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Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

seanmuirhead.com

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Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#81
post #80
post #78

A few times in my life I have found job opportunities that would have been my dreamjob and I was uniquely qualified due to a cross-disciplinary background, previous experience and education, language skills and such. I was an SME with technical skills and I had so much knowledge of the company's products, industry and competitors that I could have done their marketing strategy and product strategy in a couple of week…

1 sell everything. 2 turn 18. 3 move to highest gdp location, capital city, largest city, that you can get to, or that your chosen industry, if you have one, is focused in. 4 make list of growing companies. 5 apply to growing companies. Simple, yet so few will actually do this.

this is sarcasm, right?

Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#83
post #80
post #78

A few times in my life I have found job opportunities that would have been my dreamjob and I was uniquely qualified due to a cross-disciplinary background, previous experience and education, language skills and such. I was an SME with technical skills and I had so much knowledge of the company's products, industry and competitors that I could have done their marketing strategy and product strategy in a couple of week…

1 sell everything. 2 turn 18. 3 move to highest gdp location, capital city, largest city, that you can get to, or that your chosen industry, if you have one, is focused in. 4 make list of growing companies. 5 apply to growing companies. Simple, yet so few will actually do this.

[dead]

Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#84
post #80
post #78

A few times in my life I have found job opportunities that would have been my dreamjob and I was uniquely qualified due to a cross-disciplinary background, previous experience and education, language skills and such. I was an SME with technical skills and I had so much knowledge of the company's products, industry and competitors that I could have done their marketing strategy and product strategy in a couple of week…

1 sell everything. 2 turn 18. 3 move to highest gdp location, capital city, largest city, that you can get to, or that your chosen industry, if you have one, is focused in. 4 make list of growing companies. 5 apply to growing companies. Simple, yet so few will actually do this.

I like how the most drastic steps 1-3 are performed before you even get to 4

Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#85
A knock on consequence if everybody did this:

- HR is no longer inundated with garbage resumes

- Hiring managers can actually focus on the resumes in their inbox and assume that people are genuinely interested in the role.

- The whole system works more efficiently.

From day one I thought the whole notion of AI in the hiring process (on both sides: candidates submitting AI resumes, HR filtering resumes with AI) was positively absurd. I hope more people catch on.

Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#86
post #76

I tried this a lot. It did not work for me. But I also only sent one email and did not follow up. A few points: 1. Getting rejected does not say anything about you. The guy they hire says a lot about the company. 2. "If the interviewer(s) in question feel like you're trying to circumvent them, you're probably making your case worse" This is the whole point. In most cased you don't deal with an expert, but with HR. HR…

> HR are idiots most of the time. HR, like real estate, has also very low entrance requirements Soft skills are the most important. Calling a group of people you work with idiots because their role has a low barrier to entry reflects badly on you. Bad recruiters are beyond useless but a good one can read a resume, match it to the JD, learn what the hiring manager is looking for (do they keep saying no to people with…

"Soft skills are the most important. Calling a group of people you work with idiots because their role has a low barrier to entry reflects badly on you"

Simple mathematics. There are close to zero entrance requirements to HR or Real Estate. Now compare this to a professor at a decent University. Has to get a HS Diploma, Bachelors degree, PhD, Post Doc, publications. While there may be idiots, it is much harder to become a professor at a decent university if you are an idiot.

Back to HR. I did not say that all people working in HR are idiots. There are brilliant people. But on average, their level is not very flattering. And "soft skills" alone is not enough. Many, if not most, just follow check lists and have no idea what they are talking about.

Recruiter are worse. They add another layer of unnecessary complexity to the process. I avoid them like the plague.

Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#87
post #80
post #78

A few times in my life I have found job opportunities that would have been my dreamjob and I was uniquely qualified due to a cross-disciplinary background, previous experience and education, language skills and such. I was an SME with technical skills and I had so much knowledge of the company's products, industry and competitors that I could have done their marketing strategy and product strategy in a couple of week…

1 sell everything. 2 turn 18. 3 move to highest gdp location, capital city, largest city, that you can get to, or that your chosen industry, if you have one, is focused in. 4 make list of growing companies. 5 apply to growing companies. Simple, yet so few will actually do this.

Loads of people do this! It's a big part of why accommodation is so expensive in major cities! It's just that it requires capital upfront, many have a degree filter, and it's still easy for the number of young people to outpace the available jobs.

Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#88

A knock on consequence if everybody did this: - HR is no longer inundated with garbage resumes - Hiring managers can actually focus on the resumes in their inbox and assume that people are genuinely interested in the role. - The whole system works more efficiently. From day one I thought the whole notion of AI in the hiring process (on both sides: candidates submitting AI resumes, HR filtering resumes with AI) was po…

>> "Get in contact with current employees at the company. It is important that you send more than one email"

This just means the average employee starts getting inundated with spam resumes instead that they are ill equipped to handle.

AI in the process is absurd, but the logic of the spam arms race is inescapable.

Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#89

It's interesting that the first thing you see in the comments is "don't contact anyone." Right now we're in a weird place - if you have a network, you're pretty well off. If your network isn't hiring, or you are early in your career, it's brutal trying to get through the noise. The truth is that proof of work matters. But the big problem is that proof of work is easy to fake right now. It takes being creative. I get…

I struggle with this a bit because while my network isn’t bad - I really can’t stand social network like threads/X etc - I’m not on any social media bar here and LinkedIn. Do you think investing in bluesky is worth it? I’m in industry but have a PhD ongoing in TTI models so I should probably get on it :/

It's not bad. It's the social media that least leans into driving addictive behaviors.

But you have to think about investing into it like a tool - not like a pastime.

Re: Targeted Bets: An alternative approach to the job hunt

#90
post #80
post #78

A few times in my life I have found job opportunities that would have been my dreamjob and I was uniquely qualified due to a cross-disciplinary background, previous experience and education, language skills and such. I was an SME with technical skills and I had so much knowledge of the company's products, industry and competitors that I could have done their marketing strategy and product strategy in a couple of week…

1 sell everything. 2 turn 18. 3 move to highest gdp location, capital city, largest city, that you can get to, or that your chosen industry, if you have one, is focused in. 4 make list of growing companies. 5 apply to growing companies. Simple, yet so few will actually do this.

1)I need things, unless you want a naked homeless woman without a laptop to apply to your startup

2)Great, still have no job experience or degree

3)I sell everything and show up to the valley naked. I'm suddenly homeless looking for a job in a place where I have no connections, no degree, and no laptop to actually apply for a job or do remote gigs

4)AI startups number 1-4 are doomed to fail, 5 and 6 expect me to work 12 hour days with little pay and no benefits, and 7-9 won't hire me without a degree or nepotism

5)In the extremely unlikely chance I get hired given the circumstances described, I'll be laid off when the company goes belly up or the shareholders demand a new yacht

GeE i WOnDer whY PeoPlE DoN'T dO tHis

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