Stop bothering with Fortune 500, and SV "sexy" companies. They get hundreds of applicants every day. There are thousands of small shops out there who always need WordPress monkies and "stick this snippet into a PHP page" type roles for $20-$30/hr. Find one and stick with it for 2-3 years. Practice your interviewing and build your LinkedIn network while doing that. There are no shortcuts, especially as a self taught dev.
Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
61–70 of 875 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#62> I've interviewed at Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb, Palantir
Those are some pretty impressive names for places you've interviewed at, but they also have the highest bars to get in. Why not try just some average, run-of-the-mill companies off job sites? There's nothing embarrassing about starting at those. I worked for a no name exercise tracking app company my first job out of college, who later threw out all the work and became a diet tracking app.
Sometimes when I've been between jobs I've even grabbed some bottom of the barrel project work off remote contracting sites. If you can write clear English and are willing to work at 3rd world country rates, you can get infinite work there. It still pays enough to get health insurance through someone like Freelancer's Union.
> I tried improving my interview skills. Reading Meyers, Knuth etc. books
I don't think reading books helps with that. I'd recommend practicing interview problems on sites like LeetCode. I have a CS Master's degree and can easily write an A* pathfinding algorithm on a white board and give you the time complexity of any algorithm, but it's not super useful for the sort of interview stuff I get asked. Typically you are just asked to hammer out a design or implementation for some specific set of requirements that complies with some set of performance criteria, so it's not really book learning being tested. More just that you can you sit down and write the right code/design - which is what you'll be doing every day on a programming job outside meetings collecting those requirements and scheduling the work.
> dropped out my freshmen year at a top 40 college. Was on the cyber security team etc. too expensive so I had to dropout.
Lack of a degree would disqualify you from 95% of programming jobs I've worked at. I don't think it's important myself, but I'm not a hiring manager. The only person I saw hired without one had an amazing project portfolio with hit apps in the app store I would have trouble writing. So it can happen, but it's like being a star baseball player. Outside the reach of most people.
If you really want to be a full time, salaried programmer and don't have a star portfolio, or large bodies of open source code to show off, I think you'd have to take out a loan and get that piece of paper from college first. Project work, or work from contacts or friends at tech meetups, generally is less strict re that. But companies that don't know you are going to just filter you out for no degree.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#63> I've quit a lot. I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation. Though I certainly agree that I need to stick with a job. I think ageism, and other biases are in place though. More years of experience I get the less disdained I will be I think. [1]
As others have said, I think you're likely suffering from an accumulated lack of results as well as what feels like elevated or unrealistic expectations for the positions you're getting.
I agree with your characterization that, in a just world, your contributions would be given greater reward. But you weren't applying to work in a just world, you applied to work in the world we all live in. I think you need to face that the kind of treatment you've received is common. We work in an industry that has high pay relative to industries with similar levels of training - but considering the profit margins of the companies involved there's a case to be made that workers are under-negotiating their salaries nation wide. The lack of recognition you experienced is part of a pattern that you will continue to see - even (perhaps especially) at the companies you listed in your post.[2]
Instead of thinking about this from the point of view of the company, consider things from the point of view of the person interviewing you. One of the messages that they are going to receive from how you talk about your work history is that you accept position that you are not actually satisfied with in the hopes of trading up in the short term. When that goal doesn't come to pass, you often leave. If had an engineer with that attitude placed on my team by someone else I would be hesitant to give them responsibility. I might empathize with their perspective about wanting to be promoted or compensated at the level I felt appropriate, but that's the deal I've made with the company and I would suspect that I couldn't trust that you had made the same deal.
I think you should really think about what you are willing to accept. You should be prepared to stay while being unfairly denied rewards for...at least a year I'd think? That's not the goal, of course, but I think you want to distance yourself from that series of short stints. I would think you would maximize your chances of being hired if, when talking about previous gigs, you told a story about how you previously had unrealistic expectations but now you're world-weary like everyone else and mostly looking for more interesting work. It will be a careful balancing act because ofc people will wonder and be suspicious. Above all - the people who interview you are imagining seeing you every day for the next 1, 2, 5, 10 years. You need them to walk away feeling like, at minimum, you're not going to vanish on them.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826805
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#64So far none of the replies has mentioned this, and it may be unpopular in HN, but: Seriously consider going back to school and finishing a degree. Although it's "known" that you don't really need a degree for a SW role, there are plenty of well established old school companies that will not consider you at all unless you have a degree. On the flip side, you'll get jobs more easily. A lot of interviewers who choose to…
I would second this, and also say get any degree. A real accredited CS BS degree is incredibly difficult and time consuming. But a BA can be knocked out in 2 years and makes you infinitely more employable on paper than just a high school graduate for any position.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#65Your English is very good, but there are some issues in your writing that could be holding you back, especially if your resumé is written with the same level of attention that you gave to this submission. These things would stand out to me, to the point where I'd probably discount your resume.
It's the little things, like how inconsistently you're cutting up sentences with periods, how you leave off the subject of the sentence in a couple of places, and the typos (lowpay, dropout, promt as quick examples).
Honestly? Find a way to speak to a therapist. Many options available for people without insurance, some are even free. If you could land a diagnosis, you could begin to understand what's holding you back (if anything) or if there are just some things you could work on (like slowing down a bit).
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've quit a lot. I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation. Though I certainly agree that I need to stick with a job. I think ageism, and other biases are in place though. More years of experience I get the less disdained I will be I think. I don't think I'm a know it all. I'm only in my early 20s. I definitely have a lo…
> I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation. Compensation is a negotiation game, so go and learn to negotiate well. One key aspect is to understand the perspective of the other side. In this particular case, you would learn that giving pay raises "out of cycle" is a pain for all involved, and a manager doesn't want to discuss salary every time a report of his does som…
Another thing is you may think you contribute a lot, but if you put in your 2 weeks and your boss does not try to keep you (counter offer or whatever) then they obviously don't think the same thing about you...
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 will take a cut of your salary I've never had one that did this (or told me about it, at least). My understanding was that the company is basically paying them to find talent, so you're the product being sold. Sometimes there's even a clause that if you quit too soon they have to give back their commission, which further incentivizes them to make sure you really are a good fit.
I've hired tons of people, I've never offered someone less because they came in via a recruiter. You typically budget for salary + recruiter fee and if someone is hired organically then that's a bonus.
You don't pay someone less because they came via a recruiter because then they are going to be poached for being underpaid. You also don't pay someone more because they didn't come in via a recruiter otherwise now I have guys working on varying salaries which creates issues if that comes out in a team.
source: prior founder, hiring manager at large companies, etc
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#68Earlier 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 felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting those issues, especially since I found them within my frist two weeks You won't ever get a promotion within two weeks, especially not over a single instance of good work. Do it a hundred more times, then think about a promotion. I think you seriously need to re-evaluate your expectations about this stuff.
And perhaps work this thought into your head: "My job is to make my boss look good, not to impress his boss or higher."
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#69First, please read this, it's important: you are going to be OK. Even if you are homeless. You will be OK. Take things one at a time, and try not to worry about anything except your most immediate problem/task.
Second: choose a path. Do not go all over the place, from Facebook coding to Home Depot manual labor. Pick one path and focus your energies on that. Even with a good resume and interpersonal skills, it can take a while for a job to open up if you have no networking contacts.
Third: consider your approach, to your job search, your employement, life. You mention here that you've spoofed numbers to contact high-level executives, and sent them e-mails about problems you found in systems. Other people do not do these things. Don't do things that make you stick out, buck the system, or bring attention to yourself. Focus on only fulfilling the requirements of your job. Use normal means of contact. Present yourself as a normal person with basic skills and competency in working with people. Be reliable.
Fourth: you've been looking for a year; this is not uncommon. Do you have friends or family to ask for help? Ask them. If you don't, you'll need to reach out to resources in your city for people who don't have a job or are homeless. You may need to look into daily/weekly/monthly housing if you can't afford an apartment. Look into job training programs, unemployment, shelters, private outreach programs. Keep applying to minimum wage jobs. Contact temp agencies, staffing agencies, recruiting agencies.
Fifth: If you really feel like Bill Landreth, keep reaching out for help. This is a good start. Look into local social services. Call SAMHSA (https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline). Contact a local PATH provider (https://pathpdx.samhsa.gov/public?tab=stateandprovidercontac...). Contact a local ESMI provider (https://www.samhsa.gov/esmi-treatment-locator). Tell them that you have concerns about your mental health but that you are soon to be homeless and need help. Find someone who can help you work through how to deal with this scenario while also working on the path you chose above.
Good luck to you man. Keep at it, you will be OK.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#70So far none of the replies has mentioned this, and it may be unpopular in HN, but: Seriously consider going back to school and finishing a degree. Although it's "known" that you don't really need a degree for a SW role, there are plenty of well established old school companies that will not consider you at all unless you have a degree. On the flip side, you'll get jobs more easily. A lot of interviewers who choose to…
If he's on the verge of being homeless, getting a degree seems like too long of a timeline. A bootcamp seems more reasonable, but even that's a stretch.