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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?

#801
post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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".

It looks like OP could get jobs, the challenge was not quitting them.

Maybe he should do contract work if he can get jobs

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

#802
post #522
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!

The NSA and CIA require this for top secret clearances, the reasoning being that people in a lot of debt are easier to blackmail or otherwise bribe.

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

#803
post #5

Need more details to give you a more accurate feedback. How long you have been working/in the industry in general ? It seems like you have done a few things over the years but don't really seem to have stuck to something that made you a specialist or someone worth hiring. Being brutal here but making assumptions. Do you quit a lot ? Do you have any criminal records that you are not aware of ? Are you too opinionated…

I've quit a lot. I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation. Though I certainly agree that I need to stick with a job. I think ageism, and other biases are in place though. More years of experience I get the less disdained I will be I think. I don't think I'm a know it all. I'm only in my early 20s. I definitely have a lo…

In addition to the other feedback, don't leave a job without another job lined up. Later in your career, once you're confident in your ability to get a job quickly, it's fine. Until then, don't leave until you have something to go to.

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

#804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also, forgot to mention, I was recently working "QA" for 5 years. Transitioned into that from full-stack webdev and am back in webdev again. QA in my case was actually very technical, required deep knowledge of web application deployment mechanisms, occasional debugging of web app code, a variety of languages, and writing tons of bash and CI configuration, some tests, and automating cloud things. I won't lie and say…

QA in video games is not an engineering role. It's usually a butts-in-seat role where you're expected to dilligently follow a task list without deviating in the slightest. You're expected to follow the checklist, on repeat. If you have initiative, save it for after work. More senior qa roles will be designing test suites, maybe even developing them, but entry level game QA is not going to scratch a dev itch.

I was only elaborating on this because I suggested QA as an entry point to software engineering, and OP seemed to write it off because they had a bad experience in a QA role that was very different from what I was suggesting.

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

#805
post #798
post #671

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please also consider that not everyone is neurotypical. I'm of course not diagnosing OP but things like ADHD make it a hell of a time trying to manage personal finances on top of the rest of your life. If everything was just easy we'd all just do it.

Personal finances don't need to be managed. You put the money in something like Vanguard and get back to coding. However if you love money and relish the social status that spending it commands, then you might be struggling with neurotypicality.

Well I mean there's groceries and rent and bills and whatnot too, I don't think vanguard handles that for you

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

#806

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…

Sir, an inquiring mind wants to know: have you ever hired anyone who had more noteworthy accomplishments than yourself? And what have your hires gone on to do? Do they excel in life or in just making their managers life easier?

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

#807
post #180
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No on minds someone that is weird and quiet. The weird and noisy is a problem. Try keeping to yourself (it's hard, I know) and let your work speak for you.

> No on minds someone that is weird and quiet In my experience, this has definitely not been true. People will assume you're being standoffish even though you're just minding your own business, just aren't a very talkative person, are focused on solving a problem, etc. If you're trying to "play the game," you'll probably be better off (in some sense) spending less time on work and more time being affable.

I just mean being quiet and off is always better than being vocal and odd. Looking arrogant > being disruptive.

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

#808
post #784

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems a bit specious. I've done things along this line, and it was great, but I had some support infrastructure and a tiny bit of money to actually pay for shit. You're going to need to also build the ability to support yourself for realsies (financially) as well when you return or during, otherwise you're just another idiot who flew to Thailand with $0 in the hopes random ppl will fund your vacation. With some…

Not a thought that would have crossed my mind. My mental model was more along the lines of Paul Erdős showing up on famous mathematicians doorsteps asking for a place to live. I don't think anyone accused him of being some loafer trying to hitch a free ride. I mean if you backpack and people don't even want you around for free then how on earth are you ever going to get that faang cash money.

I feel like we might just have different ideas of backpacking. People wouldn't want you around for free if you are net negative, but if you're suggesting what is basically an unpaid internship for strangers, then I just didn't interpret backpacking to mean that.

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

#809
post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're broke and don't have kids to feed, hit the road and go backpacking or something. No one cares how much money you have. What people care about is that you have an interesting story and are resourceful enough to make the best of any situation. Because one day you're going to get paged at 3am where all the technology is crumbling around you and you're the only one who can save it, and what's going to make you…

I always talk about my time traveling and riding trains and going to antarctica in interviews. Most of the time it breaks up the monotonous interview process and allows me to stand out in the crowd.

Anyone with time travel experience should have no problem getting a job :)

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

#810
post #749
post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 e…

> (what 18 year is well paid?)

Plenty in our industry if they have the right set of skills (including soft skills). It might be unreasonable for OP to expect more but lets not pretend that there are no very highly paid young people in the software industry.

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