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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?

#831

Post by jldl805 »

macksd wrote: post #751
jldl805 wrote: post #708

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't recruit new grads so it would never happen. Similar to OP's post, it's almost always a situation where it's painfully obvious to everyone else involved why the person isn't getting hired, but it would be awkward or a waste of time to try to tell the person. It's also virtually always social skill related... if you weren't up to the task technically, you wouldn't have been asked to interview. The in person int…

For what it's worth, that's definitely not my experience. I've interviewed or phone-screened at least 200 people over the last few years, and yes, there's been a handful of rejections where the major concern was social skills: abrasive, over-confident, poor communication or lacking the appearance of motivation. But I've had far more people who simply couldn't perform well enough on the technical problem or who had ob…

The only thing this tells me is you have an error in your hiring process that is leading you to interviewing people in person that cannot do the job. This should never happen.

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

#832

Post by JustAGuyToHelp »

A lot of the jobs that you've stated you are applying for having notoriously difficult hiring processes. With your background and personality they might not be a good fit for you at least not yet.

I would recommend looking for smaller local startups or a company that has an entry level position and staying with them for a couple years to get more experience.

As a note on interviewing no one wants to hear a lot of negativity. When describing bad situations try not to throw dirt. It just makes you look dirty. Try to state everything in a positive way so that your image is not tainted by the negativity of what might have very well been a bad situation.

Good luck!

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

#833

Post by charcircuit »

mattm wrote: post #723
charcircuit wrote: post #463

I feel similar. I have a CS degree and what I would consider a wide range of experience. I've created social media sites, a encrypted file sharing site, a site for watching videos and chatting at the same time, a site for cooperatively solving a rubiks cube at the same time. I have developed a large number of video game mods including full game modes. I have developed both custom server software and modded server sof…

You seem bright. I'd guess that you're failing on the social sides of the interview process. If you submit cover letters like this, you may be highlighting too many things that aren't applicable to the job so companies will reject you because they don't know where to place you. Which part of the job hunting process are you failing at the most? Is it the initial application? Phone screen? Onsite interview? What types…

>Which part of the job hunting process are you failing at the most?

I would say I am failing at finding interesting positions and at writing a resume / cover letters. For cover letters I don't highlight that many things. My resume only includes two projects I've made depending on the company I applied to. I've never had the opportunity to participate in a phone screen or at a site interview. I have done a technical interview for a position before, but that was more of a formality that something made to filter me.

>What types of jobs are you targetting?

I believe my skill set would most likely end up with me building parts of websites backends. Really I would like to work together on a team that is motivated to build whatever system and being able to communicate with them and bounce ideas off of them.

I'll take you up on the offer of emailing you. BTW my gmail username is different than my username here.

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

#834

Post by comprev »

MrStonedOne wrote: post #455

Remember this question, to ask during the "do you have any questions for us" part of your interviews: "is there anything about my background or experiences that give you pause?" Furthermore, do not get defensive, If you think they are wrong with how they reply, this means you didn't sell yourself well in that area. This should be taken as feedback in that vain, to improve further interviews. Given your low level of p…

Excellent technique to gain feedback whilst still in the interview. I'll use that in the future

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

#835

Post by charcircuit »

skohan wrote: post #516
charcircuit wrote: post #463

I feel similar. I have a CS degree and what I would consider a wide range of experience. I've created social media sites, a encrypted file sharing site, a site for watching videos and chatting at the same time, a site for cooperatively solving a rubiks cube at the same time. I have developed a large number of video game mods including full game modes. I have developed both custom server software and modded server sof…

Have you tried agency work? There are places where they just need hands on keyboards doing web front end for example, and the barrier to entry is not so high. Might not be glamorous, and can be a grind, but it's a decent entry point into the industry. Open source might be another good avenue. I've hired for 8 technical roles over the past year, and one of the "requirements" we would have for going forward to the inte…

>Have you tried agency work?

No I haven't.

>It sounds like you have done a lot of interesting projects, but doing something that just has to work for yourself has a very different set of constraints than building something in a team for someone else.

I have satisfied those two points, but I left out information as to avoid doxxing this account. Unfortunately that work is kind of a dead end. My post was mainly just sharing some frustration that I faced with trying to get a real software engineering job when I have a degree, I have plenty of experience in designing and building systems, and have experience with Agile working on a small development team. I thought it was going to be easier as other students who I was also graduating with were making it father into the interview process.

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

#836

Post by macksd »

jldl805 wrote: post #831
macksd wrote: post #751

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, that's definitely not my experience. I've interviewed or phone-screened at least 200 people over the last few years, and yes, there's been a handful of rejections where the major concern was social skills: abrasive, over-confident, poor communication or lacking the appearance of motivation. But I've had far more people who simply couldn't perform well enough on the technical problem or who had ob…

The only thing this tells me is you have an error in your hiring process that is leading you to interviewing people in person that cannot do the job. This should never happen.

Do you know of a way to screen out people who inflate their expertise on a resume or who fail to demonstrate competency in those areas during an interview, without actually interviewing them? Because if you do I'd love to hear it. But I thought that was the point of interviewing them. I don't expect recruiters and HR people who focus exclusively on hiring to have more than a shallow knowledge of what we're hiring for. I definitely don't encounter those more qualified to evaluate qualifications on LinkedIn, that's for sure. And LeetCode isn't nearly that good at eliminating crappy candidates. Plenty of people do it and then seem to lack those same skills when they show up.

That's why we have discussions like this: https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/.

If validating their technical qualifications is not the point of the interview, are you really only interviewing candidates to see if people like their social skills? That sounds legally shady for most cases, and honestly for extreme cases where there's a valid concern that IS the kind of thing I'd expect to be filtered out by an introductory call with a manager or something.

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

#837

Post by js4 »

Stop worrying about a job and start worrying about skills.

The great thing about software is that you don’t need permission (a job) to make impact and to build skills.

Build something or contribute to open source.

If I were staring my career over and had trouble getting a software job I would get any job I could to sustain life -ex busing tables. Then I would spend all of my nights and weekends working on open source or building things publicly.

If you spend the next year doing open source contributions for 30+ hours a week I can pretty much guarantee that you will have a job.

It will be hard sure. But this is the way.

Develop skills and the jobs will come.

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

#838

Post by pknerd »

Most probably you're unable to sell yourself? Did you think of making your own product? How about a platform where ppl like you share rejection stories? Who knows it get exploded?

Do you maintain a GitHub or public profile? How about running a YouTube channel?

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

#839

Post by Our_Dream »

I don't want to make new thread, but my history is slightly different and I seek advice too, and I don't want to create new thread(especially because I am new here and it would be my first post)

I am disabled from birth (autistic spectrum) and I live in east Europe.

I wasn't a career guy either, I'm hitting my 30, and I worked like 7 months in my life. I have a disability pension thanks to other things that I wasn't responsible for, it isn't like I look for food to buy bread, but rather vegetate on it.

Recently depression hit me hard(I am on anti-depressants). I was going straight into full madness mode. Now this drugs made me realize some things.If I will continue my life like that, even best prescription pharmacy (I've also tried MM, didn't helped) won't help me.Constant introspection is bad even for people with near ideal life.

I have to get a job.I won't say that I hate money and i will burn it, but I can even go abroad for few weeks from money from state in this year.

Anyway… I can't choose house constructing job because I have as they say here "two left hands". Neither something like house cleaning, I don't see the dirt unless somebody clearly shows me.

So I decided to go to IT.I like it pretty much, web-developing was best job in my life. But…They decided to hire foreigner because I didn't like almost daily overhours. (Literally most days we was arriving at 8AM, to act that like we do something till 1PM because our superior wasn't able to organize job properly, and it ended almost always like overstaying after 4PM, superior didn't liked me either because I told him if we are handling with data of people - even politicians we should have https even from let's encrypt if company doesn't want to pay - he told me it's a scam).

Anyway.I learned how to configure servers securely (less or more, I don't like http in almost any case, I feel like I am naked with it and/or telling other people what I do in bed). I can install various things and do basic things with databases like wordpress. Simple landing sate too.

And…Almost everybody know how to do that nowadays.I signed up for few freelance sites, and I requested normal amount of money, or that amount which even here would sound silly.

This wouldn't be that bad if I could show in my resumee that I worked for a lot of time. But…as I said before - no experience.And without experience…you won't get experience…

So tell me please, what to learn to get get a job, have occupation maybe not instantly but in nearest future.I can sacrifice to it whole days, it's not I have to go to work on daily basis(I've been messing with arduino too, but from my experience everybody can do that nowadays, and despite you can make cool projects with it like playing music when you enter the toilet in your home which has thin walls, but you wouldn't make over 9000 products instantly neither show it to costumer).

Thanks and have a nice day.

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

#840

Post by lcall »

I suggest for anyone, going to: https://www.latterdaysaintjobs.org/ers/ct/?lang=eng

...and learning from the site and them in person, asking them for feedback, and doing whatever they say. (There are other very good resources on various topics for life etc.)

Not only diligence, but also honesty and kindness (treating others the way one would want to be treated), and observing people to learn what works and doesn't go a long way.

And it is not always popular to say but is true: you are a child of God, with infinite potential. His commandments (the 10 are a decent start) are given for our benefit, to help us reach our potential. We might not always understand why -- but like guardrails or safety stripes on a highway, they really do matter. If you ask Him sincerely for help, intending to do what you learn is the right thing, He can help.

Don't ever, ever, give up on yourself, humanity, or those things. Life is worth it! Hard things can help us grow. You matter and are worthwhile.

I have wondered, while trying to recover from my own non-employment for health reasons, if places like upwork (and similar--search HN for discussions) are useful for ad-hoc p/t technical work while coming back. If you or anyone learns more about that, I'm curious for possible future.

Edits/additions: Avoid anything addicting -- it will cloud your judgement at important times, and when they are, you might not predict. There are also good resources for this.

I like another post here about empathy, and another on taking lower-paying (honest) jobs as better than nothing, sticking with them while looking elsewhere or working more on educational goals. Sometimes that certificate or degree means to people that you can be trusted to stick with something, and that might help you. Some you can do part-time online, or maybe in spurts for relatively very low cost are WGU (especially/maybe(?) if you study in advance and do many courses in one semester!--worked well for someone I know and others in HN discussions), at wikipedia) or at BYU Pathway Worldwide--good online school with lower tuition and a built-in support system for helping you stick to it.

And: In that URL I provided above, they will provide interview coaching, etc. Many things, all free and without obligation. The volunteers are often (usually? always?) kindly retired people.

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