sex, weight, religious beliefs, or sexual orientation. In those states, an employee literally can be fired for a reason such as "you upset the own…

Why do people confuse "Right to Work" with "Employment At Will"? Right to work means that you can work for an employer without having to join a union or pay union dues. Right to work is used in conservative states to keep unions from forming. Employment-at-will means your employer or you can terminate the employment relationship for (most) any reason whatsoever. If you are an employer, you can fire someone for wearin…

> Why do people confuse "Right to Work" with "Employment At Will"?

You are right, I used the wrong term (Right to Work) where I meant "Employment at Will." Thank you for pointing this out as they are different.

While 22 states practice Right to Work laws[1], Employment at Will appears to be much more prevalent:

  Virtually all states are employment at
  will states, meaning that all states
  uphold the Doctrine to some degree. To
  what degree states uphold the Doctrine
  regarding employers' rights to discharge
  employees varies by state.

  EmploymentIssues[2]
1 - http://employment.laws.com/right-to-work-states

2 - http://employeeissues.com/at_will_states.htm

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