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How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

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Re: How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

#31

>I’ve just gone through a butt load of resumes Perhaps she said "bulk load of resumes" and you misheard it as the funnier version?

Nope, this is a common expression.

If someone's feeling especially playful, they might ask if it's a metric or imperial buttload. An imperial buttload would be loosely based on the idealized/claimed size of some prominent arse in the past, while a metric buttload implies the existence of a platinum-iridium reference derriere.

Re: How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

#33
post #17

Another tidbit, based upon finding out which company the phone number belonged to: you could go to the library and access business directories. Think the yellow pages, only they were geared towards businesses rather than towards consumers. Print versions were broken down by industry, but electronic ones (on CD-ROM) were searchable. It was also a tool for looking for unadvertised jobs, since those directories seemed t…

I worked on a project in 1990/1991 (pre-WWW) that involved making the phone book electronically accessible. For development my client purchased CD-ROMs containing the White Pages from the entire NYC tri-state area (NY, NJ, and CT), making it trivial for me to search by name and/or number. Once the web had been around for a few years, reverse-lookup became commonplace.

Re: How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

#34
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Now that guy is probably competing with tons of people more talented willing to work for less This strikes at the core of it. Life was simpler for those in the know about how the world worked. If you were lucky enough to grow up with the right parents, friends, family members, and class mates to help guide you through how the world worked it was easy. You could count on less competition by knowing where to look, ho…

> You could count on less competition by knowing where to look, how to present yourself, and what to say. Someone very talented but stuck in a situation where they didn't know how to find these jobs and apply properly was hard. I'm not sure that is any less true today. If you were looking for a job, people used to go to a job centre or look at the classifieds. Since everyone did it, those were also the jobs with the…

> Yes, you have more people applying for the same jobs

This implies that more people know where to find the job listings and they've become more accessible and available.

Re: How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

#37
post #29

We were told the quality of paper mattered and that the envelope should have the same high-end watermark that the resume sheet had. Inkjet printed resumes were discouraged because the quality back then was low and the resolution made anti-aliasing on the type come out weird. Laser printed only, please.

Laser printers were expensive AF for poor guys just out of college looking for a job.

My BJ200 ca. 1993 had awesome print quality, comparable to a Laserjet II, if you used slightly glossy paper (so the ink wouldn’t bleed) and you waited a bit for the ink to dry on each sheet.

Re: How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

#38
post #12

Idk if it's true but it seems like life was simpler before the Internet took off. Now that guy is probably competing with tons of people more talented willing to work for less

Back in the day, the 4x5 (medium format film) experience requirement would have filtered out a lot of candidates. It was arty, weird and required expensive gear (Hasselblad or equivalent) and even more expensive film (around $1/exposure).

These days everybody can shoot unlimited high-res imagery for free with the phone in their pocket.

Re: How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

#39
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You could count on less competition by knowing where to look, how to present yourself, and what to say. Someone very talented but stuck in a situation where they didn't know how to find these jobs and apply properly was hard. I'm not sure that is any less true today. If you were looking for a job, people used to go to a job centre or look at the classifieds. Since everyone did it, those were also the jobs with the…

> Yes, you have more people applying for the same jobs This implies that more people know where to find the job listings and they've become more accessible and available.

When you are comparing online job boards to employment centres and classifieds, they are more accessible and available. Employment centres always involved making a dedicated trip. Newspapers cost money and may involve a dedicated trip to fetch one. Not to mention that plenty of businesses simply didn't advertise jobs in print, particularly entry level jobs. Part of that may have been expectations: people would actually walk into businesses to drop off applications or see if openings are available. Again, it took a lot more effort to find those jobs.

Fun tidbit, I remember visiting Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) in the early 2010's. Boom times for them. It was a bit like walking into a different era with respect to job seeking since many business (again, entry level jobs) were advertising with help wanted signs in their windows.

Re: How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

#40

You still had to do a coding test -- but it was pointing to the bug in the C++ linked-list implementation on a single sheet of line printer paper. Because nobody was going to carry a Sun workstation down to the meeting room just for your interview.

I remember a Java job interview like that. "Tell us what you would do to improve this code" with a couple pages of code printed out :-D
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