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All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

80000hours.org

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Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#81

Post by Spooky23 »

kirykl wrote: post #71
graham1776 wrote: post #69

The one thing I always tell anyone on the job hunt, which few ever seem to take me up on: Informational Interviews. These are informal "can I take you out to coffee?" talks with people in your industry to see what they are working on, what is happening with them, what is going on in the industry. Every job I have ever gotten is through informal meetings with people I have met through my network (whether its the curre…

I've tried advice like this before, and always results in rejection to even talk or after talking a nice referral to a frustratingly useless Taleo application portal. Maybe i'm not asking the right people but in my experience talking to people and hoping for a job goes nowhere.

It's a process where the objective isn't a job, but to get to know people and "make your own luck".

Personally, I find it really swarmy, but the purpose is legit -- talk to people that you don't have to talk to because you work or go to school with them.

For some people, doing the Silicon Valley coffee thing is a meaningful thing. It may not be for you. Maybe talking to an ex-coworker, reaching out to wish someone Happy Birthday on the phone, or something similar makes more sense to you.

I got my first consulting gig because a farmer I worked for as a middle schooler sent a vendor my way when I was in college. I'd drop by and say hello a couple of times a year when I was in the neighborhood. Humans are social creatures!

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#82

Post by rhizome »

BenjaminTodd wrote: post #14
sshykes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please get rid of the annoying "this will only take a second" popup, I was reading but closed the window immediately when that shit started.

Sorry about that. I find popups annoying too. Unfortunately we just find we get a way higher conversion to the newsletter when we use popups, and since people need to engage over several months to get value out of the advice, getting people onto the newsletter is really important.

Just a side comment, these are starting to be called "doorslams," and you may also be interested in alternative views of your "No thanks, I don't want a raise" dismissal link at http://confirmshaming.tumblr.com/

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#83

Post by st3v3r »

wbl wrote: post #68
bitchypat wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I bet they would have kept trying the same game at every factory until they perished, if not for laws preventing it.

And now they don't get hired at all.

They weren't getting hired in the first place.

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#84

Post by rhizome »

BenjaminTodd wrote: post #52
thenobsta wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand the pop up. However, the sign-up should not take me away from the article. I mean, putting in my email took me to another page in the same tab (not a new one). Also, The landing page post-giving-you-my-email gave me another sign-up pop up. Both these things are super annoying. Content is good though.

Ug, we've been having a lot of problems with our new popup plugin. Once you're signed up, it should turn off all popups. Maybe you're blocking cookies, or it didn't take effect yet. I agree it would be better to take you back to where you were reading, it's a lot more complex to set up though.

It isn't any harder than saving the current url to a cookie and redirecting to that value afterwards.

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#85

Post by st3v3r »

bitchypat wrote: post #67
st3v3r wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For very good reason. For every "my grandfather" story, there are probably 5 more whom were simply taken advantage of, with the hiring person having absolutely no intention of hiring them.

I bet they would have kept trying the same game at every factory until they perished, if not for laws preventing it.

Which is sending the signal to the factories that they can get away with not paying people for quite some time.

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#86

Post by enimodas »

BenjaminTodd wrote: post #2

Hi everyone, I'm the author of the piece. If you know any other good resources or statistics we should incorporate, I'm keen to hear about them. If you disagree with something, feedback is very welcome.

In part 1, income vs life satisfaction, maybe for correctness you could mention that the functions don't taper off, they behave logarithmic.

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#87

Post by chucksmash »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #5

I've been unemployed for about 14 months since resigning from my most recent role -- a role which my close family and friends characterized as "destroying me." After becoming unemployed, with enough savings to sustain myself for a long search, I then faced a significant family trauma that required me to move away from Boston (where I had lived and worked for most of the past decade), back home to do basically full-ti…

You have my sympathy, I've never had a gap like that but I have struggled with job hunts in less tech friendly areas.

I mean this constructively so please don't take it as a knock, but you seem to be coming at the interviews from a somewhat adversarial perspective. This sentence is what stood out to me in particular:

> Most employers (or their needlessly combative tech hiring staff, anyway) seem to make a point of saying cutting comments to me about my university degrees (two Ivy degrees) and my Stack Overflow rep -- even though I don't ever try to project pride about these things and fully welcome and prefer to be judged solely by my talents and do not want any form of laurel-resting, especially not based on "prestigious" degrees (though, to be fair, I did work extremely hard in university and accomplished many things that now seemingly no one cares about).

Perhaps they were joking around with you about it as a way to acknowledge your pretty formidable credentials? This strikes me as a very odd response (on their part) and I wouldn't expect to see it again and again which is what makes me think you might be misinterpreting their intent.

Anyway, I'm not you. Best of luck to you, I hope you find what you are looking for.

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#88

Post by enimodas »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #5

I've been unemployed for about 14 months since resigning from my most recent role -- a role which my close family and friends characterized as "destroying me." After becoming unemployed, with enough savings to sustain myself for a long search, I then faced a significant family trauma that required me to move away from Boston (where I had lived and worked for most of the past decade), back home to do basically full-ti…

You reject offers after comparing compensation with your previous job, but forgot to take into account that your old job was 'destroying you' and your new one hopefully wont.

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#89

Post by lj3 »

graham1776 wrote: post #69

The one thing I always tell anyone on the job hunt, which few ever seem to take me up on: Informational Interviews. These are informal "can I take you out to coffee?" talks with people in your industry to see what they are working on, what is happening with them, what is going on in the industry. Every job I have ever gotten is through informal meetings with people I have met through my network (whether its the curre…

Any advice for doing this when you're in the middle of nowhere? I've heard of patio11 doing something similar via skype, but it just seems odd to invite people for coffee via skype or hangouts.

Re: All the best advice we could find on how to get a job

#90

Post by smilingtom »

p4wnc6 wrote: post #5

I've been unemployed for about 14 months since resigning from my most recent role -- a role which my close family and friends characterized as "destroying me." After becoming unemployed, with enough savings to sustain myself for a long search, I then faced a significant family trauma that required me to move away from Boston (where I had lived and worked for most of the past decade), back home to do basically full-ti…

My advice to you would be to be less self-obsessed. It will be important for you and your happiness to come to terms with how little you matter and how unimportant you are to the world. No one cares what you did in university - that was another life.

This should bring you comfort.

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