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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

#71

Post by DrewADesign »

spicyusername wrote: post #19
tayo42 wrote: 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

Simplicity and convenience are often inversely correlated. Life was for sure simpler in times gone by, but that doesn't necessarily mean it was better. Definitely different. I'm sure future posters will look back on these years with fondness for this or that as well.

I don’t think most people under 40 can wrap their head around what it was like to need to be home or at work for someone to reach you, which required a phone call. And you couldn’t make a phone call unless you were at home or work, or stopped at a pay phone. And what if you called someone that wasn’t home? Or were on the can and couldn’t pick up in a few rings? Sure you could leave a message but they probably had no way to get back in touch with you. You just had to wait and hope they called again. No text. No email. No Caller ID for most people pre-internet. No GPS for most people, and even if they could give you GPS coordinates, wear are you going to with them? Hope you got a really big fucking globe.

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

#72

Post by jongjong »

9dev wrote: post #67
Aurornis wrote: post #21

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…

I find that disgusting, actually: Western societies pretend to be meritocratic, when actually it’s really just nepotism and elitism. I’m not shedding a single tear for those used to leading a privileged life thanks to their family or money, but have to actually compete with the rest of us now.

This is not the reason though.

The reason is that now there are fewer different kinds of jobs (many roles like manufacturing have moved offshore) and also fewer jobs in terms of numbers and more regulations which prevent competition and shrink the number of competing company (again leading to fewer roles).

It wasn't nepotism before, it was efficiency. I didn't have any connections and I got better opportunities back then than I do now and the people were overall better at their jobs. Nepotism is much stronger now and jobs are increasingly theatrical/bureaucratic and have little to do value creation.

It's possible that people's lifestyle in the west was propped up by the exploitation of foreign labour, that much is possible, but note that the people who did the exploitation back then are the same doing it now (or their heirs). The difference is that now the money is increasingly circulating just between each other, bypassing normal people. Soon it will bypass all humans; the entire economy will be between machine owners. Social mobility is mostly about social connections and politics nowadays. In the west, it has never been less meritocratic.

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

#74

Post by bigbuppo »

kmoser wrote: post #33
II2II wrote: 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.

And then it disappeared once "Find out who called you only $50 or subscribe for $35 or we'll add you to our bad public records site" became a business model.

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

#75

Post by alephnerd »

reactordev wrote: post #69
Xirdus wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Third unpopular take: this geographical restriction was a good thing.

Fourth unpopular take: without it Silicon Valley wouldn’t exist.

SV exists thanks to CA's lack of non-competes and the Stanford and UC Berkeley innovation ecosystem.

Otherwise, Boston, NYC, DMV, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and others all could have become the next Silicon Valley.

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

#76

Post by bigbuppo »

Aurornis wrote: post #59
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once went through a recruiter to secure an interview for an engineering position. He insisted that I "suit up" so I did despite knowing it was out of touch with reality. I showed up to a non air conditioned building where the head of engineering was wearing ragged cutoff shorts. Last time I ever bothered with a recruiter.

Showing up egregiously overdressed for a tech interview was a rite of passage before jobs search advice was easy to find on the internet.

I showed up to a job interview wearing the exact same shirt and tie as the CEO who interviewed me. I got the job.

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

#77

Post by kurttheviking »

warkdarrior wrote: post #64
beepbopboopp wrote: post #62

Unpopular take: This was significantly better for employers and employees. It worked as both an effort and presentation filter which both reduced the overload of candidates, allowing for more attention, higher variation of skills that didnt often show like traditional resume bonafides and mad companies more likely to invest more in employees as it was a pain to go do again. For employees it was great too. Much like t…

Second unpopular take: This was better for all involved, but it constrained the job market to geographical boundaries. People did not apply to jobs in other states/countries/continents because they did not see the job postings for other states/countries/continents.

More so than now, but one could still find work elsewhere. At least in the US, you would visit a local library and read newspapers to see job listings in other cities. Or, you could rely on "headhunters" who would work to collect available candidates for many companies; they would advertise their services as regional or national agencies. The market looked different but for someone who wanted to find a job somewhere else, there were ways to do it.

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

#78

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

Tangurena2 wrote: post #54
Aurornis wrote: post #21

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…

> 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. This is called Social Capital. It is very much a class thing. Many older people recommended joining fraternal organizations (like frats or freemasons) to get these social connections. https:…

Finance and journalism are full of these people. A fair few in startupland as well.

It's possible to get to a certain level without those connections, but it's very hard to get the top jobs. And you'll never be an insider.

Conversely quite a few people in those top jobs are there because of social game playing and status signalling, not because of talent or raw intellect.

I had a friend who started a number of businesses in the UK, including some dating apps before they became very popular. She said that at her public school the teachers would say things like "As the future leaders of the UK you should..."

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

#79

Post by paleotrope »

alephnerd wrote: post #75
reactordev wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fourth unpopular take: without it Silicon Valley wouldn’t exist.

SV exists thanks to CA's lack of non-competes and the Stanford and UC Berkeley innovation ecosystem. Otherwise, Boston, NYC, DMV, Seattle, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, and others all could have become the next Silicon Valley.

That's interesting because it's way more complicated than that. Boston had the 128 loop and Digital. TI in dallas. Simi valley. I think it's more like the end of defense spending in the late 80s early 90s winnowed down the several "SV"s into only one.

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

#80

Post by fluoridation »

asdff wrote: post #60
decimalenough wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The realistic digital equivalent resolution of 4x5 film is around 40-50 megapixels, which iPhones have supported out of the box for a couple of years now. Of course there's a lot more to taking good pictures than the raw sensor, but what I'm saying is that the barrier to entry is way lower than it was in the article's day.

I'm sorry but 48mp on a sensor the size of the end of a pencil is just not the same as even full frame, let alone 4x5.

What does that have to do with how much detail the sensor cells are able to resolve?
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