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

urlahmed.com

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

#341

Post by frm88 »

nine_zeros wrote: post #3

> The twentieth century spent a lot of intellectual and moral effort glorifying labour because economies needed people to show up every day. The twenty-first century is starting to build machines and systems that do not need quite as many of us. And herein lies the real, consitent, and real anxiety among the youth - leading to lower birth rates. I myself feel the same. And then I look at the elected corrupt pedophile…

What strikes me most with this quote is that (consistent) labour is very much a defining, if not the defining parameter in all our cultures and the author highlights this later on with data from China etc. I feel we might have a problem with the emphasis on that value in the future. If we think automation through to it's extreme and accept a growing world population and worsening climate effects, we've got to shift cultural values accordingly or face severe societal upheavals. I don't have a point here, just gave me stuff to think about.

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

#342

Post by ttoinou »

linkregister wrote: post #149
ttoinou wrote: post #102

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…

What is your recommendation for the young author beyond questioning culture?

That’s already 50% of the work. Then one can find ideas of his own

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

#343

Post by altacc »

nradov wrote: post #172
phatfish wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Labour would impose any regulation on the tech industry, let alone "heavy". The UK is running sacred of Trump and will do nothing to stop the US tech giants avoiding tax and causing social unrest.

Why hasn't the UK been able to create any local tech giants? Would more regulations imposed by a Labour government help to turn that around?

> Why hasn't the UK been able to create any local tech giants?

In the UK there are several tech or tech adjacent companies valued in the tens or hundreds of billions such as ARM, BAE, Revolut, Sage and delivery companies like Deliveroo & Ocado are tech equivalents. Sure there could be more but given that the UK only recently came out of 14 years of being run by pro-capitalist, pro-privatization, small-government conservatives, I don't think it's 18 months of weak Labour rule that is the issue. Personally, from having spent half my life there working in tech, I think it's more a mix of culture and market size.

I often hear "why are the big tech companies only in the US" but there are big tech companies all over the world that people haven't heard of because "we" have a US focused media. The big 7 do definitely dominate globally but I'd argue that this isn't actually a healthy situation or model that other countries should emulated. I suspect smaller, localized versions of US companies would probably have better consequences.

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

#344

Post by fxtentacle »

windowshopping wrote: post #62

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…

Yeah, that CV could also use some colors, spacing, and typography to visually highlight key facts.

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

#345

Post by baq »

wiz21c wrote: post #323
baq wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These issues are very widespread. I’d say under 10% of junior résumés I look at give me confidence that they’d show up and know how to write real systems instead of just gluing things together. You’re looking for seniors with junior pay grades.

When I hire, I always look at personal github projects. They are a hint that the person loves coding and loves creating software. I'm not looking for 1000 stars projects, and I don't even look at the kind of project, just the fact that the candidate has done some work in his spare time. If there's no github project, I ask the candidate what website, web communities he watches/participates in regularly. I check if the…

Yeah I had a personal GitHub project in 2010, nowadays it is not feasible with kids. Time is either spent making money or getting together with family, with an occasional something else, coding for fun isn’t usually there (though I wish there was).

You’re looking for special snowflakes, but want to pay usual money. You may find that money also works as a motivation, a transactional relationship between an employer and an employee is healthy in that neither has to pretend there’s anything else that ultimately matters. (The illusion can be kept only until the first round of layoffs anyway.)

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

#346

Post by brazukadev »

nradov wrote: post #219
rolandog wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, you have it the other way around! Why hasn't the US done more to create a rich ecosystem of tech companies, instead of a couple of bloated giants that syphon our wealth and avoid taxes?

Actually, you have it the other way around! The US has a rich ecosystem of rapidly growing startup tech companies. Many of us on HN are working for them. There has never been a better time to build something new.

> There has never been a better time to build something new.

Were you not around 10-20 years ago?

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

#347

Post by siva7 »

brendoelfrendo wrote: post #269
calepayson wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. This author’s writing is extremely, uncommonly good. > 2. His resume is designed poorly… This is the world of TikTok and Instagram reels Imo this is exactly the problem. We’ve constructed a system where brilliance doesn’t shine through. The idea that someone as thoughtful as OP needs to tiktokify their resume to even have a chance at getting hired is ridiculous. I’m young, so I have no clue, but surely the job m…

When I graduated from college in 2013, the common advice was to keep your resume to one printed page. Because people realized that job applications were all online and people rarely handled physical resumes anymore, that advice started to shift to "you can go onto a second page, if it is warranted." (My personal opinion at the time was that if an employer wasn't willing to expend a staple on my resume, then they prob…

Matches my experience. 2 page resume is standard for senior careers, everything below should be 1 page. The reason is simple: I'm evaluating if you are able to summarize the most important points for how you're fitting into this role into a very limited space. This is a important skill that transfers to many other areas and isn't obvious just by looking at the extensive list of your degrees and job positions. I trashed applications for the sole reason when i felt that the applicant missed the whole point of why i'm reading their resume. Yet some hiring folks may prefer it the other way around so it's also a cultural fit filter in some way.

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

#348

Post by [deleted] »

mikelitoris wrote: post #251
terminalshort wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Who are the "people at the top" you speak of? "The people richer than me" is typically the meaning here. You here this complaint often even from people in the top 1% of the richest country on earth.

What people (like you) don’t understand is the wealth (and power) gap between people even in the 1% and people in the top 0.001 is still absurd.

[deleted]

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

#349

Post by Zababa »

urlahmed wrote: post #175

Hey all, OP here (author of the blog post, someone else submitted it ). I wrote this a few days ago mostly out of frustration and honestly did not expect it to go anywhere. It is pretty surreal to wake up and see it on HN with so much discussion. Thank you for reading and for all the comments, messages, and thoughtful critiques. I am currently looking for roles that sit at the intersection of ML, product, and researc…

You're really good at writing. Best of luck

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

#350

Post by danieltanfh95 »

> young person complains about jobs because automation, outsourcing and immigration

> looks at resume

> garbage formatting that only AI would love, with little substantial content beyond the sea of candidates would offer.

All the talk about humans and yet producing a piece of paper that doesnt respect human time.

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