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Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

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Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#61

Post by dev1n »

gwern wrote: post #26
GregBuchholz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet. How can I make a job for these people? Think of all of the millions of man years that have gone to waste during this economic downturn. Surely there are a lot of unemployed people who could be adding value to something. I wish I was smart enough to figure out a way to harness the value of these people who are hungry for work.

Indeed. It's not hard to see how they could be producing value: if nothing else, they could be working on Wikipedia which always has an infinite number of tasks to do (such as copyediting, to tie into the OP, although a bachelor's or master's holder could be doing much more valuable in-depth research for an article), and that would produce a lot of value for all the hundreds of millions of Wikipedia users. The proble…

Actually this problem could be solved in the same way most programmers take up side projects. Even the projects that are not designed to supplement income are valuable to an employer. Editing a hundred pages in Wikipedia has got to be a pretty decent way of selling yourself, even if just on a resmue, to an employer. That's a sort of "buzzword" that isn't found often. Instead of sitting around filling out 20 applications, that person could have just edited 10 pages of Wikipedia, and felt better about themselves too, and just added something extremely unique to their profile.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#62

Post by notJim »

patdennis wrote: post #4

We’re familiar with the art of the job search: day after day, scanning the classifieds, Monster, Indeed, Craigslist, etc. for open positions; forever touching up résumés to appeal to specific job requirements; writing endless cover letters that never seem to sound quite right; applying to dozens, maybe hundreds of jobs per week; staring vacuously at the familiar monitor glow at 3 a.m. This sounds horrible. I've never…

I've always heard it's the only way to go, but I've never gotten a job through personal or professional connections. I believe my last two jobs have been through either StackOverflow careers or HN.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#63

Post by minikomi »

hkmurakami wrote: post #27
mynameishere wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

be it through an internship, a temp job Well, those would count as jobs themselves, so you would have to send out resumes anyway. And clearly, this guy is trying to make a name for himself with his blog, to the extent that's possible. The problem is a lot of people have very general qualifications. A masters in English may mean a lot or nothing. I keep an eye on job postings and you sometimes get used to the same ver…

> I keep an eye on job postings and you sometimes get used to the same very specific job showing up week after week. This is very good advice and I urge anyone using the resume drop type job channels.

This reminds me of when I was looking for a share house in Tokyo.. I kept seeing the same ones pop up over and over, and after visiting a few it became obvious there was a reason why in each case.

In the end I made my case as a good share-ee, and a good share-er found me soon after (on mixi, a kind of Japanese only Facebook which has since been consumed). Perhaps, if you are looking for a great job, it makes sense now to make your case, make it visible to the right people, and wait.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#64

Post by ilaksh »

suresk wrote: post #60
eli_gottlieb wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much agreed. The notion that there will or must exist demand for labor corresponding to every individual's basic needs has never actually been proven. The statement is then left as a should statement, but why should we force our society into the mold of a bizarre reverse-moralization?

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I have to ask - how do you ration goods and services in an economy except for some kind of currency? And how do you propose we award people said currency besides some direct or indirect correlation with their work output? It seems likely to me that technology will continue to create a gap between the supply of workers and the demand for those workers, but figuring out how t…

Who said to do away with currency? I didn't see him say that.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#65

Post by rprasad »

dev1n wrote: post #61
gwern wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It's not hard to see how they could be producing value: if nothing else, they could be working on Wikipedia which always has an infinite number of tasks to do (such as copyediting, to tie into the OP, although a bachelor's or master's holder could be doing much more valuable in-depth research for an article), and that would produce a lot of value for all the hundreds of millions of Wikipedia users. The proble…

Actually this problem could be solved in the same way most programmers take up side projects. Even the projects that are not designed to supplement income are valuable to an employer. Editing a hundred pages in Wikipedia has got to be a pretty decent way of selling yourself, even if just on a resmue, to an employer. That's a sort of "buzzword" that isn't found often. Instead of sitting around filling out 20 applicati…

Only until the Wikipedia Mafia reverts all of those changes and then bans your account for "vandalism."

One of the best ways to get contacts in a field is to volunteer for an organization that does exactly, or something in the neighborhood of, what you want to do.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#66

Post by gwern »

dev1n wrote: post #61
gwern wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. It's not hard to see how they could be producing value: if nothing else, they could be working on Wikipedia which always has an infinite number of tasks to do (such as copyediting, to tie into the OP, although a bachelor's or master's holder could be doing much more valuable in-depth research for an article), and that would produce a lot of value for all the hundreds of millions of Wikipedia users. The proble…

Actually this problem could be solved in the same way most programmers take up side projects. Even the projects that are not designed to supplement income are valuable to an employer. Editing a hundred pages in Wikipedia has got to be a pretty decent way of selling yourself, even if just on a resmue, to an employer. That's a sort of "buzzword" that isn't found often. Instead of sitting around filling out 20 applicati…

I doubt it. I've edited far far more than a hundred pages (http://www.gwern.net/Wikipedia%20resume), and I never got a job offer nor did it ever make any discernible difference to my life - which is inline with what I heard (or rather, didn't hear) from all my Wikipedian confreres. When I switched my efforts to my own website, then things changed a little bit.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#67

Post by suresk »

ilaksh wrote: post #64
suresk wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily disagree with this, but I have to ask - how do you ration goods and services in an economy except for some kind of currency? And how do you propose we award people said currency besides some direct or indirect correlation with their work output? It seems likely to me that technology will continue to create a gap between the supply of workers and the demand for those workers, but figuring out how t…

Who said to do away with currency? I didn't see him say that.

Removing currency isn't the problem - removing the traditional dominant method of acquiring it is.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#68

Post by Mystitat »

pyre wrote: post #35
wcchandler wrote: post #21

I attempted something similar during my last year of college. I made a posting at my closest large city, detailing my ideal job. I also laid out what seemed to be good requirements that I would have satisfied for the position. I was astounded by the results. I quickly had to remove the ad, too. The messages were heart wrenching to read. One man was unemployed after being discharged from the military. Another man had…

> My skillset was expendable and I needed to realize that. > I lost my sense of entitlement. I used to think my > $100,000 piece of paper meant something. > > Then I realized it did. I feel like this part is going over my head if the 'did' isn't a typo (meant "didn't).

I think he means that his education helped him make these conclusions.

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#69

Post by hkmurakami »

justjimmy wrote: post #25

I recently started looking for an iOS artist to work with and I posted a job ad on Craiglist and Kijiji, for the first time. I was overwhelmed with the response - I mean I knew there was alot of people using Craigslist but I had no idea of the scope. And the spam. I even had people submitting me their resumes who had nothing to do with what I was looking for. Needless to say, I was quite surprised by amount of respon…

But it's a pie chart! Pie charts are evil! :)

http://www.quora.com/How-and-why-are-pie-charts-considered-e...

Re: Get A Job: The Craigslist Experiment

#70

Post by [deleted] »

rprasad wrote: post #65
dev1n wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this problem could be solved in the same way most programmers take up side projects. Even the projects that are not designed to supplement income are valuable to an employer. Editing a hundred pages in Wikipedia has got to be a pretty decent way of selling yourself, even if just on a resmue, to an employer. That's a sort of "buzzword" that isn't found often. Instead of sitting around filling out 20 applicati…

Only until the Wikipedia Mafia reverts all of those changes and then bans your account for "vandalism." One of the best ways to get contacts in a field is to volunteer for an organization that does exactly, or something in the neighborhood of, what you want to do.

[deleted]
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