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

661–670 of 875 posts

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

#661

Post by cgrealy »

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…

These days software development is a team sport. Yeah, there’s the odd outlier extreme genius, but in general, you need to be able to communicate with other humans.

That doesn’t mean you need to be an extrovert, just that the old “weird dev that abhors human contact” stereotype just doesn’t fly anymore.

If you are asking about getting a job, you need to be able to work with other people. End of story.

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

#662

Post by wespiser_2018 »

gen220 wrote: post #271
kyawzazaw wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Recurse Center is not a bootcamp

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

#663

Post by [deleted] »

ptero wrote: post #652
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I think you're reading way too much in the OP. Their account is compatible with their biggest issue being "extremelly high intelligence" coupled with a lack of empathy, but it's also compatible with ordinary intelligence coupled with some bad choices- and the chances are that the latter is the right explanation ("extremely high intelligence" should only be the case very, very rarely, by definition [1]). I…

You are right that the poster you replied to makes many assumptions. But I think his post is still very valuable to others: I have seen smart people shoot themselves in the foot doing just what was described and that advice is a good thing to keep in mind. My 2c.

[deleted]

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

#664

Post by sanitycheck »

_6pvr wrote: post #343
deanak wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not listen to any advice on HN. I have a pretty solid hiring strategy, but it got downvoted to hell because HN skews to people without much real world experience. They can only think of tech products to sell to other tech companies. (I'm a CTO, and I've raised seed money for two different products. Our market is small -- under 200MM ARR -- but our nearest competitor starts at $30k per year and their product i…

> I would not listen to any advice on HN. I have a pretty solid hiring strategy, but it got downvoted to hell because HN skews to people without much real world experience. They can only think of tech products to sell to other tech companies. This part doesn't really seem worthwhile to post. > Focus on smaller companies that need help solving actual business problems with automation. Offer to do a project for $20 an…

> Focus on smaller companies that need help solving actual business problems with automation.

Thirding this. Smaller companies are easier to get into and actually more satisfying to work for (YMMV). Another responder also said basically "keep your head down and learn for the first year" which is great advice too.

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

#665

Post by freddealmeida »

jart wrote: post #584
atoav wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wow. No empathy here at all. The world can go against you for alot of reasons. I went from millions to pauper to millions to pauper. It happens. It depends on your ethical stance. It depends on other people. It depends on what you fear.

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

#666

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

ptero wrote: post #652
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, but I think you're reading way too much in the OP. Their account is compatible with their biggest issue being "extremelly high intelligence" coupled with a lack of empathy, but it's also compatible with ordinary intelligence coupled with some bad choices- and the chances are that the latter is the right explanation ("extremely high intelligence" should only be the case very, very rarely, by definition [1]). I…

You are right that the poster you replied to makes many assumptions. But I think his post is still very valuable to others: I have seen smart people shoot themselves in the foot doing just what was described and that advice is a good thing to keep in mind. My 2c.

I don't disagree! But the way I've mostly seen capable people fail is by becoming afraid to push themselves beyond the limits of their innate capabilities, into the territory where people stop telling them how smart they are and every step forward is paid for with pain, Little-Mermaid style.

By contrast, people who have not learned to put so much value on their being "above average" don't have as much trouble pushing further into that painful territory because to them, everything is pain anyway.

That way I've seen people with little talent go further than, or at least catch up to others who have it in abdundance, through discipline and work. My formative experience in that respect is from a different life when I was studying for a modern drums degree.

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

#667

Post by jeffrallen »

Your local community college has a career center with someone who could give you more personalized, actionable advice than what you will get here.

You are right to ask for help, but you need it in person, and intensively until you've got a plan and got your feet back under you.

Good luck.

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

#668

Post by xtat »

If you're getting to the interview stage and that's where things go wrong, go through a practice interview with a friend who can be honest and I think it will be obvious to them what's going on. I can't pinpoint it from this but it sounds like it could be behavioral.

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

#669

Post by bkeyes »

YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #612
endymi0n wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's spot on from the advice. I'll add that OP — Your biggest issue seems to be extremely high intelligence, paired with a lack of empathy and social functioning, which created a self-expectation of massive grandiosity. But you keep failing to deliver on it because you can't get your highly powered brain on the streets, leading in self-pity and depression. Not good, but salvageable. How do I know? My life story rea…

Sorry, but I think you're reading way too much in the OP. Their account is compatible with their biggest issue being "extremelly high intelligence" coupled with a lack of empathy, but it's also compatible with ordinary intelligence coupled with some bad choices- and the chances are that the latter is the right explanation ("extremely high intelligence" should only be the case very, very rarely, by definition [1]). I…

Even if they are reading too much into the OP, the advice is sound for anyone starting any job, especially at the start of their career with little on their resume.

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

#670

Post by goatherders »

There are lots and lots of jobs that have health and dental. Most of them are not at FAANG or Palantir or the NSA or the CIA.... My recommendation is to find a job, any job, that serves your purposes and commit to staying for at least 2 years to start changing your narrative. As an example, getting a tech-support role at a localized IT/MSP should take you about 5 minutes if you are as technically sound as you profess.
Post reply on HN