[HN Gopher] Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
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Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
I've been trying to get a job for over a year now. I've interviewed
at Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb,
Palantir. Too many to list. I've applied to companies from the
whoishiring thread every monthly. workatastartup etc. Always ending
with ghosting, or a impasive rejection letter. I tried improving my
interview skills. Reading Meyers, Knuth etc. books. Reading advice
on Reddit etc. But I still always get rejected. I worked at EA (QA
on Apex Legends), and IBM (dev) at 18. Quit due to lowpay/no
insurance. Got referrals etc. dropped out my freshmen year at a top
40 college. Was on the cyber security team etc. College was too
expensive so I had to dropout. Got a low level customer support
role at Amazon. But I only made $15 with no health insurance. Found
some flaws within the anti-fraud system at Amazon, and wrote a
detailed e-mail to the VP in charge of the anti-fraud system. It
was fixed by 1am. Also was concerned about support reps being able
to access any customer's data simply by pressing 'bypass' on the
security question promt page. I couldn't transfer internally until
a year later as well. Would ping your manager each time you apply
as well. Have to delete your emails constantly due to only having
1gb email space. Assessment was similar to the one I took for CIA.
Cognitive based assessment. I even got ghosted after a interview
for a manual labor job at Home Depot. I tried cold contacting
executives at a few companies. Got meeting with SVP at Dell, Cisco
etc. was fruitless though. Spoofed number to bypass contact
whitelist etc. I welcome any and all advice that any of y'all
could offer. Even if it's brutally candid. I need a job with decent
health/dental insurance. Medicaid is useless. I might be homeless
soon. I'm scared, and I don't know what to do. I'm afraid that I'll
end up like Bill Landreth. e: dude@member.fsf.org will reply with
a different email address.
Author : snakedoctor
Score : 479 points
Date : 2021-04-15 19:23 UTC (1 days ago)
| alfl wrote:
| With compassion: you seem paranoid. Lots of talk about security
| and hackers and spies. Your submission history is telling. Have
| you thought about getting therapy?
|
| I get the feeling from your writing that you are conflating
| social signalling and personal economic outcomes. You seem to
| want people to think you are smart more than you want to succeed?
| Or at least those ideas seem in conflict.
|
| Do you want a job at a Big Name or do you want money?
|
| Have you thought of starting a business? That way you don't need
| permission from other (besides customers) to succeed.
|
| Probably better is, as many others have suggested, to get a job a
| smaller company that will have you. Then build something on the
| side.
| havkom wrote:
| One thing that managers generally does not like is staff that
| does not "fall in line" and create issues for them that they have
| to deal with. I would therefor not mention for example having
| emailed VP:s about issues or highlighting bypass functionality in
| systems (if your previous job description did not include to
| highlight this).
|
| From a managers perspective in the example, they are trying to
| run an operation of good support. They have to comply with
| different laws and have a solution "that works". They may not
| appreciate that someone in the staff highlights "flaws". If
| someone highlight flaws of this type anyways:
|
| 1) if highlighted by a staff member may have to be addressed. In
| particular from a staff member that emails VPs. Some point in
| time, possibly after a difficult process, legal may have ticked
| this off. The manager may not be happy to have to revisit this
| question again.
|
| 2) It may be difficult to address for the manager (request new
| support services software? Get an opinion from legal? - may be a
| large project)
|
| 3) disrupts the main goal of the manager of providing good
| support services.
| holografix wrote:
| I read a bit of the responses here: some sadly very judgemental
| but I have also read OP's responses.
|
| I think seeing a therapist is a great idea given your difficult
| upbringing. However try to see someone who will help you improve
| on your professional presentation skills. Unfortunately this
| stuff matters a lot during interviews.
|
| I mean someone who will candidly give you feedback on how you
| dress, communicate, your personal hygiene, language used etc.
|
| Also, you have a powerful story of intellectual achievement.
|
| I'd start reaching out to individuals on LinkedIn with a VERY
| SUCCINCT AND HIGHLY RELEVANT TO THEM message on why they should
| consider your for a position.
|
| If you have references that can vouch for you this will go a LONG
| way. You mentioned IBM, anyone in there of some professional
| stature that could say: "yeah this is a good person to work
| with"?
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Seeing a therapist could be highly costly and out of reach for
| OP.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I have some former co-workers, and some senior executive folks
| that could write letter of recommendations vouching that I'm
| competent etc. I used to have long hair which I've cut. I think
| that I dress farily ok. I have a brooks brother suit, levi
| jeans, some decent t-shirts etc.
| codegeek wrote:
| Need more details to give you a more accurate feedback. How long
| you have been working/in the industry in general ? It seems like
| you have done a few things over the years but don't really seem
| to have stuck to something that made you a specialist or someone
| worth hiring. Being brutal here but making assumptions. Do you
| quit a lot ? Do you have any criminal records that you are not
| aware of ? Are you too opinionated or argumentative in interviews
| even before understanding more about the team/product/company etc
| ? Are you that person who "knows everything" ? Lot of factors
| could be causing you to lose out.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I've quit a lot. I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2
| months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm
| not getting appropriate compensation. Though I certainly agree
| that I need to stick with a job. I think ageism, and other
| biases are in place though. More years of experience I get the
| less disdained I will be I think.
|
| I don't think I'm a know it all. I'm only in my early 20s. I
| definitely have a lot to learn, and I'm receptive to new stuff.
| stonogo wrote:
| You asked for brutal, so here is my take, with no sugar-
| coating.
|
| I don't hire people to promote them in two months. If I
| thought they were going to be up for promotion that quickly
| I'd have hired them at the next level up to start with.
|
| Similarly, how can you feel like you're not getting
| appropriate compensation when sixty days ago you agreed to
| that wage? Everyone contributes a lot, that's what they're
| paid to do. Most large orgs of the type you've listed have
| set promotion cycles and nothing you do short of buying the
| damn company is going to get you special consideration for
| that.
|
| Also, ageism doesn't really work that way for lower-level
| jobs like you've described. People in tech are not afraid to
| hand responsibility to a young employee who has demonstrated
| responsibility. Related: you cannot possibly demonstrate
| responsibility in two months. Two months is essentially zero
| hours of tenure. I don't even consider an engineer fully
| onboarded before they've been here a year.
|
| I think you need to focus on strategic thinking rather than
| ladder-climbing at your next job. Get a foot in the door and
| then start asking yourself how your contributions can align
| with the strategic goals of your org, then work along those
| directions. Keep your sense of entitlement tamped down,
| because most managers do not want to hear it, but pursue
| opportunities within the org as they come your way.
|
| At this point you need to hold a job for at least five years
| just as damage control for your resume. By then I think
| you'll have a better sense of how to handle these places.
| tcbasche wrote:
| > I think ageism, and other biases are in place though. > I'm
| only in my early 20s
|
| Do you mean ... ageism against young people? I think from
| what it sounds like your expectation of compensation might be
| a little inflated based on your experience. Straight out of
| university I took a junior grad job that paid peanuts, but
| stuck with it for about 2 years and that was a solid basis to
| move somewhere that was a much better work environment and
| paid better.
|
| I think as another poster may have said, you probably just
| need to stick it out with something for a couple of years to
| get that solid basis. As you say, if you're in your early
| twenties you have plenty of time and it's just the start of
| your career!
| geofft wrote:
| Almost no company has the internal processes to adjust
| someone's compensation within two months. If you don't feel
| like your compensation at signing is appropriate, you need to
| figure it out then. Otherwise, your best shot is when the
| company's standard process is - end of year reviews, after
| one year at the job, whatever.
|
| Also, at least in tech, almost no company will have made any
| serious attempt to evaluate your contributions after two
| months. It's assumed you're still figuring things out (both
| technical and social/political) and not making meaningful
| contributions until well past that point, and the nature of
| things you'll do even two years into a job are qualitatively
| different from those you're doing two months in (even if you
| are finding things that are valuable to do). So they don't
| have the _data_ to re-evaluate you two months in, even if
| they had the process.
|
| It is of course technically possible for someone sufficiently
| senior at the company (like, head of HR, C-suite, etc.) to
| override the standard process. But why should they do that
| for you? It's generally not in their interest, because it
| will endanger their own relationships with all the people
| under them implementing the standard process, even if it's
| the right decision, and they have no reason to be confident
| that it's the right decision.
|
| I think that's something you need to figure out. What
| happened with the SVP/CISO phone calls that you mentioned in
| your post? What did you tell these people, whose job _isn 't_
| recruiting candidates (there's a whole different department
| for that), to convince them to bypass the usual process and
| stick their own necks out and risk their own position to get
| you into the system? What did they say in return?
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| This is 100% your problem. If I worked someplace for two
| months I wouldn't even put it on my resume. On the flip side
| of that if I got a resume with only a bunch of 2 month jobs
| on it I wouldn't likely interview you.
|
| As other comments have mentioned you have to stick to
| something for a while. You didn't even finish school so you
| cant even say "At least I stuck with my degree". The way you
| read to me is that you will jump ship the moment you aren't
| liking something.
|
| > I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not
| getting appropriate compensation
|
| Two things about this:
|
| If you don't feel the compensation is appropriate you
| shouldn't take the job in the first place. If you've been
| somewhere for a while and been a high contributor then ask
| for a raise. Two months isn't nearly long enough to make that
| assessment.
|
| Also you say you contribute "a lot" but I'm betting that it's
| not as much as you think. It probably only feels like a lot
| because you haven't ever stuck around anywhere long enough to
| see what "a lot" looks like. Hint: It's a marathon, not a
| sprint.
| brundolf wrote:
| Seconding this. The advice I've always heard is that if you
| quit a job in under a year, it's a red flag. Generally you
| get one freebie where people will understand if you had to
| quit because of a bad fit or a toxic situation or whatever
| - though you'll probably have to talk about that in your
| interview - but if there's a pattern of it happening over
| time, that's a huge red flag.
|
| If I were you I'd try and get one solid year of a job on my
| resume, to start with. You said you're worried about
| becoming homeless anyway- why would you quit a $15/hour job
| if you don't have anything else lined up? Unless it's just
| a really toxic/destructive situation, that seems like a
| mistake. Paying the bills for the time being and building
| up some solid work experience seem like aligned goals right
| now. The healthcare thing is unfortunate (it's unfortunate
| that anybody in our society has to be in that position),
| but I don't think quitting without another offer is going
| to help.
|
| Best of luck.
| asidiali wrote:
| Just chiming in to say, while this is mostly true, it is
| not always true.
|
| I had a stint of about 2 years of job hopping every 3-6
| months at the beginning of my career. Worked great for me
| every time.
|
| The trick is to get the new job while you still are
| employed, not quitting and then looking for something
| new. Employed = attractive to other employers, but still
| a bit of a red flag. Unemployed = just a big red flag.
| lumost wrote:
| when you're working you can always toss it off as
| "exploring my options". I had a period of 4 years where I
| traded jobs every 1.5 years. This strategy works well if
| you're starting at a company with a low bar and are
| working towards a top firm. Companies don't usually
| question it as long as you are moving up with each
| switch.
|
| Once you cross the 5-7 years of experience mark companies
| will start to ask the question more pointedly as 1.5
| years roughly corresponds with a performance review
| cycle. We all know engineers who have failed upwards or
| outwards for years but are competent enough to pass an
| interview and personable enough not to be fired. Senior
| level positions also tend to involve multi-year
| commitments that the company needs to know you're onboard
| for.
| troutwine wrote:
| > I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months.
|
| Friend, this here's the problem. Consider that a working
| environment _when it's going well_ is a mutually supporting
| cooperation of individuals to some basic end. Could be you're
| creating something new, could be you're maintaining something
| but, the big thing to understand is, you're doing it with
| other people and you're all relying on one another _to do
| your share_. Ageism, Southern accents (hidy, fellow
| Southerner) and other biases haven't got anything on this one
| problem: you quit. Two months in isn't anything, even if you
| are talented and, to be blunt about it, two months isn't
| enough time to develop anything but a surface level
| understanding of something. There's no way to look at a
| resume with a string of 2-month stints and think that you'll
| be around to _do your work_ and that'll impact the team.
|
| Hell, a few years ago I did a very short stint -- something
| like six months -- at Unity, moved on to Dropbox with my team
| from Unity and then got fired from Dropbox within four
| months. At this point I had 15+ years in my career and when I
| was searching for jobs _everyone_ asked me to explain why I'd
| switched jobs so rapidly. It's just a big red flag, even if
| you're someone that has shown they'll come and do the work
| all the rest of your career.
|
| > I contribute a lot...
|
| This contradicts you working no more than two months. _You_
| might feel like you contribute a lot but I would suggest that
| if you stuck out a job for a year and then considered what
| you'd got done in that year what you see as "a lot" now won't
| seem like much.
|
| > and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate
| compensation.
|
| Tell you what, in my heart of hearts I feel like everyone
| ought to make a living wage no matter how unstable of an
| employee they are and no matter how inflated their sense of
| their work is. But, in the US that's not the system we have.
| Your compensation is some function of the employer's sense of
| your worth derived from your past work history, what you
| negotiate for and a discounting based on your perceived risk
| to the employer. Someone that will not work for more than two
| months is a _very_ risky employee and will get a heavy
| discount on their compensation for the first year because of
| it, at least. You probably are getting appropriate
| compensation in this system of ours based on how unreliable
| you are.
|
| It seems to me from what you've said here that you've dug
| yourself into a very deep hole. I don't know why you have
| done this, friend, but you have. If you're near homeless
| suggestions to do Bootcamps or finish schooling -- while
| _extremely_ valid, you should eventually do one of these
| things -- are probably too late in the game for you. I second
| recommendations to reach out to headhunters and land yourself
| any kind of gig and then stick with _whatever_ you get. Pay's
| going to be shit because you're a risky hire. Don't prove to
| be a risky hire. Keep doing good work, consistently. After a
| year, ask for a raise. See about finishing your schooling but
| DO NOT QUIT YOUR JOB. After a _few years_ start interviewing
| for another gig without quitting your job first. People are
| going to ask you about your resume of 2-month stints and
| you'll have to explain it as a thing you've grown out of,
| because if you get to this point you will have done.
|
| Godspeed. My email's in my profile if any of this has struck
| a chord and you'd like to talk or what not.
| danans wrote:
| Hey, just wanted to say that the tone of your comment is
| great. Supportive, but honest, and even though I'm very far
| from a US southerner (midwestern asian american), somehow
| very culturally relatable. I hope it strikes a chord with
| the OP as it did with me.
| troutwine wrote:
| I appreciate that danans, thank you.
| xpressvideoz wrote:
| > I think ageism, and other biases are in place though.
|
| I don't understand. Aren't tech jobs generally _in favor of_
| young people? I 've heard ageism against old people, but not
| the other way around. I guess you're mistakenly associating
| people's negative reactions with your age?
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| There's definitely age-ism at both ends of the spectrum.
| Companies really love to hire starry-eyed juniors who will
| work overtime without asking for extra pay. They depend on
| their willingness to do this, and to 'prove themselves'
| because, well, they need to. It's very common for new
| engineers to fall for the sunk-cost fallacy of 'well I
| haven't been here long enough to quit yet, but I'm learning
| a lot and things are bound to get better'.
|
| There's also a _wealth_ of employeres who will hire people
| for below-market pay, and those are _exactly_ the type of
| people who need to prove themselves and can 't really
| afford to leave the job. It's kind of a catch-22, and hard
| to empathize with people in this situation once you've
| earned your stripes and feel you're past it.
|
| The problem with OP is that they haven't been able to get
| the kind of job where they really respect your abilities.
| But they haven't gone through the grind to show prospective
| employers they're worth that.
|
| I get it, that grind is really demoralizing, stressful, and
| stacked in favour of the employers. If you're actually
| capable of doing work that commands higher pay, but you
| don't have the network, the social skills, or the
| qualifications (including work history and references), I
| get why you'd feel jaded. I was in the same boat 6 years
| ago and still haven't fully shaken the mentality its left
| me with.
|
| Anyway, just wanted to remind those of you who have
| distanced yourselves enough from that period of your lives,
| or who maybe skipped it altogether with recognition in the
| form of a degree or open-source contributions, that ageism
| definitely swings the other way as well.
| optymizer wrote:
| You know what your compensation is going to be when you get
| the job offer. You agree to that offer, then 2 months later
| you say "oh I contributed a lot so you need to pay me more"?
|
| Why do you feel like if you do more they have to pay you
| more? You agreed to give an employer 40 hours of your time to
| perform the responsibilities the job requires in exchange for
| an agreed upon, fixed amount of money. That's what the
| agreement between you and the employer is.
|
| If you have other expectations, you should negotiate them
| before accepting the offer. Don't like the offer? Don't
| accept it. Once you accept it though, stick to your word,
| don't change the terms 2 months in because you feel like it.
|
| Corporations just don't think the way you seem to - you don't
| get rewarded for A+ grades. You get the same paycheck. That's
| the default for most people at your level.
|
| Don't set yourself up for failure by going into a job
| thinking you'll do more and get more money. You won't at
| first, and definitely not within 2 months. Maybe after 2
| years as a promotion, but that means you have to work at the
| same company in the same position for 2+ years.
| shytey wrote:
| I do some hiring for my company, and if I saw a resume with
| numerous <2 month positions it would be a red flag. Try
| lowering your expectations, find any position and stick with
| it. You can continue to apply for better roles while you have
| that job. Worst case you end up there for 6 + months which
| looks much better on a resume. Best of luck!
| dbancajas wrote:
| > more about the team/product/company etc ? Are you that
| person who "knows everything" ? Lot of factors could be
| causing you to lose out.
|
| 2 months each job? holy shnizzle nobody will hire you like
| that. Next gig you get better suck it up for 2 years. I don't
| care how you don't like it. 2 months is barely enough for a
| ramp up. Have the fortitude and tenacity to stay on something
| even if it sucks. Remember your parent's stories "back in the
| day i walked 10 miles to school barefooted blah blah blah".
| That's the equivaalent of staying 2-3 years in a job.
| Everyone knows a job sucks even at FAANG companies.
| zumu wrote:
| > I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months
|
| You need to work somewhere, literally anywhere, for at least
| a year.
|
| Hiring and on boarding is expensive, such that virtually no
| software companies are getting any ROI for someone who is
| there for two months or less. I get you may have had impact
| early on at these places, but I guarantee they all still lost
| money on you.
|
| tldr; on paper you're a losing bet, build a history of being
| a winning bet and more companies will come around.
| [deleted]
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not
| getting appropriate compensation.
|
| Compensation is a negotiation game, so go and learn to
| negotiate well. One key aspect is to understand the
| perspective of the other side. In this particular case, you
| would learn that giving pay raises "out of cycle" is a pain
| for all involved, and a manager doesn't want to discuss
| salary every time a report of his does something great.
|
| If you want something, make it easier for others to give it
| to you.
| seiferteric wrote:
| Another thing is you may think you contribute a lot, but if
| you put in your 2 weeks and your boss does not try to keep
| you (counter offer or whatever) then they obviously don't
| think the same thing about you...
| BeetleB wrote:
| If you spend less than 2 months on the job before you put
| in your 2 weeks, no boss will try to keep you.
| bigbillheck wrote:
| I once gave notice before the 2 month mark because I had
| a major life event change, boss was flexible and talked
| me out of it and I stayed there for several more years.
| BeetleB wrote:
| Sure, but you had a good justification.
| bogwog wrote:
| Maybe read this book:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...
|
| Everyone has said this a bunch already, but it's painfully
| obvious that your recruiters don't like you for some reason. Try
| reading that book, or some other self help book to try and game
| the interview (or maybe actually improve your social skills).
|
| And also try to get honest advice from a friend or stranger. The
| problem might be something obvious and easy to fix that we can't
| possibly see over the internet. Like maybe you smell bad, or your
| haircut is weird, or your clothes are unprofessional. It'll
| probably be extremely awkward, but it will be worth it if it
| helps you get that job you want.
| mdoms wrote:
| Don't use the dad email address for job stuff. It has baggage.
| ameyv wrote:
| If you like hacking or more importantly pen testing..Start with
| bug bounties..will take time but if you get some bounties you get
| money a well solid proof that you have skills.
| toomuchredbull wrote:
| You need a portfolio of whatever it is you can do. I think both
| long and short term someone like yourself should probably work
| for themselves. Try contracting, build public facing apps, a
| public repo, etc to show what you can do so that people are so
| convinced they can overlook your more challenging
| attitude/personality.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I'll email you in a moment, but I'll share this here for everyone
| to see:
|
| - develop marketable skills
|
| - go where the money is
|
| - work your ass off
|
| - sell the absolute best version of yourself
|
| - when you have a job, focus on how to get a better job
|
| - don't prioritize pleasing people, rather make people realize
| their success depends on yours
|
| - "Don't lose that cool of yours. That's your meal ticket." -
| Dominic Toretto, The Fast & The Furious
| ALittleLight wrote:
| My advice is make sure you have the programming fundamentals.
| Online courses are available - MIT offers great classes and free
| too. Taking some kind of accelerator or bootcamp might work for
| you too.
|
| Supplement learning with doing projects. Create some things you
| want to play around with. I found implementing data structures
| was a good project while learning programming because it
| simultaneously helped familiarize me with the data structures and
| with learning programming. Add on some projects in the areas
| you're interested in. Chat app, video game, website, whatever. I
| also suggest reading official documentation for a language or
| library instead of a book on the subject. The official docs, if
| good, are a lot more dense and valuable. I taught myself python
| just by reading their official docs and it was the easiest
| experience I've ever had learning a language.
|
| As you get ready for the interview I would watch YouTube videos
| that take you through mock interviews. Listen to questions, pause
| the videos, give your answers, then listen to their analysis. You
| don't always need to agree with these videos, but it's good stuff
| to think about.
|
| I also highly recommend leetcode. I know some people look down on
| it but software interviews often have a component that is
| basically a leetcode question. I suggest solving 2-300 problems,
| mostly medium or hard, and making sure you can solve any medium
| or easy question, and explain it as you go, in under half an
| hour. If you get stuck YouTube is a good resource to see people
| explain leetcode problems.
|
| I have also found it helpful to write a little log as you're
| learning or working on a side project. I take notes of major
| failures and ask, and then explain in writing, why that happened
| and how I can prevent it in the future. When you find yourself
| writing multiple entries in the log with the same explanation,
| you know you've found a costly error you need to correct!
| MrStonedOne wrote:
| Remember this question, to ask during the "do you have any
| questions for us" part of your interviews:
|
| "is there anything about my background or experiences that give
| you pause?"
|
| Furthermore, do not get defensive, If you think they are wrong
| with how they reply, this means you didn't sell yourself well in
| that area. This should be taken as feedback in that vain, to
| improve further interviews.
|
| Given your low level of paid experiences in software dev, i'd
| assume you have some level of personal projects. My suggestion?
| Drink the koolaid, Start converting them to serverless
| microservice SAAS cubes and containers. Document this journey on
| a blog, use this to build out articles about what you learned
| while doing it on a portfolio, use that to answer their questions
| in more interesting ways.
|
| If you work at Amazon, apply for the Amazon Technical Academy.
| unobatbayar wrote:
| You sound really smart although dropping out makes it harder to
| get hired. Perhaps, consider starting a company?
| wildermuthn wrote:
| You're young, inexperienced, and uneducated?
|
| College and good internships will improve upon all of that. If
| you can't afford college, you'll need to join the military (I
| recommend the Air Force if you want to take it easy, or the
| Marines if you don't) and slave for four years. But it seems to
| me that your biggest stumbling block may be that you are shooting
| for the moon without realizing it.
| hn8788 wrote:
| Military is definitely an overlooked option. If sign up for an
| intel or cyber job, you'll probably have a 9-5 job after boot
| camp, get trainining, certifications, tuition assistance to
| finish a degree, veterans preference on jobs once you get out,
| and probably a security clearance. Even as a Marine it wasn't
| bad; the non-intel Marines used to joke that we were civilians
| in uniform. It can also help iron out some personality issues
| unless you have a big problem with authority. The military
| definitely isn't a bunch of mindless robots like you see on TV
| and movies.
| jl2718 wrote:
| Definitely. Ignore the pay. It's worth it. Also ignore SV
| pay. It's not. Take all the crazy assignments. Fringe
| personalities are on the front lines. Go there. That's the
| part of my career I regret least.
| wildermuthn wrote:
| Well said! If you can't turn around your life yourself (I
| couldn't), you can at least delegate that task to an
| organization willing to spend ungodly amounts of money and
| time on making you a productive member of its society.
| Whether you like it or not.
| lkm93 wrote:
| See, but intelligent people will consider you a parasite for
| assisting in US imperialism.
|
| Maybe we could recommend a path that does not include
| indiscriminant murder overseas?
| kevinpet wrote:
| I was adding this as a top level, but realized someone probably
| already mentioned it.
|
| If: * you're under 30 * you don't have any health problems or
| diagnosed mental health issues * you don't have a criminal
| record (or it's trivial stuff) * you are willing to make a
| drastic change in your relationship to authority
|
| then the military might be an option. You won't like it, and
| they absolutely not put up with any shit about you knowing
| better than your superiors (hint: it's completely irrelevant if
| you do), but that is a way to hit reset.
|
| You mention the CIA and they can be pretty selective, but that
| also suggests you're okay with patriotism. Remember the way to
| tell a recruiter is lying is their lips are moving. If you want
| a specific job get it in writing, and then assume a 50:50
| chance.
|
| If you want a job that translates to the outside world and
| aren't keen on getting shot at, I recommend the Air Force. The
| Navy isn't that bad in that regard either.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > * you don't have any health problems or diagnosed mental
| health issues *
|
| Or history of such, I was reject, in part because of two
| medications I was prescribed (and SSRI and an anti-psychotic)
| at 11 years old from two different branches even after
| traveling across states to be re ever lured by the doctors
| and getting a letter saying I was good.
|
| OTOH my stepbrother was diagnosed with ADHD and was
| prescribed adderall for years, and was able to get in.
| chrisvalleybay wrote:
| What are you like as a person? How do you present yourself in
| these meetings? What kind of values do you exude? Do you first
| listen and try to deeply understand the interviewer and what
| they're looking for - or do you nervously fill every void in the
| conversation with something? Your resume definitely is important,
| but once you are face to face with someone; how do you employ
| charm? It might come off as a fad but
| https://dansilvestre.com/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-pe...
| (summary of the book) might be of help. Good luck!
| jeffrallen wrote:
| Your local community college has a career center with someone who
| could give you more personalized, actionable advice than what you
| will get here.
|
| You are right to ask for help, but you need it in person, and
| intensively until you've got a plan and got your feet back under
| you.
|
| Good luck.
| pratik661 wrote:
| Can a hiring manager just do an anonymous mock interview with OP
| over Zoom and offer actionable feedback?
| rcurry wrote:
| Not sure if this helps, but we have a saying in Jiu Jitsu that a
| black belt is a white belt who never quit. Hang in there, and
| don't be afraid to punch outside your weight class in tech -
| there are a million people out there who have problems, you just
| need to convince one of them that you're the guy who can solve
| their problems.
| mastry0da wrote:
| osssss
| jussij wrote:
| > Reading Meyers, Knuth etc. books.
|
| I assume you are reading these books to get better at coding.
|
| Reading books is a great start, but the only way to become good
| at writing code is to actually start writing code.
|
| Reading is the theory, writing is the practice.
| RalfWausE wrote:
| I am in germany, so, things in the job market are a bit different
| here... but let me try an advice:
|
| Why not try something completely different for a while? In the
| early 2000s i was in your shoes, nobody wanted to hire me despite
| some (from my perspective) good skills. I was totally frustrated
| and didn't thought i would ever get any half decent job... so,
| out of a sheer "f*ck to the world" rage i joined the german army.
|
| After spending about two years in camouflage suits following
| orders of total barbarians and putting my body through more pain
| i would ever have dreamed of i got back to the civilian market
| and landed within three weeks after my release from the military
| a good job as an system administrator with a good company.
|
| What i want to say with this little story: Don't focus to much on
| what you want now, you will get frustrated and potential
| employers will see this frustration... do something completely
| different for a while, get your head clear and start all over
| again.
| opencl wrote:
| Amazon's warehouse jobs pay about the same as the customer
| service jobs but have decent health insurance. They hire everyone
| that passes a basic background check, no interview or anything.
| xtat wrote:
| If you're getting to the interview stage and that's where things
| go wrong, go through a practice interview with a friend who can
| be honest and I think it will be obvious to them what's going on.
| I can't pinpoint it from this but it sounds like it could be
| behavioral.
| varispeed wrote:
| Most companies don't want trouble and don't want low level
| employees to give advice how to improve something. By doing this,
| you make the people above you look bad and they don't want that
| even if what you say is correct and helpful. Basically if you
| find a new job, do only what is required from you, don't poke
| around, don't try to find vulnerabilities, don't spy on co-
| workers, don't report anyone (unless they are breaking the law
| and put someone else in danger).
|
| Maybe you believe in those stories from a janitor to an executive
| after some magic moment, but in the real life this doesn't
| happen. There are no shortcuts. You should consider that you may
| also be on the spectrum and you simply got wrong how social
| interactions work - if you cannot afford a therapist, you could
| look around for books on the topic. Unfortunately can't think of
| any now, apart from maybe "Look me in the eye" by John Elder
| Robison
|
| Then the ultimate way to get a job when you are unemployable is
| to start a company. I know this sounds stupid when you are on the
| brink of being homeless, but you could consider getting just any
| job and start a project in your spare time. If you come up with
| something that excites you and make it work, you'll also have a
| good resume material that could help with getting a job or an
| investor.
| archsurface wrote:
| You're simply aiming way too high. Those companies are all world
| renowned; most companies are not. Nice to have ambition, but it
| has to match reality, and evidently it doesn't. Apply to
| companies that aren't known beyond the city; work your way up
| from there.
| evolve2k wrote:
| One thing that helps is to think of tech change in waves. Once
| the tide shifts on a technology it's all downhill.. position
| where the good surfing waves are and life is easier.
|
| You seem to have a passion for security, that's a very specific
| mental framing that makes you suitable for some takes (tech
| security), and maybe terrible at others (holding open loving
| spaces for people grieving loss), but I could be wrong.
|
| Consider the newly growing field of Cyber Securtity, with a short
| course right now you can be very desired by many companies.. even
| if you start by offering to look over their systems and help them
| work out a plan around their cybersecuirty.
|
| Case in point; there are so many medium sized companies that even
| could just use a password manager to be setup across their
| network as an example.
| narshian wrote:
| Dude, you don't sound like a creep. Well maybe you do to dumb
| fags. You had a legitimate reason to spoof your number.
|
| But yeah. It's gotta be your social skills. Doesn't matter how
| smart you are; if you're dumb socially, unless you're John von
| Neuman, you're fucked. And, yes, definitely set your sights lower
| than the fucking NSA. The fact that you didn't acknowledge or
| give context to the absurdly high bar (given that we don't know
| shit else about you) implied in your choice of companies really
| does make one think you're socially retarded.
|
| Go and fix that.
| goatherders wrote:
| There are lots and lots of jobs that have health and dental. Most
| of them are not at FAANG or Palantir or the NSA or the CIA.... My
| recommendation is to find a job, any job, that serves your
| purposes and commit to staying for at least 2 years to start
| changing your narrative. As an example, getting a tech-support
| role at a localized IT/MSP should take you about 5 minutes if you
| are as technically sound as you profess.
| godmode2019 wrote:
| Life as a ENTP. You need to start a company and stop expecting
| people to hire you, hire yourself.
| niico wrote:
| "If I was you" this is what I would do:
|
| Build awesome products or have a killer portfolio/github and work
| anonymously for crypto-related projects. Build a reputation
| around your username not your real name. Try getting paid in BTC,
| etc.
| p0sixlang wrote:
| Holy shit, you're incredibly talented, I just checked out your
| website.
|
| Get some therapy for your obsession with bitcoin though; it's
| unhealthy. It's like telling someone to refuse to work for a
| company that only does direct deposit because you love checks.
| tobyhinloopen wrote:
| - Move to the EU to get health insurance (: - Start freelancing
| aga_ml wrote:
| Maybe I'm a bit late to the party here, but I do career coaching
| and I'd be happy to schedule a free 30 min chat / do a practice
| interview. [Email in profile]
|
| Regarding my experience, I have passed SWE interviews at google
| (interned at oculus/facebook) / regularly conduct such interviews
| at my company. On a bit more personal note, I definitely had a
| phase in my life where social interactions didn't come naturally.
| I needed to break down social interactions and create rules to
| better navigate them.
|
| Regarding baseline feedback, there is already a lot here, I'd
| just say that your number one focus should be to get a job and
| focus on keeping that job for a year or two. People will only
| trust you with more senior roles if you can demonstrate a track
| record of commitment. Of course, it may be the case that all of
| your previous jobs were bad situations to begin with, but people
| who are looking to hire you now don't know what happened and will
| see leaving many jobs as a red/yellow flag.
|
| I imagine that it will take effort, but is totally within your
| capabilities, to work on staying committed to a job for 1-2 years
| even it if feels below you, etc. It may take some changes in
| perspective, but it is definitely possible to get help with
| navigating the mental hurdles that come with staying at a job
| even if it isn't the most exciting thing in the world.
|
| I'd also take a lot of the armchair diagnosing with a grain of
| salt. Its normal for people to struggle with various types of
| social interactions. If getting diagnosed were important to you,
| you could definitely see a licensed psychologist (not me).
|
| All that being said, let me know if I can help!
| renewiltord wrote:
| Just based on original statement, you sound like one of those
| guys who thinks he's some hotshot hacker and won't play nice with
| everyone else. When you're like that, you have to bring _lots_ of
| value. Downside protection like "I stopped us from having broken
| anti-fraud" is really kind of not that interesting as a story.
| People want upside story.
|
| At any point of time, almost every company is teetering on some
| massive exploit. That's just how it is. Finding one isn't this
| big thing if the risk is mitigated in some other way (maximum
| exploit size is $10k and we'll wake up the OC eng to turn off
| writes and rollback). I'm not interested in this binary failure-
| is-worst-case nonsense.
|
| Listen, people aren't that interested in knowing that they can be
| fooled because most people apply some default amount of trust to
| the world. "Spoofed number to bypass contact whitelist". Dude,
| come on. This is boring stuff. Just knocking on the door isn't
| enough to be interesting. This isn't a Hollywood hacker movie.
|
| My advice: Work on being productive. No one cares about all this
| 'exploit hacker' shit you've got going on. It's not interesting.
| It's not profitable. It's boring. So go finish your degree
| somewhere. Write some code. Find someone who you can write some
| code for. For free even. Move up from there.
|
| EDIT: Jesus Christ, reading other comments, want to be promoted
| for finding some random issues like this in the first two weeks?
| Yeah, no. Here's a hint: everyone sees these things. It's not
| some great secret. Other people are also able to do one more
| thing: multiply by probability of external exploit and amount of
| loss.
| known wrote:
| You'll be hired if you've relevant skills/expertise; Ultimately
| it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle versus
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
| a3n wrote:
| Since you're scared ...
|
| You can drive a semi-truck. That was my solution for pay and
| health care, after destroying my software career. Most large
| trucking companies either have their own CDL school or contract
| out. Driving a semi-truck is a learnable skill, and you will get
| hired. My company paid for my school, requiring a year of work or
| I'd have to pay it back.
|
| Short term, if you're "really" scared, you can get hired anywhere
| as a security guard. That was also my solution, until I figured
| out truck driving was viable.
|
| If you don't find any "in-career" suggestions that work for you
| in this thread, think out of that career box.
| p0sixlang wrote:
| How'd you destroy your software career?
| a3n wrote:
| Anger, a B player, and rage quitting a job when I was old and
| didn't have a new job. No interviews ensued.
| khazhoux wrote:
| Adding to other observations here:
|
| You got meetings with SVPs at Dell, Cisco, etc. Those are *really
| high positions* that you reached out to directly. They have
| hundreds of people under them, possibly over a thousand. They
| have problems upon problems to deal with. They won't have any
| time for a single new hire, let alone someone who is still at the
| early stage of their career.
|
| People who've worked in plum tech jobs for 20 years still think
| twice before reaching out to an SVP directly.
|
| Set your sights lower.
| gadf wrote:
| Meta commentary, part 1:
|
| By exposing her soft belly and saying "stab me with your best
| shot," OP has revealed the soft underbelly darkside of HN. By
| lowering themself in front of HN, they've made themselves a
| target for everyone to dump on them. And what do people dump?
| What is the first thing they offload? The things which by
| offloading would let them feel best. The first thing people
| offload on another, is the things which they think are bad, and
| which they fear they themselves are or have been told they are.
| By offloading on another, the other becomes that thing more than
| they, and in their own mind, they no longer are. Serenity
| unlocked.
|
| So by examining the accusations against the willfully vulnerable
| OP (who has perhaps inadvertently made themselves a target for
| others projections) we can understand what HN (or this sample)
| fears about themselves.
|
| Let's take a look at the stats. The OP's crimes, by the numbers:
|
| - creep: 41 occurrences
|
| - sociopath: 13 occurrences
|
| - NPD/narcissist: 11 occurrences
|
| Seems there are a lot of "afraid-they're"- creeps, sociopaths,
| and narcissists out there, who have jumped at the chance to dump
| on another and show their own selves it's not them. But what
| surprises is that this is probably not the case. Can their really
| be so many lurking evildoers in a small sample of HNers?
|
| I think it's more likely that these words are bandied around, and
| the HNers misunderstand their power, and take them to heart.
|
| Meta commentary, part 2:
|
| What if the OP is not wrong, but we are?
|
| What if the industry is wrong? What if it's not that the OP has
| caused some untimely and gross violation of the moral fabric that
| binds us, but what if there's some sort of unspoken bias in
| operation here (aaand...it wouldn't be the first time), that
| leads people to incorrectly malign and sideline OP?
|
| What if OP is black? Or a trans man? Or what if they have a big
| scar from a cancer surgery down their face? Or what if they have
| cerebral palsy? Or are in a wheelchair? Or what if they are
| "neurodivergent"? In our society of "tolerance and
| accommodations" is it really up to the OP to adapt themselves,
| when we persist in proclaiming they are already "disabled" or
| "marginalized", if that were true, should we not adapt ourselves?
| What bias lurks in the shadows of Mordor?
|
| What if the OP is a regular person, not perfect, just imperfect,
| and it is simply this bias against whatever unharkened trait has
| led to these outcomes? On such limited information we're all
| ready to hang OP high for their crimes against our delicate and
| beautiful Technofaith Ethical Superculture Utopia, but no one's
| questioning the premise? No one's the jury of the 10th man? "I
| was allowed to," protest the critics. "OP consented." I'm only
| reminded of Stanford prison experiment. The guards were allowed
| to be guards, the prisoners consented to being prisoners, and in
| 10 days it all went to shit. Shame on you, HN, shame on you.
|
| Only a half /S
|
| Conclusion:
|
| But really what we do to this poor, meek, and vulnerable person
| in this state, is what we do to ourselves, (why would we sling
| these arrows at them, if we were not knowing they were arrows,
| and how do we know they were arrows to sling, if we were not
| making these arrows, and holding them against our own skin, at
| our own throats, knowing how sharp they are) and the care we show
| towards this poor soul, is the care we show towards our own soul,
| and ourselves, isn't it?
|
| What's the the punishment...the accusations of zero compassion
| levelled without compassion. Paradox blind. Does our industry
| have a culture of punishment problem? Did all techheads have
| awful parents and are now socially maladjusted, un self aware,
| perpetuators of an abusive cycle, even if only at a passive-
| aggressive and socially "acceptable" way?
| iaw wrote:
| "You're unable to find employment, which means either you're
| carrying yourself incorrectly or you're unable to perform the
| tasks required of an entry-level applicant." -VoidMint in this
| thread
|
| This needs to be reiterated. It doesn't matter if you're smarter
| than Donald Knuth if you come across poorly or can't answer
| interview questions. Based on your background I suspect you
| answer the interview questions but you have no idea how to work
| with people.
|
| Working with people that are nice is hard, working with people
| that are 'difficult' is damn near impossible and you sound
| difficult. When someone presents an idea to you that's actually
| stupid what do you say? How do you tell people no? Do you think
| about the feelings of those around you before you say something?
| These are things that can be taken for granted but are important
| for working within an organization (which you have limited
| experience with).
|
| I'm awkward as all hell but was able to make it in industry by
| consciously improving the way I interact with other people
| (especially when I don't agree with them). This isn't an
| insurmountable challenge but you have to identify what's causing
| you problems before you can fix it.
| trif1 wrote:
| You are not unsuitable you have high negative emotions and low
| social skills. It would actually do you good to go learn to be an
| entrepreneur rather than looking for a job. Give you a hint you
| are looking in the wrong places. Your obviously high in iq. To be
| frank your best opportunity is presenting itself to you. Pick up
| the torch of the provider and go hunt for your meal. Go do
| something in sales and learn the soft skills necessary for a
| successful life.
|
| Good luck and God bless I'm sorry you have found yourself in a
| position where you are so afraid.
|
| To get real your mindset is the real reason you are in the
| position you are.
|
| Bless
| hjorthjort wrote:
| Do you have anywhere you can do interview practice? Somewhere you
| can get honest feedback? It's possible you are sending of bad
| vibes. Impossible to say from just reading your post. But if you
| for some reason can't get a break despite an impressive track
| record and go-getter attitude, it's worth evaluating whether it's
| a personality deficit. If the person across the table feels
| uncomfortable with your, that can be a dealbreaker.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I suspect this will never be read, but what the heck...
|
| I sincerely wish you luck.
|
| I reckon there's a _lot_ that hasn't been said, possibly because
| you are personally unaware.
|
| I can relate. I have had difficulty in personal relationships for
| most of my life, and learning to get past this was a long,
| humbling process.
|
| Today's hiring system is pretty messed up. I should know. I gave
| up looking some time ago, because the experience has become more
| akin to a college hazing, than a serious professional evaluation.
| I have no interest in proving to anyone that I'm willing to abase
| myself (because I'm not). If that is required, then I won't waste
| anyone's time.
|
| But I'm extremely fortunate. I can afford to remain aloof. That's
| a rare privilege.
|
| Credit history is now something that almost every job looks at;
| especially at large companies. It's pretty routine to review
| that. Most HR departments have contracts with vetting companies,
| and credit history is "low-hanging fruit." These companies will
| also do things like check criminal history (even just arrest or
| misdemeanor convictions), follow up educational claims (I
| remember a guy getting fired, nearly a year into his employment,
| because he Photoshopped his degree), and will sometimes also
| trawl social media.
|
| A criminal history or bad credit is not a showstopper, but it
| requires a clear, honest, humble approach; along with self-
| exposure. Assume they'll find out. I knew a chap that did four
| felony bids upstate, and ended up working as a network admin for
| the DOE. Psych history is easier to hide, because HIPAA, but we
| need to address the issue, or it will be obvious. Even so, being
| honest and forthright can be helpful. If we have Tourette's
| Syndrome, it will usually be immediately apparent, so it's not a
| good idea to try to hide it, or get combative, when asked about
| it. Red flags make people nervous. Nervous people can ask
| awkward, ignorant questions. Being kind and understanding won't
| hurt. We can decide that we don't want to work with this person,
| but we don't need to salt the earth behind us.
|
| High-security corporations and TLAs will break out the
| proctoscope. There's a form for applying to sensitive government
| agencies, that is over 100 pages long. They may interview your
| ex, so be nice to her/him/them.
|
| I'm very honest. I don't hide a thing. This has not always been
| helpful, but it's also who I am. I have no interest in working
| with folks unwilling to accept me as I am.
|
| I do know that most US states (from your post, I assume you are
| in the US, and that you are a US citizen) have agencies that help
| people to find work; often through coaching and resume
| assistance. I live in New York, which is fairly good for that.
|
| A follow-up mentioned having a portfolio. We can work on open-
| source projects, and build up portfolios. I have a pretty massive
| one.
|
| We can also network. Develop positive relationships with anyone
| we can. Even low-level contacts in companies can be enormously
| helpful. Many corporations pay "spiffs" to employees, for
| recommending prospects. Be friendly, kind, open, and a team
| player. It pays great dividends.
|
| Working in open-source project teams is a great way to do that.
| It also gives us a portfolio. Volunteer work is great. Many NPOs
| suffer a lack of tech talent. They would be grateful for any
| help, and you can establish great relationships, that way. Be
| careful, however, who you work with. If you work with United Way,
| local food banks, or housing assistance orgs, that is good. Work
| with more... _intense_ organizations (I won't list any) can be an
| issue, though.
|
| There's a lot more I could say, but I tend to prolix (obv). I
| suspect that stuff you did not mention is your albatross, and I'd
| suggest doing a fearless and searching personal inventory. Be
| brutally honest with yourself. Shine a klieg lamp on your
| personal aspect, personality, and demeanor. Ask for help. Be
| humble. It sounds like you have no choice.
|
| Be prepared to address personal demons. It can be terrifying, but
| well worth it.
|
| Good luck, and godspeed.
| wespiser_2018 wrote:
| From my impression of this post, and your comments, you have a
| non-traditional upbringing, a nonconformist streak, and a problem
| committing to things. None of these are bad, but they aren't
| setting you up for success in a corporation that tries to de-risk
| it's hiring process, and find people who will fit the culture and
| make contributions for years. I think it's really important for
| you to understand that the world doesn't owe you anything,
| certainly not a pay raise after 2 months, and it's best to be
| humble. Being homeschooled gave you a huge leg up in developing
| dev skills and allowed you to get an IBM internship, but now the
| rest of your age group has essentially caught up.
|
| However, there is still a massive demand for software engineers,
| and those with technical talent, you just need to find a way in
| to the industry given that you essentially "have no past", or
| serious work history. One option might be to do a FE bootcamp on
| an ISA. I would also suggest making open source contributions
| regularly: pick a language and toolchain and start contributing.
| Might I recommend Haskell or Lisp? (a personal fav) This is all
| the standard advice, and there is no reason it couldn't work for
| you if you give it enough time. Also, as a Knuth check holder,
| don't waste too much time reading Knuth when you aren't applying
| it to a specific problem, or doing academic research.
|
| I work with some non-college degree devs, so It's definitely
| possible, but you need to be writing a ton of code, and pretty
| much be all about that. Longer term, I think your
| mindset/experience/history would be well suited to founding a
| company, but I'd strongly suggest, getting technical experience
| for a few years at a company first. Best of luck.
| posthiatal1 wrote:
| Would you like to try a mock interview over Zoom or something? I
| need one as well. We can give one another feedback. I'm unusual
| in my own way. I was successful early in my career (graduate of a
| top program, with Research Honors; and twice won awards, each
| with extra stock options, during 5 years at the fastest-growing
| Fortune 500 of the 90s) but burned out. Since then, my experience
| has been spotty, though I was a Lead Software Engineer once. I'm
| still trying to get back onto my horse. Anyway, I am now more
| interested in people and our quirks than in systems and code. The
| son of two social scientists, I viewed reading other people's
| code, and trying to decipher the intentions and guess the most-
| likely flaws, as "an exercise in abnormal psychology." I can give
| you my read on how I think you're likely to be perceived.
| sprafa wrote:
| Everything you've written makes you sound slightly deluded about
| your chances or your life atm. I think you might need a
| therapist.
| ExcavateGrandMa wrote:
| ECHELON got you? I'm dead too :/
|
| We just had to be deaf & mute...
|
| now... we have to make our own things even more ethical their...
| and maybe we will survive by ourselves...
|
| Good luck...
| TameAntelope wrote:
| Your English is very good, but there are some issues in your
| writing that could be holding you back, especially if your resume
| is written with the same level of attention that you gave to this
| submission. These things would stand out to me, to the point
| where I'd probably discount your resume.
|
| It's the little things, like how inconsistently you're cutting up
| sentences with periods, how you leave off the subject of the
| sentence in a couple of places, and the typos (lowpay, dropout,
| promt as quick examples).
|
| Honestly? Find a way to speak to a therapist. Many options
| available for people without insurance, some are even free. If
| you could land a diagnosis, you could begin to understand what's
| holding you back (if anything) or if there are just some things
| you could work on (like slowing down a bit).
| agnesm wrote:
| a
| zofinski wrote:
| Yo i sympathise OP! I think most people in this thread are being
| dicks. The job market is ruthless at the moment. Interviewing
| when you don't have a perfectly linear story is the worst. I
| typically have to go: "yup, i'm a college dropout, i had a 2 year
| span were i was pretty depressed and did next to nothing, then i
| worked at a gas station for a while in my early twenties etc etc"
| It's difficult to convince anybody that you are an amazing hire
| after having admitted to a history of professional failure. I
| think it was just dumbluck I found my current job. My approach
| was to be fully honest and transparent, admit to being a bit of a
| fuckup, but i tried to frame it like it's actually a good thing,
| because im driven by those failures. I found when I tried to hide
| the interview typically went worse.
|
| I think it sounds like you are an ace engineer, working for IBM
| at 18 and supplying patches to GNU projects. Thats amazing.
| You're probably a better engineer than most people in this thread
| calling you socially inept or gatekeeping the SWE roles. The job
| market is ruthless, so your frustration is completely justified.
| Here hoping you'll manage to turn your situation around!
| agnesm wrote:
| aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
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| aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
| hchz wrote:
| snakedoctor, you have borderline traits and should try to work
| with a therapist to gain insight into the dissonance between how
| you see yourself and how others see you. It is not realistic for
| you to achieve your goals without working on your mental health
| first.
| geoduck14 wrote:
| Here's my experience - it sounds similar to yours, but with a
| couple of key differences that might be useful.
|
| When I was in college, I really REALLY wanted to be am Electrical
| Engineer. I applied to loads of jobs - found a list of 75
| positions I applied to from 2 different career fairs (plus random
| others). I got 1 job offer and I was SO RESENTFUL.
|
| Naturally, I took the job - but I kept applying. I found emails
| from 100-200 jobs I applied to (no interviews). I found an email
| to a startup - I got an interview! - but no offer.
|
| I kept at my job. I built a reputation. I got ranked good. And
| bad. I networked and made friends. I got recruited by a former
| boss to move to a different part of the company.
|
| I EXPANDED my network. I went to conferences and told people what
| I was doing - and I helped them do it, too (for free/fun).
|
| I'm at a point now where I can move teams and people REMEMBER me.
| I have former co workers who want me on their team. I've worked
| up - slowly- and I never got the job I dreamed of in college, but
| I do have a good job that I love and it pays the bills.
|
| Summary: 1) Be good at what you do 2) Make friends with the
| people around you: peers and boss 3) Make friends with THEIR
| friends 4) Help them be good at the things you are good at 5) Be
| good at more things 6) Make more friends 7) Repeat
|
| Also, probably something about patience, hard work, being
| grateful with the life you have... idk, I'm not the Dali Lama ;)
| elmerfud wrote:
| You leave out a lot about yourself that would make you
| unhireable. From what you've written it sounds like you could
| form a decent resume for an entry level position. The biggest red
| flag I see is that it doesn't sound like you completed anything
| and you don't have any follow through / sticktuitiveness.
|
| Life happens and reasons happen but you didn't complete college,
| you complain about your entry level position at amazon but I see
| nothing that warrants a greater position than that. Obviously
| this may not be everything about you so it's difficult to judge.
|
| I have no degree, but worked hard, stuck to jobs for 2-3 years
| before moving and developed a track record that hiring managers
| like to see. That means working for $15/hr in a position that you
| feel is beneath you. The thing that position provides you
| valuable experience and showing you can stick with things.
| Companies that hire you put forth a significant investment that
| takes roughly a year to pay off. Employees don't always realize
| that. If you look like you won't stick around they won't hire
| you.
|
| One of the most important thing, especially as a junior is to be
| likable and present your suggestions in a likable way. Also it's
| key to know when no one wants to hear your suggestions. Sometimes
| your perspective may be a new thing that was never thought of or
| it could be one sided, the business knows it and had accepted the
| risk but it's not within your knowledge scope to know that.
|
| I do technical interviews for the company I work for. If you're
| not likable to me, you're probably not getting hired. If I get
| the impression that every interaction will be a dick measuring
| contest because you come off as a smarty pants, I'm not recommend
| hiring. Someone who's knowledgeable and humble is going to get my
| recommendation. If you're good, and know how to communicate well
| you'll naturally rise to lead a team because they'll look to you
| for answers or ideas and everyone will notice.
|
| It really sounds like you need to "pay your dues" by showing that
| you can stick to something. That's either complete college and
| get a degree or work entry level for 2 years and move up or out
| to the next position.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| Yeah, I think hiring managers think that I'm a quitter. I
| definitely think that I was whining too much about the Amazon
| role. Beggers can't be choosers. However, the no health
| insurance thing rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like it was a
| dead end job. I wish that I would've stayed with it though. I
| probably would've been promoted by now. I need to stay with a
| job and rack up some years of experience for sure.
|
| Like I mentioned in other comments. I think HM's see me as a
| quitter. Also other baises like ageism etc. I think are apart
| of the issue. I felt like that I should've got promoted after
| reporting those issues, especially since I found them within my
| frist two weeks. I think that I come off as demure. I take a
| long time to answer sometimes. Due to my sutter, and southern
| drawl etc. But I try to listen, and pay attention to detail.
| Learn when to shut up, and when input/insight is wanted etc.
|
| Sometimes when I do receive rejection feedback it's mostly
| "overqualifed", "not a good fit", and "not enough experience".
| I received a rejection from state farm today stating that I'm
| not a good fit. Even though I meet the qualifcations.
| maccard wrote:
| > I received a rejection from state farm today stating that
| I'm not a good fit. Even though I meet the qualifcations.
|
| Speaking as someone who has interviewed a few dozen
| candidates, this likely means you're rubbing people up the
| wrong way. Based solely on reading this comment alone:
|
| > I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting
| those issues, especially since I found them within my frist
| two weeks
|
| If I interviewed someone who told me they left their previous
| job because they weren't progressing after raising issues
| immediately after being hired, that would be a hard no from
| me.
| rualca wrote:
| > If I interviewed someone who told me they left their
| previous job because they weren't progressing after raising
| issues immediately after being hired, that would be a hard
| no from me.
|
| This.
|
| OP's tales convey the idea of someone who holds himself at
| an uniquely high esteem that's not shared by anyone who
| contacted directly with him.
|
| I mean,it's highly unusual that someone that barely can
| land an entry-level customer support role and still fails
| to keep it would be able to meet the bar of any of the
| FANGS, specially when they value personal traits.
|
| To make matters worse, in the few jobs he managed to land
| he proceeds to act in ways that antagonize their
| leadership,both direct and skip-level, and also create
| problems for everyone around instead of solving them.
|
| Managers want to hire people to solve their problems and
| help move things forward, not create more problems and act
| as a blocker.
| geofft wrote:
| "Overqualified" in concert with your employment record of
| very short stints means they're worried you won't be happy at
| the job and you'll leave for something else. Which, bluntly,
| they're right to be worried about.
|
| Hiring a person has a pretty high fixed cost for the company
| (in time spent setting things up, doing their end of the
| paperwork, making time to show you the ropes, etc.), and it's
| only worthwhile if it's an investment - i.e., if the person
| being hired stays.
|
| Your resume gives an employer absolutely no reason to believe
| that you'll stay. So you have to be extremely convincing
| about that when you talk to them - that means you have to be
| extremely convincing that you'll be happy working at a job
| even if it's not the right fit for you, even if they don't
| recognize you as much as you think you deserve, even if the
| internal email system maxes out at 1 GB.
|
| (The person who's hiring you almost certainly _also_ has an
| ambition to a higher role, has been slighted for recognition
| before, and has their own complaints about the IT setup! I
| 've never heard anyone say "My company is over-promoting me
| and our internal email system is too good." So if you give
| them any reason to believe that those sorts of things are
| dealbreakers for you, and not things that you too will put up
| with, they'll expect you to leave. They're not going to
| convince themselves it's fine to hire you because that
| problem won't happen here.)
|
| For instance, if they ask you why you left Amazon, you'd
| better not be saying "I found an important problem and I
| didn't get recognition for it." Tell them you had a personal
| emergency or something.
| memling wrote:
| > For instance, if they ask you why you left Amazon, you'd
| better not be saying "I found an important problem and I
| didn't get recognition for it." Tell them you had a
| personal emergency or something.
|
| Can I push on that a little? Lying is a Bad Move. There
| are, however, ways to finesse the conversation if it comes
| to that.
|
| But there's literally no reason you can't just come out and
| say, "I wasn't getting benefits, and I need benefits."
| Honesty works there. It's fine to say, "I'm looking for a
| career with a brighter future than warehouse work, and I
| think I have the skills to work here because {insert
| experience}."
|
| I'm not a frequently flyer on either side of the
| interviewing table, so I don't know for sure how this sort
| of advice sounds, but when I interview I expect honesty. If
| the process isn't candid, neither party is happy and
| there's a lot of wasted time and money on both sides.
| seoaeu wrote:
| > But there's literally no reason you can't just come out
| and say, "I wasn't getting benefits, and I need
| benefits." Honesty works there.
|
| The problem is that (a) you should have noticed the lack
| of benefits before you accepted the job, and (b) it
| doesn't make any sense to quit due to lack of benefits
| without another job lined up that does provide benefits.
| geofft wrote:
| I dunno, OP seems to have realized (according to other
| comments) that it was a bad move, and "I randomly decided
| to give up a job that in retrospect I could have put up
| with" does sort of seem like a personal emergency. :) To
| be clear I'm definitely not saying that you should make
| up a story "I had to take care of my grandma" or
| whatever.
|
| I don't advocate lying (and as a personal quirk I'm very
| unlikely to tell an outright lie). But it's going to be
| very difficult to explain why you left _all_ of those
| jobs in a way that doesn 't scare an employer. If you can
| drive the conversation to roughly "it was a bad time in
| my life," that seems a) basically true b) personal enough
| that it'd be unprofessional for the interviewer to probe
| for details c) unlikely to make the interviewer fear that
| it will be an ongoing problem.
|
| I guess the real advice here is, come up with an answer
| for this very foreseeable question, which you can say
| with a straight face and without getting yourself into
| more trouble.
| memling wrote:
| > But it's going to be very difficult to explain why you
| left all of those jobs in a way that doesn't scare an
| employer.
|
| If you work at a place for two months, don't put it on
| the resume?
|
| If you have a gap in your employment, you need to be able
| to talk about that, but you don't have to talk about each
| stop.
|
| In an interview, I'll ask about gaps. One ran something
| like, "I was laid off in {year} and took {weeks} to
| recover. It took me {months} to find a job at {company}.
| I took the role because of my financial situation, but
| I'm interested in you because I think our situations
| overlap better." That's not quite verbatim, but similar
| to what I had with someone we hired (I was part of the
| interview team, but I've never been a hiring manager). It
| didn't raise any red flags to me. His experience at his
| prior employer wasn't good, but he communicated
| effectively that he felt like we'd be a better fit, and
| we were.
|
| Anecdotally, we had a candidate come in who was junior
| but pretty well educated. A thin resume in his situation
| would have been fine: we understood where he was coming
| from. I perceived a little insecurity from the two-page
| resume that could've been reduced to a few line items
| with a stronger emphasis on skills he brought to the
| table, and with a little probing on technical matters
| found that his purported experience was not what I
| would've expected from his background. Less in this case
| would've been more.
|
| I don't know the OP from Adam, so I'd hesitate to offer
| much advice here; from the comments I'd think that
| there's a good reason to talk to a good counselor about
| the personal background and challenges and address the
| professional retooling after: but that's hard when you're
| down on your luck without money. Churches often offer
| this sort of service, but reading between the lines I'd
| guess that may not be an avenue for the OP.
|
| Professionally I'd concentrate on starting over or
| looking to see if there are trade schools that would
| accommodate. One local to me is completely free and would
| provide a skillset for at least earning a living while
| trying to pursue other interests.
| geofft wrote:
| It sounds like OP's employment history consists
| _entirely_ of 2-month-ish stints, and so leaving short
| stints off would mean having no professional experience
| on the resume.
|
| Now, that might actually be the right answer in this case
| (your "starting over" suggestion, more or less).
| Igelau wrote:
| "Finessing" the conversation and telling partial truth is
| also lying. No one ever got hired without some lying,
| whether they exaggerated some part or left out another.
|
| E.g.
|
| "Why did you leave _Company X_? "
|
| "I hated it and was fired for low performance. But I'm
| much better now!" said no one ever.
|
| Say "family emergency" and they'll always take you at
| your word and leave it at that. Just don't overdo it --
| more than one of those might look a little fishy.
| memling wrote:
| > "Finessing" the conversation and telling partial truth
| is also lying. No one ever got hired without some lying,
| whether they exaggerated some part or left out another.
|
| I suppose that's an opinion, though I disagree.
|
| There are certain things, for example, that an HR rep is
| not allowed to ask you by reason of law. I omit questions
| and don't volunteer information like that all the time;
| is that a lie? I also never, or rarely, volunteer my
| current salary; is that a lie?
|
| It's always the case that different perspectives tell the
| same story in different ways, and part of what OP may
| need is a changed perspective.
|
| If I were fired from a job for cause, it's likely that
| I'd need to have an explanation. Not all places will
| check references or confirm employment history, but were
| I a hiring manager I would. If that came up I'd want to
| chat with references and the candidate about the
| situation.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| > I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting
| those issues, especially since I found them within my frist
| two weeks
|
| You won't ever get a promotion within two weeks, especially
| not over a single instance of good work. Do it a hundred more
| times, then think about a promotion.
|
| I think you seriously need to re-evaluate your expectations
| about this stuff.
| a9h74j wrote:
| And perhaps work this thought into your head: "My job is to
| make my boss look good, not to impress his boss or higher."
| chillfox wrote:
| _" My job is to make my boss look good, not to impress
| his boss or higher."_
|
| This is really important. Not only will it make your time
| at a company much easier, it will increase your chances
| of promotion and it will make it easier to get future
| jobs as you will have one happy manager who is willing to
| vouch for how good you are.
| x0x0 wrote:
| Also, to be direct -- you appear to have little to no
| programming skill. You've never worked as a dev before,
| except perhaps at IBM, from which you transitioned to QA? You
| have no college degree in programming. And you're applying to
| the top echelon of software companies, that have the ability
| to have a shot at almost any candidate they want.
|
| You need to be a fulltime dev somewhere, and without a degree
| (let alone from a great school) or experience, you're not
| aiming at a company likely to hire someone like you. Startups
| won't either; to be blunt, you're a giant project I would
| have to pour senior engineering time into to _maybe_ get a
| competent junior dev on the far side. If you don 't flake
| again.
|
| My suggestion is either a coding bootcamp (I've hired out of
| appacademy.io), or finding a company big enough to have
| (super) junior engineers -- meaning a devteam probably 75+ --
| and impressing someone enough to get a job there. Then you
| need to bust ass for the next two years, and show a hiring
| manager elsewhere that you're worth taking a shot on.
| aeoleonn wrote:
| This person is correct in that:
|
| You MUST show your programming skills.
|
| How?
|
| * Github. I spent 4 months programming a project in NodeJS,
| ReactJS, Postgres, (+ html/css of course) on Linux. I
| posted the code on Github for the world to see. Within 2
| weeks I was hired to my first 100% programming job: $80k,
| on 1099 contract. Two months later, I was hired on salary
| at $105k by a different company. Once I had those on my
| resume, plus the github code, and the two next bullet
| points, recruiters began contacting me. Sure, no one paid
| me for those 4 months, and it was a grind, but now they
| certainly do pay me.
|
| * A web portfolio. Web Dev is my bread and butter. How
| could I call myself a Web Dev without my own website?
|
| * LinkedIn presence + LinkedIn Connections
|
| To build skills:
|
| * Udemy.com , Youtube, other video sites (google "sites
| like udemy" for more)
|
| * IRC --> Google "nodejs community" and you'll find there's
| an IRC chatroom filled with hundreds of Node devs, many of
| whom are experts & work at major tech companies. There are
| also chatrooms on Discord and Slack, besides IRC. And they
| offer chatrooms in many languages & frameworks
|
| * eBooks. Free ones.
| x0x0 wrote:
| This is certainly a possible route. To be honest, I'm not
| sure the poster has the ability to carry through a four
| month self-directed project like that; a bootcamp and/or
| working as a junior engineer provides far more structure
| and direction.
| aeoleonn wrote:
| You bring up a great point.
|
| I actually attended a bootcamp for 1 week, but thought it
| was over priced and didn't provide much instruction (25
| students, 2 instructors, sometimes only 1 instructor.
| After a lecture on a topic, I'd spend 95% of the day just
| googling stuff. Also, the lessons were not structured in
| a pedagogical way in my experience there. That said, it
| was just after bootcamps became a thing-- I was one of
| the first cohorts at the one I attended).
|
| So, I dropped out after the first week and was refunded
| remaining tuition. I went back to the workforce and
| learned dev part-time.
|
| Bootcamps seem to be about 12 weeks (that's 3 months)
| plus about $12,000 or so. Whereas I took 4 months & paid
| zero. But that said, I already knew how to program when I
| started my project.
|
| The project was more about showing strangers that I had
| the skills I claimed to have.
| hencq wrote:
| > I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting
| those issues, especially since I found them within my frist
| two weeks.
|
| Take this with a grain of salt, since obviously I don't
| actually know you or the details of this situation. However,
| flagging issues to your boss' boss is rarely the best way to
| leave a good impression. It mostly signals you have problems
| working within the structure of the company and you're a
| 'troublemaker'. Whether that's fair or not, is not too
| relevant. You might get away with these things if you already
| have a lot of credibility, but since this was in your first 2
| weeks, that's unlikely to be the case.
|
| Your post also gave off some vibes of feeling too good for
| the job assigned to you. Again, I don't actually know you, so
| I might be misreading it, but if you give that impression
| during interviews, you'll have a hard time getting hired. Do
| you have any friends you could ask to do mock interviews with
| you? They could give you feedback on not just the quality of
| your answers, but also the way you answer.
|
| Edit: Oh thought of one more comment regarding expecting to
| get rewarded for calling out issues. Typically it's not the
| person calling out the problems that gets rewarded, but the
| person that fixes them. Just calling this out, since you
| might be under the impression that you are adding a lot of
| value, while your boss might not see it that way. Honestly,
| the best way to add value is to do the job assigned to you.
| If you want to stand out, do it better and faster than
| expected.
| chillfox wrote:
| Yeah, that "expecting to get rewarded for calling out
| issues" is one of the things you can learn from
| homeschooling that needs to be unlearned later.
|
| It comes down to you not having much power to fix anything
| as a child and parents who praise you for pointing out
| significant issues.
|
| Anyways, it's not how society or workplaces work.
| mattm wrote:
| I would also add on that most ideas have already been
| thought of. It's pretty common that new people will come
| into an org and bring up their idea only to find all the
| experienced people rolling their eyes because the idea has
| been talked about dozens of times.
|
| It's good to be observable but just because your idea
| hasn't been implemented before doesn't mean no one has
| thought about it. At big companies there is friction in
| place for any change.
|
| As someone new I think the best way to bring up something
| you notice is to ask your manager or a peer something like
| "Hey, I noticed we're not doing X and it could be a
| problem. Is there a reason for that?" That will allow them
| to fill you in on the context and organizational history.
|
| If you bring up an idea, especially if it's been discussed
| many times before, and start raving about how it should be
| implemented, your co-workers are going to lose a lot of
| respect for you because you haven't taken a chance to learn
| first.
| prawn wrote:
| And if you went up the chain with feedback/criticism, you'd
| want to have runs on the board with the company and also
| approach it very carefully with insane
| diplomacy/personality. It's not going to be like the movies
| where they say "You're an abrupt pain in the arse, but I
| admire that in a person. You're promoted!"
| astura wrote:
| >I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting
| those issues, especially since I found them within my frist
| two weeks.
|
| Dude, don't take this the wrong way but the workplace (and
| the world) do not operate the way you think they do. Your
| expectations are wildly out of line with reality. You need to
| adjust your expectations and learn some humility.
|
| I am also confused about how you've never worked anywhere for
| more then two months but were also constantly maxing out your
| 1GB email quota in those two months? BTW, in the corporate
| world 1GB email quota is on the high end.
| chillfox wrote:
| "Not a good fit" is about social skills, it has nothing to do
| with qualifications.
|
| And no one gets promoted in the first year.
| geocrasher wrote:
| > felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting
| those issues, especially since I found them within my frist
| two weeks.
|
| Dude. What are you thinking? You get hired in a CS role and
| you're raising red flags about security issues and expecting
| more than a pat on the back?
|
| I've been a supervisor. Trainer. CS agent. Let me tell you
| what I see: A guy comes in with tons of supposed experience
| but gets a CS job. All he does is talk about what an awesome
| dev he is and all the work he's done. Highly opinionated, and
| feels he's above the job but "Hey I gotta work so I'll do
| whatever I can for now." Nice. Not.
|
| Two weeks in he sees a security issue. Does he bring it to
| me? No, he sends a detailed e-mail to the VP in charge of the
| anti-fraud system. Scratch "team player" off the list. And
| now he wants something more than a pat on the back? He went
| above and beyond in finding an issue but didn't follow the
| proper channels to report it and then expects a _promotion to
| another department_ before he 's even had his 90 day review?
| WTH?
|
| I've managed folks who've pulled crap like this, and I was
| not impressed. You need to learn your place and get off your
| pedestal. If you're going to sit at the right hand of the
| king, by all means aim for it! But don't start off by showing
| off and telling the king all the reasons YOU should be his
| right hand man. Instead, work your way up patiently. If
| you're "all that", then _he_ will choose _you_.
|
| TL;DR: Humble yourself. Do the job your were hired for and do
| it well! Work your way up by proving you deserve it, not by
| insisting that you deserve it. Promotions are _earned_.
| atoav wrote:
| I think while this might be a hard read for OP, it might be
| the reality check they need.
| danans wrote:
| > I probably would've been promoted by now.
|
| > I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting
| those issues, especially since I found them within my frist
| two weeks.
|
| > Even though I meet the qualifcations.
|
| Your pattern of reasoning about your professional past seems
| to involve saying what you think "should have" happened as a
| result of your presupposition of deservedness, rather than
| considering how your approach might have effected the outcome
| negatively.
|
| For example, finding a security bug in the first few weeks of
| a job is usually not a basis for promotion anywhere.
| Promotion is usually based on consistent dedication to
| improving something for the company or team over a long
| period of time.
|
| This takes not only technical, but also emotional and
| interpersonal skills and awareness as others have mentioned,
| and the ability to balance your immediate personal desire for
| a promotion (which we all share) with the goals of the team
| or organization.
|
| Basically, to progress in your career, you need both the grit
| to put your nose to the grindstone to stick through the tough
| part of any job, while also being open to others both in the
| technical and social sense, and developing a mindset of
| gratitude for all experiences, which is essential for
| learning.
|
| Many of us have taken jobs we don't love, or that aren't at
| A-list employers, while simultaneously laying the groundwork
| for our personal growth. I spent a summer when in college
| literally filing the metal cases of networking equipment at a
| no-name network switch maker - effectively manual labor.
|
| Sure, it wasn't a Google internship, but it sure taught me a
| lot about work, and I got to talk to some great network
| hardware and software engineers about their jobs. I work at
| Google today and sometimes when I have to do something that
| tests my need for instant gratification, I remember that
| experience and I'm grateful that I had it.
| Ironlikebike wrote:
| A promotion is not a reward. A promotion is an offer for a
| new job with higher expectations and more responsibility. If
| you struggle to meet the expectations of the current role,
| lack agreeableness, or are unlikely to be able to do the next
| role up there is no way that you'll get a promotion.
| Sometimes patience is key.
|
| I'm currently mentoring a person who is transitioning into an
| engineering manager and this person has a noticeable stutter,
| but is an incredible candidate. If you don't like your
| southern drawl, change it. I'm from a place with a very
| strong accent but you'd never know it.
|
| If you're getting a rejection to an application like
| "overqualified" or "not a good fit" it likely means your
| resume wasn't tailored to the position or there is something
| unbelievable about it.
| Stormwalker wrote:
| Are you the guy who tried to apply for a job for Unfortunate
| Spaceman?
|
| Terrible emails at:
| https://twitter.com/geoffkeene/status/1337634779559129088
| p0sixlang wrote:
| That was amazing. It left me wanting to read more emails from
| the Unfortunate Spaceman guy obliterating entitled assholes
| trying to beg.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| I know this, there is a certain number of applications you need
| to file to get a job. I can't tell you what that number is. But I
| can tell you there is only one way to discover what that number
| is.
| aeoleonn wrote:
| I'm a self taught dev, with only about 2 years of experience.
|
| Personally, I do not apply to jobs. It feels like throwing my
| resume into a blackhole.
|
| Instead, my strategy is: build an online presence --> I put my
| resume online in various job sites (see 3rd to last sentence in
| my post for examples), I have a web portfolio, which links to my
| github where I have an open source project I built (in modern
| frameworks: node, react, postgres) and I am on LinkedIn with over
| 500 connections.
|
| I get jobs interview requests from recruiters via the strategy
| above.
|
| * Do you have open source code on Github?
|
| * Do you have a web portfolio showing personal/academic/work-
| skill related projects?
|
| I worked 5 months in 2020-- mostly was on sabbatical. Yet was
| hired twice-- both times via recruiters who contacted me on
| LinkedIn.
|
| In 2021, I've worked 2 months-- recently quit a job after
| realizing it wasn't the right role for me. And yet, I have spoken
| two recruiters (1 internal and 1 external recruiter) in the past
| two days. I usually get 1-3+ recruiters contacting me every week
| or two-- why? Because I market myself, and I decided to build
| trendy dev skills.
|
| That is, I focused on learning specific skills which I saw were
| currently in demand: Javascript (node & react), AWS Cloud, SQL,
| among others.
|
| Yet, I do not know algorithms. It's an area I need to study. So,
| I don't think I'd be able to land the interviews you've landed--
| those top notch companies. If I did, I would surely fail.
|
| By the way, those are difficult companies to pass interviews
| with. They all have tons of applicants.
|
| * Did you send your resume to those companies/orgs you've listed
| on the first line of your post? Or were you contacted by their
| recruiters?
|
| Recruiters contact software developers because they have a urgent
| need to fill a role.
|
| Whereas, if you're applying to companies then you're throwing
| your resume into a stack of potentially dozens or even hundreds
| of very well qualified, well-studied applicants who in many cases
| studied for weeks or months for their interviews.
|
| I don't do that-- Instead, I put my presence online via LinkedIn,
| A web portfolio, and profiles on job sites (Indeed, ZipRecruiter,
| DICE, etc. type sites-- the ones that let you setup a resume on
| their site so it can be indexed by recruiters).
|
| It sounds like it may be a problem of your strategy.
|
| Market yourself, if you're not marketing yourself.
|
| ___________
|
| By the way-- Homelessness is not necessarily that bad as long as
| you're resourceful: asking around to find A. a property camp on
| B. local resources such as food banks & community centers.
|
| I've spent a year of my life living out of a tent in my pursuit
| of software dev skills so I could study (and not pay bills)
| rather than work full time.
|
| For example, I set up a tarp tent in woods on the outskirts of
| Portland, OR, and would go to a community center for showers.
| Every day I'd go to a cafe to apply to jobs (this was back before
| I worked as a professional dev-- was still working in marketing).
| And sure, my car was broken into while I was camping there, but
| hey-- all replaceable stuff.
|
| Prior to that, I lived in a tent for 4 months on someone's
| property east of Austin, TX. How'd I find a person's property to
| camp on? I asked around in my social network & also to strangers
| at parties-- "Hey, I am looking for a property to camp on where
| I'd have access to a shower, bathroom, and kitchen, do you know
| of anyone?" --> repeated dozens of times until I found someone
| who knew someone.
|
| In Juneau, Alaska, I spent 8 weeks living in a tarp tent while
| working at a fish smokehouse during the morning & early evening,
| and then studying programming in the late afternoon & sometimes
| evening at a cafe or library. Food? Breakfast &. lunch:
| smokehouse's employee breakroom microwave. Dinner: Camping stove.
| Showers? Public Pool's locker room.
|
| Was it always comfortable and easy? Hell no. Did it make me work
| hard to accomplish my goal of building skills? Hell yes.
| yummypaint wrote:
| I've never worked outside academia, so obviously take my advice
| with a huge grain of salt. To me it seems the common theme is
| that you are consistently applying to massive beurocratic
| organizations with rigid pre-established rules, and are then
| disappointed that you fit poorly into that structure. Have you
| tried looking at smaller places? This way even if you are entry
| level, your immediate boss will hold more meaningful decision
| making power. Your willingness to branch out independently and
| identify/fix problems will be more of an asset if there isn't
| already a person or department dedicated to every aspect of
| operations. Im wondering about maybe machinist type jobs at a
| local place, as they tend to be less picky about college
| education, but your technical and software skills could help you
| move quickly depending on what you're doing. Maybe you end up
| also fixing their business software backend etc
| throwaway823882 wrote:
| First, please read this, it's important: you are going to be OK.
| Even if you are homeless. You will be OK. Take things one at a
| time, and try not to worry about anything except your most
| immediate problem/task.
|
| Second: choose a path. Do not go all over the place, from
| Facebook coding to Home Depot manual labor. Pick one path and
| focus your energies on that. Even with a good resume and
| interpersonal skills, it can take a while for a job to open up if
| you have no networking contacts.
|
| Third: consider your approach, to your job search, your
| employement, life. You mention here that you've spoofed numbers
| to contact high-level executives, and sent them e-mails about
| problems you found in systems. Other people do not do these
| things. Don't do things that make you stick out, buck the system,
| or bring attention to yourself. Focus on only fulfilling the
| requirements of your job. Use normal means of contact. Present
| yourself as a normal person with basic skills and competency in
| working with people. Be reliable.
|
| Fourth: you've been looking for a year; this is not uncommon. Do
| you have friends or family to ask for help? Ask them. If you
| don't, you'll need to reach out to resources in your city for
| people who don't have a job or are homeless. You may need to look
| into daily/weekly/monthly housing if you can't afford an
| apartment. Look into job training programs, unemployment,
| shelters, private outreach programs. Keep applying to minimum
| wage jobs. Contact temp agencies, staffing agencies, recruiting
| agencies.
|
| Fifth: If you really feel like Bill Landreth, keep reaching out
| for help. This is a good start. Look into local social services.
| Call SAMHSA (https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline).
| Contact a local PATH provider (https://pathpdx.samhsa.gov/public?
| tab=stateandprovidercontac...). Contact a local ESMI provider
| (https://www.samhsa.gov/esmi-treatment-locator). Tell them that
| you have concerns about your mental health but that you are soon
| to be homeless and need help. Find someone who can help you work
| through how to deal with this scenario while also working on the
| path you chose above.
|
| Good luck to you man. Keep at it, you will be OK.
| [deleted]
| Hewlberno wrote:
| Your message reminds me of myself at your age. I took a long time
| to learn to be humble to see my flaws, which allowed others to
| appreciate my strengths. Keep hustling, but hustle with more
| empathy
| dragonwriter wrote:
| How much actual paid work experience do you have? The pattern of
| quits of jobs/school isn't attractive to most hiring entities,
| but if you've got enough experience and/or education, and you can
| mostly use enough of the former to substitute for the latter) to
| meet classification entry requirements, local or state civil
| service coding positions can be more tolerant of nontraditional
| work history than elite private and the most sensitive federal
| agencies, which seems to be where you've focussed.
|
| By industry standards, pay sucks but benefits like health/dental
| are quite good in many cases (depends on particular state or
| locality.)
| drblast wrote:
| Joining the military might be an option for you if you're not
| ideologically opposed to it. Try air force, then navy. Not
| marines or army.
|
| If you're halfway intelligent with technical skills you will find
| something to do for four years, then you'll have better options
| when you get out.
|
| Probably better than being homeless.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I feel similar. I have a CS degree and what I would consider a
| wide range of experience. I've created social media sites, a
| encrypted file sharing site, a site for watching videos and
| chatting at the same time, a site for cooperatively solving a
| rubiks cube at the same time. I have developed a large number of
| video game mods including full game modes. I have developed both
| custom server software and modded server software for games along
| with backend systems to track players and integrating that data
| with a website. I have experience administrating linux servers. I
| have experience writing desktop applications with Qt. I have
| experience writing scripts to automate things. I have experience.
| I have a little experience writing code for embedded hardware. I
| have a little experience in writing velilog for CPLDs and FPGAs.
| I have a little experience designing PCBs.
|
| I feel like I have plenty of knowledge that I can provide to a
| company, but I never hear back from anyone beyond a rejection
| letter template.
|
| I'm probably just going to be a NEET until I come up with a good
| idea that I can monetize.
| skohan wrote:
| Have you tried agency work? There are places where they just
| need hands on keyboards doing web front end for example, and
| the barrier to entry is not so high. Might not be glamorous,
| and can be a grind, but it's a decent entry point into the
| industry.
|
| Open source might be another good avenue. I've hired for 8
| technical roles over the past year, and one of the
| "requirements" we would have for going forward to the interview
| stage, would be that the candidate has 1) worked on software
| that people actually use, and 2) has done it in a
| team/collaborative setting. It sounds like you have done a lot
| of interesting projects, but doing something that just has to
| work for yourself has a very different set of constraints than
| building something in a team for someone else.
|
| Since you've done linux admin, DevOps might be another good
| route. Getting AWS/GCP certification is not that difficult, and
| would add to your profile a bit of confidence that you have
| some experience and knowledge about industry standards.
|
| It sounds like you've done a lot of interesting, creative
| projects, and there's one role we hired last year honestly you
| would have been a good candidate for as a lab support engineer.
| But the thing you have to understand is that hiring managers
| generally are not looking for "interesting" candidates. In a
| perfect world we would, but in a hiring process, you may be
| bombarded by dozens or hundreds of CVs, and you have to filter
| that down to a hand-full of candidates who you are going to
| interview. So the first round of filtering is just to weed out
| anyone who is potentially high risk of not working out. If you
| have to teach someone how to work in a professional environment
| for the first time, that carries risk, so at least you want to
| see some markers that this person understands how professional
| software development works and will fit into this environment.
|
| Or, you can make friends with people in the industry, and get a
| referral.
|
| Or, you can work on something interesting enough to get some
| widespread attention, and then hiring managers will call you.
| mattm wrote:
| You seem bright. I'd guess that you're failing on the social
| sides of the interview process. If you submit cover letters
| like this, you may be highlighting too many things that aren't
| applicable to the job so companies will reject you because they
| don't know where to place you.
|
| Which part of the job hunting process are you failing at the
| most? Is it the initial application? Phone screen? Onsite
| interview? What types of jobs are you targetting?
|
| Feel free to email me (in profile) if you want to go into
| detail more.
| helpfulanon wrote:
| I'm fascinated that you were able to interview and in a few cases
| get hired by companies with a massively high bar and
| sophisticated screening. Someone let you in the door because they
| saw something in you. They wanted to give you a shot, that they
| DO NOT give to just anyone.
|
| This almost certainly has to be a significant problem with mental
| health or social skills. You're just not fitting in, so you're
| getting ejected over and over.
|
| Assuming mental health is something you've accepted may be the
| problem, my advice is:
|
| 1) Go to therapy and invest in it. If you're prescribed meds,
| take the meds. If they give you goofy homework do the homework.
| Double down on it. (this helped me)
|
| 2) Accept that even though you have talent, these bigger
| companies just may not be the right fit for you. There are many
| small tech businesses, including development and security
| consulting shops and agencies (think 100 people or less) that pay
| well and are staffed with talented misfits. They tend to be very
| nurturing places that let you carve out your role and find your
| place. Smaller businesses have health plans etc too. Be humble
| and have an open mind.
| noam_compsci wrote:
| Candidly: 1. The kind of companies you are applying to (apart
| from DoE and I guess Dell) are literally the "best" places in the
| world to work. You are going up against people with objectively
| much much better qualifications and experience than you. Aim
| lower. Life is tough and sometimes certain paths are just shut
| off for you, permanently. You can point to the one person who is
| killing it at Google after working as a grocery bagger for 20
| years. Thats not going to be you, statistically speaking.
|
| 2. You do not seem genuinely interested in any company. You come
| across like that college student who applies to all the top
| companies as....they're the top companies. Find what you want to
| do and apply to do that, no matter where and in what junior
| position. Look I do not know you but I'd bet a lot of money you
| took the amazon gig just to say you work at Amazon.
|
| 3. You do not seem genuinely interested in the day-to-day job you
| are going for. Again, if you did, I do not see why you are not
| applying to do that job at...a local high school, if needed
|
| 4. Intern in the role you want. Do it for free for a charity
| (volunteer). Blog about it. Make YT vids about it. Why do you
| think speaking to an SVP would even matter? The chances they will
| give you a shot are slim to none. What did you even say to them?
| Give me job. I hack?
|
| 5. Personally, I appreciate your "spoofing" antics. It shows a
| bit of daring and networking. I don't think its creepy IMO.
| jyriand wrote:
| Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb,
| Palantir -- There are literally thousands of people applying for
| jobs to these companies and a really small percentage will be
| accepted. So it's not that you are unhireable, but you are
| applying to places where rejection is almost guaranteed. It's
| like betting on a number at a roulette table and wondering why
| you are losing money. The odds are against you.
|
| Some ideas: 1) pick a smaller and boring software services
| company?
|
| 2) Travel abroad and find work there, where the health insurance
| is not such a big of an issue.
|
| 3) Try to make it as a freelancer(you can start at upwork and
| work your way up from there, start a consulting company etc)
|
| 4) Apply for a remote only positions
|
| P.S If you can afford it(probably not), get an appointment to a
| psychiatrist or a therapist, they can usually spot the problems
| you might be missing yourself.
| mattzito wrote:
| Here's my overall suggestions, some of which are overlaps with
| other people's advice:
|
| - Find a local programming or software or security group, get
| some contacts. Have people mock interview you as though you are
| applying for a job at their organization. Have them be brutally
| candid. My _guess_ is that you come across as some combination of
| arrogant and disjointed, just from the writing and the patchwork
| of roles. See if someone will tell you that (or something else!)
| to your face.
|
| - You need to build a narrative. I also do not have a college
| degree, and in the early days of my career it was very
| challenging to get people to talk to me. The key is to have a
| very clear story about why you are the best at X and/or Y and how
| past work funnels into this role you are applying for.
|
| - Companies like google, facebook, etc. have so many candidates
| that they are totally willing to pass on perfectly qualified
| people that don't fit the mold of who they want to hire. They see
| it as a feature, not a bug, but it is not in your favor. Look for
| smaller companies, maybe less senior roles, maybe contract gigs,
| anything to build that narrative and give you some resume items.
|
| - You should be networking, with those people from the first
| bullet point. If you develop a local reputation as someone who is
| smart and just has a funny resume, you are a lot more likely to
| get hired. By the same token, if you develop a local reputation
| as over-opinionated and hard to work with, you will know it and
| that is why you are having challenges.
|
| - Don't get discouraged about stuff like the manual labor job -
| they're pattern matching as much as a big company like Google
| does. They look at your resume and say, "Man, this guy is all
| over the place, he is going to be more of a hassle than he is
| worth" and go hire the 19 year old who just wants a paycheck
|
| - Think about consulting, either directly with a company or
| freelancing on fiverr, etc. Is it exciting? No. Can it pay the
| bills? Yes. Can it build towards this narrative that you came up
| with a few steps before? Yes, potentially.
| 01000101 wrote:
| Sounds like you're firing on all fronts.
|
| What's your goal/objective? Pick an industry find their
| association and make inroads.
|
| If you didn't land a FAANG out of college you're going to have
| the hustle at SMEs and build a resume that shows consistency in
| the following: - you showed up - you got things done (be wary of
| hanging your hat on that one thing you did back in xxxx).
|
| But if it's just healthcare, HomeDepot/CostCo may be a good bet.
| Even if you hustle at a place like that and make manager you can
| make enough to take care of a family.
|
| Also I'd lose the victim and woes-is-you cuz big corporate isn't
| noticing you -'tude.
|
| At the end of the day your job will be to make someone else's
| life easier, if you figure out who and can speak to how in an
| interview, chances are you'll get the job.
| fsociety wrote:
| The candid answer, from reading your post and especially replies,
| is that you come across as a bit entitled and likely get denied
| job opportunities because of how you communicate.
|
| That might be good news, because you don't have to change
| yourself but reframe your perspective.
|
| Preferably I'd suggest a mental health professional who focuses
| on your self narrative.. but I understand that can be expensive.
|
| Perhaps you could do something like a HealthyGamerGG coach. They
| are more affordable, and I think they'll be able to give you the
| feedback you need to get past this.
|
| Best of luck!
| ipnon wrote:
| 20 percent of the programmers get 80 percent of the jobs. You
| don't have an Ivy League nor any degree at all. You don't have
| any experience working at a FAANG or a startup with name
| recognition. You have clearly have low self esteem, which is a
| red flag in interviews. There are enough people with none of
| these issues to fill every job in Silicon Valley.
|
| You are losing the game you are trying to play, so try playing a
| different one. You could play the making enough to support
| yourself game. After you get good at that you can play the start
| your own business game, or the make websites for friends and
| locals game.
|
| Your ego is getting in the way of you feeding yourself and
| putting a roof over your head. It's not worth it. I can't think
| off the top of my head anything that is.
|
| There is no shame in not fitting into Silicon Valley. Consider
| moving on.
| tyrex2017 wrote:
| One optimisation: dont write into your resume that you had many
| jobs and stopped. Similar for college. Eg only mention IBM and
| fill the rest with "freelancer" or "educational projects".
|
| The details depend on your specific resume and dates, though.
| pkaye wrote:
| There are lots of smaller less well known companies you can start
| at and then work your way towards your ideal. Try to stick at
| each company 1-2 years minimum.
| [deleted]
| jkhdigital wrote:
| You sound like the kind of person who should be freelancing or
| starting a business.
| baremetal wrote:
| I think you fail to understand corporate culture. Going around
| bosses because you found a vuln is not conducive to the corporate
| environment. they frown on stuff like that. Id suggest you learn
| to play by the rules or start your own thing. The thing with
| corporate culture is that it isn't hacker culture. I think you
| fail to realize that and it has been your undoing. Cheers bud.
| xpasky wrote:
| Two patterns - you don't stick with projects for long (perhaps
| really like freedom) and want a safety net (medical insurance).
| (Plus you could be a better communicator, the post you wrote
| turned out into not so coherent rambling halfway in, tbh.)
|
| Unless you are willing to relocate to a saner country than the
| US, you need to give up one. Most commenters here advise to give
| up some of your freedom and stick it out somewhere, and it's a
| very valid advice. I just want to add that you can also consider
| going the opposite way - and just get a steady stream of shorter-
| term gigs freelancing (e.g. Upwork).
|
| There is a lot of upsides - it's easy to work on projects
| completely remotely (including written only with no voice/video)
| which rules out any interpersonal issues; you can work on bite-
| sized projects which might be your cup of tea, at the same time
| some of the projects will turn into long term opportunities; you
| can actually put the best projects on your CV.
|
| Freelancing won't give you great medical insurance. And at the
| beginning (with no history on the platform) it's a grind to
| succeed in the competition and you need to work your hourly rates
| up from a low base. Longer term it can pay nicely, you'll be
| working on a lot of different things and learn what you enjoy,
| and it should teach you a lot.
|
| Derisk this experiment, try it out _while_ you are looking for a
| job.
| rattray wrote:
| Yeah, I'm not sure how well it'd work out but Upwork is likely
| worth a try. I'm not sure if fixed rate or hourly would work
| out better.
|
| It's important there, as anywhere, to approach interactions
| with humility.
| supernovae wrote:
| Go find and MSP where they can help you hone your skills.. You
| may still start out hourly but usually with benefits and you will
| be able to hone your skills and have people mentor you.
|
| The QA on Apex, that's just churn and burn contract work to play
| a game and fill in some surveys and do this/do that...
|
| IBM? Sounds like you were a contractor... i would have stuck that
| out - IBM often graduates contractors to FTE's and IBM will often
| pay for your school too.
|
| If there are no managed services providers or no rackspace type
| companies around, find a contracting agency that does IT work -
| and do the same, show you can read a manual, do a job and start
| growing, building a rapport and getting some work under your
| belt.
|
| But whatever you do, don't be a hacker, be an employee. They pay
| you to do what you were hired to do.
| 01000101 wrote:
| Sounds like you're firing on all fronts.
|
| What's your goal/objective? Pick an industry find their
| association and make inroads.
|
| If you didn't land a FAANG out of college you're going to have
| the hustle at SMEs and build a resume that shows consistency in
| the following: - you showed up - you got things done (be wary of
| hanging your hat on that one thing you did back in xxxx).
|
| But if it's just healthcare, HomeDepot/CostCo may be a good bet.
| Even if you hustle at a place like that and make manager you can
| make enough to take care of a family.
|
| Also I'd lose the victim and woes-is-you cuz big corporate isn't
| noticing you -'tude.
|
| At the end of the day your job will be to make someone else's
| life easier, if you figure out who, and can speak to how in an
| interview, chances are you'll get the job.
| troelsSteegin wrote:
| Positively, you sound like a self starter and very good at
| figuring things out, including creative ways to break things. It
| does sound like there is a pattern to why your jobs have not been
| working out. One way to diagnose that would be to think about
| what it was like to manage you - how might have others seen you
| in a work setting? Pragmatically, I'd look for a recruiter who
| doesn't mind coaching a little, and in shopping for a recruiter,
| you may learn from your conversations with them.
|
| I don't know about the "creep" feedback here, but it sounds like
| any experience learning how to be a good guy to work with would
| be helpful. I'd look at Joel Spolsky's writing as a guide to tech
| industry norms, or Laszlo Bock on trust in teams. Once you have
| the luxury of time, I would look for books or movies or shows
| that show problem solving teams in action, just to get some more
| insights from examples. Emphasis on "team". "Soul of a New
| Machine", by Tracy Kidder, wsa eye opening for me, though that's
| a picture of the industry from ~50 years ago. Ellen Ullman, too.
| neilv wrote:
| I hope I'm not out of place in presuming to advise someone else,
| but you asked for "brutally candid", and it's late, so... :)
|
| Is it fair to say that you're coming from what seems like an
| unusual background, and you have some demonstrated skills, and
| energy to learn more, but you're trying to figure out how you fit
| into current corporate America?
|
| If so, I don't know whether the following simple exercise will
| help, but if you'd like to try for a moment... Imagine that you
| and a great hiring manager found each other. The manager saw
| potential in you, mentored you, looked out for you, was available
| for questions, gave you constructive guidance, and wanted you to
| succeed.
|
| How do you feel about that situation? Would you trust trust the
| manager, and want to live up to the manager's belief and
| investment in you? Do you think you'd do whatever it takes to
| make that working relationship a great success?
|
| If that's an inspiring dream situation for you, then I'd like to
| ask you to consider another scenario... Imagine that you're
| approaching prospective employers (maybe not the biggest,
| household-name ones). In that scenario, are you willing to invest
| like you would for our supernatural saint manager from the
| previous scenario (even if the reality is more human), look for
| the best in that relationship, and live up to your ideals, to
| make it a success?
|
| I'd also like to ask a few rhetorical questions related to
| that... Have you been in a hacking (either meaning of the term)
| social environment/culture, in which cleverness and skills were
| valued? And where things like using a phone number allowlist to
| get through to a higher-up would be celebrated? Can you imagine
| different ways that different people might feel about you gaming
| their phone access controls, or going over their chain-of-command
| head with something? What if you were in an environment in which
| there were additional priorities, other than being smart and
| right? Would you be interested in understanding and pursuing
| those priorities?
|
| Incidentally, separate from the above, it sounds like you're
| going through a stressful time. You're not alone, and most people
| go through difficult times, of various kinds. It sucks when
| you're in it, but it gets better, and you can help move it along
| towards better. One important thing to remember is that there's a
| huge thing of counselors (lots of people at all those
| organizations you mentioned have counselors). A counselor can
| make a big difference for the individual getting through rough
| situations, and also growing. I'd guess that Medicaid would cover
| something in that regard. You'd have to take the initiative --
| ask a doctor for a referral, find an administrator who'll help
| you navigate the unfortunate financial side of things, ask for
| help with any confusing paperwork, etc.
|
| I'm sorry I'm not in a position to hire right now, but my gut
| feel is that you can do great. A lot of people don't
| know/remember that they can ask for help, but you asking HN is a
| good step. And remember that you can also ask around in all kinds
| of other areas, until you find someone who's in a position to
| help, and work with them. In addition to the things you can
| figure out to do on your own.
| xpasky wrote:
| One more simple thing - please maintain a reasonable Linkedin
| profile and build some basic network there. Even if you avoid
| Facebook, Twitter and all other social networks - not having a
| Linkedin profile means taking on a big handicap while job
| hunting.
| candybar wrote:
| There are a lot of great comments here about what to do but
| wanted to add something a little different. Most of the advice
| here about what you should be doing is reasonable, but one
| critical thing that's missing is that most people that do the
| right, pro-social things, don't do it just to get what they want.
| When it comes to highly important decisions, sure, people
| strategize and ensure that the consequences are personally
| beneficial but for the most part, people act properly in social
| situations because they are socialized to instinctively care
| about other people's needs. People are programmed (through some
| combination of nature and nurture of course) to take into account
| the needs of others that they spend time with, whether bosses,
| coworkers, friends or family.
|
| It appears to me that you're missing or perhaps blocked out some
| of this conditioning. The reason why people are throwing out
| terms like "sociopath" or "autism" here is that you do not seem
| to have any instinctive regard for others or even your future
| self in any of your stories - either you don't know how your
| actions would affect others or you don't care. I know a lot of
| people think being relieved of having to care about others makes
| it easy to become successful because they think they can then
| take advantage of others without any qualms, but this ignores
| motivational aspects. For most people, naked self-interest isn't
| motivating enough to get people to do the right things even for
| themselves. People that aren't motivated by something that's
| bigger than themselves - whatever the causes may be - usually
| find it difficult to put off instant self-gratification and
| control their emotions enough to do what it takes to become
| successful. To be motivated enough to overcome your habits, you
| may have to learn to care about other beings beyond your
| immediate self. This will also make it easier to instinctively do
| the right thing - you don't have to pretend to care, when you
| actually do.
| klyrs wrote:
| Brutally candid advice? You sound like a creep. Am I reading it
| right here, you spoofed your number to talk to executives? In the
| best case, they'll assume you're a pen-tester; but more likely,
| you're blacklisted from those companies now.
|
| I wish there was, like, short and simple advice that I could give
| you to not be a creep. I just tried to google that, and I'm not
| finding a good clear resource. Like most social skills, there's a
| viciously sharp learning curve because people don't like giving
| feedback to creeps because that's usually an opening for even
| creepier behavior. Sorry.
|
| And, maybe set your sights lower. Your intelligence will shine if
| you get a job at a very small company that doesn't know what it
| needs.
| pvaldes wrote:
| Calling yourself "snakedoctor" don't helps to build trust and
| reinforces the history that you are not totally reliable at all
| times. Anything that directly would remind to snakes or snake
| oil is a poor choice if the goal is to impress people, make
| contacts and be hired
|
| (in my stupid opinion, I could be wrong).
| egorfine wrote:
| I get some offbeat social cues from the text as well. From the
| wording. Maybe it's desperate, maybe is creep. We cannot judge
| from text alone, but we can feel something.
| Balgair wrote:
| For me, it's the lack of pronouns (I, we, they, etc) and the
| short sentences. Many times, the poster omits 'I' at the
| start of a sentence. Also, they break up things into 2
| sentences, instead of just using a comma.
|
| The feel that I get is that many quick things happen to the
| poster interspersed with lots of boring time between. Like
| flashes of lightening in their life.
|
| The style gives whiffs of 4chan's greentext posts;
| depersonalized psuedo-fake tales from people who need therapy
| to help unravel the other parts of their memories and
| emotions, not just the low/highlights (not to say that OP is
| from there, just that the styles are a bit similar).
| de6u99er wrote:
| >You sound like a creep.
|
| He sounds desperate. I can imagine the prospect of becoming
| homeless isn't comforting.
| hbt wrote:
| you call him a creep, I would call him a go getter.
|
| it is immensely frustrating to deal with automated systems,
| resume keyword matchers, no contact within a company and being
| ghosted after taking the time to write a proposal and cover
| letter that is a fit for the job description.
|
| so what, he called an executive and got around their spam
| filter?
|
| my advice
|
| treat job hunting like a sales process.
|
| you're successful based on the number of interviews you get.
|
| figure out during the interview what's their decision making
| process.
|
| read more books on sales and learn to handle rejection.
|
| stop pursuing status jobs, at least until you have one with a
| good income.
| jethro_tell wrote:
| I mean, you have a hmguy that's hustling got three great
| opportunities and gave them up. So, maybe hustling for a job
| but not to use it to lranlrn anything to get the skills for
| the next job.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _treat job hunting like a sales process._
|
| Right, and any salesperson will tell you that acting like a
| creep isn't going to get you sales.
|
| I wouldn't go as far to say OP is a creep, but some of the
| behavior mentioned does make me cringe a bit.
| hinkley wrote:
| > you call him a creep, I would call him a go getter.
|
| I've not had terribly good luck with people who use the term
| 'go getter.' Quite a few of them have been creeps. Smooth and
| slick, definitely, but at the end of the day, manipulative
| people who I avoid making eye contact with at public events,
| hoping that they don't remember me. Creeps.
| xpe wrote:
| What you describe seems very different from the poster.
| xpe wrote:
| I wonder if you use the word creep really broadly; e.g. to
| include people that make you uncomfortable.
|
| Many/most of those people, it seems to me, mean well but
| have difficulty connecting with you in the way you are used
| to. Many of those people have a bunch of insecurities,
| burdens, or even mental health concerns. I don't think it
| is useful to call those people creeps.
|
| Some people are certainly toxic in the context of certain
| relationships or cultures, I get that.
|
| If someone is using you without reciprocating, there are
| words for that, but I don't tend to use 'creep'.
|
| Anyhow, I hope we can offer constructive (actionable)
| feedback to the OP.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > Many/most of those people, it seems to me, mean well
| but have difficulty connecting with you in the way you
| are used to. Many of those people have a bunch of
| insecurities, burdens, or even mental health concerns.
|
| And I wouldn't hire them. That's the point OP was trying
| to make.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Exactly. It might not be their _fault_ but that is not an
| excuse for me to hire them, it is not my prerogative to
| give the benefit of the doubt especially when so many
| other job applicants exist.
| bawolff wrote:
| > I wonder if you use the word creep really broadly; e.g.
| to include people that make you uncomfortable.
|
| Isn't that the normal definition?
|
| I guess i agree that creep is a deregatory word and not
| really helpful in this context. At the same time,
| intentionally obfuscating who you are in order to trick
| someone into interacting with you against their will is
| not ok behaviour, and well within what most people
| consider "creepy". Possibly even crosses the line into
| harrasment.
|
| > Many/most of those people, it seems to me, mean well
| but have difficulty connecting with you in the way you
| are used to. Many of those people have a bunch of
| insecurities, burdens, or even mental health concerns.
|
| That's hard, but ultimately doesn't excuse actions that
| negatively impact other people.
| xpe wrote:
| I get the impression it is common for technically oriented
| people to think of salespeople, marketers, and recruiters
| as manipulative.
|
| In your view, what are some ways you think about the
| difference between persuasion and manipulation?
|
| I've been reading about this very topic in the context of
| media persuasion.
| xupybd wrote:
| Manipulation is when you lie to me. Persuasion is when
| you believe what you're telling me.
| muzani wrote:
| Manipulation is simply put, getting someone to do what
| they don't want to do.
|
| Actual persuasion is when you get them to want to do it.
| But a lot of forms of manipulation are disguised as
| persuasion - guilt, gaslighting, partial truth. A lot of
| "hustling" is manipulation too, they want to convince the
| higher up that they are willing to do anything for the
| job, despite not being the most qualified for it.
| getoj wrote:
| "The scholar, having to encounter doubts and difficulties
| on all hands, [...] learns to take nothing for granted;
| least of all, to make an assumption of his own superior
| merits. [...] It takes years of patient toil and devoted
| enthusiasm to master any art or science; and after all,
| the success is doubtful. He infers that other triumphs
| must be prepared in like manner at an humble distance: he
| cannot conceive that any object worth seizing on or
| deserving of regard, can be carried by a coup de main.
| [...] It never once enters his head (till it is too late)
| that impudence is the current coin in the affairs of
| life; that he who doubts his own merit, never has credit
| given him by others; [...] that the world judge by
| appearances, not by realities; and that they sympathize
| more readily with those who are prompt to do themselves
| justice, and to show off their various qualifications or
| enforce their pretensions to the utmost. [...] He who has
| spent the best part of his time and wasted his best
| powers in endeavouring to answer the question -- 'What is
| truth?' -- scorns a lie, and every thing making the
| smallest approach to one. His mind by habit has become
| tenacious of, devoted to the truth."
|
| William Hazlitt, _The Shyness of Scholars_ (1827)
| Animats wrote:
| _William Hazlitt, The Shyness of Scholars (1827)_
|
| That was before universities had PR departments.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| For me it's whether I believe that the person genuinely
| cares about the good of the person they're interacting
| with. Very, very few sales people will stop trying to
| sell you a thing just because they find out you don't
| need it.
|
| Put another way, persuasion is helping someone explore
| the topic and come to their own conclusion, manipulation
| is going in knowing the answer and guiding towards it. If
| you are trying to help someone realize a truth you knew
| ahead of time, you're manipulating them.
| threatofrain wrote:
| My criteria is that there shouldn't be shame between us
| if we found out that we both attended the same
| metaphorical church, family and all.
| serverholic wrote:
| In this context, manipulation comes from a place of
| dishonest enthusiasm.
|
| Salespeople, marketers, and recruiters generally don't
| give two shits about the product they're selling.
|
| So yes it's manipulative because they're displaying fake
| enthusiasm and trying to trick you into thinking it's
| genuine.
| kroltan wrote:
| Not who you asked, but for me persuasion _is_ a manner of
| manipulation, trying to convince anyone of anything using
| anything but raw and complete information is
| manipulation.
|
| Of course under that assumption, basically every human
| communication is manipulative, but that doesn't mean it
| is intrinsically "evil". It's all rather subjective I
| guess.
|
| "Evil", or maybe to be a bit more specific, "sleazy",
| would be to use such manipulation with the intent of
| personal or tribal benefit, which is what fits the people
| groups you mentioned above.
| vladTheInhaler wrote:
| Of course everyone has an agenda. I think it crosses over
| into "manipulation" when you knowingly advance your own
| agenda at the other person's expense.
|
| For instance, suppose I have a wonderful product people
| would love to buy, if only they knew about it. I would
| argue that advertising it wouldn't be "manipulative" as
| it is commonly understood, even though I am doing it for
| selfish reasons. But if I knew that the product was
| dangerous, or fake, or otherwise harmful, then that
| becomes manipulative behavior.
| decafninja wrote:
| Sounds like many external third party recruiters, or
| perhaps many sales oriented jobs. Assuming you have a thick
| skin for rejection.
|
| I tend to avoid dealing with such recruiters that use heavy
| handed forceful tactics, but there are a lot of them.
| mylons wrote:
| hire them then
| bawolff wrote:
| > you call him a creep, I would call him a go getter.
|
| Perhaps the difference is how succesful you are at it.
|
| > so what, he called an executive and got around their spam
| filter?
|
| Pissing off people you need something from is probably a poor
| tactic. Especially when you're not offering something
| particularly rare. Doubly so because the executive is not the
| hiring manager, so its unlikely they could help you, only
| hurt you.
|
| I agree with most of the rest of your advice fwiw.
| Godel_unicode wrote:
| > Doubly so because the executive is not the hiring manager
|
| This is really the crux of it, for me. People hear stories
| about executives finding that diamond in the rough and
| slashing through the beauracracy to get them hired. That
| kind of thing almost never happens, especially from the
| perspective of the person looking for a job. I think this
| perspective might be hard to get until you've worked at a
| large organization, or better hired people at one.
|
| Brutal honesty? You're probably just not that special,
| don't expect special treatment.
| watwut wrote:
| It does happen - with friends son so that you give favor
| to friends and hope he will reciprocate.
|
| From sons perspective, executive found diamond, little
| bit pushed him on starter point.
|
| From other employees perspective, it is nepotism. Friends
| son got a job that more experienced and qualified people
| could or should do.
| bawolff wrote:
| Nepotism is very different than what was being described
| here.
| VaedaStrike wrote:
| The relationship with a potential employer and a romantic
| interest have the same dynamics between creepy vs
| confident/hustling. We all have seen examples of both, but if
| any have tried to project confidence or to hustle to any
| significant and meaningful degree you run a non-trivial risk of
| appearing to cross lines / be creepy.
|
| Often it isn't one or the other. Steve Jobs was both a
| heartless ass at times while also being a brilliant hustler.
| EveYoung wrote:
| As most things in life, the perception of someone's actions
| are dictated by the outcome. If you succeed, your decisions
| might be considered bold and daring, but if you fail, they
| make you look arrogant or pretentious.
| samstave wrote:
| What are the blacklisting systems all the big companies use
| now?
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| Hmm? Usually just in their HR or background check software
| for their company, I don't think there's any systems
| dedicated to blacklisting in an organized way except for the
| shared data on violent contractors that Uber/Lyft started
| sharing.
| balls187 wrote:
| > ...You sound like a creep. Am I reading it right here, you
| spoofed your number to talk to executives?
|
| If the Op had a bit more credentials, and/or created something
| special, they might label it as "chutzpah" instead.
|
| I recall a story (perhaps apocryphal) that involved Steve Jobs
| that was similar.
| watwut wrote:
| It is not chutzpah. It sounds like that when people tell
| stories from own point of view they can frame as they wish.
| They sound cool when you listen to it as uninvolved poison.
| They are not cool at all when you are there in real life or
| in receiving end of it.
|
| It is the fantasy vs reality difference. As much as you
| imagine yourself creative when doing these, other people see
| blinking red flags and boundary pusher that will cause
| trouble.
|
| It is like those funny and cool characters on movies, that in
| reality you would cut out because they are assholes.
| ghaff wrote:
| In pretty much every romantic comedy ever, there are
| probably "charming," "quirky," etc. behaviors that in the
| real world would be often/usually seen as creepy and
| stalkerish.
| [deleted]
| underwater wrote:
| Even if it wasn't creepy, sending the message that you get what
| you want by not playing by the rules makes you a complete
| wildcard. To the person who will be managing you that makes you
| sound like a pain in the ass. If you're going to do that you
| need to make it absolutely clear that your skill set matches
| your outlier behaviour.
| kryogen1c wrote:
| > Brutally candid advice? You sound like a creep.
|
| my first guess wasnt creep, but i do get some offbeat social
| cues from the text. my two choices are autism spectrum or
| sociopathic tendencies. the technicals sound good enough, so
| personality/culture fit problems seem more likely. im not sure
| how one would go about getting "cooler", but i would take some
| personality tests to see if youve got some uncommon traits.
| once you know what youre working with, you may have a path
| ahead.
|
| dont give up, friend. theres is a place for you in this world.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I had this same read. Also I'm incredibly disappointed to see
| this very kind and encouraging approach marked "flagged
| dead". OP doesn't seem to be upset about discussing the
| possibility and added some helpful clarification. This
| comment shouldn't be moderated the way it has been.
| ipiz0618 wrote:
| It's impossible to tell if OP's on the spectrum. I used to
| think I could do that until I got close with a Clinical
| Psychologist. Sometimes it can't be confirmed even after a
| few in-person sessions with professionals, so it's certainly
| dangerous to "guess" it from a few internet comments.
| kortilla wrote:
| For sure, but this person is asking for help and it's worth
| pointing out that there is a lot of socially unacceptable
| behavior going on here. If he/she doesn't understand that,
| it's probably coming through in the interviews and would
| explain the ghosting. This is not a diagnosis, it's a
| suggestion to get one.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I think parent was saying that author is violating social
| norms - either because they are oblivious to them (like it
| is to some people on the spectrum) _or_ they are aware of
| the norms, but do not care for them (which would be
| sociopathic)
| [deleted]
| kortilla wrote:
| > but do not care for them (which would be sociopathic)
|
| No, disliking social norms is not sociopathic. The
| critical piece of being sociopathic is a lack of
| conscience.
| [deleted]
| sigg3 wrote:
| That's not true.
|
| A sociopath knows that he's doing something wrong and
| chooses not to regret it.
|
| A psychopath otoh has a low neural activity in the area
| of the brain usually associated with empathy.
|
| The main point being that being a sociopath is learned
| behavior.
|
| Cf. https://youtu.be/6dv8zJiggBs
|
| (I agree that disliking norms are not sociopathic. The
| norms might be sociopathic.)
|
| (Also: I'm not an expert, I could well be wrong.)
| blackbrokkoli wrote:
| You are wrong on a meta-level.
|
| Both sociopath and psychopath are terms stemming from the
| early 20th century, where our main concern was to lable
| people ASAP and prescribe them a "cure".
|
| No professional psychology authority uses _either_ of
| those terms today. Instead, you get ranked on the
| Antisocial personality disorder _spectrum_. This has
| several advantages, like having an actual statistical
| body of research behind it etc.
|
| So your random YouTube video might not be wrong in a
| sense, but more like someone defining what "miasma" or
| "bloodletting" is: Interesting, but essentially just a
| talk about medieval medicine.
|
| I would urge you to refrain from (especially) diagnosing
| people based on public wisdom on psychology.
| [deleted]
| throwaway292893 wrote:
| ah hacker news, where you can get both job advice and a
| diagnosis at the same time.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I'm seeing a therapist. I had an abusive childhood. Not that
| it justifies anything. I was also homeschooled since the 6th
| grade, so I didn't really have any IRL friends etc. I hope
| that I'm not a sociopath... I might be on the high
| functioning autisim scale. I've never been tested so I don't
| know.
| seppin wrote:
| No on minds someone that is weird and quiet. The weird and
| noisy is a problem. Try keeping to yourself (it's hard, I
| know) and let your work speak for you.
| saila wrote:
| > No on minds someone that is weird and quiet
|
| In my experience, this has definitely not been true.
| People will assume you're being standoffish even though
| you're just minding your own business, just aren't a very
| talkative person, are focused on solving a problem, etc.
|
| If you're trying to "play the game," you'll probably be
| better off (in some sense) spending less time on work and
| more time being affable.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| Speaking from personal experience I think it's a good
| possibility you're on the spectrum. I can't say for sure of
| course. But I can say taking some time to find resources
| that might help you understand if that's part of what's
| going on might help you navigate both the issues you've
| discussed here, and working with your therapist to
| determine any steps you might want to take toward
| diagnosis.
|
| I'll also say I _have been where you're at as you
| describe_. You sound very capable, but you haven't had the
| opportunity to thrive. I also had an abusive childhood.
|
| I won't say what's important is overcoming all your
| obstacles and persevering. I'll say this: you have shown
| you have a desire for more and you've shown you have a
| capacity for more. I believe you can do it.
|
| I'll echo one thing other people said but in a different
| way. I don't think you should set your sights lower. I
| think you should consider looking for smaller ponds and see
| how big a fish you turn out to be. Some of those smaller
| ponds are wonderful, might even be more wonderful for you
| than the big ones you've looked into.
| AussieWog93 wrote:
| You're also young. Plenty of well-adjusted people with jobs
| and families did idiotic things when they were 20, too.
| klyrs wrote:
| Yeah, I'd guess that you're on the spectrum. To be quite
| honest, I see my younger self in your actions. It took me a
| long time and a lot of work to recognize bad ideas before
| acting on them, and I wish I could share notes... but I
| never could learn from other people's advice, only from
| years of deep reflection after fucking up repeatedly.
|
| But it's good to hear that you're seeing a therapist. I
| didn't figure that one out until my mid 30s
|
| Edit: I'm not one to crab about downvotes, but if y'all
| downvoting the parent post could kindly quit that. This
| person has shared some deep vulnerability here, they're
| asking for help and doing the work. This shit's a process
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I 'm not one to crab about downvotes, but if y'all
| downvoting the parent post could kindly quit that._
|
| I upvoted parent/OP's post because I agree with you
| there.
|
| > _Yeah, I 'd guess that you're on the spectrum._
|
| Unless you are a psychiatrist who has met with OP in
| person (well, Zoom, these days, I guess), please don't
| armchair diagnose someone as being autistic. You have no
| basis or qualifications for this, and reading a couple
| posts on HN does not count.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| > Unless you are a psychiatrist who has met with OP in
| person (well, Zoom, these days, I guess), please don't
| armchair diagnose someone as being autistic. You have no
| basis or qualifications for this, and reading a couple
| posts on HN does not count.
|
| I got the impression they were also on the spectrum and
| speaking from a place of familiarity. Sure, not a basis
| for diagnosis, but "I'd guess" isn't a diagnosis. It's a
| "yeah that seems to line up for me".
|
| People with neurodivergence spot each other whether we
| want to or mean to or not. It's incredibly delicate
| bringing it up, but it can be incredibly helpful when
| someone with like experience says "hey I see a familiar
| pattern".
| taabcd wrote:
| I've had struggles too. I'm now in a much better place.
|
| If you want some FANG interviewing advice or just a general
| career/life sounding board, feel free to email me at the
| email on my profile.
|
| this goes for anyone else struggling.
| dcolkitt wrote:
| A lot of decorum and etiquette is just practicing enough to
| learn unwritten rules. Maybe it would help have more casual
| social interaction.
|
| Might be tough in the age of covid, but there's lots of
| socializing and networking opportunities outside
| traditional interviewing. Meetups could be good, because
| you'd practice in the context of technical discussions and
| presenting your skillset, which is sorta like interviewing.
|
| My second piece of advice would be to read _How to Win
| Friends and Influence People_. It formally codifies a lot
| of the unspoken rules that charismatic people take for
| granted.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Don't apologize to people who give you abuse. Not on the
| Internet and not in real life.
| chillfox wrote:
| As someone who was also home schooled and had problems with
| social interactions in my early twenties the best advice I
| can give is join several clubs that does things in person.
|
| You MUST learn how to make friends, how to not upset
| people, how to be comfortable in social situations and
| empathy.
|
| To do this I would recommend that you force yourself into
| social situations regularly. Afterwards spend some time
| thinking about how the interaction went, especially from
| the other persons viewpoint, practice empathizing (it is a
| skill that can be learned and will make you a better more
| considerate person).
|
| So join several clubs that meets and does something in
| person. You should have two scheduled social events every
| week.
|
| Try your best to be aware of peoples feelings and groups
| social structure so that you can try to not trample all
| over either.
|
| Going straight to upper management as you described is
| generally not well accepted and most definitely upsets
| middle management (the people who would actually hire you).
|
| Basically, realize that the problem is who you are and that
| you need to become someone else to succeed. Changing your
| own personality is one of the hardest things one can do, so
| expect it to take a few years.
| bawolff wrote:
| As someone who sometimes struggles with social stuff,
| join a club has never been useful advice for me. Its
| never worked out well, i'm not sure where y'all live
| where there are actually interesting clubs, and they're
| pretty awkward environments generally imo.
|
| I've had better luck with do something with a more
| structured environment. E.g. take an in person class
| (something not work related. Learn sign language or
| something) but that takes $$$ and ymmv.
| chillfox wrote:
| Fair enough, not everyone learns in the same way.
|
| You are right that clubs will feel awkward, for the first
| 2-3 months anyway. But they will also challenge you to
| improve your social skills.
| Larrikin wrote:
| I think it used to be difficult to find decent clubs
| outside of school, but sites like meetup have tons of
| different groups. Language meetups are particularly
| plentiful. They are different from a class, but they are
| always open to people of various levels.
| bawolff wrote:
| Honestly, i found clubs to be uncomfortable social
| interactions, even in university (actually, even in high
| school, and grade school). Maybe they're just not for me.
| Anyhow i found other ways to fulfil my social needs.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I've tried out meetup.com and went to one meetup. It was
| ok. I felt a little uncomfortable though. They solicited
| for my name, and email to be added to the Slack. There
| was a lot of recreational clubs etc at my college. I
| tried rock climbing, and liked it. There wasn't a lot of
| social interaction with rock climbing though. I went to a
| party in Austin. Chatted with strangers etc. Wasn't
| really sure what else to talk about. I've read somewhere
| that asking strangers for the time might be a good
| exercise to become more comfortable talking with people.
|
| I asked people that for a while. Except when one guy
| responded "It's time to get a watch" lol, I became
| blushed and kinda embrassed. I saw a comment recommending
| How to Win Friend and Influence People which I definitely
| want to read.
| celim307 wrote:
| Hmm I would give rock climbing another shot, pandemic
| aside rock climbing especially at gyms is very social,
| I've even quit gyms because some are more akin to night
| clubs than climbing gyms.
|
| Bouldering? Ask for beta or work a problem with someone.
| Top rope or sport? The gym should have a program for
| people looking for belay partners.
|
| Give it another shot
| e12e wrote:
| Echoing another comment that you might be on the spectrum
| - and I hope the therapist you mentioned can help you
| relate to that.
|
| The above comment could almost be a quote from "The Speed
| of Dark" - a (science) fiction novel by Elizabeth Moon
| about autism (she has a child on the spectrum).
| chillfox wrote:
| So what you need to do in that situation is smile and
| happily give your name + email, then set aside an hour a
| week to chat with people in that slack channel.
|
| Parties are not really good places to learn social
| skills, people are generally partially drunk and behave
| differently than they would anywhere else.
|
| Look at this list of hobbies [1], pick two that you think
| looks interesting and has a club in your local area. Then
| join those clubs and show up at every opportunity. If you
| are asked to join a special event or help out with
| something or join a forum/chat room then smile and say
| "yes, I would love to".
|
| Try to stick with the same club for at least a year.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies
| aceazzameen wrote:
| Oh geez. Please don't let strangers on the internet
| diagnose you.
| dack wrote:
| They seem to be open to it, and pretty desperate for
| advice since they've already tried a lot of things. I'm
| sure a lot of advice is wrong but maybe some of it will
| help!
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| Try more meetups in person, even if they're awkward!
| Great way to both network for your next job and sharpen
| your social skills.
| nl wrote:
| > They solicited for my name, and email to be added to
| the Slack.
|
| Your terminology here says a lot, right?
|
| If you are going to a meetup to meet people, then the
| whole point is to get to know people. And yes, that will
| involve them knowing your name, and communicating with
| you.
|
| To open up your job prospects: realize this is normal and
| desirable.
| [deleted]
| serverholic wrote:
| Yeah this guy is definitely on the spectrum.. And
| probably a little bit of a sociopath.
| culopatin wrote:
| Sounds like you have Aspergers or something like that. At
| most. But you probably were handicapped by homeschooling,
| unless you were homeschooled because of these social
| issues.
|
| Obviously it's not your technical qualifications but
| something in the way you approach people in interviews.
| The fact that you say you had to read how to talk to
| people at a party and couldn't figure out how to diverge
| from doing exactly what you read over and over is what
| tipped me off to think you may be weirding people out.
|
| Honestly, if you were to say "hey I know I have some
| weirdness but I have the best intentions"... I personally
| would appreciate that. The first step is acknowledging
| that and trying to convince the people you'll work with
| that it won't get in the way.
|
| Also in the future, don't quit a job if you don't have a
| backup just because you wanted to get paid more.
| mypalmike wrote:
| How To Win Friends is a great book for fine tuning
| interpersonal skills in adversarial situations such as
| sales calls and job interviews. It's worth a read. But I
| wouldn't recommend it as something to internalize for
| actually making friends. It mostly teaches how to seem
| empathetic as leverage in negotiations. It's more
| important IMO to develop real empathy through routinely
| putting yourself in other people's shoes, both when
| interactimg with them and when passively observing
| situations.
| throwaway79392 wrote:
| > How To Win Friends is a great book for fine tuning
| interpersonal skills ... I wouldn't recommend it as
| something to internalize for actually making friends.
|
| I would even argue this book can harm your friendships.
| Really, the whole book is only about friendships that you
| try to seek value from. That said, there are tons of
| books worth reading. The therapist can most likely
| recommend books that are really useful for "homework".
|
| FWIW at some point in my life I also realized I need to
| improve my social circle and went for asking for the time
| and all that. Please don't do that, consult with your
| therapist and just learn by doing otherwise. People tend
| to think there is one way a person has to be.
|
| Anyways, it's really bad with Covid right now but once
| that's over, there'll be plenty of opportunity to go to
| real Meetups, public events and all that.
| bmdavi3 wrote:
| The secret to being a good conversationalist is to have
| the other person do most of the talking, and everyone's
| favorite thing to talk about is themselves.
|
| Being, and therefore appearing, genuinely interested in
| what the other person is saying about themselves creates
| the best feelings in the world for the other person, and
| you won't run out of things to talk about.
|
| "You just got a new dog? Cool!"
|
| Then you can ask any follow up question you like.
|
| What kind? What's their name? Where'd you get them from?
| Do you feed them "people food"?.. etc.
|
| One question at a time of course, and avoid queuing them
| up in your head. When the other person is talking, try
| very hard not to think of the next thing you're going to
| say. If you do that, you'll miss what they're actually
| saying and eventually say something that makes it clear
| you weren't listening. Similarly, you'll miss out on each
| new bit of the conversation, and those new bits are the
| basis of new, honest, follow up questions.
|
| You don't have to be interested in dogs generally, to be
| interested in them temporarily. "Being interested,
| intentionally" is a skill you can improve.
|
| Don't try to direct the flow of the conversation too much
| either. Go into your next conversation with friends,
| family, coworkers, or strangers with a truly open mind
| about what you're going to talk about, with no agenda,
| and be happy knowing it could change at any time.
|
| Your job is to listen and ask more.
|
| A lot of supposed "conversations" are just two people
| looking at each other, waiting for their turn to talk. If
| you're going to do that you might as well each write your
| sentences down beforehand, exchange them, and then throw
| them away without reading them.
|
| The truth is, nobody wants to hear what you have to say.
| They don't want to hear what I have to say. They want to
| tell you about what's going on in their lives and what's
| important to them.
| srinivgp wrote:
| I hear people say this so much and it's so incredibly not
| true for me but I dunno if I'm different, they're all
| full of it, or both.
| Talanes wrote:
| Right? My conversation problems all stem from my own
| dislike of talking about myself.
| thejohnconway wrote:
| I think this is a misunderstanding of the advice. I don't
| particularly like talking about my life because I live
| it, and it's mostly pretty boring. But I do like
| discussing certain topics. The advice is to find what the
| other person like discussing, and discuss it in a way
| that makes them feel you are listening to their point of
| view.
|
| Personally I don't think I've ever really failed when I
| use this approach. You can go in with something as direct
| as, "so, what topic would you like to talk about?" And
| more often than not have a good conversation.
| chillfox wrote:
| Even more reason to let the other person talk about
| themself if they enjoy it.
|
| If both of you dislike talking about yourselves then try
| to explain something about a subject that you find
| interesting.
|
| Edit: I want to add that not liking something does not
| mean you can't be good at it.
| bmdavi3 wrote:
| Serious question.
|
| Which parts of it aren't true for you?
|
| Have you found that making extra effort to be interested
| in the other person's ideas / topics / interests,
| listening carefully, etc. isn't well received?
|
| Or is "nobody wants to hear what you have to say" not
| true, because you do care what other people have to say,
| for example? (Obviously that's great if so)
|
| Or something else?
|
| I ask because I started making that kind of effort a
| couple years ago, slowly but surely, getting better as I
| went. I didn't tell anybody, but after about a year one
| friend was like, "you know, you're interested in what we
| do and you really care. Nobody else does that." And
| another friend chimed in and agreed. (And I really do
| care! Sure it's intentional, but it's like eating healthy
| food, and then you grow to like it)
|
| They were being serious. So if you believe me when I'm
| telling you this, it has been true for me and those
| friends.
|
| I also think it's true that most people are oblivious to
| the extra mental effort that goes into approaching
| conversations this way, and just leave thinking "finally,
| someone who gives my ideas the credit and attention they
| are due. Now if I could just get everyone else to act
| that way"
|
| And that's fine with me
| kbutler wrote:
| For me, it's inaccurate in that I don't really like to
| talk about myself - especially ad hoc. And some friends
| really are interested in what's going on in my life (and
| I need to push myself to share more).
|
| I find are two types of people - talkers and non-talkers.
| There is significant but not complete overlap with
| introverts and extroverts, but some introverts are
| talkers if they can get someone who will actually listen
| - others won't really talk regardless, and really prefer
| to let the other person carry the conversation (or
| companionable silence, or end the conversation).
|
| Conversation skills differ depending on the pairing - but
| everyone appreciates someone who listens to understand,
| not just waits while thinking about what they will say
| next.
|
| Talker with another talker - listen, ask occasional
| questions, and give the other person lots of chances to
| talk. Reduce how much you share.
|
| Talker with a non-talker: Also listen, ask occasional
| questions, but don't expect too much response - but keep
| trying to draw out more & find things the other person
| wants to talk about. Be willing to carry more than your
| half of the conversation, but that comes naturally, so be
| careful not to dominate.
|
| Non-talker with a talker: The talkers will love you if
| you listen! Be attentive, follow along, give verbal and
| non-verbal acknowledgements and reactions, ask questions,
| push yourself to share more and "hold up your end of the
| conversation".
|
| Non-talker with another non-talker. This is rough. You
| have to pretend you're a talker and carry more than half
| the conversation. Share more. Work harder to get
| questions and listen, consider, and ask follow-up
| questions. It can be really helpful to have questions and
| topics prepared in advance (good conversation doesn't
| have to be extemporaneous).
| nl wrote:
| Which part isn't true for you?
| subjectsigma wrote:
| As someone who has struggled their entire life with
| feeling like I don't understand people, I feel your pain.
|
| I don't know what kind of climbing you were doing, but
| I've found bouldering very social. Bouldering problems
| are short and very intense so you spend most of your time
| sitting on the mat resting, which inevitably leads to
| conversation. If you don't have a group to go with or
| haven't tried bouldering, but would like to continue
| climbing, I would recommend taking a group bouldering
| class or the like once COVID dies down. That's a good way
| to meet people who like the sport and are the same level
| as you.
|
| This might be a little presumptuous as I don't know
| anything about you, but since you're in Texas -
| church/temple/synagogueetc is also a great option if you
| want to meet people. People want you to join their church
| so they will be friendly and make an effort to welcome
| you. Many churches have coffee or small refreshments
| after the service just so people can socialize. There may
| even be programs, planned social activities, bible
| studies or whatnot for new members. This is my bias but I
| would go to a non-denominational Christian church, the
| crowd is likely to be younger, more diverse, more
| interesting, and the music will sound like it's from this
| century. If you don't like the people, the particular
| church, or just simply learn that you don't believe in
| God, you can always just leave, you have no obligation to
| stay. I myself don't attend church anymore but I must
| admit they are astoundingly effective social support
| structures. If you've ever been curious in any way about
| religion you might as well try it.
| RGamma wrote:
| OP seems fine to me. It's the social norms/environment that
| seem pathological here.
|
| Who would have thought that if you interact with robots
| (read: computers) long enough you turn into one yourself,
| dear Americans...
|
| It's a clown show. I do not envy OP.
| spoonjim wrote:
| Yeah, I expect that once someone meets this person they get the
| willies and try to avoid all further contact.
| glitchc wrote:
| Desperate is not equal to creepy. Try thinking from his
| perspective, he's perilously close to hitting rock bottom and
| terrified of the prospect. A bit of compassion goes a long way.
| tidenly wrote:
| Desperation does not give you the green light to do whatever
| you want to other people. Creepy is how you are perceived
| when you can't feel where that line is and step over it. Try
| thinking how their actions look from the receiving end, not
| just theirs.
| nomy99 wrote:
| He reminds me of the protagonist from Nightcrawler,
| starring Jake Gyllenhaal
| vbsteven wrote:
| Desperation does not greenlight creepy behaviour indeed.
| But keep in mind that a cohort of people does not have the
| necessary skills to know where the line is (some forms of
| autism for example).
|
| Not having those skills can lead to situations where
| actions with genuine intent are perceived as creepy by the
| counter party.
| Causality1 wrote:
| I have to admit I snorted after reading your comment and
| scrolled back up to notice he's using an FSF email address.
| Apple, tree, etc.
| McScroogy wrote:
| What do you mean - FSF are bad people?
| Causality1 wrote:
| Not bad people by any measure, no. Their advocacy is
| invaluable. They just have a reputation for having a very
| creep-friendly culture, for example, the recent RMS fiasco.
| xpe wrote:
| Spoofing your number does seem shady.
|
| However, saying someone is a creep is not very helpful. There
| is a big difference between how one is perceived and what a
| person -is-.
|
| The most helpful advice I've seen here is: get direct feedback
| from a candid friend.
|
| This HN feedback offers a range of opinions, but -please- don't
| dwell on it. Find a way to have people you _know_ help you ...
| practice interviews, talking out loud about your situation,
| your expectations, your goals, and so on.
| arp242 wrote:
| I'll beg to differ; honest feedback was asked ("even if it's
| brutally candid") and the previous posted gave their honest
| impression. Other people have their own impressions of course
| which may differ, bit this is theirs and IMHO this is just
| valid as any other.
|
| Sometimes you need to be brutally honest to be kind. I'm not
| a huge fan of harsh lessons and such in general, but there is
| a time and place for them, and this is probably one of them.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _There is a big difference between how one is perceived and
| what a person -is-._
|
| This person consistently gets rejected after the initial
| meeting, enough for a pattern to become obvious.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| While perhaps not literally being a creep, how do you think
| the various acts rate toward perception of the subject by
| others. While @klyrs post may have been a rush to judgment, I
| think it portrays an accurate picture of how someone is
| likely to react to such actions.
| klyrs wrote:
| Yeah, you're absolutely right. I wish that I'd said "this
| behavior sounds creepy / learn to avoid creepy behavior."
| santoshalper wrote:
| Well, there is an edit link right there in your post.
|
| I would describe op's behavior as "desperate" more than
| creepy. Desperation is really easy to spot and unappealing,
| my guess is that is shows through in interviews.
| whymauri wrote:
| IIRC. the edit option expires after 1-2 hours on HN.
| Stratoscope wrote:
| Yes, it expires after 2 hours.
| irjustin wrote:
| Desperate is what the primary person feels. Creeped out
| is what the receiving person feels.
|
| When does desperate become creepy? Everyone has a
| different definition.
|
| If I was an exec on the receiving end, I'd definitely be
| put off by all of this.
| robkop wrote:
| Personally, I can feel someone's desperation and it feels
| a lot different to me than when someone is being socially
| awkward or a creep.
|
| But as someone who's done hiring before they are all
| pretty big put offs (maybe socially awkward isn't bad as
| long as it not a interaction heavy role).
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "I can feel someone's desperation and it feels a lot
| different to me than when someone is being socially
| awkward or a creep."
|
| Well, isn't it possible for a person to be desperate and
| still creep out others? Or even more, as desperation
| leads to more extreme behavior.
| dkdk8283 wrote:
| I'm an exec. I might be impressed, might not. Context is
| everything. Two sides to every story.
|
| Hiring someone is a huge liability. Depending on their
| state it could be a 500k bet. Give me a reason to believe
| in you.
|
| Red flag of this post is absence of self reflection. What
| has been learned during this? Why do you deserve a shot?
| racl101 wrote:
| To be fair they didn't call OP a creep. They said he "sounds
| like a creep". Maybe they should've said: "seem creepy". But
| to me is po-tay-toe and po-tah-to. Nevertheless, it can be
| helpful if OP is looking for brutal honesty.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I think saying like it is actually good, the post actually
| asks for honest feedback.
|
| Well, there it is. It's better to give honest feedback so
| that the OP can fix these issues and realize how his behavior
| makes people feel.
|
| The first step into fixing things is realizing the problem.
| JamesDeepDown wrote:
| A quick anecdote: interviewers HATE when you criticise previous
| employers. You complain at length about previous employers in
| your post, instead of talking about what you learned/experience
| gained. Ensure in interviews that everything you talk about is
| positive outcomes, NOTHING negative.
| lefstathiou wrote:
| I play a key role in our hiring process. Shoot me an email, your
| resume (in word format so I can comment if necessary) and some
| times that work next week for 30-45 min chat (after 4pm ET best
| for me). Think of it as professional networking call and at the
| end I'll be as candid and constructive as I can. Email is in my
| profile.
| a3n wrote:
| If, for some reason, you don't have Word, just write it in text
| format, and use ".doc" as the extension. Whoever opens it will
| automatically have it magically transformed into commentable
| Word format. Word readers are available.
|
| I actually sent my resume in .txt to a job. HR called me and
| asked me to resubmit it in Word. So I changed the extension to
| .doc, emailed it over.
|
| I was hired.
|
| (But really, with the problems you're having, use Word. This
| was just a funny but true anecdote.)
| readme wrote:
| apply somewhere that will actually hire you whether they have
| good insurance or not
|
| go to healthcare.gov & don't forget to thank obama
| jhatemyjob wrote:
| Here's some advice... stop asking the internet for advice
| rapfaria wrote:
| You don't want to climb the ladder. What made you think you had a
| shot at all of those companies? One had a thing going at IBM/EA,
| you are much more hireable having a current job.
|
| Unless you got an idea for the equivalent of a flamin hot
| cheetos, my advice is go climb it.
| snypher wrote:
| Even the cheetos guy was already employed by the company.
| arp242 wrote:
| A lot of advice here already, but personally I don't understand
| why you're applying at all these big-name companies like Google,
| Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb, Palantir. _I_
| probably wouldn 't get hired at most of them, and I'm fairly
| experienced, got a reasonably nice CV, and have reasonably okay
| interview and social skills.
|
| There are many _MANY_ small tech companies out there, ranging
| from 2-3 employees to maybe 100. At one of my jobs we worked from
| the owner 's mother's garage; we had lunch with his mother every
| day. It's not shiny and glamorous like Google or Apple, but it's
| honest work and plenty interesting. I sure wasn't bored and had a
| great time there.
|
| Just go on Stack Overflow jobs, or Monster, or whatever is in
| your local area, find software dev jobs that seem interesting and
| send in your CV with a decent cover letter. You probably never
| heard of that particular company and that's just fine.
|
| Because quite frankly it looks like right now you're trying to
| star in a big-budget Hollywood movie when all you've got is one
| B-movie on your credits.
| vemv wrote:
| Focus on what you have to offer to companies. Everything else is
| secondary.
|
| - What's your role? (dev, QA)
|
| - What's your speciality? (python, mobile, etc)
|
| - Are you good at your role and speciality? How can you show so?
| (I completed this course, read this book, have this portfolio
| project)
|
| Following supply/demand rules, you will be offered a job when you
| clearly offer a value proposition that is fits a given company's
| needs. It's as simple as that.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| If this is essay is a representative sample of how you express
| yourself in general, then one recommendation is to improve your
| communication ability/style [1]. Stream-of-conscious may work in
| online chatrooms, but not in professional settings. In any team-
| oriented setting, clear and organized communication is non-
| negotiable. Your writing here signals intelligent, but manic,
| frantic, and maybe not a great communicator.
|
| It sounds like you're a good technical writer when you need to
| be, based on your anecdote about writing up the problem with
| Amazon's anti-fraud system. But you need to be a good
| communicator in general, not just specifically to technical
| writing. However, if my overall impression here is inaccurate
| then feel free to ignore.
|
| For example, up until the following line you were at least
| understandable, but this line was unclear:
|
| > _" Got referrals etc. dropped out my freshmen year at a top 40
| college. Was on the cyber security team etc. too expensive so I
| had to dropout."_
|
| Are you saying you were on the cyber security team at your
| university, but it was too expensive so you had to drop out? If
| so, just say that in a sentence: "I was on the cyber security
| team at my top 40 university, but it was too expensive so I had
| to drop out." (also, did you apply for student loans? Most top 40
| universities can put together a package of grants and loans to
| keep the folks they admitted). And referrals from who for what?
|
| Also this:
|
| > _" Also was concerned about support reps being able to access
| any customer's data simply by pressing 'bypass' on the security
| question promt page. I couldn't transfer internally until a year
| later as well. Would ping your manager each time you apply as
| well. Have to delete your emails constantly due to only having
| 1gb email space. Assessment was similar to the one I took for
| CIA. Cognitive based assessment."_
|
| There are multiple concepts jumbled together here in a confusing
| stream of conscious. Separate each out into a sentence, simplify
| it as much as possible, and order the sentences according to some
| logical progression (chronological, causal, etc).
|
| Busy people you're asking to employ you don't have the mental
| bandwidth to decipher your writing and communications, they're
| 150% preoccupied with more important things (to them). Make it as
| easy as possible for them to understand you, evaluate your
| request and the value in it to them, and say yes. "Don't Make Me
| Think" [2].
|
| Any time you want something of value from someone, step outside
| of yourself, put yourself in their shoes, and think through what
| they need or want but don't have in their current position. Try
| to see the world completely from their PoV, imagine you are them.
| Figure out what they need, what is of most value to them right
| now, how to get it for them, and offer it in return for what you
| need. Get your clever hacker mind good at solving that kind of
| problem, and it will take you far.
|
| [1]:https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the.
| .. [2]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Make_Me_Think
| snakedoctor wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback. I initally wrote a 5000+ word post.
| However, after noticing that the limit is 2000. I cut a lot out
| of my post. I should've proofread more. Though, I feel that HN
| is an informal environment. I was trying to express that I
| dropped out of college due to the cost. The cyber security team
| is free.
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| Ok great! Yes HN is informal, so I thought that might be the
| case, but didn't want to assume and leave anything
| potentially useful unsaid.
| incrudible wrote:
| When it comes to hiring "hacker type" people, we're always
| extremely cautious about them being trustworthy, because the
| amount of damage they can do is exponentially higher. There's no
| room for mistakes. You likely didn't pass the smell test.
|
| As for Home Depot, you're clearly the wrong person for the job,
| even if you can do it. You'd likely have better chances with less
| skill, odd as that may sound.
|
| In general, you may want to try saying _less_ , especially when
| it comes to your "hacker skills".
|
| > I need a job with decent health/dental insurance. Medicaid is
| useless. I might be homeless soon.
|
| This doesn't make sense to me. If you're at risk of being
| homeless, maybe getting "decent" health insurance shouldn't be a
| requirement. I suspect you have some self-sabotaging tendencies,
| which is another red flag from a hiring perspective.
| floren wrote:
| No health insurance sucks, but you're in your 20s and you didn't
| mention any chronic illnesses. You need a year's worth of
| experience in one job--any job, so long as it's the same job--
| more than you need health insurance right now. I can sit here and
| rage about how terrible it is that you have to make that choice,
| but that won't help you get a job. If you manage to get hired
| again, hold onto that fucking job like it's the last life-vest on
| the Titanic because for you, it is. You're going to need to eat
| shit with a smile on your face for at least a year; work hard and
| don't rock the boat.
|
| Almost nobody will give you a firm reason for why they rejected
| you for a job. If you press them, they'll offer vague shit like
| the examples you gave. Accept this; it sucks, but it's the way
| things are. You're not being "ghosted".
|
| As others have said, it is absurd to expect a promotion within a
| few months of hiring in a low-level position. "Working your way
| up from the mailroom" still involves spending time doing actual
| work in the mailroom, not barging into the boss's office day 1
| and demanding a raise because you found some stamps that fell
| behind the desk.
|
| I'm hesitant to tell you to go back to school, because that can
| be expensive as hell, but maybe look into your state
| universities? Tuition can still be reasonable at some of them. If
| you're no longer a dependent of your parents, maybe you'll
| qualify for better financial aid. Also, some schools (including
| my alma mater, RIT) offer free tuition for employees--even if
| it's just mopping floors, you're making money and getting an
| education.
| the_only_law wrote:
| > If you're no longer a dependent of your parents, maybe you'll
| qualify for better financial aid.
|
| FWIW "dependent status" in regards to financial aid has nothing
| to do with you tax classification and everything due to rigid,
| "unhackable" criteria. Save some extreme circumstances
| (homelessness, being an orphan, etc.) you are a dependent no
| matter what until 24 with no leniency. You can go read about
| people who's parents disowned them, were incarcerated, etc. and
| basically being told "sucks to be you". Not that I've seen
| anything to imply the OP is <24 though.
| floren wrote:
| I was trying to remember the exact details of how that worked
| when I wrote my post... thanks for the clarification!
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Salesforce did give me once and I agree they were accurate and
| right in their reasoning.
| asidiali wrote:
| 1) you sound very intelligent and capable even though you don't
| have much to prove it apparently
|
| 2) I get a weird vibe from the way you write/speak
|
| 3) I've been cold rejected from almost every one of those
| companies you listed, and I'm a senior engineer with a decade of
| experience making SV money and doing just fine. Look for smaller
| companies that people haven't heard of, there are thousands. It
| took me years of working at small startups before I broke into
| the big corps.
|
| 4) someone mentioned "tainting" your rep with non-dev jobs and
| sadly this is true. You need to get dev experience on your resume
| no matter what, the good news is that it's never been easier.
| Come up with an idea, build something, buy a $2 domain, and bam,
| you are now a fancy Founder of Tech Project and have dev
| experience on your resume, not manual labor. Bonus points if you
| actually stick to the project. Speaking of which...
|
| 5) Build projects. Like as many as you can. I aim to build a new
| project 1x a month just to keep in the habit. Anytime I need to
| interview, I have tons of live, production software examples to
| show off. HMs love to see someone who can ship code. It is the #1
| thing I would do if I were you to get a job. Build anything. Just
| build stuff and put it online. This is the next best thing to
| having formal W2 jobs on your resume.
|
| 6) totally random and I'm not affiliated, but check out
| usertesting.com. I sent this to a friend the other day who is
| also struggling to break into tech - they will apparently pay $10
| for every 20 minutes of testing. Better than being homeless and
| at least it's in tech and seems relatively accessible.
|
| 7) some of the best dev gigs and jobs I found early on in my
| career were diamonds lost in the Craigslist rough, just sayin'
|
| Wishing you the best of luck.
| topkai22 wrote:
| On #5- Make sure to actually drive to completion. It doesn't
| have to be perfect or what you originally envisioned, but it
| does need to run without too much error in a way someone else
| can use/understand. A lot of abandoned useless github repos
| isn't nearly as useful as a few cool demonstrable tools/sites.
| readme wrote:
| is there a chapter on copy & paste from stack overflow in taocp?
| blentz wrote:
| As someone who hires and also coaches people into entry level
| positions, your story is not unique.
|
| You asked a simple question: "how can an unhireable person get a
| job?"
|
| Answer: You can't get a job because you have given yourself the
| label unhireable. Period.
|
| Everything in your post builds and reinforces the story you've
| been telling yourself for a long time. You are putting most of
| your energy into explaining why things aren't working out for
| you.
|
| Until you drop that story, no amount of advice will help you.
|
| If there is a part of you that can recognize the truth in this,
| you have a chance to rewrite your story.
| p0sixlang wrote:
| I mean, if his goal was to solicit a bunch of advice and (with
| the attention this post has received, perhaps even a job) from
| people hooked by the idea of someone being unhirable, and then
| motivated to correct him.. it worked pretty well.
| spacemanmatt wrote:
| Go into politics?
| ineedasername wrote:
| You are not unhireable, you're just not patient and you don't
| understand your situation: You aren't going to get a good job
| without a college degree. You're going to get the lowest level
| job and have to work your way up. That may be true even with a
| degree, but a degree will make getting getting one of those low
| level jobs a lot easier.
|
| Honestly I don't know how you managed to get a dev job at IBM in
| the first place, but low pay and little benefits are all you can
| expect when you're starting out with your level of education and
| experience. You shouldn't have quit a dev job with IBM, without
| another job lined up: 3 years experience there would have made
| getting a better job much easier.
|
| Also not getting a response from a company isn't "ghosted". It's
| standard practice that many places don't contact applicants to
| let them know they aren't getting the job. Saying you were
| ghosted makes it sound like you think it was something personal
| about you. It wasn't.
|
| Home Depot: The retail sector has been shit this past year.
| People were getting fired left & right. Your failure to get a job
| at a retail store like Home Depot is no surprise, and has nothing
| to do with you.
|
| My advice would be to complete your degree as soon as possible.
| I'm looking at two identical resumes and the only difference is
| that one of them completed a college degree, I'm offering the job
| to the person with the degree.
|
| In the meantime, register with temp agencies to try to get some
| work that builds your resume & experience. If you can get even a
| shit level job in dev, take it and stick it out.
|
| I'm not saying that all of the above is fair, but "fair" is
| irrelevant here: This is how things work, and you have to deal
| with it on those terms.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| If you're not currently working, I'd recommend a staffing agency,
| Uber Eats, Taskrabbit, Instacart, etc. There are ways to start
| making money right now that might keep you from being homeless.
| And being homeless is going to set you back.
|
| Don't put any of the above on your resume.
|
| What are you looking for? You haven't really elaborated on what
| your skills are except for alluding to a possible penchant for
| security research. If that's _really_ what you want to do (and
| you think you have enough knowledge of networking technologies
| and security practices that it 's really your best path forward),
| do that!
|
| If you hunt for bug bounties, and blog about your findings (even
| if you don't hit any), that's going to be a really good way for
| potential employers to audit your capabilities.
|
| If you're looking to get into software development, publish some
| work on github or get involved with an open source project. Even
| filing issues is a great way to showcase your ability to work
| within a team and contribute. QA is often a great stepping stone
| into the world of software engineering, and (depending on the
| type of QA), you really just need to be computer literate,
| dedicated, and capable of working with a team. Those are things
| you can demonstrate on github.
|
| It's not going to be an easy path forward, but getting some
| income you can live off of right now, then pouring all of your
| energy into working in the open is going to be your best path to
| getting hired. You don't have the resume to get the kinds of jobs
| your looking for, and it sounds like you haven't even had the
| kinds of jobs that would look impressive to potential employers
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I saw some people in Austin who did gig work like uber etc.
| I've thought about it. I'm a very anxious driver though. I've
| though about working in a Amazon warehouse. There's one near
| me. But they don't get health benefits for 3+ months. Have to
| do intense manual labor etc. EA QA was the most toxic place I
| ever worked at. Belittling people, thinking that all testers
| are incompetent etc. I have back pain, and dental issues which
| is why I mention insurance a lot.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| I don't know if this is possible in Austin, but Uber eats
| allows bicycle delivery (almost definitely available in
| Austin), and "on foot" delivery as well. Other delivery
| companies may have similar programs.
|
| Instacart (in some locations) allows you to sign up just to
| do the shopping (then the drivers pick it up).
|
| Taskrabbit will definitely have some things you can do
| without driving as well.
|
| Just explore the options; something where you can set your
| own schedule would be really nice while you're job hunting
| and interviewing.
| creddit wrote:
| > But they don't get health benefits for 3+ months.
|
| This isn't true?
| https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/operations/healthcare-
| from-...
| qsi wrote:
| > I've though about working in a Amazon warehouse. There's
| one near me. But they don't get health benefits for 3+
| months. Have to do intense manual labor etc.
|
| I think you need to focus on your priorities here. As I
| understand you're currently jobless and obviously have no
| health benefits, and are on the verge of becoming homeless.
| Doing three months of "intense manual labor" to get a
| paycheck and health benefits is (in my view at least) far
| preferable to being homeless and penniless.
|
| My perception of your reply is that you think the Amazon
| warehouse job is beneath you; does homelessness appeal more?
| Seriously, at this stage, in the very short run, your number
| one priority should be to avert homelessness, and do whatever
| it takes. I know you mentioned back pain, but if the Amazon
| warehouse isn't your thing, there should be something else
| you can do to tide you over.
|
| More broadly as lot of commenters have very kindly offered to
| talk to you and help you in various ways. That is an immense
| gift! Make use of it, and don't make them regret offering
| their assistance.
|
| You're in a bad place mentally right now, but you're young,
| you're not stupid and you can get out of this, but you need
| to be willing to put in the effort. Asking the question here
| is a very good first step.
|
| Lastly, you may also want to visit Ask A Manager [1] which
| has a lot of good advice on cover letters, resumes,
| interviewing, etc. It's not tech-specific, but most of the
| advice applies universally.
|
| Good luck!
|
| [1] https://www.askamanager.org/
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| Also, forgot to mention, I was recently working "QA" for 5
| years. Transitioned into that from full-stack webdev and am
| back in webdev again. QA in my case was actually very
| technical, required deep knowledge of web application
| deployment mechanisms, occasional debugging of web app code,
| a variety of languages, and writing tons of bash and CI
| configuration, some tests, and automating cloud things.
|
| I won't lie and say it was as fun as traditional programming.
| But QA means a lot of different things, and just because you
| had a really bad experience with it (and I've heard terrible
| things about EA in general, not just their QA department),
| you should definitely be looking at QA for job opportunities
| that will meet your needs. Realistically you're going to be
| better suited to a lot of QA jobs right now, and employers
| are going to be more open to taking a chance on you given
| your history.
| maccard wrote:
| QA in video games is not an engineering role. It's usually
| a butts-in-seat role where you're expected to dilligently
| follow a task list without deviating in the slightest.
| You're expected to follow the checklist, on repeat. If you
| have initiative, save it for after work.
|
| More senior qa roles will be designing test suites, maybe
| even developing them, but entry level game QA is not going
| to scratch a dev itch.
| unyttigfjelltol wrote:
| Lots of great comments. May I point out something obvious
| though-- the poster has been looking for entry-level work during
| a horrendous 12 month labor downturn. Maybe it's been a better
| market for skilled technical positions, but apparently that's not
| the relevant market here....
|
| I'm going to speculate that maybe the op has crossed a threshold
| from 'eager' to 'desperate'. That's not helpful to the job
| search. At this point the poster knows the industry, he probably
| identified a few quirky opportunities for people with similar
| resumes get on promising job tracks. Stay close to those, figure
| out how you can be useful to folks in those spaces and
| demonstrate it to them. And most importantly-- this is hard--
| find enough peace and stability in your current situation so you
| don't come across as desperate, just eager.
| jariel wrote:
| If you're even getting interviews with top companies that's a
| good sign.
|
| Getting ghosted is common, don't worry about that, it's not
| personal.
|
| Work with a recruiter to get some feedback, you seem intelligent,
| so this may be an issue with socialization or disagreeableness or
| something like that, which is a common trait people are judged
| for, but wherein there might be specific industries or
| professions that are more suited.
|
| And don't give up.
| giantg2 wrote:
| Maybe check your criminal record. My wife was getting denied from
| every application. She later found out there was an incorrect
| conviction on her record and had to get it expunged.
|
| Also, you seem to be listing big name tech companies and
| startups. Have you tried looking at non-tech companies? Sometimes
| the medium to small non-tech companies are more forgiving about
| not having a degree.
|
| I'm not sure where you are located, but maybe look at jobs in
| other regions. Sometimes you can take a lower paying job in a
| cheaper region (with less competition) and do well.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I'm not sure how to check my criminal record. Last background
| check by Amazon was clear. I've never even got ticked for jay
| walking. I tried googling my name and nothing came up. Pretty
| sure I have to pay for a company like ADP to do a background
| check on me. I think background checks usually happend post
| offer.
|
| I've tried applying to some smaller companies who might be
| willing to take a risk on me. Haven't had any better luck with
| those. I live in the south, there aren't a lot of tech
| companies local to me. Just oil/gas companies.
| objectivetruth wrote:
| I gave you a bunch of advice earlier but then I saw this:
| "I'm not sure how to check my criminal record. "
|
| Don't be the type of person who says that. Be the type of
| person who says "I didn't know how to do that so I spent 30
| seconds Googling it and now I do."
| iyzsong wrote:
| First you should remove "unhireable" from your post and mind...
|
| I'd suggest you apply to small tech company (maybe 2 or 3 people)
| which doesn't have HR, then stick for years. Accept that most
| work are boring and doesn't need serious thinking, and spend more
| times on other non-tech things.
| aww_dang wrote:
| Consider creating passive revenue streams instead of employment.
| Embrace your position as an outsider.
| Pmop wrote:
| Based on your cyber security background, I'd suggest you to take
| a look into the DeFi space and crypto related jobs. There's a big
| incentive at the moment for finding holes before others do, there
| are bounties programs, some projects are hiring, and so on.
|
| Edit: I think that the whole "anonymous team" and "decentralized"
| thing could help you in your case. Can't check on someone you
| don't even know the name.
| [deleted]
| objectivetruth wrote:
| 1) You mentioned "ageism" so I assumed you were toward the older
| end of the typical range, but then you said you're in your early
| 20s? Yeah, no offense but you're basically a kid with no
| portfolio and no proven job history who dropped out of college,
| so you're probably not going to find a job that offers
| health/dental. And that's not "ageism" -- lots of the places you
| mentioned hire people in their late teens or early 20s -- that's
| just your inexperience.
|
| 2) Don't talk about how you spotted some system deficiency three
| levels above you and reported it. That's just going to creep
| people out. And that is NOT the sort of thing that makes a
| manager think you're Good Will Hunting and say "What's that
| genius doing in the call center cubicles? Get him an office and
| insurance right away!" Instead they are 100x more likely to say
| "Yes, drone, we're all well aware of that issue, get back on the
| phones."
|
| 3) You're cold-contacting SVPs at Dell? Spoofing contact
| whitelists to get through their phone systems? Yeah, this isn't
| "War Games," so you're about 1000x more likely to anger somebody
| than you are to impress them with your skillz. There are the
| "normal" channels of getting a job (the HR application route) and
| the "usual" channels (having a friend at the company get you
| hired)... but anything else (walking into an SVP's suite) is
| really, really unlikely to help.
|
| I mean this well -- twenty years ago, I was a college freshman
| dropout with no portfolio, no connections, and a rural drawl --
| so you CAN succeed. But I had some rough years and I had to put
| in my dues as an entry-level help desk grunt before rising up as
| a sysadmin.
|
| * Get some sort of stable job and don't quit it until a year has
| gone by AND you have a signed offer letter in hand for a provably
| better job.
|
| * Don't give up on Medicaid! In most states and most scenarios,
| you're MUCH more likely to get decent _subsidized_ ACA healthcare
| than you are to find a job that gives you insurance within 90
| days, let alone 30 days. But you gotta do the research and the
| legwork.
| resume_monther wrote:
| I have a general question related to OP's situation:
|
| How do you make a resume look better when you have many short
| stints on it?
|
| I'm 30 and my average time to keep a job is less than 6 months. I
| always get overwhelmed and quit. When I start a new job I promise
| myself I will stick it out for just one year, but usually I'm
| white knuckling it within 3 months. I've been to doctors and
| therapists and have a clean bill of health. How do you develop
| grit and "sticktoitivness"?
| avmich wrote:
| I feel really sorry for you.
|
| If you believe you have good skills, make absolutely sure
| necessary people know about it. Be very public. Tell about
| yourself, show examples of your work - in this case it would
| probably benefit to work on side projects and demonstrate
| progress; you'll open yourself to lots of criticism, but win in
| the Theodore Roosevelt (man on the arena) sense. Becoming this
| public may be uncomfortable, but it's a necessary ingredient; you
| won't realistically get to a "deal" with people if those people
| unaware about you.
|
| Don't allow yourself to become homeless if possible. If you don't
| have close friends, ask for help from less close. Be prepared -
| and then proceed - to spend next weeks and months concentrated on
| the task; again, make sure everybody knows about it, what you're
| doing and your progress. I wouldn't mind periodically read here
| about it. You have a lot of work to do, but you're not alone in
| the situation like this; try to make a good example to others.
| [deleted]
| megameter wrote:
| I believe you are a fundamentally honest person who is trying to
| mimick the things grifters brag about doing and jump ahead of the
| line. I know this path because I tried it years ago. And most
| likely, it won't work - you don't have it in you to go that way.
|
| But neither can you be a washed up 20-something begging for pity.
| You are probably a bit too competent and proud for that.
|
| What you should do instead is be a "forever student". Now you are
| never there to snag the gig or steal the credit. You are there to
| study an "x". The x can be broad and impressive or narrow and
| miniscule. Jobs, businesses, investments, products, are all
| vehicles for pursuing this study. You will signal this at all
| times, and develop contacts and portfolio work pertinent to this
| study. Earnest emails asking "what should I do to go further with
| this" - questions that are of interest to the figure you are
| asking as well as yourself - are often golden tickets. Choose
| anything to start, and see where it pulls you. When you are in
| the vicinity of a good conversation and money is flowing around
| it, the money often ends up in your hands.
|
| However, you also have to work on yourself enough to be a great
| student. That means valuing your body, household, social conduct
| and other things, and to see "access to resources" in a broader
| sense than salary. Taking a shit job or sacrificing some living
| conditions can be the right move if it buys you time, but if it
| makes your health deteriorate it might be the wrong move too.
| People get a lot of comfort out of doing the simple stuff well,
| and you have decades to get the big picture things right. It's OK
| to be unambitious.
|
| Do some self-talk, journal a bit, exercise, eat well. Aim to get
| the concerns "out of you" so that you can act in the world with
| focus and purpose.
| brundolf wrote:
| Have you tried talking with a recruiting agency? I notice you've
| mostly applied at household-name companies, many of which are
| very competitive. The majority of the tech jobs out there are not
| at companies you've ever heard of. Recruiters (third-party, not
| in-house) are motivated to find you something that's a good fit
| because they get commission (from the company) based on you
| getting hired. They'll coach you, help you with your resume, draw
| from a huge pool of companies to find something that's just the
| right fit. Their job is solving this exact problem.
| matt_heimer wrote:
| And OP, ask them to help you find long term positions. It
| sounds like your resume shows a lack of commitment and it'd be
| good to show you can stick with something for more than a year.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| Yeah, a headhunter might be a good idea. I'll check out some
| which were mentioned here. I heard of triplebyte but have
| heard they've done some sketchy stuff (spam emails, exposing
| PI) etc. But it sounds like they do have incentives to
| champion applicants.
| yeezyseezy wrote:
| This is a great tip. Earlier in my career I was stuck at a mid-
| point where I didn't have quite enough experience to get hired
| by a household-name tech company, and working with third-party
| recruiters made finding a job easy. Knowing what I know now, I
| never would have even made it past screening at a lot of
| companies. They will take a cut of your salary, but they'll
| also work hard to sell you, as that's the only way they get
| paid. You are to them what a house is to a realtor, and the
| market is hot right now.
| brundolf wrote:
| > They will take a cut of your salary
|
| I've never had one that did this (or told me about it, at
| least). My understanding was that the company is basically
| paying them to find talent, so you're the product being sold.
| Sometimes there's even a clause that if you quit too soon
| they have to give back their commission, which further
| incentivizes them to make sure you really are a good fit.
| dotBen wrote:
| I've hired tons of people, I've never offered someone less
| because they came in via a recruiter. You typically budget
| for salary + recruiter fee and if someone is hired
| organically then that's a bonus.
|
| You don't pay someone less because they came via a
| recruiter because then they are going to be poached for
| being underpaid. You also don't pay someone more because
| they didn't come in via a recruiter otherwise now I have
| guys working on varying salaries which creates issues if
| that comes out in a team.
|
| source: prior founder, hiring manager at large companies,
| etc
| danielheath wrote:
| If the hiring officer has a budget of 150k for the first
| year, and the recruiter charges 30k, how much are they
| going to offer you?
| admax88q wrote:
| You can still negotiate to what you're worth. If you're
| no better than the applicants they got without recruiters
| then good luck, but that's why companies are hiring from
| recruiters, they can't find the talent on their own.
| HunterWare wrote:
| You likely just didn't realize it. Usually the head-hunter
| cut is a % of the new hire's salary for a length of time
| and is paid by the hiring company. So you never see it...
| but if someone gets hired directly then they can usually
| negotiate a higher salary instead of that money going to
| the non-existent headhunter. Another way of saying it is
| that initial offerings through a headhunter are lower since
| the cost is higher to the company.
| yeezyseezy wrote:
| This is my experience, either the recruiter will want to
| pay you directly, thus the company can avoid its own HR
| red-tape, or their deal with the recruiter is
| deliberately hidden from you, but you still join FTE. Of
| course, there's a million different ways to do this, but
| an organization like Triplebyte is upfront about taking
| 30% of your salary for two years.
| ritchiea wrote:
| This is great advice. I would add: don't wait for them to coach
| you, tell them what your strengths are and how you've had
| trouble finding a job at big tech companies. Let them know
| you're open to smaller and lesser known tech companies and that
| you want to be coached to help you with the interviews. Because
| you're striking out at the interview stage and you know you can
| perform better.
|
| EDIT: based on the first reply I got I want to revise this
| slightly. Don't go into too much detail about who rejected you
| or how many times. In fact keep the details short but make it
| clear you think interviewing is a weakness they should coach
| you with
| Covzire wrote:
| Personally I wouldn't volunteer to tell them which or how
| many big tech companies rejected my resume. I'm afraid that
| nine times out of ten it would create undue prejudice in the
| interviewer/recruiter.
| ritchiea wrote:
| Thanks that is actually great advice. I added an addendum
| suggesting let agencies know he could use interview
| coaching but avoid details like where he's applied already
| or to how many companies.
| brundolf wrote:
| Important to note that interviewer and recruiter are two
| different parties. The interviewer's job is to be skeptical
| of you; the recruiter's job is to polish you up and sell
| you to the interviewer. The recruiter is on your side, so
| it makes sense to be open with them.
|
| (Note that this _only_ applies to recruiting agencies. A
| "recruiter" at the company you're interviewing for is the
| exact opposite story.)
| eBombzor wrote:
| Can you recommend any good third party recruiting agencies for
| tech?
| viklove wrote:
| Vettery, Jobot, Triplebyte
| g_sch wrote:
| I've had pretty good experiences with Hired before. Coming
| out of a product consulting background, I wasn't sure I was
| going to have the requisite experience to transition to an
| in-house role, but they found several leads for me and I
| ended up landing a gig with a significantly higher starting
| salary than I expected.
| HeyLaughingBoy wrote:
| I have had good experiences with Aerotech. Really nice people
| who listen to what you want and try to find it for you.
| anp wrote:
| I got my first bay area job through Triplebyte -- they were
| pretty perfect for me being able to demonstrate technical
| ability without a deep resume. Their process has gotten more
| cookie cutter over the years but the resume-blindness might
| be an asset in OP's situation. They're also much better
| positioned to give feedback on why you're struggling in
| interviews than an HN thread.
| darepublic wrote:
| I get contacted by them through linked in. They probably pay
| to search people with certain resume attributes, and then
| just spam email them in a numbers game to try to put credible
| candidates in front of their clients
| brundolf wrote:
| I'm not sure. Most of the ones I've talked to have contacted
| me on LinkedIn or by email, and I'm not sure how local they
| are/aren't to my area.
|
| Now that I think about it I'm not sure how to actually seek
| one out otherwise... you might attract them by putting
| buzzwords on your LinkedIn? It probably isn't too hard to
| Google for them either
| dylan604 wrote:
| Googling just returns the sites that have won the SEO game.
| While it will return results, it's not anywhere the same as
| personal recos/warnings from like minded people. At least
| it might help with picking something from a search result.
| I might even put more weight into HN recos over something
| like Amazon reviews, maybe ;-)
| tern wrote:
| You remind me of some of my friends. I think you might benefit
| from a little perspective--standard life narrative scripts (like:
| "get a job") might not be so helpful for you, for instance. Shoot
| me an email rot13(baylgjbpnacynlguvftnzr) at gmail and we can
| jump on a call sometime.
| [deleted]
| 5cott0 wrote:
| i don't believe you
| ReptileMan wrote:
| IMO you want two incompatible things - you want the security and
| good pay of a corporate drone while living the hotshot maverick
| life that gets away with being above the things. There are few
| jobs that will allow you that and they require to be with the
| company from the start, a smaller company and quite a bit of luck
| to land one.
|
| So just choose one of those paths.
| txaway595 wrote:
| Throwaway so this can't be linked to my professional persona.
|
| In this specific paragraph I would usually provide my work
| history to back what I'm saying I can't however so you need to
| put a bit of trust that I'm a specialist at hiring people to
| different tech jobs. If you don't, well, your call.
|
| Based on those few short paragraphs I can see many flaws with
| your character and our interview would probably be very short
| even if you'd be able to _cheat_ your way in - as I don't believe
| that your entry information isn't oversweetened to the point of
| puke.
|
| So from hi - Paper takes everything, deep background check is
| usually far after interview. You can write anything there. If
| it's plausible we can talk. - Contrary to what some people here
| say, tech interviews aren't reward in their own. It's not random
| chance to get 1/500. Multi-staged mixed-interviewers are here for
| a reason. One person can make mistake. 5 people reviewing same
| person will find almost everything - You're desperate. Desperate
| people aren't good specialists. - When joining organization one
| of the most important questions is whether you can align. If you
| can't, you're out. - Even in your description you're pulling out
| the big guns - you name Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA and then
| you're a dropout who worked for a Amazon customer support role.
| Lot of smoke but no fire.
|
| There is (obviously) not a lot in your description. Probably
| resume would be in place and most likely you're presenting
| yourself from the best side which still has a lot of glaring
| issues.
|
| Anyway, on to the road to the solution. You need to get character
| assessment and possibly even therapy. My guess is you're
| exhibiting toxic behavior and if I'm correct it's very possible
| you're not aware about it.
|
| I believe that your road to FAANG is burned down already, it's
| not that surprising that you haven't tried to work for smaller
| companies as your post screams "I'm the best and deserve the
| best" which is yet another sign that something is wrong with your
| character.
|
| Place where I work provides detailed feedback for rejected
| candidates. I know that at least some of the FAANG provides
| detailed feedback too. If you haven't received one it means it
| was decided that you're toxic/troublemaker/straight liar and any
| interaction with you is not only cost but also might start a
| process no one wants to handle.
|
| Fix yourself and you'll get a job.
| ritchiea wrote:
| Have you been looking for security based roles and pen testing
| type roles? It sounds like you enjoy that type of work moreso
| than you'd enjoy a typical software dev job where you're building
| web forms or APIs that return JSON etc. I would also second the
| suggestion that you speak to recruiting agencies but even through
| agencies first look for jobs in security that could take
| advantage of your natural curiosity in that area. You sound
| naturally in love with technology but not necessarily a builder.
| And that may not be a bad thing if you can just find the right
| opportunity. Also maybe reach out to Hacker News user tptacek
| [1]?
|
| And if you do use agencies ask for advice/coaching through
| interviews from day 0.
|
| 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek
| antiviral wrote:
| There are already some excellent responses here.
|
| I get the sense that you are still trying to figure out what role
| is ideally suited for you, is that correct?
|
| If that's true, here's an out-of-the-box idea.. Why not get a job
| as a recruiter?
|
| Assuming it pays insurance, it might give you a chance to
| stabilize your expenses, learn about what tech companies look
| for, and how they operate. You'll also build a network by helping
| others get jobs.
|
| In your spare time you can work on a few open-source projects
| that demonstrate your competence as a developer, if that's what
| you want.
|
| Good luck!
| DyslexicAtheist wrote:
| Forget about Tech & hiring for a minute. Try to pretend you're
| not in dire straits financially and think where you'd like to be
| professionally if these things weren't the issue. What kind of
| job would you like to do if things were going well? No hiring
| manager will want to hear "I'm flexible", or "I can do anything"
| they want you to know for yourself exactly where you have set
| your mind at so there is little risk for them when they match you
| to what they have. Flexibility does backfire so avoid it!
|
| There are many rants on social media right now from people who
| love hating on the meme that you need passion for your job. They
| are right ofc that this is overrated (and the point of where HR
| people sound like hallmark cards peddling passion as a
| requirement for the job also makes my stomach turn). But if it
| weren't for passion I'd have nothing in life and no desire to
| achieve anything.
|
| It's also not enough to use passion to get out of where you are
| but it often is the first step in initiating needed change. Once
| you have it (don't be too eager to announce it but let it be your
| engine). Passion helped me to put up with a lot of other crap in
| life because it's like blinders on a horse that make you power
| through the shit while others say it can't be done. It allows you
| to be stubborn when you need to be (but others telling you "you
| can't afford its luxury"). It will also help keep your eyes on
| the ball when the road takes you on a detour. The best trips
| usually do, or as Mike Tyson said _" everyone has a plan till
| they get punched". So better be great at rolling with the
| punches.
|
| The problems you describe means you're the underdog that has to
| work 10x the normal rate and people like to hate on them because
| it provides them the contrast that they need to feel good
| themselves. They point their petty fingers and say "look how well
| I'm doing in comparison", and you need to assume many will do
| that instead of really helping you. You can sense the tone of
| some in this thread. Be sure many IRL will also get hung up on
| that you tried to spoof the number. But really nobody gives a
| shit as long as you don't tell them. We all fuck up, so move on,
| do better next time. And don't listen to anyone but yourself (and
| below is the reason why this is crucial).
|
| People in your situation don't really know any more what their
| _self* wants in the long run and are forced to take the next best
| opportunity (anything really because as your environment tells
| you: you can't afford to be picky).
|
| You may think you're not even in a position to say no to
| anything. Any crap somebody offers you will need to be
| "evaluated" as it were "the deal of your life"! And this is what
| wastes your time and what may cost you dearly, there is nothing
| more expensive than being poor (having no options). So be careful
| with any and all advise and with the opportunities that you
| consider taking and reject them when needed. This is a mindfuck
| because how could you when you seem to have no choice: but you
| always have choice! And as others here have said: take a step
| back (meaning step out of your comfort zone and accept a detour).
| You still got the best years in front of you but it depends on
| the things you set in motion _today_. Many don't have that luxury
| anymore (even they talk a big game).
|
| If you can't get your foot in the door try to find something that
| allows you to survive, but where you can also carve out just
| enough time on working on a side project (or whatever you decide
| tickles your fancy. It doesn't need to be work related - that
| might come anyway automatically[1]) and build a social network
| from there (because you are forced but more importantly because
| you want to and it feels right).
|
| It might take months or it could take years. But the point is
| that you keep moving. Sometimes quite literally. You can optimize
| your luck by packing light and move to another city or country to
| do whatever you find. It's perhaps gonna suck very often but it
| also gonna be an adventure, and more important, you'll find that
| you're learning something new and expand your social circle. So
| even when the job sucks you know that it's not for nothing (you
| still got a hobby or social circle to maintain a healthy _self*).
|
| Be patient with yourself and don't hate people for considering
| you "toxic" right now. Meaningful (professional)relationships
| will only happen if you are 100% at peace with what you do (and
| are able to say NO to 9 out of 10 things without losing sleep).
| People (even the dumb ones) are experts at knowing when somebody
| is in a rut (which means only the creeps and vampires stick
| around so be cautious). Build a relationship with yourself again
| first. The rest will come from that. (it can _never_ be the other
| way around and if you try it might land you in a world of pain
| and misery)
|
| Also forget romantic relationships for now (if there are any).
| Put yourself first. Don't limit yourself in this situation to the
| demands of a relationship and don't expect from others that they
| stay with you during all the changes you might have to put
| yourself through. Hope this doesn't come across rough, and
| apologies for it only being generic feedback :)
|
| Hunter S. Thompson's Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a
| Meaningful Life https://fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-
| hume-logan/
|
| If you want drop me an email. Best of luck!_
| perl4ever wrote:
| I suggest temping.
|
| When I needed to do that, I found only _one_ agency out of like
| half a dozen in my area was any help. It was the same one that I
| got a job through almost 20 years ago. So it 's important not to
| give up if some of them seem to be wasting your time.
|
| If you need good benefits, then a government job may be the way
| to go. I've never known anyone who got one directly, but there
| can be loopholes, and temping is one route.
|
| Extremely boring companies and organizations are more likely to
| promote you from a low level job in my experience, because
| they're not drowning in talent in the first place. Get a job
| doing stuff manually, figure out how to automate it.
|
| Listening to people who have trouble explaining what they need
| can be far more valuable than pure technical skill. Treating
| nontechnical people as human beings is easier than anything
| people will tell you to do on HN.
| topkai22 wrote:
| It is no guarentee, but temping/contractor work is how I got
| into Big Tech. I did a good enough job and impressed enough
| people the team was willing to pick me up full time.
|
| However, I would warn the OP that the most important thing is
| to start building a portfolio of reliablity.
| Temping/contracting can be demeaning- you ABSOLUTELY are a
| second class citizen on the teams. You will be assigned the
| least strategic work, because if it was strategic they would
| have an FTE do it. The key thing is to push through and build
| up a basis of trust- you can do whatever is needed, when it is
| needed, even if its not what you wanted, and do so in a way
| that people enjoy being around you.
| meheleventyone wrote:
| There's not really a lot of detail to target advice to. You don't
| even share what roles you're applying for at the companies you
| list.
|
| From the sounds of things you don't sound unhireable as you've
| had several jobs. You just quit them for perhaps bad reasons?
| Even in a situation where I have a good social safety net I
| wouldn't quit a job I needed unless I had something else lined
| up.
|
| > I need a job with decent health/dental insurance. Medicaid is
| useless. I might be homeless soon.
|
| Pragmatically you need to deal with these material needs first.
| It's going to be exponentially harder to reach for the jobs you
| think you deserve if you aren't able to take care of your
| physical needs properly. I really sympathize here though, the
| healthcare system is the US is a joke.
|
| Practically I think you need to make a couple of plans:
|
| 1) Short-term: How to stabilize your own life so you meet your
| living needs. You as you say you need a steady job and some level
| of health coverage. Go through the usual things of making sure
| your applications match the roles and so on.
|
| 2) Long-term: You sound like you want an entry level software
| engineering or cyber-security role in a high status company. You
| need to put down a realistic assessment of where you are and a
| realistic plan of how to get there. This probably requires
| swallowing a bit of pride and admitting to your current faults.
|
| Ideally for both bits try and find someone you trust and will
| listen to who you can give you advice based on an unvarnished
| account of where you are at now. Reading between the lines it
| sounds like you need a bit of a reality check but that's
| obviously hard to do without knowing more about you.
| bawolff wrote:
| > Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb,
| Palantir
|
| Maybe try some less big-name companies. Google is not the easiest
| place to land a job.
|
| > Reading Meyers, Knuth etc
|
| As in the art of programming? If you read the entirety of that,
| and understood it, that's a huge accomplishment. Probably not
| something that will get you a job (i know everyone complains
| about having to reverse a binary tree on a whiteboard, but its
| pretty rare to actually need to do that). Anyways, its something
| you should be proud of.
|
| > and wrote a detailed e-mail to the VP in charge of the anti-
| fraud system
|
| I don't know how it works at amazon, but usually VPs aren't the
| right person to contact about bugs.
|
| > I tried cold contacting executives at a few companies. Got
| meeting with SVP at Dell, CISO etc. was fruitless though. Spoofed
| number to bypass contact whitelist etc.
|
| Definitely don't do that. Any plan for getting a job that
| involves tricking people or being obnoxious, is a bad plan.
|
| ----
|
| I think you need to work on demonstrating your value/selling
| yourself. Like just from this paragraph (i appreciate its not a
| resume), its unclear if you have very good hard skills (no
| degree, no work history. You don't have to have a degree or work
| history to get a job, but if you don't have those you need
| something else to demonstrate you have those skills. You need to
| be able to say something to make the interviewer think you can do
| the job). Its also sounds like you have weak soft skills (e.g.
| how to negotiate the politics of an office environment, what is
| and isn't appropriate in a professional environment, how to get
| along with others, etc). My understanding is that often people
| who go to therapy for other reasons often need help with that
| sort of thing, so a therapist might be able to point you in the
| direction of resources to help with that sort of thing.
| scoopertrooper wrote:
| Best way to get a job is to get a job. Developers are in hot
| demand, so you must be able to find a job... somewhere. It may
| not be the best company, but you'll get a foot hold in the
| industry.
| Insanity wrote:
| What immediately stands out here is that you apply for companies
| that are extremely competitive. Maybe try to go for non-FAANG-
| style companies first.
|
| There's plenty of work in the software field. An income is better
| than no income. Admittedly, my perspective is European, so I'm
| not sure just how bad health/dental etc actually is when working
| for 'regular companies' but I imagine it can't be that bad for
| any SWE role?
| xwolfi wrote:
| Have you tried consulting shops ? They can be hard and inhumane,
| but they take anyone then sell you in batches to big clients, you
| can then build up a bit of resellable skills.
| dotBen wrote:
| First off, your HN submission history is really weird, dude.
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=snakedoctor)
|
| If you get a job in customer support at Amazon there is literally
| no way to get a 'promotion' to a dev role. It's different parts
| of the org, and you're tarnished with being a CS person. Why?
| Because it's signaling - people who can do eng roles at Amazon
| don't take CS roles so they don't bother mining to check on the
| rare chance someone in CS can.
|
| In your replies you say _" I haven't lasted anywhere longer than
| 2 months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm
| not getting appropriate compensation."_
|
| If your resume reflects that you've bounced around after a few
| months as a hiring manager I'm not even going to bother offering
| you an interview.
|
| You also said your were home schooled and many people here have
| commented you might have social skill issues. I am not a doctor
| but I wonder if you have delusions of grandeur around your
| abilities which is creating a miss-match of expectation leading
| you to quit jobs you need to tough it out in. Or you have
| dyslexia or another learning difficulty _(I have dyslexia, I quit
| school, never went to university, did many shit jobs to work my
| way up, it took years and years)_
|
| I would suggest you find someone who is an actual hiring manager
| to give you a mock interview and analyze their feedback. If you
| can't find someone closer in your circle, I'll give you mock 30
| minute interview _(I 've hired countless engineers, designers,
| PMs and other roles in the last 20+ years)_
|
| If you want a career in tech you do need to get out of the wrong
| swim-lane, which a CS role at Amazon is the wrong lane as it will
| never convert to where you want it to go.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Homeschooled doesn't _imply_ social skill deficit. Sure, some
| homeschooled kids have social skill issues, but some public
| school kids also have social skill issues.
|
| In the end, a healthy, non-insular, loving, connected family
| (either family of origin or a healthy/happy group into which
| one is welcomed and spends lots of time) is the only necessary
| requirement for healthy social skills, and it's often
| sufficient as well.
| chillfox wrote:
| Homeschooling is frequently paired with some degree of
| insular.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Only in the (few) news stories you read about some sick
| family; I'm convinced those are hand-picked outliers to
| reinforce a narrative that homeschooling=bad.
| chillfox wrote:
| There is no need for a family to be "sick" or not loving
| for homeschooling to end up being a little insular.
|
| I grew up being home schooled while traveling the world.
| It definitely resulted in weaker social skills as I
| lacked long friendships. Making lasting friendships and
| maintaining relationships is a skill I had to learn later
| in life.
| [deleted]
| suck-it-dang wrote:
| It is not necessary.
|
| My wife came from a broken home and extreme poverty, and yet
| she is infinitely more relatable and empathetic than the
| average knuckle-dragging troglodyte HN poster.
| snapetom wrote:
| > wonder if you have delusions of grandeur around your
| abilities which is creating a miss-match of expectation leading
| you to quit jobs you need to tough it out in.
|
| Not a doctor either, but I would agree with this. OP seems to
| have a disconnect between what reality and the old days of the
| first bubble where if you could spell programmer, you got a job
| as one.
|
| It doesn't work like that anymore, OP. Too much competition,
| too many people with more experience, skill, and education than
| you. You need to put in the work and rid yourself of any notion
| that you are entitled to a dev job.
|
| And it's probably my naivete, but I tend to think the social
| awkwardness/spectrum issues aren't as strong as people here are
| saying. This is engineering. There's always been a higher
| percentage of people on the spectrum than in other fields. At
| any given job, I'd say about 1/3 of my coworkers are somewhere
| on the spectrum. I haven't been a job where people who simply
| have awkward communication skills aren't offered. Now, if they
| do come across as an arrogant dick, spectrum or not, that's an
| entirely different issue.
| bad44 wrote:
| > _Not a doctor either_
|
| Then maybe it's time to shut the fuck up? Even a real doctor
| would not be qualified to diagnose someone based on an
| internet post.
| atoav wrote:
| Yes, but as a programmer I'd rather have a mediocre
| programmer who is a good communicator and who knows how to
| integrate with the team, than someone who has uncontrolled
| narcissistic tendecies and oversteps boundaries constantly
| even if they technically know more.
|
| This has btw. not much to do with being on the spectrum. I
| also worked with people with disorders which integrated quite
| well into the team, because they understood the processes and
| the scope of their position. They all were able to
| differenciate criticism of their work from criticism of their
| very being as a person.
| noodle wrote:
| > Yes, but as a programmer I'd rather have a mediocre
| programmer who is a good communicator and who knows how to
| integrate with the team
|
| I wholeheartedly agree with this, but fwiw, the FAANG
| companies OP applies for generally speaking don't. I think
| the applicable advice is for OP to go work for a smaller
| company.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| Customer support for _AWS_ can convert into other roles pretty
| easily, just apply for internal transfers for adjacent roles or
| move into devops etc at another company.
|
| But if you have programming skills, I agree you're far off
| going directly for dev roles instead.
| taabcd wrote:
| For amazon, the move it _not_ to apply formally through the
| internal jobs site. Clicking apply will notify your manager
| instantly.
|
| So the accepted practice is to connect directly with the HM
| for a chat/pre-interview and once they say they are inclined
| (barring unexpected info), click apply. This is fairly common
| and expected.
| Clewza313 wrote:
| This is typical for internal transfers in large companies,
| pressing Apply is (almost) the last step.
|
| From the other side of equation as a hiring manager, it's a
| small negative signal if somebody internal applies "cold",
| the good candidates tend to reach out first.
| taabcd wrote:
| +1
|
| Dont do this at apple though*
|
| *this is hearsay. Maybe up/downvotes can help resolve
| this?
| snakedoctor wrote:
| Yeah it pings your manager whenever you apply internally.
| That is an interesting work around. You can see
| HM/Sourcer/Recruiter for any roles internally. Then just
| get their contact information via Phone tool.
| taabcd wrote:
| steps: 1) chime or slack them asking to setup a 30 minute
| sync about the role. 2) see what they want and if
| "apply"ing makes sense. If not, figure out your gaps.
|
| Do this 5ish times. See where the gaps are. Work to fill
| them.
|
| oh and get on blind so you can learn from other people's
| mistakes :)
| Igelau wrote:
| > First off, your HN submission history is really weird, dude.
|
| That's creepy and a poor start for giving someone social skills
| advice.
| gnulinux wrote:
| I strongly disagree. Going through an anonymous person's
| social media history just to give social advice sounds
| appropriate. That is the only input GP could work with.
| JamesDeepDown wrote:
| "I'll give you mock 30 minute interview (I've hired countless
| engineers, designers, PMs and other roles in the last 20+
| years)"
|
| This is an incredibly generous offer and I hope it gets done,
| because it would BY FAR the most valuable thing that the OP
| needs.
| suck-it-dang wrote:
| So that this clown can call OP "really weird" in person, or
| what?
|
| The world would be a better place if all of these smug
| Silicon Valley dimwits were shackled up and forced to clear
| underbrush in the forests, as opposed to whatever reality-
| distortion bullshit they're working on at a FAANG.
| dotBen wrote:
| I spent almost 2hrs with _snakedoctor_ this evening. He 's a
| smart young man who just needs some pointers and advice as he
| doesn't really have anyone around him who has experience of
| landing and keeping a job in tech.
| mxxx wrote:
| Wow man, this just made my day. Good on you.
| frombody wrote:
| just wanted to say that you're a good person :)
| tomduncalf wrote:
| What an awesome way to help out. Respect!
| A_Venom_Roll wrote:
| That's awesome! You are a good human being!
| FabHK wrote:
| Bravo!
| oblio wrote:
| snakedoctor, I'm not sure you'll read this, but on the off
| chance you do, you just got at least $500 worth of
| interviewing advice. More like $1000-1500+. You'd better
| make good use of it!
| hnra wrote:
| Props to you for being amazingly empathetic!
| amacbride wrote:
| This may be the single best thing I've ever read on HN;
| truly awesome and generous for you to have reached out in
| this way.
| honkdaddy wrote:
| What a wonderful thing to do. WP Engine is great, by the
| way!
| [deleted]
| snakedoctor wrote:
| Thanks, dude. Yeah I was hesitant if I should've accepted the
| CS offer. I was planning to transfer internally to a
| SecEng/Analyst/SDE 1 role. It might've been possible. I tried
| applying internally, but my applications would just turn in to
| no longer considered after a while. ytcracker works at Amazon.
|
| I sent you an email to take you up on your mock interview
| offer.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| At Amazon internal transfers don't work by clicking the
| "Apply" button. You reach out to the hiring manager first and
| have a coffee together, then if that goes well they setup the
| internal loop, if that goes well the hiring manager tells you
| to apply and you get the job. You don't apply until after you
| have it.
| bawolff wrote:
| If you need the money you should probably take any job you
| could get. Customer support is not exactly a natural stepping
| stone, but its extremely hard to advance your career if you
| don't have enough money to survive.
| void_mint wrote:
| Have you tried asking any of the jobs that rejected you're
| getting rejected?
|
| Honestly, just a guess, you're probably giving off bad
| interpersonal vibes/people don't really like talking to you. Half
| of interviewing is just being very personable/being able to talk
| comfortably with other people. Generally in this space (this
| space meaning those interested in tech/startups/etc) sometimes
| people struggle in this area but really shine in tech. I would
| encourage you to spend some time reflecting on your interpersonal
| skills.
|
| Some other red-ish flags from your post - you kinda seem like you
| might struggle just doing exactly what you're asked to do.
| Bringing up how frequently you quit things for various reasons or
| finding issues and bringing them up with your superiors'
| superiors, spoofing numbers to get in touch with very very senior
| people. Lots of lower-tiered jobs literally just need people to
| show up and do what they're asked. A part of getting a "first" or
| "entry level" job is accepting you're there mostly to learn, not
| to teach/move outside of your lane. The fact that you would even
| bring up Bill Landreth seems like you might not necessarily see
| yourself how the rest of the world sees you.
|
| I'm not trying to offend you - I really hope you can line
| something up soon. I apologize if this feedback seems cold - I
| think reflecting on things like this can be hard because you have
| to face things about yourself you may disagree with or not
| realize. Unfortunately interviewing is such a biased game, you
| kind of have to play your opponent (meaning, be the person they
| want, not the person you are).
|
| Happy to chat through any of this stuff if you have questions.
| Wish you all the best.
| mbubb wrote:
| > Have you tried asking any of the jobs that rejected you're
| getting rejected?
|
| Great point. I interviewed at Bridgewater and they gave a good
| post mortem on why I didnt get the job. It is something that I
| now ask for after every interview process that matters to me.
|
| Doesn't always work but has changed my approach in a positive
| way. For me it takes 12 - 15 attempts to get a job. I am an
| (old)Infra/Cloud Engineer coming from a sysadmin background and
| need to constantly improve programming skills.
|
| Asking for post-rejection feedback with humility and in the
| spirit of self improvement has led to me making connections and
| leaving interviews with the feeling of an open door for future
| attempts.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I've tried asking companies for feedback. Some respond, and
| some don't. I think that most don't due to legal reasons. I did
| move to Austin when I received a lump sum of money, and hanged
| with some people IRL. Some would ratify that I'm awkward lol.
| But there was a lot of good vibes while I was in Austin. Now
| that I'm back where I grew up I find that I'm more depressed,
| and surly. State goverment here is more Laissez-faire, and
| there's a lot of crime.
|
| Reason that I mentioned that I mentioned Bill Landreth was that
| I think that I'm kinda like him. I got in to programming, RE,
| VR, soldering etc. when I was very young. Like 8 years old. I
| knew some folks that Wired articles were written about etc. I
| hanged out with a Head of Research guy at IBM who told me
| himself that I know some stuff that he doesn't know, and have
| told me that I'm smart. Which sounds cringy now that I type
| this. But I'm not delusional lol. I was the second person at 18
| years old to be hired full-time at IBM in a certain program..
| The first guy works at Armonk. I can send proof, screenshots of
| interview emails with DKIM etc. if anyone would like to verify
| my claims. Trust but verify as former president Reagan liked to
| quote.
| 6gvONxR4sf7o wrote:
| > I knew some folks that Wired articles were written about
| etc.
|
| This is a red flag right here. You put this in a list of
| evidence you're capable and not delusional? You were near
| semi-notable people.
|
| A lot of your accomplishments read that way. You were near
| something cool. You dropped out of a good school. You got a
| (self described as) low paying job at 18 at IBM. Someone
| really accomplished there complimented you once. You knew
| people who had things written about them. You were in a
| program someone who works at armonk was in. Someone else
| fixed something quickly after you flagged it. None of this is
| about you, it's all about other people.
|
| The very fact that these are what you're listing as positives
| (or at least as things relevant to you) is a red flag. Do you
| have any "I accomplished/completed..." accomplishments? You
| say you've been doing VR since you were 8, have you
| _finished_ anything worth mentioning in all that time?
|
| I agree with another commenter that your ego and expectations
| could be a problem. If you got one of the jobs you quit
| before, would you still quit it?
| ryanmickle wrote:
| Another way around this is to _not_ apply for the job. Find
| the hiring manager and ask them for advice /feedback on your
| experience/resume, that you value feedback more than
| consideration for any role. In YC we always reminded
| ourselves that if you ask for money, you get advice. Ask for
| advice, and you get money. I think this applies here. Get the
| feedback via email or writing so you can read it more than
| once or even share it with other people and have them help
| you interpret it for maximum growth. Ask people who you
| admire for advice and to look at your resume, experience,
| application, and invite them to be honest. And if you don't
| have friends you admire (because as they say we're the
| average of the 5 people with whom we spend the most time),
| expand your circle, finding ways to give to others with no
| expectation of anything in return.
|
| You've started a great dialog with yourself. Congrats, and
| keep it going.
| wwn_se wrote:
| If you know how to program you should go after that. There is
| a world wide shortage of programmers. It is also a great
| stepping stone if you want to move to something else.
|
| If you can't get hired at a place there is a gig economy of
| sorts with lots of sites where you can bid yourself on
| projects. Start with small easy stuff and use those projects
| to build a portfolio.
|
| I about a year that portfolio should be enough to get you in
| the door (for entry level developer roles) of most companies
| even if you have never worked as a programmer yet.
| deanak wrote:
| I would not listen to any advice on HN. I have a pretty solid
| hiring strategy, but it got downvoted to hell because HN
| skews to people without much real world experience. They can
| only think of tech products to sell to other tech companies.
| (I'm a CTO, and I've raised seed money for two different
| products. Our market is small -- under 200MM ARR -- but our
| nearest competitor starts at $30k per year and their product
| is terrible).
|
| Focus on smaller companies that need help solving actual
| business problems with automation. Offer to do a project for
| $20 an hour. Get a job doing straight up IT stuff until you
| earn their trust, and then show them what you can do software
| wise. There is a lot of room for competent IT people, but you
| need to be way more realistic about who is going to hire you.
|
| Honestly, I don't know why anyone wants to work for Google
| anyways. I took a developer course from one of their former
| employees, and it was a fucking joke. His ego trip was so
| ridiculous he said the words "no good Javascript developer
| uses four space indentions. Have you ever seen one??" And I
| was thinking, yes, in the library you had us review last
| week.
|
| Lots of imposters and jackasses out there. Do honest work for
| smaller companies. It can lead to a lot more opportunity.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| > Honestly, I don't know why anyone wants to work for
| Google anyways.
|
| I can tell you why - www.levels.fyi
|
| Google is quite literally one of the most well-known and
| powerful tech companies in the world - I assume it's not
| that hard to think people who work in tech would want to
| associate with an organization int hat position.
|
| ---
|
| I don't understand your basis of judging the skills of
| their engineers either. You had one data point of taking a
| course from a former engineer - not working together with,
| not a current Googler. Google employs thousands of Software
| Engineers and represent a large part of the Internet.
| void_mint wrote:
| > I would not listen to any advice on HN. I have a pretty
| solid hiring strategy, but it got downvoted to hell because
| HN skews to people without much real world experience. They
| can only think of tech products to sell to other tech
| companies.
|
| < Proceeds to give advice on HN >
|
| This part doesn't really seem worthwhile to post.
|
| > Focus on smaller companies that need help solving actual
| business problems with automation. Offer to do a project
| for $20 an hour. Get a job doing straight up IT stuff until
| you earn their trust, and then show them what you can do
| software wise. There is a lot of room for competent IT
| people, but you need to be way more realistic about who is
| going to hire you.
|
| Excellent advice.
| deanak wrote:
| > This part doesn't really seem worthwhile to post.
|
| I restrict my social media time to a couple of hours a
| week. If you want to be successful, hustle on LinkedIn.
| HackerNews is a procrastination hole for people who want
| to talk about developing software instead of actually
| doing it.
| void_mint wrote:
| This post also doesn't really seem worthwhile, but you're
| entitled to your opinion.
|
| LinkedIn is basically facebook. I would argue that
| anything Facebook-esque is a fundamental waste of time.
| Misinformation spewing influencer spam.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| > Focus on smaller companies that need help solving
| actual business problems with automation.
|
| Thirding this. Smaller companies are easier to get into
| and actually more satisfying to work for (YMMV). Another
| responder also said basically "keep your head down and
| learn for the first year" which is great advice too.
| deanak wrote:
| PS: Never sound desperate. If you have the skills,
| confidently and honestly explain them to anyone who will
| listen. Tell them you'll work for cheap to prove yourself.
| You should have a job in no time.
| void_mint wrote:
| I'm not challenging you on whether or not you're smart. I'm
| commenting on the fact that you're unable to find employment,
| which means either you're carrying yourself incorrectly or
| you're unable to perform the tasks required of an entry-level
| applicant. You're bringing up this resume, these
| achievements, which can verify that you're intelligent and
| capable of critical thinking, so the greatest culprit would
| be that you're carrying yourself incorrectly, right?
|
| In another post you brought up your longest stint being 2
| months, and that you dropped out of college your freshman
| year. To be blunt, I don't think the achievements you list
| really count if you didn't actually complete them. There's a
| lot of "I worked with", "I got accepted to", "I got hired by"
| in your posts, but pretty much all of those things are
| followed by quitting almost immediately. When you're
| competing in a market with college grads and people with lots
| of previous experience, having gotten accepted to and then
| dropping out of a good school buys you much?
| bawolff wrote:
| Its important to remember being smart and being good at
| your job, are very different things.
|
| Many jobs do not require much intelligence. Even those that
| do, usually its just one component of the skills required.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I can vouch for that. Often what employers want is
| someone they can rely on.
| qiqitori wrote:
| I have a feeling that many jobs don't really require a lot
| of intelligent work(?), and it's really hard to get used to
| that.
|
| I definitely quit my first job because of that. My second
| job was better, but there wasn't all that much to learn, so
| I quit relatively soon. Now I'm on my third job, and there
| definitely hasn't been a lot of intellectual stimulation
| these days. Last time for something (that I was actually
| assigned and didn't just decide to do) was maybe late last
| year? The job itself pays well though and has some other
| perks.
|
| I doubt there are many jobs that are interesting 100% of
| time. Better try to accept that.
|
| Also most of my recommendations were rejected on my first
| job (large company), but most or even all were incorporated
| at my second job (startup).
|
| @OP Did you mostly apply at well-known companies? Maybe go
| for a startup instead. Maybe you'll even be able to start a
| new department and not run out of stuff to do to keep
| yourself interested.
| jonstewart wrote:
| One of the hardest lessons for young people early in their
| careers is to stop beginning sentences with "I am going
| to..." or "I am doing..." and instead start off with a
| [truthful!] "I did..."
|
| With an abusive childhood, homeschooling, no college, OP
| has a long road to travel. That all needs to be addressed,
| and finding a supportive environment will make that much
| easier. A career is based on achievement, however,
| beginning with simply doing the work and staying employed.
| void_mint wrote:
| > One of the hardest lessons for young people early in
| their careers is to stop beginning sentences with "I am
| going to..." or "I am doing..." and instead start off
| with a [truthful!] "I did..."
|
| It's tough all around I think. It seems like OP might've
| observed signaling in the past that suggested that
| "appearing to be a good candidate" and "being a good
| candidate" are identical, and in actuality are usually
| not. It's tough because of nepotism, sometimes appearing
| to be a good candidate is good enough, but for most
| people you actually have to be at least close to as good
| a candidate as you appear to be. Meaning, if you include
| that you went to X university, you actually have to have
| worked through a substantial amount of that university's
| curriculum. Same with any internship/program/whatever -
| there's almost no value in having just been invited to
| attend.
| user5994461 wrote:
| >>> which means either you're carrying yourself incorrectly
| or you're unable to perform the tasks required of an entry-
| level applicant.
|
| That's reading too far IMO. I see no mention of a degree at
| a reputable college. I see experience in support/QA, that
| has no relevance to the work of a developer (and it didn't
| go well apparently).
|
| I don't expect that sort of profile to be invited to job
| interviews. The job market is brutal.
| void_mint wrote:
| Sorry, I should've rephrased to say "you're being
| assessed as carrying yourself incorrectly or being unable
| to perform..."
|
| Meaning, if they're making it to an interview, they might
| be failing at a personality/conversational portion, and
| if they're not, it's probably because their
| resume/achievements do not get them to the next interview
| phase.
| helpfulanon wrote:
| Your ego is a huge problem.
| flurdy wrote:
| Getting back on the ladder is hard if you fell off.
|
| For applications and interviews for the people hiring it is
| all about perception and reducing risk. When hiring
| managers/assistants go through the piles of applications they
| throw away any with red flags, or at best put them in the
| maybe pile. If a lot of non-red flag applications they
| discard the maybes as well.
|
| Don't have red flags, or at least camouflage them as best you
| can on the CV, don't lie though.
|
| In the interviews don't raise red flags either. Some of your
| original post and comments are potential red flags to me.
| Practice interviews over and over again, and have ready made
| answers to all awkward possible questions. No excuses though,
| make them a good thing for some reason.
|
| I suck at the first interview I do every time I go through
| the finding-a-new-job/contract process. But by the 2nd,
| perhaps 3rd, I have remembered the fine art of interviewing,
| and regurgitate the same practised answers over and over
| again, and mostly get offered the jobs. Practice.
|
| Don't have gaps on your CV. I have gaps on my CV, but you
| can't really spot them. E.g. I removed mentioning months to
| just state the calendar years I was at companies. Sometimes
| there was a 6 months gaps but you can't tell. I also took a
| long time off to help when the kids were young. On my CV I
| just list the smaller projects I was working on at the time
| instead, even if that was just 10 hours a week. It is all
| about perception for the person skim-reading your CV.
|
| Ps. in an interview don't say "I did move to Austin when I
| received a lump sum of money, and hanged with some people".
| Reword that to something career positive. E.g. took a gap
| year, worked on startup ideas, taking mentoring lessons, or
| at best don't mention it. I know when you are young it is a
| normal thing to do, just it looks or sounds terrible in a
| hiring process. Again don't have gaps.
|
| Also never again mention that other people say you are smart,
| know some smart people etc. It is irrelevant, and mostly off
| putting. Nice for your own self-esteem but not for anyone
| else. Instead show examples of things you delivered.
|
| Remember you are not the only person applying for that role.
| Make them want you, as a non-risk option. You also need to
| seem keen on the company but also make them aware you have
| other options and are not desperate even if not true...
| nl wrote:
| > Reason that I mentioned that I mentioned Bill Landreth was
| that I think that I'm kinda like him.
|
| Bill Landreth was homeless in Santa Monica in 2016[1]. Plenty
| of smart people have ended up the same way.
|
| I think you might be making the mistake of thinking that
| being smart matters. It doesn't matter very much - if the
| outcome is "success" (whatever that means) then generally
| speaking having people like you is a better predictor than
| being smart.
|
| Do people like you? If not then fix that. Read "How to win
| friends and influence people" and follow the advice.
|
| [1] https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-the-
| teen...
| fooblitzky wrote:
| Many companies large enough to have HR and/or legal departments
| have rules specifically against providing feedback to
| candidates on why they were rejected.
| cobaltoxide wrote:
| That may be true, but I've had good luck asking recruiters
| for feedback after getting bad news. They usually give some
| good advice or feedback - over the phone, of course, never in
| writing. Typically they say something like "You were really
| strong in X but the hiring manager is looking for someone
| with more Y." One recruiter told me that the HM had given me
| the thumbs down saying I was "insufficiently succinct" in my
| answers! But even there, I had good rapport with the
| recruiter and he was able to suggest other roles within the
| company.
| WalterBright wrote:
| If you get feedback that doesn't make much sense, it's
| likely not the real reason. Just like if a date rejects
| you, they'll give some silly fake reason why.
| procombo wrote:
| Sometimes the reason they give you is just the one that
| pushed you over the edge. At Amazon being "insufficiently
| succinct" is a greater err than one might think.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > insufficiently succinct
|
| I like that one. I've done interviews where the answer
| _should_ be at most a summary sentence, and 2-3
| supporting points. I know the candidate knows the answer,
| it 's a warmup question! Then what do I get? Word salad.
| A gigantic run-on sentence where the candidate talks and
| talks and talks and this, and that, and also, and
| furthermore... lasting 5 minutes or until I politely
| interrupt with, "OK let's move on to the next question."
| inopinatus wrote:
| I've been a FAANG hiring manager and those rules were not
| rigidly enforced. There are other deterrents, however. As a
| younger manager I was keen to respond to such requests, but a
| significant proportion of unsuccessful candidates would then
| argue, sometimes quite vehemently, about the validity of the
| feedback. This curtailed my enthusiasm, and I've been rather
| selective since.
| davedx wrote:
| My experience too, it's good to give a sentence or two out
| of courtesy but the arguing and sheer bullshit you get back
| sometimes, made me shake my head.
| ghaff wrote:
| The other things is that far more commonly than sirens
| and alarm bells going off about something specific, is
| that someone just didn't wow me and I thought we could do
| better.
|
| When we meet after an interview round "meh" is a much
| more common collective reaction than "run away now."
| javajosh wrote:
| Interesting. I'm curious: roughly how often did the
| candidate promise they'd take your feedback constructively,
| calmly and then argue with you anyway?
|
| (I'd hope it would be close to 0, but I wouldn't be
| surprised if it was much higher.)
| jldl805 wrote:
| I'm a recruiter and candidates argue 95% of the time.
| Maybe higher. I only give feedback in very, very
| selective situations and even then I almost always regret
| it due to the response. Most people are not calm,
| rational, dispassionate receptors of critical feedback...
| especially when there is money and ego at stake.
| oblio wrote:
| Or just need to blow off steam: accept defeat AND also
| rant :-))
| p0sixlang wrote:
| Who do you recruit for? I'm soon to be a new grad,
| looking for a job, and if you reject me.. you could
| literally berate me for things I didn't actually do and I
| wouldn't find it appropriate or productive to argue with
| you about it. Let's set up an interview, you can record
| my reaction to the rejection and send it to those who
| argue for reference on how not to be a moron.
| jldl805 wrote:
| I don't recruit new grads so it would never happen.
| Similar to OP's post, it's almost always a situation
| where it's painfully obvious to everyone else involved
| why the person isn't getting hired, but it would be
| awkward or a waste of time to try to tell the person.
|
| It's also virtually always social skill related... if you
| weren't up to the task technically, you wouldn't have
| been asked to interview. The in person interview is
| normally to decide "do I want to see this person 40+
| hours a week for the next 5 years" rather than "can they
| do the job."
|
| Lots of exceptions obviously but mostly true across the
| board.
| macksd wrote:
| For what it's worth, that's definitely not my experience.
| I've interviewed or phone-screened at least 200 people
| over the last few years, and yes, there's been a handful
| of rejections where the major concern was social skills:
| abrasive, over-confident, poor communication or lacking
| the appearance of motivation. But I've had far more
| people who simply couldn't perform well enough on the
| technical problem or who had obviously over-stated their
| qualifications and knowledge on their resume. I actually
| distinctly remember several interviews lately where I
| really liked the candidate as a person and had a very
| enjoyable chat with them, but I just didn't think they
| would do the job well.
|
| There are a lot of flaws in the way interviews are done
| in our industry that make it more subjective than it
| should be, but I still wouldn't consider the latter set
| of problems to be social skill related.
| akamia wrote:
| This is definitely true but it doesn't hurt to ask. I've
| asked every time and gotten some really useful responses.
|
| When I was young I interviewed at Microsoft and was rejected.
| I asked the recruiter for feedback. She talked me through
| some of the feedback from the interviewers and gave me advice
| for the future. It was really helpful.
| void_mint wrote:
| I don't disagree, but I think you'd be surprised at how many
| would respond in some capacity that was helpful. Even if 100
| people refuse and one person doesn't, that's still more
| information than you had before.
|
| And in my experience, if you fail the technical portion of an
| interview, most companies will tell you. Meaning, if you ask
| and they don't bring up technical skills, it's probably not
| the technical skills.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| You can always say, "I know you can't give me a specific
| reason on why I'm being rejected, but can you offer any
| guidance on how I can do better? Anything you can offer
| could be helpful."
| loa_in_ wrote:
| I'm not the asker, but if I was in the same boat, would it be
| reasonable to instead apply directly to non-entry level jobs?
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| If you have no industry experience you will be very unlikely
| to get a job above entry level.
| taabcd wrote:
| get on linkedin. look for people in your target company who
| say they are hiring. Send them a message.
| reader_mode wrote:
| >Lots of lower-tiered jobs literally just need people to show
| up and do what they're asked. A part of getting a "first" or
| "entry level" job is accepting you're there mostly to learn,
| not to teach/move outside of your lane.
|
| I recently saw a junior CV that said "I can lead and I can
| follow" in personal skills... meanwhile his CV was full of
| spelling mistakes and his biggest project was setting up a
| website for some realestate agency.
|
| The number one thing I would want to see in a junior hire is
| effort and attention to detail, on the extreemes I prefer
| working with someone who's less talented but reliable and
| paying attention over someone who's technically capable but
| unfocused and all over the place.
| goatinaboat wrote:
| _effort and attention to detail, on the extreemes_
|
| Well, indeed.
| reader_mode wrote:
| How does that compare ? One situation is trying to present
| yourself to a potential employer the other is low effort
| anonymous forum board - if you're approaching them the same
| either you're spending too much effort on forums or too
| little on your CV :)
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| just an observation: a person who is technically capable but
| who is unfocussed and all over the place feels like an apt
| description for a lot neurodivergent behaviour in people.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> you kinda seem like you might struggle just doing exactly
| what you're asked to do. Bringing up how frequently you quit
| things for various reasons or finding issues and bringing them
| up with your superiors' superiors_
|
| Yes, this is what stood out for me. OP sounds malcontented, and
| habitually dissatisfied with his role, and makes antisocial
| decisions (like spoofing numbers - which is not just dishonest
| but shows contempt for the target) that show poor judgement. He
| compounds the poor judgement by bragging about the previous
| poor judgement.
|
| The antisocial stuff is implicit in what he doesn't mention:
| from his descriptions, his workplaces are hollow boxes with
| some juicy targets (execs) in them and nothing else. Where are
| the people? There aren't any because at some level they don't
| exist for the OP. This is, of course, a hallmark trait of
| narcissism.
|
| The good news (great news, really), is that NPD is one of the
| most treatable of personality disorders _if the person decides
| they want treatment_. The reason? The narcissist is confident
| in their ability, and confidence helps when you want to shape
| your own behavior.
|
| The caveat to all this being that free advice is worth what you
| paid for it, even less if given by a stranger on the internet.
| But, FWIW, it's my honest take. If it ends up being accurate
| (if you look up the disorder) and you get help, I'd love to
| know if this post help you. (See, I'm a little NPD too! ;)
| andbberger wrote:
| I think you're reading a lot into a very short post and that
| it's pretty ridiculous, not to mention extremely
| condescending, to suggest that OP might have NPD
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| Lots of people here agree that something's very off with
| OP. Maybe it's not NPD, but there's definitely something.
| Could just be poor personal hygiene or social skills. Maybe
| he's asking for 7 figures at every first interview.
| Personally I'm very fascinated with the duality in OP's
| mind of either working at Google or being homeless, like
| the huge middle ground doesn't exist at all.
|
| And OP seems very concerned about medical insurance, which
| might suggest something bigger behind the curtains. Young
| folks often think they're invincible, and medical insurance
| is last in their list of worries.
| javajosh wrote:
| The OP asked for candid feedback, and told us not to hold
| back. I myself added a caveat to my post to address your
| very concern. Is there something more that you think I
| should have done?
|
| (BTW I agree I'm reading a lot into his post, Sherlock
| Holmes style, but without confirmation one way or the
| other, its hard to say if I'm on target. In any event, I do
| not believe that the OP would share your umbrage, given his
| post.)
| andbberger wrote:
| Yeah you should have given them advice on how to land a
| gig and not diagnosed them with NPD. I see where you're
| coming from and I agree it might be useful for OP to work
| on how they communicate, but that should be between them
| and a therapist.
| javajosh wrote:
| There are a few assumptions that are false. For one, I am
| not a doctor, and this is not a diagnoses. It is
| explicitly an opinion based on (very) thin evidence. I
| agree they should see a therapist, if possible. I would
| not normally be so blunt, but the OP asked.
|
| But the primary false thing I want to address is the
| tacit assertion that "Telling someone they have NPD
| traits is a personal attack." I understand that
| assumption because, sadly, accusation of personality
| disorder has become a common style of personal attack.
| It's very similar, actually, to the classic status of
| "homosexuality" - once a pejoritive, now mostly just a
| fact. And I'm not sure if you noticed, but HN has a LOT
| of psychology-related content. As a group people here
| seem to show a lot of admirable compassion and empathy
| for each other's vulnerabilities. I think it's a
| remarkable feature of the place, and I hope you can take
| my words in that context. NPD is quite common in the
| world, in our field, and its entirely posssible to be a
| good person who struggles with NPD.
|
| Your protective instinct speaks well of you! But you may
| need to reassess whether or not I actually attacked the
| OP, given his request and the context of my response.
| nathias wrote:
| it is speculative, but I agree
| wildermuthn wrote:
| Fascinating take on NPD. But it's my understanding that
| narcissism is actually the hardest disorder to cure, as its
| very nature is to be in denial that anything needs to change
| -- it's the rest of the world that needs to change.
| javajosh wrote:
| _> hardest disorder to cure_
|
| ...if they don't want to change. That is a true statement.
| But, if they do want to change, it's relatively straight-
| forward.
|
| BTW the thing you can control is not your actions, or even
| your reactions, but rather your attention. The best thing a
| narcissist can do is learn to see themselves in others.
| Modulo the risk of projection (that is, ascribing _too
| much_ commonality to the other), it 's a nice judo move to
| turn a dark quality into a light one.
| fredgrott wrote:
| 1. Stop job hopping!
|
| Instead job level-up.
|
| The difference is that you build something to launch yourself up
| higher. You had the gem of that at Amazon in your outreach
| efforts but left rather than pursue it.
|
| Take it on the chin and re-contact Amazon and point out your
| previous extra efforts and point out that you would like to find
| out what path there might be for those that do such efforts.
| Possibly the same Vp you emailed the suggestion to perhaps.
|
| you have the gem already to solve this in what you did at Amazon
| in reaching out to the VP with a useful suggestion.
|
| You now have to own it in that you have to focus on those extra
| efforts with better out-reach communication. Ask that VP for
| assistance in that aspect.
| soso_sesame wrote:
| I'm assuming you're trying to get an engineering job but its a
| bit unclear?
|
| I think what a lot of people miss about engineering jobs is that
| the first job is definitely hard, partly because people are
| giving you a bunch of money to do something that is difficult to
| quantify that may or may not make their business. Apply
| everywhere and be very ready to take the first job.
|
| If you want to get a big tech engineering job, you need a couple
| of months of getting good at leet code so try to figure out a way
| to get that.
|
| OHP is way better than medicaid if you can snag it.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I google'd OHP and Oregon Health Plan was the first thing that
| popped up. It seems like only people living in the state of
| oregon qualify for OHP. I currently live in the southern united
| states. I've used interviewcake, and looked at leetcode
| problems etc.. to prepare for dev interviews.
| geofft wrote:
| What do you have to offer the companies you've applied for?
|
| It's deeply unjust we live in a society where simply being a
| person isn't enough to merit having a home and medical care, but
| that problem isn't going to be solved in time to help you.
|
| Or, in other words, I'm not going to say "The world doesn't owe
| you a job" - but the world certainly _acts as if_ it doesn 't owe
| you a job, and you need to deal with that.
|
| If I were a customer support manager and wanted to hire you, what
| would make me hire you over someone else? From your post, it
| sounds like the things you have to offer are that you'd help
| other parts of the company with their problems, and you'd want to
| transfer internally in well under a year. That's maybe good for
| the company, _but that 's not good for me_ - I don't get any
| recognition (or even headcount) for things my new hires on
| customer support do to help other random parts of the company,
| I'm evaluated on whether my customer support people do customer
| support. And new hires need to be trained on the company's
| procedures, which takes a while, so if they leave after a year -
| even if it's better for the company in the long term - that time
| is largely wasted.
|
| Sure, you're providing value to the company. But that value is
| measured by one specific person, your boss. What are you telling
| potential bosses that you'll do? When they ask you about how
| you've brought value in previous jobs and about what you're
| likely to do, do they leave that conversation with the impression
| that hiring you will be a good decision _for them personally_?
|
| I hope you're telling them things other than how you went off
| solving other problems unrelated to your job, no matter how cool
| it was.
|
| It sounds like you're smart. Point that smartness in the
| direction of making it financially worthwhile for someone to hire
| you. You need to offer them more benefit than they offer you, and
| you need to offer them more benefit than the other applicants for
| the role would.
|
| (So, if you want good compensation, you need to offer then quite
| a lot of benefit.)
| Natsu wrote:
| > It's deeply unjust we live in a society where simply being a
| person isn't enough to merit having a home and medical care
|
| We should really get moving on that. We still need to build
| housing for about 1.6 billion and I don't know of good
| estimates about how many more doctors and hospitals we need to
| provide that care. Right now, it feels like it's mostly the
| Catholic church building hospitals, which is why so many are
| named after saints.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| As a hiring manager, the things that stand out to me in your
| post:
|
| - You said you quit a job at EA, quit a job at IBM, dropped out
| of college your freshman year. You may have valid reasons for
| leaving each of these, but you have to see this from the
| manager's perspective: You had 3 different great opportunities
| that all came to a dead end at the beginning of your career. You
| need an alternate narrative.
|
| - You talk about applying to Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Palantir,
| and other companies known to be very competitive, yet the only
| real job experience you list in your post is low level customer
| support. Nothing wrong with aiming high, but you need to also be
| applying to jobs that are a logical next step in your career.
| It's extraordinarily difficult to jump from customer support to
| FAANG engineer, so have a backup plan.
|
| - You spoofed e-mails to manipulate executives into meetings.
| This kind of thing sounds clever in movies or from anecdotes in
| the 90s or 2000s, but in this era everyone is on high alert for
| phishing attacks and security breaches. Read the room, and don't
| commit computer fraud during your application process. Big
| companies have systems in place to catch these things and you'll
| get blocked in short order.
|
| - No mention of your network. Do you have any contacts or friends
| or acquaintances anywhere in the industry? Even people you knew
| briefly from school? People who you worked with in the past who
| moved up? Reach out and ask if they have any advice for your job
| search. Going forward, make a point to stay on good terms with
| the people around you. You can help each other as your careers
| progress.
| antihero wrote:
| Has OP tried some sort of personality coaching or something?
| de6u99er wrote:
| Where does his article say, that he spoofed emails to
| manipulate executives into meetings? Only thing I see about
| email is the one to a VP which resulted in fixing an issue. I
| bet he didn't receive the credit for it.
| evan_ wrote:
| > Spoofed number to bypass contact whitelist etc.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| > yet the only real job experience you list in your post is low
| level customer support
|
| Devs are in the lucky position that you can obtain some aspects
| of 'real job experience' outside of a job. Create a project, or
| contribute to open source project in an area that interests you
| - it will hone your skills and give something concrete on your
| resume.
|
| [edit] And make the projects very directed to the jobs you want
| to get, if security interests you try some hacker bounties -
| even documenting how you looked for exploits in a blog may be
| of use.
| aledalgrande wrote:
| This. You wouldn't believe how much visibility contributing
| to known open source projects gives you. And you train your
| communication and collaboration skills (PRs/reviews) in
| addition to the usual developer chops. Good luck!
| jart wrote:
| > You spoofed emails to manipulate executives into meetings.
|
| A guy got hired at Google once because he spoofed an email from
| Larry to Sergey using an unknown DKIM hack he discovered. The
| OP said numbers so I'm assuming he spoofed caller id. That's
| kind of like stealing the silverware as far as hacks go. So it
| doesn't surprise me that would come across poorly.
| Google234 wrote:
| I don't think that person got hired or even applied.
| endymi0n wrote:
| That's spot on from the advice.
|
| I'll add that OP -- Your biggest issue seems to be extremely
| high intelligence, paired with a lack of empathy and social
| functioning, which created a self-expectation of massive
| grandiosity. But you keep failing to deliver on it because you
| can't get your highly powered brain on the streets, leading in
| self-pity and depression. Not good, but salvageable.
|
| How do I know? My life story reads basically like yours into my
| late twenties -- multiple college dropout, extremely high
| ambitions, always failed.
|
| The only difference is that I started that low level support
| job in a company small enough that somebody saw my talent and
| got me on the path to second level tech support and then
| engineering as I continued automating my job away.
|
| Had to chuckle as I pissed off quite a lot of people higher up
| in that job early on myself, but fortunately had a few people
| reflecting me instead of firing me, which made me understand
| how I made other people look and feel by my actions.
|
| The good news: Empathy is a learneable skill. Aim far lower in
| a smaller, young and growing (!) company with good potential --
| but especially with a great boss. Then work hard, SHUT UP your
| smartass mouth for a year and work your way up while learning
| what's holding you back with the help of a good
| coach/therapist. When you apply with the company, read
| everything you can about what they do and make it about them.
|
| Stop trying to impress. For that year, just focus on staying
| super humble and in the background, learning how value is
| created for that company and then go on creating that value
| even if nobody asked you to. Just for a year. Up your ante
| slowly and only when you feel you have established personal
| trust and leverage.
|
| Empathy a skill where intelligence won't support you but be in
| your way because of your natural tendency of you showing it
| off. That makes people feel dumb, and nobody likes to feel like
| that. Also, some actions like you skipping line management will
| make them feel they can't rely on you on top. You'll keep
| failing if people keep hating working with you.
|
| Your goal is to find a great manager first and make them look
| great. And then talk about that. Be the solution guy, not the
| problem guy. Be the one who goes the extra mile to bring a
| small win home, not the one who makes the snarkiest comment.
|
| You'll never be a "normal" person, but that's ok. Having a
| sharp profile comes with its own set of (dis)advantages. You
| can be high functioning if you surround yourself with capable
| people who know how to work with your weaknesses in order to
| leverage your strenghts.
|
| Your job is finding them, as you'll fail alone.
| throw314159265 wrote:
| Job interview question: ,,What is your biggest weakness" -
| ,,Extremely high intelligence paired with a lack of empathy".
|
| How does ,,extremely high intelligence" lead to multiple
| college dropouts? For the OP it was a lack of money to pay US
| study fees. I doubt that several other points you mention
| (like ,,don't be the one who makes the snarkiest comment")
| are comparable to OPs experience.
| ctvo wrote:
| I sometimes run into people who mistake the ability to Google
| well (a very teachable skill) with intelligence.
|
| They often work in IT jobs, and for all their lives have
| heard how smart they were because of stereotypes around
| computers, science and nerds. Knowing how to use command line
| tools and put together a computer does not often equal
| extremely high intelligence.
| netmonk wrote:
| I worked in 6 companies, in the first 3 years of my working
| life. I had a very difficult relationship with university in
| the late 90, where teachers were calling me to fix their
| linux, while they were still teaching me useless stuff.
| Newsgroup, IRC, RFC were my main source of knowledge. Im
| mostly self taugh. With great difficulties and many years
| after i got a bachelor degree, while i was also working and
| quitting jobs when realising my manager were as stupid as my
| univ teacher. Back in my 20, things were simple and clear,
| you want security: run openbsd lame bastard. And stop calling
| me at 3am to fix an hacking job, while in fact it's just your
| bangalore team powering on an old server with same network IP
| than your fucking main website server.
|
| Around 25, i was really disgusted by computer and IT Job,
| even tryed to recycle into soft medecine.
|
| At this exact time, the best things in my life occured: My
| (first) girl friend cheated on me after 2 years of love
| story. It forces me to consider that _maybe_ im not always
| right. I had a wonderfull journey into psychology, pick up
| artist technics, self-improvement, and started to practice
| Systema (Russian Martial Art) where indeed i learn empathy.
| Im mean, i didnt learn it, i was over sensitive and over
| empathic. I was the too good to be happy, and my angry burst
| were just expression of my frustration accumulated by peoples
| abusing me.
|
| Instability was coming from that. Quitting was an easy
| solution, escaping stupidity and predator instead of facing
| them was my main strategy.
|
| With training and helps from great peoples, i improved my
| social skills. I learn how to say NO. Around 31, i was
| desperate with my job interview, my professionnal experience
| was expressing instability and induced fear to potential
| recruiters.
|
| I had to makeup my resume. And i got the opportunity to work
| as a lvl3 support team. This was the way i came back into
| business. With my improved self, i spend 3 years (the first
| time i worked that long in a position) taking care of big
| problem in a critical application.
|
| This was an honey moon, first time ever peoples were thanking
| me for saving their ass and cleaning their shit (we talk
| hundreds of million in electronic payment industry). Im still
| friend with this specific manager who was able to see
| potential in me, 12 years after.
|
| I started a consulting company. Im 42, married, father of
| three. Im happy.
|
| Just remember: Humans are not computer.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| Sorry, but I think you're reading way too much in the OP.
| Their account is compatible with their biggest issue being
| "extremelly high intelligence" coupled with a lack of
| empathy, but it's also compatible with ordinary intelligence
| coupled with some bad choices- and the chances are that the
| latter is the right explanation ("extremely high
| intelligence" should only be the case very, very rarely, by
| definition [1]).
|
| I think you're also perhaps projecting a bit. You stopped
| (very) short of giving the OP a diagnosis of ASD ("high
| functioning"). Again, that's way, way too much to read into
| 1590 characters (not counting spaces) on an HN post.
|
| Personally I think there's no way to answer OP with anything
| approaching good advice when going only by what they have
| posted. I understand that everyone will want to try anyway,
| but sometimes the best asnwer is to say "I don't know".
|
| ______________
|
| [1] Funny aside. Suppose Alice has "extremely high
| intelligence" (EHI). Her EHI will make her aware of two
| facts: a) everyone seems to think they have EHI, or at least
| intelligence above the mean; b) only a tiny minority of those
| people can be right. The obvious corrolary is that Alice
| herself must be of average intelligence and only feel like
| she has EHI because that's a common cognitive bias of people
| with average intelligence. Therefore Alice will assume she
| has average intelligence and discount evidence to the
| contrary. In other words, people who have EHI will very
| rarely believe they have EHI, let alone say they do.
| bkeyes wrote:
| Even if they are reading too much into the OP, the advice
| is sound for anyone starting any job, especially at the
| start of their career with little on their resume.
| goodpoint wrote:
| Please slow down with the "intelligence" narrative.
| Cognitive abilities are complex and multi-faceted. There's
| logical-mathematical and much more.
| ballenf wrote:
| > The obvious corrolary is that Alice herself must be of
| average intelligence
|
| Would she also conclude that because some fruit in bowls is
| hollow plastic that there doesn't exist any real fruit in
| bowls?
| bena wrote:
| About your aside, while all of that is true, the inverse
| isn't. Not everyone thinks everyone else has EHI. So if you
| have a lot of people telling you you have EHI, then you can
| feel confident in your own assessment of whether or not you
| have EHI.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| That's an astute observation, but there is such a thing
| as flattery and compliments paid with an ulterior motive
| and it's not always easy to tell those apart from genuine
| recognition of a perceived positive trait.
|
| For example, perhaps people are telling you you're smart
| because they like your er other assets. Or because they
| feel obliged to because you're their boss. Or because
| they know your parents. etc etc.
|
| Bottom line, there's confounding factors that can throw
| the calculation way off.
| honkdaddy wrote:
| I think with any kind of crowd-sourced-internet-therapy
| like the OP is currently receiving, you're right, no one
| answering is going to be able to accurately understand and
| relate to the OP. That being said, if 50 kind people like
| /u/endymi0n share their own parsing of the situation and
| offer some advice, maybe 1 in those 50 is actually the
| advice OP needed, and their life could be positively
| affected.
|
| The alternative, I guess, is that everyone correctly
| realizes they can't understand the full context of OP's
| position, and no one gives OP any advice and they continue
| down the road they're currently on. Just my view :)
| ptero wrote:
| You are right that the poster you replied to makes many
| assumptions. But I think his post is still very valuable to
| others: I have seen smart people shoot themselves in the
| foot doing just what was described and that advice is a
| good thing to keep in mind. My 2c.
| YeGoblynQueenne wrote:
| I don't disagree! But the way I've mostly seen capable
| people fail is by becoming afraid to push themselves
| beyond the limits of their innate capabilities, into the
| territory where people stop telling them how smart they
| are and every step forward is paid for with pain, Little-
| Mermaid style.
|
| By contrast, people who have not learned to put so much
| value on their being "above average" don't have as much
| trouble pushing further into that painful territory
| because to them, everything is pain anyway.
|
| That way I've seen people with little talent go further
| than, or at least catch up to others who have it in
| abdundance, through discipline and work. My formative
| experience in that respect is from a different life when
| I was studying for a modern drums degree.
| [deleted]
| Aloha wrote:
| I have a similar story.
|
| I learned at all early age the only thing appearing like the
| smartest guy in the room was good for was paining a target on
| your back. I also learned how to emulate empathy, it's not
| perfect, but it makes up for the natural broken/missing
| wiring in my head.
|
| Also early in my career I talked my way out of several jobs,
| You might have the best ideas in the world, but if powers
| that be don't want to hear them, don't belabor the matter,
| give your suggestions and move on.
|
| I started out too in customer support, 20 years later I'm
| making an engineers salary, with an engineering title, which
| isn't too bad for a drop out.
|
| The best advice on jobs I have, take a bad shitty job that's
| good for your resume, work there till you have the book
| experience to work someplace else, rinse and repeat,
| guenthert wrote:
| > I also learned how to emulate empathy,
|
| Please don't. I know a guy who does the same. It comes
| across as utterly condescending.
| prox wrote:
| Some solid advice. Especially the part about having a good
| boss. Only 1 in 4 fits that bill in my experience, and
| landing a job with one makes all the difference for your
| career.
|
| Also, being the solution guy/girl is good advice.
|
| Once you have that experience you know what to look for in
| your career. Keep in touch with the good managers and
| colleagues, as that network is worth gold.
| shultays wrote:
| I too suffer from an extremely high intelligence.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| I would have replaced intelligence and ambition with
| confidence. I think it reads better. Theres no way we can
| measure the intelligence of people by the fact they dropped
| out of college or got a job and then left it. Theres no
| positive signals here, just negative or neutral.
|
| I suspect people call it intelligence when they see
| themselves in the behaviour. Since we all think we're above
| average https://priceonomics.com/why-do-we-all-think-were-
| above-aver...
| [deleted]
| ctvo wrote:
| Really the only comparable pain is my equally large penis.
| It's a drag.
| [deleted]
| kfogel wrote:
| I just want to say that this was a kind, detailed, and
| thoughtful response -- beneficial to the OP, no doubt, but also
| probably to others.
|
| It was nice to be reminded that sometimes the Internet doesn't
| suck. Thanks for taking the time to write that reply.
| jart wrote:
| It's a good comment with the right instinct but for the wrong
| reasons. The biggest red flag is struggling with personal
| finance. You can't get jobs like the ones he wants if you
| live beyond your means and constantly land in hot water with
| money because people who are like that are at risk of turning
| to evil to make ends meet.
| yoz-y wrote:
| TF? Aiming for large companies can be actually helpful in
| this case because they will often shell out money for your
| relocation and may even help with housing before your first
| few salaries kick in.
| Shugarl wrote:
| He just spent a year without any steady source of income,
| should't his saving run out at one point ?
| midasuni wrote:
| You should have 40 years of expenses saved in an
| emergency fund before you start spending a penny on
| anything /s
| sgt101 wrote:
| 40 years is quite a risk - 120 is far better. And saving
| this is easier than you think, if you commit to not
| eating and living outside. Importantly do what you are
| told, and remember your inadequacy!
| [deleted]
| ehnto wrote:
| What jobs inquire about your financial history? That seems
| a little dystopian. Can't get a handle on your finances
| because you don't have a steady job, better not give them a
| steady job!
| thesuitonym wrote:
| Even if an interviewer doesn't ask about your finances,
| it can be pretty clear if you're on the very low end. A
| person living hand-to-mouth may not be able to afford
| nice clothes (I remember a time when those $99 suit deals
| were something I had to plan ahead for!), and what nice
| clothes they have may be worn out. In most of the US,
| you'll be showing up to your interview in a car because
| there's no public transit. Is that car an old beater?
| That says something.
|
| But mostly it's clothes. If you're having a hard time
| financially, the interview clothes you have (if any) will
| likely fit poorly, be worn out, poorly constructed, or
| all three.
|
| By the way: For anyone who finds themselves in this
| situation, check out local food banks, churches, and your
| local DoL office. These groups will typically either have
| an interview clothing program, or will know of one.
| Nearly every city in the US--even the small ones--will
| have some kind of charity like this. If you're having
| trouble dressing or getting rides for interviews, reach
| out. It never hurts to ask.
| alistairSH wrote:
| _What jobs inquire about your financial history?_
|
| In the US, it would be both legal and common for federal
| government jobs (that require any sort of security
| clearance). Banking & finance (investment/securities &
| retail banking).And some jobs on the periphery of
| banking/finance, where handling PII related to finances
| is common.
|
| I'm sure there are other places that run credit checks,
| just because they can (it is the US after all, we're king
| of treating employees like we're in a dystopian movie).
| But, there shouldn't really be a need.
| clifdweller wrote:
| One of the listed companies CIA will do a background
| check including finances or any company that requires a
| security clearance doesn't want a person to have large
| debt. Also financial companies/insurance often look into
| finances as some states require employees of those
| companies to not hold debt over a certain amount
| austincheney wrote:
| In my experience only a federal security clearance, which
| could result in the loss of a career opportunity.
| hellbannedguy wrote:
| In California, potential employers are not suspose to
| look at your credit score when hiring.
|
| (This might have changed. Too disenfranchied to even look
| it up.)
| CodesInChaos wrote:
| Financial stability is essential for getting clearance,
| which I assume would be required for several of the
| mentioned employers.
| airza wrote:
| The NSA and CIA require this for top secret clearances,
| the reasoning being that people in a lot of debt are
| easier to blackmail or otherwise bribe.
| [deleted]
| jeltz wrote:
| Only jobs which require security clearance and jobs where
| you handle s lot of money as far as I know. So for a
| software developer there are plenty of opportunities
| where they won't check your personal finances.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| I was massively broke for a long time, and I can speak to
| my experience in the USA. I was over 200K USD in debt at
| one point. [1] I was behind on everything, and then
| declared bankruptcy. The only time I would have needed to
| worry about it was if I wanted to get a securities
| license (e.g. become a financial advisor), or if I needed
| a security clearance (e.g. work on top secret project).
| The real risk I faced was the threat of making rent &
| feeding myself.
|
| Just 5 years ago I was making 6000 USD per month and with
| almost 250K in debt, and ~50% of my income going to debt
| payments. Now I'll be debt free in a couple months, and I
| have 12 months of savings in the bank & a rapidly growing
| retirement account! It's super nice to feel this way, and
| it's only been possible with a lot of hard work and even
| more luck.
|
| [1] I lived way beyond my means, overestimated the value
| of my expensive education, and had an expensive bicycle
| accident.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Just 5 years ago I was making 6000 USD per month and
| with almost 250K in debt, and ~50%
|
| I really don't know what it's like in other places, but
| the first few years of a mortgage are like this, but with
| a larger debt. It's grim.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| Except your mortgage is secured by an asset, the sale of
| which removes most, or all, of the debt. It's a desperate
| option, but it's there, no bankruptcy needed. Medical
| debt and unsecured debt have no such option -- and
| student loans can't be discharged even in bankruptcy.
| It's not the same situation.
| hashkb wrote:
| Except at the end you own a house and maybe some land.
| Usually people with a mortgage they planned for don't
| describe themselves this way.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| Yeah, that does sound hard. I've never had a mortgage
| myself, but the thought of owing tons of money on an
| underwater mortgage is not appealing is not appealing.
| bhandziuk wrote:
| Owing money on a mortgage does not mean it's underwater.
| freeone3000 wrote:
| It beats paying rent. If at the end of my mortgage
| payments, if my house was worth _half_ of what it was
| today, and my rent had _never_ increased, I 'd come out
| ahead. And both of the above are incredibly unlikely.
| oblio wrote:
| This sounds so sad:
|
| > and had an expensive bicycle accident.
|
| I mean, the health aspect was probably bad, but the
| financial implication is even worse :-(
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| It was a period of many depressing thoughts for sure. I
| wouldn't wish that struggle on anyone.
| steerablesafe wrote:
| Interviewing with a poor financial situation in the
| background can be indeed suboptimal, but I think for a
| different reason. You don't have leverage in negotiation
| and you are most probably desperate, which is hard to hide.
| Overall this comes trough as lack of confidence and
| undermines the interview.
|
| To turn this into an advice for people interviewing without
| a safety net: get a safety net. It can be a job that is
| easy to get, a rent that is easy to pay, just make sure
| that you can live by that situation indefinitely. You need
| to leap from there. You need to be able to turn down job
| offers to be able to negotiate.
| jart wrote:
| If you're broke and don't have kids to feed, hit the road
| and go backpacking or something. No one cares how much
| money you have. What people care about is that you have
| an interesting story and are resourceful enough to make
| the best of any situation. Because one day you're going
| to get paged at 3am where all the technology is crumbling
| around you and you're the only one who can save it, and
| what's going to make you succeed at that moment is your
| lived experiences until that point saving yourself.
| irscott wrote:
| I always talk about my time traveling and riding trains
| and going to antarctica in interviews. Most of the time
| it breaks up the monotonous interview process and allows
| me to stand out in the crowd.
| brailsafe wrote:
| This seems a bit specious. I've done things along this
| line, and it was great, but I had some support
| infrastructure and a tiny bit of money to actually pay
| for shit. You're going to need to also build the ability
| to support yourself for realsies (financially) as well
| when you return or during, otherwise you're just another
| idiot who flew to Thailand with $0 in the hopes random
| ppl will fund your vacation. With some savings, and some
| ability to work jobs that you'd find anywhere, then ya go
| make what you can of it, but this isn't that case... yet
| jart wrote:
| Not a thought that would have crossed my mind. My mental
| model was more along the lines of Paul Erdos showing up
| on famous mathematicians doorsteps asking for a place to
| live. I don't think anyone accused him of being some
| loafer trying to hitch a free ride. I mean if you
| backpack and people don't even want you around for free
| then how on earth are you ever going to get that faang
| cash money.
| lumost wrote:
| > "live by that situation indefinitely"
|
| It's an unfortunate reality that it's become impractical
| to match this advice in all circumstances. When I was
| young I found that
|
| a) I had to live within an hours drive of a city with
| jobs to get jobs in that city b) There were 1/100th to
| 1/1000th the number of jobs available if I stayed with my
| family. c) Minimum rent + student loan payments + heating
| bills exceeded what an "easy" job could cover.
|
| I ended up not paying the student loan debts for about a
| year and recking my credit, but I was ultimately able to
| get a job. People with mortgages, families, or other
| fixed expenses can likewise not stay unemployed forever
| in the modern world.
|
| As an experienced hire, if you take a big down-level for
| expedience employers will question it in the future.
| hooande wrote:
| ok, so what does he do? he asked for advice. if you don't
| have any, no need to say anything that isn't constructive.
|
| obviously he won't be able to solve his financial problems
| in any way without a job. if your assessment is "well he's
| screwed for the rest of his life" then a) I think you're
| wrong b) you can keep that to yourself
| atoav wrote:
| So your advice is "just stop being poor"?
| ayyy wrote:
| I know you're being sarcastic, but that sort of is the
| whole game, isn't it?
| jart wrote:
| It's a question of living within your means. A guy who's
| fortunate enough to have an engineering job at EA and IBM
| shouldn't be having personal financial problems, if we
| consider that many of the immigrants who make his food
| live comfortably enough to afford sending half their
| income back to old country. There's a way to live
| responsibly in any situation and if you can't then you
| have room for improvement.
| corobo wrote:
| Please also consider that not everyone is neurotypical.
| I'm of course not diagnosing OP but things like ADHD make
| it a hell of a time trying to manage personal finances on
| top of the rest of your life.
|
| If everything was just easy we'd all just do it.
| jart wrote:
| Personal finances don't need to be managed. You put the
| money in something like Vanguard and get back to coding.
| However if you love money and relish the social status
| that spending it commands, then you might be struggling
| with neurotypicality.
| konart wrote:
| >It's a question of living within your means. A guy who's
| fortunate enough to have an engineering job at EA and IBM
|
| First of all - you are almost never 'fortunate'. Jobs
| offers do not fall from the sky usually.
|
| Second - you many live well within your means and then
| have a car accident, or an ill relative, or something
| else that will make you into piss poor indebted fella
| real quick.
| zelon88 wrote:
| Comfortable?
|
| I remember 15 years ago working in fast food. Many, many
| of the employees do exactly this. But it isn't
| comfortable. I worked with a brother-sister pair from
| Brazil. They lived together, worked two jobs each 70
| hours per week (Dunkin Donuts, McDs, and a hotel between
| the two of them), lived in a shit apartment with no
| cable, and still only sent a couple hundred bucks back to
| Brazil every month. The sister was around 50 years old.
|
| With that money their family was able to afford a house
| in Brazil.
|
| You sound very presumptuous. I challenge you to find
| someone you're describing who works in America to support
| overseas family and ask them how "comfortable" their
| living situation is.
| freddealmeida wrote:
| Wow. No empathy here at all. The world can go against you
| for alot of reasons. I went from millions to pauper to
| millions to pauper. It happens. It depends on your
| ethical stance. It depends on other people. It depends on
| what you fear.
| jart wrote:
| I'm pretty empathetic to people like football players who
| make millions and go bankrupt because managing money
| isn't what nature built them to do. They're also not
| asking to be hedge fund managers. Would you feel
| comfortable having your high-level security managed by
| someone who's living hand to mouth and resents us for not
| paying him more?
| vallas wrote:
| > It's a good comment with the right instinct but for the
| wrong reasons. The biggest red flag is struggling with
| personal finance. You can't get jobs like the ones he wants
| if you live beyond your means and constantly land in hot
| water with money because people who are like that are at risk
| of turning to evil to make ends meet.
| mcherm wrote:
| > The biggest red flag is struggling with personal finance.
|
| As it turns out, being unable to get a job (at least one
| that pays a reasonable wage) is a common cause of
| "struggling with personal finance".
| pc86 wrote:
| Quit two jobs at 18 because of "low pay" (what 18 year is
| well paid?). Doesn't say what happened with the Amazon
| job but $15/hr is about $30k/yr which is about 80-82% of
| the median individual - not household - income in the US.
| It's absolutely a "reasonable wage" for a help desk
| associate. It seems like they've pointed out issues to
| management which were fixed. That sort of thing gets
| noticed, in a good way if your employer isn't totally
| toxic.
|
| Less than a year of school, even 100% paid with loans,
| can easily be paid off on $30k/yr.
| flybrand wrote:
| It looks like OP could get jobs, the challenge was not
| quitting them.
| vallas wrote:
| Maybe he should do contract work if he can get jobs
| buggythebug wrote:
| Well eye opening - not really beneficial - doesn't really
| give me a 1-2-3 attack plan of what to do.
| DeusExMachina wrote:
| He also mentions a couple of times that he was ghosted after
| interviews, even at Home Depot. So I would add also add to this
| already great list: role-play interviews with friends and get
| their feedback on how you present yourself (dress, tone of
| voice, behavior, etc.) and what kind of blunders you make.
| sigg3 wrote:
| > FAANG
|
| Viz. Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Google.
|
| I had to look it up (I'm not from around here).
| throwaway79392 wrote:
| I can confirm this view in part from a dev perspective. Also I
| can empathize with the original problem. I've changed jobs more
| often than I should've and this is an often asked question in
| interviews. In fact, if I get asked this, there's a 80%
| likelihoood that it's going to be a "no". So to add some more
| points:
|
| > You said you quit a job at EA, quit a job at IBM ...
|
| Approach small startups, they judge much less. In fact a very
| early stage project (3-4 people) might be very happy to hire
| you because you seem very smart. The salary might be bad but
| will give you valuable in-depth job experience that will help
| you further down the road.
|
| Also about the executive thing: I wouldn't approach executives
| because they usually hardly know what the company is doing.
| (They are there to talk with investors, external
| stakeholders...) Only exception small places. (< 30 ppl)
|
| If I was you I would focus on a technology you like, maybe RoR
| or Python/Django and develop a small test project. If you feel
| confident enough even publish it on Github, but that's not a
| must. Just the muscle memory is good enough and that you can
| talk about it during interview. (Should be something mundane,
| like a Todo list or a news article search) And then just look
| for early stage startups and write them. Or perhaps NGOs, they
| are also much more open.
|
| Once you've stayed at one relevant job for a year or two you
| can "double-down" on that and apply somewhere else for more...
| Most places don't care if you are ultra smart but rather that
| the usual tasks get done in an acceptable way. From past
| experience that's what managers are complimenting.
| aeoleonn wrote:
| First, OP:
|
| STOP CALLING YOURSELF UNHIREABLE.
|
| STOP WITH THE SELF-PITY--
|
| Why?
|
| You can't simultaneously focus on two things: such as focusing
| pitying yourself while simultaneously focusing on building &
| completing your strategy.
|
| _____________________
|
| WHATS THAT YOU SAY OP?!, you say you want to CONQUER THE ROMAN
| EMPIRE, but you only have a dozen pals WITH NERF GUNS? Yeah,
| guess how that'll work out :P Doesn't sound like a reasonable
| strategy, does it?
|
| Yes, you failed because YOU LACKED A REASONABLE STRATEGY.
|
| ANYONE WILL FAIL when they LACK A REASONABLE STRATEGY REGARDING
| ANYTHING in life, that should be obvious.
|
| The solution? Develop a reasonable strategy and fulfill the
| work involved in the strategy.
|
| ______________________________________
|
| Now for the rest of my intended comment:
|
| This.
|
| PragmaticPulp is speaking about STRATEGY.
|
| You need a reasonable strategy, OP.
|
| Check out my recent comments for my lengthier reply of advice,
| but here I'll summarize:
|
| * Make small pivots. Don't try to jump to the top, as Pragmatic
| mentions
|
| * Market yourself. Want to be a programmer? Show the world
| you're a programmer then! How? You need to build an open source
| project with in-demand programming languages & frameworks. You
| need a Web Portfolio to show off your projects. A LinkedIn
| presence. And, put your resume up on job sites. This is basic
| marketing strategy, OP.
|
| Want a dev job? Well, how do you show the world you're a dev?
| Again, click my name to read my recent replies if you can't
| find 'em here on the first page of 300+ replies.
|
| So, focus on crafting your strategy and then completing the
| strategy.
|
| Keep your head up. Stay positive. Find motivational music &
| speeches on spotify & youtube-- that helped me get through 4
| months of building my full stack app (no one paid me to make
| it, I simply built it b/c I knew I needed to show the world I
| had the skills)
| chrisvalleybay wrote:
| You definitely came in from Reddit, that's for sure.
| aeoleonn wrote:
| LOL do I sound liberal?
|
| What part of my comment do you dislike?
|
| To be fair, I don't expect everyone on HN to appreciate my
| perspective. The tech world seems to be majority snowflake,
| or pretend snowflake (go along to get along, in that case).
|
| I'm not a politically correct type of person-- I tell
| people what I actually think and prefer brutal honesty to
| sugar coated messaging.
| veerabadhra wrote:
| This kind of safe advice isn't very helpful for someone who is
| hustling IMO. Maybe it is useful for someone who's going to
| become a principal engineer at a large corporate. The parent
| commenter would be well suited to work at a startup.
| Unfortunately, startups have also been infected by the
| corporate virus. In a country that's stagnating, such risk
| averse behavior makes sense, because there is no reward for
| taking on risks.
| santoshalper wrote:
| That's weird, where did you get the sense that op is
| "hustling" (whatever that means)? They spend half their post
| listing big companies they are trying to get jobs at.
| [deleted]
| ALittleLight wrote:
| A teenage boy asked the master "How do I compose a symphony?"
|
| The master said "You're too young, you need to start with
| more modest projects."
|
| "But master" said the boy "you first composed a symphony when
| you were half my age!"
|
| "Yes, but I didn't ask anyone how."
|
| ---
|
| What I mean by this is that "hustling" is something of a
| unique, rare, or hacking like thing. You can't ask people how
| to do it, because if they could tell you then everyone would
| do it and it wouldn't work. I don't mean that like people are
| keeping a secret, but more like hustling means going through
| a dynamic and unexpected route and it's not something people
| can easily reduce to instructions.
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| > You can't ask people how to do it, because if they could
| tell you then everyone would do it and it wouldn't work
|
| Coding-camps?
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think a good coding camp is a plausible route to an
| entry level dev position. I know a Google dev who got
| there via a coding camp.
|
| I wouldn't describe it as a hack or hustle though. It's
| basically learn the skills required, demonstrate your
| knowledge, then interview and get a matching job.
| ryankemper wrote:
| A coding camp is the opposite of hustling. It's called
| "bootcamp" for a reason - it's there to impose some
| structure for those who need it.
|
| Also bootcamp is very overhyped. There's some great
| people that come out of them, but I think mainly the hype
| is the fact that college is overrated (this is a cliche
| opinion I know) so bootcamps are there to try to exploit
| some of the delta that the myopic focus on college
| degrees creates. But many boot camps are super myopic in
| their own ways.
| practicalpants wrote:
| > A coding camp is the opposite of hustling
|
| Right on. I'm self taught before bootcamps were a thing.
| I learned by doing by launching a bunch of startup
| prototypes. Then I ran out of money so I started
| interviewing, went 1 for 1 and got a good 6 figure Rails
| job at a big corporation (skipping junior level), all
| with less than 1 year experience.
|
| Many people getting into coding I talk to think this path
| is too hard and that a bootcamp somehow looks good on a
| resume and is therefore safe.
|
| The same arguments can be made for startup accelerators.
| You really don't need one if you're a hustler who can
| build businesses. Thus they also attract some percentage
| of people who want a "safe" approach for their resume.
| 8128js8121 wrote:
| saps, paying to learn shit from stack overflow.
| spamizbad wrote:
| I don't think I can recall any cases in my professional
| history as a software developer of anyone landing a dev job
| due to "hustle". Unless we are using some shallow
| definition of it that's "Taught self how to code, passed
| the same technical interview as everyone else"
| ixtli wrote:
| Good reply but worth considering this phenomena might
| actually be due to teaching being an orthogonal skill. The
| master is a master because of that which they produce:
| there's usually no requirement to be able to teach.
| whatever_dude wrote:
| What the US and specially the tech industry call "hustling"
| is bullshit sprinkled with self-delusion. For every
| successful history of someone hustling there's a thousand
| more of someone hustling just as much and not getting
| anywhere, and usually the ones being successful are getting
| there with generous help from unseen forces (network,
| relatives, etc).
|
| We need to stop idolizing hustling. Getting shit done
| without pretending it's a gambler's game will get you far.
| Shugarl wrote:
| I always thought that creating and maintaining a network
| was part of the hustle. And to a certain (unhealthy)
| extent, relationships.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Creating an maintaining a network of people in your field
| is extremely important for your career, especially your
| later career.
|
| I like to say. At a job you get compensated three ways.
| Money, experience, and contacts. There are more ways but
| those are the top three.
| ALittleLight wrote:
| I think something like: You will never be a billionaire
| without hustling. You will likely never be a billionaire
| with hustling. Patient and hard work over a long period
| is the most consistent route to success.
| xienze wrote:
| > This kind of safe advice isn't very helpful for someone who
| is hustling IMO.
|
| Well are they hustling or looking for steady employment in
| tech?
| ma2rten wrote:
| I don't necessarily agree regarding FAANG. Once someone gets an
| interview it doesn't matter much what their previous work
| experience is.
| speeder wrote:
| I interviewed at Amazon.
|
| Aced all questions, except the one that ALL of their
| inverviewers asked, that was how I had shown leadership
| solving a problem in a team situation in my past jobs.
|
| See, in all my past jobs, I never been in a large team.
|
| Didn't pass the interview, they have a policy to not tell you
| why but I can guess why...
| rualca wrote:
| > I interviewed at Amazon. Aced all questions, (...)
|
| To me that raises a flag on how you may not have a good
| grasp on what really happened in your interview. You don't
| ace questions in the onsite interview at Amazon. You are
| there to provide data for the interviewers to decide if
| you're a valid candidate. If you were rejected then the
| data your interviewers collected on you led them to that
| decision.
|
| Source: I know a few people who went as far as onsite
| interviews at Amazon. Some got in, others didn't. None of
| the guys who were left out were cut because of their hard
| skills.
| oblio wrote:
| They weren't expecting you to be a manager, team lead, or
| to have worked in a big team.
|
| They just wanted you to have shown some modicum amount of
| leadership skill. For a normal position, this doesn't mean
| that you have to act like a CEO. A simple case where you
| took the lead to solve some issue and maybe guided a
| colleague or even a customer would have sufficed.
| fnbr wrote:
| I agree. If OP can consistently get interviews at FAANGs,
| then that's all that's needed for the job.
| eslaught wrote:
| To make this even more explicit: if OP can get interviews,
| then the resume (and the "on paper" job record) is clearly
| not an issue. The issue is interview technique, possibly
| the verbal description of the job history, but possibly
| something else (technical or social).
|
| I second other comments elsewhere in the threads here to
| get a candid friend to help with interview practice.
| hrktb wrote:
| There's the caveat on education.
|
| From the other side of the fence, if a candidate has an
| atypical resume, the best course of action will be to
| interview to check their level.
|
| You can't ignore the possibility of them being good
| autodidacts, but it will also lead to a very quick
| rejection if they're below those high expectations. It
| creates a cycle of quick interviews at prestigious places
| and quick rejections.
| batch12 wrote:
| It sounds to me like it is either a knowledge gap of which
| they may be unaware, or a personality issue. When hiring in
| the past, I looked for thoughtful, but honest answers--
| even if the answer was "I don't know." Someone talking
| around the question or bullshitting me resulted in a no.
| Also, interviewers may be sensing some quality which hint
| that the interviewee would make existing employees' jobs
| harder. Dunno if this is happening, but things like talking
| bad about previous jobs, management, etc can turn folks
| off. Also, if one implies many previous jobs were problems
| the interviewer may assume that the employee was the issue
| instead.
| Johnny555 wrote:
| But what did he interview for? There's a big difference
| between getting a customer support interview at Google and
| getting an engineering interview. He doesn't really say
| what he interviewed for.
|
| Or for that matter, what kind of job he's looking for and
| what his skills are other than QA @ EA (was he writing
| automation, or doing gameplay testing?), an 18 year old
| developer (intern?) at IBM, and customer service at Amazon.
| And maybe that's part of the problem -- hiring managers
| don't know what he wants to do. (which is easier to get
| away with at a small company since you'll do a bit of
| everything, but larger companies are generally looking for
| someone to fill a specific role)
|
| If he's consistently getting first interviews but not
| getting past that, then maybe his resume sounds better than
| his actual skill level.
| ABeeSea wrote:
| From reading the rest of the posts, I don't see how OP could
| pass the standard FAANG behavioral STAR interview loops.
| lumost wrote:
| Given this persons experience level and their predilection to
| "spoofing" phone numbers and related activity - it's entirely
| plausible that they lied on the resume to get the interview.
| Or embellished enough detail on their roles to make them pass
| the resume screening.
|
| If this is the case the gap in skill required to pass a FAANG
| interview may be too great to overcome in a reasonable
| timeframe.
|
| Hustle culture pushes the unqualified person changing their
| life by taking a big risk. But most of the "success" examples
| are people moving into high turnover, metric driven, entry
| level positions such as investment advisors performing cold
| calls, entry level b2b sales etc.
| helsinkiandrew wrote:
| Presumably lack of previous work experience would be visible
| on the resume and the any competent company would filter
| people out before interview if that is important to them.
|
| Once you have an interview, presumably its something that
| they learned from it that gets you rejected.
| 7sidedmarble wrote:
| Not only does that make no sense in the context of hiring
| programmers, it doesn't make sense for hiring anyone. Nailing
| interviews is about impressing someone first and foremost.
| It's kind of hard to impress when you don't have prior
| experience to look to.
| ep103 wrote:
| While I agree with you, my experience in hiring in this
| industry for the last few years has been to agree with the
| parent comment. Once you land an interview, I don't think
| any of my interviewers even looked at my resume, or cared
| what it might have said. Most companies, at that point,
| were 100% and solely interested in my ability to answer
| leetcode questions. The better companies asked more
| meaningful technical questions. None asked me about
| experience, career, projects, skills, etc. And yes, it is a
| bad hiring practice.
|
| When I was a hiring manager, I specifically designed an
| interview process that procured me candidates that were
| great devs that didn't do well in leetcode style
| interviews, and as a result was able to hire a much better
| team than I should have been able to at my budget level. We
| did this, by doing no-brainer things like, actually reading
| the resumes.
|
| But good hiring practices are hard to scale. Reading a
| resume or a person is difficult to teach. But a minimally
| competent leetcode style interview session can be run with
| some success by most engineers, so it scales. Which means
| it worked great for some quickly growing tech companies
| with large amounts of cash and little need to filter
| questionable resume lists (usually because their name
| brands guaranteed high level quality applicants). This then
| became a fad as every company copied the name brand
| engineering company without wondering if their hiring
| process had the same constraints as name-brand co, and is
| now what the industry thinks is 'the one true way.;
| lhorie wrote:
| I definitely read resumes (and ask about it). While it's
| not the sole criteria for hiring/not hiring, I think it
| says a lot about the candidate.
| watwut wrote:
| People who I have seen hiring definitely read resume
| prior interview. They did not necessary asked about it
| directly.
| szundi wrote:
| They look at the resume. If you are not just OK, then
| your interview may fix your CV. If you are not the best
| candidate, just barely OK, your bad CV can fuel worries.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| I was asked about my previous internship work experience
| from my resume by Point72, Salesforce, Google, Addepar,
| Okta, Iterable, Visa, Veritas from my resume during my
| interviews.
| ma2rten wrote:
| I work at Google (the only FAANG company in your list).
| We would ask about it, but it's not a significant
| deciding factor.
|
| It might be a deciding factor if you get an interview at
| all, which team you are interviewing with and for which
| level. Those decisions are made by recruiters, not
| interviewers or hiring committees.
| ep103 wrote:
| And a recruiter is not really looking at your resume as
| anything other than a wordlist with which to shotgun
| applicants that might earn him/her commission into the
| process. And then the engineering team just jumps to
| leetcode. What's so easy to go missing here is the step
| where the person is interviewed, as a person, by someone
| who is not a recruiter or equivalent HR screener, and is
| technically skilled enough to understand the resume. Ya
| know, in a word, a good manager.
| infinite8s wrote:
| I don't think internal recruiters (what I believe the GP
| was referring to) get paid a commission.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| depends on firms and their work contracts and definition
| of "internal recruiters"
| nextlevelwizard wrote:
| It is not about what your previous job title was, but if
| you actually have the chops to do the new job.
|
| There are many tricks you can use to get an interview.
| However nothing abut OPs past shows that he can actually be
| a productive programmer.
|
| >Dev job at IBM
|
| No details what he did or for how long. I've been in teams
| with fresh juniors who are amazing. They bring in new
| knowledge and new perspectives and over all crush the job.
| Then I've seen juniors who "work" on something for weeks
| and weeks and when we start for them to demo how far they
| are we find out that they haven't been able to produce
| anything working.
|
| >QA at EA
|
| While with normal software I'd say this requires at least
| scripting skills with games I don't know if that is
| necessarily true and again probably not a good skill set
| for getting hired as dev in FAANG
|
| >Cybersecurity team at college
|
| I immediately assume this is some kind of CTF team, which
| might teach you to use some tools, but again I've seen
| people in college just "pass through" without really
| learning anything
|
| If the job OP could do and do well was Amazon help desk
| then he should aim somewhere between FAANG dev and that
| position and probably erring on the side of the help desk.
| The new job will teach them more and in a year or two they
| can apply for a higher position.
| kamaal wrote:
| >>You said you quit a job at EA, quit a job at IBM, dropped out
| of college your freshman year. You may have valid reasons for
| leaving each of these, but you have to see this from the
| manager's perspective: You had 3 different great opportunities
| that all came to a dead end at the beginning of your career.
| You need an alternate narrative.
|
| Things like this are very important. Job hopping is a giant red
| flag for lots of companies.
|
| Nobody wants to hire an employee whose replacement they have to
| hire under an year.
| midasz wrote:
| > Job hopping is a giant red flag for lots of companies
|
| I noticed that after a year or 2 I get bored because things
| become a bit too routine. After the third job I decided to
| just become a midlancer (in a few years want to go full
| freelance) so I can hop whenever I hit that wall.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| It's not job hopping that's the problem. It's unemployment.
| Companies actually like job hoppers because they learn more,
| and actually can find those jobs, hence they hop. Job hopping
| without jobs (gaps) is unattractive but that would be
| unemployment not job hopping, since the dude is unemployed.
|
| I'm saying this only for people who are in utter shit jobs
| and have the talent to find another one, but are afraid to be
| classified a job hopper.
| yarcob wrote:
| If someone never stayed more than a year at a job that's a
| pretty major red flag.
|
| Most hires will take a year to get productive (where they
| produce more value for the company than they cost).
|
| I would never hire someone if I expected them to leave in a
| few months (except an intern).
|
| There are exceptions. An experienced consultant may be
| hired only for short, specific projects. But if you're
| struggling to get hired, you don't fall in that category.
| odshoifsdhfs wrote:
| > Most hires will take a year to get productive (where
| they produce more value for the company than they cost).
|
| I never fully understood this. In pretty much any company
| I worked, if by the end of the month you weren't
| productive (almost fully independent) you would get the
| boot. Do companies really expect for new employees to
| take a year to be consistently productive? In startup
| land, that is like 2-3 product launches, how the hell
| companies find the money for this?
| ptero wrote:
| It is not common, but "a year to value" is not rare
| either. Some projects (SW/HW interfaces; many
| multidisciplinary efforts, like biomedical software) take
| a while to fully get into.
|
| I am not talking about someone not doing anything useful
| -- that should come quickly. But it may take several
| months or a year for them to start creating more value
| than their salary+benefits+other costs. And as long as
| the new hire shows progress to this I am perfectly OK if
| the process takes a year. My 2c.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| It depends how many years they've got. It also depends
| what your definition of job hopping is. Some people say
| anything less than 1 to 2 years.
| https://www.flexjobs.com/blog/post/job-hopping-v2/ I
| definitely wouldn't be moving every 3 months, since the
| interview process takes time, and picking the right
| company is difficult.
|
| Anyway, I was productive within a week at my current
| company. Have you heard of companies trying to reduce the
| time to impact (or git commit) of an employee, some are
| proud that their employees commit go into production on
| their _first day_. If it takes one year to make back the
| money it costs to pay them, that sounds like we should
| improve that process or get more value from developers,
| rather than expect people to stay for longer to earn back
| their cost.
|
| This is clearly a tough topic for some people on HN. I
| would recommend you just do some interviews (this is not
| treason), and see what offers you get (this is fair, you
| might get a nice increase). Then you'll realize its not a
| big deal for companies (especially the one thats making
| the hire), it might be bigger in your head and in your
| existing company.
| throw14082020 wrote:
| I am talking from experience, where I 'job hopped' to get
| better jobs which treat me better, fit me better, pay me
| more, have smarter colleagues and better systems (aka. more
| agile not just talking about it), and benefits, healthcare.
| I did my research (mainly getting the confidence from
| articles online), whilst hearing too often the idea people
| have in their heads: I should stay a longer before
| considering moving because it looks bad on the resume. What
| you hear from everyone/ common wisdom can be a
| justification for themselves not taking a risky and
| uncomfortable move.
| underwater wrote:
| Job hopping is having a track record of optimising for
| your own experience at the expense of your employers. Of
| course that's going to look bad, unless you can explain
| why _this_ time is different.
| MattyMc wrote:
| > Companies actually like job hoppers
|
| I would encourage you to rethink this idea.
| ohiovr wrote:
| I gave up and became a lab tech.
| _sohan wrote:
| Try doing a mock interview and really act on any feedback you
| get.
| jakub_g wrote:
| 0) Google, FB and other bigtech are extremely competitive, they
| get 100s of resumes per each opening. Without strong referral /
| top college graduation / significant exp (AND great interviewing
| skills) it's like lottery ticket. Even with all that it's a
| lottery. Bigtech hiring is foremost about avoiding wrong hires,
| hence ultra conservative. Try something from a bit lower league
| first.
|
| 1) Work on your writing skills. The post you wrote is not very
| clear in some places.
|
| 2) Remember to curate your CV/resume/story to each job to not
| appear underqualified/ overqualified/ having irrelevant
| skills/exp.
|
| Show that you care about THIS particular job, not ANY job. Do a
| bit of research on each company and get ready to tell why X is
| best company for you.
| jakub_g wrote:
| Also skipping your manager and going straight to VPs when
| you're a new employee sounds like a risky move in many places.
| 8128js8121 wrote:
| So far all I am seeing is that you want want a high paying job at
| a reputable company without actually working for it.
|
| Your experience is lacking and jack of all trades master of none.
|
| Start at a small company and work on a skill set. Since you drop
| out of everything you do. get refs and go from there.
| kstenerud wrote:
| You sound autistic. Many of your experiences feel similar to
| mine.
|
| Here's what happens to autistic people in general:
|
| - They get ghosted a LOT because NT people generally don't know
| how to deal with them (and social training only goes so far).
|
| - They get fired / laid off / pushed out / excluded a lot with no
| real reason given, and nobody will care if it's just/legal or not
| because "something about him is just ... wrong".
|
| - They tend to have very small networks or none at all.
|
| - The less "crazy" you behave, the worse it is because you fall
| into the uncanny valley. The more "crazy" you behave, the more
| tolerant people are of your quirks, but the less they take you
| seriously.
|
| I was even ghosted by a 7-11 store when I applied as a clerk in
| my late teens, and wondered why the sign remained up for another
| month when he didn't even get back to me.
|
| Computer jobs were easy for autistics in the old days because
| nobody expected much of you other than to get the thing working.
| Only managers and software architects needed people skills.
| That's no longer the case in the modern highschool-like software
| house. People are a LOT judgier and intolerant. You need to do
| whatever you can to bridge the ever-increasing divide, even
| faking if you have to, or risk getting pushed out. I've had mixed
| results saying up front that I'm autistic. Discrimination is a
| huge problem here.
|
| One piece of advice I can definitely give is: Don't do any crazy
| stuff like bypassing access controls. That only works if you also
| have the panache to wow the person within 10 seconds of the
| intrusion.
| BeetleB wrote:
| So far none of the replies has mentioned this, and it may be
| unpopular in HN, but:
|
| Seriously consider going back to school and finishing a degree.
| Although it's "known" that you don't really need a degree for a
| SW role, there are plenty of well established old school
| companies that will not consider you at all unless you have a
| degree. On the flip side, you'll get jobs more easily. A lot of
| interviewers who choose to interview someone without a degree are
| doing it "just in case he turns out to be a genius." You are not
| one (or at least have not shown you are one). Let me be brutally
| honest: In such companies, you will _not_ get a job if you
| interview as well as the average candidate who has a degree.
| Managers don 't want to have to justify hiring someone without a
| degree, and they look worse amongst their peers if a bad hire
| didn't have a degree than if they did.
|
| > Reading Meyers, Knuth etc. books.
|
| Improving technical skills is always good. However, your role in
| a company, and your performance, are due to lots of other
| factors. A person who is average in all areas is generally more
| desirable than a smart person in one area who is poor in others.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Especially in this case, getting a degree would got a long way
| towards demonstrating dedication and maturity, and could even
| make up for earlier job hopping and quitting school.
| aphextron wrote:
| I would second this, and also say get _any_ degree. A real
| accredited CS BS degree is incredibly difficult and time
| consuming. But a BA can be knocked out in 2 years and makes you
| infinitely more employable on paper than just a high school
| graduate for any position.
| [deleted]
| SkyMarshal wrote:
| I'm not sure any random BA can help these days. Anecdotally
| at least, one of the recurring news stories about Millenials
| is about how so many can't get jobs with their BA degrees. OP
| is probably better off going to Lambda School or a similar
| technical boot camp.
| aphextron wrote:
| This is just my personal experience. I've been successful
| in this industry for nearly a decade now, working my way up
| from junior to senior dev as a self taught programmer that
| dropped out of high school. It can absolutely be done. But
| that doesn't mean it ever _helped me_ to have not had any
| academic achievements. I once held it as a point of pride
| to be able to make it without a degree. But I find it
| increasingly embarrassing as I get older and work almost
| exclusively with people that have those qualifications to
| not just have that piece of paper. The reality of life is
| that given identical skills and experience between two
| candidates, people are always going to choose the one with
| a degree. And justifying yourself at the higher levels of a
| career without one becomes increasingly untenable.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Anecdotally this is a popular idea, but it is surprisingly
| poorly supported by data. I did a deep dive on this a
| couple years ago, and there is actually little difference
| between early-career employment prospects for STEM and non-
| STEM bachelor degree holders.
|
| I did not look at bachelors vs coding camp certificate.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| I think that's true for all schools below the
| top-10/top-20 (which covers the large majority of people,
| myself included).
|
| For the elite schools, a STEM degree does confer
| advantage over non-STEM degrees.
| the_only_law wrote:
| I wonder how much of that is due to a big chunk of the
| STEM undergrad degrees (mainly science) being not so
| useful. Don't think I've ever seen a scientist role
| requiring anything less than a PhD (at least nothing
| paying more then $40k a year) I find it hard to believe
| though, that the employment prospects for someone with an
| B.Eng. or B.S. CS are equally as bad for as someone with
| a B.A. in English or Psychology.
| dimal wrote:
| If he's on the verge of being homeless, getting a degree seems
| like too long of a timeline. A bootcamp seems more reasonable,
| but even that's a stretch.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| One of my former co-workers at IBM went to a bootcamp in SF.
| She is pretty smart. Though, I feel that bootcamps are kinda
| scams. Not like colleges though.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I went to college and did a bootcamp.
|
| College - 212K tuition (current) - 4 yrs - no job guarantee
|
| Bootcamp - 18K tuition - 3 months - money back if no job
| within a year
|
| Can you spot the scam?
| bawolff wrote:
| To be fair, money back promises are often used as part of
| a scam.
|
| Personally i think neither are a scam (although 212k is
| ridiculous, glad i dont live in usa) just make sure you
| understand what they are selling and that it matches what
| you want.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I actually know someone who got the money back in this
| case, so not a scam.
| BeetleB wrote:
| While I sympathize with your point, I also see someone
| who made a really poor choice in picking a college. I'll
| wager that in every state there is a decent university
| that will get you a 4 year degree for under $60K.
|
| It's as if I compared your average college with a crappy
| bootcamp. Let's not cherry-pick.
|
| The number I want to see is the percentage of college
| grads with a BS in CS who get a (decent) job within a
| year, vs the percentage of people who complete a bootcamp
| who get a (decent) job within a year. I suspect the
| numbers will favor college, but I honestly have no idea.
|
| Getting your money back sounds like a good deal, but
| you'd still have spent a whole year without a job, and
| nothing to show for it.
| fallingknife wrote:
| I would also say that going to college was a bad choice,
| but the one I picked was one of the good ones where the
| name means something. Still a rip off, but a lot of
| people paid the same for absolutely nothing.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > but the one I picked was one of the good ones where the
| name means something.
|
| As someone who went both to an average university and one
| ranked 3rd in the country, I can tell you: The name
| doesn't mean much in the engineering discipline.
| Certainly, a CS degree from CMU will likely get you into
| more interviews, and they probably earn more in the long
| run, but the person who got his BS in CS from an average
| state school with a good GPA will almost certainly get a
| job within a year. Very few exceptions. With bootcamps, I
| expect that percentage is a lot lower.
|
| As a data point, I work in a top tech company and while
| people from big name schools are slightly
| overrepresented, the majority of folks are not from big
| name schools. Certainly plenty of people from my average
| state school here have senior positions.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| Haha yeah. Though, some of the boot camp folks who I
| noticed . Usually have earned a bachelors with a major in
| something else than CS etc. Then made the transition to
| tech via a bootcamp. I applied to the recurse center a
| while back and got rejected.
| gen220 wrote:
| I went to college and have many coworkers who went to boot
| camps, and we're paid the same!
|
| Look on LinkedIn for people who work at the companies you
| want to work at, and also went to bootcamps, to build a
| shortlist.
|
| There are several boot camps today, in every major urban
| area, that carry major street cred in the local tech
| communities.
| snicker7 wrote:
| Counter-anecdote: I work with a couple of devs who went
| the bootcamp path. Great front-end devs. However, they
| are paid significantly less for the same work relative to
| fresh grads in the office. Wages aren't based off of
| fairness, but on market factors. They are paid less
| presumably because management knows they have less
| options.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Do you know specific good ones?
| gen220 wrote:
| In the NYC area, the ones I can personally vouch for,
| having worked with graduates, are Flatiron School, App
| Academy, and the Recurse Center.
|
| I'm sure there are other good ones, but I only personally
| know graduates of these programs.
| wespiser_2018 wrote:
| Recurse Center is not a bootcamp
| gen220 wrote:
| You're right, but it fits in the mold of "nontraditional
| education" so I opted to include it.
|
| I do know a handful of people who attended RC with
| minimal to zero prior programming skills, though this is
| definitely not the norm.
| bad44 wrote:
| And how exactly does this work for someone who is nearly
| homeless?
| sircastor wrote:
| I'll support this too. I was more than a decade into my SWE
| career when I decided to finish college. It's tough but being
| on the other side of it I can understand why a college graduate
| is preferable as a candidate more than someone who hasn't. And
| it doesn't have anything to do with learning to program.
| University studies are hard, and it's not the material (for the
| most part). It's the effort, and the dedication.
|
| You might see if you can re-enroll in your school.
| snakedoctor wrote:
| I've thought about it. Community College, Deep Springs etc. I
| think autodidacticism is a better way to learn vs academic
| path. Though I didn't want to finish high school but I did..
| So, it might be just one of those things that I'll have to suck
| up and just do. I disliked that I would have to take 2 years of
| core curriculum stuff before even being allowed to take major
| related courses. I had to reach out to instructors of courses
| that sounded interesting to get approved to take them. After I
| started to take the courses I didn't really like them. I got
| good grades on my papers etc.
| thatcat wrote:
| When you're enrolled in college it opens up opportunities for
| internships, software eng is usually decent pay. Consider
| research, you don't have to interact with business people -
| academics are more understanding of autism spectrum behavior.
| I wouldn't expect career progression to be fast taking this
| route, but at least you'll get some experience.
| tallanvor wrote:
| > I disliked that I would have to take 2 years of core
| curriculum stuff before even being allowed to take major
| related courses. I had to reach out to instructors of courses
| that sounded interesting to get approved to take them. After
| I started to take the courses I didn't really like them.
|
| You seem to have a real problem accepting that you have to
| work within the system and follow the same rules as everyone
| else.
|
| For entry level positions, the best predictor of success
| hiring manager have is your GPA when you've completed a
| degree. Further, autodidacticism certainly can be better for
| some people, but unfortunately it makes it much harder for
| you to get past initial screenings. If you had stuck with
| some of your other jobs for a few years, this would matter a
| bit less, but if you haven't stuck with any job longer than
| two months, you don't look like a potential asset.
|
| My advice is to go to school. Accept that the core curriculum
| requirements are there for a reason, and unless the
| university offers a way to test of part of them, then deal
| with it. If it's stuff you already know, then look at it as a
| way to help ensure you have a great GPA for when you do
| graduate. And when you're in school, take advantage to
| everything else that's offered - join a few clubs, look for
| opportunities to learn leadership skills and develop them.
|
| Once you graduate, start your resume there - don't even
| include things before that - they don't know how old you are,
| so they'll assume you're just like any other recent grad.
|
| Finally, when you land a job, keep your mouth shut and do the
| work you're asked to do. Give input when asked, otherwise
| listen. Listen to what your manager is saying, and to what
| senior engineers are saying. Watch to see who has influence,
| and how they wield it. In a few months if your work is
| speaking for itself, then it's the time to start speaking up
| more. If you have a good manager, ask for their advice on how
| to do speak up effectively, if you don't have a good manager,
| ask one of the engineers that clearly has influence.
|
| Above all, remember that life isn't easy for most of us. It
| doesn't matter how smart we are, we have to work hard, work
| well with others, and learn how to work within the system.
| Otherwise the system will spit you out.
| denkmoon wrote:
| >I think autodidacticism is a better way to learn vs academic
| path.
|
| A better way to learn, yes perhaps.
|
| A degree shows that you can consistently show up and complete
| tasks. That's the important part. I haven't read all your
| posts but it is unclear to me that you actually completed a
| degree and got the slip of paper?
|
| Unless you have notable (4-5yrs) experience for the position
| I am looking for, I probably wouldn't hire someone without a
| degree. It's just a baseline thing you need.
|
| Based on your comments you seem talented but unreliable.
| issa wrote:
| Without completely dismissing the idea of going to school, it
| might be more your speed to work on an open source project of
| some sort. If you can build something and launch it, that is
| cheaper, faster, and (potentially) a lot more fun than going
| to school. For someone who doesn't like playing the "games"
| involved in office work or interviews, setting yourself up
| for consulting work might be a good move too.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Yeah but that open source rarely leads to a job. Yes, many
| here on HN and open-source may have achieved that but it is
| extremely rare.
|
| I don't think this person will be able to do consulting
| considering the actions they have done while interacting
| with managers, directors, executives.
| barry-cotter wrote:
| Go to degreeforum.net and learn about how to get a Bachelor's
| degree in a year. Or read Miguel's story of how he got a CS
| degree from WGU in one year. Alternatively if you want to
| know how to get a Master's degree without a Bachelor's e-mail
| me and I'll tell you how I did it.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25467900
| jonstewart wrote:
| Deep Springs has something like 18 students, right?
|
| You're young and you can change your trajectory--have hope!--
| but it will not be through some home run fantasy. Don't apply
| to FAANG or Deep Springs or MIT. Apply to your local
| community college and to local companies' IT departments.
| Keep the job, stay enrolled, get good grades, learn to stay
| quiet, learn to listen, and only then learn to argue well.
| After two-three years at community college (depending how
| fast you go, based on need to work), take your good grades
| and apply to a few colleges. Go to one that you can afford
| and isn't intimidating. Do the work there, too, and graduate.
| Five years. And then all will be well.
| dbt00 wrote:
| This was touched on above in slightly different terms, but
| I'm going to echo it because I see it in the answers here.
| You were raised differently by your parents. You are missing
| some basic social skills to interact with other people in a
| normal way, and unless you are exceptionally brilliant (which
| most of us aren't) people aren't going to give you a pass on
| those things because quite frankly it'll make it brutally
| painful to work with you because literally no instruction or
| direction can be taken for granted.
|
| At this point in your life the best thing you can do is go to
| school, try to get some help from your parents or financial
| aid to focus on your studies, and absolutely do not try to
| carve your own way through the curriculum. Do the things they
| put in front of you. Show that you can take on tasks that are
| boring but necessary and get them done. Embrace the grind.
| And make some friends! Learning how to interact normally with
| your peers is a necessary skill that homeschooling rarely
| helps with.
|
| Personally, I'm a college dropout. I was a mediocre student
| in high school and a worse one in college because I took time
| off in between, and was overly impressed with my own ability
| and didn't put in the work. It took me years to dig out of
| that hole professionally, but it's possible. And I would
| never have done it without the social skills and connections
| I made going to a major university, even if I didn't finish.
| toast0 wrote:
| Part of what a 4 year college degree shows is that you can
| stick with something for four years. Combined with some of
| your other responses, I think it might be a good thing to
| have under your belt.
|
| Also, depending on the college scene, you might have more
| opportunities to socialize with lots of people which you may
| have missed with your home schooling.
|
| Depending on where you live, community college varies from
| amazingly affordable to right around the same as a state
| university. Check on student aid as well.
|
| Sometimes you have to jump through the hoops to show you can.
| rokobobo wrote:
| Seconded. If you aren't willing to go through school, why
| would you be willing to take up a job? Most entry-level
| jobs will generally be even more boring, require more
| discipline and jumping through the kind of hoops that you
| will not enjoy. Unless someone sees a sort of a raw genius
| in you, they will probably not take a gamble on you.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| Because university and work are completely different
| environments.
|
| University is very academic, work is very practical.
| the_only_law wrote:
| One reason I assume is that a degree is taking tens of
| thousands of dollars from you whereas the entry level job
| will be giving that to you.
| AirMax98 wrote:
| I always felt being enrolled in a community college was
| always a key differentiator for me as a candidate. Beyond
| being a stepping stone into a top 10 CS program for me, I
| feel like those lines on my resume communicate that I am just
| a super tenacious and scrappy person.
|
| It is the highest ROI investment I have ever made in myself.
| topkai22 wrote:
| Getting a degree is only partially about learning. A degree
| signals that you were able to complete a curriculum that,
| frankly, will almost always have parts you don't like.
|
| So some perspective for you to consider. The first is that as
| I have advanced in my career (its been solid if not
| extraordinary) the core curriculum stuff I thought was going
| to never apply working as a technologist has ended up being
| suprisingly useful. I wasn't a fan of linear algebra in
| undergrad, but now I'm using it on a data science related
| stuff. My politics concentration has ended up very useful at
| understanding the group and organizational dynamics. Even my
| forced sociology course lets me understand the reasoning of
| some my peers/superiors who buy into that line of research
| far more than if I was coming in blind. Theory of
| computation... remains useless, but they can't all be
| winners.
|
| The second, and more important, perspective is that as a
| person who does some indirect hiring (interviewer plus
| technical lead, but not people manager), I worry that someone
| without a degree has trouble driving to completion in the
| face of disinterest, or is self sabotaging. My projects are
| mostly enjoyable, but sometimes I (or someone on my team)
| needs to spend 3-4 weeks writing up a government mandated
| security document. It sucks, but it has to be done. If I
| think you might be the type of person that will have trouble
| completing that independently because there is always more
| fun stuff to be working on, I don't want you on my team.
|
| A degree is a noisy, loosely correalated signal that you
| won't be that person. However, as others have mentioned, your
| writing here indicates you MAY be that person, and not having
| a degree is a correalative signal that doesn't help your
| case.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > I think autodidacticism is a better way to learn vs
| academic path.
|
| It often is a better way to learn, but that's not why I
| suggested going back to school. It doesn't sound like your
| technical skills are the reason you're not getting a job.
|
| > So, it might be just one of those things that I'll have to
| suck up and just do.
|
| Most jobs are full of things you have to suck up and do. As
| long as you work for someone else, sucking up and doing will
| be a big part of your career.
|
| Oh, and if you start your own business and work for yourself,
| chances are you'll spend even _more_ time doing tedious stuff
| - although it depends on your business.
|
| Doing what you want is the domain of the financially
| independent, and (some) tenured faculty members.
| [deleted]
| bawolff wrote:
| The autodidact path is a possible path, but its the harder
| one. To do it succesfully you have to go significantly above
| what your peers do to prove yourself. It also can often leave
| gaps in your knowledge and blindspots that you are unaware
| of.
|
| In the world of software, that probably means having a
| portfolio of projects you can point to as examples (including
| but not neccesarily limited to open source projects. Other
| options include starting your own company (very hard), etc)
| imstate wrote:
| I have to agree. I don't think having a degree dictates whether
| a person can do a job or not, but they have sure convinced
| corporations that it's a requirement.
|
| After I got a degree I started getting responses from places.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Contribute to a significant Open Source project. Many
| contributors to the D programming language project have leveraged
| that resume into well-paid jobs.
| mohap2 wrote:
| A lot of the orgs you mentioned are top-tier and they interview A
| LOT of candidates and they reject almost all of them.
| hartator wrote:
| > Spoofed number to bypass contact whitelist etc
|
| Hum, what?
| meshr wrote:
| >I might be homeless soon
|
| Where is your family? Why can't you return to your parents?
| rsweeney21 wrote:
| I'm a software engineer that runs a technical recruiting company.
| I worked at Microsoft and Netflix for a decade. Email me at
| robert at facet dot net. I will interview you and tell you why
| you're not getting hired.
| aetherspawn wrote:
| If I ever met you, I'd buy you a coffee. You jumped straight in
| to help the OP without offering any kind of upfront diagnosis
| based on the very little information available. The traits are
| patience and humility. They're valuable and not often found.
| javajosh wrote:
| I agree that the GP's offer is admirable and far better than
| mere feedback. But this doesn't obviate the value of honest,
| constructive feedback. His concern is explicitly about the
| impression he makes on others, therefore our impressions are
| valid to share with him.
| rsweeney21 wrote:
| Helping other people is actually a tool I use to manage my
| anxiety. :)
|
| Helps me put my worries in perspective. It works really well!
| iorrus wrote:
| Agree 100%, this was a great response amongst this sea of
| self righteousness and scorn
| jesterson wrote:
| Going through comments I almost lost faith into people who do
| something instead of judging. Apparently there are still some
| who appreciate it.
|
| That's said, if you guys would have a coffee, I'd be honoured
| to join you, let alone cover related expenses
| posthiatal1 wrote:
| I just offered the same thing, but my opinion isn't worth
| nearly as much as yours. Thanks for offering something of real
| value, which I saw only after offering my own, much less
| valuable, mock-interview. :)
| p0sixlang wrote:
| I went ahead and signed myself up to your website. The
| application made me feel like I wasn't supposed to, considering
| I've never done any of the things it asked if I did, and am
| just a lowly CS student who doesn't even have a great GPA, and
| is about to graduate jobless... so I figured I'd take a shot.
| Very nice signup process. Smooth as butter.
|
| Completely understand if you can't help me, but would love some
| feedback on my resume at least.
| alfiedotwtf wrote:
| This should be at the top.
| techsin101 wrote:
| This is refreshing! no grammar analysis, no inferring about
| mental disorders, no bragging about high ground you are on, not
| calling creepy, no calling OP over in his head... to me it
| feels like people are having a field day at OP's expense. OP: I
| suck!.. 999 people: AHAHA YOU DO BECAUSE YOU SUCK.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| Do you do internationally and/or trading firms?
| rsweeney21 wrote:
| We're only operating in the US right now. I'm not sure what a
| trading firm is...
| turingexam wrote:
| I believe that the commenter was referring to quantitative
| (algorithmic) trading in finance.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| OP this is an amazing opportunity, I would definitely take him
| up on this offer.
| undefined1 wrote:
| best possible response. I hope you get voted to the top.
| salvadormon wrote:
| It's refreshing to see a positive comment in the sea of
| destructive criticism in this thread.
| pierrefermat1 wrote:
| Just wanted to say this is really wholesome!
| okaram wrote:
| It is hard to figure out what the problem may be, without knowing
| you, so I won't try (feel free to PM if you want to do something
| like a mock interview).
|
| One thing that may suck, but want to make you aware is that
| chances are you need to do things _worse_ temporarily, before
| they become better. You may need to put extra effort now (go to
| community college etc), for reward later.
|
| One program I'd suggest you explore is AWS Re/Start,
| https://aws.amazon.com/training/restart/ ... it may be right for
| you (Amazon also has a similar internal program).
| snakedoctor wrote:
| How can I get in contact with you?
| satvikpendem wrote:
| Email me at the email address in my profile, I'll mock
| interview you as well.
| bckr wrote:
| > feel free to PM if you want to do something like a mock
| interview
|
| This is a very generous offer, OP.
| compliance_tech wrote:
| I'm in my early 40s. One of the best things I've done for myself
| over the last 20+ years is to lower my expectations for how
| responsive the world is and will be to my wants/desires/needs.
| It's a super fine tight-rope-walking line between having low
| expectations in some general sense vs assuming I need to be the
| agent in charge of my particular pursuit of happiness but this
| has been an exceptional way for me to approach the world. Best of
| luck. There's an arse for every seat. You will find something.
| balls187 wrote:
| You don't really sound like you are cut out to work a corporate
| job. And that's not a bad thing.
|
| I'd say find whatever job you can get your hands on that has
| basic benefits, and focus your energy on creating the next
| Symantec or whatever.
|
| And maybe, someday, some oddball might contact you with spoofed
| credentials looking for a job.
| blhack wrote:
| Post your resume and github profile. This seems like a strange
| post to make without actually linking to any of the work that
| you've done.
| bad44 wrote:
| Oh that's brilliant, let's link a thread where OP details his
| personal struggles and shortcomings to his IRL identity.
|
| Surely if the recruiters weren't all over him before, now
| they'll just be clamouring to hire him! Wow!
| somethingtoday wrote:
| Going to be an unpopular opinion:
|
| Look into how you look visually and how you speak and your
| behaviour. Are there things you do that [incorrectly] raise a
| flag for other people? Like someone mentioned on here, get
| detailed feedback.
| jijji wrote:
| This appears to be someone playing a joke on this thread. If such
| a person ever existed, I feel bad for you. McDonalds is always
| hiring.
| glitchc wrote:
| Seems like not finishing college is holding you back. I concur
| with some of the other comments about joining the military to
| help pay your way through college, unless there is a pre-existing
| condition that may disqualify you. Becoming a sensor specialist,
| a weapons specialist, an engineer or a doctor with the military
| will pay high dividends. You will remain employable most of your
| working life.
| unixhero wrote:
| Credentials: You have to finish a university / college degree, at
| least a bachelor. Spend the entire last year of the studies to
| also look for job leads for after graduation. Stay in uni and
| finish the entire degree. Try to expand your horizon as much as
| possible, get to know people from a broad set of backgrounds.
| Lift weights and run/bike/swim.
|
| Interview prep: Then try getting good at Case jnterviews, which
| are good for structuring your thoughts in an interview session. I
| really like Victorcheng.com .
|
| Network: Then you must network, you must be part if a social
| graph to make it.
|
| Social skills: Force yourself to be outgoing. If you are not
| already, it is a fresh skill that needs to be maintained.
|
| Career councelling: And you must have a narrative that does not
| paint you a picture as a quitter. Get a pro to redo your CV and
| get interview coaching.
|
| You are not alone in struggling to get going in the market. My
| advice here will work if you take the long hard road. This thread
| also contains a lot of good advice for you.
| cleandreams wrote:
| Companies care a lot about perseverance and track record. You
| should stay at jobs for at least 2 years. Also, leaving college
| as a freshman does not look good; that is an inadequate education
| for tech. You are not going to get a good job with so little
| education (there are rare exceptions but you don't sound like
| one). If you need a cheap school, do that. I have a computer
| science degree from a cheap state school and I have worked at the
| best and biggest companies. You have to stop making excuses and
| stop focusing on being rejected. Focus on doing the work of
| preparation. Get busy. You can do it. IMHO you will never get a
| good tech job with so little education -- go back to school and
| get loans. Also I got a good internship from one of my
| professor's.
| erentz wrote:
| As others have noted you're going to have to stick with things
| longer, and learn to accept your not the one in charge in most of
| your roles (especially in the US which has a fairly authoritarian
| workplace culture). Also you may want to look into the
| possibility of contracting through agencies.
|
| Are you autistic? You sound like autistic people I know who have
| similar troubles. It's helpful to find out if you are and learn
| about how this affects you earlier in your career rather than
| later. It can really change how you approach situations at work
| and with interpersonal relationships so you can stick with things
| longer. In addition you might find there are autistic hiring
| programs that can help. (It's not something you need to advertise
| but it's something that's helpful for you to know about
| yourself.)
| acdw wrote:
| Try checking your local library for a career center -- I work for
| a career center locally and we do career coaching, mock
| interviews, and will review your resume and cover letter. Maybe
| your local library has the same, and can give you some one-on-one
| coaching and help with your job search, at least better than
| strangers on the internet can.
| tomxor wrote:
| These are all huge companies, their hiring practices are
| optimised for scale, they are reduced to viewing you through a
| crude lens of metrics.
|
| Don't play this game if it's not coming easy to you, they just
| don't have time for people not easily fitting their metrics. You
| can get a lot more job satisfaction working for small companies
| and from a hiring perspective they tend to be more informal,
| really trying to figure out if you are a reasonable person and
| have potential because that is what's important to them, not
| appeasing upper management by box ticking a due diligence form.
| [deleted]
| LordHumungous wrote:
| Get a job at a small no name company, gain experience, get a
| better job, repeat. That's how I got to Facebook.
| marcus_holmes wrote:
| Network. It's never about what you know, always about who you
| know. Everyone likes to pretend it's a techy meritocracy, but it
| totally isn't. There isn't a dev shop on the planet that hires
| purely on technical skill and ignores all the social factors.
|
| The valid method of bypassing the contact whitelist is to have
| someone who works at the company (or knows the hiring manager
| socially) recommend you.
|
| Turn up to meetups, tech events, anything where the people you
| want to work with hang out. Make friends. Buy a few beers.
| Volunteer for stuff.
|
| If you're an introvert and don't do this easily then try
| contributing to a FOSS project and getting invited into their
| comms channels. Again, make friends.
|
| Sorry, this sucks I know. But it's how humans are.
| 20210315 wrote:
| I'm an almost 50 year-old English major with a spotty career
| history, including about 20 years of various forms 'self-
| employment'.
|
| Getting a good job can be really, really hard. My current gig at
| a not-quite-but-almost FAANG took me six months to land. But it's
| also entirely possible.
|
| If, like me, you're not automatically hireable based on your
| accomplishments, I suggest you approach everything up to the
| interview as an exercise in marketing. Then treat the interview
| process as an exercise in sales.
|
| Then all you have to do is get lucky and be prepared to learn as
| much as you need to to perform in your role.
| crsv wrote:
| Was this post written by a machine as some weird test to see how
| the community would react? This seems like a mechanically
| contrived lack of self awareness that just seems too ridiculous
| to be real. This is not a sarcastic post.
| smhg wrote:
| Right? After seeing the GPT-3 examples, it's hard to not get
| triggered by incoherent sentences.
|
| Sorry if that's the wrong assumption in this case.
| [deleted]
| nhunter wrote:
| QA at EA is a path to some solid gigs. It just takes time.
|
| Yeah, it's unsexy work, but it pays okay, and if you prove
| yourself, it can lead to some senior roles. There are lots of
| folks that I work with now that started in contract QA and worked
| their way up to 6+ figure gigs inside the company.
| zxcvbn4038 wrote:
| Any feedback from the interviews? From the recruiters?
|
| You need a good story to explain your leaving all those other
| positions - nobody cares that you didn't like the pay or how hard
| it is to transfer internally, you need to tell the story of all
| the great knowledge and experience you gained at those positions,
| how your looking to build on that in your next position, and why
| your so excited for the position your interviewing for because
| it's an opportunity to grow and do something new or continue
| working with technologies you love. Presentation is everything.
| Always remember that an interview isn't a reading of your book of
| reckoning, it's an opportunity for you to advertise your best
| aspects.
|
| You don't have to be homeless either - you can flip burgers at
| Sonic and make $15/hr these days. Nothing wrong with that. Take
| an evening shift so you can interview during the day.
| gwbas1c wrote:
| I'm assuming you're in the US.
|
| Pay attention to the news. One thing I see are articles pointing
| out that certain industries have a LOT of trouble hiring, yet we
| have high unemployment. I distinctly remember that the US
| manufacturing industry is having a lot of trouble hiring.
|
| Target those industries.
| quangv wrote:
| Freelance for a couple years, get marketable skills.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Chances are you somehow act really creepy, which you do not see
| yourself. Ask a friend for a mock interview. _Record it_ and
| watch later.
|
| Don't have a friend? Hire someone. A friend cannot do mock
| interviews? Hand them a list of 10 questions that you remember
| from all those previous attempts and tell them to read it in
| solemn voice.
|
| Nowadays the interviews are remote. Let a friend observe your
| interview and then ask their opinion. (I think recording these
| might be likely illegal? idk)
| snakedoctor wrote:
| Well I was homeschooled since the 6th grade. So, I can
| understand how I can be weird/socially inept. I think that I'm
| more demure than creepy/werid imo.
|
| I did a mock interview with a friend a while back. But good
| suggestions for sure.
| viraptor wrote:
| > Ask a friend
|
| Or ask not-a-friend. A random person who is skilled in
| interviewing and doesn't have a personal relationship with you
| may give you more true answers.
| kubanczyk wrote:
| Such persons could be available on upwork or fiverr, and thus
| quite cheap.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| I homeschooled my sons.
|
| Public school was created to train children to be good little
| factory workers. A lot of the culture of public school is stuff
| you also see in old timey factories, like everyone responding to
| a ring of a bell to end their lunch.
|
| Instead of listening to a bunch of internet strangers tell you
| that you are some kind of sociopath, let me suggest you try to
| see yourself as a _stranger in a stranger land._ The world of
| paid work is like an alien culture.
|
| Social stuff is always partly learned. It is highly dependent on
| context. It doesn't matter how talented you are at the social
| thing or how well adjusted you are, you can't readily fit into an
| alien culture where you don't know the rules and implicit
| expectations.
|
| Someone on HN once told me that they had seen a number of
| "unhireable" people do volunteer work, such as working on open
| source, and have that ultimately turn into a real job that worked
| well for them.
|
| I think that's worth a shot.
|
| In the mean time, you might look for gig work to help you pay
| your bills in the short term. It's much, much easier to avoid
| homelessness than to get back into housing after landing on the
| street. (I know this fact all too well from firsthand
| experience.)
|
| I run a number of things that might be pertinent to your needs.
| This link is probably the best TLDR of stuff I work on that might
| be of some use to you:
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/GigWorks/comments/e81eba/welcome/
|
| Best of luck.
| honkycat wrote:
| Your writing is not strong, i can tell you did not attend
| college. Written communication is important in tech.
|
| Your applying to those companies with 0 experience or college
| degree is unrealistic. The entry level is extremely competitive
| and you have nothing to make you interesting to hire. They get
| thousands of applications for those jobs.
|
| You are still young, plenty of time to learn, but I recommend
| taking a step back and rethink your strategy. There are plenty of
| companies that do not get thousands of applications for jobs.
|
| Let me put it bluntly: you are not qualified to be a software
| engineer. There is no reason anyone would currently hire you,
| unless you are personable and fun to talk to.
|
| You show immaturity in the way you handled the flaw in the system
| you described. Calling your boss's boss because you think you are
| right is childish.
|
| Additionally, you do not understand how to get a software job,
| you do not have realistic expectations for what kind of jobs you
| are qualified to acquire.
|
| A few years ago my brother, who is in his thirties, was stuck in
| a dead end job he hated. So he took some classes in 3D modeling.
| He worked hard, built out his portfolio, networked, and
| eventually landed a job at a world famous video game studio
| making AAA games at an interesting role that builds his skills.
|
| What he did not do was blindly apply to jobs he was not qualified
| to do with zero training
| dcolkitt wrote:
| > Your writing is not strong,
|
| I don't know. I think he has pretty decent writing. Kinda
| reminds me of William Gibson. It may be stylistically unusual,
| but it's definitely better than the median SWE. At least in
| terms of clearly conveying his thoughts.
| urda wrote:
| The entire post flows awkwardly and feels more like an angry
| ramble than a coherent thought process was applied.
|
| This coupled with being a dropout. quitting job after job,
| and basically phising executives for attention makes this
| candidate a high risk hire and is not worth the time.
|
| Poster: You will need to extend your hard skills and
| demonstrate why a group should take the risk of your
| background on. It may be brutally honest, but the world is
| tough.
| bawolff wrote:
| In fairness, by the time someone makes a forum post like
| this, they are probably at the frustrated angry rant stage.
| urda wrote:
| Alas, this is not an acceptable cover or excuse for this
| behavior.
| bawolff wrote:
| It wouldn't be good as a cover letter, but as far as
| social media forum posts, its totally fine.
| coagmano wrote:
| You are both entirely right.
|
| It's hard to judge their writing without seeing their
| resume and/or cover letter
| [deleted]
| Kluny wrote:
| I wouldn't hire William Gibson tbh.
| atoav wrote:
| What is lacking however (and what seems to impact the opinion
| of many here negatively) is the total lack of self
| reflectivity.
|
| E.g. the previous jobs at the 3 big companies. Why did OP
| stop working there? Who ended the contract and why? If OP
| quit themselves, we lack any reason to understand why and
| whether this was a good idea in hindsight.
|
| Similar situation with the spoofing thing: this is an
| incredibly _daring_ thing to do. A very self reflective
| person might ask themselves question like: "Maybe that was a
| mistake? How did the other side perceive this?" -- especially
| after a rejection.
|
| With OP I get two vibes:
|
| 1. The issues that lead to them not getting the job they
| deserve are external. For OP it is out of the question that
| their behaviour/path they took in the world could have to do
| with how they are judged. From what I read there is no really
| rational ground for this confidence.
|
| 2. Instead of asking how to change the perception the other
| side has of them, OP seems to be more interested in the
| question how they can exploit their way into the position
| they think they deserve, without putting the leg work and
| trustbuilding into it.
|
| Technically and stylistically the writing is okay, it just
| seems to be written from the perspective of someone who
| didn't follow through on reflecting their own position in the
| job market and their own flaws when it comes to human
| interaction.
| wwn_se wrote:
| Totally agree, combined with the fact that op seems to
| focus on big tech giants that are generally hard to get in
| to is a big red flag.
|
| My advise is to find a smaller company in a "boring field"
| (think local schools, manufacturing and retail not
| google/apple) and try to get the most entry level job
| that's still gives hands on programming / sysadmin
| experience. Many small help desks let juniors have small
| side projects improving something specific for example.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| I don't have much experience but that begs me the question,
| how bad were the SWEs you were working with that had even
| poorer communication tone than this person.
| DetroitThrow wrote:
| I agree, I understood his point and the emotions he's
| probably feeling as it's an HN post, but so many red flags
| brings up some significant disconnect in the expectations
| he had of the audience. I hope he's able to get some good
| advice from this thread, he seems bright.
| onlyfortoday2 wrote:
| exactly... his writing is fine.
| stevenhuang wrote:
| The writing is disjointed and does not easily flow.
|
| It's too curt and while that's alright for a casual i.e., HN
| audience, if that's how one communicates in other contexts
| there will be miscommunication.
| lkm93 wrote:
| And you just used "i.e." incorrectly. Congratulations.
|
| Hey snakedoctor! You're probably not a sociopathic,
| autistic, illiterate narcissist like everyone here is
| telling you. For one, your writing is just fine, and beyond
| that any of your bad decisions can simply be explained by
| youth and (understandable) desperation.
|
| I would suggest staying away from HN for life advice.
| People here might have some money but, aside from that,
| they are mostly low-intelligence failures.
| pcthrowaway wrote:
| > i can tell you did not attend college.
|
| I minored in English, and OP writes better than most of the
| English majors I was in writing workshops with.
|
| edit: To elaborate, this was at a local university in a U.S.
| city where 70% of the population were native English speakers.
| None of the people in my writing workshops were ESL.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I remember the largest contribution I provided my senior
| project for my bachelor's degree was correcting group
| members' usage of there/their/they're. Definitely can confirm
| college does not mean one can write.
| georgeecollins wrote:
| I agree but I would cut the OP some slack on the writing for a
| forum post. I know I have dashed off things here that could use
| some proof reading. But the gist of what you are saying makes
| sense to me.
|
| Going back to college seems like a good idea as a general
| direction.
| sombremesa wrote:
| The GP has put a "your" instead of "you're" in (almost) the
| very next sentence, so you don't even need to point to your
| own mistakes to illustrate your point...
| bawolff wrote:
| I think GP might be a bit hard on writing style. I know
| plenty of succesful software engineers with poor writing
| abilities, and realistically my own are far from great.
| However your vs you're is the type of grammar mistake that
| really does not matter. Nobody is going to be confused by
| it. Writing structure is much more important.
|
| Edit: also looking back, GP used your correctly, so wut?
| lolinder wrote:
| That was my initial reaction, but the "your" is actually
| correct there:
|
| > Your applying to those companies with 0 experience or
| college degree is unrealistic.
|
| The clause "applying to..." is possessed by "your".
| jiofih wrote:
| Or, more directly, "your applying [...] is unrealistic".
| j10c wrote:
| Agree, both "you're" and "your" are correct with
| different perspectives.
| blackshaw wrote:
| Nope, only "your" is correct in this case. "You're" would
| require a slight rewording, something like:
|
| > You're applying to those companies with 0 experience or
| college degree, which is unrealistic.
|
| </pedantry>
| komaromy wrote:
| > The GP has put a "your" instead of "you're" in (almost)
| the very next sentence
|
| Correctly so
| [deleted]
| exdsq wrote:
| I really dislike the suggestion that someone who didn't attend
| college is therefore unable to write.
|
| - "i" should be "I"
|
| - "You are still young, plenty..." should be "You are still
| young, with plenty..."
|
| - "would currently hire you," shouldn't have a comma
|
| - "entry level", "dead end", and "world famous" should all be
| hyphenated
|
| - "AAA games at an..." should be "AAA games in an..."
|
| etc...
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| > I really dislike the suggestion that someone who didn't
| attend college is therefore unable to write.
|
| That's not what he said. He suggested that someone who
| doesn't write well probably didn't attend college.
| exdsq wrote:
| > Your writing is not strong, i can tell you did not attend
| college.
|
| Maybe you're right but this is how I read it.
|
| Alice's writing is not strong -> Alice did not attend
| college.
|
| therefore
|
| Bob's writing is strong -> Bob did attend college.
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| You just fell into a logical fallacy.
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denying_the_antecedent
|
| On the other hand, what the other user deducted was:
|
| * If you attend college -> You probably end up writing
| properly
|
| * OP doesn't write properly -> He probably didn't attend
| college
|
| Which is a proper logical deduction rule called modus
| tollens. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modus_tollens
| atuladhar wrote:
| I apologize in advance for nitpicking, but since this
| sub-thread is about usage: it should be "deduced" not
| "deducted."
| jk7tarYZAQNpTQa wrote:
| Thanks for telling me, English isn't my first language
| and I often make mistakes. I can't edit my comment to
| correct it.
| exdsq wrote:
| Fair enough! Happy to be proved wrong :)
| [deleted]
| snakedoctor wrote:
| Not to be argumentative. But yes, I did attend college. Send me
| a email, and I'll send you an email from my college email
| address (Hasn't been deactivited yet). I can send you my
| college transcript if that helps.. Well, I did get hired by IBM
| as a programmer so... I've contributed to a GNU open source
| project.. So I feel that I am qualifed for a entry level
| developer/SecEng/Security Analyst role.
|
| I went above my bosses head because they did not remedy the
| issue, and weren't going to.. The SVP guy that I did contact
| told me that would be willing to vouch for me that I did find a
| security vuln etc. He was actually quite receptive. I shouldn't
| of even had to, or felt like I had to go above my bosses head.
| There should've been a security email I could've emailed. That
| was at EA. At Amazon I emailed the VP in charge of the anti-
| fraud system since it might've taken longer for the blue team
| to send it to the right folks. But yeah, I do agree with you
| slighty on that.
| chillfox wrote:
| The problem now is that you likely can't use either of those
| managers that you went over the heads of as references for
| future jobs (they may not say nice things).
| Animats wrote:
| Having some code on Github is helpful when looking for a job.
|
| I see the problem. Most entry level programming jobs today
| either require a college degree, or they're for very low
| level web programming. Now, if you're competent at making
| basic web sites and the front end or back end of a business
| application, that's a saleable skill. Although one that
| several million other people already have. Also realize that
| about half the job is figuring out what the customer (your
| boss, probably) really wants.
|
| If you hung around a research environment, and you know a
| little programming, did some soldering, and know which end of
| a capacitor is positive, but didn't go to college, that's not
| really a saleable skill set any more. In 1980 it sometimes
| was.
|
| Useful reading: https://daedtech.com/programming-job-without-
| degree/
| jcims wrote:
| I can only speak to infosec roles. If that's the route you
| want to go I think you'll be fine once your experience and
| skills catch up with your demeanor and confidence. It sounds
| like you can be a bit of an asshole and create messes for
| your management, which is morally ambivalent but can
| interfere with your ability to collect income.
|
| I'd recommend aiming a little lower and a little smaller in
| the jobs you're applying for. Maybe try entry level spot at a
| regional bank/hospital/edu and in the interim working on
| skilling up in more tangible ways (e.g. bug bounties, GitHub
| projects and it _never_ hurts to pick up a specialty). You
| have no degree so think of this as a 2-3 year plan to
| substitute it with experience before going for what you 're
| after.
|
| Good luck dude. You've got some very valuable raw materials,
| they just need refined a bit and you'll be a beast!
| maroonblazer wrote:
| When responding to a comment that asserts your writing is not
| strong you'd want to read, re-read, and re-re-read your reply
| to ensure it is well written. You seem to have not done that,
| which lends credence to the parent's comment.
|
| My take is you seem to have an inflated sense of your
| abilities. I've interviewed people who share this trait and
| it's a turn off unless they have a portfolio of work to back
| it up.
|
| Perhaps try taking a more humble approach. Ask lots of
| questions as to what/where they need help. If they align with
| your experience then share concrete examples of how you've
| helped others in those same situations. If you haven't, make
| note of the challenges and see if you can identify patterns
| across interviews. This would provide hints as to what skill-
| building you could focus on in the interim.
|
| Good luck!
| lkm93 wrote:
| Snakedoctor's writing is fine and you sound like a pompous
| idiot.
| wildermuthn wrote:
| Good point, but snakedoctor did set this in motion by
| asking for candid feedback. Ostensibly, he wants to receive
| and integrate feedback. Seems like the sort of thing a
| smart kid would aim for. Part of me feels like in a decade
| people will reference this thread in the same way we
| reference the shellacking of Dropbox back in the day. It
| takes a cosmic-sized ego to ask HN to give you advice about
| why no company will accept that your cosmic-sized ego is
| justified. But what if the kid is right in his self-
| evaluation, but has enough self-awareness to critically
| question his self-evaluation and ask others to do the same?
| That's kind of a powerful combination.
| [deleted]
| bad44 wrote:
| Or maybe he just kills himself because he's close to
| being homeless already and a few hundred assholes just
| told him that he's a hopeless, narcissistic, uneducated
| "creep"?
|
| Snakedoctor, I think this whole thread says a lot more
| about Hacker News and its penchant for armchair
| psychology and condescension than it does about you and
| your future prospects.
|
| There's a few helpful posts here... take what you can and
| go out and seize the day! I am routing for you.
| Ecstatify wrote:
| It's crazy how many people are unable to give
| constructive feedback on Hackernews.
| p0sixlang wrote:
| It's also crazy how many HN users think calling this guy
| a sociopath is constructive feedback.
| p0sixlang wrote:
| Thank you! My point exactly. This is ugly as hell. So
| many brilliant developers and tech minds congregating to
| judge someone going through a sad time in their life
| based on an emotional post to some web forum.
| [deleted]
| p0sixlang wrote:
| Calm down, I know plenty of talented developers at FAANGxyz
| companies who are less articulate and have weaker writing
| skills compared to OP (at least in the post you're replying
| to, I do agree the original post was a bit off, but clearly
| it was written in some type of emotional state.. you know
| with his calling himself unhirable and all.)
|
| It seems that a lot of people replying here never
| understood the phrase "don't just a book by its cover". So
| many people are opining about OPs character in definite,
| and it's just unpleasant to witness. Sure, the whole
| calling VPs directly thing is a bad idea, and definitely
| inappropriate, but I can understand someone feeling like
| they're doing the right thing to advocate for an issue they
| see to be impactful. I wish I could CC this to all the
| people postulating OPs universal lack of empathy. I agree
| that he could benefit from therapy, because honestly we all
| can benefit from therapy; but all the posts implying he
| needs to be medicated or psychoanalyzed are reprehensible.
| I see someone who is upset with where they are, so they
| wrote a post conveying that in a slightly conceited way,
| yet so many talented minds in the field of tech are coming
| to this post to say that he has delusions of grandeur.
|
| He is the book, and this post along with the comments he's
| making are the cover. You can give advice on what's
| presented without insulting his character.
| valdiorn wrote:
| Hi Snakedoctor. I've been quite fascinated by this thread. I
| have a small piece of feedback for you, as someone who's
| interviewed about 200-300 engineers over my career I've
| talked to a lot of people and feel like I have at least
| something of value to add.
|
| I hope you're not offering these sorts of hyperbolic "proofs"
| of your competency to your interviewers, like you've done
| here. I've seen a few comments from you like this. Anyone who
| feels the need to go that far out of their way to prove how
| smart they are... probably aren't as smart as they think they
| are. It also does come off as narcissistic.
|
| I get that you have accomplished some cool things in your
| career so far, but you have to let people evaluate those
| accomplishments for themselves. They may be very impressive
| to you, but might not make the slightest difference in the
| context of the role you're applying for. If people ask about
| them, be ready to tell. If they don't ask, don't go out of
| your way to point them out, they're not pertinent to the
| role. They're on your CV, that's enough.
|
| You do a lot of pointing these accomplishments out (I worked
| for IBM / I contribute to GNU / I went to college / I got
| this and that job), but... here you are. Unemployed. Which
| only leaves two possible explanations; You're either not
| being forthcoming about your accomplishments (exaggerating
| them or simply lying), or there's something else, something
| very negative that means that despite your achievements, you
| still can't hold a job.
|
| So, you have to be brutally honest with yourself and ask
| yourself; What is that thing? Only you can answer that
| question.
|
| Finally, I want to give you a reality check on those
| accomplishments. They might not be as large as you think.
| Big, noteworthy accomplishments take years to complete.
| Completing a masters degree, getting a PhD, working up to a
| senior position in a company, learning a language, raising a
| child, building a house. It sounds like most of your
| achievements did not require the investment of time, but
| rather are trophies to commemorate your greatness. Companies
| want people who persevere, and get stuff done, and stick with
| it. The type of accomplishments you've mentioned show none of
| that, and your career progression shows the complete
| opposite.
|
| I hope you make something constructive out of my comments,
| and use them to improve your approach to interview. In short,
| I'd recommend a more humble approach, apply for a role
| suitable to your level, don't try to outsmart the
| interviewer, or your co-workers when you get hired, and
| fulfill the job you've been assigned, not the one you wish
| you had. So no level-jumping over your bosses to make smart
| comments; that won't help you... I speak from experience, and
| it took me a long time to understand that a good employee is
| just someone who makes their managers life easier, by
| completing their tasks and making sure stuff gets done.
| aty268 wrote:
| What a great reply, needs to be higher up.
|
| Out of curiosity, how would you view a younger candidate
| (myself) who dropped out of a similar T40 school junior
| year with a boatload of personal projects / companies under
| his belt?
|
| I've had some success, and reached quite a few people, but
| I'm realizing I may need to settle down at a company
| sometime soon. I don't want to look unhirable (like OP, in
| my opinion) but just someone whose genuinely burned out of
| really trying to make a startup work, and is now ready to
| settle down in a junior position, and has the ability to do
| so. Thanks!
| [deleted]
| _ah wrote:
| It's tough to read too much into this single paragraph. I
| think the key is _why_ you dropped out of school. You
| need to have a narrative.
|
| 1. "I had some promising personal projects, so I quit
| during my 3rd year of school to launch one of them. I did
| {X,Y,Z} but ultimately couldn't turn the corner to
| profitability so I shut down / failed spectacularly. Now
| it's time to get my feet under me and learn proper
| engineering for a few years before I try again." --> This
| is a good story, but needs to be backed up by data
| regarding your startup failure.
|
| OR
|
| 2. "I was tired of school and quit. I had a bunch of
| personal projects going and hoped to start one of them
| into a company but none of them really went anywhere."
| --> This is a bad story. If this is your situation, you
| may need to suck it up and go back to school to finish
| your degree. Otherwise you'll need to be incredibly
| honest with the interviewer about why dropping out was a
| bad decision.
|
| OR
|
| 3. "I had to drop out of school for <personal reasons>.
| I've done a bunch of personal projects, so I have the
| passion and basic technical competence to succeed. I'd
| like to eventually finish my degree someday." (<--Note:
| doesn't matter if this is really true) "My focus now is
| to really engage somewhere for a few years to prove my
| worth and learn from other smart people." --> Another
| good story. Shows humility.
|
| Your biggest risk here will be overplaying your past
| projects. From a Hiring Manager perspective they're
| interesting technical toys like a university project, but
| since they didn't go anywhere they don't mean that much.
| Not fair, but true. Also: stay FAR AWAY from the word
| "burnout", because this telegraphs "I have issues and
| won't be able to do my job."
|
| Communicating that you made a mistake and now want to
| learn in a better environment _for a few years_ helps de-
| risk you to the hiring manager and shows good self-
| awareness.
| aty268 wrote:
| Ah thanks for the reply, and yeah that makes sense. I
| don't believe it was a mistake as of now, but let me tell
| my story a bit better:
|
| I got funded by Tyler Cowen / Peter Thiel @ EV and some
| angels for my first real company (can't link here), and
| while it wasn't required, I was making quite a bit of
| money so I left school. (I had a 3.98 my first 2 years in
| dual Comp Sci / Physics before, so I left with a 3.35 GPA
| after tanking junior year due to the company)
|
| The unit metrics didn't end up working out, so i've been
| working on various products since with ~10k users on my
| previous one. (On my profile, if you care) It's a social
| app without huge growth though, so i'm not optimistic.
|
| I have one more company i'm building with a friend now in
| a regulated space before I start recruiting. If this
| doesn't work out, I need to focus my energy on recruiting
| for a space i'm passionate about. I've built and launched
| over 20 websites and IOS / Android apps, and i'm the
| fastest React / React Native developer I know.
|
| Would that sound batshit insane to recruiters, or someone
| perhaps worth picking up? I've also done a SE internship
| at a F400, tutored Engineering Physics, and done some
| freelancing w/ a 5.00 rating on Upwork if that matters.
| Thanks.
| _ah wrote:
| Ok cool. With this write-up, you de-risked one area and
| added risk in a second area.
|
| GOOD: High GPA, got funded, ambitious, quit school for
| valid and rational reasons. I'm excited to hire you.
|
| BAD: Startup didn't work, I worked on some other ones,
| trying one more time before I get a normal job. Now I'm
| concerned that (a) you think you're hot shiz and won't
| accept an entry-level dev role and/or won't be willing to
| put the effort into that role, or (b) you think you're
| mid-level but can't pass the hiring bar due to team (not
| technical) deficiencies, or (c) you'll be awesome but
| bounce out to a new adventure in ~9 months.
|
| I don't know you, and it's quite possible that you're
| brilliant with a steep growth curve and huge upside
| potential. And it's possible (maybe even likely!) that
| you'll be unhappy in any job and just need to keep
| pursuing your own thing. Awesome. But if you want a
| "normal job" I recommend shifting your approach slightly:
|
| Remember that a hiring manager wants a person who can (1)
| do the job, (2) not cause problems, (3) stick around.
| You've got #1 nailed, #2 is an open question, and #3 is a
| big risk in my mind. So I'd suggest starting by making a
| personal choice regarding your next career stage and then
| actively _believing_ and selling that vision. So if you
| decide that you want to work for a while, figure out what
| you want to get out of that time and push that narrative.
| Example:
|
| "I got funded by... <rest of your credentials here>. I
| tried a few other ventures but failed to get traction.
| I've decided that for my next career stage, I need to
| spend some time working with other more experienced
| engineers to learn {large scale engineering, team
| dynamics, product prioritization, leadership, etc etc
| whatever}." --> With this narrative you're a very
| attractive candidate. A good manager will know that
| you're not signing on forever, but will throw challenging
| projects your way in the hopes that rapid growth will
| convince you to stick around for 2-3 years.
|
| Note that your history of scrappy risk-taking will
| probably play better at smaller earlier stage companies.
| tartoran wrote:
| Just a suggestion, complete your degree even if it takes
| you years to do so. Consider continuing to take classes.
| I worked early in my 20s was doing undergrad
| simultaneously. It became exhausting and also wanted to
| have a free social life. I started making enough money
| and didn't feel the degree was actively helping me at the
| time. I'm glad I took the break I did, I think I needed
| it. Then I continued after a two years break and competed
| the degree p/t in the course of the next few years.
| Interesting CS courses and the slower volume made it for
| an even greater experience, I could enjoy taking 2
| classes a semester while having a social life too. The
| college diploma may seem like a dead weight as it's not a
| bid deal as Undergrad education is not what it used to be
| but it is a clear differentiator in obtaining a job, if
| you and a potential candidate have similar skills, the
| one with the degree would get an advantage. Good luck!
| nl wrote:
| It's interesting how focused you are on proving yourself
| right (I'll send you a college email etc).
|
| And that seems to be the case with going over your bosses
| head ("I went above my bosses head because they did not
| remedy the issue, and weren't going to.")
|
| Being right is great! But having a job is also great. Perhaps
| focus less on proving yourself right, and more on getting
| along with people?
|
| Edit: reading further in the thread it sounds like you went
| over your bosses head 2 weeks into a job? That's really not a
| great idea.
| sanderjd wrote:
| It's a really tough lesson to learn but this is absolutely
| true: It is not enough to be right, you must also have
| credibility. You usually have to accept other people being
| wrong about things you're right about in order to build
| credibility.
| freetime2 wrote:
| > You usually have to accept other people being wrong
| about things you're right about in order to build
| credibility.
|
| I don't think this is the correct way to look at it.
| Rather than accepting other people being wrong, you
| should be very open to the possibility that it's you who
| is wrong. Always doubt your own assumptions, and be
| willing to change your stance when new information comes
| to light.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > Not to be argumentative. But yes, I did attend college.
|
| Your claim may be technically correct. I am willing to
| believe you did attend a college for some period of time.
| However, it is nonresponsive. GP was claiming that your
| writing does not reflect the skills in writing that you are
| expected to develop as a college attendee. This is
| understandable; dropping out during/after freshmen year does
| not give your writing time to progress.
|
| I care about your education because of what you learned, not
| because your acceptance is an excellent proxy for your SAT
| scores. (This is the same reason that your short stint as an
| IBM developer means less than you seem to believe it does.)
|
| It's not the argumentative nature of your post that would be
| a red flag to me, it is the complete misunderstanding of the
| issue being raised.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Gentle tip: writing "shouldn't of" instead "shouldn't have"
| is one of those critical writing misteaks one should never
| make when communicating with educated people. Some others
| worth special effort to do correctly:
|
| 1. their there they're
|
| 2. its it's
|
| 3. your you're
|
| A couple other writing tips:
|
| 1. don't terminate sentences with .. or ...
|
| 2. "bosses" is plural, I think you meant "boss's" for the
| possessive
|
| I know it sounds elitist, and it is, but with these kinds of
| mistakes their going to relegate you to the "not one of us"
| bin when looking for a well paying job.
|
| It's well worth the effort to purge them from you're writing.
| jcranmer wrote:
| > writing "shouldn't of" instead "shouldn't have"
|
| For me personally, this is the #1 bugbear of writing
| mistakes. I'm willing to tolerate most of the other
| failures (especially when they're exceptionally rare),
| especially because several of them can crop up when you
| decide to change the sentence between initial mental
| conception and committing to paper or keyboard.
|
| > I know it sounds elitist, and it is, but with these kinds
| of mistakes their going to relegate you to the "not one of
| us" bin when looking for a well paying job.
|
| It's not so much the "not one of us" bin as it is a sense
| of "you clearly can't put in the effort, so why should we?"
| It's for similar reasons that you are advised to dress up
| for interviews.
| suck-it-dang wrote:
| > _It 's for similar reasons that you are advised to
| dress up for interviews._
|
| So, classist nonsense? Got it.
| cercatrova wrote:
| The irony of correcting others when you yourself have
| several writing mistakes.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I shall have myself flagellated.
| cercatrova wrote:
| As is tradition on HN
| [deleted]
| suck-it-dang wrote:
| You are a great example of a brilliant person who just
| made plenty of these types of mistakes. "Their",
| "you're", and maybe even "misteak" wasn't intentional
| either?
|
| My point is that if the creator of an esteemed
| programming language is susceptible to common grammatical
| mistakes, then maybe the rest of HN should go easy on a
| young guy that is barely surviving and made some of the
| same errors in his plea for help?
|
| I am careful with my writing, and due to my background I
| likely know more about English syntax than any other
| person here (uh oh, delusions of grandeur), yet I still
| make these mistakes too.
| goodpoint wrote:
| There's no irony. Everybody makes mistakes.
| WalterBright wrote:
| All I can say is: whoosh!
| frman wrote:
| their going
| WalterBright wrote:
| There a couple others, two.
| ZephyrBlu wrote:
| > misteaks
|
| Har har.
| honkycat wrote:
| You seem driven and interested which is good. Keep
| contributing to open source and you'll probably land
| something. I still think you need to rethink your strategy
| though.
|
| Re: going over your bosses head: Where is your sense of self
| preservation? Also, why do you think nobody else will do
| their job?
|
| Is the fraud system YOUR problem? Then do your due diligence,
| mark it as someone elses problem, and let it ride.
|
| You gotta suck up to your boss a bit. Going over their head
| is provoking them!
| ryandrake wrote:
| There's a pretty good behavioral / soft skills interview
| question hanging out in your post:
|
| "Think of a scenario where you find a security vulnerability
| [or crasher bug, or whatever], and you don't think it is
| being taken as seriously as it should be. How would you
| handle this situaton?"
|
| There are a lot of good ways to approach this, but "escalate
| it to the SVP" is rarely one of them.
| klodolph wrote:
| Not trying to argue either. Contributing to an open-source
| project is a very different kind of activity from being a
| member of a team at a company. Programming is only half the
| job.
| tempestn wrote:
| Given the relative lack of experience and lack of education I'm
| wondering how OP managed to get interviews at the likes of
| Google, FB, etc.
| kyawzazaw wrote:
| That's baffling to me too. There are kids over at /r/csmajors
| who haven't had this many interviews with this array of
| companies at this caliber.
| jesterson wrote:
| > There is no reason anyone would currently hire you, unless
| you are personable and fun to talk to.
|
| Perhaps my personal bias, but for a long time I was under
| impression that tech roles companies are hiring people based on
| their capacity to actually do the job. It's not social studies
| for G's sake.
|
| Over the course of my life I've come across extremely talented
| people, who yea, do lack social skills , not putting fake
| smiles and whatnot. Few of them were the best hires I did.
| cgrealy wrote:
| These days software development is a team sport. Yeah,
| there's the odd outlier extreme genius, but in general, you
| need to be able to communicate with other humans.
|
| That doesn't mean you need to be an extrovert, just that the
| old "weird dev that abhors human contact" stereotype just
| doesn't fly anymore.
|
| If you are asking about getting a job, you need to be able to
| work with other people. End of story.
| yarcob wrote:
| > companies are hiring people based on their capacity to
| actually do the job
|
| I think that's what honkycat was trying to say. OP doesn't
| sound like someone who actually has the skills for a dev job.
| So the only way they could get a dev job was if they somehow
| appeared really likeable so they would be hired despite
| lacking the required skills.
|
| (In my experience socially awkward people don't have trouble
| finding jobs if they have the right skills. Every tech meetup
| I've been to there were loads and loads of socially awkward
| developers who worked at all kinds of tech companies. Lacking
| social skills is only an issue if you don't have any
| technical skills to make up for it.)
| jesterson wrote:
| > OP doesn't sound like someone who actually has the skills
| for a dev job.
|
| If you pardon me, I doubt either of us have the senses to
| judge someone's capacity for dev job. He may not be very
| lucid at explanations, but it doesn't allow us to measure
| his dev capacity. Hopefully you'd agree we need slightly
| more to evaluate that.
| hannasanarion wrote:
| The point being made is the lucidity of explanation is
| part of the dev job. We aren't all just code monkeys,
| typing out programs for 8 hours straight every day.
|
| Being able to design, describe, explain, and critique in
| a way that doesn't make everyone at your company resent
| you is far more important than any dev hard skill.
| yarcob wrote:
| I really don't think OP has the required skills for a dev
| job. It's not just the writing style, it's also the
| complete lack of any relevant education or experience.
|
| I didn't say anything about their mental capacity, it's
| quite possible that they learn the skills.
| taytus wrote:
| >Your writing is not strong
|
| Followed by
|
| >Your applying to those companies
|
| instead of "you are" or "you're"
|
| Cut him some slack.
| komaromy wrote:
| If you read the rest of the sentence GP was correct
| SethKinast wrote:
| "applying" is a gerund so "your" as the possessive is
| correct.
| [deleted]
| deviation wrote:
| > "I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months. I contribute a
| lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate
| compensation."
|
| After two months in my latest gig I was still learning names of
| people in the org, being onboarded to project and trying to piece
| together the codebase. Seems like you need to learn some lessons
| in humility.
|
| Occam's razor is a principal that applies here. You are getting
| turned down because you are simply not an attractive enough
| applicant. If you want to improve your chances- you need to put
| more energy into what you've already mentioned.
|
| I know some people who have put 150 hours of their time into
| leetcode problems alone before their interview for an entry-level
| position at Google.
| thehappypm wrote:
| This is an easy one. You don't have a degree, and that means the
| types of jobs that will take you are the types of jobs that don't
| require one (like customer support or retail). Most tech jobs
| will throw your resume in the trash without a Bachelor's degree.
|
| I would pursue at the very least a 2-year associate's degree from
| a community college as a starting point, and try to find a way to
| get a bachelor's degree. You might be able to go online, transfer
| credits from a community college, or find a night school at your
| local state university.
| amznbyebyebye wrote:
| You're part of this new gen of folks who's too sophisticated for
| their own good. See them all the time.. just try the same queue
| as everyone else and things might work out
| gremlinsinc wrote:
| I don't always have my shit together, but that's more the nature
| of my business as well as my mental state at the time (ADHD).
|
| That said: I was obese and very sedentary at 30, lots of back
| pain, etc. Standing jobs, not something I could really do. So, I
| learned to code. But then, how do you get a job when you're not a
| college grad?
|
| Well, you write blog posts, you create a github portfolio, etc...
| and then do shitty jobs on upwork or something till you get
| higher paying gigs... etc.
|
| I still have imposter syndrome but have some good clients that
| treat me well (I mostly freelance, and selling myself is usually
| where my famine months come from).
|
| So, I can't really say how to get a decent job w/ the benefits as
| I freelance, but I know freelancers who make > 100/hour which is
| generally enough to self-pay for benefits.
|
| I think your best bet w/ less experience is maybe going to
| WeWorkRemotely and looking at the customer service jobs? Some of
| those pay > $20 and have decent benefits, or maybe some other job
| you think you'd qualify on there for. Angel list is another good
| place for startups w/ VC funding (read: can afford benefits).
| mjgs wrote:
| Get a legal job that pays you at least minimum wage.
|
| That should be your #1 priority. Absolutely anything. Just apply
| to everything until you get something. Once you have income that
| you control, then start applying for computer industry jobs.
|
| Avoid homelessness at all costs, that's a really big hole to get
| out of.
| a3n wrote:
| Having a door that I can lock at night has always been my
| number one priority. I have done almost anything in the past,
| when necessary, to have that. Without it, that really is a big
| hole.
|
| Doing a job that doesn't satisfy your pride or goals or
| expectations is much, much better than homelessness.
| g051051 wrote:
| Strangely, the thing that jumped out at me was "Have to delete
| your emails constantly due to only having 1gb email space".
| What's going on there that you're having to juggle keeping stuff
| in a 1GB limit?
| livinginfear wrote:
| Your post provides a recruiter any number of reasons not to hire
| you. In addition to providing a personal history of failure and
| excuses, you're airing the dirty laundry of the companies you
| _did_ work for. Your misgivings with these may or may not be
| legitimate, however what recruiter wants their name attached to
| you the next time you feel like airing your grievances with the
| last company to lay you off?
|
| > "I tried cold contacting executives at a few companies..."
|
| I'm not an executive, however I am a team lead. If you found some
| way to contact me directly, unsolicited, on my work phone or
| email, I would blacklist you. Especially if you had circumvented
| some security measure in order to do so, let alone _spoofing_
| what we can only assume is the phone number of another employee?
| The time and attention of these professionals is valuable.
| Procurement process exists to prevent executives at prominent,
| successful companies being interrupted in such an inappropriate
| manner.
|
| You sound like you need to adjust your attitude. From your
| perspective it may seem that you're an underappreciated talent
| just waiting for someone to give them a chance. From the
| perspective of a recruiter or hiring manager you look like a
| serious liability. Especially if you're looking to make a leap
| upwards into your career's 'next step', it's extremely imperative
| that you demonstrate your ability to succeed in simpler, entry-
| level positions.
|
| Your writing is terrible, and unprofessional. If you can't get
| through this thread without discussing your mental health
| problems that's a serious red flag.
| bawolff wrote:
| > If you can't get through this thread without discussing your
| mental health problems that's a serious red flag.
|
| That's unfair. Most of the mental health related comments are
| in direct response to someone else bringing it up.
| atoav wrote:
| And it is brought up because OPs text displays a weird lack
| of self reflection to a degree where it jumps into the face
| of many people.
|
| The title of the post pins down the problem (OP describes
| themselves as "unhireable"), but in the post it is
| everybodies fault but their own and they fail to disclose why
| they think from the perspecitve of a company they are
| unhireable. I don't see any issue with making mistakes. But
| not learning from them to protect a mythical image you
| painted of yourself and your abilities is not only a problem
| but also a wasted chance that will come back to haunt you
| till you address it.
|
| If I would be in the position of having spoofed a phone
| number to call a superior and loose a job, I would be ashamed
| or at least re-examine the state of mind and perspective that
| lead me to the dubious conclusion that this would be a good
| idea. The fact that OP seems to file that under "daring, but
| could have worked" rather than "this was totally
| inappropriate, how could I have ever thought this would be??"
| is what promts those mental health related comments.
|
| What OP needs to get hireable is a reality check that leads
| to a lasting change of mind. This can be incredibly hard and
| painful, but if OP is clever they will know that this needs
| to be addressed and go through with it. The worst thing OP
| can do now, is gloss over that particular aspect of this
| thread and not address the discrepancy between their self
| image and what their words, decisions and actions
| communicate. The worst thing so to speak is to continue lying
| to themselves.
|
| Know thyself and all that.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| > Your writing is terrible, and unprofessional. If you can't
| get through this thread without discussing your mental health
| problems that's a serious red flag.
|
| Are you saying that in "professional" situations (job
| applications, or even asking for advice on HN), you need to
| hide your struggles and present an image of a flawless worker
| who handles all situations in stride, even though you can't
| live up to it because of mental/life struggles, depression, and
| the looming prospect of homelessness?
| atoav wrote:
| I don't think this is an issue. What is an issue however is
| the lack of self reflection OP has about their weaknesses and
| the issues that arise from their mental condition. To change
| something OP has to face the affect their character/behaviour
| has on their environment, job chances ans interpersonal
| relationships within these jobs. The lack of even the
| slightest hint of thinking about that is what is critical,
| not mental health issues per se.
| lkm93 wrote:
| _The time and attention of these professionals is valuable._
|
| LOL. Gotta keep those bits flowing so idiots can keep jacking
| off and clicking on ads.
| zeppers wrote:
| Practice learning what people want and then trying to help them
| get what they want.
|
| People who are good at this have endless opportunity.
|
| Read the go-giver and give and take.
|
| Then practice it and be patient. It can take a year or two to see
| results but they will come, and compound over time if you stay
| consistent.
| davesailer wrote:
| Look at state, county, and municipal government. These are all
| soul-killers but generally come with livable pay and good
| benefits, and if you have any relevant skills at all, it's
| relatively easy to find an opening. There is also contract work
| for these entities, which can give you a chance to meet people,
| check out the landscape, and note which skills are in highest
| demand while you find a way to wiggle into the system.
|
| Stay only as long as you need to or the environment will destroy
| you. Usually I'd say one year max, but you sound like you need
| more. Use your time to plan your future in detail.
|
| Look and act happy. Defer to "authority" (i.e., the hopeless
| incompetent mutants who hire and fire). Smile a whole lot.
| Pretend that you like everyone even if you hate them all. Engage
| in friendly chitchat and help out with birthdays and potlucks
| when they come around. Fake it.
|
| If people like you they'll give you a pass on everything as long
| as you don't set the place on fire or molest their children. If
| people don't like you then you're out of luck no matter how
| excellent you are, because it's government work, and government
| doesn't go broke, and if something doesn't get done today, or
| doesn't get done right, there is always tomorrow. And people just
| want to get through the day and go home and forget about it.
| irjustin wrote:
| I recommend building something, anything. Show your skills via
| attempting to build a product and shipping it.
| optymizer wrote:
| Have you tried applying to research universities as a developer
| or IT technician? They typically offer good benefits, health
| insurance, but are much lower on the pay scale than FAANGs or
| startups and may have a lower entry bar.
|
| I've interviewed quite a few people at 2 FAANGs and other places.
| If you really don't know what went wrong with your technical
| interviews, we can try to have a mock coding interview over Zoom
| using collabedit, and I'll give you my candid feedback.
|
| To clarify, I can't hire you for anything, this won't have
| anything to do with my employer, nor am I promising that this
| will help you in any way.
| zdragnar wrote:
| For junior developers, I tend to recommend looking for marketing
| agency / consultancy work. With any luck, you'll get to be on
| projects that last between a few month to a year or two at most
| making small sites or adding features to existing sites.
|
| This is great as it exposes you to a ton of different
| technologies and problem spaces (graphics heavy, data heavy, b2b,
| b2c etc). Each new project is a clean slate without the mistakes
| you previously made, or a chance to see how other people have put
| things together (and possibly learn from their mistakes).
|
| The problem with these jobs is that sticking with them long term
| isn't for everyone; deadlines are often out of your control, as
| is the budget, because you're effectively working for a third
| party. They also tend to not pay big bucks, but they should still
| do better than most of what you seem to have had so far.
|
| Once you get to a point where you feel confident leading teams of
| people, start looking at working for companies that make their
| own product- anything from FAANGs to small startups with good
| funding and existing customers (or whatever tells you that they
| are stable enough for you to be comfortable).
|
| You don't have to follow this path of course, but it is a
| relatively safe one.
|
| Also, if you aren't close to a decently sized city with any
| agencies or contractors, it couldn't hurt to go on LinkedIn and
| make sure that you have your programming experience- professional
| and hobby- listed. Also, be sure to log in at least every few
| days; logging in seems to give you a bump in search results. For
| me, LinkedIn is basically a place for recruiters to cold contact
| people, which may be helpful.
|
| Final note: if you do get contacted by a recruiter about a
| position, see if they are working for the company they are
| advertising or not. If they are not, then they are likely getting
| a commission from placing you- and if they are any good, they can
| help coach you (and might be willing to do a practice interview
| if you ask very nicely). I will admit i haven't tried that last
| bit, but the two jobs I got through recruiters they were both
| genuinely good people who wanted to help however they could.
| JarlUlvi wrote:
| I know someone that talks, and writes, in a very similar fashion
| to yourself. There are a number of interesting parallels between
| his approach towards education and your own. I presume you have
| some sort of points on the spectrum, or neuro-cognitive
| differences. These can be negatives and positives simultaneously.
|
| As another mentioned, you have a stream of consciousness style of
| writing that is atypical, and could be an asset if properly
| harnessed.
|
| Despite your similarities, he has some pretty substantial
| achievements in his career, and runs in some lofty circles. Works
| for a fortune 1000 company and has built an impressive career out
| of his niche skills. He exhibits an extreme amount of persistence
| and has a grand network on one of the freenode channels, so he is
| quite the curmudgeon.
|
| Rather than pursuing the most competitive gigs possible, perhaps
| you should be building your skills, knowledgebase, your CV, and
| your network?
| pabs3 wrote:
| Since you have an FSF member address, you might be interested in
| working on Free Software and Open Source projects, some
| resources:
|
| https://www.fossjobs.net/
| https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
| lhorie wrote:
| Took a glance around the thread. In summary, it sounds like you
| are still fairly young (in the good sense), have an analytical
| mind but haven't sticked with anything for longer than 2 months.
| You said you're worried about your immediate financial future.
|
| In terms of first impressions: a lot of consecutive 2 months
| stints will look very bad on your resume - a lot of places have 3
| months probational period. I don't know what the story is, but
| this could an issue of tact (i.e. navigating office politics, not
| antagonizing your boss, that sort of stuff), it could be an issue
| of confidence (either too much impostor syndrome, or being
| overconfident and over-entitled), it could be that you're not cut
| out for the field (black-and-white quitting over disagreements is
| generally the worst solution to problems compared to
| compromising, strategic teamwork or just flat out sucking it up).
| You're gonna need to do some introspection, and you need to
| prioritize figuring out how you can hold a single job for 3
| years. Also, with a job history full of red flags, name dropping
| famous companies will probably do the opposite of what you want.
| Consider focusing on selling skillset etc and downplaying (or
| even omitting) work history.
|
| Be realistic and specific about your actual skillset vs your
| target role (either you are proficient in ios/js/golang/whatever
| or you're not, don't "fish" around for "any role")
|
| In terms of target companies: you mentioned FAANG class
| companies. A lot of these companies tend to look for senior level
| as a baseline. Consider applying to less competitive jobs (i.e.
| companies without brand recognition). One way to go about this is
| to reach out to recruitment agencies.
|
| In terms of balancing target goals and immediate needs:
| prioritize according to Maslow[0], i.e. it'll do no good trying
| out your luck trying to find a prestigious 150k+ salary job who
| knows when if it means your cash flow will make you homeless in 2
| months with high probability. Better to swallow your pride and go
| for something less ideal at least until you can stabilize your
| financial situation.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs
| kfold3 wrote:
| If you're a rockstar coder, you should be able to crush something
| like Triplebyte, skip directly through to talking to founders and
| find some who will tolerate your scattered personality.
|
| They might not be there in a year, and you might not be there in
| two months, so at least your time horizons match ;)
|
| Also 'What Color is Your Parachute' is a must-read. As suggested
| there, you'll get much better feedback if you connect with tons
| of engineers (not hiring managers). They'll give you a straight
| take and in many cases suggest other places that are hiring and
| more of a fit.
|
| Personalities don't change. Focus on turning your weaknesses--
| short time horizon, ownership mentality, all-over-the-place--into
| strengths. This means very early startups, consulting/contract
| work, or possibly launching your own projects. Forget about big
| companies completely and just try to talk to a few dozen very
| early startups whose risk profile includes making bets on SWEs.
| [deleted]
| tedk-42 wrote:
| From your post, it sounds like you should speak to a doctor as
| you're suffering and you might have a mental health issue.
|
| Sounds like you have anxiety tbh.
| iux wrote:
| My 2 cents and honest opinion. Don't give up too easily. Why did
| you quit IBM without another offer? You had a job though with low
| pay. Getting you step on the door is the hardest part. Don't give
| up after that. Try to get any job for that matter and I can
| assure you persevering will pay off. I'm talking from my
| experiance
| iux wrote:
| My 2 cents and honest opinion. Don't give up too easily. Why did
| you quit IBM without another offer? You had a job though with low
| pay. Getting you step on the door is the hardest part. Don't give
| up after that. Try to get any job for that matter and I can
| assure you persevering will pay off. I'm talking from my
| experience
| milkytron wrote:
| Have you tried making a profile on Dice?
|
| I was looking for positions and as soon as I made my profile
| public, I instantly started getting calls/emails from recruiters.
| Some of them are shady or hiring for bad companies, but if you
| know what you want (sounds like you do), it makes the process a
| lot easier.
| aphextron wrote:
| Stop bothering with Fortune 500, and SV "sexy" companies. They
| get hundreds of applicants every day. There are thousands of
| small shops out there who always need WordPress monkies and
| "stick this snippet into a PHP page" type roles for $20-$30/hr.
| Find one and stick with it for 2-3 years. Practice your
| interviewing and build your LinkedIn network while doing that.
| There are no shortcuts, especially as a self taught dev.
| omgwtfbyobbq wrote:
| Like others have said, having short stays at previous companies
| can be perceived as negative. The same applies to bypassing
| filters, even if your intentions aren't malicious, although as
| usual YMMV.
|
| Many companies want to see that you can continue to work and
| transition away to other better jobs as opposed to leaving,
| although that's easier said that done in many cases.
|
| In terms of healthcare, Medicaid can be incredibly frustrating.
| What are you looking for that isn't available through it?
|
| At this point in time I think it's much harder than normal to get
| a job because of COVID/etc. My feeling is that lots of companies
| are waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of the
| economy/COVID.
|
| You also may have a lot more trouble going directly into Tech. It
| might be easier to get there by first getting hired in Finance,
| Health, etc... Things aren't permanent, and sometimes you'll have
| opportunities that aren't present in other sectors.
|
| Last but not least, your perception of the world might be on the
| binary side. Does Bill Landreth think he ended up in a bad place?
| Sometimes having a seat at the table is better than doing your
| own thing because you might be able to change more at the table.
| Also, nothing's permanent. If stuff doesn't work out, you can
| leave.
| iovrthoughtthis wrote:
| > I'm scared and I don't know what to do.
|
| I'm sorry. That really sucks.
|
| It sounds like you could really do with some coaching.
|
| I'm not the right person for that but perhaps if you asked for
| it, a better person would reach out!
|
| heres some questions I would ask to gauge your interpersonal
| skills at an interview.
|
| could you tell me about the last argument you had and how you
| resolved it?
|
| where would you like to be in 5 years?
|
| you had a strong opinion about a strategy for solving a problem
| and disagreed vehemently with a co-worked. it turns out, their
| strategy worked out great. what would you do next?
| [deleted]
| dbrueck wrote:
| (1) Stop applying to the "popular" companies. (2) Stop quitting
| something every time it becomes hard. (3) Stop thinking you've
| paid your dues and deserve more already.
|
| So take a deep breath, reset your expectations some, and humbly
| jump in at a less glamorous company and stay there for a couple
| of years. Long term you can still live the dream or whatever, but
| it sounds like you're trying to skip over some really important
| learning/experience stages (a good tech career involves far more
| than some tech expertise).
| lnanek2 wrote:
| > I've interviewed at Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE
| (E=Energy), Airbnb, Palantir
|
| Those are some pretty impressive names for places you've
| interviewed at, but they also have the highest bars to get in.
| Why not try just some average, run-of-the-mill companies off job
| sites? There's nothing embarrassing about starting at those. I
| worked for a no name exercise tracking app company my first job
| out of college, who later threw out all the work and became a
| diet tracking app.
|
| Sometimes when I've been between jobs I've even grabbed some
| bottom of the barrel project work off remote contracting sites.
| If you can write clear English and are willing to work at 3rd
| world country rates, you can get infinite work there. It still
| pays enough to get health insurance through someone like
| Freelancer's Union.
|
| > I tried improving my interview skills. Reading Meyers, Knuth
| etc. books
|
| I don't think reading books helps with that. I'd recommend
| practicing interview problems on sites like LeetCode. I have a CS
| Master's degree and can easily write an A* pathfinding algorithm
| on a white board and give you the time complexity of any
| algorithm, but it's not super useful for the sort of interview
| stuff I get asked. Typically you are just asked to hammer out a
| design or implementation for some specific set of requirements
| that complies with some set of performance criteria, so it's not
| really book learning being tested. More just that you can you sit
| down and write the right code/design - which is what you'll be
| doing every day on a programming job outside meetings collecting
| those requirements and scheduling the work.
|
| > dropped out my freshmen year at a top 40 college. Was on the
| cyber security team etc. too expensive so I had to dropout.
|
| Lack of a degree would disqualify you from 95% of programming
| jobs I've worked at. I don't think it's important myself, but I'm
| not a hiring manager. The only person I saw hired without one had
| an amazing project portfolio with hit apps in the app store I
| would have trouble writing. So it can happen, but it's like being
| a star baseball player. Outside the reach of most people.
|
| If you really want to be a full time, salaried programmer and
| don't have a star portfolio, or large bodies of open source code
| to show off, I think you'd have to take out a loan and get that
| piece of paper from college first. Project work, or work from
| contacts or friends at tech meetups, generally is less strict re
| that. But companies that don't know you are going to just filter
| you out for no degree.
| Webox wrote:
| About security: It is NOT your responsibility to decide if things
| get fixed or not if you are not responsible for.
|
| It is your responsibility to tell your manager (responsible
| person) what you found and what the impact is.
|
| the responsible person will take the risk and risk assessment.
| aeturnum wrote:
| > I've quit a lot. I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2
| months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm
| not getting appropriate compensation. Though I certainly agree
| that I need to stick with a job. I think ageism, and other biases
| are in place though. More years of experience I get the less
| disdained I will be I think. [1]
|
| As others have said, I think you're likely suffering from an
| accumulated lack of results as well as what feels like elevated
| or unrealistic expectations for the positions you're getting.
|
| I agree with your characterization that, in a just world, your
| contributions would be given greater reward. But you weren't
| applying to work in a just world, you applied to work in the
| world we all live in. I think you need to face that the kind of
| treatment you've received is common. We work in an industry that
| has high pay relative to industries with similar levels of
| training - but considering the profit margins of the companies
| involved there's a case to be made that workers are under-
| negotiating their salaries nation wide. The lack of recognition
| you experienced is part of a pattern that you will continue to
| see - even (perhaps especially) at the companies you listed in
| your post.[2]
|
| Instead of thinking about this from the point of view of the
| company, consider things from the point of view of the person
| interviewing you. One of the messages that they are going to
| receive from how you talk about your work history is that you
| accept position that you are not actually satisfied with in the
| hopes of trading up in the short term. When that goal doesn't
| come to pass, you often leave. If had an engineer with that
| attitude placed on my team by someone else I would be hesitant to
| give them responsibility. I might empathize with their
| perspective about wanting to be promoted or compensated at the
| level I felt appropriate, but that's the deal I've made with the
| company and I would suspect that I couldn't trust that you had
| made the same deal.
|
| I think you should really think about what you are willing to
| accept. You should be prepared to stay while being unfairly
| denied rewards for...at least a year I'd think? That's not the
| goal, of course, but I think you want to distance yourself from
| that series of short stints. I would think you would maximize
| your chances of being hired if, when talking about previous gigs,
| you told a story about how you _previously_ had unrealistic
| expectations but now you 're world-weary like everyone else and
| mostly looking for more interesting work. It will be a careful
| balancing act because ofc people will wonder and be suspicious.
| Above all - the people who interview you are imagining seeing you
| every day for the next 1, 2, 5, 10 years. You need them to walk
| away feeling like, at minimum, you're not going to vanish on
| them.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826805
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-
| Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...
| faldore wrote:
| leetcode
| zmmmmm wrote:
| You need to develop some significant experience "collateral".
| Unfortunately your pattern of quitting is a red flag and while it
| doesn't exclude you it means anybody in a hiring position needs
| to see positive evidence that you can actually contribute in a
| serious, long term manner.
|
| Either an unsexy job coding (short term contract work, etc) - or
| - seriously beef up your open source (github, gitlab etc)
| portfolio with some really top notch contributions and ideally
| some projects of your own.
|
| Also - I know this might be controversial, but drop the fsf email
| at least for your job applications. I'm a huge fan of FSF but I
| can tell you it's also flagging you as a potential over-zealous,
| opinionated person and all things being equal someone equivalent
| who seems pragmatic without that is going to get the job.
| RGamma wrote:
| Get out of the US if you can. It's not designed to lift you up,
| only to coerce you into sociopathy.
| david38 wrote:
| What are your qualifications and skills?
|
| Can you code?
|
| What roles did you apply for?
|
| Did you reach out to any recruiters? Some recruiters will help
| you with your resume.
|
| You need a coach with an understanding of the tech world. Someone
| to tell you what's wrong with you.
|
| Maybe you come off as creepy, intense, stupid, spacey, who knows.
| Either way, people seem to fail you on the question "do I want to
| work with this person?"
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