In Canada, my family knew a couple who tried to adopt a child in the decades ago because of infertility. The vetting process and the paperwork from the government agency was "audacious". They said the amount of red tape was so much to the point that the fertile couples would not adopt locally.
Back in the day, adopting a child from China and Romania was easier than adopting locally.
Many of us go to conference to present their work, connect with like-minded individuals and possibly finding the new opportunity.From the off-hand remarks from some conference organizers, their work carried some risk and could be thankless. They could face the following unpleasant things: * A speaker got cancelled because of something they posted or said. * Nasty people violated code of...
Like what a few other folks in this thread pointed out, your resume and your portfolio looks outdated and fragmented on my first glance. Most recruiters and hiring managers spend 5 seconds max during the first pass, so first impressions matter.
Here are the things you can do to bring your resume up-to-date: * "Key achievements" does not include numbers to describe impact. For example, "pre-screen and match thousands of patients a day" could be rewritten as "pre-screen n patients per day and match them to m healthcare provider with 99.99% uptime" sounds impactful. * Self-rating of your skills is not necessary. Nowadays your description of your impact is implicit on how you learn and work. In addition, "expert" for one person may not be the same for others.
On your portfolio: * Listing your education is no longer necessary after the first job. Putting this in your portfolio site makes you look inexperienced. (Leave education in the resume, however.) * The screenshots for Nike and LG look outdated, which contradicts "cutting-edge internet experiences".
Do you have specifics on how Americans adults could be naive on the world?
Putting headshot in resumes is not expected and even cringe in my country, but some countries expect headshots and other highly personal info. No thanks.
...for most people. Even if the company got sold or had an IPO, only the very early employees made life-changing money. There's no guarantee if the company will be at those stages.
The news bias towards people who made life-changing money, but does not tend to report the "invisible force".
- The pool business near the single-digit RIM buildings had more business than they could do. Many folks wanted swimming pools at their homes.
- Various eateries such as the sandwich shop mentioned in the article made decent money during the height of Blackberry.
- People skipped starter homes and bought single houses as their first homes. Some real estate agents waited outside of some buildings during bonus was announced.
Are there any of you here who pursued a STEM education, entered a STEM field but left STEM altogether not due to retirement age?Some people became jaded on being a cog in a huge machine. Some people got fed up with the work. Some people got burn out. Some people failed to find a fit in the field.
I had the reverse. My younger self wanted to do something to benefit the humanity, but hated see the old me having no money and out-to-date skills (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41716772). At the end of the days, the people at the top wanted the money. I didn't even have handcuffs, let alone golden ones.
There are jobs you like in this world, but you may not like the salary.
My Facebook account is only for the messenger and some local buy-and-sell groups.
My (private) Instagram account is for my friends.
My LinkedIn is for recruiters reaching out to me and contact my former managers for references. Former manager could've changed jobs so the old work email isn't any good anymore. A side effect is to research the companies and teams for my job interviews: Some recruiters did send me the LinkedIn profile of the interview panels.
Long lost friends and colleagues still have some way to contact me without knowing my phone and email. I don't have to proof myself through posting what I eat today and how excited about my work.
Picking what you'll do specifically without starting the degree does not sit well with me. I am in CS and not in EE, but believe a degree gives you a breath understanding of the subject to let you choose wiser.
In my days, lots of students started CS because they would "like to put up websites" or "work for this specific employers in town". Those goals were determined based on what they could see around them at the time. Then the field shifted (like AI coming) and the company's trajectory shifted. They were disappointed on either the school didn't teach them skills specific to the job or didn't graduate before the downturn. The specific type of job or the field could also be saturated with folks with years of experience on their job: Entry-level positions could be hard to come by.
A large company in my country posted some tech-related openings saying that they would like to hire someone who has been diagnosed formally with Autism.I was very skeptical about such a posting. It sounds like a big corp just want to write a bullet point about "doing good in the community" without understanding what those individuals need in a workplace. A large workplace is cruel for people...
Please rethink your goals and how you will have impact. Unless you run a non-profit, people are in the business to make money. Let me tell you that I had the reverse experience earlier in my adulthood. I described a bit in a thread recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41598911
In my late teens and early 20s, I rejected big corps. I rejected standard job search and interview practices because people seemed fake. I wanted to stay away from making products that can do bad things (very broad!). I stayed away from business-y courses and topics because people with money seemed greedy. Fortunately, I found a workplace that satisfied my beliefs. I made an intern's salary in the area as a full time employee. Salary increase was almost non-existent. Work was very chill. I lived paycheque to paycheque and never travelled, but being poor was ok being in my 20s.
The last straw came when the company was sold. The early employees had a windfall. Some folks, who were in their 40s, retired or became an angel investor. Some kept their job and bought "adult toys" (Example: Classic cars). I got $0 because I had no stock. I turned 30. I had no money to replace even my personal computer and bought old parts to keep my computer going. That's my wake-up call.
I began to network and learned the reality of the industry. I learned to interview for jobs. I learned that a degree wasn't as valuable as my parents said in the 1980s. The company I ended with had some controversies, but there were a lot of smart folks who were eager to learn. There was no lacking of recruiters reaching out when and after working there. Start saving money in my 30s still wasn't too late!
If I had a sizable trust fund and just needed something to occupy my mind during the day, the non-evil-corp would be perfect.
Are there any of you who did not have any post-secondary education in any disciplines and found success in tech? What was your journey? Would you recommend people to follow your path?My aim for this question is not to have someone use this post to justify that they should not attend college or university. My advice still leans towards an education to expand their minds and to make human...
Then I took a QA position in a big corp after spending my 20s not saving any money. Even this manual/automated testing role qualified me for a 50% pay increase from the old job without salary negotiation. No dev shop took me after seeing I was clueless in recent tech stacks. After a few years, I was tired of the manual testing part and looked for a new job.
Then I had automation roles in a few local companies with increasing DevOps components. The companies are progressively less rigid so they are good in letting us exploring and using new tech stacks.
My belief in not doing "evil" in my 20s has hurt me financially and career-wise in the long term. I didn't read industry news before I turned 30. The QA job, even if the company had some controversies, was a savior to stop beating a dead horse.
I pursued computer science because of the career prospect, the fact that the salary is not capped by regulators and I had the grades to get accepted in a program. I am not a senior developer, but am never out of work for more than 2 months in my entire 15+ years career with the up and down in tech. I live comfortably in a low-cost-of-living area. I am not looking for FIRE. I switched roles...