What I say to people who are looking for a job

Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by PopeDotNinja on Thursday November 08, 2018 @12:32PM (#18408005)

Based on the title, I was expecting the article to suck, but I think it's actually pretty solid.

My takeaway is 2 things:

- if you wanna do something for living, sound like you know it well, and hopefully actually well

- if you are not financially independent, keeping shaking the money tree until you have another money tree to shake

And calling myself out, here's a couple notes to self:

- don't judge a book by it's cover (or an HN link by it's title)

- don't assume things are gonna suck just because you're in a suboptimal mood in that moment

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by rc-1140 on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:07PM (#18408352)

> Based on the title, I was expecting the article to suck, but I think it's actually pretty solid.

I disagree, honestly. After reading it, I saw another stellar example of empty yet well-meaning advice. It's just enough to stand on its own, has good intentions, but doesn't actually focus on a tangible problem or set of problems that people have. Rather, it addresses a few high-level topics in extreme brevity and is just an outlet for the author to demonstrate some kind of power they feel that they hold[0]. The article looks more like a wrapper for a previous HN comment, which is in a thread about an article detailing a very specific and actually useful piece of advice, and a Data Science book.

[0] https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=6...

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by dnautics on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:52PM (#18408809)

a lot of the advice struck me as something that not everyone looking for a job can afford. 10 weeks of trying a new thing for a week? I found the best advice in the article to be the one about taking time off to travel - that it will be hard getting back (know someone who is in that state now)

Honestly: If you're looking for a job - find a friend who is hiring. Be sure that friend is not just a friend, but a friend who is going to go to bat for you.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by jehlakj on Thursday November 08, 2018 @02:01PM (#18408897)

It’s a tricky situation. I was in a position to look for hires, but I was surprised to realize how many of my friends weren’t necessarily qualified for that position. It wasn’t a high position or anything either.

If you can vouch for a friend to that degree, they probably don’t need your help.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by dnautics on Friday November 09, 2018 @12:16PM (#18416012)

> If you can vouch for a friend to that degree, they probably don’t need your help.

A friend of mine finished a coding camp. He'd been looking for a job for 9 months. I interviewed him and totally understood why - he just had no chill at all. Super anxious, very nervous, seemed way too eager to please, borderline desperation? Sat him down, we did a very tough coding problem, and he did just fine for a junior position, so I made an offer happen.

A lot of times people have a 'singular flaw' that nobody will tell them what it is, and it takes someone willing to come up with an excuse to get them hired.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by PopeDotNinja on Thursday November 08, 2018 @07:17PM (#18411317)

Speaking only for myself, I've found looking for to fluctuate between quite easy and quite hard. Anytime I've really struggled to find a new job, whether I already had a job or not, it was usually because there was some factor beyond my control that I could not work around. In those hard times, I think I would have landed new employment more quickly by focusing more on making myself more marketable so I could stand out in a sea of applicants without enough to go around. Sometimes rushing to fight the wrong fight is simply not gonna work.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by 30 on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:37PM (#18408654)

> ...a thread about an article detailing a very specific and actually useful piece of advice.

Anyone have a link?

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by my_usernam3 on Thursday November 08, 2018 @01:02PM (#18408302)

Yeah I had a similar reaction, while reading it.

He seems a little egotistical for my liking. Writes as if he is "all knowing", and people are constantly badgering him for his wisdom, so he finally decided to give some. Us plebeian should be grateful.

That being said, his advice seems pretty damn good, and I plan to pass it on to some people who are burning out and/or looking to switch career paths.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by closetohome on Thursday November 08, 2018 @02:38PM (#18409232)

Right? And then you look at the profile picture and he's like 19.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by my_usernam3 on Thursday November 08, 2018 @06:05PM (#18410877)

From what I can tell he worked hard, switched careers, and is still super high from his accomplishments and wishes to share that which he learned from his journey.

I was like this when I got my first engineering job out of college. It's hard to be modest and understanding when you first climb up the ivory tower after much hard work.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by SuperhackerXXL on Thursday November 08, 2018 @05:11PM (#18410519)

If the advice is good, then why shouldn't he present it confidently? Wouldn't you take it less seriously if he had a disclaimer of "i have no idea wtf i'm talking about but here are some thoughts"?

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by my_usernam3 on Thursday November 08, 2018 @06:02PM (#18410857)

This is overly confident and gives off "I am right, and I don't need to back it up" type of vibe imo.

> "i have no idea wtf i'm talking about but here are some thoughts"

I think there is a middle ground between this and overly confident that is best for advice giving. From my experience those with the most confidence while giving advice tend to be least open minded about altering their opinion upon being questioned. Which in turn leads to bad advice.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by devxpy on Thursday November 08, 2018 @12:46PM (#18408134)

> keeping shaking the money tree

LMAO.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by devxpy on Thursday November 08, 2018 @02:35PM (#18409200)

Finding things funny is a crime now...

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by drankula3 on Thursday November 08, 2018 @02:41PM (#18409259)

No, but pure expressions of emotion without anything else don't add to the conversation, it just adds noise.

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Re:What I say to people who are looking for a job by devxpy on Thursday November 08, 2018 @03:07PM (#18409491)

That hit hard.

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