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Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

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Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#151

Post by 0xEF »

paulcole wrote: post #150
smelly101 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can do it! You just have to start. No one on Earth can stop you from learning what you want to learn. The 'weekend' is not enough time to switch a career. A university undergrad takes 1460 days. With 100 weekend days a year it would take 14 years to achieve that. That's assuming you don't take a single day off for 14 years. You're gaslighting the poor dude.

I mean what's better? To say "Well if you try you might get what you want..." or to go, "Yeah you're right it's hopeless and you are stuck..."

But...I'm not saying either of those things. Both are extreme positions. If you read my original post, I'm looking for a company that can take me on and help me get to that next level while I work for them (aka "investing in its people"). They exist, but the barriers to entry are tricky to navigate, hence why I asked for advice from someone in the field.

Sweeping ideas about blanket positivity are not practical solutions, so the previous comment (and, by extension, yours) are pretty unhelpful.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#152

Post by 0xEF »

HeyLaughingBoy wrote: post #141
0xEF wrote: post #31

"How are you dealing?" Short answer; not well. Long answer; I'm currently stuck in a job with an employer that I hate, that is slowly destroying my love of the work, and I can't afford the time it would take to leave, upgrade my skills and get into a better situation. For context, I am a versatile service tech for industrial machines. I have zero certifications in anything only because I never needed them before sinc…

I can't help you directly, but have you checked plctalk.com? Lots of experience on there and I'm sure you can find someone who's been in the same situation and can offer some guidance.

I didn't know about this! And with animated gifs, too! Hah, I dig the old web, anyway. But yeah, I'll comb through these forums, seems like it's an active community. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#153

Post by conor- »

0xEF wrote: post #59
kemiller2002 wrote: post #13

I'll let you in on the secret to finding a job. It's not about your skills really (maybe some), it's about who you know. If you're relying on only your skill to carry you through to finding a job, you're going to have a rough time. It's about who you know. You're looking for a job? Go to meetups, code and coffees, free tech seminars by companies etc. That's your job now. Connect with people on LinkedIn. There are ver…

This is good advice and I need to start taking it. I am one of those rare people who could get hired on skill alone. It's not working anymore, leaving me stuck in a dead-end position.

I think the reduction in that working is because of an over-saturation of people who play buzzword bingo on their resume, LinkedIn, whatever to the point that it's impossible for a hiring manager to really discern who actually has a broad set of skills vs who is just trying to jam noise in the signal.

That's probably where social connections come in because it at least provides a verification layer of "yeah X actually does know how to do A, B, and C we should get them into the hiring pipeline"

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#154

Post by conor- »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #13

I'll let you in on the secret to finding a job. It's not about your skills really (maybe some), it's about who you know. If you're relying on only your skill to carry you through to finding a job, you're going to have a rough time. It's about who you know. You're looking for a job? Go to meetups, code and coffees, free tech seminars by companies etc. That's your job now. Connect with people on LinkedIn. There are ver…

Where do you typically find out about local meetups, events, etc.?

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#155

Post by conor- »

coolThingsFirst wrote: post #144
harveywi wrote: post #84

1. Read this great "Surviving A Layoff" essay [1] and build a plan for yourself. 2. Take the time to level up on one or two foundational skills whose barriers to entry are combinations of tenacity and intelligence, or tech stacks that are very close to a foundational skill. Something like "Fart App Framework" is not a foundational skill because it becomes obsolete in a very short amount of time. Things like mathemati…

For 1), foundational skills don't help at all apart from being able to solve LC problems. For me solving LC is a breeze but then they ask if I know their favourite stack and how well I know it. Now you need to know React, Redux with online non-trivial project in that to even be considered for interview. DB indexing is a common question as well. Web security pops up as well. In my opinion just focusing on React/Redux…

Foundational skills can mean different things. In your example of React/Redux the foundational skills means learning things like how the JS Eventloop works, browser APIs, Layer 7 networking protocols, etc. i.e. the underpinnings of what React/Redux relies on to work correctly rather than just learning how to write a bunch of stuff on top of React without fully grokking the what/why of what's happening.

All of the aforementioned skills are broad and will allow you to pick up new things a lot faster because you understand the foundations vs just being shoehorned into being "$Framework Engineer"

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#156

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

paulcole wrote: post #140
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The goal is definitely to try to hire the best person who applies. A company might not succeed in that and take the second best, or even worse. If you get a job offer it means that you were the best candidate that was available to the company. I'm cool with that personally, I don't agonise that some rock star may have rejected the role.

Well to be fair, there’s no objective measure of “best” which makes this debate pretty pointless. But also, why would I want to hire the best? Wouldn’t that mean that I can’t make a decision until I’ve seen all the candidates? Why don’t I simply look for the first that meets the requirements of the job? > If you get a job offer it means that you were the best candidate that was available to the company Again, I’ll di…

You try to hire the best candidate you see. At least that's what I've always tried to do on the other side of the interviewing table...

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#157

Post by jacknews »

blitz_skull wrote: post #29

Idk, lots of folks have been talking about “downturns” but I’ve been in the industry for 8 years now and I’ve never had to look for more than 2-3 weeks to get a job—and that’s while I was already working so I’d imagine I could find one even faster if I dedicated all my time to it. I’m not trying to be contrarian or suggest that other folks don’t struggle finding a job. I’m just offering an alternate viewpoint. Maybe…

It's rather easy to 'imagine' finding a job quickly. How about trying to do it, and then you'd see for yourself?

Reminds me a bit, but the opposite of, of the Saruman/Wormtongue scene in Lord of the rings, "But my lord, there is no such force" ...

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#158

Post by zingababba »

commandlinefan wrote: post #101
kemiller2002 wrote: post #13

I'll let you in on the secret to finding a job. It's not about your skills really (maybe some), it's about who you know. If you're relying on only your skill to carry you through to finding a job, you're going to have a rough time. It's about who you know. You're looking for a job? Go to meetups, code and coffees, free tech seminars by companies etc. That's your job now. Connect with people on LinkedIn. There are ver…

> It's not about your skills really, it's about who you know I've been hearing people give this advice my entire life, which is about a half century now. It's never been true for me. Roughly half the jobs I've had in my life I've gotten through a referral and the other half I've gotten "cold" by just applying to an open req and being the best candidate that applied. By FAR the best jobs I've had were the ones where I…

Similar experience here but with one further observation. I honestly have never had to look hard for a job, ending up getting scooped up fairly quickly, so I've spent a bit of time pondering this. For me I believe my superpower in this regard is my attitude, I'm an extremely athletic guy with a squarely type A personality and I've been told I exude "just get stuff done" - people love seeing that shit.

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#159

Post by gaws »

aiisjustanif wrote: post #135
gaws wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's never been true for me. > Roughly half the jobs I've had in my life I've gotten through a referral Someone needed to know you well enough to make the referral.

> Someone needed to know you well enough to make the referral. Not true, many companies give incentives to employees if they hire their referral. Why would I need that employee need to know them.

A referral means you vouch for the person. If you blindly refer someone and he or she turns out to be shit, chances are that'll back for you. Who would want that?

Re: Ask HN: How are you dealing with the job market anxiety?

#160

Post by Unfrozen0688 »

gaws wrote: post #125
Unfrozen0688 wrote: post #17

Copius amount of video games and youtube. Also I still have a job. You can always do call centre helpdesk OP. Everyone is replaceable.

> You can always do call centre helpdesk OP. Everyone is replaceable. Or, learn a trade.

Sounds way worse and not in the same skillset.
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