Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When the job search becomes impossible

jeffwofford.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 469 posts

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#81

Post by add-sub-mul-div »

detaro wrote: post #58
add-sub-mul-div wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And of course it's the people that have a different experience than you that are insufferable, not the ones that share yours, right?

That's not anywhere close to my point, it's not their stance I have any issue with. it's their mindset that their own stance is universal:

> People should not do this.

> It is causing so much suffering.

> I have never gotten a job from sending an application into a site.

> A form is not going to a hire you, a person is. You need to ignore the form and talk to a person.

> I wish I could put this on a billboard everywhere.

My experience is opposite to this but I'm not selling it as absolute truth or even giving it as advice at all.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#82

Post by cess11 »

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…

A kid twenty years younger than me is in their early twenties and they would have to be some kind of Wunderkind to have spent decades learning operating systems, networking, programming languages, business and law to the degree I have.

When I'm sixty I'll have transitioned from software on commodity hardware and clusters to electronic things but I expect people in their forties to still come to me for advice.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#83

Post by insane_dreamer »

DaveZale wrote: post #74
insane_dreamer wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This only works if you had a good job and a decent amount of savings and no family to support.

or a dual income household. My wife and I have taken turns on who has the jobs with the benefits. Maybe you're right, maybe we're an exception. But I know educated guys around here whose wives work, and stay home with the kids, run volunteer .org in their spare time.

Right that works too. But only if a single income is high enough to keep the boat afloat for a while.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#84

Post by insane_dreamer »

danans wrote: post #73
insane_dreamer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A form is not going to a hire you, a person is. This is becoming less and less true. > You need to ignore the form and talk to a person. Unless you're lucky, this is no longer going to happen. Getting a job is now becoming much more about luck, circumstances, and who you already know, much like getting your first starring role in a movie -- not about your abilities.

> Getting a job is now becoming much more about luck, circumstances, and who you already know, much like getting your first starring role in a movie -- not about your abilities. Getting a starring role in a movie has a lot to do with abilities, not just luck and who you know. Many companies are looking for strong mission alignment, because when it's a buyer's job market, why not select someone who has intrinsic motiv…

The abilities is the threshold requirement - which many people have - the rest is luck and connections.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#85

Post by drivebyhooting »

tcrow wrote: post #63

Sometimes you just need to look locally. Chances are there are positions available close enough to your home that its worth the following effort. I have personally walked into places I was interested in working at and asked for an engineering manager. About 50% of the time, a manager comes out to meet me. I show interest, they show interest (generally, and even if they are not hiring). This has lead to much improved…

Is this in America? I can’t imagine walking anywhere, nor being able to get past security, if indeed there is even a human manning the gates.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#86

Post by wakawaka28 »

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.

Let me stop you right there. Not everyone can be a manager, mathematically speaking, especially in a downturn.

>Even if the job market was good, the reality is that you will eventually end up with a set of tech skills that a kid 20 years younger than you, with no family and so being able to live on lower salary, probably has too.

You say this as if a kid with no family has the same skills as a person 20 years older. This is not the case. Generally old workers have seen a lot more and make wiser use of their time, on top of having superior skills.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#87

Post by Loic »

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…

> It's very, very, very hard to maintain sharp coding skills decade after decade.

I am at the end of the third decade, soon entering the 4th. I find it easier with the time. This is because with the experience, I can directly zero on the fundamentals of the new technology popping up and quickly see if this is just marketing or more a breakthrough.

Also, we have less diversity now, every new tech getting momentum is quickly defacto standardizing. Look at the way we run LLMs now, tons of models, 5 lines of Python, within 2 years, everything kind of standardized. You can now quickly pick up the subject (ironically, the LLM will help you there) and run with it.

It is way harder for young people, because of this FOMO, they try everything and nothing, they copy/paste what "God" GPT told them and have no understanding of how things are working in the background. For them to learn "through the stack", without experience, with the new big thing coming out every week but without the ability to judge, it is very hard. I am happy that my first website was static and cgi-bin was still a thing, happy that I learnt how to get my Fortran code to run fast on an multi-core system (yes, Sun stuff), that I was able to build relatively slowly my experience.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#88

Post by DaveZale »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #83
DaveZale wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

or a dual income household. My wife and I have taken turns on who has the jobs with the benefits. Maybe you're right, maybe we're an exception. But I know educated guys around here whose wives work, and stay home with the kids, run volunteer .org in their spare time.

Right that works too. But only if a single income is high enough to keep the boat afloat for a while.

Yes but the flip side, is that we lived in Indiana for a while. Very cheap living there. So, keep your expenses low, with no debt. Freedom.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#89

Post by phoenixhaber »

There are no jobs. I'm being stalked and fucked with in San Francisco. Constantly. Everyone here is insane and most people are sick. Life is pointless. I'm just waking up and doing something and then going to sleep in a shelter again.

They give me sick to their kids as some sort of sick joke and wait for me to die. I had someone put fentanyl in the coffee they served at de haro church while I was lugging fifty pound bags of potatoes to give to the poor. Cool way to fuck up someone's back. Because they're insane and murderous. It's like that shit everywhere unless you have money and can hire private security or a group of you and your friends have a secret way to poison people.

I've asked construction workers if I can do shift labor for cash and they always say no. Fucking bonkers. I hurt all over more or less all of the time. There are people that have had their entire bodies melt from disease from being exposed to weaponized sick here.

There's absolutely no point in giving a shit about anything anymore. I'm just waiting to die truth be told.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#90

Post by firefax »

phoenixhaber wrote: post #89

There are no jobs. I'm being stalked and fucked with in San Francisco. Constantly. Everyone here is insane and most people are sick. Life is pointless. I'm just waking up and doing something and then going to sleep in a shelter again. They give me sick to their kids as some sort of sick joke and wait for me to die. I had someone put fentanyl in the coffee they served at de haro church while I was lugging fifty pound…

No offense, but maybe they're narcan-ing you because you because you're nodding out in public?

I am not doubting you have been fucked with -- I once got into a 2v1 brawl on the Mission and 16th BART that only ended because I sent one flying into a pillar and told the other if he kept coming, he was going onto the fucking tracks.These guys kept going over to a homeless guy who was just... sitting there... trying to get a rise, hoping for an excuse to "defend" themselves. And when I told them to quit being bullies, they tried to jump me.

So trust me, I believe you, and I get that trauma can have an impact on your life.

But if you are using narcotics, it will impact your search.

If you want help getting clean, I could send some resources to the email on your profile -- on the technical side you sound like a better coder than me and if you had that part locked down I suspect you'd quickly find work.

Post reply on HN