Live data from Hacker News

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

urlahmed.com

331–340 of 502 posts

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

#331
To me it seems that there's a contradiction in what the author is trying to say. On the one hand he's saying that for new grads like him, the job situation is getting worse and worse, because of AI. He's saying that AI, while taking over low skilled jobs, is growing and dominating the labor market.

But, the author's skill is exactly where the growth is: he's a AI graduate! If author has trouble finding a job, the reason certainly couldn't be the lack of growth in AI automation jobs?

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

#333
post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Great article, well written. >> The question is no longer whether a model can cover the job that was going to exist anyway. The question is whether a human can justify their presence next to a stack of models. >> The central question for future labour markets is not whether you are clever or diligent in some absolute sense. It is whether what you do is ordinary enough for a model to learn or strange enough to fall…

It didn't have LLM smell to me, at all. LLM-written essays are often very fluffy because expanding a prompt into more words often produces lots of air — but this one felt very "dense" with lots of ideas per capita.

You realise you can change the writing style and not rely on the default?

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

#334
post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With this in mind, I'd like to propose an alternative to OP. E.g. he may be extremely unlucky in the following 7 months in his job hunt, and tech is not what it used to be. If the uses these 7 months to focus on his writing on the other hand... We'll need people with a soul and technical chops to cover this apocalypse (using it in the original sense of the word).

As a writer myself... This comment is somewhat ironic, given that the 'job market' for writers is effectively non existent. Journalism has been whittled down to nothing. Quality fiction isn't read any more - and the remaining outlets are ideologically gatekept. Non fiction, outside of a few celebrity authors, or highly specialised topics, does not sell. The traditional unglamorous but well remunerated writing gigs -…

looks at Patreon

Depends what you’re writing about. The chicken xianxia is something like $10k/mo, a Friren-inspired fic is a whopping 30k (and like 3mo old from a complete unknown), and Dungeon Crawler Carl has fully broken out into mainstream.

“Fun” things do seem to be making money, and if they hit a nerve they seem to be wildly successful.

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

#336
post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you expand your scope enough eventually you’ll find someone. For example, my first job was from someone who knew my dad.

nepotism to the rescue!

hey it's "connections" :P

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

#337
post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That or the hiring pipeline broke, which is what we keep continually hearing from high ranking graduates of the past few years. It’s certainly possible the author is a bad candidate, but it seems in bad faith to first argue that the author is bad because he doesn’t have an job instead of actually considering the argument.

I don't intend to say the author is "bad", I'm just trying to follow up on this reasoning: I learned the tools I was told to learn. I watched the right talks. I followed the right people. I can point at a neat little row of experiences and say: I played by the rules you told me about. The rules are, do well at your internship, and you'll probably get a job offer. The author also seems to be saying that they are getti…

I have to agree with you. Companies don’t waste time on interviews if they don’t really want to hire. And if they didn’t hire him, maybe is because was not a good fit, and probably hired someone else. So the job was probably filled — by someone more competent?

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

#338

Great article, well written. I'd certainly consider interviewing this guy - if I was hiring. Based on the other comments it's worth noting a few things: 1. Ahmed seems to be in the UK, not the USA. H1Bs don't affect him. This isn't obvious because he talks about the USA. However, the mass immigration into the UK might have impacted him by saturating the low skill markets such that everyone else has to fight over the…

> Great article, well written. >> The question is no longer whether a model can cover the job that was going to exist anyway. The question is whether a human can justify their presence next to a stack of models. >> The central question for future labour markets is not whether you are clever or diligent in some absolute sense. It is whether what you do is ordinary enough for a model to learn or strange enough to fall…

the awkward punctuation like using commas suggest that it wasn't LLM generated

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

#339

Two initial thoughts: 1. This author's writing is extremely, uncommonly good. Good enough to write a book and have it sell. "Competing with the past of the economy," "residual behaviour of a world that treated labour as sacred," "immigration without immigrants" -- there are many elegant turns of phrase here. This is a very skilled writer. 2. His resume is designed poorly. Have a look. I'm not surprised his job search…

I almost get an existential crisis from the fact that this was written by someone in their early 20s

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

#340

Interesting to see that the answers to his problems are literally embedded in the intro and outro : what you were “told” by adults was 100% B.S. (adults has no idea what the world was going to be like and what was the “right” path) and he was probably intelligent enough (as we can see by the writing of this article) to realize this by himself (simply questioning the culture around him is enough, what’s teenage years…

I hope you never have a bad string of luck and end up homeless pal, because it can happen to anyone.

What’s the link with the article or my comment? Listening to adults advices can magically avoid being broke? It’s the opposite
Post reply on HN