leetcode
Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
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Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#32Have you tried talking with a recruiting agency? I notice you've mostly applied at household-name companies, many of which are very competitive. The majority of the tech jobs out there are not at companies you've ever heard of. Recruiters (third-party, not in-house) are motivated to find you something that's a good fit because they get commission (from the company) based on you getting hired. They'll coach you, help…
Can you recommend any good third party recruiting agencies for tech?
Vettery, Jobot, Triplebyte
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#33You’re young, inexperienced, and uneducated?
College and good internships will improve upon all of that. If you can’t afford college, you’ll need to join the military (I recommend the Air Force if you want to take it easy, or the Marines if you don’t) and slave for four years. But it seems to me that your biggest stumbling block may be that you are shooting for the moon without realizing it.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#34You leave out a lot about yourself that would make you unhireable. From what you've written it sounds like you could form a decent resume for an entry level position. The biggest red flag I see is that it doesn't sound like you completed anything and you don't have any follow through / sticktuitiveness. Life happens and reasons happen but you didn't complete college, you complain about your entry level position at am…
Yeah, I think hiring managers think that I'm a quitter. I definitely think that I was whining too much about the Amazon role. Beggers can't be choosers. However, the no health insurance thing rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like it was a dead end job. I wish that I would've stayed with it though. I probably would've been promoted by now. I need to stay with a job and rack up some years of experience for sure. Like I…
> I received a rejection from state farm today stating that I'm not a good fit. Even though I meet the qualifcations.
Speaking as someone who has interviewed a few dozen candidates, this likely means you're rubbing people up the wrong way. Based solely on reading this comment alone:
> I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting those issues, especially since I found them within my frist two weeks
If I interviewed someone who told me they left their previous job because they weren't progressing after raising issues immediately after being hired, that would be a hard no from me.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#35What do you have to offer the companies you've applied for? It's deeply unjust we live in a society where simply being a person isn't enough to merit having a home and medical care, but that problem isn't going to be solved in time to help you. Or, in other words, I'm not going to say "The world doesn't owe you a job" - but the world certainly acts as if it doesn't owe you a job, and you need to deal with that. If I…
> It's deeply unjust we live in a society where simply being a person isn't enough to merit having a home and medical care
We should really get moving on that. We still need to build housing for about 1.6 billion and I don't know of good estimates about how many more doctors and hospitals we need to provide that care. Right now, it feels like it's mostly the Catholic church building hospitals, which is why so many are named after saints.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#36You leave out a lot about yourself that would make you unhireable. From what you've written it sounds like you could form a decent resume for an entry level position. The biggest red flag I see is that it doesn't sound like you completed anything and you don't have any follow through / sticktuitiveness. Life happens and reasons happen but you didn't complete college, you complain about your entry level position at am…
Yeah, I think hiring managers think that I'm a quitter. I definitely think that I was whining too much about the Amazon role. Beggers can't be choosers. However, the no health insurance thing rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like it was a dead end job. I wish that I would've stayed with it though. I probably would've been promoted by now. I need to stay with a job and rack up some years of experience for sure. Like I…
"Overqualified" in concert with your employment record of very short stints means they're worried you won't be happy at the job and you'll leave for something else. Which, bluntly, they're right to be worried about.
Hiring a person has a pretty high fixed cost for the company (in time spent setting things up, doing their end of the paperwork, making time to show you the ropes, etc.), and it's only worthwhile if it's an investment - i.e., if the person being hired stays.
Your resume gives an employer absolutely no reason to believe that you'll stay. So you have to be extremely convincing about that when you talk to them - that means you have to be extremely convincing that you'll be happy working at a job even if it's not the right fit for you, even if they don't recognize you as much as you think you deserve, even if the internal email system maxes out at 1 GB.
(The person who's hiring you almost certainly also has an ambition to a higher role, has been slighted for recognition before, and has their own complaints about the IT setup! I've never heard anyone say "My company is over-promoting me and our internal email system is too good." So if you give them any reason to believe that those sorts of things are dealbreakers for you, and not things that you too will put up with, they'll expect you to leave. They're not going to convince themselves it's fine to hire you because that problem won't happen here.)
For instance, if they ask you why you left Amazon, you'd better not be saying "I found an important problem and I didn't get recognition for it." Tell them you had a personal emergency or something.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#37The candid answer, from reading your post and especially replies, is that you come across as a bit entitled and likely get denied job opportunities because of how you communicate.
That might be good news, because you don’t have to change yourself but reframe your perspective.
Preferably I’d suggest a mental health professional who focuses on your self narrative.. but I understand that can be expensive.
Perhaps you could do something like a HealthyGamerGG coach. They are more affordable, and I think they’ll be able to give you the feedback you need to get past this.
Best of luck!
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#38Two patterns - you don't stick with projects for long (perhaps really like freedom) and want a safety net (medical insurance). (Plus you could be a better communicator, the post you wrote turned out into not so coherent rambling halfway in, tbh.)
Unless you are willing to relocate to a saner country than the US, you need to give up one. Most commenters here advise to give up some of your freedom and stick it out somewhere, and it's a very valid advice. I just want to add that you can also consider going the opposite way - and just get a steady stream of shorter-term gigs freelancing (e.g. Upwork).
There is a lot of upsides - it's easy to work on projects completely remotely (including written only with no voice/video) which rules out any interpersonal issues; you can work on bite-sized projects which might be your cup of tea, at the same time some of the projects will turn into long term opportunities; you can actually put the best projects on your CV.
Freelancing won't give you great medical insurance. And at the beginning (with no history on the platform) it's a grind to succeed in the competition and you need to work your hourly rates up from a low base. Longer term it can pay nicely, you'll be working on a lot of different things and learn what you enjoy, and it should teach you a lot.
Derisk this experiment, try it out while you are looking for a job.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I think hiring managers think that I'm a quitter. I definitely think that I was whining too much about the Amazon role. Beggers can't be choosers. However, the no health insurance thing rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like it was a dead end job. I wish that I would've stayed with it though. I probably would've been promoted by now. I need to stay with a job and rack up some years of experience for sure. Like I…
> I received a rejection from state farm today stating that I'm not a good fit. Even though I meet the qualifcations. Speaking as someone who has interviewed a few dozen candidates, this likely means you're rubbing people up the wrong way. Based solely on reading this comment alone: > I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting those issues, especially since I found them within my frist two weeks If I i…
> If I interviewed someone who told me they left their previous job because they weren't progressing after raising issues immediately after being hired, that would be a hard no from me.
This.
OP's tales convey the idea of someone who holds himself at an uniquely high esteem that's not shared by anyone who contacted directly with him.
I mean,it's highly unusual that someone that barely can land an entry-level customer support role and still fails to keep it would be able to meet the bar of any of the FANGS, specially when they value personal traits.
To make matters worse, in the few jobs he managed to land he proceeds to act in ways that antagonize their leadership,both direct and skip-level, and also create problems for everyone around instead of solving them.
Managers want to hire people to solve their problems and help move things forward, not create more problems and act as a blocker.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#40Have you tried talking with a recruiting agency? I notice you've mostly applied at household-name companies, many of which are very competitive. The majority of the tech jobs out there are not at companies you've ever heard of. Recruiters (third-party, not in-house) are motivated to find you something that's a good fit because they get commission (from the company) based on you getting hired. They'll coach you, help…
This is a great tip. Earlier in my career I was stuck at a mid-point where I didn't have quite enough experience to get hired by a household-name tech company, and working with third-party recruiters made finding a job easy. Knowing what I know now, I never would have even made it past screening at a lot of companies. They will take a cut of your salary, but they'll also work hard to sell you, as that's the only way they get paid. You are to them what a house is to a realtor, and the market is hot right now.