I'm an independent contractor, I thought lay-offs would translate into lots of small contracts but it hasn't, in fact, my existing co tracts have dried off and not finding any new ones right now.
Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
131–140 of 479 posts
Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. I'm old (I'm now 60. I was 55, when I was looking). The ageism in tech is pervasive. People seldom even bother hiding it; even though it's just as illegal as sexism or racism.
I've heard of plenty of companies publishing gender and ethnicity breakdowns of employees. I've never heard of anyone doing that for age of employees sadly.
You just have to look at one of those "company pictures," taken at offsites, or whatever.
Lots of smiling young faces. Maybe one or two gray heads, and you often find out they are Principals, in one way or another.
One of the dirty little secrets of tech ageism, is the ones doing it, are often older folks, themselves. IBM has been caught doing it, and the impetus came from their (quite gray) C-Suite.
Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#133I think these layoffs are particularly hard on "non-technical" people: marketing, customer service, customer success, professional services, implementations, people who have built a career in customer operations roles.
My experience so far is that most companies who seem to be hiring for these types of roles aren't actually hiring. Some of the positions I saw last year in June are still listed on careers pages, some applications are met with an instant auto-decline (maybe gathering resumes?), some companies have swapped hiring managers mid-interview process, others seem to burn through one idiot recruiter after the next. I don't think most companies know what they need when they hire for "customer experience" or "customer success", so roles and job descriptions are poorly defined and the business need is unclear, but that's a discussion for another day.
The current market doesn't have a lot of opportunities for the post-sales customer facing crowd. I've toyed with the idea of a highly curated job board that is specifically for this group.
Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#134Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some of them become blacksmiths as I recently learned.
Wonder how hard it is to get started with glassblowing
You should visit the coast of Maine this summer and find out: https://www.haystack-mtn.org/
Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#136I’m based in SF Bay Area and I was laid off from my Engineering Management position in October. I had MAANG offer at the time which took about 2-3 months when the process started in July. But as they started reviewing budgets it was cancelled even though Recruiter verbally agreed on the number. Then I interviewed with several companies in Oct-Dec. One startup was willing to proceed with VP/Director level offer but th…
> I’m also on H1B so that makes it more challenging.
How are you still here? I thought you had 30 days to leave, abandoning all of your properties indefinitely.
Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#137I recently got laid off in the UK and it was really hard to find something decent. There's jobs out there, but most aren't all that great and the interviews were much harder to come by. I was ghosted by recruiters countless times after being told I would be put forward for certain roles which has never happened to me before...
I find UK recruiters to be the flakiest. At first I figured it was my timezone, but they seem to really just drop prospects that don't get them a sure-fire commission immediately.
Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#138Remember that there are many reasons why someone would not get hired despite having top work experience. I have seen people out of FAANGs with 10+ years of experience sharing their CV after being laid off and some will struggle to get any interview, let alone get a good job, just because the format of said CV was absolutely awful. If you aren't getting interviews, it's your CV that is the problem.
I wouldn’t call them for interview because I perceive them as out of my budget. Could be true or false depending on the individual but I think it’s also knowing if your Top experience also unintentionally conveys something else that’s turning people away. This is how bubbles pop and it’s likely the fallout will be reduced comp for many of you folks when you land somewhere.
Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm in the US and would love to hear about the UK expefiencd. What's it like when being laid off in the UK? Do you get guaranteed severance and some breathing room from the stress of rent or mortgage payments? Do you worry about access to high quality Healthcare? Overall, do you think being in the UK makes you less worried that a layoff will leave you broke and homeless?
It depends on your company, but the statutory minimums are awful. You get a minimum of 2 week's extra pay if you have over 2 years service, and Job Seekers' Allowance is about 77 quid a week - so imagine living on less than $500 a month. Healthcare access (via the NHS) is unaffected, you might be able to get free prescriptions too. But in general it's terrible. As always in Europe you either want to be an ultra-rich…
> As always in Europe you either want to be an ultra-rich landowning aristocrat (little to no property tax, inheritance tax, etc.) or very poor/unemployed (e.g. a refugee) so you qualify for state housing, etc. - work does not pay.
I just left an inappropriately long comment saying, in effect, actually the same thing.
The US isn't perfect, but if you want to work you're generally able to move up the economic ladder easier from what I've seen. High income taxes combined with consumption taxes make wealth creation via employment almost impossible.
Re: Ask HN: Laid off folks, are you getting hired?
#140We're hiring at our company. We've had a lot of people come through from the recent waves of layoffs, and usually so far there has been a mix of too high expectations, remote work mismatches as well as just lots of people not making the bar (we are a small company). Still on the lookout for senior rust engineers who want to work at a company that's remote-first with a minimal-meetings culture. You can message me on t…
Do you have another contact channel for those of us without telegram?
Isn’t telegram free? If you’re interested why not just sign up? This isn’t a good first impression when you’re trying to get hired.