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To reiterate, it is very likely that those people who passed on you or didn't become interested due to the lack of self-marketing are not the people you would w

To reiterate, it is very likely that those people who passed on you or didn't become interested due to the lack of self-marketing are not the people you would want to work with and doubly are not actually offering the job you thought you were applying for. Grifters interview and hire grifters because their org/team/company relies on the grift more than the truth to make ends meet. If you can't grift, you frankly don't have the skills for that job. It's an unfortunate side-effect of the nature of grifting that they can't tell you this upfront.

adkadskhj 5y ago
My fear with this mindset of "They're people i wouldn't want to work with anyway" is that it's easy to say that when i'm not hungry. If my mortgage is on the line my desire for a paycheck increases. Perhaps i don't live simply enough - but i'm always concerned about stability and until i'm retired i will always be concerned about the next paycheck. I too lack skills to feel confident about common interviews, but i look at this as a fault. If i felt more confident about interviews perhaps i'd feel more confident about my stability.
- yarcob 5y ago
  Having a few months to a year of expenses on the side fixes this. When you know that no matter what happens, you have enough savings to pay your recurring costs, you just aren't as vulnerable. You are going to find a job in a year, or you could find a cheaper place to live in a year... Things just aren't as scary anymore once you have enough saved up. If you live paycheck to paycheck it's going to be stressful no matter how big that paycheck is.
  - adkadskhj 5y ago
    > Having a few months to a year of expenses on the side fixes this. It doesn't, for me. I'm sitting at ~12mo with full expenses. I budget everything, so i do me full expenses, all the niceties, enterainment, etc. If i lost my job i could probably stretch it to ~24mo with the fat cut away. Still, i worry. Keep in mind i do partially agree with you, paycheck to paycheck is a massive concern for people. It's why i obsessively envelope budget. But the concern i described in my prior post is a concern of skill, interview success, etc. Ie, feeling unsure in success of finding a job in my career path.
    - musingsole 5y ago
      Yeah, building a bit of a nestegg helps, but I think I share your concerns on work security. And I think you're right to worry. If you walk out of every failed interview assuming they just weren't a fit for you, you run the risk of arrogance and never properly tuning yourself to the industry and its opportunities. 100% BUT All of an individual's interviews are a terrible sample from which to draw any inferences about the industry and your place in it. Successful interviews give a signal. Failed/Not-followed-up-on interviews give none at all. My point being, tuning and training yourself must be a separate endeavor from interviewing or you will always be in for a bad time.
    - toast0 5y ago
      I know someone on the internet saying you shouldn't worry doesn't mean you won't worry, but ... you should try to worry less :) If you have the wherewithal to put away a year of expenses, and the self-restraint to double that if you needed to, I'm pretty sure you could find some gainful employment during that time. You could also probably stretch things a bit farther if you really had to by doing things you'd rather not do. Skipping rent or mortgage payments probably doesn't fit with your ethos, and will have negative consequences eventually, but it'll take time to go through eviction or foreclosure procedures, and that gives a bit more time to figure out something.
      - adkadskhj 5y ago
        I agree, and i appreciate the post. As a bonus though, my worry results in true appreciation for my current status. I feel undeserved, and compared to middle America i often struggle to imagine how they get by. I make enough to budget nicely. I can start paying off my mortgage. I can start saving for retirement. Yea, it's far from perfect, but i truly feel like i "make enough" for a happy life. I have money to work towards my goals, be it retirement or whatever. I can't imagine making half as much and still being expected to retire. To have safety. The state of the world confuses me. But i am grateful nonetheless.
  - assadk 5y ago
    This is also known as "Fuck-you money" https://thedeepdish.org/fuck-you-money/ https://thedeepdish.org/fuck-you-money/
- ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
  Unfortunately, this hits the nail on the head for a lot of folks, these days. It's easy for me to say that I will only work with those I want. I'm set, and don't actually need the work (the money would be nice, but it's not a need). I refrain from being an "OK Boomer," but I would gently suggest that folks starting out, devote significant portions of their income to savings, and conservative (not politically "Conservative," real "conservative") investments. I'd further suggest against looking to your peers for guidance in spending habits or lifestyle choices. The ageism in tech is really quite puzzling. We're all gonna become old. White people won't become black, men won't become women (well, they can, but it requires some really significant dedication and resources. I have friends that have made that transition. It is not something for the faint of heart); but we will all become old. The alternative is not something we like to think about. A lot of young people that treated their elders like crap, are now, suddenly, on the receiving end of the behavior. I don't find it satisfying, in any way at all. It's heartbreaking.
  - adkadskhj 5y ago
    > but I would gently suggest that folks starting out, devote significant portions of their income to savings, and conservative (not politically "Conservative," real "conservative") investments. I'd further suggest against looking to your peers for guidance in spending habits or lifestyle choices. I do, but this is unfortunately not what i'm describing in the post. Yea, i don't have enough to retire, but i've got ~12mo full expenses. My concern is a concern for the long term, the career.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
hinkley 5y ago
One of my favorite bosses got summarily fired for getting tired of the grift and telling a customer we were still in analysis on something that the founders wanted them to think was well underway. This wasn’t the first time and our code was on the way to intractable due to layers of expediencies. When a bunch of us quit 18 months later, we had stuck around for 6 months for a bonus that worked out to about 7-8 weeks’ pay. As we sat around having a beer down the road, I asked if it was worth it to stay the extra six months. Almost 3/4 said no.
ghufran_syed 5y ago
I ended up working in sales for an investment bank and found out exactly how true this is...
ryandrake 5y ago
OP took the high road and the much harder path. All you have to do these days is put all your skill points into Charisma and bullshit your way through an entire career. No other skills needed. Look at Elizabeth Holmes and that WeWork guy. People were falling over themselves giving them money. Generational wealth achieved by having no ability bedsides running their mouth. Even normal jobs, so many people just blah, blah, blah their way through the interview and the job, and then by the time anyone checks, they're off to do it again at a different company. It’s getting harder and harder to teach my kid that honor, integrity and hard work are still important, when you can easily find counter-examples, and they are more and more becoming the norm.
- BLKNSLVR 5y ago
  Especially so when these 'all talk no action' types are prominently displayed on television being lauded precisely for their talk.
- bordercases 5y ago
  The root is cheap capital under stagflation. These conditions are artificial and will eventually correct. And if they don't correct catastrophically now, they will create many inefficiencies in patchwork ways until the system is totally ineffectual and we become numb to it. Then they will correct catastrophically. But in between the cracks is opportunity. Teaching your kids hard work, honor and integrity are precisely the things you want to invest in the future on a whole, even if you must also teach cunning and pragmatism on top of that.

adkadskhj 5y ago

My fear with this mindset of "They're people i wouldn't want to work with anyway" is that it's easy to say that when i'm not hungry. If my mortgage is on the line my desire for a paycheck increases. Perhaps i don't live simply enough - but i'm always concerned about stability and until i'm retired i will always be concerned about the next paycheck. I too lack skills to feel confident about common interviews, but i look at this as a fault. If i felt more confident about interviews perhaps i'd feel more confident about my stability.

yarcob 5y ago
Having a few months to a year of expenses on the side fixes this. When you know that no matter what happens, you have enough savings to pay your recurring costs, you just aren't as vulnerable. You are going to find a job in a year, or you could find a cheaper place to live in a year... Things just aren't as scary anymore once you have enough saved up. If you live paycheck to paycheck it's going to be stressful no matter how big that paycheck is.
- adkadskhj 5y ago
  > Having a few months to a year of expenses on the side fixes this. It doesn't, for me. I'm sitting at ~12mo with full expenses. I budget everything, so i do me full expenses, all the niceties, enterainment, etc. If i lost my job i could probably stretch it to ~24mo with the fat cut away. Still, i worry. Keep in mind i do partially agree with you, paycheck to paycheck is a massive concern for people. It's why i obsessively envelope budget. But the concern i described in my prior post is a concern of skill, interview success, etc. Ie, feeling unsure in success of finding a job in my career path.
  - musingsole 5y ago
    Yeah, building a bit of a nestegg helps, but I think I share your concerns on work security. And I think you're right to worry. If you walk out of every failed interview assuming they just weren't a fit for you, you run the risk of arrogance and never properly tuning yourself to the industry and its opportunities. 100% BUT All of an individual's interviews are a terrible sample from which to draw any inferences about the industry and your place in it. Successful interviews give a signal. Failed/Not-followed-up-on interviews give none at all. My point being, tuning and training yourself must be a separate endeavor from interviewing or you will always be in for a bad time.
  - toast0 5y ago
    I know someone on the internet saying you shouldn't worry doesn't mean you won't worry, but ... you should try to worry less :) If you have the wherewithal to put away a year of expenses, and the self-restraint to double that if you needed to, I'm pretty sure you could find some gainful employment during that time. You could also probably stretch things a bit farther if you really had to by doing things you'd rather not do. Skipping rent or mortgage payments probably doesn't fit with your ethos, and will have negative consequences eventually, but it'll take time to go through eviction or foreclosure procedures, and that gives a bit more time to figure out something.
    - adkadskhj 5y ago
      I agree, and i appreciate the post. As a bonus though, my worry results in true appreciation for my current status. I feel undeserved, and compared to middle America i often struggle to imagine how they get by. I make enough to budget nicely. I can start paying off my mortgage. I can start saving for retirement. Yea, it's far from perfect, but i truly feel like i "make enough" for a happy life. I have money to work towards my goals, be it retirement or whatever. I can't imagine making half as much and still being expected to retire. To have safety. The state of the world confuses me. But i am grateful nonetheless.
- assadk 5y ago
  This is also known as "Fuck-you money" https://thedeepdish.org/fuck-you-money/ https://thedeepdish.org/fuck-you-money/
ChrisMarshallNY 5y ago
Unfortunately, this hits the nail on the head for a lot of folks, these days. It's easy for me to say that I will only work with those I want. I'm set, and don't actually need the work (the money would be nice, but it's not a need). I refrain from being an "OK Boomer," but I would gently suggest that folks starting out, devote significant portions of their income to savings, and conservative (not politically "Conservative," real "conservative") investments. I'd further suggest against looking to your peers for guidance in spending habits or lifestyle choices. The ageism in tech is really quite puzzling. We're all gonna become old. White people won't become black, men won't become women (well, they can, but it requires some really significant dedication and resources. I have friends that have made that transition. It is not something for the faint of heart); but we will all become old. The alternative is not something we like to think about. A lot of young people that treated their elders like crap, are now, suddenly, on the receiving end of the behavior. I don't find it satisfying, in any way at all. It's heartbreaking.
- adkadskhj 5y ago
  > but I would gently suggest that folks starting out, devote significant portions of their income to savings, and conservative (not politically "Conservative," real "conservative") investments. I'd further suggest against looking to your peers for guidance in spending habits or lifestyle choices. I do, but this is unfortunately not what i'm describing in the post. Yea, i don't have enough to retire, but i've got ~12mo full expenses. My concern is a concern for the long term, the career.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

hinkley 5y ago

One of my favorite bosses got summarily fired for getting tired of the grift and telling a customer we were still in analysis on something that the founders wanted them to think was well underway. This wasn’t the first time and our code was on the way to intractable due to layers of expediencies. When a bunch of us quit 18 months later, we had stuck around for 6 months for a bonus that worked out to about 7-8 weeks’ pay. As we sat around having a beer down the road, I asked if it was worth it to stay the extra six months. Almost 3/4 said no.

ghufran_syed 5y ago

I ended up working in sales for an investment bank and found out exactly how true this is...

ryandrake 5y ago

OP took the high road and the much harder path. All you have to do these days is put all your skill points into Charisma and bullshit your way through an entire career. No other skills needed. Look at Elizabeth Holmes and that WeWork guy. People were falling over themselves giving them money. Generational wealth achieved by having no ability bedsides running their mouth. Even normal jobs, so many people just blah, blah, blah their way through the interview and the job, and then by the time anyone checks, they're off to do it again at a different company. It’s getting harder and harder to teach my kid that honor, integrity and hard work are still important, when you can easily find counter-examples, and they are more and more becoming the norm.

BLKNSLVR 5y ago
Especially so when these 'all talk no action' types are prominently displayed on television being lauded precisely for their talk.
bordercases 5y ago
The root is cheap capital under stagflation. These conditions are artificial and will eventually correct. And if they don't correct catastrophically now, they will create many inefficiencies in patchwork ways until the system is totally ineffectual and we become numb to it. Then they will correct catastrophically. But in between the cracks is opportunity. Teaching your kids hard work, honor and integrity are precisely the things you want to invest in the future on a whole, even if you must also teach cunning and pragmatism on top of that.