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I'm Begging for Work

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Re: I'm Begging for Work

#311

Post by hwstar »

AdieuToLogic wrote: post #310
hwstar wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 deg…

49 states are at-will in various degrees. Montana is the exception: it practices "Just Cause" like the rest of the developed world.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#312

Post by pappageorgio »

onerous2017 wrote: post #120

OP, I have been in a similar boat as you. Back in 2013, my daughter was born and within 2 days I was laid off from my position as IT Manager at a small MSP in Dallas. No college degree at the time, no savings, wife and I were not working. The one thing I did have though (fortunately) was experience in the industry - about 8 years of IT experience (dev, systems engineering, architecture, management). I freaked out ini…

Wow man - amazing story.

I am a single dude with no family of my own, but I will say a few things:

A) When you are looking for a job - make friends with headhunters. Do everything you can to get unsolicited phone calls/emails from them as much as you can. Post your resume on Monster and make a really good/clean profile. I also recommend doing this on StackOverflow and Indeed as well.

The whole point is to get these headhunters to work for you. Yeah you will eventually start getting 20-30 emails a day from them and the same number of phone calls. A lot will be for jobs in completely random cities. Filter them out, anything that looks pretty good - follow up on it. (For the love of god, use a burner number, you will regret it later if you don't)

B) Use LinkedIn and Indeed to your advantage. With Indeed for instance, you can setup a profile as a company and search key terms in specific geo areas looking for talent. As someone looking for a job - you can do the same thing. Make your employee profile, then make a profile for "your" company and see where you stand in the listings.

On LinkedIn, I highly recommend upgrading to a Job Seeker paid plan (if you can do it - they sometimes have a free trial too). That will give you access to see who has viewed your profile (for longer periods of time), where you stack up against other candidates for LinkedIn job posts, plus you get a few InMail credits to use.. USE them! Find companies in your area - from startups to big corporations and just start connecting with anyone you can. When you get to a Director of IT, or VP of Engineering, start asking about potential opportunities within the company. Develop a connection with them and the folks in HR (actual internal recruiters). Polish your resume, your CV and LinkedIn profile. Don't be afraid to send messages (shit have a form message ready to go if you need to).

Lastly, don't ever give up. As other posters have said - you can get a job, if you make it your fulltime job. A big part of finding a job is hustling.

If you have less than 2 years of dev experience, I highly recommend brushing up your GitHub account, maybe working on a small coding project to showcase your skills.

I don't know where you live, so it is not fair to comment on salary - as that is super variable according to where you live.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#313

Post by Lawtonfogle »

petercooper wrote: post #183
jlarocco wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess beggers can't be choosers, but you're describing an employer I would never work for. > Remove any controversial political views or disparaging remarks about previous employers. If a person keeps their stupid political views to themselves while at work, it's really not any of their employers business. As far as disparaging remarks go, if it's an awesome company to work for, there shouldn't be anything to worry…

It's not so much "fake" as presenting one's best face in a professional context. Most of us present different faces in different contexts every day. I often pick my nose, scratch my ass, tell rude jokes, love wearing sweatpants, and don't have a problem with embarrassing-to-most sexual conversations. Do I engage in these things on a first date as I might on a day to day basis with friends? No.. I dress up a bit, smel…

And one day when every activity done outside of your home is recorded, will you agree that you shouldn't do any of that except in the private of your own home? Or would you say that if you run to the local market at 8PM in your jammies, your professional reputation shouldn't take a hit. Would you say that if you were seen flirting with a date (or SO or spouse if dating/married) while at some restaurant, it shouldn't be used against your professional reputation?

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#314

Post by coldtea »

rev_bird wrote: post #302
coldtea wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I'd wager it depends on the country, plus it doesn't matter, they'd do them anyway and there's not much anybody can do about it.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#315

Post by CmonDev »

wyclif wrote: post #168
CmonDev wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be a religion thing.

Wait, if someone has 4 children, it's because of religion? That's possibly the stupidest comment I've ever seen on HN, and I've seen a lot.

I was trying to guess the reason behind the decision to raise 4 kids in poverty.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_and_birth_control

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#316

Post by dandare »

ericdykstra wrote: post #106
Bonogongo wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring is a filtering game. With 100 candidates, first thing you do is filter out 80, I wish more candidates would understand this.

Using something like "professional-looking LinkedIn picture" as a filter is just throwing out candidates for the sake of getting the number lower. Any company that would be this lazy as to potentially throw away their best candidates in the first round of filtering on criteria that has such little actual signalling is not one that I would want to work for anyway.

Come on, it's a fact that ugly people get longer prison sentences, it sucks but that is how our brains are wired. Deal with it.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#317

Post by dandare »

bazzargh wrote: post #146
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…

http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/practices/ "As a general rule, the information obtained and requested through the pre-employment process should be limited to those essential for determining if a person is qualified for the job;... employers should not ask for a photograph of an applicant . If needed for identification purposes, a photograph may be obtained after an offer of employment is made and accepted." It surprised me…

As a fact ugly people get longer prison sentences. It sucks but that is how our brains are wired.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#318

Post by novaleaf »

Trying to give useful advice here, sorry if it stings.

Perhaps you are not worth 75k/year? Just because your friends mention that as a standard salary doesn't mean everyone (you) are at that level. Going in and demanding a 75K salary when you are being offered 40% lower seems to be a poor negotiation strategy in any case.

As others here mentioned, if you really want to improve your salary you do so by jumping around, not by forcing your employers hand.

Best of luck in your future, and hope you can bounce back from this.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#319

Post by MisterBastahrd »

AdeptusAquinas wrote: post #200
terryCloth wrote: post #196

You don't have what it takes to be a software developer. Please, do yourself and everyone else a favor and stop trying to be one. Why? Pick one. It's like the other poster here said: you're doing it all wrong. If you ARE a programming fool (like me for example) go out and find a new gig. Move it! Move it! That's what I tell myself. Then I get my act together and make it happen.

Lot of weird trolls on this comment thread. New accounts to post anonymously. What does that even mean, 'you don't have what it takes to be a software developer'? We work in a professional, respected industry where if anything the OP's boss should be pushed out, not the OP.

No, because OP is clearly delusional. He took what other people told him about what he should be making as gospel and then told his boss that he'd have to look for work elsewhere when an offer was made to him, because it was less than his "pie in the sky" number. Pay no attention to the fact that the guy has zero education and less than a year of work experience, or that his company clearly didn't value his production to the level of the other devs due to the fact that he didn't even have a company laptop.

Yeah, none of that matters. The only thing that matters is that he was fired. Because clearly, his boss is an evil mastermind who delights in the pain and suffering of uneducated people with overpopulated families and no prior work history.

Bottom line: he thinks he's worth 75K. Let's see him get it.

Re: I'm Begging for Work

#320

Post by hanswang2013 »

vellum wrote: post #215
Mikushi wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, blame the guy for being exploited like so many others. 1/ He did not quit or made any ultimatum. He acted on what was promised, nothing wrong with that. But right you should always lower your head and submit to the startups and their heads. 2/ Typical protection of abusive companies by telling employees who are being openly screwed : "Deal with it". Such a healthy advice, lets not question the ethics and worki…

I think the CEO's a sociopath, and I could care less if he gets shamed like that dentist that shot Cecil the Lion. But the OP is supporting a wife and 4 kids, so I'm giving him tactical advice. >That I’d been told $75k was reasonable, and that I would have to look for work elsewhere if it was going to be $44k. That sounds like an ultimatum. The problem is he's bluffing. He gets his bluff called, and then what? He's o…

Should we re-consider the 'sociopath' thing about this boss in this thread and all other following?

I am not defending on this boss's position. Hell no.

But why does not other employee of his company end up in the same sympathetic position as this OP?

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