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Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

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Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#101

Post by commandlinefan »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #13

I'll let you in on the secret to finding a job. It's not about your skills really (maybe some), it's about who you know. If you're relying on only your skill to carry you through to finding a job, you're going to have a rough time. It's about who you know. You're looking for a job? Go to meetups, code and coffees, free tech seminars by companies etc. That's your job now. Connect with people on LinkedIn. There are ver…

> It's not about your skills really, it's about who you know

I've been hearing people give this advice my entire life, which is about a half century now. It's never been true for me. Roughly half the jobs I've had in my life I've gotten through a referral and the other half I've gotten "cold" by just applying to an open req and being the best candidate that applied.

By FAR the best jobs I've had were the ones where I got in on the strength of my abilities. Every job I've ever worked that I was referred into ended up being a nightmare that I couldn't get out of fast enough.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#102

Post by adamhp »

I work in the DC tech scene. People kind of overlook it, but it pays well and the job security is very high, thanks to the DOD and DHS budgets. I'm gratefully working on something that I'm not ethically concerned with (as I might be at DOD). I also got lucky and landed with a company that felt more like a startup for a long time, though recently is feeling a bit more corporate. There's no equity, so I'm not making $300+ TC, but I'm at the high end of most salary bands, and have good benefits and work-life balance. The worst part is that the work can be mind numbingly boring, and not challenging in any way, and you may not have much opportunity to learn from really smart people or work on really cutting edge tech. There is a lot of demand and need for talent though, so I don't find it difficult to exceed expectations either. Also personally love living in this area, but I realize that's highly subjective.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#103

Post by chriswarbo »

danjac wrote: post #19
mateusfreira wrote: post #11

What is your stack? There are areas with more opportunities than others that may be worth considering a stack shift. I have been in the market since 2006, and I have seen it go up and down; I've never been unemployed since, but I have close friends who run over one year without a job (In Brazil, we usually have financial crises here more often), at that time their option was to do freelancing for a while until they f…

The problem is you can't "stack shift". I mean, of course you can, we know that if you know some programming languages you can pick up another language, if you know an HTTP router you can learn another, a MySQL expert can learn PostgreSQL, if you know React you can learn Vue and so on. But you won't get through the HR filters unless you have the magic n years' experience. Once you learn that stack in your junior year…

> Once you learn that stack in your junior years, you are stuck on that path for the rest of your career.

That's not true while employed, since you can learn a new stack/tool/tech as part of a new project. People do this all the time, on spectrum from "choosing the right tool for the job" to "CV-driven development" (depending on how much you'll screw over subsequent maintainers).

I know many devs don't have the luxury of making big decisions for new projects; but there can still be opportunities to automate or improve some of your day-to-day tasks (e.g. scripts, aliases, sanity checkers to make sure you never do that thing again, etc.). For that sort of stuff you can use any technology you like, either as a quick, low-stakes way to learn something new, or an opportunity to use something you know from outside of work (admittedly this is more suited to using new languages; rather than e.g. a Web framework or server orchestration solution!). You can legitimately put that on your CV as a technology you've used commercially to solve problems, and that may be enough to get past HR filters. You can also share such things internally, to bolster your reputation as "someone who knows foo" (e.g. I was once given a task at work because there was an existing R package for what we needed, but nobody else knew R; whereas I once wrote a three line R script years ago!)

Unfortunately for this thread: that sort of tactic only works when in employment.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#105

Post by paolomaffei »

moneywoes wrote: post #67
paolomaffei wrote: post #4

Personally I've seen quite a few of up and downs in my market (UK contracting), this might be a bit longer than usual, but not a permanent situation. An encouraging sign I'm seeing is that there's more permanent positions advertising higher salaries than in the past (maybe just the +20% of inflation from march 2020, but still!). The market will change again... software is still eating the world, there will be shortag…

may i ask how you landed your first contracting role

Had a permanent role (mid weight) level before, applied for contracts. Nothing special!

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#106

Post by jodrellblank »

NotYourLawyer wrote: post #78
kaashif wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The jobs are out there if you want to do honest work for a fair wage. If a company is making hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue from your work, I think it's totally fair to want a bigger slice of that. I do realise "fair" can also mean "considerable though not outstanding in size or amount" - in that case I agree, but I'm not sure about the word "honest" here.

1. Revenue isn’t profit. 2. “Fair” is whatever you can negotiate. You’re not entitled to any more than you can make them pay you.

"Fair" and "what you can make someone do" and "what you are entitled to" are very different concepts.

Turn this around to an employer "“Fair” is whatever work you can negotiate from the employee. You’re not entitled to any more work than you can make them do for you." - 1) if you can't make the employee do much work, you aren't entitled to much work, and that's fair. 2) if you can exploit the hell out of the employee, then you are entitled to do so, and that's fair.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#107

Post by iteria »

commandlinefan wrote: post #101
kemiller2002 wrote: post #13

I'll let you in on the secret to finding a job. It's not about your skills really (maybe some), it's about who you know. If you're relying on only your skill to carry you through to finding a job, you're going to have a rough time. It's about who you know. You're looking for a job? Go to meetups, code and coffees, free tech seminars by companies etc. That's your job now. Connect with people on LinkedIn. There are ver…

> It's not about your skills really, it's about who you know I've been hearing people give this advice my entire life, which is about a half century now. It's never been true for me. Roughly half the jobs I've had in my life I've gotten through a referral and the other half I've gotten "cold" by just applying to an open req and being the best candidate that applied. By FAR the best jobs I've had were the ones where I…

I've found that jobs through cold applying have been gambles. Sometimes they suck. Sometimes they don't and I get great new connections from them. Getting jobs via connections is way more hit or miss since it's all timing, but every time the job has been great.

I'd say that connections are worth it for increasing your chances of netting a job because they tend to be good jobs since someone you know vetted it. Cold applying is easier to get a job period I think, but the quality in every domain is all over the place. It's a trade off.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#108

Post by tvaughan »

lylejantzi3rd wrote: post #98
bschabs wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This one hits the nail on the head. For instance immediately when I started the job search I got a couple referrals from friends. Unfortunately they still didn't work out but I made it the furthest with those, since then I have applied to 150 jobs anywhere from mid level to lead, and a few phone calls here and there but ultimately without those referrals most turn into nothing sandwiches. I'm not a coding god but I d…

> I entered software in 2019, and the pay is much lower than even 2019 pay. I've been in the industry for 20 years now and the 2019-2021 market (ie: the pandemic market) is the craziest I've ever seen. You definitely came onto the market at the highest possible point. The only time the hiring market was better was during the 90s dot com boom (or so I'm told. That's before my time.)

Getting a job in the 90s was easier (depending on how you define easier), but none of it was online. There were plenty of open positions, but you had to attend a lot of in-person job fares, send actual paper copies of your resume and cover letters to people in Human Resources, follow-up with phone calls, and show up to interviews in a collared shirt. The job market right now is a lot like after the bust in 00. Everything really sucked for a few years after that

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#109

Post by antisthenes »

> my safety net has always been my skills and the ability to get another job whenever I want

You need to have an actual safety net. Like 1-2 years worth of living expenses. Especially if you're a man and/or if you can't easily live a few months with friends/parents, etc.

The best way to deal with job market anxiety is to:

1. Live well below your means 2. Own your property

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#110

Post by mightymosquito »

Unfrozen0688 wrote: post #25
kemiller2002 wrote: post #13

I'll let you in on the secret to finding a job. It's not about your skills really (maybe some), it's about who you know. If you're relying on only your skill to carry you through to finding a job, you're going to have a rough time. It's about who you know. You're looking for a job? Go to meetups, code and coffees, free tech seminars by companies etc. That's your job now. Connect with people on LinkedIn. There are ver…

I agree, if he has been working since 2011 he should know a lot of ppl? He never worked in a team and can grab them on discord, phone, sms, text, skype, email, blog comment, instagram , snapchat, github account and see if they are looking where they are working now? Asking OP.

I just moved to Canada about 2 years ago, so yes, I do have a giant network back home, but hardly anyone in the west. Trying to figure that here as well now.
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