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Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

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Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#611

Post by dhcpserver »

iamdbtoo wrote: post #341
irvingprime wrote: post #209

The longest period of unemployment I've ever experienced ended about 6 months ago. I was unemployed for 11 months. The company that finally hired me was intentionally targeting people with lots of experience. I have that. They also pay less than I used to make but I took it because I needed a job. Previous to that period of unemployment, my resume tended to get noticed. I got interviews from 3 applications out of 5.…

> My conclusion is that the market has gotten much worse for people with experience who don't hide being white and male. Really? Mine is that companies value experience less.

I've noticed this too. I assumed it’s because they see experience as leading to higher wage expectations.

Ageism is a significant issue in tech as well. I've had friends with decades of experience who were turned away with comments like the employer wanting someone to "grow with the company" or that they had "too much" experience. These phrases often serve as code for ageism, which is incredibly hard to prove.

Zuckerberg famously said something like "younger people are smarter," which was a mistake to say out loud, but many employers unfortunately believe it. Even millennials are starting to age out.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#612

Post by dhcpserver »

notfried wrote: post #58

I see this as a combination of three forces at play: AI, WFH, and Skillset--all adding downward pressure to hiring talent in the U.S.: 1) While A.I. may now be only adding 10-20% of productivity gains, the rapid pace of improvement leaves open the possibility that tha gains can be soon much more than that. So, instead of scaling your company now, if you can afford to, wait out a bit and see where this goes. 2) Even t…

Tesla wasn't paying as much as the big tech companies, which meant he didn't have access to that top 1%. By opening the door to more H-1B visas, he could ideally flood the market with international candidates and attract higher skills at a lower cost.

While this approach is self-serving, it makes sense. He could acquire that top talent today if he was willing to pay for it—people would leave their current jobs for a pay upgrade. But he's not willing to do that. So, he needs more candidates.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#613

Post by dhcpserver »

dddrh wrote: post #173

Adding a topline response echoing the same thing. Been on the job hunt since October 1, and have done hundreds of applications, yet only spoken to 3 companies, and made it past the hiring manager once. I’m a technical product manager with 10+ years and most recently was head of product at a healthtech company. It seems like none of my experience or background matters for the initial screen. The most frustrating part…

During Covid, I had many lively debates with my peers about remote jobs. They kept insisting that the "world has changed" and that remote jobs are the future. My anxious self struggled to understand that. I'm good at my job, but I'm not naive. I know I live in a high cost of living market that not everyone wants to be in, so the competition isn't too threatening.

But take that away, and as I mentioned, you’re now competing against the entire world. I've worked with talented people in Eastern Europe and Asia who could easily do my job for a quarter of the pay. I really don’t want to compete against that.

All the friends who moved their families to farms in Iowa to be near family and enjoy the low cost of living? I’d be terrified that if I ever lost my job, I’d have to search far and wide for one of those scarce remote positions, and there’s no way I’d get my Bay Area salary now.

Plus, now that my kids are in local schools in Iowa and my wife is deeply connected with the local extended family, there's no way I could move back to the Bay unscathed.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#614

Post by dhcpserver »

neom wrote: post #112

I know you specifically said you don't have a degree, but never the less the comment section gives me mega flashbacks to what happened with MBAs around 2010/2013. Same pattern.... everyone had been pushing MBAs as the "good" career path, schools were pumping out grads, and then the music stopped. I watched friends who dropped $150k+ on top MBA programs struggle to land jobs that would let them pay off their loans. Th…

The same thing happened with law careers earlier. Everyone believed that becoming a lawyer was the golden ticket. Back in the early 2000s, law schools were packed with people pursuing that path.

Everyone highlighted the starting salaries of lawyers, but those figures applied mainly to outliers in BigLaw. Many graduates found themselves with $150k in debt, working $60k associate jobs in major cities. It can take a decade or more before you start earning the kind of money you were promised at graduation.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#615

Post by dhcpserver »

robocat wrote: post #419
ajmurmann wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the difference between "interviewed" and "hired" here is crucial. I had a similar rule at my previous job. If anything I felt the risk was that this would be abused to the detriment of the URM candidate. If you have a strong candidate coming through but haven't met the URM interview retirement yet, it's tempting to not look for a "real" candidate but just go through the motions with the next candidate who matches…

> URM underrepresented minority (Not from USA so I don't know many diversity acronyms)

Would Asians still fall into this category? OP mentioned that Apple is at 50%.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#616

Post by dhcpserver »

thrwythrwythrwy wrote: post #319

Another piece of anecdata: a major bank and credit card issuer on the East Coast has started staffing in Mexico. You’ve definitely heard of them or even actually use their services if you’re American. They led a multi-year long tech “transformation” for which they hired heavily, especially new CS graduates. That’s now been scaled back considerably, and it’s H1B contractors as far as the eye can see. The irony is that…

A race to the bottom for sure.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#617

Post by dhcpserver »

mxuribe wrote: post #160
FireBeyond wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm in my early 40s and struggle at times because although my hair is black, my beard is entirely silver, which (I think) adds 10+ years to me. And while I'm at the IC5/6 level in Product, I still worry about it, and think if I had to find a new job, sorry, fiancée who loves my beard, it has to go, or I think I'm going to have a hard time.

Yeah, if i were you and needed to win job interviews, i'd simply trim it - if only temporarily. Although, its sad of me to say, i agree with @logicchains that it might not be a bad idea to dye your beard....but i suppose might be easier to simply cut it. /sigh Good luck!

This is sad but good advice. I'm in my late 40s, and my hair is getting pretty gray, so I've started using comb-in color to tone it down. It's not about vanity; I just want to avoid standing out as older than many people around me.

I've had some amazing experiences in my career, but I've started dropping off some of my older work. I don’t include my graduation date on my resume, for example. I have nearly 30 years of solid, relevant experience, but I need to trim it down to the last 12 years or so.

Ageism is incredibly difficult to prove. Plus, you don’t want your name in the paper as someone who sues employers; it can make you seem toxic to future employers.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#618

Post by vbi8iBEX »

dhcpserver wrote: post #609
vbi8iBEX wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I came to similar conclusions from your public profile. The defensiveness of your response would be a 7th red flag. This website is part of my public profile. Allowing people to shape an incorrect narrative of myself on this website is not something I will be doing. Especially when it is coming from anonymous posters who haven't shared their professional credentials. > you have to correct your online appearance Obv…

The fact that several people have mentioned your public image might deter them from hiring you should raise some serious concerns. Instead of getting defensive and stubborn, take a moment to reflect. This could explain why you're not receiving callbacks. Insisting that you're right and everyone else is wrong isn't helping you. Given how competitive the job market is right now, you have a PR issue. It's important to t…

Your advice, and the advice of the people I am defending myself from is worthless. None of you know my situation. I'm laughing every time one of you posts these comments. There's nothing wrong with my public image. Most of the "advice" I have recieved is disinfo, some is is pure speculation based on false information. I don't really care if you see this as stubborn or defensive - I see you anr the other anon "advice givers" as ignorant and incorrect. Pretty funny though.

Deleting LinkedIn isn't extreme in the least. I hate the website and I'm better off without it - its a dying social media platform and i only had the account because a former employer forced me to create it. I am sure wpyou wisuph you could scour it for intel, but I had intended to delete it for months and was only using it to promote my personal projects and my other accounts, and apply to jobs. I monitor all of my sites with Google analytics and was getting very little traffic from LinkedIn, and none of the job applications I put out with LinkedIn panned out due to it being over saturated with applicants - as I said, worthless.

Furthermore, I am correct about H-1B. It is a broken system. This has been acknowledged by businessmen and lawmakers alike on both sides of the aisle. Posting about it on LinkedIn isn't political or complaining. I happen to be connected to extremely influential people. If my posts reached them and swayed their opinion to my side or even got them thinking about it: mission accomplished.

To reiterate, I didn't ask for advice, I asked about OTHER people's experiences as they pertain to racism, ageism and sexism - the fact that people jumped into my personal profiles and started offering up unsolicited commentary reveals their true motivations: trolling. Very unprofessional. Ill-informed "advice" rejected.

I don't need the internet to think for me, it's why I didn't ask, but thanks for contributing to the entertaining echo chamber.

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#619

Post by mxuribe »

dhcpserver wrote: post #617
mxuribe wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if i were you and needed to win job interviews, i'd simply trim it - if only temporarily. Although, its sad of me to say, i agree with @logicchains that it might not be a bad idea to dye your beard....but i suppose might be easier to simply cut it. /sigh Good luck!

This is sad but good advice. I'm in my late 40s, and my hair is getting pretty gray, so I've started using comb-in color to tone it down. It's not about vanity; I just want to avoid standing out as older than many people around me. I've had some amazing experiences in my career, but I've started dropping off some of my older work. I don’t include my graduation date on my resume, for example. I have nearly 30 years of…

The whole of it is sad...I mean, that fact that all of us beginning at a certain age need to begin to activate some life hacks is sad in so many ways. I wonder also, what did our peers 1 or 2 or 3 generations ago do at a certain point in their life to cope against ageism...assuming ageism was even a pronounced thing? (I say "pronounced" because i assume there has always been a thing of kicking the older folks to the pasture, but not sure if it was the same as nowadays.) /sigh

Re: Ask HN: Are you unable to find employment?

#620

Post by filipponeri »

Thanks a lot for the useful comments and for starting this thread. It would be helpful when one is talking about a job to add the salary range. It makes a huge difference speculating about the success or un-success of getting a job in the 30K Euro range or in the 150K USD. So what kind (salary range) of jobs have you successfully applied recently?
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