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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?

#271

Post by gen220 »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #191
gen220 wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to college and have many coworkers who went to boot camps, and we’re paid the same! Look on LinkedIn for people who work at the companies you want to work at, and also went to bootcamps, to build a shortlist. There are several boot camps today, in every major urban area, that carry major street cred in the local tech communities.

Do you know specific good ones?

In the NYC area, the ones I can personally vouch for, having worked with graduates, are Flatiron School, App Academy, and the Recurse Center.

I’m sure there are other good ones, but I only personally know graduates of these programs.

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#272

Post by unixhero »

Credentials: You have to finish a university / college degree, at least a bachelor. Spend the entire last year of the studies to also look for job leads for after graduation. Stay in uni and finish the entire degree. Try to expand your horizon as much as possible, get to know people from a broad set of backgrounds. Lift weights and run/bike/swim.

Interview prep: Then try getting good at Case jnterviews, which are good for structuring your thoughts in an interview session. I really like Victorcheng.com .

Network: Then you must network, you must be part if a social graph to make it.

Social skills: Force yourself to be outgoing. If you are not already, it is a fresh skill that needs to be maintained.

Career councelling: And you must have a narrative that does not paint you a picture as a quitter. Get a pro to redo your CV and get interview coaching.

You are not alone in struggling to get going in the market. My advice here will work if you take the long hard road. This thread also contains a lot of good advice for you.

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#273

Post by threatofrain »

xpe wrote: post #182
hinkley wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you call him a creep, I would call him a go getter. I've not had terribly good luck with people who use the term 'go getter.' Quite a few of them have been creeps. Smooth and slick, definitely, but at the end of the day, manipulative people who I avoid making eye contact with at public events, hoping that they don't remember me. Creeps.

I get the impression it is common for technically oriented people to think of salespeople, marketers, and recruiters as manipulative. In your view, what are some ways you think about the difference between persuasion and manipulation? I've been reading about this very topic in the context of media persuasion.

My criteria is that there shouldn't be shame between us if we found out that we both attended the same metaphorical church, family and all.

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#274

Post by veerabadhra »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #211

As a hiring manager, the things that stand out to me in your post: - You said you quit a job at EA, quit a job at IBM, dropped out of college your freshman year. You may have valid reasons for leaving each of these, but you have to see this from the manager's perspective: You had 3 different great opportunities that all came to a dead end at the beginning of your career. You need an alternate narrative. - You talk ab…

This kind of safe advice isn't very helpful for someone who is hustling IMO. Maybe it is useful for someone who's going to become a principal engineer at a large corporate. The parent commenter would be well suited to work at a startup. Unfortunately, startups have also been infected by the corporate virus. In a country that's stagnating, such risk averse behavior makes sense, because there is no reward for taking on risks.

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#275

Post by bawolff »

snakedoctor wrote: post #77
BeetleB wrote: post #54

So 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've thought about it. Community College, Deep Springs etc. I think autodidacticism is a better way to learn vs academic path. Though I didn't want to finish high school but I did.. So, it might be just one of those things that I'll have to suck up and just do. I disliked that I would have to take 2 years of core curriculum stuff before even being allowed to take major related courses. I had to reach out to instructo…

The autodidact path is a possible path, but its the harder one. To do it succesfully you have to go significantly above what your peers do to prove yourself. It also can often leave gaps in your knowledge and blindspots that you are unaware of.

In the world of software, that probably means having a portfolio of projects you can point to as examples (including but not neccesarily limited to open source projects. Other options include starting your own company (very hard), etc)

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#276

Post by TimTheTinker »

chillfox wrote: post #177
TimTheTinker wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Homeschooled doesn't imply social skill deficit. Sure, some homeschooled kids have social skill issues, but some public school kids also have social skill issues. In the end, a healthy, non-insular, loving, connected family (either family of origin or a healthy/happy group into which one is welcomed and spends lots of time) is the only necessary requirement for healthy social skills, and it's often sufficient as well…

Homeschooling is frequently paired with some degree of insular.

Only in the (few) news stories you read about some sick family; I'm convinced those are hand-picked outliers to reinforce a narrative that homeschooling=bad.

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#277

Post by xienze »

veerabadhra wrote: post #274
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #211

As a hiring manager, the things that stand out to me in your post: - You said you quit a job at EA, quit a job at IBM, dropped out of college your freshman year. You may have valid reasons for leaving each of these, but you have to see this from the manager's perspective: You had 3 different great opportunities that all came to a dead end at the beginning of your career. You need an alternate narrative. - You talk ab…

This kind of safe advice isn't very helpful for someone who is hustling IMO. Maybe it is useful for someone who's going to become a principal engineer at a large corporate. The parent commenter would be well suited to work at a startup. Unfortunately, startups have also been infected by the corporate virus. In a country that's stagnating, such risk averse behavior makes sense, because there is no reward for taking on…

> This kind of safe advice isn't very helpful for someone who is hustling IMO.

Well are they hustling or looking for steady employment in tech?

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#278

Post by snakedoctor »

SkyMarshal wrote: post #194

If this is essay is a representative sample of how you express yourself in general, then one recommendation is to improve your communication ability/style [1]. Stream-of-conscious may work in online chatrooms, but not in professional settings. In any team-oriented setting, clear and organized communication is non-negotiable. Your writing here signals intelligent, but manic, frantic, and maybe not a great communicator…

Thanks for the feedback. I initally wrote a 5000+ word post. However, after noticing that the limit is 2000. I cut a lot out of my post. I should've proofread more. Though, I feel that HN is an informal environment. I was trying to express that I dropped out of college due to the cost. The cyber security team is free.

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#279

Post by sanderjd »

nl wrote: post #193
snakedoctor wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to be argumentative. But yes, I did attend college. Send me a email, and I'll send you an email from my college email address (Hasn't been deactivited yet). I can send you my college transcript if that helps.. Well, I did get hired by IBM as a programmer so... I've contributed to a GNU open source project.. So I feel that I am qualifed for a entry level developer/SecEng/Security Analyst role. I went above my boss…

It's interesting how focused you are on proving yourself right (I'll send you a college email etc). And that seems to be the case with going over your bosses head ("I went above my bosses head because they did not remedy the issue, and weren't going to.") Being right is great! But having a job is also great. Perhaps focus less on proving yourself right, and more on getting along with people? Edit: reading further in…

It's a really tough lesson to learn but this is absolutely true: It is not enough to be right, you must also have credibility. You usually have to accept other people being wrong about things you're right about in order to build credibility.

Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?

#280

Post by zmmmmm »

You need to develop some significant experience "collateral". Unfortunately your pattern of quitting is a red flag and while it doesn't exclude you it means anybody in a hiring position needs to see positive evidence that you can actually contribute in a serious, long term manner.

Either an unsexy job coding (short term contract work, etc) - or - seriously beef up your open source (github, gitlab etc) portfolio with some really top notch contributions and ideally some projects of your own.

Also - I know this might be controversial, but drop the fsf email at least for your job applications. I'm a huge fan of FSF but I can tell you it's also flagging you as a potential over-zealous, opinionated person and all things being equal someone equivalent who seems pragmatic without that is going to get the job.

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