Junior engineer. Hundreds of applications across 3 months. Nothing but silence and automated rejections. It's got me feeling so down that I'm just going to leave the private sector for military. Get some training, have some job security, benefits, and hopefully wait out the horrible market.
US, yes, and I'm in a particularly bad region for tech, so I'm searching across multiple states and also across the country. I'm currently employed as a remote worker and it's killing me. It gives me very few opportunities to network. I did high school online and graduated college online due to the pandemic, so my network is already super suffering as it is.
Late to this thread, but if you're filling out forms, be sure to set your location lived to wherever the company you're applying to is. Also set your linkedin location to your preferred tech hub location. Even that helped me get through a lot of resumes filters when I was looking.
Also, there's really not a substitute to getting out to a place in person. For me at least, it really helped getting out of my smallish Arizona town and moving to Phoenix. There's several reddit threads and apps where you can couch surf, just be honest that you're having a hard time getting your career started and that will open some doors for you.
Once you're there though, get out and meet people. Go to as many professional and special interest meet ups as you can and talk to people saying that you're new to the area and looking for work. Even events like non-fiction book clubs indirectly led me to meeting people that have given me job leads. Research companies in the area on linkedin that interest you and cold call/twitter DM engineers or leads in the company and offer to buy them a cup of coffee and pick their brain. Having this unique interest in their company and bringing a bit of enthusiasm when learning about it goes miles. I honestly believe two weeks in a location is worth two months cold applying online; especially for someone just starting out.
edit: Final thing, have at least one project you're proud of that you can demo and show off to people that you meet. It doesn't have to be perfect, but you have to be able to talk about it with enthusiasm. A web-app. A video of a circuit you made if you're EE. Something that shows you can execute and aren't just someone that's all talk.
Privacy matters at work because the interests of the employee and the employer are in tension. Do you expect an employee to leave every personal item out of work? Should employees expect to not speak of their personal lives, or to have artifacts of their personal life leak into the workplace? To say that the boundary should be absolute is hopelessly naive. Privacy matters because it is a leaky barrier, and the employer should not be capable of retaining personal information they can use to emotionally extort or legally strong-arm their employee when it's useful for them.
I kind of do expect expect to leave their private matters at home. Or the very least, to handle them during break time on their own phones. This does not seem at all oppressive to me.
And in the ideal world, that's fine, but again- hopelessly naive in the real world. Taken to the extreme, why should we not record all audio? And if someone receives an urgent phone call from home, something extremely personal, should that stay in the company's records? No, for fear that the company will use their power disparity to exert undue control over the employee's life from them attending to the actually important matters in their life. That's why privacy matters.
25 year odl here, I prefer phone calls as my primary method of communication, and often place calls as my first method of contact with previously-uncontacted entities. Please check your assumptions :)
That's pretty sickening, I hope you keep away from polite society for the rest of our sakes, and hopefully you won't have too much longer to pursue your bucket list.
I'm technically self employed because I got into a toxic contractorship as my first gig, when I didn't have the knowledge to avoid getting taken advantage of. But it's really just a software shop refusing to hire employees and using "contractors" for everything (we're actually employees)
Do you have substantive critique? Because the fellow you're responding to is giving substance to his criticism, the parent comment is giving substance, the article is giving substance, and whether GEB has substance is apparently up for debate. If the person you're replying to is deadset on proving the parent right, you are dead set on proving nothing. Please tell us what you disagree with, and the particulars of why, or maybe leave the discussion to the adults.
OP: In that regard, both books are good for techies to read because every now and then it's good to read something that drags you out of your comfort zone and futzes around in all kinds of obscure nooks and crannies before getting to the mother fucking point -- if indeed it ever does. Getting to the point can be important, but there is more to life (and literature).
Commentor: Philosophy at the end of the day is about arguing a point; it isn't about producing an aesthetic experience. (Even though this statement directly against original post, it's so obvious to author that he does not feel the need to explain, but goes on a tangent how bad the writing is)
Me: Hahah the whole point of op is that there is value in not always having a point, but meandering...
Response: It was a meandering and badly written mess with no point.
Me: ...
You: Leave it to the adults.
Me: ...
You: You're not making a point!!!
(Considering the nature of the first comment and assuming you didnt do it on purpose, you ending with blaming me I'm not making a point is poetic to be honest)
I don't consider "there is value in not always having a point, but meandering" to be itself a point, mainly because you don't give a reason to suppose that that is the case or a reasonable case to consider. It seems itself to be rather meandering, circling a value and a raison d'etre without specifying either. It's the specification that makes it worth considering, as adults do know.
The housing people want is more housing but the city won’t let them build it because of its exclusionary zoning practices. Go lmao about that. There’s plenty of space to go vertical.
Where do you interview for? I'm sure people who don't want to compete with GPT script kiddies would love to know steer clear, while this is a strong positive signal that there's a jobs program for GPT meat copiers.
That job could have gone to someone who like actually knew what they were doing and was honest lol not sure why you want to defend professional and intellectual dishonesty?
This suggestion that a person who can adequately perform job duties could have even possibly cheated in their job interview is intellectually dishonest. If they had to cheat to get the job we should be looking at the interviewer. Why did the qualified candidate have to cheat? Why is whatever-they-did even considered cheating?
If they're qualified, they didn't have to cheat. If they're not, then they did. Either way, they're dishonest and that means they're not a desirable hire.
> If they're qualified, they didn't have to cheat.
(Just rewriting to specify my understanding: If the candidate was qualified, they didn't have to cheat even if they did cheat. They could have simply not cheated and been selected by the merits of their qualifications.)
This argument relies on the false premise that an interviewer will always accurately determine a candidate's qualifications. That a candidate is not qualified to pass an interview is not the same that a candidate is not qualified for the job for which they're being interviewed.
True, most interviewing processes are very imperfect by necessity and some qualified people will be mistakenly filtered out.
But also, there are usually several-to-many applicants for a position that are all qualified, and by necessity most of them won't get the position.
Additionally, technical qualifications is only a part of what an employer is looking for. There are other things that are at least equally important -- how well the applicant would fit into the team, how trustworthy they are, etc. It's about a lot more than just technical skillset.
> True, most interviewing processes are very imperfect by necessity and some qualified people will be mistakenly filtered out.
This is ultimately something I see as dishonest given the context of job applications. Employers generally expect a certain kind of perfection from job candidates, which they can’t manage to show of themselves. I understand that this isn’t an easy thing to solve -- nor even something that’s ever been solved -- but that should at least make it more understandable when an otherwise qualified candidate uses disallowed tools in their interview.
Perhaps the candidate’s real best option is to find a different company to work for but they may not be so privileged as to have a choice if their on-paper qualifications are lacking. Assuming their practicable qualifications are adequate, they may have good reason to bullshit through a bad interview. Additionally, finding a different company is pretty likely to be “same shit, different day”.
> But also, there are usually several-to-many applicants for a position that are all qualified, and by necessity most of them won't get the position.
Assuming they’ve qualified via an interview and there are particularly close candidates, pick the one who applied first. They’re admittedly qualified and further interviewing is just a means of discriminating in error-prone and possibly unlawful or immoral ways.
> Additionally, technical qualifications is only a part of what an employer is looking for. There are other things that are at least equally important -- how well the applicant would fit into the team, how trustworthy they are, etc. It's about a lot more than just technical skillset.
Fair enough. I would caution interviewers against judging too harshly or quickly. One can imagine many reasons an interviewee might choose or seem to lie during an interview while they are otherwise an honest person, ranging from stress to disillusionment to [cultural differences](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39209794).
At the end of the day, filtering for liars and cheaters actually filters for bad liars and cheaters in addition to people who are a bit nervous or tired or stressed or cynical or just having a slightly off day; dishonest people who genuinely see nothing wrong with dishonesty get through just fine.
