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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

#81

Post by QuercusMax »

andyjohnson0 wrote: post #25

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 took a paper coding test in 2004 when I was job hunting. It was pretty hilarious to me, really, since it was so incredibly easy (multiple choice data-structures type questions) for anybody who had any skills at all.

They finally offered me a job 3 months later after I already had started working somewhere else.

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

#82

Post by alephnerd »

paleotrope wrote: post #79
alephnerd wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know, and the reason Digital and TI and Compaq weren't able to make as deep ecosystems as Xerox PARC or Fairchild did was because of the non-compete aspect back when companies were much more litigious than today.

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

#83

Post by calculatte »

yonran wrote: post #26

The newspaper does still have job listings e.g. for Amazon, NVIDIA, DoorDash, Tesla, Chewy. I haven’t been having much luck applying to them though...

Those jobs aren't meant for you... they post in the classifieds with the hopes nobody responds. All to game the labor market test allowing their visa worker to get a green card.

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

#84

Post by bluGill »

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.

It is a little of both. An interview is to short to know of someone is good. So if someone you trust vouches that is more useful than anything an interview can say. Maybe you could find someone better but odds are you find someone worse.

More that the person giving the reference is putting their reputation in the reference.

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

#85

Post by nabbed »

I responded to an ad in the newspaper for a C programming job way back in mid-1980s. The team that posted the ad was not impressed with my resume, but they sent it on to a different team within the same company. That team hired me and I stayed at that company for 14 years.

Unlike the author, I kept the ad in a box for 35 years, at which point I scanned it and threw out the hard copy.

Edit: Also, the resume I mailed to them was printed by a print shop.

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

#86

Post by shagie »

fluoridation wrote: post #80
asdff wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The circle of confusion ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle_of_confusion ) imposes optical limitations on the image.

It may be acceptable for phone screens and images on the web. However, if one was to print the image as an 8x10 (or larger and view it from 12 (the length of the diagonal) inches away, the ability to resolve details in the image will not be present in the phone image.

Granted, few people are printing things out at 8x10 or 16x20 for framing anymore and comparing them to traditional photographic images... but it is there. (I have some 30x40" prints that I've done (though I typically didn't have the funds or wall space for many - 8x10s and 16x20s where my most common) and purchased a number of 20x60" prints over the years).

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

#87

Post by ghaff »

alephnerd wrote: post #82
paleotrope wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I know, and the reason Digital and TI and Compaq weren't able to make as deep ecosystems as Xerox PARC or Fairchild did was because of the non-compete aspect back when companies were much more litigious than today.

IMO, the non-compete aspect is way overstated. People moved between the Route 128 computer companies all the time and even moved to California. If it was a slower pace than today, it probably had more to do with people not shifting jobs as often than litigation related to non-competes.

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

#89

Post by sosodev »

I had an old coworker who told me he got into software development in the sixties by walking into an IBM office and asking for a job. He had no education beyond high school and no experience with computers. They just had him take an aptitude test and then he worked on mainframes for decades.

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

#90

Post by Terr_ »

mustafak99 wrote: post #47

imo the job process is totally broken its an AI arms race. You have people doing mass ai apply with slop CVs and then recruitment just doing the inverse with AI ATS. Working on something I think could help solve the issue just need to find recruiters to talk to see if it's any good.

Almost worse than indiscriminate applications are the fraudulent ones, where the applicant isn't sharing the own answers in interviews, isn't the one in the interview at all, or sometimes never existed.
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