How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

Do you think it's the internet that introduces the net negatives, or is it just that there are less obstacles and makes bad behaviour surface more easily?

There shouldn't really be a problem with online job postings, but when people on either sides either try to game the system or don't actually want to deal with their job (e.g. HR departsment that can't and won't manually process applications).

Same for you example with the cars. Seems perfectly reasonable to put your used car online and for someone 400km to be interested if it's the right car at the right price. It's only when the hustlers insert themselves problems arise, but that's due to frankly shitty behaviour. The internet just makes it simpler to be a bad or annoying person.

For context: my programming career started in Russia (while I didn't live there... it was a very unique situation at the time to have a remote job!), then for some twenty odd years in Israel (on-site), then another five in the Netherlands (work visa).

I have an extremely negative impression from jobs that grant visas. Here are some points to consider:

* Work visa is an extremely valuable asset to the worker. They will do a lot of bad things before they even consider endangering their status in the country they reside. This leads to a pathologically abusive workspace because no criticism ever goes up the administrative chain of command. This severely impacts product quality, creates a toxic working environment.

* There's no good selection process for the applicants. On the other hand, applicants have a huge incentive to stick with whatever potential employer might employ them. This results in the overall poor quality of the workforce hired in such a way, it's also a workforce that's difficult to replace or to improve.

In other words, after working in Israel as a programmer for some twenty years (Israel doesn't issue work visas to programmers) I've seen both good quality products and programmers as well as bad. When I came to the Netherlands I was in shock because of how poor was the quality of both the product and the workforce. At first, it didn't make sense to me: how on Earth if these people can pay more and have a bigger candidate pool do they end up with such bad outcomes? My bullet points above are the conclusions I came to while trying to understand the problem. Perhaps they are wrong, but the observation, definitely, isn't: the quality is so bad I want to cry.

After my burgeoning career cratered and jobs weren't pouring in because my résumé was impressing naïve, desperate managers during the cusp of the dot-com boom, I found myself in a homeless shelter with a newspaper and a phone.

And yeah, shelters are harsh. A lot of them turn us all out on the streets during the day, because shelters are exclusively for sleeping and hygiene. So you trudge around town during the day to find food, work, and a purpose in life.

So they would have an "employment resource room" with stacks of newspapers and little phone carrels for us to call anyone. And yours truly here had not the slightest clue or inkling how to actually conduct a job search. I didn't know how to design or write a CV, I didn't know how to approach employers, and of course, by the late 1990s, classified help-wanted ads were a really, really shitty way for an "IT Professional" to find anything.

But I could do nothing but try. Eventually, I found some scammy call-centers who would hire anyone. And I worked as a scammy caller in a fly-by-night call-center. I worked day labor. And landing these jobs didn't teach or train me in the slightest how to seek jobs, how to market myself, or how to interview.

I still don't really know how. ATS and gatekeepers and my lousy, holey work history? It's a lost cause in today's market. I've learned a lot of tips and tricks since then, but in the end, it's about making yourself a good product, offering value to a company, and finding the right fit before you go insane and just apply for SSDI.

When the dot com bubble popped, I was out of work for an extended period. I ended up living with some older friends (about 10 years older than myself and I was about 40 at that time). They gave the "hand out resumes" advice along with thinking that I could get a part time gig at the grocery store (packing groceries). They never understood that most tech recruitment at that time went through recruiters and that all the local grocery stores were unionized and had waiting lists to get rehired. The Mrs had not looked for a job in 20-ish years. I ended up getting one through the bodyshop/agency that the Mr was working at.

That city had 3 basic industries: defense, fast food and religion. The defense contractors all wanted current top secret clearances (I had bad debt at that time) and the religious employers all wanted "testimonies of faith" (think SF-86 but aimed at religious beliefs, and required 10+ years of church attendance with names & numbers of the reverend/priest/etc to vouch for you).

The core of the idea is great. Sketch out an idea with someone else.

Interviewing with average interviewers ruined it.