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Career advice for people with bad luck

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Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#101

Post by tfigment »

throw4failure wrote: post #71
giantg2 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good to know you leave references until the end. I will not be able to get a reference if I leave. My company's policy does not allow employees to be a reference for anyone who is leaving.

This isn't uncommon, and as I understand it follows directly from the typical HR policy of only confirming the essentials, such as title, dates of employment and reason for leaving. Companies care more about possible litigation than they do about helping you with your next job. However, in my experience it's haphazardly enforced. If you're on good terms with a colleague or manager, it's my understanding (IANAL) that…

My company requires 3 references. Hiring manager does calls those just before offer is made and there is intent. I don't like calling references unnecessarily. There is a form which mostly is about how candidate interacted with co-workers and management and general effectiveness at job. Medical stuff does not come up generally. Personal references do not work well here in general for technical hires unless it's an intern and they worked together on school project or something.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#102

Post by Reimersholme »

"Politics emerge when the players believe the game is zero sum. In a recession, the players are more likely to believe the game is zero sum."

I'd put emphasis on this, but with the difference that in a recession, it's a negative sum game and not zero sum, which explains why there will definitely be politics.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#103

Post by ghaff »

username90 wrote: post #90

Step 1: Get a well paying job at a big tech company. There is very little luck involved in this, just get really good at algorithms. No need for a famous school, specific degree etc. It requires intelligence, if you don't have that then you need luck. Step 2: Save more than two thirds of your take home salary, you can still live way better than the people sweeping the office floor. Step 3: You now have a ton of money…

Do you seriously believe that anyone who is reasonably intelligent can just waltz into a high paying job at Apple or Google by sending them a resume? If so, I'd respectfully suggest that is... probably not the case. (Not that I have firsthand experience. I've never applied to nor been interested in those big tech firms.)

ADDED: I'm sorry, but the people on this thread who are arguing that if you can't get a $200K+ job at Google, you're obviously not even trying have some serious blinders on.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#104

Post by [deleted] »

meddlepal wrote: post #26
Tade0 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I need to share any subset o values. Otherwise there's no space for dialogue. I believe this is the norm.

Are people using values to mean interests? I need to share some interests: sports, beer, model building, architecture etc... Values though? I can't see that being the norm unless your shared interest is politics, religion, or social order/dynamics.

[deleted]

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#105

Post by neltnerb »

collyw wrote: post #91
neltnerb wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, the family people probably were friends with each other.

Everyone at family company was friendly at lunch, it's just the we didn't socialize after work at all (well a couple of times). The younger company regularly went drinking together.

Are you sure the ones with kids weren't doing playdates and things? I feel like there's often a gulf between people with and without kids.

Of course they didn't go drinking, they had to get home to take care of kids. Or, like me, they don't drink. They might still invite over other families to go hiking or camping or maybe even know other parents from school.

Not saying that was necessarily happening, but now that many more of my friends have kids (I don't) I see them do this all the time. They can't really hang out without a way to distract their kids. Board game nights are much more likely to connect than drinking.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#106

Post by syshum »

mdorazio wrote: post #67

I really want to see more articles like this on HN. However, this is really "career advice for people at struggling companies." The luck part doesn't get discussed in the way I expected. To me, bad luck is things like: - You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID - Despite your best efforts at networking, you simply never meet that ma…

>>> You don't have a resilient financial and mental safety net in the form of good friends/family early in your career that enables you to take risks

I did not takes risks per say, but I was lucky to have this in a limited sense during a period of bad luck (aka the recession of 2007) that really helped me pivot to a better place where today during the COVID Crisis I am providing that support to some of my family....

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#108

Post by bryanrasmussen »

mdorazio wrote: post #67

I really want to see more articles like this on HN. However, this is really "career advice for people at struggling companies." The luck part doesn't get discussed in the way I expected. To me, bad luck is things like: - You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID - Despite your best efforts at networking, you simply never meet that ma…

>- You're in the wrong place at the wrong time. Ex. you graduated in 2008-2010/now or your business sector got wiped out by COVID

I feel bad for the higher class pizza restaurant that opened down the street from our house at the end of January after a long time of renovating the building.

Even though their pizza isn't really as good as the fancy pizza place at the mall (it's a mall in a rich area) down by the nearby harbor, which will upset me if it goes out of business because I could take my kids there or visitors and they were made happy by the quality of the pizza.

But this place down the street from me, that is textbook bad luck.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#109

Post by paulcole »

ghaff wrote: post #103
username90 wrote: post #90

Step 1: Get a well paying job at a big tech company. There is very little luck involved in this, just get really good at algorithms. No need for a famous school, specific degree etc. It requires intelligence, if you don't have that then you need luck. Step 2: Save more than two thirds of your take home salary, you can still live way better than the people sweeping the office floor. Step 3: You now have a ton of money…

Do you seriously believe that anyone who is reasonably intelligent can just waltz into a high paying job at Apple or Google by sending them a resume? If so, I'd respectfully suggest that is... probably not the case. (Not that I have firsthand experience. I've never applied to nor been interested in those big tech firms.) ADDED: I'm sorry, but the people on this thread who are arguing that if you can't get a $200K+ jo…

> Do you seriously believe that anyone who is reasonably intelligent can just waltz into a high paying job at Apple or Google by sending them a resume

People who have waltzed into a high paying job at Apple or Google by sending them a resume believe exactly this.

It’s one of the many problems with any sort of unsolicited financial/job seeking advice. Actually the problem with advice of any sort. It’s almost 100% wrong.

Re: Career advice for people with bad luck

#110

Post by syshum »

neltnerb wrote: post #95
chrisseaton wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s amazing how many of the close work friends I had over the years were only close because of the shitty circumstances we endured together. Isn't that how most people form friends normally though? Through a shared experience? Especially a tough or formative one? Friends you meet at school, in your first year at uni, in bootcamp, on a sports team, these are how most people meet their life-long friends.

Yes, but I think there's a lot of variation in what people want out of work-friends. My parents are super social to the point of inviting over colleagues for dinner regularly, but I think they're also so social (and worked for nonprofits that are more like family) that they simply have so many options that the ones they pick are much closer work-friends that often last decades. Other people really do just want to go…

as an introvert I am one to just " want to go home and do their own thing.", I have rarely kept in touch with former co-workers, sometimes I regret that but I was not born with a drive to be social.

One draw back of that is my professional network is limited as well, in times of economic decline a robust professional network is often the key between employment and not

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