Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

581–590 of 875 posts

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

#581

Post by yarcob »

jesterson wrote: post #550
honkycat wrote: post #88

Your writing is not strong, i can tell you did not attend college. Written communication is important in tech. Your applying to those companies with 0 experience or college degree is unrealistic. The entry level is extremely competitive and you have nothing to make you interesting to hire. They get thousands of applications for those jobs. You are still young, plenty of time to learn, but I recommend taking a step ba…

> There is no reason anyone would currently hire you, unless you are personable and fun to talk to. Perhaps my personal bias, but for a long time I was under impression that tech roles companies are hiring people based on their capacity to actually do the job. It's not social studies for G's sake. Over the course of my life I've come across extremely talented people, who yea, do lack social skills , not putting fake…

> companies are hiring people based on their capacity to actually do the job

I think that's what honkycat was trying to say. OP doesn't sound like someone who actually has the skills for a dev job. So the only way they could get a dev job was if they somehow appeared really likeable so they would be hired despite lacking the required skills.

(In my experience socially awkward people don't have trouble finding jobs if they have the right skills. Every tech meetup I've been to there were loads and loads of socially awkward developers who worked at all kinds of tech companies. Lacking social skills is only an issue if you don't have any technical skills to make up for it.)

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

#583

Post by fighterpilot »

snowwrestler wrote: post #491
SkyMarshal wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure any random BA can help these days. Anecdotally at least, one of the recurring news stories about Millenials is about how so many can't get jobs with their BA degrees. OP is probably better off going to Lambda School or a similar technical boot camp.

Anecdotally this is a popular idea, but it is surprisingly poorly supported by data. I did a deep dive on this a couple years ago, and there is actually little difference between early-career employment prospects for STEM and non-STEM bachelor degree holders. I did not look at bachelors vs coding camp certificate.

I think that's true for all schools below the top-10/top-20 (which covers the large majority of people, myself included).

For the elite schools, a STEM degree does confer advantage over non-STEM degrees.

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

#584

Post by jart »

atoav wrote: post #529
jart wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good comment with the right instinct but for the wrong reasons. The biggest red flag is struggling with personal finance. You can't get jobs like the ones he wants if you live beyond your means and constantly land in hot water with money because people who are like that are at risk of turning to evil to make ends meet.

So your advice is "just stop being poor"?

It's a question of living within your means. A guy who's fortunate enough to have an engineering job at EA and IBM shouldn't be having personal financial problems, if we consider that many of the immigrants who make his food live comfortably enough to afford sending half their income back to old country. There's a way to live responsibly in any situation and if you can't then you have room for improvement.

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

#586

Post by p0sixlang »

jldl805 wrote: post #356
javajosh wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. I'm curious: roughly how often did the candidate promise they'd take your feedback constructively, calmly and then argue with you anyway? (I'd hope it would be close to 0, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was much higher.)

I'm a recruiter and candidates argue 95% of the time. Maybe higher. I only give feedback in very, very selective situations and even then I almost always regret it due to the response. Most people are not calm, rational, dispassionate receptors of critical feedback... especially when there is money and ego at stake.

Who do you recruit for? I'm soon to be a new grad, looking for a job, and if you reject me.. you could literally berate me for things I didn't actually do and I wouldn't find it appropriate or productive to argue with you about it. Let's set up an interview, you can record my reaction to the rejection and send it to those who argue for reference on how not to be a moron.

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

#587

Post by procombo »

WalterBright wrote: post #340
cobaltoxide wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true, but I've had good luck asking recruiters for feedback after getting bad news. They usually give some good advice or feedback - over the phone, of course, never in writing. Typically they say something like "You were really strong in X but the hiring manager is looking for someone with more Y." One recruiter told me that the HM had given me the thumbs down saying I was "insufficiently succinct" in my…

If you get feedback that doesn't make much sense, it's likely not the real reason. Just like if a date rejects you, they'll give some silly fake reason why.

Sometimes the reason they give you is just the one that pushed you over the edge. At Amazon being "insufficiently succinct" is a greater err than one might think.

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

#588

Post by j10c »

lolinder wrote: post #264
sombremesa wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP has put a "your" instead of "you're" in (almost) the very next sentence, so you don't even need to point to your own mistakes to illustrate your point...

That was my initial reaction, but the "your" is actually correct there: > Your applying to those companies with 0 experience or college degree is unrealistic. The clause "applying to..." is possessed by "your".

Agree, both "you're" and "your" are correct with different perspectives.

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

#589

Post by throw14082020 »

throw14082020 wrote: post #542
kamaal wrote: post #532

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>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. Things like this are very important. Job hopping is a giant red flag for lots of…

It’s not job hopping that’s the problem. It’s unemployment. Companies actually like job hoppers because they learn more, and actually can find those jobs, hence they hop. Job hopping without jobs (gaps) is unattractive but that would be unemployment not job hopping, since the dude is unemployed. I’m saying this only for people who are in utter shit jobs and have the talent to find another one, but are afraid to be cl…

I am talking from experience, where I 'job hopped' to get better jobs which treat me better, fit me better, pay me more, have smarter colleagues and better systems (aka. more agile not just talking about it), and benefits, healthcare. I did my research (mainly getting the confidence from articles online), whilst hearing too often the idea people have in their heads: I should stay a longer before considering moving because it looks bad on the resume. What you hear from everyone/ common wisdom can be a justification for themselves not taking a risky and uncomfortable move.

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

#590

Post by EveYoung »

VaedaStrike wrote: post #406
klyrs wrote: post #42

Brutally candid advice? You sound like a creep. Am I reading it right here, you spoofed your number to talk to executives? In the best case, they'll assume you're a pen-tester; but more likely, you're blacklisted from those companies now. I wish there was, like, short and simple advice that I could give you to not be a creep. I just tried to google that, and I'm not finding a good clear resource. Like most social ski…

The relationship with a potential employer and a romantic interest have the same dynamics between creepy vs confident/hustling. We all have seen examples of both, but if any have tried to project confidence or to hustle to any significant and meaningful degree you run a non-trivial risk of appearing to cross lines / be creepy. Often it isn’t one or the other. Steve Jobs was both a heartless ass at times while also be…

As most things in life, the perception of someone's actions are dictated by the outcome. If you succeed, your decisions might be considered bold and daring, but if you fail, they make you look arrogant or pretentious.
Post reply on HN