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The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

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Re: The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

#71

Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal, and not backed by any data. I'm in my mid-twenties and just recently started interviewing people for the team I work on. It's amazing how little effort many seemingly qualified people put in to secure an entry-level job. Whether it be hustle to learn more about a business, the specifics about the company you might work at, or finding someone to give a second set of eyes on a cove…

How suitable a process do you feel interviewing has turned out to be ?

Because years of HR research has suggested that interviews are a very poor method for determining candidate suitability for a job. [1]

[1] http://imgur.com/5G0E3dj

Re: The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

#72

Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal, and not backed by any data. I'm in my mid-twenties and just recently started interviewing people for the team I work on. It's amazing how little effort many seemingly qualified people put in to secure an entry-level job. Whether it be hustle to learn more about a business, the specifics about the company you might work at, or finding someone to give a second set of eyes on a cove…

Keep in mind that as a purely statistical matter the majority of job applications and interviews come from unqualified candidates. The good people are quickly hired, so the bad/lazy/inattentive people end up dominating the numbers.

In my last job search, I "applied" (usually emailed a friend) to 10 or so companies, had final interviews with 4, and chose one within a week or two. Contrast that with some of my friends who try to do at least 10 applications a day (yet, predictably, still don't have a job). If you were merely to look at the average quality of applications, it would be way lower than the average quality of applicants.

Re: The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

#73
post #13

What qualifies as an adult anymore? people 15 to 29 years old are at least twice as likely as adults to be unemployed 30 is adulthood in their interpretation of the data.

The traditional right of passage, your first divorce.

Re: The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

#74
post #9

Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal, and not backed by any data. I'm in my mid-twenties and just recently started interviewing people for the team I work on. It's amazing how little effort many seemingly qualified people put in to secure an entry-level job. Whether it be hustle to learn more about a business, the specifics about the company you might work at, or finding someone to give a second set of eyes on a cove…

I'm 40, and have seen shitty resumes/interview efforts my entire life. It seems to have no relationship to economic conditions. Most people just don't seem to ... try very hard? Wish I had something more insightful to say after almost 20 years of observation.

There's also a pretty strong adverse selection problem in the applicant pool.

People with strong resumes and strong interviewing skills just don't apply and interview all that often.

People who are weak at the resume stage send out a LOT of resumes. People who are weak at interviewing fail to succeed at a lot of interviews.

Therefore, the randomly chosen resume and randomly chosen interview candidate are well below the median of all workers in the field.

Re: The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

#75
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruiter and resume-writer-on-the-side here, and it's become so easy to apply for jobs that most people put zero effort into anything but pressing send and shotgunning a resume to hundreds of companies. If there was even a small cost (time or money) to applying, you can be sure that resumes and cover letters would be much more common and of higher quality. I'm not suggesting that we charge applicants, but years ago…

As a recent college grad who went to a community college and then a run-of-the-mill state school, my experience and general impression from my peers was that unless you shotgun as many job applications as possible, you're probably not going to hear back from anyone. My own hypothesis is that most companies are so obsessed with a potential "false positive" hire that they're perfectly okay with not investing in a new g…

There's certainly a tradeoff between shotgunning and carefully crafting an individualized approach. I'm not sure it's really all that different from what it's always been though. Way back in the day when I was graduating from engineering school, I sent out a lot of minimally customized cover letters with a standard resume to many companies in what seemed like possibly interesting industries. In fact, I got a number of interviews from those shotgunned resumes and ended up working at one of the companies. It was a pretty good job and one that I'd have never stumbled onto with a more tailored approach.

OTOH, my most recent three jobs--including my current one--were all basically through people that I knew.

Re: The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

#76
post #3

Student loan debt surpassed credit card and auto loan debt in the US last year. Many college grads graduate with large sums of debt and can't find relevant jobs. Since student loan debt isn't forgivable, it'll be interesting to see the effect of this over the next decade. I have a hunch that the next big market crash will be caused by student loan debt.

I agree that student loan debt seems like an asset bubble -- in that the price of an education greatly exceeds the valuation justified by the fundamentals. But I can't think of a way that the bubble could actually pop. Or what it would look like if it did. Unlike housing, you can't walk away from your education; student loans are designed to prevent debtors from ever escaping their obligations. They're also guarantee…

Back around 2000, when I saw education costs rising (and was a big believer in market forces), I figured more educators would enter the market, and things would stabilize.

It's been 15 years, and I haven't seen any new colleges or universities formed.

What happened?

Re: The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

#77
post #10

Disclaimer: This is purely anecdotal, and not backed by any data. I'm in my mid-twenties and just recently started interviewing people for the team I work on. It's amazing how little effort many seemingly qualified people put in to secure an entry-level job. Whether it be hustle to learn more about a business, the specifics about the company you might work at, or finding someone to give a second set of eyes on a cove…

Recruiter and resume-writer-on-the-side here, and it's become so easy to apply for jobs that most people put zero effort into anything but pressing send and shotgunning a resume to hundreds of companies. If there was even a small cost (time or money) to applying, you can be sure that resumes and cover letters would be much more common and of higher quality. I'm not suggesting that we charge applicants, but years ago…

> Job seekers are much better served spending an hour sending 10 focused applications than spending that same hour to send 100 sanitized applications.

Let's assume that you have a 1 in 20 chance on the focused applications, and a 1 in 200 chance on the sanitized ones.

Then the odds that you are offered at least one job, is 40.13% for the focused ones, and 39.42% for the sanitized ones.

I'm not sure the emotional investment is enough to justify the difference in likelihood of landing a job.

Re: The world needs at least 600M new jobs in the next decade for young people

#80
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recruiter and resume-writer-on-the-side here, and it's become so easy to apply for jobs that most people put zero effort into anything but pressing send and shotgunning a resume to hundreds of companies. If there was even a small cost (time or money) to applying, you can be sure that resumes and cover letters would be much more common and of higher quality. I'm not suggesting that we charge applicants, but years ago…

As a recent college grad who went to a community college and then a run-of-the-mill state school, my experience and general impression from my peers was that unless you shotgun as many job applications as possible, you're probably not going to hear back from anyone. My own hypothesis is that most companies are so obsessed with a potential "false positive" hire that they're perfectly okay with not investing in a new g…

You don't necessarily need to completely customize everything... In many cases, however it's more important to have good structure and information.

Start off with a basic introduction paragraph or two of what type(s) of positions you are looking for. Followed by a brief summary of the keywords related to the technologies you've used, or are experienced with. Follow this by either eductaion or work history next, whichever is more recent/relevant (if you're still in school, or haven't had a job out of school, education first)... Point out each role, accomplishment and related technology used.

In work history, give a brief paragraph for any major roles/projects again, with any related technologies used. Also include aliases and related technologies.

By doing this, you give up front what you're looking for... what you can use, and then back it up again. Have others who are great with your language proof read and give feedback on verbiage.

Half the battle is getting through the H.R. and recruiter types that hold the gates to the decision makers. The other half is following through with actual relatable experience that you understand, know or can easily learn what you need for the job in question.

Be honest to a fault in terms of what you know, what you don't and what you feel you can learn quickly.

That's my advice to anyone looking for a job in a technical field... You don't necessarily need to customize, but at least have a great resume, that will go a long way getting your foot in the door.

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