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Every single job I've had in my adult life (I'm 42 years old now) was because I knew someone. It pays to know people and make friends/connections. I got starte

by pwned1 5y ago

Every single job I've had in my adult life (I'm 42 years old now) was because I knew someone. It pays to know people and make friends/connections. I got started with an unpaid internship in high school (every school should require that) and life grew out of that. [edit] And my family was anything but "traditionally professional." I had no connections whatsoever through my family.

jkestner 5y ago
Pretty much the same here. Many of those connections were from school, going all the way back to elementary. So as a parent now, I feel like part of my job, for better or worse, is to nurture their friendships and maintain them with playdates once they aren’t in the same school.
- gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
  I can’t say I blame you, but it really leads to a society stratified on uncontrollable factors and puts a bullet in the idea of meritocracy. You can’t control who your parents are or the culture you grew up in, but these have no impact on your job performance unless you live in a highly nepotistic society. Maybe an “affirmative action” type program for the socially disadvantaged is necessary, but I can’t see that gaining much support when addressing the more glaring disparities (racial, gender) is controversial enough.
  - themaninthedark 5y ago
    I have the same issues as you as well and no, you can't control who your parents are and the culture you grow up in. But you can control who your friends are. And you can choose to surround yourself with motivated people. >puts a bullet in the idea of meritocracy. I don't feel the same way, as this sits at the boundary of the workplace. My understanding of meritocracy is that, reward is based on performance inside the company. But until you have hired and had someone working for some time, you have no way of evaluating them. We try to mitigate hiring bad employees with things like resumes, interviews and skill tests but those are not perfect. I, for example, suck at writing a resume. How many people have you seen on this site rage about "leet code tests"? So, another "tool" companies use are personal connections. John, a great worker whom I trust, refers Frank. I still have to interview him but it give me another data point. As a society, we have drifted away from the local community organizations (i.e. churches) that allowed people to build up good connections. We have tried to replace them, things like Linkedin but I am not sure how good of a job they do. Anything done on the internet gives me more of an ethereal feeling as opposed to the more permanent feeling of face to face personal connections.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    I'm not entirely sure that is necessary. While I think connections will take you further, nurturing relationships in the community, as an adult, is also very useful. This is something anyone can do provided they can get wherever things are happening. Which in a lot of cases is online.
- throwaway2037 5y ago
  Do you also make an effort to include children from lower socio-economic backgrounds? That is a good way to contribute to a flatter society, that depends less upon "the privileged people I know to help me get a job".
  - jkestner 5y ago
    You’re right — I’ll do my best to give them opportunities to find friends all over. Then my kids may become those privileged people, and it will be their responsibility in turn to continue that flattening until it’s not needed.
names_are_hard 5y ago
My anecdata are somewhat counter to this. I got my first part-time tech support job during college via a connection. My aunt was a white collar professional, she ran the fundraising for a non-profit with an annual budget in the millions of dollars. Some software they used for managing donations was developed by a small local company, and she recommended I apply for work there because she was always in touch with their support and thought I could do the job. So I wrote a cover letter and name dropped my aunt's name, who they knew as a client. They interviewed me and hired me. I don't know how much my aunt helped but I can grant that this connection was a privilege many don't have. After that, the rest of my jobs were without any connection. In the winter of my senior year at college I started applying to big companies through their websites. A big insurance company responded and flew me in for an interview. I was thrilled by this chance, I had never been treated so well. The recruiter told me to save receipts for food and taxis etc, I was so unused to this that I don't think u ever submitted them, I couldn't believe they'd pay for all that. Anyway they hired me. After that my LinkedIn profile did most of the work. I responded to recruiter spam and got interviews. One job-hop was driven by a semi-connection: I was moving cities and wanted to find a new job, so I went to a bunch of tech meetups. One was a python meetup, which has nothing to do with my tech stack and I know very little python. At the end, I approached one of the lecturers and told him that while I didn't understand anything he talked about, I got his joke and I thought they were funny. He said that he and some friends were going for drinks, would I like to join? "Sure." So we sat and talked, at the end he asked if I'm looking for a job, I said yes, he told me to send him my CV which I did. Then nothing... then a week later he responds telling me he posted on a forum for veterans of a particular military unit he was in, where he wrote that he thought I was a good candidate. Then suddenly my phone started ringing...I had interviewsin the new city and ultimately offers. Bottom line: there are multiple ways to success. Good fortune is a common thread though, you do need luck and serendipity, and professional family connections certainly don't hurt.

by pwned1 5y ago

jkestner 5y ago

Pretty much the same here. Many of those connections were from school, going all the way back to elementary. So as a parent now, I feel like part of my job, for better or worse, is to nurture their friendships and maintain them with playdates once they aren’t in the same school.

gunfighthacksaw 5y ago
I can’t say I blame you, but it really leads to a society stratified on uncontrollable factors and puts a bullet in the idea of meritocracy. You can’t control who your parents are or the culture you grew up in, but these have no impact on your job performance unless you live in a highly nepotistic society. Maybe an “affirmative action” type program for the socially disadvantaged is necessary, but I can’t see that gaining much support when addressing the more glaring disparities (racial, gender) is controversial enough.
- themaninthedark 5y ago
  I have the same issues as you as well and no, you can't control who your parents are and the culture you grow up in. But you can control who your friends are. And you can choose to surround yourself with motivated people. >puts a bullet in the idea of meritocracy. I don't feel the same way, as this sits at the boundary of the workplace. My understanding of meritocracy is that, reward is based on performance inside the company. But until you have hired and had someone working for some time, you have no way of evaluating them. We try to mitigate hiring bad employees with things like resumes, interviews and skill tests but those are not perfect. I, for example, suck at writing a resume. How many people have you seen on this site rage about "leet code tests"? So, another "tool" companies use are personal connections. John, a great worker whom I trust, refers Frank. I still have to interview him but it give me another data point. As a society, we have drifted away from the local community organizations (i.e. churches) that allowed people to build up good connections. We have tried to replace them, things like Linkedin but I am not sure how good of a job they do. Anything done on the internet gives me more of an ethereal feeling as opposed to the more permanent feeling of face to face personal connections.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  I'm not entirely sure that is necessary. While I think connections will take you further, nurturing relationships in the community, as an adult, is also very useful. This is something anyone can do provided they can get wherever things are happening. Which in a lot of cases is online.
throwaway2037 5y ago
Do you also make an effort to include children from lower socio-economic backgrounds? That is a good way to contribute to a flatter society, that depends less upon "the privileged people I know to help me get a job".
- jkestner 5y ago
  You’re right — I’ll do my best to give them opportunities to find friends all over. Then my kids may become those privileged people, and it will be their responsibility in turn to continue that flattening until it’s not needed.

names_are_hard 5y ago

My anecdata are somewhat counter to this. I got my first part-time tech support job during college via a connection. My aunt was a white collar professional, she ran the fundraising for a non-profit with an annual budget in the millions of dollars. Some software they used for managing donations was developed by a small local company, and she recommended I apply for work there because she was always in touch with their support and thought I could do the job. So I wrote a cover letter and name dropped my aunt's name, who they knew as a client. They interviewed me and hired me. I don't know how much my aunt helped but I can grant that this connection was a privilege many don't have. After that, the rest of my jobs were without any connection. In the winter of my senior year at college I started applying to big companies through their websites. A big insurance company responded and flew me in for an interview. I was thrilled by this chance, I had never been treated so well. The recruiter told me to save receipts for food and taxis etc, I was so unused to this that I don't think u ever submitted them, I couldn't believe they'd pay for all that. Anyway they hired me. After that my LinkedIn profile did most of the work. I responded to recruiter spam and got interviews. One job-hop was driven by a semi-connection: I was moving cities and wanted to find a new job, so I went to a bunch of tech meetups. One was a python meetup, which has nothing to do with my tech stack and I know very little python. At the end, I approached one of the lecturers and told him that while I didn't understand anything he talked about, I got his joke and I thought they were funny. He said that he and some friends were going for drinks, would I like to join? "Sure." So we sat and talked, at the end he asked if I'm looking for a job, I said yes, he told me to send him my CV which I did. Then nothing... then a week later he responds telling me he posted on a forum for veterans of a particular military unit he was in, where he wrote that he thought I was a good candidate. Then suddenly my phone started ringing...I had interviewsin the new city and ultimately offers. Bottom line: there are multiple ways to success. Good fortune is a common thread though, you do need luck and serendipity, and professional family connections certainly don't hurt.