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When the job search becomes impossible

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Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#41

Post by BobbyJo »

kfk wrote: post #17

I met many programmers during the boom years of software that straight out refused to develop any type of soft or managerial skills. Forget that, they even refused to maintain good relationships with decision makers (and I did this too, but only once in my carrier), left jobs in bad ways, focused on chasing salary increases every 6 months. And here is the problem. If you have been chasing "easy" salary increases, wor…

The pool of young kids that can challenge the technical ability of someone with 20 years more experience is small enough that I don't mind competing with them for employment.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#42

Post by raffael_de »

TrackerFF wrote: post #12

I've been thinking about job searching lately, maybe a bit too much. I'm employed, so it is not any immediate concern for me, but one has to think ahead. Between age discrimination that starts after 50, and how difficult the job search seemingly is...some people will have to work at least until they're 70. That's a solid 15-20 years more, after the job hunting is an uphill battle. If the work search is hard while you…

> If the work search is hard while you're at your peak, professionally speaking, how are you supposed to be stay positive after that?

Life never gets easier with age. I guess that's just something we all have to come to terms with eventually.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#43

Post by achierius »

marginalia_nu wrote: post #23
SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #6

This essay just makes me feel so hopeless about our society. I don’t feel it’s right that employment has such weight in people’s lives that the search causes psychological damage.

I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. There are many psychological needs that jobs often provide for you that you have to sort out yourself when you don't have traditional employement. This is a problem you face through unemployement, but also self-employment and early retirement. At least in part, it's not so much not having a job as not having daily structu…

What are you talking about? That's not the issue for most people. For most people the issue is that if you don't have a job for long enough, the government will send people to throw you out on the streets to suffer and die.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#44

Post by MontyCarloHall »

kfk wrote: post #17

I met many programmers during the boom years of software that straight out refused to develop any type of soft or managerial skills. Forget that, they even refused to maintain good relationships with decision makers (and I did this too, but only once in my carrier), left jobs in bad ways, focused on chasing salary increases every 6 months. And here is the problem. If you have been chasing "easy" salary increases, wor…

>I met many programmers during the boom years of software that straight out refused to develop any type of soft or managerial skills. [If you’ve been] working only on the comfortable stuff like developing tech skills, you should have seen this coming. It's very, very, very hard to maintain sharp coding skills decade after decade.

It’s funny you say this. I’ve observed the opposite: even basic coding skills can atrophy extremely quickly in previously sharp developers who quit coding to go onto a management track. The devs who never quit coding are the ones who stay sharp into old age; the ones who have problems getting hired in their 50s are the managers who quit coding in their 30s, worked the same middle-management position for 15+ years, and as a result have a skill/knowledge set that’s 15+ years out of date and can't answer FizzBuzz-level questions in first-round pulse-check interviews.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#45

Post by pizzathyme »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #27
pizzathyme wrote: post #13

> "You’ve spent several months sending out scores of carefully tailored resumes and cover letters for jobs you know you are fully qualified for and would excel at." People should not do this. It is causing so much suffering. In my 6 jobs in my career from college internship to startups to Big Tech, I have never gotten a job from sending an application into a site. It's always been through (somehow) tracking down a pe…

As other posters have said, this only really works if you have a network. Zeroth-order referrals (i.e. they call you) work best, first-order referrals (i.e. you know someone at the company) work decently well, and second-order referrals (you know someone who knows someone to refer you) are a guided shot in the dark. People who have networks all know this. The issue is that a shocking number of people don't have any n…

Unless you are a hermit, everyone has a network, even if it's small. Everyone has a few friends, a brother/sister/dad/mom/cousin, a few people in their town they know. All of those people know someone else, and that's your initial pool of job opportunities to look at.

This might not get you into your dream company. But it can get you a next job to grow from.

For one of my jobs I had no contacts in the industry so I emailed someone at the company who went to my school, mentioned we both went there, and could they meet for coffee. I then drove 2 hours to meet him. We discussed what was happening at his company, are there opportunities, and he referred me.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#46

Post by josephwegner »

calepayson wrote: post #38
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other posters have said, this only really works if you have a network. Zeroth-order referrals (i.e. they call you) work best, first-order referrals (i.e. you know someone at the company) work decently well, and second-order referrals (you know someone who knows someone to refer you) are a guided shot in the dark. People who have networks all know this. The issue is that a shocking number of people don't have any n…

And juniors. I’m in a masters program right now and everyone’s got a network, it just happens to be filled with poor starving grad students instead of FAANG super stars :)

Give it time. Networks are a garden that grow over time, and moreso if you cater to them. Some of those starving grad students will be VPs in 10 years.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#47

Post by PyWoody »

pizzathyme wrote: post #13

> "You’ve spent several months sending out scores of carefully tailored resumes and cover letters for jobs you know you are fully qualified for and would excel at." People should not do this. It is causing so much suffering. In my 6 jobs in my career from college internship to startups to Big Tech, I have never gotten a job from sending an application into a site. It's always been through (somehow) tracking down a pe…

> It's always been through (somehow) tracking down a person to speak to over phone or coffee, and get a referral.

Just be careful contacting recruiters directly. I know of at least one F100 that will blacklist you for pestering their recruiters. If you think ai-generated resumes are overwhelming recruiters, you should see their LinkedIn inboxes.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#48

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

pizzathyme wrote: post #13

> "You’ve spent several months sending out scores of carefully tailored resumes and cover letters for jobs you know you are fully qualified for and would excel at." People should not do this. It is causing so much suffering. In my 6 jobs in my career from college internship to startups to Big Tech, I have never gotten a job from sending an application into a site. It's always been through (somehow) tracking down a pe…

I've gotten several jobs this way, including the best jobs of my career. It's insufferable the way so many commenters here assume their experience is representative of or applicable to others. It's like if main character syndrome was a web site comments section.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#49

Post by marstall »

So for an (employed) developer like me, who is dreading the next job search, what's a "hot" profession I could train myself on so my experience in the job market over the next 15 years could be like it was in the salad days of 1996-2022?

(I'm making a pass at "learning AI" but don't feel 100% certain that demand for that will be sustainable at a high level over the next decade ...)

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#50

Post by marginalia_nu »

achierius wrote: post #43
marginalia_nu wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of people simply don't know what to do with themselves when they don't have a job. There are many psychological needs that jobs often provide for you that you have to sort out yourself when you don't have traditional employement. This is a problem you face through unemployement, but also self-employment and early retirement. At least in part, it's not so much not having a job as not having daily structu…

What are you talking about? That's not the issue for most people. For most people the issue is that if you don't have a job for long enough, the government will send people to throw you out on the streets to suffer and die.

I have tried various forms of non-work (including unemployment while unqualified for government aid), and the by far most mentally devastating thing I've done was to take an extended sabbatical where I really just did nothing but sit on my ass, play video games, watch netflix, and scroll social media for 8 months. Took me years to get my brain sorted again.
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