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The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#261

Post by macspoofing »

enraged_camel wrote: post #259
macspoofing wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That makes no sense, for so many reasons. Here's one: 10 years of experience with a 6 month break is worse than 5 years of experience and a 2 month break? Here's another: skill increase is not linear. Here's another: People are different.

Unfortunately, HR departments do not have the time or resources to take into account differences in individuals. When looking at two resumes, they have to evaluate them based on certain criteria, and they have to assume that all other things are equal. (They rarely are, but life is unfair like that.)

Yeah, that was the point of the article. They chose irrational criteria.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#262

Post by pvdm »

maeon3 wrote: post #139
VLM wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"When you're unemployed, finding work should become your full-time job." This assumes there's enough of a job market "out there" that after more than 6 months you can still burn 40 hours per week on it. "This is not possible if you're dicking around with ... volunteer work." This doesn't even make sense. Most volunteer work doesn't require much money. You may be confusing setting up a charity or donating to a charity…

I did volunteer work at a soup kitchen and through the connections I made there I worked with someone who kicked my butt and fixed my resume. If that hadn't happened i wouldn't be making the salary I am now. The ancient wisdom: give and it will be given you is mysteriously powerful. Humans want to help those who help others, it's in our genetics.

I can not recommend this advice enough. Give and it will be given you.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#263

Post by gcheong »

enraged_camel wrote: post #127
cletus wrote: post #84

This doesn't surprise me at all. One thing I've come to learn in life is the importance of social proof. Social proof takes many form. It's why MIT and Stanford CS grads have tech companies come to their campuses and throw money at them (these institutions don't have a monopoly on good engineers). It's why if you have Google/Facebook/Twitter on your CV you are pretty much guaranteed a job. It's why academic staff who…

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

The only time a house makes sense is when raising kids.

I don't have kids but one benefit I get from owning a house is I can do pretty much what I want to it without having to get permission for it from a landlord and it affords more space for entertaining friends and allowing me to build things so I think that statement is a bit short-sighted.

You are right though about the mindless promotion and the dubious investment potential. Unless you specialize in real estate investment, houses are primarily a place to live and you have to determine the value that you would get out of it from that standpoint.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#264

Post by pnathan »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #68

What bothers me most about the long term unemployed is the lack of visibility into what they have been doing during the down time. I recently got to look at two resumes, both people who had been unemployed for > 6 months, one guy has this big blank spot, the other has a narrative about what he's been doing. The active guy got in shape, he rebuilt is basement drainage system, he did odd jobs helping people with "handy…

Whenever I read a resume, I wonder about blank spots over about 2-3 months. I don't really get excited that they exist, but I do want to get a grasp of the rationale and what they did.

I suppose I am ok with it if someone just wanted to spend 3 months in his PJs recovering from burnout. But I'd rather hear about him spending 3 months doing gardening. Better yet, I'd rather hear about the technical things he did in that time frame. What I try to distinguish is apathy/laziness vs. relaxation/recovery.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#265

Post by pnathan »

mgkimsal wrote: post #217
nilkn wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, if I could find a very stable, long-term remote development job paying $80k-100k (which is quite a bit lower than the going rates in NYC and SV), I'd seriously consider moving to a small town and just buying a home for $100k. Pay it off completely in a few years and live a really, really comfortable life afterwards. I'm just starting my career, but one of my big goals is to achieve the above either through a…

The going rates in NYC/SF also have going rates for living expenses. A single person might not mind having a small apartment or sharing with someone - people with families or other priorities can't live like that. It doesn't have to be telecommute - mid-senior developers can get jobs making $70-$80k in many major areas around the US (Minneapolis, Raleigh, Atlanta, Nashville, are just some I know of off the top of my…

> A single person might not mind having a small apartment or sharing with someone - people with families or other priorities can't live like that.

Actually, people can. Immigrants are notorious for doing that in the US. If you're willing to rearrange your perceptions of what can be done... you could definitely have 3-5 people in a 800-900 sq. ft apartment. :-)

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#267

Post by jjtheblunt »

cletus wrote: post #84

This doesn't surprise me at all. One thing I've come to learn in life is the importance of social proof. Social proof takes many form. It's why MIT and Stanford CS grads have tech companies come to their campuses and throw money at them (these institutions don't have a monopoly on good engineers). It's why if you have Google/Facebook/Twitter on your CV you are pretty much guaranteed a job. It's why academic staff who…

"Twitter" a guarantee?

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#268

Post by pnathan »

jiggy2011 wrote: post #174
jonathanwallace wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like there is a market opportunity for job coaches. Reasonable-reason-for-extended-absence-from-the-job-market as a service, anyone?

Problem is, who's going to pay? Unemployed, especially long term unemployed don't have any money since they can't blow their monthly food budget on a 15 minute consultation.

My plan, if I ever am unemployed with no chances immediately available, is to work up a consortium with the other people in my position and do some kind of coop business on the internet. We can all get together in a cheap coffeeshop or one of our places and start hacking. I feel very ruthless in this metter: I refuse to just "lay down and take it". I can fix computers, perform small business IT, create websites, software, etc. My time immediately becomes "free" to burn a great deal of it on this sort of thing. Job hunting does not take THAT much time if you're looking in the right place.

If you are long-term unemployed, IMO, you are your business, and you need to hustle very aggressively on that.

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#269

Post by pmorici »

enraged_camel wrote: post #127
cletus wrote: post #84

This doesn't surprise me at all. One thing I've come to learn in life is the importance of social proof. Social proof takes many form. It's why MIT and Stanford CS grads have tech companies come to their campuses and throw money at them (these institutions don't have a monopoly on good engineers). It's why if you have Google/Facebook/Twitter on your CV you are pretty much guaranteed a job. It's why academic staff who…

>>There is another side of this that the article doesn't touch on: home ownership. Oh boy. There's so much I can say about this topic, and none of it is positive. Basically, the way our culture mindlessly promotes home ownership is insane. Absolutely insane! Every time I hear people complaining about "throwing away money" by renting, and how they would rather put that money into a house, I want to hold them by the sh…

Every place is different but in some places there are huge advantages to buying that most people don't probably realize.

In the state of Maryland for example It's my understanding that property taxes on the first $300k of assessed value for primary residences are adjusted based on your income[0] for households making less than $60k per year. (for reference 300k will get you a pretty nice place in a trendy part of the city) The end result is you could be living in a $300k house and pay zero or near zero property tax. So you could for example buy a place straight out of college rent out the spare rooms to pay off the mortgage at a very accelerated pace and then if you wanted to you could live in that house basically property tax free once the mortgage is paid off so long as you didn't make too much money. I'm not sure if you've looked at your living cost structure but once you knock out mortgage and property tax you have an extreme amount of flexibility in terms of how much money you need to make to live comfortably and the types of career risks you could take w/o having to worry about ending up on the street. You have to be smart about what you buy and at what price of course which is where most people fail at smart decisions when home buying but if you do it right it really can be a no brainier.

[0] http://www.dat.state.md.us/sdatweb/htc.html

Re: The Terrifying Reality of Long-Term Unemployment

#270

Post by anigbrowl »

enraged_camel wrote: post #257
anigbrowl wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking as a homeowner, we didn't buy the house as an investment asset (though naturally we hope it doesn't depreciate too much). We bought it to live in, and are not paying huge amounts or over very long periods. Of course there are risks. That's why we carry insurance.

>>Of course there are risks. That's why we carry insurance. Which also has a cost... You are not negating risk by buying insurance. You are simply offloading it to another party and paying them money on a regular basis. At the end of the day, it's still an expense.

That's right. It's economically more efficient for me to pay someone $1000 a year in order to be covered for most eventualities, because I estimate my annual risk at a bit higher than 0.3%.
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