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Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

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Re: Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

#11
post #9
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any recommendations? What is a niche language that guarantees a job these days?

Ruby on Rails. Tons of stuff built on it, and still being built, but all the cool kids moved on from it.

I've been thinking of going into the golang/systems niche, but have been seeing a lot of rails positions recently.

My current area is Node/Js

Re: Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

#12
I think you might need to reframe how you are considering this job search. It sounds like you are thinking of a job interview as an exam, and whoever scores the highest gets the job. You should think about the interviews as the opportunity to show that you are the right person to get done whatever it is they need. Part of that is showing that you can do the work, part of that is showing that your values align with theirs, and part of that is confirming that you will not be a pain in the neck to work with. There is more to the interview than just showing you have the technical chops and a lot of the answers to these questions are binary, not linear. You don't need to score the highest just make sure you check all of the boxes.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

#14

Nobody wants to hire someone who isn't "competitive" and aspires to level up, advance, etc., unless it's for some short term contract. They want people who can do today's job today, and have potential for more / leadership tomorrow. Even if you just want to coast on by and collect your paycheck... you need to (at least pretend to) be be interested in advancement.

Fuck those expectations.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

#15
post #3

If you want to skip the intervewing, you have to network and make sure people know you. The goal there is for someone to reach out to you that they want you.

This. Network is everything. Half your job is being liked by your colleagues, because when y’all move on to other orgs, you want to be the first person they think of for a referral for open roles.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

#16

Nobody wants to hire someone who isn't "competitive" and aspires to level up, advance, etc., unless it's for some short term contract. They want people who can do today's job today, and have potential for more / leadership tomorrow. Even if you just want to coast on by and collect your paycheck... you need to (at least pretend to) be be interested in advancement.

They may not want to hire someone who isn't competitive but the reality is companies don't want high fliers. There's only so much room for advancement and there's only so many interesting projects. Companies need workhorses, people that will come in and do the jobs that need to be done without the need to coddle or entertain them so they stay. It's laughable the hoops companies are asking people to jump through in what is still a competitive market, companies need to reset their sites from trying to recruit the best of the best and be happy with someone who can do the job.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

#17
A lot of companies don't "need" anyone because they are not subject to profit and loss anymore. This is the result of government policies of cheap money, government contracts and higher and higher barriers to enter the market.

If there was a need, even if there were a lot of candidates managers would prefer the first to be enough. But they don't have a need, government policies give them all the time in the world. So for managers it's worse to get the "wrong" candidate than a sufficient one. Managers also prefer multiple rounds, testing, etc, because they can avoid blame by showing they hired someone that passed all the tests. At the same time for managers it's better to get one superstar they can brag about than a person that can do the job, because there is no job subject to profit and loss in the first place.

This is how I explain the current situation, situation I find absurd. I may be wrong, but that's what I think. I don't know if it can help, I think your pain is fully justified and this is my attempt at easing it. It helped me a little, knowing I'm not the problem and nor is the person in front of me (at least not really)

Re: Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

#19

Nobody wants to hire someone who isn't "competitive" and aspires to level up, advance, etc., unless it's for some short term contract. They want people who can do today's job today, and have potential for more / leadership tomorrow. Even if you just want to coast on by and collect your paycheck... you need to (at least pretend to) be be interested in advancement.

I interviewed at a few dozen places last year and that is certainly not what I encountered. Almost all places were looking for a trend follower addicted to the framework and tools of the moment. Being competitive as in solving tough problems, delivering faster, writing higher quality faster code is not what anybody wanted.

My learning is if you want to be more employable don’t be awesome. Position yourself to the center of a bell curve.

Re: Ask HN: How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive?

#20

Nobody wants to hire someone who isn't "competitive" and aspires to level up, advance, etc., unless it's for some short term contract. They want people who can do today's job today, and have potential for more / leadership tomorrow. Even if you just want to coast on by and collect your paycheck... you need to (at least pretend to) be be interested in advancement.

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