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When the job search becomes impossible

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Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#191

Post by alsetmusic »

titanomachy wrote: post #116
ilaksh wrote: post #111

The thing that bothers me so much about this post is that it reeks of privilege by treating unemployment as if it were mainly just a bad trigger that you talk to your expensive therapist about once a week. For most people in the real world, psychological burn out is NOT the problem with unemployment. The problem is becoming homeless.

I think "most people in the real world" have at least a few rungs between their current situation and true homelessness. Many people have some sort of family or other community that they could lean on, even in America where family ties are weaker than any other place I know. I have a couple friends who haven't had steady work in years, and they still eke out a pretty reasonable existence living with friends and famil…

> I think "most people in the real world" have at least a few rungs between their current situation and true homelessness.

This is one of the most out-of-touch HN comments I've seen in a while. Most people are not nearly as privileged as the community on these forums. Not even all the people posting here are fully removed from the risk of being out on their ass. Some have moved from other parts of their home country (think people in the Bay Area who moved for a job and have no family in the same job market). Some have moved from other parts of the world to where they are and have no one upon whom they can impose. Plenty have huge student loans and are so fresh out of school that they're at the edge of the many rounds of layoffs affecting the tech industry in the last few years and lack enough experience on their resumés to land a new position before their finances run out.

I can't believe how tone deaf it is to suggest that most people have multiple rungs upon which to fall back. And I've only been talking about people on these forums, the "fortunate" types.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#192

Post by jppope »

atoav wrote: post #163
b_e_n_t_o_n wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you have found it reasonable for interested candidates to have reached out directly instead of just submitting a resume to the ATS? With the AI spam etc. it feels like the usefulness of these automated systems is quickly diminishing. Hiring feels broken right now.

What does "reaching out directly" mean?

this means finding a way to directly reach out to the hiring manager. like sending an email, asking a colleague for an introduction, sending a linkedin message, etc

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#193

Post by marc_abonce »

atoav wrote: post #163
b_e_n_t_o_n wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you have found it reasonable for interested candidates to have reached out directly instead of just submitting a resume to the ATS? With the AI spam etc. it feels like the usefulness of these automated systems is quickly diminishing. Hiring feels broken right now.

What does "reaching out directly" mean?

I assume that they mean sending either a direct Linkedin message or an email to the recruiter or hiring manager.

When I was recently unemployed I started doing that after months of getting ignored by most companies and, in my experience, the only difference is that I got far more acks ("Hi! Sure, I'll take a look at your resume and reach out!") but I got a similar rate of applications-to-interview compared to applying through the official platforms.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#194

Post by tayo42 »

pizzathyme wrote: post #13

> "You’ve spent several months sending out scores of carefully tailored resumes and cover letters for jobs you know you are fully qualified for and would excel at." People should not do this. It is causing so much suffering. In my 6 jobs in my career from college internship to startups to Big Tech, I have never gotten a job from sending an application into a site. It's always been through (somehow) tracking down a pe…

I've gotten 3/4 jobs by cold applying. 2 at pretty big/famous tech companies. The 1 that wasn't cold applying was through an agency.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#195

Post by selimthegrim »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #164
titanomachy wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People living in hotels, temporary trailers (in some places even tiny homes count), living with a friend temporarily, etc are all homeless. You're right. But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"? And yeah, the paycheck-to-paycheck stat blows my mind. Somehow the standard American experience has become the latest model iPhone (financed), a new car (financed), a rented home, 4-5 meals out…

> You're right. But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"? No, but this is also not ideal for many reasons I have a friend going through this right now, actually. The biggest challenge is that her parents don't live anywhere near a strong job market. So the decision for her is "be homeless in a place where jobs are available" or "have a home but no access to employers" It's not ideal

I have been applying since March 2020 out of New Orleans and I have come up with nothing (5-6 first round interviews) so I think that this is a much bigger problem than people think.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#196

Post by jonkho »

jofer wrote: post #148

As someone who's recently been hiring (sorry folks, position was filled just a few days ago), it's wild to me how distorted things have become. We had 1200 applications for an extremely niche role. A huge amount were clearly faked resumes that far too closely matched the job description to be realistic. Another huge portion were just unqualified. The irony is that there actually _are_ a ton of exceptionally qualified…

Use hiring brokers. The good ones will vet the candidates and verify them.

Job seekers should also consider seeking representation from top tier brokers.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#197

Post by insane_dreamer »

hiring-manager wrote: post #145
DaveZale wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes but the flip side, is that we lived in Indiana for a while. Very cheap living there. So, keep your expenses low, with no debt. Freedom.

TLDR: No Debt Lots of savings Single-income able to support family WIN!

You forgot “low COL”

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#198

Post by ryandrake »

lovich wrote: post #97
pizzathyme wrote: post #13

> "You’ve spent several months sending out scores of carefully tailored resumes and cover letters for jobs you know you are fully qualified for and would excel at." People should not do this. It is causing so much suffering. In my 6 jobs in my career from college internship to startups to Big Tech, I have never gotten a job from sending an application into a site. It's always been through (somehow) tracking down a pe…

Referrals by hiring managers who I have previously worked with and want to hire me aren’t even getting me a phone screen from their recruiters. The majority of employment in tech is with large, corporate firms, and unless you are in the executive tier they all have implemented a massive amount of process to prevent bias in hiring which means that even networking has low impact on getting a job, beyond letting you kno…

Yea, whenever someone says "Just network, bro!" they never actually fully connect the dots between networking and walking into the office on your first day of work:

Step 1: Just have coffee with a hiring manager

Step 2: Hiring manager says go check out job #41102, and submit your resume. Good luck, bro!

Step 3: [???]

Step 4: You've got an interview to ace!

Nobody ever explains the [???]. They just assume that by magic, your online submission rises to the top of the stack of 1,699 other online submissions, avoids all of HR's filters, gets to the right person in the right department on the right team, that person has the authority to pick you out of the pile, and so on... There's a lot still out of your control in this process. It's not just Networking --> Job.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#199

Post by chaosharmonic »

titanomachy wrote: post #125
roadside_picnic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Homeless" is not the same as "living on the street". People living in hotels, temporary trailers (in some places even tiny homes count), living with a friend temporarily, etc are all homeless . Plenty of Americans are much closer than this than you might think working in tech. 50-60% of Americans currently live 'paycheck-to-paycheck' which means the second work stops they're on a timer for missing bills to start com…

> People living in hotels, temporary trailers (in some places even tiny homes count), living with a friend temporarily, etc are all homeless. You're right. But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"? And yeah, the paycheck-to-paycheck stat blows my mind. Somehow the standard American experience has become the latest model iPhone (financed), a new car (financed), a rented home, 4-5 meals out…

> But is a 30-year-old who moves back in with their parents "homeless"?

Depends -- how safe is their parents' home?

That answer can vary, for a lot of reasons.

Re: When the job search becomes impossible

#200

Post by chaosharmonic »

andy99 wrote: post #160

In my recent experience (20 yrs experience so ymmv) - basically all jobs you see posted on LinkedIn or on big sites are either fake or might as well be because they are being run through HR - everything is optimized for engagement, not outcomes, so there are lots or meaningless things to do (basically anything on linkedin). You might as well do some of them to stay sane but they'll never get you a job - what's valuab…

This disaster is why I've built a whole side project automating the act of doomscrolling through job boards, so I can focus on actually talking to people when I find something that does interest me. (And can track the results in one place without repeatedly running into duplicates.)
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