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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?

#711

Post by ma2rten »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #446
ep103 wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you, my experience in hiring in this industry for the last few years has been to agree with the parent comment. Once you land an interview, I don't think any of my interviewers even looked at my resume, or cared what it might have said. Most companies, at that point, were 100% and solely interested in my ability to answer leetcode questions. The better companies asked more meaningful technical ques…

I was asked about my previous internship work experience from my resume by Point72, Salesforce, Google, Addepar, Okta, Iterable, Visa, Veritas from my resume during my interviews.

I work at Google (the only FAANG company in your list). We would ask about it, but it's not a significant deciding factor.

It might be a deciding factor if you get an interview at all, which team you are interviewing with and for which level. Those decisions are made by recruiters, not interviewers or hiring committees.

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

#712

Post by freeone3000 »

devoutsalsa wrote: post #702
lostlogin wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just 5 years ago I was making 6000 USD per month and with almost 250K in debt, and ~50% I really don’t know what it’s like in other places, but the first few years of a mortgage are like this, but with a larger debt. It’s grim.

Yeah, that does sound hard. I’ve never had a mortgage myself, but the thought of owing tons of money on an underwater mortgage is not appealing is not appealing.

It beats paying rent. If at the end of my mortgage payments, if my house was worth half of what it was today, and my rent had never increased, I'd come out ahead. And both of the above are incredibly unlikely.

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

#713

Post by nomy99 »

tidenly wrote: post #548
glitchc wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Desperate is not equal to creepy. Try thinking from his perspective, he’s perilously close to hitting rock bottom and terrified of the prospect. A bit of compassion goes a long way.

Desperation does not give you the green light to do whatever you want to other people. Creepy is how you are perceived when you can't feel where that line is and step over it. Try thinking how their actions look from the receiving end, not just theirs.

He reminds me of the protagonist from Nightcrawler, starring Jake Gyllenhaal

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

#714

Post by gwbas1c »

I'm assuming you're in the US.

Pay attention to the news. One thing I see are articles pointing out that certain industries have a LOT of trouble hiring, yet we have high unemployment. I distinctly remember that the US manufacturing industry is having a lot of trouble hiring.

Target those industries.

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

#715

Post by Balgair »

egorfine wrote: post #646
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…

I get some offbeat social cues from the text as well. From the wording. Maybe it's desperate, maybe is creep. We cannot judge from text alone, but we can feel something.

For me, it's the lack of pronouns (I, we, they, etc) and the short sentences. Many times, the poster omits 'I' at the start of a sentence. Also, they break up things into 2 sentences, instead of just using a comma.

The feel that I get is that many quick things happen to the poster interspersed with lots of boring time between. Like flashes of lightening in their life.

The style gives whiffs of 4chan's greentext posts; depersonalized psuedo-fake tales from people who need therapy to help unravel the other parts of their memories and emotions, not just the low/highlights (not to say that OP is from there, just that the styles are a bit similar).

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

#716

Post by dack »

aceazzameen wrote: post #239
snakedoctor wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've tried out meetup.com and went to one meetup. It was ok. I felt a little uncomfortable though. They solicited for my name, and email to be added to the Slack. There was a lot of recreational clubs etc at my college. I tried rock climbing, and liked it. There wasn't a lot of social interaction with rock climbing though. I went to a party in Austin. Chatted with strangers etc. Wasn't really sure what else to talk a…

Oh geez. Please don't let strangers on the internet diagnose you.

They seem to be open to it, and pretty desperate for advice since they've already tried a lot of things. I'm sure a lot of advice is wrong but maybe some of it will help!

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

#717

Post by e12e »

snakedoctor wrote: post #166
chillfox wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who was also home schooled and had problems with social interactions in my early twenties the best advice I can give is join several clubs that does things in person. You MUST learn how to make friends, how to not upset people, how to be comfortable in social situations and empathy. To do this I would recommend that you force yourself into social situations regularly. Afterwards spend some time thinking ab…

I've tried out meetup.com and went to one meetup. It was ok. I felt a little uncomfortable though. They solicited for my name, and email to be added to the Slack. There was a lot of recreational clubs etc at my college. I tried rock climbing, and liked it. There wasn't a lot of social interaction with rock climbing though. I went to a party in Austin. Chatted with strangers etc. Wasn't really sure what else to talk a…

Echoing another comment that you might be on the spectrum - and I hope the therapist you mentioned can help you relate to that.

The above comment could almost be a quote from "The Speed of Dark" - a (science) fiction novel by Elizabeth Moon about autism (she has a child on the spectrum).

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

#718

Post by jl2718 »

hn8788 wrote: post #76
wildermuthn wrote: post #33

You’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.

Military is definitely an overlooked option. If sign up for an intel or cyber job, you'll probably have a 9-5 job after boot camp, get trainining, certifications, tuition assistance to finish a degree, veterans preference on jobs once you get out, and probably a security clearance. Even as a Marine it wasn't bad; the non-intel Marines used to joke that we were civilians in uniform. It can also help iron out some pers…

Definitely. Ignore the pay. It’s worth it. Also ignore SV pay. It’s not. Take all the crazy assignments. Fringe personalities are on the front lines. Go there. That’s the part of my career I regret least.

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

#719

Post by SkyMarshal »

snakedoctor wrote: post #278
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.

Ok great! Yes HN is informal, so I thought that might be the case, but didn’t want to assume and leave anything potentially useful unsaid.

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

#720

Post by ballenf »

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…

> The obvious corrolary is that Alice herself must be of average intelligence

Would she also conclude that because some fruit in bowls is hollow plastic that there doesn't exist any real fruit in bowls?

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