Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories • Hacker News Board

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#101

Post by kami8845 » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:26 AM UTC

thewarrior wrote: post #91

fffrad wrote: post #85

It's interesting how in our current time, if you work at Twitter, facebook, google, or a famous start up, it is synonymous to "I made it".

Because it is. Once you land a position at the big 4 you're (potentially) on a multi decade gravy train that just keeps on giving. Even a short stint and an "Ex-Googler" tag on your resume is enough to open doors and keep landing gigs years into the future. Moreover the top firms are known for engineering the shit out of their software. You're much less likely to run into really bad code or stagnate. So its definitel…

> multi decade slave train

If you want to have "made it", go start a startup. Being an employee generally means working 40-60 hour weeks for other people's dreams.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#102

Post by philjohn » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:28 AM UTC

jdoliner wrote: post #71

> I was rejected at Amazon and other companies with no technical interviews because I wasn't a Java engineer. That one seems pretty legit to me.

Depends. Is the person a polyglot with extensive experience in more than one language of a similar paradigm? If so ... it's just learning the syntax, libraries and idioms ... it's not rocket science.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#103

Post by spooningtamarin » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:32 AM UTC

I love how Facebook HR rejected one of my acquaintances and then after he asked "Why?", the recruiter sent an email that was something along these lines: "Ok, may I schedule a technical interview in a week?".

Eventually he ended up being an engineer there.

My experience and rejection also indicated there's something arbitrary random going on in the interview process. Once a recruiter from Google commented my grades with a serious attidute, saying I should keep them as high (I was still a student) and I immediately realised that grades weren't even checked because my grades were horrible (GPA<3, ridiculous bible theology social classes ruined it for me) and if they cared I should get them higher.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#104

Post by minikites » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:34 AM UTC

Oh no, highly skilled mostly white males experiencing temporary setbacks, won't anyone think about how hard they have it? They made it eventually and you can too! Never mind the dozens of stories without a happy ending as whole groups of people get funneled into the "discouraged worker" pool to keep them out of the U3 unemployment rate.

I wish more effort like this was put into mentoring/training/recruiting underrepresented groups, but I guess that's too hard to put into a punchy website.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#105

Post by thewarrior » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:46 AM UTC

kami8845 wrote: post #101

thewarrior wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is. Once you land a position at the big 4 you're (potentially) on a multi decade gravy train that just keeps on giving. Even a short stint and an "Ex-Googler" tag on your resume is enough to open doors and keep landing gigs years into the future. Moreover the top firms are known for engineering the shit out of their software. You're much less likely to run into really bad code or stagnate. So its definitel…

> multi decade slave train If you want to have "made it", go start a startup. Being an employee generally means working 40-60 hour weeks for other people's dreams.

Working for 2+ decades while making something like $150k+ a year on average over the long term , and retiring with substantial savings , without having worked 100 hour weeks on the startup lottery , sounds pretty awesome to me.

Don't know maybe I'm not elite founder material.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#106

Post by s3nnyy » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:48 AM UTC

I live in Zurich and I used to code for a living. Now, I hire engineers for different startups in Switzerland.

As I got deeper into IT-recruiting, I realised that candidate filtering at the top of the funnel is fundamentally broken. Especially in Europe companies expect a CS degree and don't appreciate self-taught skills as much as in the US.

I am trying to change this. If you look for a tech-job in the most liveable city in the world, check out my story "8 reasons why I moved to Switzerland to work in IT" on http://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved-to... or send me a mail to the mail-address in my HN-profile.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#107

Post by _yosefk » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:52 AM UTC

s3nnyy wrote: post #106

I live in Zurich and I used to code for a living. Now, I hire engineers for different startups in Switzerland. As I got deeper into IT-recruiting, I realised that candidate filtering at the top of the funnel is fundamentally broken. Especially in Europe companies expect a CS degree and don't appreciate self-taught skills as much as in the US. I am trying to change this. If you look for a tech-job in the most liveable…

Could the difference be due to education being cheaper and thus there being fewer reasons to forego it?

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#108

Post by _yosefk » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:54 AM UTC

argonaut wrote: post #63

lkrubner wrote: post #21

I love this, but it could go even further: Blaine Cook was "rejected" from Twitter after years of hard work. But he faced an insane scaling problem, and most of us would look bad if we faced the same set of problems. Steve Jobs was "rejected" by Apple after years of hard work. Or my all time favorite: John Lasseter was fired from Disney because he was too enthusiastic about cutting edge digital animation (rather than…

This doesn't really apply. At the executive/management level things are hugely different. Politics, how well you work with others, investor perceptions, "vision", experience, communication skills, etc. all become more important than raw individual contribution skills. Another common example that people like to use, but which also doesn't apply is the example of Brian Acton getting rejected from Facebook before starti…

AFAIK Lasseter wasn't that senior when Disney fired him.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#109

Post by jacquesm » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:57 AM UTC

_yosefk wrote: post #107

s3nnyy wrote: post #106

I live in Zurich and I used to code for a living. Now, I hire engineers for different startups in Switzerland. As I got deeper into IT-recruiting, I realised that candidate filtering at the top of the funnel is fundamentally broken. Especially in Europe companies expect a CS degree and don't appreciate self-taught skills as much as in the US. I am trying to change this. If you look for a tech-job in the most liveable…

Could the difference be due to education being cheaper and thus there being fewer reasons to forego it?

No, it just saves a bunch of time and you later won't hear (when someone messes up) 'he doesn't even have a degree, what did you expect'?

It's the recruiting equivalent of buying IBM (or Microsoft I guess).

If the applicant pool is large enough any quick way to discriminate that skews positively for applicant capability is going to be used. It is also much easier to see if someone has a degree than to actually test if they have the required skills.

Re: Everyone’s been rejected – these are our stories

#110

Post by lagadu » Wed, Dec 16, 2015, 11:58 AM UTC

kami8845 wrote: post #101

thewarrior wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it is. Once you land a position at the big 4 you're (potentially) on a multi decade gravy train that just keeps on giving. Even a short stint and an "Ex-Googler" tag on your resume is enough to open doors and keep landing gigs years into the future. Moreover the top firms are known for engineering the shit out of their software. You're much less likely to run into really bad code or stagnate. So its definitel…

> multi decade slave train If you want to have "made it", go start a startup. Being an employee generally means working 40-60 hour weeks for other people's dreams.

> 60 hour weeks

Or just move to a country that doesn't allow worker exploitation like that.