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

#171

Post by fecak » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

cgearhart wrote: post #111

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…

> 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 agree. I'd happily put a nominal fee in escro to ensure that the target company I'm applying to actually looks at the resume. I'd also happily pay the fee for them to drop any job ads that they don't intend to fill. > Job seekers are much better served spendin…

I think your response rate in relation to time spent on the application has a third element, and that's your audience. If you are applying to giant corporate bank, your resume is first being read by a machine (ATS) scanning for words. I have no idea if your cover letter is being read. Time spent customizing is no better than basic SEO optimization perhaps.

Contrast this with applying for a startup where the CTO is reviewing the resumes, and you mention in the body of the application (they don't want a formal cover letter of course) that you've used their API and say something about how easy the experience was. You're getting an interview, unless you are largely unqualified.

I understand your complaints on process, and that's why I only work represent startups and smaller companies that usually let me streamline the process for clearly qualified individuals. I, too, was once frustrated by the process of some of my clients.

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

#172

Post by rorykoehler » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:17 PM UTC

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…

The world's needs are not being met. Only the needs of the capitalist who wants to turn a profit. I can think of a million and one things we should be doing but won't because of money.

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

#173

Post by digikata » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:17 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…

> There is no law stating that each generation of humans should have it easier and with more resources available to them

There is no law that requires this, but looking at world economic productivity numbers and our industrial & technology base there's no physical reason that people shouldn't have it easier with more resources every generation. If there is no physical reason, that leaves economic, social, & political causes...

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

#174

Post by petra » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

fredgrott wrote: post #109

The reality is with $31 Billion in mobile app sales and rising those jobs will come from small businesses building mobile apps as we have 1 TBytes of free data to organize into mobile services every year that our current programming languages cannot self learn how to organize. Yes there will still net jobs loss as tech progress eliminates them..the new job is your small business you set-up

That's not a that large of a number, considering it's a global industry.Also, we don't know how concentrated this wealth is.

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

#175

Post by ChuckMcM » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:18 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #143

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…

Speaking for myself (as a 22 year-old recent graduate) - I was brought up to respect my elders and to consider society as a mostly-altruistic, benevolent mass of humanity with a conscience bent more towards justice and meritocracy than corruption and inequality. I believed that the older generation who shape and structure society through government, industry, and academia were doing their absolute best to set future…

And it is up to your generation to do a better job of it (no pun intended) so run for office!

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

#176

Post by superuser2 » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

jaredhansen wrote: post #114

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…

>You can try as hard as you want to get a job - if no one is hiring, you aren't going to get one. True as far as it goes, and I too am concerned about the future of work, but I'm skeptical that we have ever seen, or will ever see, a future in which "no one is hiring". Today, there is tremendous demand for certain occupations, even as others are being hollowed out. The difference from historical expectations is that t…

>there is tremendous demand for certain occupations

The problem is that if you redirect all youth into these occupations, you will likely find yourself with more supply than demand. Software engineers are well-paid, well-treated, mobile, etc. because there are relatively few of them. This will not be the case when the default state of any 18-year-old is to become a software engineer.

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

#177

Post by FilterSweep » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:19 PM UTC

caskance wrote: post #106

edgyswingset wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

> 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.

This sounds like a whole lot of blaming the candidate. It also assumes that the candidate could even land one of those 40 positions in the first place. I applied to a whole lot more before I landed mine - as did most of my peers now in our early-mid 20s who didn't get swooped up in a career fair early on in the process.

You can't really tell me that someone applying for a job _in the first place_ truly wants to work (instead of pursuing a passion they like) period. More likely, the candidate doesn't want(keyword) to work at any of those 40 places at all. And here's the kicker:

The candidate should not be faulted for that if he or she is competent at the job and works hard.

The modern age has shown a lot of workers being faithful to their companies and having that faithfulness be an expected one-way street. Look at the firings of Disney and IBM Engineers. The Disney engineers had to even educate their replacements at reduced salary.

I'd love to be spending all my days producing music and building native iOS apps, but that's not how the world works. So, I work somewhere I tolerate working, somewhere I work well. And I count my blessings for it - not many millennials are as lucky as me.

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

#178

Post by maxerickson » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:20 PM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #143

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…

Speaking for myself (as a 22 year-old recent graduate) - I was brought up to respect my elders and to consider society as a mostly-altruistic, benevolent mass of humanity with a conscience bent more towards justice and meritocracy than corruption and inequality. I believed that the older generation who shape and structure society through government, industry, and academia were doing their absolute best to set future…

In some hand wavy statistical sense, those old people you see bagging groceries probably would have been dead 50 years ago. If that is true (I don't know if it is, I'm speculating), they aren't evidence of scarcity.

It's hard to measure quality of life, but if you look at things like housing, people in the US have more households now, with the average dwelling having increased in size (I'm sure McMansions pull up the average, but again, oversized houses aren't evidence of scarcity).

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

#179

Post by VLM » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:21 PM UTC

lujim wrote: post #94

astrodust wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We lived for at least fifty thousand years without any money at all, for around three thousand with some form of money, and the last two hundred years with the idea of hourly wages and bills and rent. It's entirely possible we'll find a better way to do this. Maybe we'll have to "undertake dramatic changes" to avoid an even bigger disaster.

Life before money was "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short". In fact I wouldn't choose to live anytime before the last 100 or 200 years. 1950 or later would have been my preference had I been given a choice. For how much we all like to armchair quarterback our current system (yes.. capitalism), it's easy to forget how bad 99.9 percent of the human experience on this planet would have sucked comparatively. That's…

"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short"

Isn't this also our future? The future is unevenly distributed... Detroit hasn't reached you yet, but its only a matter of time.

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

#180

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Oct 13, 2015, 7:22 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #23

maresca wrote: 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…

> But I can't think of a way that the bubble could actually pop. Or what it would look like if it did.

It would look a lot like the retrenchment of the private for-profit college industry when private lending outside of government guaranteed programs collapsed with the 2008-2009 financial collapse, only hitting all of higher education, and the real-estate markets buoyed by universities, and the communities and industries supporting higher-education generally.

And it could happen with the stroke of a pen -- the federal government just cancels direct and subsidized loan programs.