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[Tesseract]

so glad i'm retired ~ these steroids aren't cheap

 

[Super Mario]

Couple of things I've noticed:

- I make more right now than almost all of my family did when they retired (even adjusted for inflation). I don't make anything crazy either.
- I hire people. It's a struggle to find good talent
- College graduates think they are in high demand for high wages with no experience. Not sure when this was ever a thing.
- Many applicants think they are more qualified than they really are.

 

[gatti-man]

Couple of things I've noticed:

- I make more right now than almost all of my family did when they retired (even adjusted for inflation). I don't make anything crazy either.
- I hire people. It's a struggle to find good talent
- College graduates think they are in high demand for high wages with no experience. Not sure when this was ever a thing.
- Many applicants think they are more qualified than they really are.

That’s been true for the 14 years I’ve been a GM running a store. People always want to be paid to do the work they might do before they’ve done it. Everyone talks a big game and so few follow through I hire what I can prove. Show me first then I’ll pay you.

 

[ROMhack]

That’s been true for the 14 years I’ve been a GM running a store. People always want to be paid to do the work they might do before they’ve done it. Everyone talks a big game and so few follow through I hire what I can prove. Show me first then I’ll pay you.

What are they saying? That they have a shelf stacking speed of 50 items a minute or something?

 

[Hari Seldon]

I hate these types of questions. Also, "Where do you see yourself in 5 years?"

Yeah me too, I don't ask them, they suck, but a lot of people ask them. There are a lot of bad interviewers lol.

 

[gatti-man]

What are they saying? That they have a shelf stacking speed of 50 items a minute or something?

People say they are super committed and hard working then you catch them on their phones all the time or calling out sick all the time or moving crazy slow etc. it’s rare to find someone truly committed and high energy that dedicated themselves to their work.

 

[ROMhack]

People say they are super committed and hard working then you catch them on their phones all the time or calling out sick all the time or moving crazy slow etc. it’s rare to find someone truly committed and high energy that dedicated themselves to their work.

Ah right fair enough. I have no patience for phone people either.

 

[Taxexemption]

I live near Sacramento. I work in accounting, I recently got my CPA. Earlier this year I finished my exams for the CPA license, I then asked my employer what my future was with the company, I got no answer. I kept asking and eventually they hired new people to take parts of my job to the point that it is now a part time job where I often don't do anything. They then told me they wouldn't pay me any more than I currently make, and that they expected me to be looking for a new job and eventually leave the company.


I've been looking for work for the past few months. I get about an interview a week, no offers yet. I've had multiple second interviews, and even times where I had to take multiple tests and interview with different people at different locations for the same position. Most of the feedback I'm getting is very non-specific, something like "We went with a candidate with more specialized experience."


I feel like the job market is a racket. I think most of the time the hiring people already know who they are going to hire based on nepotism/cronyism, and that they just need some people to interview just to say that they did it. I seriously wonder if I might have already spent hundreds of dollars preparing and driving to interviews where I never had a chance no matter what I did.

 

[ROMhack]

T Taxexemption

That sucks, I hope you find something soon (you will!).

Do you ask for feedback on interviews, or is that when they give the old 'more experienced candidate' spiel?

 

[Taxexemption]

T Taxexemption

That sucks, I hope you find something soon (you will!).

Do you ask for feedback on interviews, or is that when they give the old 'more experienced candidate' spiel?

I ask for feedback after the interview, and that's when I get the more experienced candidate spiel. I have 5 years experience in various accounting roles, however, I almost never have experience with whatever particular software the company I'm interviewing for is using.

 

[Ownage]

 

[Liljagare]

Cynical, but, living in a modern society is a racket.

Ontopic, I've ever only gotten job through contacts and walkin's, never even bothered with anything that required a interview, as most jobs in my area are filled internally, but they still have to announce the position, to follow legislation.

 

[Kazza]

Well, as someone planning on returning to London next year, this thread is a bit depressing!

I noticed that there are a few programmers/coders on here. I've heard that interviews for those jobs are a lot more straight forward, where they might just give you a coding problem or something. On the other hand, I have heard some horror stories of HR people asking for 5 years experience in a language/programme that has only been out for 2 years! I want to get into coding myself (Python). Would building up decent a portfolio of personal projects on Github be enough for most jobs?

 

[Kagey K]

Self employment was the riskiest, yet most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.

Sometimes you just need to strike out on your own, and then go into those companies you applied at as a contractor instead of an employee.

Seems they are willing to hire you multiple times for short term jobs instead of one big one where you are a full time employee.

 

[Makariel]

I'm an engineer, jobs look for me. But I've been living and working in 5 different countries by now, so moving where the jobs are helps. But I guess it's not for everyone, to leave everything behind every few years.

 

[Kagey K]

I'm an engineer, jobs look for me. But I've been living and working in 5 different countries by now, so moving where the jobs are helps. But I guess it's not for everyone, to leave everything behind every few years.

I assume you don’t have a family yet? Or your family will become very resentful because of it.

I grew up with too many Army Brat kids who get angry they can’t lay roots down anywhere.

This is not the life for a family.

 

[hariseldon]

I must be grateful to God cos as a programmer I never had issue finding job, but indeed the job market especially in UK (brexit etc) may be hard to swallow.

I remember going for interview to London two times and that place seemed to me like a mental hospital (yep, during my short time there I met more crazy people than in the rest of my life)
And the commute there is just no, no - leave that place mate. Not to mention the rent prices.....

For developers Brexit is pretty good tbh.

 

[Wings 嫩翼翻せ]

I'm an engineer, jobs look for me. But I've been living and working in 5 different countries by now, so moving where the jobs are helps. But I guess it's not for everyone, to leave everything behind every few years.

Sounds fun at least. My desired career path leads me to a job doing exactly this, haha

 

[Makariel]

I assume you don’t have a family yet? Or your family will become very resentful because of it.

I am married, for a bit more than a month now already declined one job offer since then.

We don't have children (yet), but I wouldn't plan on moving once children are running around the house. Unless I get deported with the purple Brexit van of course.

 

[Chairman Tickles]

Imagine working for a salary.... *shivers*. It's a racket where others pull your strings.

Been going strong for 15+ years as a self employed own boss in the field of IT. Pull my own strings.

 

[Kazza]

For developers Brexit is pretty good tbh.

Please explain. Because of reduced competition from EU nationals?

 

[hariseldon]

Please explain. Because of reduced competition from EU nationals?

Basically. It's damn hard to hire devs at the moment (I should know, been trying to hire one for ages and finally managed it recently and I'm in a pretty good area of the UK for that kind of thing), which conversely means that for devs the market is excellent. I just bagged a 20% payrise a couple of weeks ago for instance.

 

[ROMhack]

Basically. It's damn hard to hire devs at the moment (I should know, been trying to hire one for ages and finally managed it recently and I'm in a pretty good area of the UK for that kind of thing), which conversely means that for devs the market is excellent. I just bagged a 20% payrise a couple of weeks ago for instance.

Nice work. What is it that you do? Programming?

 

[hariseldon]

Nice work. What is it that you do? Programming?

Coding, infrastructure, leading a small team, UX and bits of graphic design, more or less dictating the entire design of the product.. bit of a jack of all trades in my job.

 

[CrankyJay™]

Misread this as “The job market is a racist!” and thought maybe I stumbled onto another forum.

 

[ROMhack]

I just did some quick maths and worked out that my interview success in London is 27%. Outside is 60%. Relatively the same amount of interviews (11 v 10).

Office jobs (including internships) is 40% v 29%. Not as stark a difference but fairly telling.

 

[Kazza]

Basically. It's damn hard to hire devs at the moment (I should know, been trying to hire one for ages and finally managed it recently and I'm in a pretty good area of the UK for that kind of thing), which conversely means that for devs the market is excellent. I just bagged a 20% payrise a couple of weeks ago for instance.

Thanks for the details. Which coding languages would you say are most in demand at the moment? What kind of interview process do you have? Do you give candidates a coding test, or just ask the regular interview questions?

 

[hariseldon]

Thanks for the details. Which coding languages would you say are most in demand at the moment? What kind of interview process do you have? Do you give candidates a coding test, or just ask the regular interview questions?

Java is hugely in demand around here at the moment, and it's good solid work that will get you into the enterprise space, it's been around for ages and will continue to be around for ages. If you do java you should get a good understanding of the Spring framework as the de facto standard. Front-end you'll want Angular or React, but honestly the front end space changes around a lot. If you know one you'll be able to pick up the other and actual devs will know that, while HR people probably won't. Machine Learning/AI is huge at the moment, and you don't need an enormous amount of skill and experience to make good money at the moment, as there aren't many people with experience. For that you'll likely want Python. What I will say is that most sane orgs are aware that when they put out a job ad requiring 10 frameworks and 3 languages they won't find someone with the exact match. What they will expect is to find people who have done some of them and some related or similar-enough items who can cross-train. In general, if you can demonstrate that you'll be able to pick up x in reasonable time you'll pick something up.

My org is a bit less corporate than most (despite being a decent size it's somewhat startupish with no HR dept as such). My own process is phone interview with a mix of walk through the CV, tech questions (mostly just idiot check), career direction questions and the usual situational ones. I then send a practical task for them to do in their own time and upload to github. Then face to face with again some slightly harder tech questions, some logic puzzles, a quick live-coding exercise. If they pass that, they're hired.

Other places (especially web design companies which are just churning out Wordpress and Drupal bollocks - the reason I don't do PHP anymore) don't tend to go that far and will just give you some logic puzzles and have an informal chat.

 

[ROMhack]

^^This. Don't take listings 100% seriously. Often times they'll interview you if they like the sound of you rather than requiring you to meet ALL the criteria.

At least that's my experience, albeit not in software development.

 

[lil puff]

"anyone else?"

Yep. In NY, you need to have a trade and stick with it, if you want to survive independently and relatively comfortably here. Comfort meaning just getting by with few luxuries.

I've been doing what I do for almost 3 decades now, and while I'm well compensated for it, I'm also burnt out and stuck tolerating a ton of BS daily. The more you're compensated, the more license the uppers have to take advantage of you (and some enjoy doing it) - and take advantage of the fact that there's nowhere else to go.

I don't dare attempt to pound any pavement looking for a better atmosphere to get paid half, while rent and cost of living rise.

It sucks, and I actually consider myself one of the lucky ones.

 

[lil puff]

People say they are super committed and hard working then you catch them on their phones all the time or calling out sick all the time or moving crazy slow etc. it’s rare to find someone truly committed and high energy that dedicated themselves to their work.

I find this to be absolutely true.

I'm constantly shocked that those behaviors have also become acceptable and welcome in the workplace. I have personally been reprimanded for calling this kind of behavior out at times where it has affected our bottom line of being efficient enough to make deadlines.

On one hand, there is complacent management who prefer to keep things fun and light in the workplace (which is fine to a degree) to keep stresses down or to hide from it.

But on the other hand, the very few that come to work, put their head down and focus on the work, get burned out and annoyed at this sort of passive workplace 'culture' surrounding them, they take on more work duties, are under appreciated for it, knowing that they are stuck doing it for lack of alternative.

 

[Tesseract]

a minority of people do all the work, that's why those behaviors are acceptable

when i was working at a military hospital, i tried explaining this to a guard one night over coffee, and he basically had a mental breakdown right there on the spot

i spent the rest of the night crying

 

[Life]

^^This. Don't take listings 100% seriously. Often times they'll interview you if they like the sound of you rather than requiring you to meet ALL the criteria.

At least that's my experience, albeit not in software development.

Left London years ago. Broaden your horizon. Even with a job, London expenses will suck you dry.

 

[ROMhack]

I find this to be absolutely true.

I'm constantly shocked that those behaviors have also become acceptable and welcome in the workplace. I have personally been reprimanded for calling this kind of behavior out at times where it has affected our bottom line of being efficient enough to make deadlines.

On one hand, there is complacent management who prefer to keep things fun and light in the workplace (which is fine to a degree) to keep stresses down or to hide from it.

But on the other hand, the very few that come to work, put their head down and focus on the work, get burned out and annoyed at this sort of passive workplace 'culture' surrounding them, they take on more work duties, are under appreciated for it, knowing that they are stuck doing it for lack of alternative.

Definitely, this is me to a tee. I did a temp job recently and pretty much worked solid for the whole week. Management commented on it, seemed to think I was a hard worker and all that, but the problem was that I finished the project with an entire day spare and had to tell my recruiters I was done. They haven't got back to me since.

Sometimes being sloppy and slow is a good thing but I can't do it

I worked as a team leader for a few years and would happily reprimand those on their phones.

 

[Nester99]

Come to Canada, we can’t find enough reliable people to do anything. Best job market in 20 years.

 

[Kazza]

Java is hugely in demand around here at the moment, and it's good solid work that will get you into the enterprise space, it's been around for ages and will continue to be around for ages. If you do java you should get a good understanding of the Spring framework as the de facto standard. Front-end you'll want Angular or React, but honestly the front end space changes around a lot. If you know one you'll be able to pick up the other and actual devs will know that, while HR people probably won't. Machine Learning/AI is huge at the moment, and you don't need an enormous amount of skill and experience to make good money at the moment, as there aren't many people with experience. For that you'll likely want Python. What I will say is that most sane orgs are aware that when they put out a job ad requiring 10 frameworks and 3 languages they won't find someone with the exact match. What they will expect is to find people who have done some of them and some related or similar-enough items who can cross-train. In general, if you can demonstrate that you'll be able to pick up x in reasonable time you'll pick something up.

My org is a bit less corporate than most (despite being a decent size it's somewhat startupish with no HR dept as such). My own process is phone interview with a mix of walk through the CV, tech questions (mostly just idiot check), career direction questions and the usual situational ones. I then send a practical task for them to do in their own time and upload to github. Then face to face with again some slightly harder tech questions, some logic puzzles, a quick live-coding exercise. If they pass that, they're hired.

Other places (especially web design companies which are just churning out Wordpress and Drupal bollocks - the reason I don't do PHP anymore) don't tend to go that far and will just give you some logic puzzles and have an informal chat.

Thanks a lot, that's very helpful info. I already studied some python already and believe I can become good at it (I really enjoyed the process of writing code, plus I had lots of ideas for little projects as I was learning - apparently a problem a lot of people when they first learn to code is not having any idea of what kind of programmes they would like to write, so not getting the chance to hone their craft). I just need to finish off my current studies (Chinese) and then I can concentrate fully on becoming a good coder. I hope I can find a job that combines the two skills, but that might not be realistic. It sounds like I should give Java a try too and see how I get on with it.

Thanks again.

 

[Kazza]

I find this to be absolutely true.

I'm constantly shocked that those behaviors have also become acceptable and welcome in the workplace. I have personally been reprimanded for calling this kind of behavior out at times where it has affected our bottom line of being efficient enough to make deadlines.

On one hand, there is complacent management who prefer to keep things fun and light in the workplace (which is fine to a degree) to keep stresses down or to hide from it.

But on the other hand, the very few that come to work, put their head down and focus on the work, get burned out and annoyed at this sort of passive workplace 'culture' surrounding them, they take on more work duties, are under appreciated for it, knowing that they are stuck doing it for lack of alternative.

I truly believe that if everyone just got their heads down and gave a solid and honest 4 hours of graft every day, then everyone could go home at lunchtime every day and the economy wouldn't be affected at all.

 

[Wings 嫩翼翻せ]

I just did some quick maths and worked out that my interview success in London is 27%. Outside is 60%. Relatively the same amount of interviews (11 v 10).

Office jobs (including internships) is 40% v 29%. Not as stark a difference but fairly telling.

This happened in my case too; my only bargain is the metro areas are so accessible (at least I'm patient enough to commute), plus smaller candidate pools for some districts.

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

Gainfully employed, but I'm looking to get into agriculture or an adjacent skilled trade that I can use for agriculture. My condolences. Looking for a job is soul-sucking.

If you're in the US, Crary Industries could also use more talent. They make combines and all that here in the US, service them too. Really great company. They're in North Dakota though.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

If you're in the US, Crary Industries could also use more talent. They make combines and all that here in the US, service them too. Really great company. They're in North Dakota though.

Thanks for the lead. I will reach out and worst-case scenario, it won't amount to anything

 

[SurprisedPikachu]

Thanks for the lead. I will reach out and worst-case scenario, it won't amount to anything

Double time for over 50 hours which is very frequent. Especially when you travel to fix their shit.

 

[lil puff]

I truly believe that if everyone just got their heads down and gave a solid and honest 4 hours of graft every day, then everyone could go home at lunchtime every day and the economy wouldn't be affected at all.

Frankly I think productivity, efficiency and overall profit would benefit from this practice.

Not to mention the work/life balance that we all need these days.

ROMhack

"Sometimes being sloppy and slow is a good thing but I can't do it

I worked as a team leader for a few years and would happily reprimand those on their phones."

Yeah, sometimes I think I'm the one getting it wrong LOL. But adopting lazy tactics is probably not going to benefit them in the long run. I once told my manager that she was not doing anyone long term favors by letting them get away with that stuff. One day they will find themselves with a manager that won't accept it.

Also WTF is up with the worse of the worse co-workers that leave something on your desk, and then come by later to ask if I got it. Do you fuckin think I'm blind? F your passive aggressive are you finished yet. Every single sloppy piece of work you do has errors all over it. And you talk way too much all day.

 

[ROMhack]

Just had a Skype interview for a 'paid' internship. Halfway through he drops that the remuneration will be £500 a month.

The position was full-time and in Central London, lasting six months. Really takes the piss.

 

[hariseldon]

Just had a Skype interview for a 'paid' internship. Halfway through he drops that the remuneration will be £500 a month.

The position was full-time and in Central London, lasting six months. Really taking the piss.

And that's why only middle class trust fund kids with help from mummy and daddy can get access to most London based careers. And that's why places like the BBC are full of cunts.

 

[ROMhack]

And that's why only middle class trust fund kids with help from mummy and daddy can get access to most London based careers. And that's why places like the BBC are full of cunts.

Haha I can't disagree.

I've also found out that the practice of un(der)paying interns is illegal. I'll be happy to outline the facts to them should they get back to me about an interview. Got my sources ready.

 

[sunnysideup]

London is everything wrong with everything.

 

[Breakage]

And that's why only middle class trust fund kids with help from mummy and daddy can get access to most London based careers. And that's why places like the BBC are full of cunts.

Yup. There's a programme called "How To Break Into The Elite" on the BBC's iPlayer. It's worth watching.

 

[trite]

Man, I'm starting to feel like I hate everything about the current job market.

I got another rejection this morning after what I felt was a good interview. It feels like there's very little I can do on my side despite having 2 years experience in my chosen field.

This is in London btw. Seriously, fuck this miserable place. People seem dead inside and I think the fact I'm not might be rubbing people up the wrong way.

Anyone else?

I’ve got to ask, what job are you looking for? If you decided to not fall for the college meme, you can find a job in seconds or the first place you call.
t. Electrician, USA

 

[ROMhack]

I’ve got to ask, what job are you looking for? If you decided to not fall for the college meme, you can find a job in seconds or the first place you call.
t. Electrician, USA

Communications. Alternatively just a normal admin job. I'm also teaching myself web design. Gotta cover them bases.

London is everything wrong with everything.

Yeah, I've given up looking here for the time being. I keep finding people on Reddit in the exact same position, some of them have 5+ years experience and can't catch a break. Mental.

 

[hariseldon]

Yup. There's a programme called "How To Break Into The Elite" on the BBC's iPlayer. It's worth watching.

Will do - that looks right up my street.