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

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

#151

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:07 PM UTC

daenz wrote: post #126

icelancer wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most of the comments here focus on how people aren't trying hard enough to get jobs. This article indicates that the jobs don't exist and that the problem is likely to get far worse. The reality is that BOTH are true. There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. My generation is facing this crisis, and the default response is to complain. Wh…

> There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. This is pie-in-the-sky thinking, but maybe there should be a law. Corporations have a legal duty to shareholders to make money. Why shouldn't our government have a legal duty to society to increase our resources and make things easier for each generation?

[deleted]

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

#152

Post by laurentoget » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

This is quite a contradiction from the recent talk about demographic pressure leading to a wage turnaround.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34488950

" Taking just wage growth, simply put (and for more detail follow the links above), an end to the global labour glut should see real wages (wages accounting for the change in prices) start to rise at a faster pace. An ONS report of 2014 found that UK real wages in the 1970s and 1980s grew by an average of 2.9% a year."

so which is it? too many people or not enough?

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

#153

Post by caskance » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:09 PM UTC

msandford wrote: post #132

caskance wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're seeing is actually the opposite problem. That candidates aren't obsessed enough with a potential "false positive" hire where they end up working somewhere they don't actually want to work. You can't tell me that someone applying for 40 positions a week truly wants to work at all 40 of those places. Primarily, the candidate just wants any job he/she can get because of the fear of unemployment.

Right, but a real problem is that the HR "match the keywords" whack-a-mole filter is totally random! 10 years of experience for a framework that's only been around for 8 years means that only the liars qualify and the honest folks don't. You don't know how people are going to evaluate your resume but statistically a bunch of companies aren't going to grade people holistically. But since you can't know a priori which…

It's a positive feedback loop. If it were not for pressure on applicants to find a job, any job, would every employer get bombarded by so many poorly written resumes that they would feel the need to implement such filters?

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

#154

Post by beatpanda » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

icelancer wrote: post #97

downandout wrote: post #82

Most of the comments here focus on how people aren't trying hard enough to get jobs. This article indicates that the jobs don't exist and that the problem is likely to get far worse. You can try as hard as you want to get a job - if no one is hiring, you aren't going to get one. The reality is that as time goes on, the world's needs can and will be met by fewer and fewer people. This should be a good thing, but it wo…

> Most of the comments here focus on how people aren't trying hard enough to get jobs. This article indicates that the jobs don't exist and that the problem is likely to get far worse. The reality is that BOTH are true. There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. My generation is facing this crisis, and the default response is to complain. Wh…

This is nonsense. There are, in absolute terms, more resources available, but our economic system enables and encourages the hording of those resources by fewer and fewer people who will, in all likelihood, never use them in their lifetimes.

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

#155

Post by xrange » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

Azew wrote: post #125

cryoshon wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, there's always some holdovers commenting from the era of easy jobs and easy money. Underemployment should be mentioned in any discussion of job difficulty; in the US, getting a job as a barista or fast food is possible, but a horrendous waste of a college education. It's really a shame that the US has decided to let its most educated generation ever suffer for its biggest strength.

> in the US, getting a job as a barista or fast food is possible, but a horrendous waste of a college education. Maybe. Not all college educations are created equal. Got a major in philosophy? You're not useful to the economy, there are no jobs and no one is wasting your education. Of course the example here is facetious, the point is this: If you have a college education/degree in something that is not marketable to…

>the waste is not the economies fault, but that of whomever pursued that education.

I'm willing to place at least 75% of the blame on the recipient, but I try not to discount the previous 12+ years of "education is our greatest asset" propaganda targeted towards children.

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

#156

Post by jbob2000 » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:10 PM UTC

This is anecdotal at best, but I feel like there is an apathy epidemic. It's fucking impossible to get people to even do "fun" things, much less a "boring" job. Everyone just wants to sit at home in front of a screen. It could just be the people I surround myself with, but that's the feeling I get.

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

#157

Post by morgante » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

nilkn wrote: post #96

morgante wrote: post #79

> people 15 to 29 years old are at least twice as likely as adults to be unemployed. Today I learned that 28-year-olds aren't adults.

I'm curious if that sentence is itself an explanation for the perception that a 28 year old might not be an adult. In other words, at least in American culture, adulthood is strongly tied with stable employment. If the 15 - 29 age bracket in general does not enjoy stable employment, that could itself be responsible for creating the perception that members of this bracket are not adults.

Nowhere near the majority of 20-somethings are unemployed. Language like this is just yet another attempt to marginalized and put down young people.

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

#158

Post by fecak » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

6stringmerc wrote: post #46

fecak wrote: 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…

Flip side: After spending a lot of time in the process, realizing that prospective employers give an extremely low effort to respond to candidates - no matter how much effort put into a cover letter, resume grooming, or discussion of why the role might be a fit - it's disheartening. Auto-declines are the norm. Posting jobs for legal reasons when there's already an internal candidate in mind is also undisclosed. Betwe…

I can understand that frustration. An auto-decline after spending a while to customize an application probably feels bad, but frankly most people won't feel great even with a personalized "sorry not interested".

My comments about spending time in the application process primarily are geared towards candidates right on the border of being qualified.

If I get a resume from someone who is clearly very qualified, I'm going to see it immediately and schedule a call. If the resume is from someone who is absolutely no industry experience applying for a senior job, I'll decline (with a note usually if they took the time to write anything).

But say we have a candidate that is slightly underqualified or barely qualified. They can spend a few minutes writing something targeted, and that will make the difference in them getting an interview.

I've had this debate here before, but if you apply to jobs you are clearly not qualified for, you shouldn't expect a reply because you've wasted your own time and theirs now. If someone applies and is just slightly underqualified, they generally are entitled to a response (especially if they took any time in the application process). Anyone who interviews deserves a response and ideally some specific feedback, but that's another story.

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

#159

Post by tracker1 » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:11 PM UTC

itsybitsycoder wrote: post #57

chucky_z wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was going to mention this exact same thing. The last time I had to go job hunting I submitted my resume to 40-50 companies each week or so, and unless I heard anything back ever, I did zero research outside of seeing if what they were looking for matched what I wanted to apply for.

How long did it take you to find a job using this method? Were you applying to software jobs?

I didn't quite follow the same approach recently... Was my first time looking for a job in several years. I sent out maybe 50 resumes and got callbacks on about half of them. I mainly applied locally. Also, updating my linked in profile got a lot more cold contacts than sending out resumes did.

I was pretty selective as far as finding a job, the interview process reduced the responses to about a third. In the end there were about 3-4 I was interested in, and one of them bumped up the offer to where it was about 20% more than the closest competing offer, so I decided to go with it.

However, I've got about 18-19 years of experience in my field (full stack software development, focusing on web applications), and stronger throughout the stack than most. Many of the positions were labelled "Senior" but the pay, and desired experience, didn't align with that statement in my opinion. It really just depends.

Having a strong resume will go a long way... having a summary statement with your desired position, goals and skills along with technology you are familiar with followed with work/project history reinforcing that experience will go a long way in terms of getting in the door.

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

#160

Post by icelancer » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

happyscrappy wrote: post #149

daenz wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. This is pie-in-the-sky thinking, but maybe there should be a law. Corporations have a legal duty to shareholders to make money. Why shouldn't our government have a legal duty to society to increase our resources and make things easier for each generation?

> each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them. That is clearly the trend, ups and downs aside. The current generation appears to feel they have it harder than the last few generations. Not even close.

I wouldn't say we have it "harder," because I don't believe that at all. The opportunities globalism and the Internet provide us are almost infinite. But the long-term view doesn't look too damn good from an employment perspective. There is a real mismatch of skill development and what is actually available on the market; and the labor demand is not nearly as stable as it used to be (career opportunities are changing every 5-10 years rather than 20-40). There is a lot more variance and randomness going forward by any reasonable projection, and while that doesn't actually change the underlying resource allocation, people don't do well with unpredictability.