No one gave you that advice, because it's not really great advice.
Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
601–610 of 633 posts
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#602Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, saying that people like me achieved success due to privilege is misleading and hateful because it dismisses our hard work and tons of sacrifice to get where we are now. But sure, call it a privilege. Thanks to discourse like this the word already lost its meaning. The only thing that I got dealt a good hand is that by accident my passion and hobby can bring me a tonne of money. Where is my privilege here? Sadly…
Why does it bother you so much when people say you have privilege? Your privilege is that your passion and hobby is in high demand... most people don't have that. They have hobbies like fishing or golf or gardening, and those things aren't in high demand. If you had been born 200 years ago, your passion might also have been something that wasn't in high demand. I don't see how that concept upsets you. No one is sayin…
I don't think you read my comments. If anything it looks like you just skimmed through them.
I explicitly said my success is a function of passion, hard work and LUCK. I have no problem admitting that part of my success is luck.
However equalling luck with privilege makes absolutely no sense. In your dictionary if I play poker and get a lucky hand I am now privileged.
What an utter nonsense.
And for the record I have absolutely zero problem with paying high taxes. Again, if you read my comments you'd know I come from a poor family. Government support was sometimes all we had. I fully support offering safety net for the less fortunate but can see you already made unfair assumptions about me.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#603Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm with you on your core assertion, about leveraging personal social networks in hiring leading to reinforcing systemic racism and cultural biases. But in this context, you used "nepotism" to mean "people one knows" and then leaned even further into saying it didn't mean "close relationships" but any relationships. That's just not what that word means, not how it's commonly used either. So that assertion is wrong.
I cited two separate definitions, at this point you're disagreeing with not just me, but my citations as well, which makes it hard for me to take what you're saying here and make any changes to what I understand the word to mean. I'm not sure a) why you think you have authority here, or b) why it's such a sticking point to the point that you've continued this conversation for over an entire day. I think at this point…
Um, you kept defending your use of the word, rather than abandoning it in the face of multiple people showing you used it incorrectly. I returned to the website today to a new-to-me question from you asking for a definition, so I gave it. You've been antagonistic and personal to me rather than admit that nepotism means family and close friends, not "everyone I know," and it has hurt your core thesis since--again--multiple people read your posted definitions and noted that they did not support your use of the word.
It's so weird that you're unwilling to see this, or how it's undermining your primary point, but you do you.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#604Earlier quoted context omitted.
I cited two separate definitions, at this point you're disagreeing with not just me, but my citations as well, which makes it hard for me to take what you're saying here and make any changes to what I understand the word to mean. I'm not sure a) why you think you have authority here, or b) why it's such a sticking point to the point that you've continued this conversation for over an entire day. I think at this point…
Um, you kept defending your use of the word, rather than abandoning it in the face of multiple people showing you used it incorrectly. I returned to the website today to a new-to-me question from you asking for a definition, so I gave it. You've been antagonistic and personal to me rather than admit that nepotism means family and close friends, not "everyone I know," and it has hurt your core thesis since--again--mul…
> Um, you kept defending your use of the word, rather than abandoning it in the face of multiple people showing you used it incorrectly.
Do you often abandon ideas because of a volume of people disagreeing with you? How do you differentiate that from falling victim to an ad populum logical fallacy?
> You've been antagonistic and personal to me
Apologies! Can you cite, specifically, where I was unambiguously this way towards you? I'd like to understand whether this is just you reading too much into something I said, or if I've genuinely made a mistake here. I suspect the former, but it could be the latter!
> rather than admit that nepotism means family and close friends, not "everyone I know,"
What's interesting here is that you think I ever said, "everyone I know". I certainly didn't mean that, and as far as I can tell, I never said that either. I look forward to seeing the specific language I used that caused your confusion!
> and it has hurt your core thesis
How would this hurt my core thesis, since it's not important to that thesis if the people being favored are close to the person in power?
> multiple people read your posted definitions and noted that they did not support your use of the word.
Noted incorrectly. There's nothing to be done if people write factually false statements on HN, but that's what they are; factually incorrect.
Further they're not "my* definitions, but definitions from prestigious institutions trusted to define English words.
> It's so weird that you're unwilling to see this
That implies there's something to see, when in fact there is not. What's actually weird is how you keep replying, yet with no new information or analysis.
> or how it's undermining your primary point
It cannot be undermining my primary point, as it's not related to my primary point.
> but you do you.
Oh I will, I do not need permission from you to do that. Again, I'm curious about why you take this position of authority, as if you have any control over my behavior at all.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#605Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, “interest in programming” sounds to be like a special advantage in the current world; why do you think it’s not a privilege ? It might even be genetic! (Not to mention that you also need the privilege of being born relatively smart.)
Well if you frame it like that everything and anything can be called privilege. Doesn't make much sense to me.
I think of “privilege” as something that persists (e.g. IQ) vs “luck” as something that happens once (e.g. winning the lottery).
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#606Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your entry point was sales engineer, was it not?
Technical consultant in AWS ProServe. I specialize in enterprise app dev/architecture + cloud. Solution Architects are pre sales. Consultants are post sale doing billable implementations. There is some overlap though. I do some SA type work and depending on the day of the week, I’m lumped in with the SA organization. Out of curiosity, why did you (correctly) suspect I didn’t “grind leetCode”?
You have mentioned it in the past here.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#607Earlier quoted context omitted.
Utter nonsense. If you put enough mental grease into that sort of interpretation everything can be classed as a privilege, in which case the concept is irrelevant.
Yes, any bit of luck you have that makes your life better is a privilege, because it is something that makes your life better than someone who didn't have that luck. They didn't do anything wrong to deserve not having the luck, it was just chance. This doesn't make the concept irrelevant. It is important to accept and understand that a lot of your success in life is due to things outside of your control. You don't ha…
> It is important to accept and understand that a lot of your success in life is due to things outside of your control.
That's a generalization and takes away from people's agency. for luck to play a part in your life, you need to show up and work.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#608Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's great, and I'm in a similar situation myself. But your intro mentioned this being early career advice, which could mislead people into making pretty big negotiation mistakes.
I would consider that a good advice for anyone who is half-decent in current market. Good Engineers are at the value of gold. Can save you a lot of money down the road. I have like 8y of experience and salary requirement is the first thing I negotiate. Easy 30-50% jump each time in past few years.
Definitely negotiate, but the first rule of negotiation is to never be the first to give a number. And the 2nd rule is to always have multiple options that you'd consider.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#609Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why does it bother you so much when people say you have privilege? Your privilege is that your passion and hobby is in high demand... most people don't have that. They have hobbies like fishing or golf or gardening, and those things aren't in high demand. If you had been born 200 years ago, your passion might also have been something that wasn't in high demand. I don't see how that concept upsets you. No one is sayin…
I don't think you read my comments. If anything it looks like you just skimmed through them. I explicitly said my success is a function of passion, hard work and LUCK . I have no problem admitting that part of my success is luck. However equalling luck with privilege makes absolutely no sense. In your dictionary if I play poker and get a lucky hand I am now privileged. What an utter nonsense. And for the record I hav…
If you get a lucky hand in poker, then yes, I would say you were privileged... for that specific hand.
Of course it doesn't matter much if you have privilege for one hand, and that privilege will change relatively fairly between everyone during a session of poker.
This is different though. This is more like playing a game of poker where a single hand lasts your whole life, and you keep reaping the benefits of your lucky draw for your entire life. That is meaningful privilege.
Imagine if instead of getting lucky with having an aptitude for computers, you instead inherited a million dollars when you turned 18.
Would you consider that privilege? It is just luck in the same way as your skills... you just happened to be born into a rich family who gave you money. That is luck, in the same way.
I think that is clearly privilege, and your computer skills are likely to earn you more than a million dollars extra in salary than someone working equally hard in a less lucrative profession.
If you think that inheriting a million dollars isn't privilege, I am curious as to what you think is.
Re: Career advice nobody gave me: Never ignore a recruiter
#610Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, any bit of luck you have that makes your life better is a privilege, because it is something that makes your life better than someone who didn't have that luck. They didn't do anything wrong to deserve not having the luck, it was just chance. This doesn't make the concept irrelevant. It is important to accept and understand that a lot of your success in life is due to things outside of your control. You don't ha…
> It is important to accept and understand that a lot of your success in life is due to things outside of your control. That's a generalization and takes away from people's agency. for luck to play a part in your life, you need to show up and work.
Sure, but lots of people show up and work hard but only make minimum wage. The privilege is that your hard work earns a lot more money than someone else's hard work.