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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

#131

Post by notalegend »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #47
peterldowns wrote: post #39

Send me an email — I'm an '18 and if you're telling the truth about side projects, interview skills, graduating, etc. then I should be able to help you find a job very quickly, either in my own org or with someone I know who is hiring. > I’m facing the very real possibility of moving back home to an unstable and abusive environment while continuing to job hunt You don't have to do this. You can do anything you want y…

> 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…

[flagged]

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

#132

Post by bofadeez »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #116
peterldowns wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sincerely hope that you seek and receive help.

What help? There is no help that will stop me from being an untermensch and failure? It's not going to get me a 1600 or get me into a top school or make me earn $800k a year.

Yeah that's okay. You're suffering from a common thing. You just need therapy and then you'll learn you're good enough without accomplishments. Right now you think you need to accomplish things to have value. That's a really basic textbook mental illness caused by parental neglect. Usually something like intermittent random love / neglect. Study attachment theory and you'll learn all about it.

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

#133

Post by FilosofumRex »

poopiokaka wrote: post #84

Get a McDonald’s job. Why would you move home to an abusive environment

Most current MIT students (except ROTC) don't get out of bed until 10, have never worked a day in their precious little lives and prefer hot-pot to McDonalds.

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

#135

Post by disgruntledphd2 »

revskill wrote: post #103
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 kept hearing about 2008 crisis. It is overrated. Just a market up and down ?

It was probably the worst economic crisis of the last fifty years. It went on forever, particularly in Europe and the UK (mostly because of a bunch of bone-headed moves by politicians).

Even the US basically didn't get back to where it was pre-2008 till 2019.

Tech was fine because mobile was happening, but it was incredibly grim everywhere else.

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

#136

Post by taurath »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #25
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’…

> 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’t want to, but it was ultimately temporary. I'm going to challenge this as you didn't give specific data to back it up. I read an article recently that did have data, and it made the argument that first jobs, an…

The stats bear this out, but you can usually pivot to something better, especially if you have the skillset and drive to continuously up your skillset and find parts of industry that are in demand. It’s the companies where you learn nothing where you stagnate.

I doubt there’ll be a shortage of ML jobs in the next few years, unless somehow the AI industry completely collapses somehow.

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

#138

Post by Clubber »

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…

I second this. I haven't had to do the typical recruiter channel since 1998. I have plenty of people I've worked with in previous jobs whose companies were looking for good people. This only works if you work hard enough to make a good impression.

I would suggest for your first job, take whatever you can get, as long as it is in your field, and deal with it for the first two years to get your foot in the industry. My first job was notoriously horrible, but after two years, I got a really good job with a company you've heard of through a recommendation.

Also, I would suggest looking outside the typical mega tech companies. There are plenty of other industries that need good people.

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

#140

Post by giantg2 »

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’…

This was true even a few years after 08/09. I applied to about 250 positions and lowballed my salary. I did get a job after 5 or so months of looking. I will say, that lowball salary is still impacting me today. If you do lowball yourself, you have to do a bit of job hopping when the market gets good to boost it.
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