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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?

#741

Post by aty268 »

valdiorn wrote: post #733
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…

Hi Snakedoctor. I've been quite fascinated by this thread. I have a small piece of feedback for you, as someone who's interviewed about 200-300 engineers over my career I've talked to a lot of people and feel like I have at least something of value to add. I hope you're not offering these sorts of hyperbolic "proofs" of your competency to your interviewers, like you've done here. I've seen a few comments from you lik…

What a great reply, needs to be higher up.

Out of curiosity, how would you view a younger candidate (myself) who dropped out of a similar T40 school junior year with a boatload of personal projects / companies under his belt?

I've had some success, and reached quite a few people, but I'm realizing I may need to settle down at a company sometime soon. I don't want to look unhirable (like OP, in my opinion) but just someone whose genuinely burned out of really trying to make a startup work, and is now ready to settle down in a junior position, and has the ability to do so. Thanks!

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

#742

Post by ineedasername »

You are not unhireable, you're just not patient and you don't understand your situation: You aren't going to get a good job without a college degree. You're going to get the lowest level job and have to work your way up. That may be true even with a degree, but a degree will make getting getting one of those low level jobs a lot easier.

Honestly I don't know how you managed to get a dev job at IBM in the first place, but low pay and little benefits are all you can expect when you're starting out with your level of education and experience. You shouldn't have quit a dev job with IBM, without another job lined up: 3 years experience there would have made getting a better job much easier.

Also not getting a response from a company isn't "ghosted". It's standard practice that many places don't contact applicants to let them know they aren't getting the job. Saying you were ghosted makes it sound like you think it was something personal about you. It wasn't.

Home Depot: The retail sector has been shit this past year. People were getting fired left & right. Your failure to get a job at a retail store like Home Depot is no surprise, and has nothing to do with you.

My advice would be to complete your degree as soon as possible. I'm looking at two identical resumes and the only difference is that one of them completed a college degree, I'm offering the job to the person with the degree.

In the meantime, register with temp agencies to try to get some work that builds your resume & experience. If you can get even a shit level job in dev, take it and stick it out.

I'm not saying that all of the above is fair, but "fair" is irrelevant here: This is how things work, and you have to deal with it on those terms.

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

#743

Post by [deleted] »

ehnto wrote: post #522
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.

What jobs inquire about your financial history? That seems a little dystopian. Can't get a handle on your finances because you don't have a steady job, better not give them a steady job!

[deleted]

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

#744

Post by jk7tarYZAQNpTQa »

atuladhar wrote: post #695
jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote: post #660

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just fell into a logical fallacy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent On the other hand, what the other user deducted was: * If you attend college -> You probably end up writing properly * OP doesn't write properly -> He probably didn't attend college Which is a proper logical deduction rule called modus tollens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens

I apologize in advance for nitpicking, but since this sub-thread is about usage: it should be "deduced" not "deducted."

Thanks for telling me, English isn't my first language and I often make mistakes. I can't edit my comment to correct it.

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

#745

Post by antihero »

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…

Has OP tried some sort of personality coaching or something?

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

#746

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

bena wrote: post #726
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…

About your aside, while all of that is true, the inverse isn't. Not everyone thinks everyone else has EHI. So if you have a lot of people telling you you have EHI, then you can feel confident in your own assessment of whether or not you have EHI.

That's an astute observation, but there is such a thing as flattery and compliments paid with an ulterior motive and it's not always easy to tell those apart from genuine recognition of a perceived positive trait.

For example, perhaps people are telling you you're smart because they like your er other assets. Or because they feel obliged to because you're their boss. Or because they know your parents. etc etc.

Bottom line, there's confounding factors that can throw the calculation way off.

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

#747

Post by troutwine »

danans wrote: post #549
troutwine wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months. Friend, this here's the problem. Consider that a working environment _when it's going well_ is a mutually supporting cooperation of individuals to some basic end. Could be you're creating something new, could be you're maintaining something but, the big thing to understand is, you're doing it with other people and you're all relying on one another _to do your share_.…

Hey, just wanted to say that the tone of your comment is great. Supportive, but honest, and even though I'm very far from a US southerner (midwestern asian american), somehow very culturally relatable. I hope it strikes a chord with the OP as it did with me.

I appreciate that danans, thank you.

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

#748

Post by floren »

the_only_law wrote: post #632
floren wrote: post #44

No health insurance sucks, but you're in your 20s and you didn't mention any chronic illnesses. You need a year's worth of experience in one job--any job, so long as it's the same job--more than you need health insurance right now. I can sit here and rage about how terrible it is that you have to make that choice, but that won't help you get a job. If you manage to get hired again, hold onto that fucking job like it'…

> If you're no longer a dependent of your parents, maybe you'll qualify for better financial aid. FWIW “dependent status” in regards to financial aid has nothing to do with you tax classification and everything due to rigid, “unhackable” criteria. Save some extreme circumstances (homelessness, being an orphan, etc.) you are a dependent no matter what until 24 with no leniency. You can go read about people who’s paren…

I was trying to remember the exact details of how that worked when I wrote my post... thanks for the clarification!

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

#749

Post by pc86 »

mcherm wrote: post #657
vallas wrote: post #571

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.

> The biggest red flag is struggling with personal finance. As it turns out, being unable to get a job (at least one that pays a reasonable wage) is a common cause of "struggling with personal finance".

Quit two jobs at 18 because of "low pay" (what 18 year is well paid?). Doesn't say what happened with the Amazon job but $15/hr is about $30k/yr which is about 80-82% of the median individual - not household - income in the US. It's absolutely a "reasonable wage" for a help desk associate. It seems like they've pointed out issues to management which were fixed. That sort of thing gets noticed, in a good way if your employer isn't totally toxic.

Less than a year of school, even 100% paid with loans, can easily be paid off on $30k/yr.

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

#750

Post by bhandziuk »

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.

Owing money on a mortgage does not mean it's underwater.
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