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

851–860 of 875 posts

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

#851

Post by aiisjustanif »

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…

> 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.

Such irony.

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

#852

Post by xpe »

bawolff wrote: post #216
xpe wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder if you use the word creep really broadly; e.g. to include people that make you uncomfortable. Many/most of those people, it seems to me, mean well but have difficulty connecting with you in the way you are used to. Many of those people have a bunch of insecurities, burdens, or even mental health concerns. I don't think it is useful to call those people creeps. Some people are certainly toxic in the context o…

> I wonder if you use the word creep really broadly; e.g. to include people that make you uncomfortable. Isn't that the normal definition? I guess i agree that creep is a deregatory word and not really helpful in this context. At the same time, intentionally obfuscating who you are in order to trick someone into interacting with you against their will is not ok behaviour, and well within what most people consider "cr…

There are people that I am uncomfortable with that I don't call creeps.

Just take physical proximity for example. I know some close talkers. I find it awkward but not creepy. Various cultures have varying degrees of recognizing personal space.

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

#853

Post by nl »

freetime2 wrote: post #628
sanderjd wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a really tough lesson to learn but this is absolutely true: It is not enough to be right, you must also have credibility. You usually have to accept other people being wrong about things you're right about in order to build credibility.

> You usually have to accept other people being wrong about things you're right about in order to build credibility. I don’t think this is the correct way to look at it. Rather than accepting other people being wrong, you should be very open to the possibility that it’s you who is wrong. Always doubt your own assumptions, and be willing to change your stance when new information comes to light.

I think you absolutely need to be open to being wrong about things.

But that's independent to building enough credibility to be able to speak truth to power.

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

#854

Post by paulgrant999 »

pc86 wrote: post #749
mcherm wrote: 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…

fuck the median.

30k a year? you should be out robbing banks. you can pull in 10k, for 3 minutes of work, no weapon, and a letter.

seriously. the median hasn't moved in 20 years. the costs have increased 10x.

fuck, the median wage.

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

#855

Post by paulgrant999 »

shultays wrote: post #599
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…

I too suffer from an extremely high intelligence.

I suffer from an industry thats been stock-piled with shit labor to the point where 50% of the interviewing workforce suffers from imposter syndrome and covers for their refusing to hire anyone with ability as 'bad corporate fit'.

:)

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

#856

Post by deanak »

void_mint wrote: post #850
deanak wrote: post #849

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LinkedIn is the only social media site with the possibility of return on time investment, which all suffer from the problems you mention. So why pick the one that can't possibly get you paid? Also, I'm still curious on how many recruiters have contacted you through Facebook and viewed your resume, as compared to LinkedIn.

> LinkedIn is the only social media site with the possibility of return on time investment, which all suffer from the problems you mention. So why pick the one that can't possibly get you paid? Do you think influencers go on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram because they aren't getting paid? They just like it? > Also, I'm still curious on how many recruiters have contacted you through Facebook and viewed your resume, as c…

I assumed we were talking about software development, not influencing. Why are you so interested in chiming in on products you haven't used in 8 years?

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

#857

Post by deanak »

kyawzazaw wrote: post #333
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…

> Honestly, I don't know why anyone wants to work for Google anyways. I can tell you why - www.levels.fyi Google is quite literally one of the most well-known and powerful tech companies in the world - I assume it's not that hard to think people who work in tech would want to associate with an organization int hat position. --- I don't understand your basis of judging the skills of their engineers either. You had one…

The former Googler used to be a Product Manager and I thought I would get some valuable insights. For as high up as he made it, I have no interest in learning how Google operates after seeing his interactions with others.

Through hard work and some dumb luck, I've also interacted with other Fortune 10/50 corporations at the VP level. I wasn't impressed with them either. So it's not just an anti-Google thing.

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

#858

Post by godofwar »

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…

I'm also unemployed. Why should the past speak for me? Shouldn't my github account be enough?

Edit: reason for my down vote? I think my argument is fair, it is wrong to look into the candidate's past. Just look at their skills and nothing else

Edit 2: down voting without a reason forces me to assume the decision was not rational and thus invalid.

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

#859

Post by godofwar »

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…

I think OP could try to join a startup, build some skills and network. He/she will eventually be able to get into a FAANG company.

The past doesn't matter. Building skills could be enough

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

#860

Post by chinchilla2020 »

fooblitzky wrote: post #74
void_mint wrote: post #18

Have you tried asking any of the jobs that rejected you're getting rejected? Honestly, just a guess, you're probably giving off bad interpersonal vibes/people don't really like talking to you. Half of interviewing is just being very personable/being able to talk comfortably with other people. Generally in this space (this space meaning those interested in tech/startups/etc) sometimes people struggle in this area but…

Many companies large enough to have HR and/or legal departments have rules specifically against providing feedback to candidates on why they were rejected.

A colleague of mine was sued (alongside the company) for rejecting a candidate. The feedback they provided the candidate to help them out was cited in the lawsuit.

It is better to keep quiet about negative feedback in the lawsuit-heavy culture we inhabit.

Post reply on HN