4 ms·

Sometimes the most effective way to get the attention of influential people is by selling your willingness of wanting to learn from them at any cost, even if th

by bgun 8y ago

Sometimes the most effective way to get the attention of influential people is by selling your willingness of wanting to learn from them at any cost, even if that means working for free or for very little money. Nope. Giving terrible advice, couching it in "my unpopular opinion", then backpedaling through "maybe this could work for you, who knows" is lazy writing and lazier thinking.

handbanana 8y ago
I don't necessarily think this was great advice. But perhaps you'd care to explain why it is terrible advice? And why is it backpedaling to say "maybe"? There are probably a lot of people who could get this approach right - but others who, for lack of maturity/experience or other reasons identify a poor/inadequate mentor/influencer. It's hard to give advice that's foolproof and will work 100% of the time for everyone - so I'm not sure what you're really getting at
brandall10 8y ago
Can you elaborate why this is terrible advice? I have two real-world examples where this notion played out spectacularly: - An ex-gf took an unpaid internship at the main museum here in San Diego with minimal job prospects upon graduating from USCD with a BA in history. 6 months later she took a full-time position at that museum, beating out someone with a MFA from Stanford simply because she was exposed to so many influential people in the industry who vouched for her. A year after that shee was promoted to managing their event planning dept. - I transitioned from C# to Rails work by doing a pro-bono project for 4 months @ ~20hrs/week, the main condition was that they paid for a Sr. dev for mentorship. My mentor on that project continued to bring me work following that project, so much so that I quit my day job. Value can be many things. Money is just one of them.
- murph-almighty 8y ago
  Not OP. 1) It's an avenue for exploitation- if you did x for free for person A why won't you do y free for person B? What if this overtakes the time you need for your day job, which pays you and in turn enables you to work for free at your other gig? 2) It devalues the actual cost of labor. Why pay someone to build this when I can "pay someone with experience"? This complaint pops up a lot in graphic design work as well. This isn't to say "don't do side projects" or "don't do open source"- with the latter, it's something you're doing for a community rather than one entity for a business intent. But it's reasonable to be cautious when someone says "we need a website that's like Uber for X for $0".
  - handbanana 8y ago
    The scenario you give at the end is different. This isn't necessarily about finding advertised unpaid work - it's about getting your foot in the door and can involve offering to work highly discounted, or for free, in exchange for mentorship etc. Once you have the skills/connections from this initial step, you can advance your career. It's about taking calculated risks to advance your own interests - that otherwise probably won't get advanced as far/as quickly if you didn't take the risk(s). It's certainly not about working like a dog for someone trying to advance their own interests, while disregarding yours ("we need a website that's like Uber for X for $0")
  - brandall10 8y ago
    But the big thing you're missing is the context - to get experience and exposure. If you're in a situation where it's difficult to get either, that's how you're getting compensated. Again, I must restate, value comes in many forms. Money is simply one. In these situations you truly aren't working for 'free'. The main thing is to put limits and goals on such activities. My ex got into an industry where unpaid interns were a common thing and it kickstarted her career. She did have to walk away briefly before they offered her a (low) paid position, and they she had to walk away once more before she got a FT position. This wasn't going to happen any other way, and she absolutely flourished. The client I worked for didn't pay for my time but they paid for the time of my mentor. I specifically had 4 months @ 20 hrs. per week, they paid him 5 hours per week - this was detailed in the contract. I had no experience in Rails at the time and I sure as heck didn't want to fail at my first time at bat. It was worth it to me to take something like that on vs. a low rate without that assistance. But yes, if you're just getting started in software as a college student and taking an internship, of course you should be compensated as fairly as possible, because that in common in that context - if you don't, you are being exploited. Totally different thing.
- willio58 8y ago
  As a college student applying to payed internships currently, I couldn’t imagine applying for unpayed ones. I can barely support myself through school with the job I have, how am I supposed to support myself while not being payed anything for a couple months, let alone half a year? Take out loans, gambling on the chance that I get hired by the company after the internship? I get the value of an internship on a resume, but I value my work higher than $0/hour.
- CalRobert 8y ago
  Oh hey, a great opportunity for a counterexample! My wife got a Bachelor's from UCLA, then a Master's in Museum Studies from University College, London. She then worked for free (it was called "interning" - which is kind of crazy for someone with a master's) at the San Diego Air and Space Museum (some kinda weird folks there...), and the USS Midway. She gave up weekends and time she could have spent earning an income. It amounted to nothing, though she did get a neat volunteer dinner from the Air and Space Museum. Now she has a normal job in a normal office because she has to pay off the debts from school and can't afford to work for free. Anyway, your anecdote is valid, but so is mine.
  - rmdashrfroot 8y ago
    A master's in _museum studies_? Why? Why in the world would you pay for that? What could the study of that possible produce?
    - CalRobert 8y ago
      Apparently, when your ex-husband whom you started dating at 17 is an abusive asshole who says you're an idiot, your interests are stupid, and you'll never amount to anything, you may, upon divorce, feel a strong sense of internal motivation to do all that stuff you always wanted to do, and make decisions not based purely on financial rationality. Also, I totally understand the whole "why in the world would you pay for that" but if you work in tech you're in a fairly privileged position. The thing I desperately wanted to do most of my life happens to pay well. Somebody else desperately wanted to work in museums/heritage/archaeology and share knowledge. And museums do good work - one of the projects she worked on was repatriating artifacts stolen from Native American graves in the early 20th century. Since the thieves generally didn't take good notes, it could require a lot of time, effort, and knowledge to determine an artifact's provenience. That was more related to her undergrad studies - the graduate degree was more about a mix of preservation, conservation, etc. I'm not sure it's worse than making some F2P game or Tinder for dogs. But it's definitely less profitable.
    - objectivetruth 8y ago
      I assume it produces the ability to manage a museum. How easy do you think it is to successfully manage a museum, with a staff of dozens to hundreds of docents, researchers, restoration specialists, educators, and support staff? MSI in Chicago gets 1.5 million visitors a year and has a freaking U-Boat and a 727 (among many other amazing exhibits).
rossdavidh 8y ago
It seems to me that, if you have to give away your labor for free to get your foot in the door, you have picked a career that will not go well. Even once you get a job, you may have to keep schmoozing and have "sharp elbows" to keep others from taking it from you. If you have to give away your labor to get started, that is valuable information in and of itself, but not in the way the author intended, I think.
willio58 8y ago
It isn’t even a novel idea, unpayed internships still exist and they’re terrible. Certain industries have gotten rid of them, but it took a lot of fighting to do so. Companies should be able to pay for labor, it’s as simple as that. You don’t have to pay an intern top dollar either, just a living wage will do.

by bgun 8y ago

handbanana 8y ago

I don't necessarily think this was great advice. But perhaps you'd care to explain why it is terrible advice? And why is it backpedaling to say "maybe"? There are probably a lot of people who could get this approach right - but others who, for lack of maturity/experience or other reasons identify a poor/inadequate mentor/influencer. It's hard to give advice that's foolproof and will work 100% of the time for everyone - so I'm not sure what you're really getting at

brandall10 8y ago

Can you elaborate why this is terrible advice? I have two real-world examples where this notion played out spectacularly: - An ex-gf took an unpaid internship at the main museum here in San Diego with minimal job prospects upon graduating from USCD with a BA in history. 6 months later she took a full-time position at that museum, beating out someone with a MFA from Stanford simply because she was exposed to so many influential people in the industry who vouched for her. A year after that shee was promoted to managing their event planning dept. - I transitioned from C# to Rails work by doing a pro-bono project for 4 months @ ~20hrs/week, the main condition was that they paid for a Sr. dev for mentorship. My mentor on that project continued to bring me work following that project, so much so that I quit my day job. Value can be many things. Money is just one of them.

murph-almighty 8y ago
Not OP. 1) It's an avenue for exploitation- if you did x for free for person A why won't you do y free for person B? What if this overtakes the time you need for your day job, which pays you and in turn enables you to work for free at your other gig? 2) It devalues the actual cost of labor. Why pay someone to build this when I can "pay someone with experience"? This complaint pops up a lot in graphic design work as well. This isn't to say "don't do side projects" or "don't do open source"- with the latter, it's something you're doing for a community rather than one entity for a business intent. But it's reasonable to be cautious when someone says "we need a website that's like Uber for X for $0".
- handbanana 8y ago
  The scenario you give at the end is different. This isn't necessarily about finding advertised unpaid work - it's about getting your foot in the door and can involve offering to work highly discounted, or for free, in exchange for mentorship etc. Once you have the skills/connections from this initial step, you can advance your career. It's about taking calculated risks to advance your own interests - that otherwise probably won't get advanced as far/as quickly if you didn't take the risk(s). It's certainly not about working like a dog for someone trying to advance their own interests, while disregarding yours ("we need a website that's like Uber for X for $0")
- brandall10 8y ago
  But the big thing you're missing is the context - to get experience and exposure. If you're in a situation where it's difficult to get either, that's how you're getting compensated. Again, I must restate, value comes in many forms. Money is simply one. In these situations you truly aren't working for 'free'. The main thing is to put limits and goals on such activities. My ex got into an industry where unpaid interns were a common thing and it kickstarted her career. She did have to walk away briefly before they offered her a (low) paid position, and they she had to walk away once more before she got a FT position. This wasn't going to happen any other way, and she absolutely flourished. The client I worked for didn't pay for my time but they paid for the time of my mentor. I specifically had 4 months @ 20 hrs. per week, they paid him 5 hours per week - this was detailed in the contract. I had no experience in Rails at the time and I sure as heck didn't want to fail at my first time at bat. It was worth it to me to take something like that on vs. a low rate without that assistance. But yes, if you're just getting started in software as a college student and taking an internship, of course you should be compensated as fairly as possible, because that in common in that context - if you don't, you are being exploited. Totally different thing.
willio58 8y ago
As a college student applying to payed internships currently, I couldn’t imagine applying for unpayed ones. I can barely support myself through school with the job I have, how am I supposed to support myself while not being payed anything for a couple months, let alone half a year? Take out loans, gambling on the chance that I get hired by the company after the internship? I get the value of an internship on a resume, but I value my work higher than $0/hour.
CalRobert 8y ago
Oh hey, a great opportunity for a counterexample! My wife got a Bachelor's from UCLA, then a Master's in Museum Studies from University College, London. She then worked for free (it was called "interning" - which is kind of crazy for someone with a master's) at the San Diego Air and Space Museum (some kinda weird folks there...), and the USS Midway. She gave up weekends and time she could have spent earning an income. It amounted to nothing, though she did get a neat volunteer dinner from the Air and Space Museum. Now she has a normal job in a normal office because she has to pay off the debts from school and can't afford to work for free. Anyway, your anecdote is valid, but so is mine.
- rmdashrfroot 8y ago
  A master's in _museum studies_? Why? Why in the world would you pay for that? What could the study of that possible produce?
  - CalRobert 8y ago
    Apparently, when your ex-husband whom you started dating at 17 is an abusive asshole who says you're an idiot, your interests are stupid, and you'll never amount to anything, you may, upon divorce, feel a strong sense of internal motivation to do all that stuff you always wanted to do, and make decisions not based purely on financial rationality. Also, I totally understand the whole "why in the world would you pay for that" but if you work in tech you're in a fairly privileged position. The thing I desperately wanted to do most of my life happens to pay well. Somebody else desperately wanted to work in museums/heritage/archaeology and share knowledge. And museums do good work - one of the projects she worked on was repatriating artifacts stolen from Native American graves in the early 20th century. Since the thieves generally didn't take good notes, it could require a lot of time, effort, and knowledge to determine an artifact's provenience. That was more related to her undergrad studies - the graduate degree was more about a mix of preservation, conservation, etc. I'm not sure it's worse than making some F2P game or Tinder for dogs. But it's definitely less profitable.
  - objectivetruth 8y ago
    I assume it produces the ability to manage a museum. How easy do you think it is to successfully manage a museum, with a staff of dozens to hundreds of docents, researchers, restoration specialists, educators, and support staff? MSI in Chicago gets 1.5 million visitors a year and has a freaking U-Boat and a 727 (among many other amazing exhibits).

rossdavidh 8y ago

It seems to me that, if you have to give away your labor for free to get your foot in the door, you have picked a career that will not go well. Even once you get a job, you may have to keep schmoozing and have "sharp elbows" to keep others from taking it from you. If you have to give away your labor to get started, that is valuable information in and of itself, but not in the way the author intended, I think.

willio58 8y ago

It isn’t even a novel idea, unpayed internships still exist and they’re terrible. Certain industries have gotten rid of them, but it took a lot of fighting to do so. Companies should be able to pay for labor, it’s as simple as that. You don’t have to pay an intern top dollar either, just a living wage will do.