Earlier quoted context omitted.
The irony of correcting others when you yourself have several writing mistakes.
There's no irony. Everybody makes mistakes.
All I can say is: whoosh!
Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
791–800 of 875 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#792Like others have said, having short stays at previous companies can be perceived as negative. The same applies to bypassing filters, even if your intentions aren't malicious, although as usual YMMV.
Many companies want to see that you can continue to work and transition away to other better jobs as opposed to leaving, although that's easier said that done in many cases.
In terms of healthcare, Medicaid can be incredibly frustrating. What are you looking for that isn't available through it?
At this point in time I think it's much harder than normal to get a job because of COVID/etc. My feeling is that lots of companies are waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of the economy/COVID.
You also may have a lot more trouble going directly into Tech. It might be easier to get there by first getting hired in Finance, Health, etc... Things aren't permanent, and sometimes you'll have opportunities that aren't present in other sectors.
Last but not least, your perception of the world might be on the binary side. Does Bill Landreth think he ended up in a bad place? Sometimes having a seat at the table is better than doing your own thing because you might be able to change more at the table. Also, nothing's permanent. If stuff doesn't work out, you can leave.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#793Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a question of living within your means. A guy who's fortunate enough to have an engineering job at EA and IBM shouldn't be having personal financial problems, if we consider that many of the immigrants who make his food live comfortably enough to afford sending half their income back to old country. There's a way to live responsibly in any situation and if you can't then you have room for improvement.
Wow. No empathy here at all. The world can go against you for alot of reasons. I went from millions to pauper to millions to pauper. It happens. It depends on your ethical stance. It depends on other people. It depends on what you fear.
I'm pretty empathetic to people like football players who make millions and go bankrupt because managing money isn't what nature built them to do. They're also not asking to be hedge fund managers. Would you feel comfortable having your high-level security managed by someone who's living hand to mouth and resents us for not paying him more?
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#794Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a good comment with the right instinct but for the wrong reasons. The biggest red flag is struggling with personal finance. You can't get jobs like the ones he wants if you live beyond your means and constantly land in hot water with money because people who are like that are at risk of turning to evil to make ends meet.
Interviewing with a poor financial situation in the background can be indeed suboptimal, but I think for a different reason. You don't have leverage in negotiation and you are most probably desperate, which is hard to hide. Overall this comes trough as lack of confidence and undermines the interview. To turn this into an advice for people interviewing without a safety net: get a safety net. It can be a job that is ea…
> "live by that situation indefinitely"
It's an unfortunate reality that it's become impractical to match this advice in all circumstances. When I was young I found that
a) I had to live within an hours drive of a city with jobs to get jobs in that city b) There were 1/100th to 1/1000th the number of jobs available if I stayed with my family. c) Minimum rent + student loan payments + heating bills exceeded what an "easy" job could cover.
I ended up not paying the student loan debts for about a year and recking my credit, but I was ultimately able to get a job. People with mortgages, families, or other fixed expenses can likewise not stay unemployed forever in the modern world.
As an experienced hire, if you take a big down-level for expedience employers will question it in the future.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#795Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I would not listen to any advice on HN. I have a pretty solid hiring strategy, but it got downvoted to hell because HN skews to people without much real world experience. They can only think of tech products to sell to other tech companies. This part doesn't really seem worthwhile to post. > Focus on smaller companies that need help solving actual business problems with automation. Offer to do a project for $20 an…
> This part doesn't really seem worthwhile to post. I restrict my social media time to a couple of hours a week. If you want to be successful, hustle on LinkedIn. HackerNews is a procrastination hole for people who want to talk about developing software instead of actually doing it.
This post also doesn't really seem worthwhile, but you're entitled to your opinion.
LinkedIn is basically facebook. I would argue that anything Facebook-esque is a fundamental waste of time. Misinformation spewing influencer spam.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#796Earlier quoted context omitted.
"I'll give you mock 30 minute interview (I've hired countless engineers, designers, PMs and other roles in the last 20+ years)" This is an incredibly generous offer and I hope it gets done, because it would BY FAR the most valuable thing that the OP needs.
I spent almost 2hrs with snakedoctor this evening. He's a smart young man who just needs some pointers and advice as he doesn't really have anyone around him who has experience of landing and keeping a job in tech.
Wow man, this just made my day. Good on you.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#797Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's tough to read too much into this single paragraph. I think the key is why you dropped out of school. You need to have a narrative. 1. "I had some promising personal projects, so I quit during my 3rd year of school to launch one of them. I did {X,Y,Z} but ultimately couldn't turn the corner to profitability so I shut down / failed spectacularly. Now it's time to get my feet under me and learn proper engineering f…
Ah thanks for the reply, and yeah that makes sense. I don't believe it was a mistake as of now, but let me tell my story a bit better: I got funded by Tyler Cowen / Peter Thiel @ EV and some angels for my first real company (can't link here), and while it wasn't required, I was making quite a bit of money so I left school. (I had a 3.98 my first 2 years in dual Comp Sci / Physics before, so I left with a 3.35 GPA aft…
Ok cool. With this write-up, you de-risked one area and added risk in a second area.
GOOD: High GPA, got funded, ambitious, quit school for valid and rational reasons. I'm excited to hire you.
BAD: Startup didn't work, I worked on some other ones, trying one more time before I get a normal job. Now I'm concerned that (a) you think you're hot shiz and won't accept an entry-level dev role and/or won't be willing to put the effort into that role, or (b) you think you're mid-level but can't pass the hiring bar due to team (not technical) deficiencies, or (c) you'll be awesome but bounce out to a new adventure in ~9 months.
I don't know you, and it's quite possible that you're brilliant with a steep growth curve and huge upside potential. And it's possible (maybe even likely!) that you'll be unhappy in any job and just need to keep pursuing your own thing. Awesome. But if you want a "normal job" I recommend shifting your approach slightly:
Remember that a hiring manager wants a person who can (1) do the job, (2) not cause problems, (3) stick around. You've got #1 nailed, #2 is an open question, and #3 is a big risk in my mind. So I'd suggest starting by making a personal choice regarding your next career stage and then actively believing and selling that vision. So if you decide that you want to work for a while, figure out what you want to get out of that time and push that narrative. Example:
"I got funded by... . I tried a few other ventures but failed to get traction. I've decided that for my next career stage, I need to spend some time working with other more experienced engineers to learn {large scale engineering, team dynamics, product prioritization, leadership, etc etc whatever}." --> With this narrative you're a very attractive candidate. A good manager will know that you're not signing on forever, but will throw challenging projects your way in the hopes that rapid growth will convince you to stick around for 2-3 years.
Note that your history of scrappy risk-taking will probably play better at smaller earlier stage companies.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#798Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a question of living within your means. A guy who's fortunate enough to have an engineering job at EA and IBM shouldn't be having personal financial problems, if we consider that many of the immigrants who make his food live comfortably enough to afford sending half their income back to old country. There's a way to live responsibly in any situation and if you can't then you have room for improvement.
Please also consider that not everyone is neurotypical. I'm of course not diagnosing OP but things like ADHD make it a hell of a time trying to manage personal finances on top of the rest of your life. If everything was just easy we'd all just do it.
Personal finances don't need to be managed. You put the money in something like Vanguard and get back to coding. However if you love money and relish the social status that spending it commands, then you might be struggling with neurotypicality.
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a good comment with the right instinct but for the wrong reasons. The biggest red flag is struggling with personal finance. You can't get jobs like the ones he wants if you live beyond your means and constantly land in hot water with money because people who are like that are at risk of turning to evil to make ends meet.
What jobs inquire about your financial history? That seems a little dystopian. Can't get a handle on your finances because you don't have a steady job, better not give them a steady job!
One of the listed companies CIA will do a background check including finances or any company that requires a security clearance doesn't want a person to have large debt. Also financial companies/insurance often look into finances as some states require employees of those companies to not hold debt over a certain amount
Re: Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
#800Earlier quoted context omitted.
> wonder if you have delusions of grandeur around your abilities which is creating a miss-match of expectation leading you to quit jobs you need to tough it out in. Not a doctor either, but I would agree with this. OP seems to have a disconnect between what reality and the old days of the first bubble where if you could spell programmer, you got a job as one. It doesn't work like that anymore, OP. Too much competitio…
Yes, but as a programmer I'd rather have a mediocre programmer who is a good communicator and who knows how to integrate with the team, than someone who has uncontrolled narcissistic tendecies and oversteps boundaries constantly even if they technically know more. This has btw. not much to do with being on the spectrum. I also worked with people with disorders which integrated quite well into the team, because they u…
> Yes, but as a programmer I'd rather have a mediocre programmer who is a good communicator and who knows how to integrate with the team
I wholeheartedly agree with this, but fwiw, the FAANG companies OP applies for generally speaking don't. I think the applicable advice is for OP to go work for a smaller company.