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

A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

theglobeandmail.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 144 posts

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#21

Post by patio11 »

bdunn wrote: post #8
ash wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean by "lead qualification"? Searching Google wasn't helpful...

Your resume is like a sales lead. As someone who made a living selling these to mortgage brokers, they'd routinely ditch the low credit leads before making contact - they knew it'd be too hard to "close" that lead. So I think Patrick is arguing that more qualification is necessary - it sounds like employers are seeing this resume as a low quality lead. Meet some people who can help you, do something that tells an emp…

I suppose from the employer's POV a resume is a lead, but from the job seeker's POV, the notion that there exists a possible target for a resume/cover letter is a lead. There is a time and focus cost to sending out a resume/cover letter (or doing stuff that actually works, like trying to get a coffee date with a decisionmaker there). You should not spend your limited time on opportunities which are unlikely to convert into mutually rewarding relationships. Getting your resume circular-filed is the least mutually rewarding relationship I can think of in the employment space.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#22

Post by GFischer »

"Owning a home that's bigger than 500 square feet. (hint: that's not big.) "

That's U.S. entitlement for you. 500 square feet is perfectly reasonable, I live on about the same, and I rent it (and I'm 31 years old).

A 500 square feet small apartment in Barcelona is about 200.000 euros right now, and 80.000 here in Uruguay.

I agree that it's not ideal for raising kids, but it's not something to whine about.

Edit: as others pointed out, most have a lot of work experience by 29 years old. I had 8 years' experience at the time and I expect people in the U.S. to have even more since they graduate earlier and have summer jobs and all that.

Also, he says he can make 36.000 dollars/year?, well you can save a bit and try your hand overseas. During hard times, people emigrated in the past. My grandparents did, and endured hardships. In the U.S., you might have read about pilgrims. I doubt they complained about not being able to afford a dog. And being a foreigner has a charm that will make you popular with girls (not to mention the U.S. passport if it comes to that).

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#23

Post by renegadedev »

I can empathize with his frustration as my wife, early 30s,is going through similar issues searching for jobs. Most people, wife included, don't realize that job search is not about blasting a 100 uninspiring resumes on Monster.com and hoping they get noticed. I've tried to explain to her the concept of networking her way through companies to reach individuals in decision making position and also to keep tweaking her resume to align her existing skills with the job description she's applying for, but hey, it's always easier to get frustrated and vent.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#24

Post by _delirium »

graeme wrote: post #14
patio11 wrote: post #4

If you were my little brother, and you told me that you had applied to 100 jobs you were strongly qualified for and got zero offers, I would put on my big brother pants and make some fairly pointed observations about your skills, beginning with lead qualification. I would then advise working on skills like lead qualification over sending out 100 more resumes into a process which, as your big brother who loves you has…

Good advice. My question: is he strongly qualified for the positions he applies to? He doesn't mention having any particular skill. He says he could get a job worth $36,000. But he thinks he's worth more. Maybe, but it's not clear why, from the article. I think our current system creates a mismatch between skills and expectations for new liberal arts grads.

I read the $36,000 job as the one he was now aiming for, but hasn't found yet. I.e. that, failing in his attempt to find an entry-level position in a finance or business type setting (the sort of high-stress, high-pay, 70 hr/wk "ambitious" route), he's now turning his sights towards a "lifestyle job", a 40 hr/wk, $36k job at a ski resort or that kind of place.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#25

Post by wheaties »

I feel his pain. We just got done interviewing someone who had studied "web page" design. It's sad because whatever he was taught for those 4 years (while getting a 3.96 GPA) amounted to a very limited skill set. His designs were half there but his ability to actually apply or use them to a problem weren't.

This is a recurring theme in many applicants that walk through our doors. There's tons of degrees I've never heard of that make me think "There's a degree in that!?" Most have no applicable skills. Most don't even know what they need to know. Finally, most don't have a way to learn it without a mentor to guide them.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#26

Post by jheriko »

Rubbish. It certainly sounds like he has made an effort to at least bring money in, and has had jobs.

However, this tells me it is not hard to find a job, just hard to find a nice job. This is different. Having a nice job is an incredible luxury nobody has an inherent right to...

This opinion is compounded by various complaints about immigrants "taking" jobs. The truth is everybody feels they are entitled to do something amazing - regardless of if they are good enough. Some of us have to suck it up and stack shelves or staff factories...

Aspiring to more is great and everyone should do that imo. But reality might mean working a lot of crap jobs in the meantime to survive.

Survival is shockingly easy in today's world. Not surviving requires a concerted effort in fact...

To sum up. I think this complaint is valid when worded properly - its just completely unimportant.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#27

Post by _delirium »

GFischer wrote: post #22

"Owning a home that's bigger than 500 square feet. (hint: that's not big.) " That's U.S. entitlement for you. 500 square feet is perfectly reasonable, I live on about the same, and I rent it (and I'm 31 years old). A 500 square feet small apartment in Barcelona is about 200.000 euros right now, and 80.000 here in Uruguay. I agree that it's not ideal for raising kids, but it's not something to whine about. Edit: as ot…

I don't think that's only U.S. entitlement; raising a family in a 46 m^2 home would be considered quite small in most of Europe, even in the poorer countries. Though it depends on where you live more than anything, even within one country. A 46 m^2 apartment in an expensive city like Barcelona, and a 46 m^2 apartment or house in a small Spanish town occupy pretty different market positions.

If he's complaining about not being able to afford a >500 sq ft apartment in Manhattan, I agree that'd be pretty entitled, analogous to the Barcelona example. I'm guessing he's not in Manhattan, though.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#28

Post by chousho »

skooter wrote: post #15
stephengillie wrote: post #2

This is EXACTLY how I feel about life.

That sucks when I read that, because I know how that feels. Email me (in my profile) if you want to talk and bounce some ideas around and make life better.

Hi, I actually tried e-mailing you, as I'm having this same situation. However I received a reply from gmail that "Hotmail can not find this address". I would actually like to talk with you, and find any ideas for help, if you're willing.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#29

Post by danking00 »

goodside wrote: post #16

While we're providing isolated, non-representative examples: I graduated in 2009 from a crappy Podunk school whose average SAT was 980 (on the old 1600 scale). It only costs about two grand a semester. I majored in CS. I had an internship at a credit union, then a job in insurance lined up before graduating, and then two years later I was hired by OkCupid. I have sent out exactly three resumes in my life, and never b…

I really wish someone could explain this to me. My local observations are the same as parent. I have no unemployed, graduated friends, in fact, I have still-in-school but employed friends. They're all making great salaries and living in fun cities like San Fran, New York, and Boston.

I practically have a job offer at a firm in New Tork and I'm a year from graduating and I've a decent shot at graduate programs too.

I must be doing something fundamentally different, or there's some systemic bias in my favor. I am lower middle class, white, male, nerd, not particularly socially apt, average university, ~100k loans, American, CS and physics maajor, living in the northeast.

Re: A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job

#30

Post by pjmo »

I think what we are seeing over and over again as articles similar to this run in papers all over (HuffPo, NYT, WaPo) is this point: Most young people are bad at searching for jobs! Just like we're bad at dating, we're are bad at job searching. Obviously not everyone is bad, but a large majority of people who are unemployed or underemployed do not have a system in place that makes there job search efficient or effective. I'm currently working on addressing this problem, so hopefully stories like this can stop.
Post reply on HN