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A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

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Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#111

Post by stonemetal »

pnathan wrote: post #95

I recently reviewed a large number of resumes from CS majors from a wide variety of universities. They were collected through career fairs sort of things. Nearly all of them were crap. There was a constant and persistent inability to demonstrate what they had to offer my company. There was a massive focus on class projects and a complete "meh" in terms of work history. Now, some of these people might have been excell…

Danger signs included gaps in employment

For the uninitiated why is this a danger sign?

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#112

Post by randomdata »

option_greek wrote: post #91

Would it help if the number of non-STEM field seats are regulated every year based on employment statistics ? I don't have anything against non-STEM fields and believe everyone should be allowed to choose what they want to graduate in, just letting people graduate while piling up debt only to end up jobless seem tragic.

The purpose of university has never been to enable you to find a career, so by limiting the number of seats by industry metrics, you will only take away spots from people who want to legitimately study the material.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#113

Post by FuzzyDunlop »

The general tone of what this person says just screams "you're doing it wrong." It lacks optimism, and the attitude is, as has been said, one of entitlement.

> "Those 14 steps assume everything goes well and roughly according to plan."

Yeah, definitely, if you plan to fail. Playing the numbers game with applications (sending off hundreds a month) is doing it wrong. He says he does research and tailors his applications to each one. With so many, they can't possibly be tailored enough. Those kinks will have been optimised out to save time.

Job hunting is a difficult and thankless task. But go about it the wrong way, with the wrong attitude, and it'll never get any better. Cutting the "woe is me" attitude and focussing more positively on what you can do to fix a shitty situation would be the first step.

I was in a position of thinking I'd never amount to anything, a couple of years ago. I spent 7 years in a supermarket, with only the faint tease of career prospects and progression (rapidly pulled away when I actually went for them). I thought I'd never get out, and I applied for all sorts of jobs (though not on the mass-production scale this fella has), slowly becoming bitter about them hiring other people over me.

Then I thought, "what can I do to get out of this rut?" I'd taught myself how to design and develop a website many years ago and for some bonkers reason didn't capitalise on that at the time (that's 7 years of good career progress I consciously chose not to take - no one's fault but mine). I got back into it and got a contact who gave me good work that I chose to do for free. It wasn't long before I was approached by an agency with the offer of a job. My first full-time position, at 23 years old. That was only 12 months ago.

It's been onwards and upwards ever since, even with recent redundancy.

Maybe if I'd done what this guy did, I would still be sending off 100 applications to any old job every month. The time spent doing that could easily have been spent making myself a more attractive prospect. After all, you're not being paid to 'troll' a jobsite 7 days a week, so you may as well do some unpaid work that puts you in a better position instead.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#114

Post by bhickey »

billpatrianakos wrote: post #104

This is so true. Everyone wants to say we're not trying hard enough but we really are the guys with the awesome grades, extra-curriculars, part time jobs, and involved in sports plus finding time to be social. The silver lining is that if you're in the right industry it can be easier. Last week I sent out 10 resumes and got 4 interviews for web development positions. My chances are good at every company I interviewed…

    This is so true. Everyone wants to say we're not trying hard enough but we 
    really are the guys with the awesome grades, extra-curriculars, part
    time jobs, and involved in sports plus finding time to be social.
Don't confuse the sweat of your brow with hard work.

No employer has ever asked me about part time jobs, clubs or sport. Frankly I don't think any of them cared about my grades either.

These things are noisy signals, proxying for hoop jumping. What's more important is proving that you have relevant skills.

    It's tough though no matter where you are and what
    you're trying to break into.
This generalization is false. If you can program your way out of a soggy paper bag there are hordes of folks who will fill that bag with money.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#115

Post by WiseWeasel »

JPKab wrote: post #82
ChrisHugh wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How "white"? How odd. I didn't know attitudes and ideas had colors.

You got me there. I wish I could think of a word to describe the group of people who have been brainwashed into thinking that if they don't spend shitloads of money on stuff, and buy a big house in the burbs, that they are bad parents...... But you are right, saying it's a "white" thing is racist of me. There are people of all colors who get trapped into this bullshit, as well as people of all colors who are not fool…

Bourgeois. Closest English term I can think of which conveys a similar notion is WASP.

I believe they might have been called "city-folk" at some point... maybe the equivalent of suburbanites or gated-community-dwellers today. Maybe saying, "that's a gated-community mentality!" would convey a similar meaning in a succinct and relatively PC way.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#116

Post by foobarqux »

drcube wrote: post #78
insaneirish wrote: post #47

I'm a bit confused. He says he got his undergrad degree around when Lehman collapsed, which was September of 2008. So if he's 29 now, why didn't he graduate until he was 25 or 26? And if it took that long to graduate, I'd like to think he was doing something worthwhile in those extra years that would have easily turned into a job. There is no secret sauce. Work begets work. I started working as a [very bad] programme…

Anecdote time: I was in the Army before I went to college, so I didn't graduate until I was 27. I got a 3.8 GPA in electrical engineering, but I was still unemployed for over a year before I got hired as an engineer. It was a pretty disheartening year, and I doubted whether I was worth anything to anybody. I finally got a job through a friend. All the cold calls, resumes and interviews were for naught, I got hired th…

What school did graduate from?

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#117

Post by ef4 »

DanI-S wrote: post #37

There are a shocking number of people here with no outward empathy, understanding nor willingness to see outside of their own limited experience. The world is not the tech industry. Not everybody has the same perspective as you. In fact, more people find themselves in this chap's shoes than in yours. You're likely posting on here because you're under some illusion that you're an entrepreneur. How can you build a succ…

You're right, I have a difficult time trying to empathize with this guy. Because my own emotional alarm bells would have been going off much, much earlier, back when he was failing to make any serious plan for how he was going to earn a living. When I put myself in his shoes, there's no way I see myself doing what he's doing. His pain is self-inflicted.

There are a hundred useful paths he could be taking to learn marketable skills. And yet he managed to write this whole essay without mentioning one.

This isn't just tech industry bias speaking. He could go to one of the natural gas boom towns and easily find work. They're having a major labor shortage, so wages are good. He could learn carpentry, or plumbing, or any number of things. Instead he keeps sending out futile resumes.

He's limited by his own faulty self-image. He sees himself in a suit, wielding power, but he doesn't see himself actually doing anything that produces value. That's his problem.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#118

Post by GFischer »

mynameishere wrote: post #97
GFischer wrote: post #22

"Owning a home that's bigger than 500 square feet. (hint: that's not big.) " That's U.S. entitlement for you. 500 square feet is perfectly reasonable, I live on about the same, and I rent it (and I'm 31 years old). A 500 square feet small apartment in Barcelona is about 200.000 euros right now, and 80.000 here in Uruguay. I agree that it's not ideal for raising kids, but it's not something to whine about. Edit: as ot…

He's in Canada.

Sorry, I should have realized :) the maple leaf at the top and the newspaper's name.

I've been to Toronto, and it's basically the U.S. (I know you think it's different, but from the outside, it's not).

Salaries are lower there, but there are chances to raise yourself if you want to ... my brother migrated to Toronto at age 25, started at a KFC, went to community college and graduated, started at the bottom of a marketing firm, worked hard and networked a lot, got a better offer at another firm, then made it to manager at yet another firm... and now he got a humungous job offer in Dubai, and emigrated there a few months ago.

So, the 29 year-old is 4 years older than my brother when he started, but if he wants to, he can go to community college, graduate in a career with demand (I was offered a starting salary of 4.000 canadian dollars a month as a programmer if I moved there. There are other high demand careers, like for example welding), and start moving upwards.

He can also go to Alberta, some time ago there was high demand at the oil sands. He doesn't even have to move out of Canada.

Or he can try what many here do, a startup :) . Or a small business (I was impressed at how much the KFC my brother worked for pulled, and it was owned by an inmigrant).

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#119

Post by rocky_balboa »

A data point which is an outlier in this part of the web-I lost my U.S visa because of the recession,and had to come back to my home country- without working on a first job.I am about the same age as this dude (younger though)

The startup I am working at,has given me lots of confidence in myself and my abilities.When I am bored,or feel becoming rusty,I try to solve tough algorithmic puzzles- I know I am not earning much,but I don't fucking say I am done. Not when your girlfriend breaks up when you are job hunting. No.You have to buckle up and fight for yourself.

I'll catch up,I'll be back in U.S,in the Bay area at a damn good startup,very fucking soon.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#120

Post by mistermann »

galfarragem wrote: post #36
patio11 wrote: post #4

If you were my little brother, and you told me that you had applied to 100 jobs you were strongly qualified for and got zero offers, I would put on my big brother pants and make some fairly pointed observations about your skills, beginning with lead qualification. I would then advise working on skills like lead qualification over sending out 100 more resumes into a process which, as your big brother who loves you has…

I feel exactly as the author. In my country (Portugal) never was such an educated generation and never was such a problematic generation. There is more than 40% of young unemployment. Does that mean that 40% of young people don't worth a dime or are making it wrong?

> Does that mean that 40% of young people don't worth a dime or are making it wrong?

Does Portugal have a minimum wage enforced by the government? Lots of people would hire workers for, let's say $8/hour, but if the law says you have to pay them $12/hr, then maybe there won't be any hiring going on.

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