When the job search becomes impossible • Hacker News Board

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#401

Post by monkeyelite » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 4:36 PM UTC

squigz wrote: post #398

monkeyelite wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re telling me you don’t live in America. But also you know better about salaries and standards of living in America.

I don't think one has to live in a country to be able to look up and read statistics, or talk to people who work there, or read job postings from there, or have worked for companies in that country, or... Anyway I'm not really sure why you're so insistent on this focus of America. HN (and the Internet in general) is a pretty diverse crowd... which was sort of my point

My claim is about US salaries for software engineering roles.

Please share your stats.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#402

Post by putzdown » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 4:41 PM UTC

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…

@phoenixhaber, you're in a very dark place, no doubt about it, and it sounds like you've been there a long time. I've been in that dark place and I feel for you. Let me just assure you that dark times do give way, eventually, to light. If you need a rational basis for that claim, think of it as regression toward the mean: extremes, good or bad, move toward the non-extreme. Things will get better.

In the meantime, your task is to separate from the darkness and let it be on the outside, not the inside. It's bad enough when it's on the outside: that is, in the world around you or even in your own body. When it's on the inside—not just the body but the mind—then it destroys. Push the darkness out of the mind and into the outside world. That's pretty abstract advice but it's the best I know, and if it makes sense to you, I hope it helps.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#403

Post by eli_gottlieb » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 4:48 PM UTC

kypro wrote: post #102

bigolnik wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there actually a huge shortage of tech workers in the US?

Experienced tech workers? Yeah. One of the "problems" companies have is that it's hard to find skilled workers in the US with good experience who are not demanding SF wages. And recent graduates aren't that useful so while they might technically be "tech workers" in the sense they would like to fill open roles, companies don't really want them. So for most companies if you want to hire the most experienced and qualif…

> One of the "problems" companies have is that it's hard to find skilled workers in the US with good experience who are not demanding SF wages.

Then companies should set up training pipelines outside the San Francisco Bay Area. Simple as.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#404

Post by autoexec » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 4:49 PM UTC

carlosjobim wrote: post #273

throwaway173738 wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck accessing any of your home equity if you don’t have a job. I guess you could just sell your house of many years and move your family into an apartment.

Yes, obviously that's what you have to do. And also thank God that you have that asset to sell to give you emergency cash.

In may cases that'd be very foolish since mortgage payments are often way lower than rent.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#405

Post by autoexec » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 4:53 PM UTC

moduspol wrote: post #135

yepitwas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been such an obvious self-own for tech workers not to capitalize on any of the multiple booms they've seen, and unionize.

Unionizing may help some things, but it won't make it easier for the unemployed to get employed.

It could help with networking and it could serve as a way to get rid of totally fake AI applicants since they aren't going to be union members.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#406

Post by putzdown » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 4:53 PM UTC

loserGuy412 wrote: post #104

What nonsense. Does he really think his friends are sharing the full extent of their difficulties? There is an exquisite feeling of shame, guilt, fear, and anger that goes with being jobless for the first time and making zero progress with the job search . When your savings is gone, when your credit cards are maxed and in collections, when you're selling your stuff to pay for food and electricity, when you're about t…

This is very well said. It's horrifying, but very well said and very true. Sometimes the situation is just plain bleak. I have been unemployed for more than a year twice; I've been unemployed or underemployed for about 5 years in total. This despite accomplishing great things while employed and being well-regarded at past jobs. For me, each time the cloud has eventually passed and new work has come along, but that doesn't help until it actually happens.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#407

Post by autoexec » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 4:56 PM UTC

Der_Einzige wrote: post #360

yepitwas wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's been such an obvious self-own for tech workers not to capitalize on any of the multiple booms they've seen, and unionize.

Unions drive wages down in the electronic vehicle sector by forcing pensions and dissuading RSUs. Most Tesla workers make far more than their unionized GM counterparts Also unions are mostly there to allow the lazy low performers to coast. We already have a serious problem of this but making it hard to fire them will make everyone’s life worse.

Unions don't make it impossible to fire people. As long as management does their job and documents correctly there's zero issue firing workers who aren't doing their job.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#408

Post by nradov » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 5:29 PM UTC

biophysboy wrote: post #269

foxfired wrote: post #217

This past year, I noticed people reaching out to me whenever my employer is hiring. These seem to be new graduates, and there is a pattern in the way ask for a reference or a job: - "Hey, I applied, could you hire me?" - "I have a compsci, I'm qualified, I sent a resume" - "can I use you as a reference?" These are people I've never met, yet they are so direct to the point of being rude. But to the best of my knowledg…

This is why I honestly think it would be better if the popular job boards limited the number of applications you could submit per day. The game theory of the job market incentivizes spray and pray.

That wouldn't work. Candidates would just create multiple accounts, and apply from multiple job boards. Or they would use the job board to find the employer's own careers web page and apply directly there.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#409

Post by nradov » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 5:37 PM UTC

sugarpimpdorsey wrote: post #146

Last time I was unemployed for an extended period I thought I would put my skills to good use by hunting for bugs and contributing fixes to open source projects. Only to mostly be ignored, bugs closed as WONTFIX, or finding out many open source developers aren't really interested in fixing bugs, rather some self-aggrandizing labor of love. That's when I learned to stop working for free.

If you don't like how an open-source project is run then you can fork it, or start your own competing project from scratch. That's the beauty of open source.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#410

Post by biophysboy » Wed, Sep 17, 2025, 5:42 PM UTC

nradov wrote: post #408

biophysboy wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why I honestly think it would be better if the popular job boards limited the number of applications you could submit per day. The game theory of the job market incentivizes spray and pray.

That wouldn't work. Candidates would just create multiple accounts, and apply from multiple job boards. Or they would use the job board to find the employer's own careers web page and apply directly there.

Apps like tinder already deal with the multiple account problem - not an unknown challenge.

I’ll admit the second issue is harder, and would require some kind of common application standard framework.

I still maintain that the status quo of noise drowning out signal is horrifically bad, and I don’t think job boards making things even more frictionless is helping.