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Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

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Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#151

Post by muds »

crystal_revenge wrote: post #138

I always feel a bit conflicted when I read these experience from new grads: on the one hand, there's no question the job market today is not the one they signed up for; on the other, the expectation of recent grads is completely alien to me as someone who entered the job market in the shadow of the dotcom bust. The biggest thing that seems foreign to me is the expectation that "I'm a fit for the job, I should therefo…

Much of your argument rests on refuting the notion that the author feels "entitled" to a high-paying job. In that point, I agree with you. Any engineering undertaking is most productive when it is a meritocratic and competitive pursuit. People that feel "entitled" to an engineering job unfortunately need a reality check on their true competitiveness.

However, that doesn't seem like the authors core point. The authors' core point here is that they feel that the level of competition is past the point where their meritocratic achievements have any weight because to be competitive in the present marketplace, they need to either (1) inherently be _born_ in a different country with a low cost of living, (2) give up certain basic freedoms, (3) settle for a less skillful job where they can be an outlier in the distribution (for how long?) etc. -- all of which, to them, feel less meritocratic.

Of course, they might also feel "entitled" to a job, but that's not the interesting part of their argument (at least to me).

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#152

Post by gruez »

alyxya wrote: post #42

To the people at the top, the job market is a statistic. They can't feel empathy on an issue they're so disconnected from, so they just think it's not their problem, or there isn't much they can do about it. Technological innovation is supposed to mean society can produce more with less work, so in theory everyone's lives could end up better off over time where we could all work less and get more, but in practice, I…

>To the people at the top, the job market is a statistic. They can't feel empathy on an issue they're so disconnected from, so they just think it's not their problem, or there isn't much they can do about it.

Who are the "people at the top" you speak of? Are they just an amorphous blob of executives and politicians?

>Technological innovation is supposed to mean society can produce more with less work, so in theory everyone's lives could end up better off over time where we could all work less and get more, but in practice, I see more meaningless work created and wealth continues to consolidate at the top.

Yes, if you're willing to accept pre-industrial revolution levels of living standards, you can probably get away with hours of work per week with modern technology, but people want iPhones and 5G internet, so they can complain on HN.

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#153

Post by StellarScience »

RobertDeNiro wrote: post #125
tkzed49 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would be careful assuming that a lack of performance was responsible for the internships not converting. At my company, I've recently seen a lot of cases where interns don't get return offers. Maybe they're all underperforming for pre-entry-level, but I seriously doubt that. I will also point out that hiring is rarely skill based. I mean seriously. You can be great and not get hired, and you can be a liability and…

Yeah, our team of two gets two interns a semester. We cannot convert them to full time as there is no position open. Complete hiring freeze since 2022.

We paused hiring fresh grads, but still hire interns, and those who prove themselves get full-time offers. We've found internships to be a great pipeline to great hires over the years.

We've had several candidates with completed bachelor's degrees apply for internships, prove themselves, and get full-time jobs that way. This "back door" job hiring pathway might work elsewhere as well.

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#154

Post by tdb7893 »

rudedogg wrote: post #139
tdb7893 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot of tech people feel this way. The feeling of mismatch between my values and the values of leadership is why I left the industry. I'm starting a Master's degree studying birds and it feels like such a weight off of my shoulders to not have to justify corporate decisions to myself.

How does that work financially? Will you work in academia?

Yeah, I'm employed as a research assistant as part of the Master's program currently. There are jobs in government, non-profits, and academia potentially after. I've never loved money (except for the flexibility having it gives me) so I have several hundred thousand saved up after a decade of engineering so while grad school is an 82% cut in pre-tax pay I can withdraw 1% a year from my investments and live fine. Even once I'm out of school my pay will never as good as it was in engineering but I'll be happier presumably.

I'm still figuring out exactly what the research will be but the plan is essentially data science applied to bird migration patterns (lots of statistics and modelling currently). Overall if you like birds and don't like money apparently a strong math/tech background is potentially useful for ecology research with the idea that's it's easier to teach me about birds than teach an animal science person data science and programming (though I did take an undergrad ecology class before applying to ecology programs).

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#155

Post by gruez »

ares623 wrote: post #35
aresant wrote: post #21

"Teleoperation makes this even stranger. . . There are people in one country sitting at desks, driving forklifts in another country . . . It feels like immigration without immigrants." This is a fascinating point - if Neo / Tesla deliver a teleoperated hybrid at their These are being pitched as "home robots" but clearly corporations will go all in - 24/7 operation (with multiple remote operators), no labor law / heal…

I'm not so sure. The tech to do this has been around for ages, and it still hasn't happened. So I'm thinking there's something else preventing companies from going this direction. My uneducated guess is that if a remote operator has a bad day, there is nothing stopping them from doing damage on potentially sensitive and expensive assets and then disappearing in a country with lax enforcement. Also, after a certain po…

>My uneducated guess is that if a remote operator has a bad day, there is nothing stopping them from doing damage on potentially sensitive and expensive assets and then disappearing in a country with lax enforcement.

Can't people already do massive amounts of damage to a company truck/van by driving it into the water, or dumping gas on it and igniting it? Doing it remotely only makes marginally easier, but most people won't do it because they don't want to be on the lam just to send an anti-capitalist message.

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#156

Post by azinman2 »

aresant wrote: post #21

"Teleoperation makes this even stranger. . . There are people in one country sitting at desks, driving forklifts in another country . . . It feels like immigration without immigrants." This is a fascinating point - if Neo / Tesla deliver a teleoperated hybrid at their These are being pitched as "home robots" but clearly corporations will go all in - 24/7 operation (with multiple remote operators), no labor law / heal…

Years ago Marvin Minsky gave a talk before 2001: A Space Odyssey played. He casually mentioned that if NASA (or was it DARPA?) had invested in tele-robotics like he insisted, your house would be cleaned by someone in Africa right now.

The room was stunned silent.

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#157

Post by gruez »

disambiguation wrote: post #117

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LNS14000024 With the exception of COVID, nearly every small uptick is followed by a large uptick.

>nearly every small uptick is followed by a large uptick.

I'm not really seeing it aside from "there's a large uptick because there's eventually a recession".

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#158

Post by hansvm »

windowshopping wrote: post #62

Two initial thoughts: 1. This author's writing is extremely, uncommonly good. Good enough to write a book and have it sell. "Competing with the past of the economy," "residual behaviour of a world that treated labour as sacred," "immigration without immigrants" -- there are many elegant turns of phrase here. This is a very skilled writer. 2. His resume is designed poorly. Have a look. I'm not surprised his job search…

> his resume is designed poorly ... too long

The only readily available link I saw was to his CV, and it was shorter than a lot of resumes. It's wordier per line item than a normal CV, but it's not bad. Assuming it passes a sanity check for AI slop and role fit, as a hiring manager I wouldn't personally mind the length.

Are other people throwing that sort of thing into the circular filing bin?

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#159

Post by hansvm »

windowshopping wrote: post #144
bern4444 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He calls it a CV and given the education background is British it's more inline with what a CV is meant to represent - a deeper dive into your background and experience - compared to a resume which is a condensed 1 page summary. In the US we often use the term interchangeably but internationally they are quite different.

True, but I don't see a separate resume on the site. Correct me if I missed it but my understanding is that he is using that CV as a resume.

Resumes are normally tailored for the role. The CV is the raw source you use to tailor them. It's a little strange to have a blanket "resume" available for public perusal.

Re: Work after work: Notes from an unemployed new grad watching the job market break

#160

Post by gruez »

margorczynski wrote: post #8

The most baffling thing is that even now the H1Bs, etc. are still pouring in. How can you say there is a shortage of IT talent and you need to import them where most grads can't find any work?

>The most baffling thing is that even now the H1Bs, etc. are still pouring in.

Source? Trump's 100k fee only started in September, and I can't find any official statistics since then.

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