[HN Gopher] My job search story
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       My job search story
        
       Author : romafirst3
       Score  : 80 points
       Date   : 2023-08-19 00:14 UTC (22 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (medium.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
        
       | rvba wrote:
       | This CV is such a joke. Even the 4th version looks like crypro-
       | bro bullshit.
       | 
       | As a start: despite what people say, there are lots of "CEO"
       | roles. If you are a sole entrepreneur, you are a CEO too. CEO of
       | yourself. There are also lots of small companies that have few
       | people. I dont say it is an easy job. I want to say that later
       | lots of them try to sell themselves as CEOs of multimillon
       | companies. Which often is not that harder but this is not my
       | point.
       | 
       | We have this guy with no education who spews more buzzwords than
       | cryptobros. It is on MLM level of cringe.
       | 
       | The so called CEO "reached a record GMV, EBITDA and net profit".
       | What does this even mean? Record? Is it 1 million? 10 millon? 50
       | billion? Since we have no number then it sounds like someone
       | making up things. Btw. A "real" CEO would know that tons of data
       | is public so you can show it.
       | 
       | 180% yoy growth is a miceo company that sold 2 shovels instead of
       | 1. 200% yoy growth.
       | 
       | Such empty comments show the guy is not a serious person.
       | 
       | Net profit YoY growth 15% and 60%. So he worked there for 2
       | years? Or 11? Is he lying?
       | 
       | He gathered a team. A team of how many? Someone managing 20
       | people would say it. Someone managing 1 - 2 wont say it.
       | 
       | Virtual salad bar... and a word salad. Does the guy think that
       | those buzzwords convince anyone?
       | 
       | I could write more, but why bother.
       | 
       | This all sounds like MLM scam trying to find investors.
       | 
       | Also any real CEO (or manager) knows that people lie on their
       | CVs. How many CVs did the guy really see?
       | 
       | Is this some satire? Some chat GPT generated content, where the
       | prompt was set to sound like a crypto bro?
        
       | sassifrass wrote:
       | I truly feel for the author and the emotional toll these past few
       | years must have taken on him. And as others have pointed out, the
       | market certainly isn't what it was a few years ago for any job
       | seeker in the "tech" industry.
       | 
       | But reading both the write up, and the various versions of his
       | resume left me immediately with a sense of genuine anger - not
       | for the situation, but at the author. As a somewhat self
       | reflective person this naturally caused me to seek the source of
       | this visceral reaction, and the conclusion I've come to is
       | something nobody must have told him, or he was simply unwilling
       | to hear. The problem here is his language / presentation. Now, I
       | don't mean his command of the English language, which is
       | certainly quite good (especially considering that the author is
       | likely multi-lingual, and English may not even be his native
       | tongue).
       | 
       | As someone who has been working with seasoned executives for
       | multiple decades, what struck a nerve with me was they nature in
       | which the author chooses to express himself. It doesn't "feel"
       | like the way a seasoned executive would be expected to write. It
       | seems much more like a crypto-bro, or a 20-something year old
       | trust fund kid with delusions of grandeur. It's perfectly
       | possible the author is a genuinely professional, capable, and
       | approachable person. But he doesn't come across this way in both
       | his blog or his resumes. And the truth especially a marketer
       | should know, is that presentation often counts for a lot more
       | than content.
       | 
       | Who uses language such as "findictators", "COMB-shape hands-on
       | doer" and "Pain Recognition"? And what's with the infinity symbol
       | graphic on the first resume? My favorite part is the long list of
       | self-described "ABCs of me" at the bottom of the resume. It reads
       | like a self-help guru book for business "wannapreneurs" with zero
       | actual experience (which is in contrast to him actually having
       | experience, and that contrast is the issue). Even the picture on
       | top of the blog signals "bro" in every way. The feedback form the
       | high-profile career coach was simply code the author couldn't
       | decipher - "you have nothing specific to offer" just means
       | "you're presenting like you swallowed a dictionary of cool
       | business buzzwords which gives you no real shape or form, but
       | leaves an impression of self importance and overestimation".
       | 
       | Changing this is incredibly difficult, even more so because VCs
       | used to pump funding into plenty of leaders with this kind of
       | presentation, which infiltrated social media and normalized the
       | appearance. And certainly losing some of the artifice of
       | "traditional business" has long been a hallmark of the tech
       | industry (I recall a time when Bill Gates was considered "edgy"
       | because he didn't wear suit and tie). And authenticity is
       | increasingly encouraged and needed in modern business. But even
       | then, you need to be able to read your audience, and the author
       | simply is missing something there.
        
         | nokya wrote:
         | I had the exact same feelings/thoughts reading his post, and I
         | genuinely hope I am wrong about them because, if I am right,
         | his only way out is to start again from the bottom or launch a
         | new company.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | ulfw wrote:
       | Same here. It has nothing to do with the CV. 20 years of
       | experience as a Product Management leader. Google, Booking Group,
       | Trip Group, SEA, my own startup, Stanford MBA, Berkeley, bla bla.
       | Everyone keeps telling me I'd have something in no time. Easy!
       | 
       | I network, I get a bunch of bla bla meetings, the occasional
       | 'interview'. Na. It's been a year. One wanted to offer me 80%
       | less money. But even they didn't have headcount at the end. Today
       | a headcounter from Singapore called me to 'chat' and told me he
       | is leaving the industry and the country as everything has doubled
       | in price. Why he called me, I don't know. I guess he needed to
       | vent.
       | 
       | There's a tooooooooooon of fake job searches out there. A company
       | in Australia interviewed me for a CPO role and a friend of mine
       | through headhunters. Neither of us got hired. That's fine. Yet,
       | no one else either. It's been 10 months. The company isn't REALLY
       | looking. Huge waste of everyone's time. They just want to appear
       | to be in the position of being able to hire.
       | 
       | Hundreds of applications, intros, talks. I'm a single gay man, no
       | family, flexible, can move almost anywhere, can easily do fully
       | remote or hybrid, whatever. But na. I got tired. There are no
       | jobs anymore for experienced hires (at least for us folks outside
       | the US. In my case APAC or AU). I'm in my mid 40s and basically
       | forced into (very) early retirement. Trying to figure out
       | alternative things to do so I don't get too bored and actually
       | bring home some money again.
        
         | amosjyng wrote:
         | > They just want to appear to be in the position of being able
         | to hire.
         | 
         | Why do they do this?
         | 
         | > There are no jobs anymore for experienced hires (at least for
         | us folks outside the US. In my case APAC or AU).
         | 
         | I am having the same trouble, but in my case potential
         | employers seem to want something very specific. I have years of
         | experience with Scala and the JVM, but not Kotlin? Years of
         | experience with Postgres, MongoDB, and Bigtable, but not
         | DynamoDB? That's a pass. Or at least those are the stated
         | reasons they say to my face. Maybe I just didn't do brilliantly
         | enough in the phone screen/interviews.
         | 
         | Across the ocean, I'm hearing from friends in the US that entry
         | level positions are impossible to find too. Not a single
         | graduate of a coding boot camp cohort has been able to land a
         | job since February.
        
         | tennisflyi wrote:
         | Same but I'm just a low level IC. Hiring is just broken.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | Michelangelo11 wrote:
       | I'm shocked but not totally surprised.
       | 
       | The job market became awful ~6 months ago in a fairly short
       | period (largely because of interest rates IMO). There's just no
       | comparison with how it used to be in the zero interest rate era,
       | sadly.
        
         | mirekrusin wrote:
         | Most companies are currently very likely on hire freeze and
         | recent, current or upcoming 10-15% layoffs.
         | 
         | Wait it out or better start your own thing now.
        
         | atrettel wrote:
         | I agree with you but with the additional point that this is how
         | the job market for many fields has operated for several years.
         | Tech has just be insulated until now.
         | 
         | I'm a mechanical engineer and scientist. I've applied to
         | hundreds of jobs in the last 4 years. For every 100 jobs I've
         | applied to, I've received 13 interviews and 3 offers. 41
         | applications out of 100 ghost me and never even reply back.
         | This is now a numbers game. Networking helps, but only gets you
         | so far in my experience. It may get you an interview, but a lot
         | of places have long internal processes that can take months to
         | hire somebody as various internal stakeholders examine several
         | candidates. I'm not defending the process, since it is a
         | complete waste of time for job seekers, but I do want to
         | emphasize how this is not new to many fields outside of tech.
        
           | Michelangelo11 wrote:
           | Right, sure. I agree that tech had it way easier before the
           | interest rate spike. I'd just like to add that it's now even
           | worse than that both in tech and also everywhere else (I hear
           | stories of people with decent experience and qualifications
           | sending out like 500-1000 applications and not getting an
           | offer). The job search landscape is just very bleak at the
           | moment, no other way to put it.
        
             | atrettel wrote:
             | I totally agree! I know people and have heard stories of
             | people applying to hundreds of jobs and getting few if any
             | responses, let alone offers. I view the process as
             | stochastic rather than deterministic, and that is why I
             | call it a numbers game. I've applied to many jobs that I
             | thought that I would be a ringer for, but end up getting
             | ghosted. I try not to overthink it at this point. All that
             | you can do really is apply and hope that it works out.
        
       | mirekrusin wrote:
       | If you think 1001 top companies have broken hiring process create
       | startup that fixes it - as superstar ceo it should be oscillating
       | at the top of your list.
        
       | Ilasky wrote:
       | One thing that is really touched upon in the article is tailoring
       | resumes to the jobs. It's a skill in and of itself and is
       | something I've found brings a lot more success when getting call
       | backs, in my experience.
       | 
       | However, it's incredibly time consuming to do this for every job
       | application. A lot of times, it just hits an ATS system and gets
       | trashed before it even reaches a person.
       | 
       | A bit of a self-plug, but I've made Resgen[0] to help with just
       | this issue (initially made for myself) - it tailors your
       | experiences to the job description to give you better odds of
       | actually getting in front of an actual person.
       | 
       | [0] https://resgen.app
        
       | kievfledame wrote:
       | Pryvit Ted.
       | 
       | Long morning, so some thoughts that may be of use.
       | 
       | CV:                 - No real education (this is the U.K.,
       | everyone has a degree if they're white-collar); no "MBA
       | Essentials" is not a real degree from LSE -- it's more like
       | Harvard Extension School or MIT EdX       - Too much design
       | shenanigans. I can barely make sense of what sort of P&L
       | experience you had, much less what you actually did in your
       | resume. Are you a designer, an executive, a salesman, or a
       | leader? Going for "God Emperor Generalist that can do anything"
       | comes off as unfocused. Tailor the resume so it only reflects the
       | exact skill-sets necessary for the job at hand (i.e. don't talk
       | about developing a GTM strat, if you're looking to be a
       | designer).       - Too much flourish. This is the U.K. Your
       | resume looks like it's trying to scam me. Less color, less stars,
       | less fancy gimmicks.        - "Developed phygital, industrial
       | EdTech platform" -- is this a typo or is this a play on physical-
       | digital divide? See point above.
       | 
       | General Strategy:                 - While "creator economy,"
       | "metaverse," and related tech are popular in Eastern Europe,
       | they're second-class industries in the first world.        -
       | Anglosphere has pulled back investing into R&D and so-on. This
       | resume and strategy would have worked in the era of cheap money,
       | and mania -- but not now. Everyone is more serious, and only
       | looking for things that will help them *now* (not years from
       | now).       - This is not Eastern Europe -- everything is more
       | "who you know." Era of "diamond in the rough -- we should take a
       | chance and have him preside over important shit" is not now.
       | While I can appreciate the marketing strategy here to get your
       | name out, it's more important to make long-lasting bonds in these
       | times. And for the work you've done, no one is going to put up
       | the position in a job portal -- they're going to find someone
       | with the requisite skills in their network.       - U.K. is not
       | the place for your scene. It's stodgy. Sales doesn't work as well
       | (see: more relationships). Very few are going to need your
       | skills. Spin your experience less into manic "conquer the world"
       | and more "didn't rock the boat, but helped many people achieve
       | their goals."        - CEOs don't need to apply to random job
       | postings
       | 
       | You're going to have to take a step down and come back to the
       | real world for a few years. A sales gig is the most probable
       | outcome for the "here-and-now." Best of luck.
        
         | themodelplumber wrote:
         | He should make your reply an attachment to his CV. He'll get an
         | amazing job in no time, even if out of sympathy for how he's
         | been treated!
         | 
         | You can be direct, gentle, and helpful at the same time. Just
         | takes a little creativity...
        
           | orbz wrote:
           | At the executive level you stop getting the kid gloves with
           | the feedback (no feedback sandwich, no mincing words, very
           | direct and to the point). The other thing that happens at the
           | executive level is you stop getting direct feedback at all,
           | so when someone spends the time to give you some direct
           | feedback it is a gift to be treasured. As soon as you find a
           | role you're already on a PIP and often times the feedback you
           | get will be from your exit interview.
        
             | themodelplumber wrote:
             | > At the executive level you stop getting the kid gloves
             | with the feedback
             | 
             | Hmm, that doesn't ring true here, I've coached a lot of
             | execs and the ones you described are often getting the
             | coaching for the very reason that they are too direct! The
             | consequences for that are varied and definitely real.
             | 
             | And again, you can be very direct and also sensitive,
             | gentle, etc. So it's not like there aren't any options for
             | putting things out there in an effective way.
             | 
             | > The other thing that happens at the executive level is
             | you stop getting direct feedback at all, so when someone
             | spends the time to give you some direct feedback it is a
             | gift to be treasured
             | 
             | This would seem to be a pretty logical self-reinforcing
             | loop on its own, but again, I have to say that in practice
             | it would be quite an exception. There are many, many
             | different mechanisms through which executives receive
             | feedback.
             | 
             | The exceptions who aren't getting feedback, even in those
             | cases, are the execs who are too direct. Why? Because the
             | same people are often effectively deaf to feedback.
             | 
             | And so, they tell professional consultants and coaches that
             | they'd like to learn to be _more_ sensitive to feedback.
             | Their training is nearly the exact reverse of what a lot of
             | people think execs want or need.
             | 
             | These kinds of execs often explain that they'd prefer to be
             | able to pick up even the subtleties, in a way that a) helps
             | them do their job more competently and b) protects them
             | from even more critique, which is what some of the most
             | direct people out there fear more than anything.
             | 
             | So, I have a hard time buying this as a general principle,
             | let alone some given attribute of just doin' business. If
             | any given person or commentator is experiencing those
             | issues themselves, it's far more likely, in my professional
             | experience, that they share the same blind spot that other
             | over-direct people have.
        
               | orbz wrote:
               | Well I'd certainly love working in whatever industry
               | you're in because myself, the myriad of executives I've
               | recruited and coached, and my own peer network have the
               | completely opposite experience. Getting a coach indicates
               | that you're not getting that feedback in your existing
               | organization and you have to outsource it.
        
               | themodelplumber wrote:
               | Executives aren't an industry, they can come from
               | anywhere. From tech to government.
               | 
               | Or both, one client was a government appointee who came
               | from an executive position in publishing, she knew she
               | couldn't take the same style into a much less private
               | organization. Turns out she brought her new understanding
               | and style back into private life & business.
               | 
               | If you realize you don't really have to be blunt & jerky,
               | even playing the critic archetype isn't so necessary, and
               | it's more like a habit maybe, it turns out that this
               | realization often opens new life opportunities and mental
               | pathways...
        
         | pdimitar wrote:
         | As an Eastern European with 21.5y of programming career, I have
         | exactly zero clue what do your EE tidbits mean.
        
           | FirmwareBurner wrote:
           | I think parent doesn't know much about Eastern Europe jobs
           | market, but makes assumptions, and wrong ones at that. He's
           | also wrong about not being able to get a tech job without a
           | degree in the UK when by Europeans standards UK is one of the
           | most liberal places to get tech jobs without a degree, as
           | many other EU countries are a lot more strict about letting
           | you in without a degree then the UK, especially if higher
           | education is 100% free and everyone has a degree.
           | 
           | He does have a correct point that in this economy, unless you
           | already have strong connections inside the company, most
           | places are only hiring outside workers for "the trenches" and
           | less managers, leaders and visionaries.
        
             | seabass-labrax wrote:
             | I agree with you that, logically, it _should_ be the case
             | that  "many other EU countries are a lot more strict about
             | letting you in without a degree then the UK, especially if
             | higher education is 100% free". However, my experience as a
             | British person (admittedly, sample size of N=1
             | participants) is the polar opposite.
             | 
             | During the pandemic, I was offered (by a fellow contributor
             | to an open source project) a pretty high-flying role in a
             | large semiconductor company. It would be remote-working for
             | a technical department which was based in Germany.
             | Ultimately, though, I couldn't be employed because the
             | _British_ HR department of the company had a policy of  'no
             | degree, no job'!
        
         | drc500free wrote:
         | Incredibly on-point feedback. The CV is quite unfocused, too
         | clever with invented terminology, and vacillates between
         | professional and unprofessional. Boiled down to just the
         | outcomes it could be solid, but even the "focused" versions are
         | a bit all over the place.
         | 
         | Honestly, put all the hours spent on CV design towards trying
         | to get coffee with useful people.
        
         | ericjmorey wrote:
         | You've put a lot more effort into breaking down a lot of the
         | issues than I would have, but my initial thoughts while reading
         | the post were very similar to what you laid out. But it's
         | almost a disservice to say anything more to this man than, get
         | a job in sales.
         | 
         | He should literally forget everything else written and just
         | focus on getting a job in sales.
        
         | rvba wrote:
         | 'Metaverse' is a joke everywhere.
         | 
         | No serious person believes in that. Maybe some crypto bros.
        
         | confidantlake wrote:
         | Having spent some time in Eastern Europe, it is much more "who
         | you know" than Western Europe by a mile.
        
         | Narciss wrote:
         | Wow, that was hardcore. The hard love was oddly refreshing,
         | especially given the razor sharp take.
        
       | jacknews wrote:
       | More proof that narcissistic personality disorder is prevalent
       | among senior 'leaders'.
        
       | xwowsersx wrote:
       | Several potential turnoffs in the (earlier versions of?) resume
       | 1) possibly overqualified. Companies definitely do worry that
       | someone overqualified will quickly grow bored and leave. Not an
       | unreasonable concern 2) some of the language in the resume is a
       | bit off-putting. Maybe it's a language issue, but I could see
       | "World-Class qualified." and similar statements as coming across
       | a bit like a bit of inflated sense of self/ego. I could be
       | totally wrong on that, I don't know.
        
       | barefeg wrote:
       | I feel like something is missing. I see the positive feedback
       | what what about the feedback after rejection?
        
       | hartator wrote:
       | > I even decided to get rid of my title as a CEO to not confuse
       | hiring managers and decided to name myself a Chief Growth
       | Officer.
       | 
       | So, it's reaction was to lie on his resume and he wonders why
       | nonody wants to hire him.
        
         | rvba wrote:
         | Managers dont hire ex CEOs. They are afraid those will either
         | be too good, or hard to manage.
        
       | simple-thoughts wrote:
       | I know several blockchain projects that would love you but none
       | that can afford you. Market is terrible especially in web3
       | gaming. I myself have taken a 97.5% pay cut with my most recent
       | position compared to 2020.
       | 
       | Edit for the haters: it's completely expected. In 2020 solidity
       | engineers were being offered $1m+ annual base pay packages with
       | no takers, since anyone could earn more building something on
       | there own. Like it or not more actual utility that people enjoy
       | is getting built now that the hype boys are gone.
        
         | rvba wrote:
         | A true millionaire wouldnt be afraid to give numbers, not
         | percentages.
         | 
         | Serious people know how to calculate percentages.
        
         | syntaxing wrote:
         | Assuming you make 30K a year now... that means you made 1.2M
         | before
        
       | Cypher wrote:
       | I'd hire you if I had money or if I can get a new job myself that
       | lets me hire people.
        
       | codeTired wrote:
       | The CV looks just awful. I wouldn't want to work with someone who
       | showed me such a resume. Absolute buzzword spaghetti. The colors
       | and the graphics just scream I peaked in high school.
       | 
       | From my experience people with such resume are low performers
       | with focus on marketing themselves.
        
         | Scubabear68 wrote:
         | My initial thought on seeing this was "this is the kind of
         | flashy, muddled, confusing output I would get if I hired you?
         | Pass.".
         | 
         | People very often forget a resume is a form of work product. If
         | after reading it you get a bad sense about the person, or still
         | have no idea what they are good at, then it's a bad CV.
         | 
         | With of course the caveat that a CV is a marketing tool.
        
       | reisse wrote:
       | So, like, the author was trying to find C-level position... in
       | Europe... by applying CV and pinging people on LinkedIn? And now
       | complaining they couldn't get a job because of job market?
       | 
       | I've seen how European C-level hiring works, multiple times.
       | Either there is a really good manager not from C-level who worked
       | for multiple years, already has personal connections with the
       | board or the owners, and they get promoted when opportunity
       | arises. Or there is the guy someone on the board/owner knows, who
       | is invited to the CEO position, and who, in turn, invites his
       | previous colleagues to other C-level positions. Or maybe there is
       | a fund, which owns multiple companies, and this fund moves
       | someone from CEO of one company to the board of other company and
       | vice versa.
       | 
       | The talent pool for C-level positions is huge, and the positions
       | are scarce. Most of them are filled by networking. There is one-
       | in-a-million chance one can kick the door with just a CV in such
       | way. Especially with a CV of that quality.
        
       | JackFr wrote:
       | Have you applied at GoJo/Waystar Royco?
       | 
       | Resume reads like dialog between Tom Wambsgans and Lukas Mattson.
        
       | mattbee wrote:
       | I feel you, I am an ex-CEO who didn't network very well when I
       | had the chance. I'm at an early stage of a second career in
       | engineering after several years break.
       | 
       | The more I write about my CEO/founder experience the less
       | valuable it feels, and the more I've condensed it. I don't know
       | how much of my thinking applies to your situation. But I worry
       | that CEOs naturally come across as jacks-of-all-trades - I
       | definitely see that in the mega-graphic on your first CV.
       | 
       | I once advertised a Product Owner position and interviewed an ex-
       | CEO / inventor who wanted to tell me all about product sourcing
       | in China, the software stack, managing an engineering team etc.
       | ... very little chat about the job I'd advertised, which was
       | probably my fault for not narrowing the interview earlier.
       | 
       | I remember thinking - I'm sure he can do it, but he's going to be
       | a handful. I'm torn between worrying that this was ageism or just
       | a bad impression, as if he'd said "I have done much more
       | difficult jobs than the one I'm applying for". That is an easy
       | impression to make by accident.
       | 
       | Random realisations about my own search:
       | 
       | 1) My previous career led me to being over-familiar, and I'm
       | working hard on fixing that without losing (what I hope is) a
       | personable voice. That is definitely off-putting to an
       | interviewer.
       | 
       | 2) Even the stuff I'm proudest of must will be sotto voce,
       | something that an interested interviewer can pick up on among a
       | CV ruthlessly tailored for the situation. As a CEO you're used to
       | selling everything about yourself; as an interviewee anything
       | irrelevant is off-putting.
       | 
       | 3) I have the luxury of not needing a new role soon, so I can
       | focus on making enthusiastic applications that I'm really
       | interested in. If I made 1000 applications I can't imagine how
       | I'd express my any genuine interest in any of them.
       | 
       | Good luck, and please let us know how you get on.
        
         | selestify wrote:
         | > I have done much more difficult jobs than the one I'm
         | applying for
         | 
         | Why is that such a bad impression?
        
           | drc500free wrote:
           | The hiring manager believes that the applicant will get bored
           | and leave the moment something closer to their seniority
           | level becomes available.
        
       | drc500free wrote:
       | A couple takeaways from this post and my most recent search:
       | 
       | * The first versions of the CV are so, so bad. Almost parody-
       | level fluff (the rainbow infinity sign is peak CV cringe) hiding
       | what should be considered some pretty impressive outcome metrics.
       | It would be significantly better if the entire CV was "CEO who
       | scaled startup from $XM Valuation to $250M Valuation" in 72 point
       | font.
       | 
       | * Applying through the front door doesn't work. Only networking
       | is going to get you a job at this level of seniority (and lately
       | almost any level of seniority). Tuning your CV is only helpful
       | for organizing your thoughts for your elevator pitch.
       | 
       | * Being without a job near the top of the pyramid is very bad,
       | and you need a much better story to explain the gap. No one is
       | handing you the keys to their company if you seem like a risk.
       | "I'm a Ukrainian refugee" is a great story and should probably be
       | in there to explain the lack of current employment. Your journey
       | of self discovery is a great story to tell after you land your
       | next role, not while you're looking.
       | 
       | * Probably most importantly, we've been living in a 15-year tech
       | bubble driven by low interest rates and quantitative easing.
       | Valuations have been driven by the insane amount of money flying
       | around, and those valuations have required zero-marginal-cost and
       | infinite TAM to justify the numbers. SaaS, tech, AI/ML are pretty
       | much the only stories that can claim to meet the "zero cost,
       | infinite TAM" investment thesis. Zero interest rate meant you got
       | a super long runway to keep the fantasy going. We have a glut of
       | people who can launch and scale tech companies and there aren't
       | as many opportunities for that as there were three years ago.
        
         | kcplate wrote:
         | > Applying through the front door doesn't work. Only networking
         | is going to get you a job at this level of seniority (and
         | lately almost any level of seniority)
         | 
         | Every board member at an organization looking to find a CEO
         | already knows who they want to put forward or at least talk to
         | about the job, they have known from day one that they were
         | appointed to the board. Networking with board members is what
         | has to happen.
        
         | drc500free wrote:
         | Another thing that was tickling the back of my brain while
         | reading this was "the failure mode of clever is asshole,"[1]
         | which is one of the most helpful blog posts I've come across. I
         | personally have to work very hard to mute my initial
         | interactions down to what's appropriate for a low-context
         | introduction. The oddly coined phrases (e.g. "findicators")
         | that others have commented on fall pretty squarely in this
         | category.
         | 
         | [1] https://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/06/16/the-failure-state-
         | of-...
        
         | Michelangelo11 wrote:
         | OK I just read the CV and, wow, this is maximum cringe.
         | 
         | Some favorite parts: - "Perfectly designed to kick your
         | competitors' asses" - "Jaw-dropping level of systematisation" -
         | the row of logos for various corporate buzzwords and concepts,
         | two of which are so faded it's hard to tell what they're
         | supposed to be
         | 
         | But the absolute peak, the cherry on top, is the claim "Zero
         | corporate bullshit" in the section "ABC's of Me" (barf). This
         | CV is -all- corporate bullshit down to the last pixel. It's
         | like saying The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is PG-13. Like calling
         | a ribeye steak vegetarian. Like North Korea calling itself
         | democratic. You get the idea.
        
           | gumby wrote:
           | > Like calling a ribeye steak vegetarian
           | 
           | TBF the steak is made 100% from a vegetarian.
        
             | Michelangelo11 wrote:
             | You have a bright future in marketing (assuming you're not
             | working there already).
        
             | mirekrusin wrote:
             | Nice one, will steal it on next beer & "veggie" bbq!
        
       | drra wrote:
       | Cringe CV aside, author clearly prefers quantity over quality. It
       | may work for a dev job but it won't for C-level. What author
       | should have done is to select the most promising/aligned offers
       | and invest time to analyze the company top to bottom to learn to
       | speak the same language (market, niche), discover challenges they
       | are facing and work out top executives profiles to better
       | understand what they are looking for. Ideally network with top
       | execs to get more insights into the company culture.
        
       | madengr wrote:
       | [dead]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | w10-1 wrote:
       | At work (and here on HN): deliver, and respect other peoples'
       | time.
        
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