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Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

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Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#131

Post by mullingitover »

I graduated in one of the worst possible times to get a CS degree: August 2001.

I had a college job that paid the bills but wasn't anything related to tech. I looked for jobs but the job market in Portland, Oregon was the Sahara desert. There wasn't an entry level job in sight, and if you didn't have a decade of experience you could forget about getting a foot in the door.

Eventually I took a customer service job at a call center that did work for Adobe, and after a year there I switched to one of their other contract customers, Disney. I did tech support for Disney's Toontown, one thing led to another, and Disney ended up hiring me direct and moving me down to LA.

I stayed at Disney far too long in a junior position because I had no confidence in my ability to get a better job, the experience of being shut out of the market for years after graduating broke me. Eventually I got laid off from Disney, and what followed was all the best years of my career because it forced me to shop my skills around more.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have immediately taken that tech support job, and when I made it to my first real engineer job I would have jumped after two years if I wasn't promoted. I would've kept jumping every 2-3 years. Like a lot of people there I felt a loyalty to the company that was 100% one-sided.

tl;dr get something, anything in your field as soon as you can, and promote yourself to another position as soon as you can and keep doing it. Only stay in a place if you have immediate and ongoing career growth.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#133

Post by stocknoob »

The long-term meta strategy is stepping back and realize that as long as you are dependent on a job for survival you’ll be at the whims of your employer, the market, the economy.

Build a raft instead of constantly treading water, and pursue FI.

If you like swimming, great! Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a raft right next to you. Swim for pleasure, not survival.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#134

Post by gwbas1c »

Lots of good advice. (Which I won't repeat.)

If you choose to graduate, remember, you're going to work for the rest of your career. Don't feel bad about taking some time for yourself! (Assuming this is the US,) it's going to be nearly impossible to take consecutive 2-4 weeks off, or longer, while you're employed. Do it now.

Looking for a job also doesn't have to be a grind. Even if you're playing the numbers game, you don't need to grind all day spamming out applications. Self-education in areas that you think you'll need are just as important. Don't feel bad about making every weekend a 3 or 4 day weekend.

Also, many people warn against being too selective. This is true. It's also important to have standards. When I really needed a job, over the past 20 years, I've turned down: A contracting gig where the contract came out of a nolo book (for hiring a contractor to do work in your home,) a (cough) job that came with a "stipend" that would hardly cover rent, a cryptocurrency gig run by a lucky hacker who had a few million dollars in the bank, but not enough common sense to have product-market fit... People talk about being "entitled." A lot of businesses believe they are "entitled" to your labor. Walking away from situations like this isn't being "too selective." It's having standards and looking out for yourself.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#135

Post by roughly »

hef19898 wrote: post #91
roughly wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Broadly I agree with this, with the caveat that, especially as a junior developer/new grad, it can be both really difficult to spot that a workspace is toxic and really damaging to work in one over time. As far into my career as I am at this point, I've both a finely honed radar and zero tolerance for toxic bullshit, but as a new developer, it's a whole lot harder to have both the self-confidence and self-awareness t…

Being a junior without prior experience at a shitty company is a enormous risk. Being a senior means you can judge the shittyness, as junior this first experience will influence you for a good part of your future career, be it for the better or worse. My advice, look for some decent, experienced people in any job you have, but even more so in your first. Build a trustfull relationship with at least one of those folks…

Yes, absolutely agree - I was considering updating with something similar. Finding a mentor, either within or outside the company, who’s opinions you trust and who can say “no, you’re not reading that situation wrong, Jim’s behaving badly” or “yes, your instincts are correct, this is the right way to do this,” or even “yes, Bob’s incompetent, but in this case, he’s right, because of this” is absolutely invaluable. It’s invaluable for anyone, but especially in that situation, it can make the difference between a learning opportunity and a trauma.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#136

Post by zetazzed »

Maybe unpopular advice, but I do find that companies over-index on your current role. (FWIW I have hired lots of new and experienced PhDs in ML but am not hiring now.) So if you take a "placeholder" job, I suggest trying to find one that sounds at least as prestigious as your current position. So, changing your resume from "Fresh MIT PhD grad on the market" to "Researcher in boring lab of dying old industrial company" will be a bad move. If your passion is AI, it's a good idea to go for a placeholder job to be in AI/ML as well. Startups can be good unless they are obviously ridiculous or terrible ones - managers are used to seeing unknown startup companies and fresh grads, and you'll probably be forced to do lots of productive coding. But a bad research lab can be really bad - trailing edge research, bad code, not enough resources to do something meaningful, publishing in low-tier venues that nobody reads, ugh....

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#137

Post by lifeisstillgood »

mooreds wrote: post #18

I like the advice here: https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/advice-for-junior-softwar... (didn't write it, but it jives with my experience). I also wrote something here on how to stand out: https://letterstoanewdeveloper.com/2022/09/19/ways-to-stand-... Finally, you ask: > Is it better to get any job than keep searching for the job I'd be most suited for? That depends on your financial situation and emotional runway,…

Just to jump in on this - I got canned in the last big recession and while not a new grad, I took the next (contract) job that came up, at much lower pay, and over the next year doubled my take home from the original job.

Two lessons

1. Spend your lunchtimes job hunting. Treat it like a job

2. Move around as a new grad. Think of it like dating, you have to kiss a few frogs just to get an idea of what is out there.

(Most people who stay in one job really mean lots of different jobs inside one giant conglomerate)

So don't be afraid to move around. And focus on the code. Ignore the management bullshit, the meetings the agile talk. Focus on code.

Re: Ask HN: With recent layoffs, how would you advise new grads entering the market?

#139

Post by codegeek »

cratermoon wrote: post #25

Oh, new grads are golden, they have almost nothing worry about. The companies laying off workers are pushing out the senior, highly-paid, most expensive employees. They will quickly and eagerly replace with them with naive, low-paid (relatively), eager-to-drink-the-koolaid fresh grads. The only thing the new grads might have to worry about is that they probably won't get as much money as they would have prior to the…

Way too cynical view. Entry Level Grads always have more to prove and there is a lot of supply out there. If every employer is discriminating, then there will be a time when no entry level person can find a job. That is not the case. Not every entry level person is entitled to a 100k job right out of college.
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