Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

A Bad Time to Be A Professional

businessweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–27 of 27 posts

Re: A Bad Time to Be A Professional

#21

Post by gustavo_duarte »

patio11 wrote: post #20
YuriNiyazov wrote: post #16

I know that personal experience is anecdotal, but I have a full-time job and a wide choice of side gigs that I can pick up. I don't even say this to gloat, it just seems like the news outlets are blowing it out of proportion (as always)

What you said. My little slice of the Japanese countryside is heavily invested in manufacturing. There are 6,000 Brazilian factory workers in my town. About 5,000 of them are out of work right now, and many have taken a government offer where they'll pay for your plane ticket if you leave the country and promise to not come back. Meanwhile I'm in an air-conditioned office, just got a positive performance evaluation,…

Historically, our job security beats the Papacy hands down. Even excluding the early Popes who were martyred in quick succession, the average papal tenure is under 8 years, with a fair number of murders and alleged murders. Check it out: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popes. So I think you're right about the Pope's envy :)

Regarding the job market, I do contract work in Colorado and have had no problems either. My programmer friends in the US, Europe, and Brazil are all gainfully employed. I think there's a chronic shortage of good programming talent that's not going away anytime soon.

Re: A Bad Time to Be A Professional

#22

Post by smanek »

ellism wrote: post #18
smanek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it is worth, if you are actively looking for work a more professional email address would be better. Ideally, it should be something like 'zburt@mydomain.com' (or zach.burt, zach, etc) where mydomain.com hosts your resume, professional blog, portfolio, etc. If that isn't feasible, even your school email address would be pretty good (a free domain isn't a deal breaker, but would rank pretty low for me) - but…

From the sound of it, he's the one offering work, not looking for it.

If so, I misinterpreted it. My impression was that:

1) Zackattack doubts that the labor market is good for LAMP hackers, and puts out feelers suggesting that he is looking for work in the field (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614130)

2) Tptacek says that he has had the opposite experience and that it's hard to find good hackers (i.e., the market is good for a hacker). He suggests that the market's supply is outpaced by demand and that he is having trouble hiring a good HTML/CSS hacker (the statement might be ambiguous, but since he says his usual sources are 'booked up' it seems pretty clear that he looking to hire a hacker). http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614135

3) Zackattack responds that he is a HTML/CSS hacker, and might be a good fit for Tptacek's project (i.e., Zackattack is trying to solicit business). He leaves the email address Zackster@gmail.com (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=614143)

Did you have a different interpretation?

Re: A Bad Time to Be A Professional

#23

Post by smanek »

sachinag wrote: post #19
smanek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it is worth, if you are actively looking for work a more professional email address would be better. Ideally, it should be something like 'zburt@mydomain.com' (or zach.burt, zach, etc) where mydomain.com hosts your resume, professional blog, portfolio, etc. If that isn't feasible, even your school email address would be pretty good (a free domain isn't a deal breaker, but would rank pretty low for me) - but…

I make an exception for Gmail addresses when it comes to non-professional. I know that you can get free Google Apps and all that, but I'll generally trust someone on Gmail. Doesn't mean you can get away without a live blog/portfolio site, however.

I would definitely agree. The 'gmail' part didn't strike me as out of place so much as the 'zackster' part. I believe Zackattack's name is 'Zachary Burt', which would make 'zackster' an informal (and, in my opinion, somewhat frat-ty) nickname.

The only situation I could imagine that would make 'zackster' appropriate for someone looking for a job would be if his first name were Zack (or Zachary, or some other derivative) and his last name were 'Ster.' Since I doubt that is the case, I suggested he set up some other address for soliciting business

Since Zack is just graduating it will be (relatively) easy for him to make the change now. It will likely be more difficult in a few years once his name/email get out there.

Re: A Bad Time to Be A Professional

#24

Post by sachinag »

smanek wrote: post #23
sachinag wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I make an exception for Gmail addresses when it comes to non-professional. I know that you can get free Google Apps and all that, but I'll generally trust someone on Gmail. Doesn't mean you can get away without a live blog/portfolio site, however.

I would definitely agree. The 'gmail' part didn't strike me as out of place so much as the 'zackster' part. I believe Zackattack's name is 'Zachary Burt', which would make 'zackster' an informal (and, in my opinion, somewhat frat-ty) nickname. The only situation I could imagine that would make 'zackster' appropriate for someone looking for a job would be if his first name were Zack (or Zachary, or some other derivati…

Agreed. I have a personal account and a professional Gmail account. My professional Gmail account isn't mapped to my URL; it's just my full name @ gmail.com; the personal is this username at Gmail. Not quite as informal, but still not business appropriate.

Re: A Bad Time to Be A Professional

#25

Post by pmjordan »

tptacek wrote: post #7

All the evidence available to me suggests that, however bad things may look for long-term employment in IT and CS, the market for freelance talent is strong --- enough so that we've been left wondering for the past 6 months if our business is countercyclical.

I haven't been freelance for long enough to have a good grip on what demand is like normally, but I certainly haven't had a shortage of work coming my way recently. It seems to me that the amount of projects hasn't dropped much, but many companies who might have hired someone permanently to implement them previously are now taking on external contractors instead. The financial risk is, after all, easier to control.

Re: A Bad Time to Be A Professional

#26

Post by hc »

krschultz wrote: post #9
hc wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no offense, but that makes no sense whatsoever

It makes perfect sense, if the entire decline was in architects then there would be 0 architects left. Though I'm a mechanical engineer and my company hasn't really been affected, and my brother is an architect and his company has shrunk from 15 to 3. So I imagine the OP is right that a large chunk of the decline is from architecture/construction related jobs, but certainly not all.

i agree that the entire decline couldn't have been in architects, but remain mystified as to how (someone would conclude) this implies the _majority_ wasn't in architects
Post reply on HN