Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Youth Unemployment Bomb

businessweek.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 163 posts

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#21

Post by vaksel »

patio11 wrote: post #16
vaksel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there aren't that many new jobs added to all the jobs sites every day, so if you limit yourself just to sending resumes within the closest 100 miles, 15 minutes a day can be as much as you can actually spend. and yes sending resumes isn't as productive as having connections, but a lot of people just don't have that many connections that they can tap to get them a job

So make connections. People with day jobs manage to do this, too: imagine how easy it is with lots of free time.

easier said than done

you have to think outside the programmer mindset where there are lots of opportunities to meet people. For other careers, the only way to meet people in your industry is through a job or a conference.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#22

Post by vaksel »

roel_v wrote: post #17
vaksel wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there aren't that many new jobs added to all the jobs sites every day, so if you limit yourself just to sending resumes within the closest 100 miles, 15 minutes a day can be as much as you can actually spend. and yes sending resumes isn't as productive as having connections, but a lot of people just don't have that many connections that they can tap to get them a job

Re: #1, great! That means you have 7 hours and 45 minutes left each day to browse the Yellow Pages for companies that employ people in your line of work, look up their websites for job ads, find out who their HR managers are and call them to see if there are non-advertised job openings, participate in online forums where there are people who work in companies you want to work and who could be looking for people, etc.…

have you had that work for you or for anyone yo know? or are you just throwing it out there as a way to do something.

it's easy to say go walk from business to business shaking hands asking if their company is hiring, and yes for a few people that might actually work...but for the vast majority it'll be an exercise in futility.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#23

Post by kiba »

bsaunder wrote: post #20
kiba wrote: post #15

It's time for youth to blaze new path to employment. 19 years old like me are trying to build a living on the internet by writing, programming, and selling ads. It's a lot of hard work to find clients and more scary when you're trying to deliver the work.

Buy an Arduino and start building robots. IMHO, there's a long, rewarding career there.

I don't have such capital but I have around 600ish dollars worth of saving(In an another currency!) that's earned through hard work.

Hopefully, the network of clients I am building will grows to such portion that I am able to find constant work as well charge more.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#24

Post by patio11 »

mkr-hn wrote: post #7
patio11 wrote: post #2

I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day". I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new nor…

I've been very careful to craft my resume for the job applied for and to only apply for those where I have a shot. 1 interview out of 3 resumes seems like a good rate. I've only sent three, but that's because I realized the economy wasn't getting better any time soon. "Ran an advice blog" definitely looks better on my resume than "got really good at writing resumes." I'll start sending them out again once unemploymen…

Not applying for work because the unemployment rate is high is mind bending to me. Can you explain your reasoning? This sounds like it is full-stop guaranteed to mean several hundred thousand people get jobs before you get considered. I like the blog idea more than playing xBox but the commitment strategy here strikes me as severly suboptimal. (You may wish to recalibrate your understanding of meaningful: delaying your start date by 24 hours costs more than double digits.)

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#25

Post by sp_ »

patio11 wrote: post #2

I'm most worried not for the numbers as for the corrosive effect long periods of unemployment have on employability. You lose the simple habits which are required for lots of gainful employment, such as "getting up before 9 AM consistently" and "working mostly non-stop for 8 hours a day". I see this in a lot of these articles where folks will, e.g., claim they applied for 15 jobs in 3 weeks. At some point the new nor…

This is so true. I have a friend, fresh out of college with a Masters degree in CS from a German university, who has been unemployed for about a year now and in that time he has sent out maybe 10 to 15 applications. I carefully try to nudge him in the right direction by keeping an eye open for job offers that might interest him or by suggesting programming challenges/projects that could improve his skills.

But instead of working on things that could improve his chances to get a job, he just watches TV all day long. If he put in only maybe three hours of open source coding time a day, his chances to score a job should increase tremendously. If you are an unemployed software developer, it is much easier to stay on top of things than in many other professions but in the end you have to have the motivation for it.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#26

Post by throw02082011 »

Tycho wrote: post #5

Luckily the soil is fertile: All over the world, the hittistes and shabab atileen, NEETs and freeters and boomerang kids are hungry for a chance to thrive. Hmm, but how hungry? Compared to say people who came of age in the 40s or 50s? I'm not sure hungry is the right word. Restless maybe. Peckish.

Jason Calacanis? Is that you???

Part of the problem is cheaper young workers are laid off to keep fatcat management of an older generation. The workers remaining at the company then get "more productive." Fire the old and bring in 2 young workers(or more) for each of their salaries and things get much better.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#27

Post by mkr-hn »

patio11 wrote: post #24
mkr-hn wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been very careful to craft my resume for the job applied for and to only apply for those where I have a shot. 1 interview out of 3 resumes seems like a good rate. I've only sent three, but that's because I realized the economy wasn't getting better any time soon. "Ran an advice blog" definitely looks better on my resume than "got really good at writing resumes." I'll start sending them out again once unemploymen…

Not applying for work because the unemployment rate is high is mind bending to me. Can you explain your reasoning? This sounds like it is full-stop guaranteed to mean several hundred thousand people get jobs before you get considered. I like the blog idea more than playing xBox but the commitment strategy here strikes me as severly suboptimal. (You may wish to recalibrate your understanding of meaningful: delaying yo…

I spent a year after college looking for jobs to apply to. I found three I was remotely qualified for (those I applied to).

If I applied for even a small portion of the jobs that pop up on local job boards, it would consume every hour of the day.

In a normal economy you'd see entry level jobs there. But every job wants years of experience and specialized certifications. I don't even have the means to get the certifications.

Taking an alternate route is a coping method. I still probe the job boards during the day.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#28

Post by Tycho »

jhamburger wrote: post #6
Tycho wrote: post #5

Luckily the soil is fertile: All over the world, the hittistes and shabab atileen, NEETs and freeters and boomerang kids are hungry for a chance to thrive. Hmm, but how hungry? Compared to say people who came of age in the 40s or 50s? I'm not sure hungry is the right word. Restless maybe. Peckish.

Do you have anything substantial behind this or is it just general "worst generation ever" talk?

Well, even my mother, who came of age in the 70s, shared a small home with 8 other siblings and two very over-stressed parents (who would have had things even harder). She was literally desperate to leave and start living much more comfortably (ie. independently). Nowadays kids come from much smaller families, and have numerous cheap distractions/entertainments like the internet, cellphones, tv, games. Living independently would probably mean facing up to a lot of problems, just for a little more freedom. How could they possibly be just as hungry/desperate? Plus many people conduct their entire jobsearch from their laptop, and get benefits paid directly into their bank.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#29

Post by gaius »

bioh42_2 wrote: post #10
_delirium wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Relatedly: some days I wonder if the single most effective form of unemployment relief would be teaching people that sending out resumes is for suckers.) The welfare-reform efforts of the past 15-20 years in most western countries have tended to do exactly the opposite, oddly enough. Out of a worry that people were just receiving benefits without really looking for work, you must now demonstrate that you're actively…

John Maynard Keynes did suggest welfare should be employing people to do things, even pointless things like building giant structures and them demolishing them again. It seems silly, but if we truly recognize that long term unemployment has a horrible way of killing one's ability hold a job, then Keynes idea is rather practical. The government not as welfare but simply as employers of last resort. Much like the Fed i…

I agree, but Charles Dickens made that politically impossible. "Are there no workhouses?" Etc.

Re: The Youth Unemployment Bomb

#30

Post by rdouble »

gaius wrote: post #29
bioh42_2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

John Maynard Keynes did suggest welfare should be employing people to do things, even pointless things like building giant structures and them demolishing them again. It seems silly, but if we truly recognize that long term unemployment has a horrible way of killing one's ability hold a job, then Keynes idea is rather practical. The government not as welfare but simply as employers of last resort. Much like the Fed i…

I agree, but Charles Dickens made that politically impossible. "Are there no workhouses?" Etc.

WPA was long after Dickens.
Post reply on HN