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

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21–30 of 502 posts

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

#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 / healthcare / pensions, spin up / down at will.

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

#22
Honestly I think "applying for jobs" is becoming a thing of the past.

From the employer side, it's becoming incredibly difficult to find qualified inbound candidates. The main issues is AI + non-US spam. Every job listing we post attracts ~200 applicants, and maybe 5 US based humans.

It's a full time job to wade through the spam to find the actual people, especially when a lot of people are lying about location / experience on the resumes. The result is we've just stopped taking incoming applications and only go outbound to find candidates.

And we're a small startup. I imagine any midsized+ company has 100x this problem.

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

#23

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?

Because they can't push their finger down a new grads throat if they push back. Someone who's families very presence in this country depends on their employer will rarely find a reason to complain about being overworked to the bone or told to do questionable things. H1B and other programs have a noble purpose that is often (but not always) abused to create loyal servants.

The allure for companies of exploiting H1Bs for cheaper and more effective labor I understand. But it is not companies who (at least officially) set the rules and laws regarding immigration.

So the questions is why the government is not turning off the outside supply when there is an internal oversupply.

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

#24

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?

you know the answer

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

#25

When you look beyond office jobs, you see many real opportunities. For example, there is a housing crisis. Not enough trades persons, building supplies, capital to solve that problem. The unemployment statistics aren't detailed enough to show IBM, MS, Facebook, Amazon, etc laying off tens of thousands of employees a year, each. Last I read, over 500,000 staff have been laid off in the past couple of years.

Im not American so can't comment on the US situation. However, where I live, CS grads are facing the same problem. However, switching to trades is not an option - the salaries of trade workers are not enough to pay for housing.

I've been working for 5 solid years now at my current company, Im still the youngest hire. While my company continues to compensate me really well, I think that the new grad situation is terrible.

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

#26
post #9

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?

My company had an onshore hiring freeze, while still hiring offshore. C-suite had the nerve in an all hands to say they were expanding offshore because there was a "local talent shortage", all while an onshore hiring freeze was still in effect. This wasn't even a secret; in our stand ups our immediate manager said that they were blocked from hiring onshore and only had offshore quota available if they wanted any more…

They can. What are you going to do? Quit? That's exactly what they would want. Much cheaper to increase the squeeze than pay redundancies.

By the way, it's very similar here in Australia. I don't think there's anything an individual can do in this case. This needs regulation. Even with better workplace protections, the forums are full of people describing what you described and worse.

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

#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 thing all over again or something completely different. What I think will be fascinating to watch is how the market for talented engineers changes as the bottom drops out and the pipeline of new grads dries up, or maybe it will balance out again? Or will these companies reap what they sow as they stop hiring and then cannot hire again because no one is entering the field anymore?

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

#28
What jumped out at me is that the author had three internships. Those are essentially "entry-level positions". If you do well at an internship, you typically get a job offer. If you don't do well, usually you can at least get some useful feedback.

I'm not saying that everything is perfectly fine in the job market right now, it's just a lot more productive to focus on "what skill do I need to work on, that would have let me convert those internships into full time jobs", rather than "man the job market is bad".

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

#30
"It's the economy, stupid."

I don't know why we need to be so dramatic about AI and automation. The reason you're not getting hired is because there's not enough positions and we have a huge amount of people in the industry. Tech is not exploding like it was in the 2000s and 2010s. It is a mature industry. That comes with mature industry issues like when the economy sucks, it doesn't grow anymore.

Have you noticed how we're still in a trade war? What about the government shutdown? The high interest rates? All time highs for cost of living? Wages not keeping up with costs at all for practically any profession? Dang, it's almost like if all the money going to AI stonkz wasn't happening... we'd be in a recession... hmmmm

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