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Want to start by saying I do really empathize with this person. But I can't help but shake my head a little when I read way too unnecessarily long missives like

Want to start by saying I do really empathize with this person. But I can't help but shake my head a little when I read way too unnecessarily long missives like this (I admit, I only got a couple of paragraphs in before I bailed) and think "this person just doesn't get it." Some points: 1. First, to start, I have a ton of empathy for this person being in an extremely challenging field. He essentially did internal communications for JP Morgan for the last 10 years of their career or so. Any sort of "content creation" role that doesn't have a direct tie to revenue is going to be under the knife at most companies these days. These roles are also the ones that are most in jeopardy due to AI/ChatGPT. There was a recent Washington Post article where it highlighted some copywriters who basically lost their jobs to ChatGPT. It's not "coming", it's already here. 2. Small not-so-secret: if you are beyond the age of 30 or so, and you are a relatively high level professional (this person listed VP on his resume), you should be worried if you don't think you'd be able to get your next job through your professional network. That is, most jobs at this level may put out a job req on Indeed (often for legal reasons), but it's likely to be filled by a referral. Even if it's not a referral, it's very likely that the applicant knows someone through their network (even if a degree or two away) that can serve as a better reference. Whenever I see missives like this where the author is semi-baffled their "Send my resume to 1000 open positions" approach didn't work, I'm not surprised.

bdowling 3y ago
> way too unnecessarily long missives like this The punchline (buried way too far down) is that he calls himself a professional writer.
- hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
  Didn't really want to pile on, but this guy is looking for marketing writing jobs. Granted, I guess in one way he succeeded by getting to the front page of HN. But if I wanted to hire someone whose primary purpose was to communicate effectively and succinctly to potential customers (or employees as was the case with his most recent job), this post would be a red flag to me.
mock-possum 3y ago
> Small not-so-secret: if you are beyond the age of 30 or so, and you are a relatively high level professional (this person listed VP on his resume), you should be worried if you don't think you'd be able to get your next job through your professional network Shit. I used to have a pretty wide professional network when I was doing freelance / contract gigs... these days, after a few stints of full-time in-the-office type work, the number of people I can lean on for work opportunities has shrunk dramatically. the recruiters and talent agencies I used to have a good relationship with have moved on. I'm not at the top of anyone's list anymore. It sucks, and it especially sucks that it happened in the background, while in the foreground, I've worked two of the best jobs of my career in the past 8 years.

bdowling 3y ago

> way too unnecessarily long missives like this The punchline (buried way too far down) is that he calls himself a professional writer.

hn_throwaway_99 3y ago
Didn't really want to pile on, but this guy is looking for marketing writing jobs. Granted, I guess in one way he succeeded by getting to the front page of HN. But if I wanted to hire someone whose primary purpose was to communicate effectively and succinctly to potential customers (or employees as was the case with his most recent job), this post would be a red flag to me.

mock-possum 3y ago

> Small not-so-secret: if you are beyond the age of 30 or so, and you are a relatively high level professional (this person listed VP on his resume), you should be worried if you don't think you'd be able to get your next job through your professional network Shit. I used to have a pretty wide professional network when I was doing freelance / contract gigs... these days, after a few stints of full-time in-the-office type work, the number of people I can lean on for work opportunities has shrunk dramatically. the recruiters and talent agencies I used to have a good relationship with have moved on. I'm not at the top of anyone's list anymore. It sucks, and it especially sucks that it happened in the background, while in the foreground, I've worked two of the best jobs of my career in the past 8 years.