notsurenymore
I’m just hoping I can find a way out of the industry before it’s too late.
This was my exact experience. I’ve been out of work for a year and I’m more jaded than ever.
I finally got a job through what I assume was nepotism. It was the worst interview I’ve done lately, awkward, because I didn’t have any experience in the particular tech stack, but I got the offer.
What pissed me off were companies ghosting after doing the full set of rounds onsite. At one point, I was interviewing for a position a third party recruiter contacted me about. It wasn’t great, but it would pay the bill and I was desperate. It seemed like a decent fit given my last experience too. I got all the way to the final round which I had to travel hours for. At the end of the internet, one of the people even said “I imagine you’ll be hearing from us soon”. But they just ghosted me. Hell they ghosted the recruiter, who a couple weeks later was calling me asking if I had heard anything because they weren’t talking to him. If a company ghosts after an initial round or two, ok, whatever, but if I go the full distance and you don’t have the respect to even give me a yes or no, fuck you.
Eventually it came down to my social network. My family was unable to help me, many of the people I knew were unable to help me, but many tried, eventually though, my connection were what saved me. I packed up what little I could take, and moved to the densest part of town. I talked to people I knew, at places I used to frequent. These people were the first to offer help. Sometimes it was just advice, sometimes it was just a little bit of money, but many had a broad network themselves, and begun to reach out, trying to help me find some sort of work. Ultimately it didn’t work out for me, but eventually, an old friend reached out asking to hang out, and when they found out my situation, they offered to put me up until I could get back on my feet. A few other people offered to let me stay the night so I could at least get some rest and clean my clothes. Currently, I have an offer and am waiting to start, and shit the only reason I got that was because it was a referral from a family member.
I understand, you may not have a network like this, but I didn’t think anyone I knew would offer me the help they did. Ultimately, had I not been given that help, I’d likely be despondent still. Had I not had that assistance, however, my plan was, plus some advice I was given by others, was roughly as follows:
- Make sure necessities were covered. Water was easy, so this mostly meant making sure what money I had went to food.
- Get a cheap gym membership when you can, this was advice I was given several times, mostly this provides a shower when you need it.
- Use the library for internet, to continue the job search. At this point, I was willing to work for anyone doing anything. Despite, the previous whining about a worker shortage, however, I found that most fast food places were passing me over even before I was homeless, there were suggestions as to why that might be in another thread, but I don’t want to go on too much of a tangent.
- Keep fighting to find some form of work, things are a lot easier if you have money coming in.
From there it’s complicated depending on the exact circumstances. I didn’t have to deal with cold weather, but that may be a concern for others. I still had no idea how I would properly get back on my feet this way, mostly because rent here rapidly outpaces the shorty jobs that were availed, but I was ready to take it one day at a time.
I’m also not surprised by the “The number of candidates applying with claimed ML/AI experience who haven’t done anything more than follow online tutorials is wild”. Just go look at any Ask HN thread about “how do I get into ML/AI”. This is pretty typical advice. Hell it’s pretty typical advice given to people asking how to get into any domain. Now sure we’ll how it works outside of bog standard web development though.
While you can find a some of the big names in specific genres on bandcamp, it’s always struck me as more of a place for underground and tiny artists. The genre breakdown categories tend to be pretty good, and you can find some interesting stuff that’s not easily found elsewhere. Sometimes I’d just go into a specific genre and start listening to anything that caught my eye. I usually found it much better than streaming platforms, that just continuously recommend the same stuff I’ve heard time and time again, but just didn’t have in a playlist. I do have a problem with their mobile app though: It doesn’t allow you to change the sort method, so you end up seeing a lot of stuff you’ve already seen before.
To be honest, I don’t use it as much as I used to. Nowadays, I’ve mostly found YouTube channels that upload and curate various rare and underground content for specific genres and that’s how I do most of my new (and new old) music discovery.
I do enjoy the night, it’s cooler and calmer, sadly there’s just not much that can get done. I remember years ago working a night job, where I would often work very long hours, but I would get accusations of being lazy from people who just saw me as sleeping all day.
It’s been better recently, but some years ago, I would come home from work just completely exhausted and pass out immediately. I would only sleep for a few hours, but then wouldn’t get tired again until 4-5am at which point I often would just power through it because I’d have to get ready and go to work in a couple hours anyway. It peaked a few years ago when I completely wrecked my sleep and didn’t sleep for a few days straight. I remember waking up, thinking about something I believe was just utter nonsense, and a second later being unable to recall what I was even thinking about. I ended up getting my sleep back, but cycling some light stimulants during the day and crappy sleep aids at night until I was back to a normal schedule, but that probably wasn’t very healthy itself.
In the last month, I’ve had:
- A call with a recruiter for a company I applied to. The position seemed like a very good fit given my past experience and what they were looking for. Got an email a week later saying they’d gone with someone else.
- A call with a third party recruiter. Went well initially, but the higher ups didn’t like that I’d been out of work for so long.
- A job offer, but with so much bureaucracy and red tape I don’t even have a start date yet. And there’s a good chance I won’t be able to hold down the job for very long anyway. I suspect this offer was somewhat of a nepo hire anyway. I was referred by a family member, and despite having an awkward interview, and admittedly not having much experience with their tech stack, I got an offer. I will have to move though to an area that doesn’t appeal to me and ruins all my medium and long term plans.
- Various ATS rejections. Including getting rejected from a company I worked for pre Covid, which I had no issues getting in via cold app some years ago.
Long term I need to get out of software, but there doesn’t seem to be a good path to something else.
I’ve done it twice. The first time was when I was 18 or 19 trying to get my first job in the industry. I put in a ton of applications, and while it felt tedious, it only took around three months at the end of the day.
The second time was this time. I’ve probably put at least 100 applications in over the past year, and it’s been very hit or miss on whether I get interviews. I don’t bother researching and applying for the few jobs in interested in, because I’m usually not qualified for them. Most of my recent job applications have been exclusively ones that looks like they’re relevant compared to my resume, and some that are different from the work I’ve done in the past, but utilize tangential skills.
And of course, it wasn’t a free form text field that would allow me to just enter N/A or my high school. It was a drop-down/search box that had a predefined list of colleges and universities. I ended up just entering some college I attended for two months before dropping out.
Honestly, I wish more applications were like that. Just let me know sooner rather than later what your filters are.
I also try to keep the formatting simple in hopes that the parser has an easier time. I had a previous resume that had a slightly more complex layout that I thing compiled down to tables, but recently I’ve been using one with a simpler linear/hierarchical format.
I’ve also removed some stuff I used to have on there, such as contributions to open source projects. No one I’ve ever talked to has cared about that stuff, even when the market was easier, but I suspect that’s partly because the OSS stuff I’ve done is in a different domain from my professional career.
Right now, most rejections I get at the ATS stage don’t come till 2-3 weeks after the application.
I doubt it matters much though. Even when I get passed the initial resume screen these days, it’s usually followed up with a “we’ve decided to pursue someone else” from the recruiter/hiring manager/etc. before I can even get to an interview. And that’s for jobs where my resume seems a perfect fit.
There are ads utilizing this trope now
Funny enough, I actually had a machine from that family, along with a variety of other more obscure and niche retro computers and other equipment, sadly I lost all of it, but the reality was it was just costing me a ton of money to get them working again.
Most of the other homeless people I met were older individuals. I didn’t talk to them much, but there were no open drug users (they were probably out there, but I stuck to there parts of town where they didn’t congregate, including staying away from shelters) and I assume most of them were on fixed income and simply got priced out of the market.
There’s no aid I was aware of. As you noticed, for many things, there’s massive waiting lists. Even the cheaper apartments out here have waiting by lists, and when I looked at the price to rent just a room, I was floored. People were often charging more to live in a room out of their house than you would pay for a low end apartment. And they still wanted first/last/security/credit check/background check etc.
I’m still not sure if I’m going to make it out. I’d have to find work that’s going to pay enough for me to make it past the jump, and that’s looking less likely by the day. I’ve thought about just saying screw it, and moving to a cheaper area, but then I’m in the same position, in a foreign environment where I know nobody and have no network.
I was speaking to my old neighbor a couple months before my lease was up about the economic situation. I was shocked when she told me that back in 08, her landlord actually lowered rents.
I don’t have the time nor the resources to do that now. If I could get a job that would allow me to stabilize a bit, then I could start thinking about that.
I can “learn” anything. What I cannot do is synthesize years of experience in some other domain. Most jobs are not like web development. They are not interested in outsiders or people who lack traditional credentials and experience in their exact field.