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

urlahmed.com

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

#171

Post by nradov »

gedy wrote: post #141
calepayson wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. This author’s writing is extremely, uncommonly good. > 2. His resume is designed poorly… This is the world of TikTok and Instagram reels Imo this is exactly the problem. We’ve constructed a system where brilliance doesn’t shine through. The idea that someone as thoughtful as OP needs to tiktokify their resume to even have a chance at getting hired is ridiculous. I’m young, so I have no clue, but surely the job m…

In my limited world view and 35 year career, the big shift I see (which I view is a problem) is that companies seem to lean way more on young HR types to recruit and filter than in the past. I can’t speak for everyone, but to me it seems it used to be a lot more common for the skilled hiring manager to be responsible for looking for new hires.

That happened because online job sites made it so easy for candidates to apply that hiring managers could no longer personally keep up with the flood. It's a bad situation for both employers and candidates but there doesn't seem to be any practical alternative.

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

#172

Post by nradov »

phatfish wrote: post #106
mike_hearn wrote: post #47

Great article, well written. I'd certainly consider interviewing this guy - if I was hiring. Based on the other comments it's worth noting a few things: 1. Ahmed seems to be in the UK, not the USA. H1Bs don't affect him. This isn't obvious because he talks about the USA. However, the mass immigration into the UK might have impacted him by saturating the low skill markets such that everyone else has to fight over the…

I wish Labour would impose any regulation on the tech industry, let alone "heavy". The UK is running sacred of Trump and will do nothing to stop the US tech giants avoiding tax and causing social unrest.

Why hasn't the UK been able to create any local tech giants? Would more regulations imposed by a Labour government help to turn that around?

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

#173

Post by burnt-resistor »

This is what happens when there is hyper-optimization of capital rate of return at the expense of cruelly suppressing the rate of labor wage increases. The middle class shrivels up to nothing and the precariat explodes with millions of under-counted homeless and functionally-homeless people. I guess billionaires really want to live in fortified gated communities in otherwise poor countries surrounded by favelas, criminal street gangs, and abject suffering.

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

#174

Post by urlahmed »

Hey all, OP here (author of the blog post, someone else submitted it ).

I wrote this a few days ago mostly out of frustration and honestly did not expect it to go anywhere. It is pretty surreal to wake up and see it on HN with so much discussion.

Thank you for reading and for all the comments, messages, and thoughtful critiques!

I am currently looking for roles that sit at the intersection of ML, product, and research. I like open ended work where you figure out what to build as much as how to build it. I am a builder, and I also enjoy PM type work and being close to users and the product. If you are working on something in that space and think I might be a fit, I would love to chat.

Also, thank you to Daniel Han for sending me the link and bringing this to my attention.

In any case, thanks again for reading and for the conversation.

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

#175

Post by urlahmed »

Hey all, OP here (author of the blog post, someone else submitted it ).

I wrote this a few days ago mostly out of frustration and honestly did not expect it to go anywhere. It is pretty surreal to wake up and see it on HN with so much discussion.

Thank you for reading and for all the comments, messages, and thoughtful critiques.

I am currently looking for roles that sit at the intersection of ML, product, and research. I like open ended work where you figure out what to build as much as how to build it. I am a builder, and I also enjoy PM type work and being close to users and the product. If you are working on something in that space and think I might be a fit, I would love to chat.

Also, thank you to Daniel Han for sending me the link and bringing this to my attention.

In any case, thanks again for reading and for the conversation.

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

#176

Post by ericpauley »

My two cents: As someone who is actively hiring and looking at a lot of résumés from fresh grads (albeit looking for more systems programming experience), I would personally not move forward with an interview for this CV.

Red flags for me:

* Talks a big talk on AI but it’s inscrutable if any of it goes beyond “I installed PyTorch and ran example code/prompted an API”

* Multiple projects but from demos it’s very unclear what they actually did. (Not “very legible technical work”)

* No GitHub on résumé despite claiming it on “skills”

I can get a good engineer onboarded to AI tooling quickly (heck, some of the referenced techniques have existed for only months), but I can’t reliably take someone from AI consumer to engineer.

These issues are very widespread. I’d say under 10% of junior résumés I look at give me confidence that they’d show up and know how to write real systems instead of just gluing things together.

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

#177

Post by nradov »

tayo42 wrote: post #64
yesimahuman wrote: post #27

I really feel horrible for people who bet on CS and are hitting this job market right now. It's interesting, back when I was in elementary school in the 90's, parents of friends knew I had an interest in computers and would tell me becoming a programmer or IT person was a terrible job and I should avoid it. That was maybe true until it wasn't, and it ended up being highly lucrative. I can't tell if this is the same t…

Job markets are bad for everyone though

Job markets are pretty good for electricians building data centers.

https://www.facebook.com/TheRealMikeRowe/posts/pfbid02UTHoop...

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

#178

Post by lisbbb »

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…

It a bit too long to get the main points across. Also, a wall of text is becoming something people ignore, no matter how important it is. Make a video, bring these ideas to life.

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

#179

Post by lisbbb »

chis wrote: post #135
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…

I can't really agree. I mean you scroll 1 paragraph down and it says he worked a Google Deepmind, that's really all I'd need to see. I think the market is just super hard for new grads. I've heard from people that had to apply to hundreds of companies and do 20+ interviews to get something. Totally agree that this guy could write books though. On some level I always wonder if it'll be better for society if the next g…

I don't see the point of applying for "hundreds of jobs." I think use the time to network with real people and forget about Indeed or whatever because those jobs are mostly fake anyways.

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

#180

Post by brailsafe »

ghaff wrote: post #85
yesimahuman wrote: post #27

I really feel horrible for people who bet on CS and are hitting this job market right now. It's interesting, back when I was in elementary school in the 90's, parents of friends knew I had an interest in computers and would tell me becoming a programmer or IT person was a terrible job and I should avoid it. That was maybe true until it wasn't, and it ended up being highly lucrative. I can't tell if this is the same t…

AI may actually change everything but I suspect things are cyclical to at least some degree. The $400K jobs may dry up for most--and certainly having two or more those jobs at the same time will--especially for people without degrees or degrees from no-name colleges or boot camps. It may be reasonable to expect CS/programming jobs will become more like lots of other STEM degrees in terms of requirements and comp. Whi…

> The $400K jobs may dry up for most

Pretty sure $400k was not on the table for anyone but a tiny minority

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