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Looking for a Job Is Tough

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Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#261

Post by _heimdall »

randomdata wrote: post #249
_heimdall wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Farming isn't in good economic shape right now either, granted. Anyone considering farming should take note of this. The industry is not in a place where farmers can make any meaningful profit, especially if you're just getting into it. At best the average farmer breaks even after depending heavily on federal subsidies and crop insurance. There are likely technical roles in the age industry, though personally that…

> The industry is not in a place where farmers can make any meaningful profit To be fair, there was Onlyfans kind of money in it in 2022. It ebbs and flows. Always has, always will. It just might not be a good tech backup plan as the ebbs and flows have been perfectly aligned with tech's ebbs and flows for at least the past 20 years that I've been watching both. When tech is good, so is ag. When tech is bad, so is ag…

> To be fair, there was Onlyfans kind of money in it in 2022. It ebbs and flows. Always has, always will.

Are you thinking about some of the homestead influencer types here?

I have a homestead / small family farm and follow quite a few of the common ones. Those that make good money as influencers don't really farm, and those that do farm are getting by but not making any profits big enough to write home about.

We decided not to make our farm into a business pretty quick. The primary goal was to grow our own food anyway, including meat, but it doesn't take long to see how bad the business fundamentals are if you're unwilling to go into a crazy amount of debt to run what most would consider animal abuse and/or ecological destruction.

Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#262

Post by fluorinerocket »

briandear wrote: post #101
trentnix wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure the bar has been raised. It’s been weirded, but not raised.

The bar has been lowered in many respects. 14 years experience, 5 of them at a FAANG. Successful startup exit for a small company I founded, and and endless array of India-based recruiters that, for example, want me to mention “Ruby 3.2” in my resume when the resume says I have 14 years of Ruby experience including using it daily in my present job. I could literally say “I invented Ruby and have worked with it daily…

Had similar experiences a decade ago and now I hang up if the voice on the phone has an Indian accent and block all domains that send recruiting emails where the name is Indian sounding.

Don't give these people an inch.

Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#263

Post by fluorinerocket »

mock-possum wrote: post #175
briandear wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bar has been lowered in many respects. 14 years experience, 5 of them at a FAANG. Successful startup exit for a small company I founded, and and endless array of India-based recruiters that, for example, want me to mention “Ruby 3.2” in my resume when the resume says I have 14 years of Ruby experience including using it daily in my present job. I could literally say “I invented Ruby and have worked with it daily…

Yeah I feel like the recent application experience is almost coercing me into racism - I don’t actually believe in racial superiority, I’m not into any kind of bigotry or mistreating other people… buuuuuut I’ve noticed that I have this visceral reaction to seeing a typical Indian name on an email from a potential employer, or a thick Indian accent on a phone or zoom call. It always just seems like an indication that…

It's ok to notice

Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#264

Post by red-iron-pine »

rachofsunshine wrote: post #179
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not obsessed. There are tons of qualified people looking for such jobs, so they can afford to make demands like this

It isn't cheap, though. You burn something on the order of 80k a hire to hire in-office, probably more if you're specifically looking in SF or NYC. Those roles are going to get squeezed pretty fast as the market heats up.

okay I know hiring is expensive, but 80k? are you buying these candidates first class flights with caviar?

even at $300+ per hour of engineer time, I can interview 10 candidates with several engineers, and even fly promising ones out, for less than that, while using ATS systems like Taleo.

Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#265

Post by randomdata »

_heimdall wrote: post #261
randomdata wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The industry is not in a place where farmers can make any meaningful profit To be fair, there was Onlyfans kind of money in it in 2022. It ebbs and flows. Always has, always will. It just might not be a good tech backup plan as the ebbs and flows have been perfectly aligned with tech's ebbs and flows for at least the past 20 years that I've been watching both. When tech is good, so is ag. When tech is bad, so is ag…

> To be fair, there was Onlyfans kind of money in it in 2022. It ebbs and flows. Always has, always will. Are you thinking about some of the homestead influencer types here? I have a homestead / small family farm and follow quite a few of the common ones. Those that make good money as influencers don't really farm, and those that do farm are getting by but not making any profits big enough to write home about. We dec…

> Are you thinking about some of the homestead influencer types here?

Not really. I was humorously comparing farm incomes to incomes of certain pornographic performers. Not quite up there with the 1920s (when the farmers all built mansions after harvest), or the 1970s (when a single crop paid for the entire farm), but it was probably the third best time in history to be a farmer. Of course, good times can't last forever.

> We decided not to make our farm into a business pretty quick.

My farm was a business from the get-go. Some years are great, others not so much, but on balance it's a pretty good gig.

> if you're unwilling to go into a crazy amount of debt

That's the beauty of coming from the high paying tech industry. You don't need to accumulate the debt, you can pay for it out of pocket. I agree that if you start giving bankers your profit, you won't have a good time. That is a trap a lot of farmers do fall into, and perhaps have no choice but to without a tech (or similar starting point) foundation. However, for the typical reader here...

> to run what most would consider animal abuse and/or ecological destruction.

Be the change you want to see. There is always more work to do, but my farm has come a long way in improving upon those things from how things were done before I arrived.

Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#267

Post by ssivark »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #264
rachofsunshine wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't cheap, though. You burn something on the order of 80k a hire to hire in-office, probably more if you're specifically looking in SF or NYC. Those roles are going to get squeezed pretty fast as the market heats up.

okay I know hiring is expensive, but 80k? are you buying these candidates first class flights with caviar? even at $300+ per hour of engineer time, I can interview 10 candidates with several engineers, and even fly promising ones out, for less than that, while using ATS systems like Taleo.

I think they are referring to the annual salary differential to hire a similar skill-set for someone working remotely -vs- someone regularly coming in to the office in SF/NYC.

Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#268

Post by jkaplowitz »

jjav wrote: post #134
joshuaturner wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. We pretty explicitly ask candidates to not use AI. While it's fine when doing the job the purpose of the interview is to gauge your ability to understand and solve problems, while AI can help you with that you understanding how to do it yourself signals that you'll be able to solve other more complex wider-spanning problems. Just like with a calculator - it's important for candidates to know _why_ somethi…

> Just like with a calculator - it's important for candidates to know _why_ something works and be able to demonstrate that as much as them knowing the solution. And this is why I never give coding-puzzle interviews. I just have a chat about your past projects (based on resume). We'll go deep into the technical details and it is easy in such a conversation to get a feel for whether you actually contributed significan…

Only sometimes is your historical deep-dive approach going to give you the right signal.

I’ve been out of work for a couple of years due to complicated immigration reasons, and I was most recently a people manager (although with a few direct technical tasks still). I honestly don’t remember many of the deep technical details of things to which I genuinely contributed significantly as an individual contributor or tech lead, despite those being entirely real and despite me still being a capable hands-on technical person. I’ve had so many jobs recently reject me for reasons like this without giving me a chance to actually demonstrate what I can do.

Memory tests are biased toward people who did the work recently, and biased against people with ADHD (who often have worse long-term memory for such details without being worse hires).

The coding interview shouldn’t be just a blind submit and wait for feedback, nor a live rushed and high-pressure puzzle test (you’re quite right in that regard). Ideally it should be the candidate doing what’s expected to be 1-3 hours of work asynchronously at their convenience within a period of a few days, and then discussing (maybe even presenting/demoing) live in a way that shows deep technical understanding and good communication skills. That avoids conflating memory tests with technical tests. Certain live coding tests can also be okay, but I agree it’s easy to make them unnecessarily uncomfortable with a false signal either way.

Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#269

Post by aprilthird2021 »

rachofsunshine wrote: post #179
aprilthird2021 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not obsessed. There are tons of qualified people looking for such jobs, so they can afford to make demands like this

It isn't cheap, though. You burn something on the order of 80k a hire to hire in-office, probably more if you're specifically looking in SF or NYC. Those roles are going to get squeezed pretty fast as the market heats up.

Sure, but the productivity gains are probably worth to such companies. Also the costs probably go down per person the more people you put in the same office

Re: Looking for a Job Is Tough

#270

Post by phendrenad2 »

Plasmoid wrote: post #26

There are just piles and piles of companies out there trying to hire but are absolutely obsessed with having people work in their terrible SF offices. I don't get it. If these companies really believed that working in an office was so beneficial they would invest in them. But they all come across like "I need an office to appear like a real company but I don't want to spend a lot of money". They're these millennial g…

How many of these companies are funded by people who also own large office buildings in silicon valley and SF?
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