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Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

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Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#61

Post by gedy »

carabiner wrote: post #59
Aurornis wrote: post #2

Truly sorry you feel this way. For what it’s worth, this was common for people graduating into the 2008 financial crisis, too. It’s actually unusual that we went for so long without another period of contraction. From last time around: The people who kept pushing and took any job, anywhere turned out okay. This translated to a lot of people taking jobs below what they expected to get or having to move when they didn’…

I don't think it was that bad. I graduated 12/2008 in aerospace engineering from a big state school. Not MIT. We all had at least 1 offer from big companies, even the middling students. I had 2 offers, and probably could have swung a third. It felt like the recession mostly affected the housing market and older career folks, but for us new grads things were mostly normal. This feels like a permanent shift due to AI i…

2008 wasn't that bad for tech, but 2001 was and might be better comparison.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#62

Post by fragmede »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #48
qazxcvbnmlp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to this. If I go look at social media the job market is ending. But if I look at the signals around me there's plenty of opportunities. Also consider taking something below (or even much below) expectations. It's much easier to work your way up with connections than it is to get in the door with no references.

MIT students expect (not unfairly) to work at Jane Street/HRT/Jump/Citadel Securities/OpenAI/Anthropic and then "settle" for Google or Facebook. They're not going to work for Fidelity or Raytheon.

That's a bit of a charcacture of Course 6 at MIT. Course 10 is chemical engineering and plenty of them go into industry at all the major oil companies. Lots of MIT students go into aerospace and defense (Lincoln Labs is directly federally funded) and MIT holds a yearly Soldier Design Competition that also helps students go for SBIRs. Raytheon is a big hirer of course 2 (MechE) MIT grads.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#63

Post by laidoffamazon »

peterldowns wrote: post #57
laidoffamazon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Realizing that I am owed nothing, and focusing on ways to get what I want. I don't think the system _ever_ fails people with "merit" like MIT grads. It fails people like me that can't get into top schools that went to 50% accept rate public schools. I graduated in 2018 too - I guarantee people like you consider me and my career accomplishments in the intervening years to be failure worthy. I genuinely think a typic…

How dare you guarantee that I'd consider you a failure? You don't know me, don't put that on me. In fact I am pretty sure I wouldn't consider you a failure. You're saying a lot of negative things about yourself and I don't know you or your situation but I hope you don't give up.

I recognize your username and I've followed your career since ~2017 or something. I never got an interview at Stripe, not that I would have ever passed it. I'm not a L6/L7/L8. I worked at Amazon, and people think my class of people are subhuman.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#64

Post by kkylin »

Rooster61 wrote: post #8

It's hard to face this when fresh out of school, but one piece of advice I can offer is to network as much as you can. Talk to folks you know that graduated before you and have a job. Talk to professors who might have industry ties in their history. Talk to folks in the career center. Try to be as visible as you can. Yes, I know that seems trivial considering you don't have job experience, but even building relations…

Agree with everything here, with one minor addition: talk not just to professors who might have industry ties, but everyone in your orbit with whom you have reason to think might help -- even those professors (or research scientists or postdocs or grad students or what have you) who entered MIT as a freshman and never left will have had many contacts (e.g., former students or classmates) who are in industry, and in many cases people do keep in touch.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#65

Post by fragmede »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #63
peterldowns wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dare you guarantee that I'd consider you a failure? You don't know me, don't put that on me. In fact I am pretty sure I wouldn't consider you a failure. You're saying a lot of negative things about yourself and I don't know you or your situation but I hope you don't give up.

I recognize your username and I've followed your career since ~2017 or something. I never got an interview at Stripe, not that I would have ever passed it. I'm not a L6/L7/L8. I worked at Amazon, and people think my class of people are subhuman.

Levels.fyi has L5 at Amazon making $150k base, $220k TC. You might not be Jeff Dean or Andrej Karpathy but there's only two of them. None of us are. That's not remotely subhuman failure.

https://www.levels.fyi/companies/amazon/salaries/systems-dev...

Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#66

Post by carabiner »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #48
qazxcvbnmlp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1 to this. If I go look at social media the job market is ending. But if I look at the signals around me there's plenty of opportunities. Also consider taking something below (or even much below) expectations. It's much easier to work your way up with connections than it is to get in the door with no references.

MIT students expect (not unfairly) to work at Jane Street/HRT/Jump/Citadel Securities/OpenAI/Anthropic and then "settle" for Google or Facebook. They're not going to work for Fidelity or Raytheon.

MIT kids get part time jobs waiting tables or working retail while in school, just like other college kids. My first job out of college was non-elite aircraft manufacturer... guy on my left was MIT, on my right was CalTech.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#68

Post by fedsocpuppet »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #44

I find this seriously unlikely. Most MIT grads are getting into Jane Street or at minimum Google - they literally think working at Amazon is beneath them. Course 6 grads are not going unemployed. It is funny to hear that this person might have an unstable environment though - that isn't the profile of someone that gets into MIT. If OP is actually serious I'm more than willing to give resume advice - including in pers…

I was an undergrad and this is just wrong. Most are not going into HFT, and a bunch don't go into FAANG either. And not everyone who gets in was raised in a perfect upper middle class life. Do you really want to care about judgement from people who think not working at a trading firm is a failure? Those people are insufferable anyway

Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#69

Post by freedomben »

kkylin wrote: post #64
Rooster61 wrote: post #8

It's hard to face this when fresh out of school, but one piece of advice I can offer is to network as much as you can. Talk to folks you know that graduated before you and have a job. Talk to professors who might have industry ties in their history. Talk to folks in the career center. Try to be as visible as you can. Yes, I know that seems trivial considering you don't have job experience, but even building relations…

Agree with everything here, with one minor addition: talk not just to professors who might have industry ties, but everyone in your orbit with whom you have reason to think might help -- even those professors (or research scientists or postdocs or grad students or what have you) who entered MIT as a freshman and never left will have had many contacts (e.g., former students or classmates) who are in industry, and in m…

Indeed, this is a big benefit of being from MIT. Most professors at most schools don't have good connections in my experience, but that is not the case for MIT.

Asking for referrals/connections will be more effective though if you have an interest and focus and can articulate that to the prof. Imagine they are the first link in the hiring chain and treat them accordingly. You need to sell yourself to them before they'll sell you to their network.

Re: Ask HN: I'm an MIT senior and still unemployed – and so are most of my friends

#70

Post by Rooster61 »

kkylin wrote: post #64
Rooster61 wrote: post #8

It's hard to face this when fresh out of school, but one piece of advice I can offer is to network as much as you can. Talk to folks you know that graduated before you and have a job. Talk to professors who might have industry ties in their history. Talk to folks in the career center. Try to be as visible as you can. Yes, I know that seems trivial considering you don't have job experience, but even building relations…

Agree with everything here, with one minor addition: talk not just to professors who might have industry ties, but everyone in your orbit with whom you have reason to think might help -- even those professors (or research scientists or postdocs or grad students or what have you) who entered MIT as a freshman and never left will have had many contacts (e.g., former students or classmates) who are in industry, and in m…

This. My comment was definitely not meant to limit, just giving examples. Introduce yourself to a brick wall if you think it will give you a boost
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