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Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

manuel.darcemont.fr

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Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#331

Post by ganafagol »

Aeolun wrote: post #256
dvt wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I'm a fan of the old adage: "Dress for the job you want."

Isn’t everyone always supposed to show up to an interview in a suit anyway? I guess maybe that’s counterproductive for a job as garbageman, but...

Ehm. Not sure which industry you are in, maybe banking? As a software engineer, when I do interviews and a guy walks in in a suit, that's nowadays a counterindicator. It has turned out to negatively correlate with interview performance. In my experience, dressed-up people in interviews tend to be just very inexperienced at best (somebody at their universities interview training course put "dress i a suit on some slide" an they didn't question that) or downright incompetent at worst (they are unable to understand nuanced context, draw conclusions and use them to make an improvement going forward).

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#332

Post by ganafagol »

tasuki wrote: post #184
taylodl wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we need to differentiate between a "learning project" and a "side project." Those are two very different things, at least to me. A learning project is a project you're doing with the express intent of learning a new technology. The focus is on the learning, not the delivered functionality. A side project is a project you're doing for the community. It's a labor of love. The focus is on functionality and meeti…

So we have three already: - learning project (focus on learning) - side project (focus on functionality) - cv-enhancing project (focus on optics, what the original article was mostly about and against) In my experience, side projects are by far the most fun. All of the learning projects I've done in the past had some goal to achieve, something I could show someone and feel proud. I find it difficult to learn just for…

A good interviewer easily figures out which type some side project is that a candidate lists on their resume. Just ask an appropriate probing question and you realize if they did this to learn something or to solve a problem they had or just to have something with javascript on their resume. It's almost counterproductive, if that's supposed to provide the basis for a "fluent in javascript" claim.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#333

Post by ponker »

dvt wrote: post #28

> First, most recruiters don’t care about your personal projects or how many meetups you went during the... Why are you trying to impress recruiters? I mean, the entire point of the post is wrong, but impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders. If you aren't trying to do your own thing (which, let's face it, is the most…

What percent of Snapchat engineers got hired by impressing Evan Spiegel.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#334

Post by fakedang »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #282
fakedang wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am inclined to agree with the top comment, partly from my own experience. In college, I was a sub-3 GPA student with not-so-great internship experience, although I did cofound a startup. Yet I was able to reach out to some of the "privileged" you mention at the top of the totem pole - firm partners, founders, etc. Heck, I literally connected with MBB partners simply by shooting an email to them to meet and chatting…

Yet I was able to reach out to some of the "privileged" you mention at the top of the totem pole - firm partners, founders, etc. Heck, I literally connected with MBB partners simply by shooting an email to them to meet and chatting with them. To be clear, I would always 100% recommend trying your approach. It's how I even got my start, back when I was 17. It really does work. But it's also more effective when you're…

I think it goes without saying that your personal connection with the recruiter encouraged him to work extra hard to get hired. Some recruiters are really good - though I haven't used them myself, I know a number of folks who used them to their advantage. Of course, it's all about how much the recruiter likes you too - if they are indifferent to you, they will not put in that extra mile.

I don't think recruiters ended up recruiters due to familial circumstances though - many of them I know worked in the same fields they help recruit to, and largely pulled out due to burnout or some other unintentional consequences.

Also it is to be noted that recruiters are usually the only way forward once you reach a level of seniority - you won't be able to cold-email after a while.

My comment was largely targeted at the above comment which said that it's only possible through being part of the privileged.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#335

Post by TrackerFF »

Side projects are great (for recruiting) if:

1. You don't much or any professional experience with software development.

2. You are experienced, but are trying to break into another field - and haven't done any relevant work in your current position (for example - front-end developer pivoting to systems development, or whatever)

I've encountered a lot of recruiters lately, that were more than interested in checking out personal projects. Hell, I've also seen some data science and ML positions where they explicitly asked for cool/interesting side-projects, where you'd use the tech to solve some problem.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#336

Post by richardARPANET »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #153
dvt wrote: post #28

> First, most recruiters don’t care about your personal projects or how many meetups you went during the... Why are you trying to impress recruiters? I mean, the entire point of the post is wrong, but impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders. If you aren't trying to do your own thing (which, let's face it, is the most…

impressing recruiters is downright stupid. Let's be frank: recruiters are bottom-of-the-totem-pole, lowest-common-denominator, bottom-feeders. My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. I sense you've never been in a position where you have $3,000 in the bank, your wife is depending on you to get through college, and you have to get a job or you lose your apartment. Out here dropping stories about…

Funding someone else's education is never a good idea (with the exception of your own children).

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#338

Post by bergstromm466 »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #236
dvt wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. Oh man, only if you truly knew how off-base this is :) My parents moved to the US with $2000, two kids (I was 11), and two carry-ons. But I'm not here to compete in the Victim Olympics. > Most people don't know any CEOs, PMs, or hiring managers. Good thing attending a hackathon is free. Good thing you can interact with literal SV royalty here on HN for…

Attending a hackathon is free but being able to do something that impresses a high level member of a company and get offered a job is a bit unreliable, no? it's survivor-ship bias at its most obvious. Most people are not getting jobs by doing something extraordinary at a public event and getting offered it right on the spot.

> survivor-ship bias

Yes, thanks for naming it. Most of the stories above this comment all have it to varying degrees. It’s funny to me how they all write that they do not want to put forth an entry for the ‘Victim Olympics’, yet they all do share their story anyway...

The fact that this term is even used by these folks (and this is the first time I’ve seen it), to me shows that there is an (possibly unconscious) underlying contempt, as well as a lack of Class consciousness. Which is quite scary for the power dynamics present in Silicon Valley and the still-early-days -digital realm, what with the dogmatic idea of ‘Intellectual Property‘, etc.

Instead of ‘Victim Olympics‘ we would all benefit from talking about ‘Magical Voluntarism’, as well as to take part in further critiquing the underlying systems.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#339

Post by rimliu »

orange8 wrote: post #196
dvt wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My friend, this isn't personal, but a fact: you're privileged. Oh man, only if you truly knew how off-base this is :) My parents moved to the US with $2000, two kids (I was 11), and two carry-ons. But I'm not here to compete in the Victim Olympics. > Most people don't know any CEOs, PMs, or hiring managers. Good thing attending a hackathon is free. Good thing you can interact with literal SV royalty here on HN for…

Kudos on making something of yourself from humble beginnings. You are now privileged.

I feel that the world "privilege" (like many others) has lost its meaning.

Re: Advice to my young self: forget side projects and focus on your job

#340

Post by rimliu »

boyobo wrote: post #294
dx87 wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you earned it, then it isn't privilege, by defintion. Unless you consider being born a hard worker as being privileged, in which case the word is meaningless.

I think people are using the word in different ways. The person you are responding to is using it as a description of the current state.

So the person is misusing it.
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