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

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

#131

Post by non-entity » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:18 PM UTC

wrnr wrote: post #34

In my region the government employment office likes to state that there are tens of thousands of IT vacancies but these numbers are misleading. It's actually a form of ghost liquidity. The same job at one company is advertised by different recruitment agencies, and multiple companies are bidding on the same contract with the same client. At the end of the day it's the same work that gets done by the same person, the…

> The same job at one company is advertised by different recruitment agencies

A bit of a tangent but these are the most obnoxious things whenever I search for a job. Because there seems to be a dozen of these for each "real" job posting.

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

#132

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #125

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…

TLDR; The cost of a bad hire is extremely high and not worth the risk. I'm a team lead and do a fair number of interviews. It's amazing how many people can talk about their experience and make a ton of really impressive statements that makes it appear as though they are knowledgeable and then that person can't perform a simple coding exercise. On the other hand, it's equally amazing how a person can do an excellent j…

That clears a couple of things up:

1. I understand the conservatism now. Just imagining emotionally drained people feels a bit exhausting.

2. The strategy you outline makes a lot of sense. They all follow the principle: don't be a risk, and don't come across as one either. If you are a risk, then de-risk yourself.

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

#133

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

goatinaboat wrote: post #90

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason it has a stigma, though, is that when layoffs happen, companies tend not to layoff their star performers, or they do at least some amount of stack ranking. Of course that is not always the case (sometimes entire departments are closed if a company exits a line of business, or the entire company itself folds), but if the company had a ~5-30% across-the-board layoff, it's generally assumed some level of pers…

when layoffs happen, companies tend not to layoff their star performers Positions are made redundant, not people. It doesn’t matter how good or bad you are if the company no longer has work for someone who does the thing you do, or in the location you do it. Some unethical companies do use layoffs as a cover for stack ranking but that’s an easy ruse to see through and reflects on them, not you.

Large (or even not-so-large) companies very rarely have one person per position. If they've got, say, 10% extra capacity in one area, obviously they are going to look at all the people in those roles when it comes to deciding who to let go.

Again, obviously that doesn't always apply in all situations (e.g. the closure of an entire business unit, or the loss of a big customer), but it also obviously applies in many situations. Furthermore, since on HN we like to think that skills matter, wouldn't we want it to? I mean, if there is a fantastic developer that just happens to be on a project that gets cancelled, wouldn't you want the company to figure out how to keep them over someone who is much less productive working on a project that just happened to not get cancelled?

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

#134

Post by tenpoundhammer » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #125

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…

TLDR; The cost of a bad hire is extremely high and not worth the risk. I'm a team lead and do a fair number of interviews. It's amazing how many people can talk about their experience and make a ton of really impressive statements that makes it appear as though they are knowledgeable and then that person can't perform a simple coding exercise. On the other hand, it's equally amazing how a person can do an excellent j…

Why the down vote?

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

#135

Post by chewz » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:25 PM UTC

chooseaname wrote: post #52

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right! Engineers driving busses; office managers flipping burgers. And the administration dares to call it 'full employment'. Its part of the very wealthy keeping all the money - if nobody has a skilled job, we don't get (much) income, and wealth inequality zooms onward. A better measure of employment would be, how much total payroll is across the country. Per capita if you like. That would tell us how we're doing. N…

> Its part of the very wealthy keeping all the money ... When does it start trickling down Mr Reagan?! When does it start trickling down!?

Stealing is the only sure way to make trickle down economy work.

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

#136

Post by tenpoundhammer » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:33 PM UTC

melvinroest wrote: post #132

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLDR; The cost of a bad hire is extremely high and not worth the risk. I'm a team lead and do a fair number of interviews. It's amazing how many people can talk about their experience and make a ton of really impressive statements that makes it appear as though they are knowledgeable and then that person can't perform a simple coding exercise. On the other hand, it's equally amazing how a person can do an excellent j…

That clears a couple of things up: 1. I understand the conservatism now. Just imagining emotionally drained people feels a bit exhausting. 2. The strategy you outline makes a lot of sense. They all follow the principle: don't be a risk, and don't come across as one either. If you are a risk, then de-risk yourself.

I've been wanting to coach folks looking to find a job for a long time. I would love to help you out with this at no cost of course. :)

i5htij+7j7md3ohoms1c@sharklasers.com temp email address

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

#137

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:35 PM UTC

notus wrote: post #128

melvinroest wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It might be true. I diagnosed it today. I had it in high school with mathematics as well. I wouldn't learn it at all and then scrape by with a 55%. And I have the same with programming. I think I only respect things that truly seem not learnable or understandable. Anything that I can learn, I lose some respect for, because I can just use my brain and it'll be mine. But today I told myself that's a dangerous attitude…

If you don't have respect for CRUD apps, why are you trying to get a job doing CRUD apps?

Compared to most forms of programming, it doesn't give me a headache. Or at least not enough of a headache to suffer under it. I think that's also part of why I sound arrogant according to people? CRUD never made me suffer. Other types of programming definitely did. CRUD does have challenges, especially when it needs to be on a large scale and performant.

Another reason is that I'm a digital creator at heart, not a programmer. Ultimately, I don't care about programming, I care about putting whatever is in my mind into the real world (despite that I did my best to learn CS as I did find it a valuable form of knowledge). And I find programming to be the most effective way to do that. I think creating CRUD apps is quite close to digital creation.

It's less of a headache (compared to other types of programming) and more visual (if you're full-stack or frontend).

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

#138

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #134

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TLDR; The cost of a bad hire is extremely high and not worth the risk. I'm a team lead and do a fair number of interviews. It's amazing how many people can talk about their experience and make a ton of really impressive statements that makes it appear as though they are knowledgeable and then that person can't perform a simple coding exercise. On the other hand, it's equally amazing how a person can do an excellent j…

Why the down vote?

FWIW: I gave you an upvote.

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

#139

Post by melvinroest » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:43 PM UTC

tenpoundhammer wrote: post #136

melvinroest wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That clears a couple of things up: 1. I understand the conservatism now. Just imagining emotionally drained people feels a bit exhausting. 2. The strategy you outline makes a lot of sense. They all follow the principle: don't be a risk, and don't come across as one either. If you are a risk, then de-risk yourself.

I've been wanting to coach folks looking to find a job for a long time. I would love to help you out with this at no cost of course. :) i5htij+7j7md3ohoms1c@sharklasers.com temp email address

Email sent

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

#140

Post by gwbas1c » Thu, Oct 31, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

tootahe45 wrote: post #14

The moment colleges become even a little bit responsible for job prospects you will never see crap like 'project management' offered to the unemployed again.

> crap like 'project management' offered to the unemployed again.

The thing is, no one (who's responsible) will hire a project manager who has no experience in the field. At least in software, I'd never work for a project manager who has no experience as a software developer. There are just too many cases where naive assumptions are wrong.

I suspect that Laura Ward (from the article) is in such a situation. She's trying to enter jobs in a management role where she's fundamentally unfit.