Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment • Hacker News Board

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#101

Post by madengr » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:41 PM UTC

tempsy wrote: post #53

pithymaxim wrote: post #19

>nearly 40 percent of Americans, a Federal Reserve report found, are in such a financially precarious state that they say they would have trouble finding $400 for an unexpected expense like a car repair or a medical bill. This has got to be the most repeated statistic in reporting on hardship, but the actual responses seem way less dire: https://twitter.com/p_millerd/status/1118071142311288838?lan...

Agreed, especially considering 1 in 6 millennials have $100k saved. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/1-in-6-millennials-have-1000...

I’m guessing that is mostly 401k savings, not liquid savings, which essentially can’t be touched until 60.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#102

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:42 PM UTC

cletus wrote: post #82

melvinroest wrote: post #24

I'm honestly experiencing this as a CS grad in the Dutch job market. I find it weird and frustrating. I've noticed why: 1. Companies don't dare to value creativity [1]. University is so liberal and the job market is so the opposite. 2. Most companies can't value a CS degree. The exception is when enough people in the company did a CS degree and that's a lot more rare than I thought. 3. University didn't teach me to f…

It sounds like the company made the right decision based on your words alone. The tone of your description of their "CRUD applications" comes across as dismissive. What the company wants is people who are happy to work there or at least not unhappy enough to leave (and, even better, will keep their unhappiness to themselves). The company wants this more than technical ability. You might be really talented but it seem…

Note: I see you're being downvoted. While your comment may sound harsh, I see it as well meant advice and take the candor of the message as something valuable. And now that I think of it, I can definitely see that I come across as submissive. I'm reflecting on myself on whether I am dismissive, which I find very tough to answer (on the one hand no because CRUD apps are valuable, on the other hand yes, because CRUD apps are simply not that complicated to other programming things? Such as concurrency, for example, I suppose making any normative statement as strongly as I do sounds dismissive and it probably is).

I described one reason why I'd be fine with CRUD apps.

There's another reason: at university I was always breaking my brain when I tried to learn programming. That intensified when I tried to learn security.

I think it'd be nice to have a break and not break my brain that much. I'm not saying I wouldn't think at all when I'd do CRUD, or not face difficult situations, because I probably will. But compared to what I've experienced at uni, it's a pretty nice walk around the park and a lot less of a headache (from what I've experienced during my freelance gigs).

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#103

Post by non-entity » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:43 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #98

non-entity wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may not be driving busses, but from what I've heard people like Electrical engineers and some others often have difficulty finding work.

An additional complication is availability of work may be concentrating in fewer geographic regions. There very well may be a shortage of engineers for engineering jobs, but not in the same place. And yet another complication is the perception of long term security of available jobs might be less than before, so moving for one is not an easy decision.

Ah yes I forgot to add that I'm speaking from a US perspective. I'm recalling a comment I read on HN a while back claiming that a lot of the EE jobs moved to east Asia as the manufacturing already went there

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#104

Post by zihotki » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:44 PM UTC

melvinroest wrote: post #24

I'm honestly experiencing this as a CS grad in the Dutch job market. I find it weird and frustrating. I've noticed why: 1. Companies don't dare to value creativity [1]. University is so liberal and the job market is so the opposite. 2. Most companies can't value a CS degree. The exception is when enough people in the company did a CS degree and that's a lot more rare than I thought. 3. University didn't teach me to f…

As one of many others working in CS in NL and also partially involved in candidate evaluation process, I can say that on Dutch IT job market as anywhere else the value of a diploma is low but value of skills is high. Proper CV with clear focus and skillset is a must.

As an example, we're hired a graduate just a few days ago because he shown us good understanding of Angular and did an assessment well. Last year another graduate was hired because of the same reason. My wife doesn't have a CS degree, she studied programming for a year and a half from basics at home, put about 3-4 pet projects on github and also got hired within 2 months during a dead season for job market (july-august).

So if you want to be hired, you should pick some popular amongst business language and framework (WebRTC is nice but it's a very niche), polish your skills, create a few simple pet projects, polish your CV (it doesn't need to be fancy and long, just clean and to the point) and you'll succeed. Also don't be afraid to ask feedback after you was rejected or not called back. May be there is something you don't notice which leads to rejection.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#105

Post by ltbarcly3 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #9

>say they cannot find jobs that provide a middle-class income and don’t come with an expiration date. Unemployment numbers don't measure quality. We have tons of available jobs, but low quality. And/or the people looking for jobs don't have the skills required for high quality jobs. Edit: Here's an income quintile graph from 2016 that shows quality of jobs (scroll down): https://www.cbo.gov/publication/55413

> And/or the people looking for jobs don't have the skills required for high quality jobs.

I think that is key here. The NYT article assumes that if you have had a job in the past, you must be qualified for a similar job. However, that is just not the case. Some people are not a good fit for a job, and they move on (fired, laid off, quit, lateral transfer or role change within the same company, many ways this can happen). If someone is terrible at their job, and they move on, it's not a given that they should be able to find another similar job.

I can give an (extreme) example that fits the fact of the first person talked about in the article. We hired a Project Manager at one company I worked at. The role was meant to be a contract position, but once people were convinced the position was important to create we would have made it full time. They turned out to be impossible to work with, they would scream and cry during meetings, lash out and publicly insult and blame others. It turned into a really weird and bad situation, and eventually they were fired. They had consulted for a ton of big, top companies in the past. I'm sure they keep landing consulting work here and there, but they never can get a full time job because companies always call references for those, and if you are trying to get a job via contract-to-fulltime positions you have to (at a minimum) be able to not act like a lunatic for the duration of your initial contract.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#106

Post by tempsy » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

madengr wrote: post #101

tempsy wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed, especially considering 1 in 6 millennials have $100k saved. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/05/1-in-6-millennials-have-1000...

I’m guessing that is mostly 401k savings, not liquid savings, which essentially can’t be touched until 60.

The survey says this is based on savings in bank accounts not a 401k

Either way there’s nothing preventing you from “touching” 401k savings. You pay a 10% penalty.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#107

Post by xkde » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #98

non-entity wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They may not be driving busses, but from what I've heard people like Electrical engineers and some others often have difficulty finding work.

An additional complication is availability of work may be concentrating in fewer geographic regions. There very well may be a shortage of engineers for engineering jobs, but not in the same place. And yet another complication is the perception of long term security of available jobs might be less than before, so moving for one is not an easy decision.

And what do you propose we do about that?

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#108

Post by michaelbrave » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

melvinroest wrote: post #24

I'm honestly experiencing this as a CS grad in the Dutch job market. I find it weird and frustrating. I've noticed why: 1. Companies don't dare to value creativity [1]. University is so liberal and the job market is so the opposite. 2. Most companies can't value a CS degree. The exception is when enough people in the company did a CS degree and that's a lot more rare than I thought. 3. University didn't teach me to f…

50% rejection means you are doing great actually, most people get a 10% or less callback

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#109

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:47 PM UTC

melvinroest wrote: post #24

I'm honestly experiencing this as a CS grad in the Dutch job market. I find it weird and frustrating. I've noticed why: 1. Companies don't dare to value creativity [1]. University is so liberal and the job market is so the opposite. 2. Most companies can't value a CS degree. The exception is when enough people in the company did a CS degree and that's a lot more rare than I thought. 3. University didn't teach me to f…

Thank you all for your feedback and advice. I really appreciate it. I also appreciated how you were being honest about things.

Re: Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment

#110

Post by chooseaname » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 4:48 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #80

csomar wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think 1. companies are burned out with CS grads who simply can't code 2. companies are burned out from new employees just learning the job and then jump somewhere else and 3. companies are looking to on-board you as fast as possible. A few problems you should be working on: > nobody cares that I fast-tracked > in terms of crystalized intelligence > But my portfolio is rather terrible > compared to what I'm capable…

Agreed. I thought I was a really good programmer leaving university. Now I know I was useless the first 3 years. I only became someone I would consider hiring now after 5-7 years.

You should have aged out by 5-7 years.