Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me • Hacker News Board

Re: Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me

#51

Post by gizmo » Wed, Mar 10, 2010, 9:46 AM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #26

gizmo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'm willing to bet the opposite. She's going to get significantly more than $12 an hour. Why? Because by saying she's willing to accept $12/hr and fetch lattes to get where she wants to be... she (deliberately) puts herself in a position with no negotiating power. You can't play hardball against somebody like that without feeling like a dick about it. It's like saying to somebody who's about to punch you..…

uhm... about the whole punching thing... you give too much credit to the better angels of our nature

Nature? I doubt that. It's probably a cultural thing, because I find that it's almost impossible to get into a fistfight if you don't want to.

Re: Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me

#52

Post by ytinas » Wed, Mar 10, 2010, 9:59 AM UTC

chime wrote: post #20

tessro wrote: post #5

>> continuously trolling the depressing opportunities on Monster/NYU Careernet/Craigslist. Is this system broken? Is there an opportunity for improvement in the way people find jobs, or is the best way to find good work going to increasingly be by performing memorable stunts to get eyeballs from prospective employers? I'm curious, especially in light of the relative lack of successful startups in the area.

The system is indeed broken. Finding a job is a horrible experience for most people. If you know enough people in your selected field, it is usually not that bad. However, if you want to change careers, move to a new area, or are generally not interested in networking for networking's sake, finding a job is a soul-sucking misadventure. Monster/CareerBuilder sites are absolute crap, especially for IT-related jobs. Ind…

I haven't found it so bad and I'm not great at networking. I just use consulting agencies, that's the only way I've ever had any luck. It's easier to get into a company via someone who knows people there, than just some resume in an email.

The trick is just to remember these guys are extremely busy. If it's more than a week old it isn't relevant anymore, so get a contact within lots of different agencies and contact them on a regular cycle (once a month is probably ok).

Re: Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me

#53

Post by gizmo » Wed, Mar 10, 2010, 9:59 AM UTC

ytinas wrote: post #49

gizmo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I'm willing to bet the opposite. She's going to get significantly more than $12 an hour. Why? Because by saying she's willing to accept $12/hr and fetch lattes to get where she wants to be... she (deliberately) puts herself in a position with no negotiating power. You can't play hardball against somebody like that without feeling like a dick about it. It's like saying to somebody who's about to punch you..…

Ok, so if she comes to work for you she's in good shape. In the real world, however, when a jackal sees a gazelle it doesn't care if it has "pouty eyes" or not. Meat is meat, the easier to catch the better.

Many smaller companies make all salary information publicly available, and otherwise it leaks out anyway. The moment she figures out she's earning half the money her peers do she's going to feel taken advantage of and hurt her employer out of spite when given the opportunity to do so. Or she'll get a raise and then still resent her employer.

If morale is bad already and turnover is high, then sure, take the jackal approach. Otherwise you're better off with happier and more productive employees.

Re: Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me

#54

Post by ytinas » Wed, Mar 10, 2010, 12:28 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #53

ytinas wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so if she comes to work for you she's in good shape. In the real world, however, when a jackal sees a gazelle it doesn't care if it has "pouty eyes" or not. Meat is meat, the easier to catch the better.

Many smaller companies make all salary information publicly available, and otherwise it leaks out anyway. The moment she figures out she's earning half the money her peers do she's going to feel taken advantage of and hurt her employer out of spite when given the opportunity to do so. Or she'll get a raise and then still resent her employer. If morale is bad already and turnover is high, then sure, take the jackal ap…

I would agree and I wish the world was like that. All I can say is: don't ever go near a "right to work" state.

Re: Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me

#55

Post by pw0ncakes » Wed, Mar 10, 2010, 5:15 PM UTC

starkfist wrote: post #27

pw0ncakes wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The professions, and everything about them, are designed for people who don't have to work to earn a living, and who work out of service to society. Professional culture is a result of this. That's why rich kids do better in the professional environment. It's not anyone favors them because of their families. It's because they aren't ruined if unemployed for a while, so they don't fear the boss, get more respect, and…

The professions, and everything about them, are designed for people who don't have to work to earn a living Which professions? Ambassador to France?

The culture of banking, law, medicine, academia and management come from an era when the people in those professions didn't have to work for a living and, as I said above, were working out of service to the world.

This is why interviews occur during the day, advanced education is required, and advancement is based on acquired social ability rather than technical talent, among other things. It's also why the 40-hour workweek does not exist in such professions. If you're working out of service to society, and not for wages, it follows naturally that you'd continue working until finished regardless of the clock.

Of course, this "working out of service to society" aspect is an utter fiction in many professions today-- especially banking and law. It's just a job for them, and why should it be anything more?

Re: Jessica Roy: Dear San Francisco Employers: Please Hire Me

#56

Post by semanticist » Wed, Mar 10, 2010, 9:26 PM UTC

ismarc wrote: post #17

tessro wrote: post #5

>> continuously trolling the depressing opportunities on Monster/NYU Careernet/Craigslist. Is this system broken? Is there an opportunity for improvement in the way people find jobs, or is the best way to find good work going to increasingly be by performing memorable stunts to get eyeballs from prospective employers? I'm curious, especially in light of the relative lack of successful startups in the area.

Here's the problem with the current "employment opportunity discovery" mechanism. You need a large number of qualified applicants to review job postings and to reply to those, generating a "success" for a particular site for a particular company. You need a large number of accurate, quality job postings to attract applicants. I've thought about this space for quite a while, fragmenting job sites all charge money to t…

Indexing large amounts of candidate data, including extracting 'skill' information from CVs, is pretty much a solved problem. It's what my employer's products do.

We also have products that do 'Candidate Matching' - which is exactly what you're talking about here, taking structured requirements for a specific job and then seeing who in the database matches. We normally do it against a recruiter's own local DB, and can do some degree of matching against internet job boards, LinkedIn, that sort of thing.

There was some interest in a product that would index all of the job boards for every UK local authority/council for one client, but that fell through. Going through every company's individual job postings is just impossible, and wouldn't help anyway: in my experience the best jobs are the ones that say 'no agencies', and it's only recruiting agencies who are spending on the kind of software we make.