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U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#241

Post by joncrane »

dominotw wrote: post #181
ellisv wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any recommendations for someone earlier in their career (<50 yo) to avoid or minimize ageism? Go into management? Be prepared to pick a new career?

Yea going into management is the best bet. Its a "controversial" topic on HN because large swathes of ppl here here believe #IC4Lyfe is a good career move. Its not.

I agree that IC for life is not a good career move, but it's not the wanna-be IC's fault.

It's the industry.

I work with this guy, he's about 60. I think he has a degree in Physics from Oxford, but he has a Texas accent. He's kind of a nomad type of guy, bounces from job to job. Got hired into the AWS "Cloud Team" shop on a project I work on. Doesn't have any AWS certifications. As far as I know, barely touched AWS and never touched Python, CloudFormation, or Jenkins before this job (but he knows just about every *ix flavor there is). Basically a lifelong Linux Sysadmin. I have no idea how he got the job.

Within a month he was writing his own CloudFormation, Lambdas, and Jenkinsfiles. He almost immediately intuited the whole "Zip up the Python and all its dependencies, throw on S3, use CFT to deploy the Lambda using that Zip file" method of deploying lambdas. Note this is with multiple accounts so you need to get the whole IAM delegation between accounts stuff. He's a natural.

I'm in awe of this guy.

I truly believe that HN is full of people than can be like this. The problem is that most hiring managers do not.

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#242

Post by NotSammyHagar »

dman wrote: post #112
jayd16 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, "what are pension funds"? I don't have a pension. No one I know personally has a pensions. The younger or non-tech people I know have little to none in their 401k.

No one in tech has a pension.

Some people I know who are programmers for a defense department company have pensions, 401ks, and bonuses.

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#243

Post by NotSammyHagar »

borkt wrote: post #233
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you explain your insight on why you thought programming would be an unattractive field to work in in 2004, where wages would become much less, like they are for auto mechanics? Since the 1980s at least software has been probably the leading factor in increasing business performance, efficiency, and automation. I guess in 2000 there was the dot com implosion but after that there were always lots more demand than t…

I wanted to be a software engineer throughout junior high and high school until I saw the dot com bubble burst. My naive 18 year old brain thought even if things look good for a few years, its just going to happen again. The year I graduated in 2008 again was a terrible time to enter the workforce, so I entered a field that needs to exist in some capacity irrespective of economy (municipal engineering). I haven't loo…

That makes sense. It's never too late! Getting back into it and then getting that first job will be the challenges. After that you'll have a programming resume and it will make it easier and easier.

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#244

Post by xyzzyz »

meddlepal wrote: post #232
rayiner wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty convinced the Democrats will be toast as a party by 2030 once they get saddled with imploding the economy by no fault of their own other than bad timing. The effect of federalizing $3 trillion a year of the economy, raising corporate taxes to far above what Sweden has, and 70% marginal personal tax rates probably won’t be “no fault of their own.”

I'm skeptical they'd be able to accomplish even one of those things.

The comment you’re replying to lists all the things that already happened in 20th century, not some kind of scaremongering about the future.

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#245

Post by NotSammyHagar »

borkt wrote: post #239
NotSammyHagar wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take a software class at a community college. I had my eye on recruiting interns and new devs at the local community college and I went to the career fare and they said the entire graduating group had already been hired, mostly by microsoft. It's a crazy world with so much demand.

Are you suggesting a local community college only (Santa Rosa Junior College for me) or do remote courses work too? What class specifically should I be taking? The first year curriculum at Cal Poly was Java at the time, and while cumbersome I did well enough, so I don't exactly need an intro to computer science course. I'd like to jump in to something for people with about a year's experience working with whatever la…

I think remote isn't nearly as good as local. Locally you can get connected to companies that are sniffing around the college. Do they have a cs curriculum, I'd go through it step by step. You've probably not had much past "just programming". There's theory of computation, algorithm analysis - being able to do O(n) type calculations on algorithms (to compare choices) it a key interview ability, and it's useful in your job but crucial for 'real' software interviews.

In software engineering, there's using the tools (git, make, c++, dev environment - these days microsoft visual studio code is a free and commonly used dev tools that work s on linux and windows) and coding. But you will eventually need to get past it. Don't approach this as "oh my god, this will take years". Instead start with some programming classes, java or c++ or js or python, and look toward getting to those other classes eventually (theory of computation and algorithm analysis).

Good luck, you can do it.

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#246

Post by uerobert »

asdff wrote: post #199
tathougies wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean a good stock market makes it easier for companies to raise funds and thus to expand and employ more people. The purpose of the stock market is ultimately not to provide and asset class so much as it is to ease raising large amounts of money companies need to grow.

When companies raise funds, are they generally expanding and hiring these days or buying back their own stocks? Workforce have been shrinking for probably 100 years. Trickle down is fantasy.

Why the hell would companies sell their stock to raise money to buy their own stock again? That doesn't make sense. If they want to do stock buybacks they just borrow money to do it, but only if interest rates are low enough. In most cases when companies raise money by selling stock you can bet its to expand, by making capital investment, raising headcount, acquisitions, etc. Either at that moment or the near future.

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#247

Post by bgee »

downerending wrote: post #223
slumdev wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't personally know any sharp ICs who have trouble finding work, regardless of age, provided they keep learning. I've met many people who have struggled to find work after they stopped learning. But someone who refuses to learn at 30 is less employable than someone who still gets excited about a new framework at 60.

I passed an all-day at Google in my 50s. No offer, though, and that job hunt lasted many months. Pleased to meet you. :-)

Googler here.

Recruiter would not know if you passed or not.

IIUC, Google recruiter would send your package to the hiring committee if your interview result isn't bad (this is at their discretion); the hiring committee has the final say on if someone has "passed", recruiter doesn't.

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#248

Post by bgee »

downerending wrote: post #238
sethammons wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know you "passed" the all day? Why do you think the lack of an offer is age-related?

The Google recruiter told me that I passed that and the follow-on hiring committee. I have no reason to believe that wasn't true, especially since the people in the all-day seemed genuinely enthusiastic about me. I didn't say they didn't hire me for age. Rather, I was offering that as a proof of sorts that my skills are current and yet I had a hard time getting hired. (I did hear via back channels that I was nixed th…

Please see my comment above. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22079448

Recruiter would not know if you have passed, I assume you mean your package was sent to the hiring committee?

If you did not receive an offer after your package passed hiring committee, one common reason I heard was there is no head count.

A not recent news: Google Settles Age Discrimination Lawsuit [0]

[0]: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2019/07/23/google-set...

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#249

Post by Mikeb85 »

jayd16 wrote: post #59
Mikeb85 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at interest rates. The cost of borrowing matters more than the amount borrowed.

I assume you mean US bond rates? You're assuming that's an indicator of confidence the US will be able to keep borrowing? Is it not just confidence it will make good on what it currently owes before becoming insolvent? But alright, so we can borrow. Can we pay for healthcare and schools now?

Interest rates are, in economics terms, the same as government bond rates since the interest rates of any safe investment will always trend towards the government bond rate because of the arbitrage principle.

Re: U.S. job openings post biggest drop in more than four years

#250

Post by shagmin »

Nerdfest wrote: post #205
ianai wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope it’s a pop and soon or the eventual fall will be closer to a depression in the old school sense.

Why? That seems like it would cause a lot of very oor people to suffer even more.

Better a recession now than a depression later.
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