5 ms·

Creating a throwaway account for simplicity. I was/am a hiring manager, mostly for startups. Market is rough right now for sure but I also want to share some f

Creating a throwaway account for simplicity. I was/am a hiring manager, mostly for startups. Market is rough right now for sure but I also want to share some flags I’d personally note when looking at your website / LinkedIn. 1. You have experience in a lot of technologies, which sometimes is good, but can also be the case where you don’t have expertise in any of them. 2. According to LinkedIn since 2016 most of your gigs were about a year long. You also had a lead engineer gig that lasted eight months. I’m sure you put more info about it in your resume but it’s a pretty big flag considering that it spans not only the downturn but boom periods as well. 3. No well known companies in your list. I know it sucks that pedigree matters so much in our industry but it does. 4. Political posts / complaining on LinkedIn. Having dealt with political stuff at work (from both sides of the isle) it’s such a pain in the ass that my risk management alert kicks in. 5. I see you’re in Denver. Are you applying only for remote gigs? Sadly, a lot of companies are doing RTO and probably not in your area. Hope this helps a bit. Hope things improve for you soon.

sixstringtheory 2y ago
This should be the top comment. OP is looking for confirmation bias and got plenty here, but they really need to introspect on how to be a more appealing coworker. Linking to Jack Posobiec’s tweets and complaining about being called a racist on hacker news, on your linkedin account, just makes you look radioactive. And dumb: linkedin is for hustle porn; 4chan, twitter and their derivatives are for online political warfare. Your inability to distinguish between these shows that you will likely act inappropriately in a professional environment. It shows you don’t know your audience at all, which are the people whose money you want. And then there’s the age-old question of whether you want to be right, or be liked. It’s not really your responsibility to educate your coworkers on socio-economic-political realities, and they likely don’t come to work to hear others’ opinions about it. But you are shaping an online persona that advertises such a service. I’ve gone through long stretches of looking for work and fear another in this market environment, so I do sympathize. But you gotta button up. And don’t just shape a better image of a pleasant coworker–actually be one. I’ve worked with too many this-is-your-brain-on-social-media types, of all political persuasions, and it’s miserable.
- vbi8iBEX 2y ago
  OP most certainly is not looking for confirmation bias. OP is looking for other people's experiences, as OP asked for in the original post. OP is quite happy working alone making video games, but would prefer to be working full time with a paycheck. It's really fun (no sarcasm) watching all of you people jump to the wrong conclusion as you judge my motivations and reasons for posting this though. Aside from seeing a few posts and knowing he's right wing, I don't even know who Jack Posobiec is. Politics isn't my main thing. As I stated above, I am "socially apolitical". I have my opinions and my affiliations and I mostly keep it to myself unless it benefits me to do otherwise.
vbi8iBEX 2y ago
I actually didn't ask for feedback on my personal situation. But since you've decided to dig into my profile and offer up advice from a throwaway publicly i will defend myself publicly - 1. > No expertise in technology: Strongly disagree. I'm an expert in python, javascript, c#, application development, object oriented programming, agile, communication, and much more. I guess this isn't shining through on my profiles. Will have to find a way to fix it. There are many companies who value a generalist skill set. 2. > 2016 "gigs" I had health issues starting in 2016 which derailed my career. I took what I was able to get and was still able to progress. I was promoted from eng I to eng II prior to the health issues. Later I was able to land a job as VP of engineering. 3. The lead engineer (VP of engineering) role that I had was a complicated situation - I performed my duties well and was rewarded handsomely. Working for startups doesn't always end well. From there I took time off to work for myself and you're correct, that's when the downturn started. Had I known AI would be released and jobs would dry up, i wouldn't have taken the risk of starting my own company at that point in time. 4. I havent worked for huge companies my entire career, much of it has been for start-ups but Enova, DoubleClick and Threadless are actually well known. Enova is a huge corporation and DoubleClick (one of my first jobs) was purchased by Google which is what lead to them becoming an ad company. Threadless has declined in popularity, but at the time it was extremely popular and well known. Other than that as I said, startups. Idiotic to judge a person based on whether or not the company is well known. 5. I haven't "complained" on LinkedIn. Regardless, i have deactivated my LinkedIn account, which I had planned on doing for the last month. Thanks for giving me the motivation to do so tonight. It is a silly echo chamber that has never lead to anything positive for me. I didn't even have an account until a few years ago so it will not be missed. It's clear that maintaining a LinkedIn social media account is a career hazard. That's the most useful thing your unsolicited feedback has turned up. 6. > political posts Political posts online prevent me from working? That's absurd. My politics haven't even been stated aside from my position on H-1B and globalism. I should be allowed my political opinions without fear of reprocussion from a biased hiring manager such as yourself, but i really haven't even put any out there other than this post. I have political opinions, and I am registered to vote, but I'm "socially apolitical" aside from a small amount of activist work I've done which hasn't been broadcast on the internet. I don't bring politics or religion to the workplace.
- 2y ago
therightstuff 2y ago
this, especially points 1, 2 and 3, are precisely why the recruitment industry needs to be completely disrupted. most recruiters have absolutely no understanding of how to read developer skills and history, nor how to match them to a company's requirements. i've worked with many, many recruiters over the years, and only a handful who weren't actively interfering with finding a good dev / company fit. between that, automated resume filtering and linkedin's requirements to serve linkedin before serving anyone else, we're all living in a situation that would be hilariously ridiculous if it wasn't so sad.
- vbi8iBEX 2y ago
  Their feedback was the last push I needed to motivate me to delete my LinkedIn account. I'll take my chances and apply to jobs without one. I completely agree that we need a disruption on the hiring front. The entire hiring process is broken.

sixstringtheory 2y ago

This should be the top comment. OP is looking for confirmation bias and got plenty here, but they really need to introspect on how to be a more appealing coworker. Linking to Jack Posobiec’s tweets and complaining about being called a racist on hacker news, on your linkedin account, just makes you look radioactive. And dumb: linkedin is for hustle porn; 4chan, twitter and their derivatives are for online political warfare. Your inability to distinguish between these shows that you will likely act inappropriately in a professional environment. It shows you don’t know your audience at all, which are the people whose money you want. And then there’s the age-old question of whether you want to be right, or be liked. It’s not really your responsibility to educate your coworkers on socio-economic-political realities, and they likely don’t come to work to hear others’ opinions about it. But you are shaping an online persona that advertises such a service. I’ve gone through long stretches of looking for work and fear another in this market environment, so I do sympathize. But you gotta button up. And don’t just shape a better image of a pleasant coworker–actually be one. I’ve worked with too many this-is-your-brain-on-social-media types, of all political persuasions, and it’s miserable.

vbi8iBEX 2y ago
OP most certainly is not looking for confirmation bias. OP is looking for other people's experiences, as OP asked for in the original post. OP is quite happy working alone making video games, but would prefer to be working full time with a paycheck. It's really fun (no sarcasm) watching all of you people jump to the wrong conclusion as you judge my motivations and reasons for posting this though. Aside from seeing a few posts and knowing he's right wing, I don't even know who Jack Posobiec is. Politics isn't my main thing. As I stated above, I am "socially apolitical". I have my opinions and my affiliations and I mostly keep it to myself unless it benefits me to do otherwise.

vbi8iBEX 2y ago

I actually didn't ask for feedback on my personal situation. But since you've decided to dig into my profile and offer up advice from a throwaway publicly i will defend myself publicly - 1. > No expertise in technology: Strongly disagree. I'm an expert in python, javascript, c#, application development, object oriented programming, agile, communication, and much more. I guess this isn't shining through on my profiles. Will have to find a way to fix it. There are many companies who value a generalist skill set. 2. > 2016 "gigs" I had health issues starting in 2016 which derailed my career. I took what I was able to get and was still able to progress. I was promoted from eng I to eng II prior to the health issues. Later I was able to land a job as VP of engineering. 3. The lead engineer (VP of engineering) role that I had was a complicated situation - I performed my duties well and was rewarded handsomely. Working for startups doesn't always end well. From there I took time off to work for myself and you're correct, that's when the downturn started. Had I known AI would be released and jobs would dry up, i wouldn't have taken the risk of starting my own company at that point in time. 4. I havent worked for huge companies my entire career, much of it has been for start-ups but Enova, DoubleClick and Threadless are actually well known. Enova is a huge corporation and DoubleClick (one of my first jobs) was purchased by Google which is what lead to them becoming an ad company. Threadless has declined in popularity, but at the time it was extremely popular and well known. Other than that as I said, startups. Idiotic to judge a person based on whether or not the company is well known. 5. I haven't "complained" on LinkedIn. Regardless, i have deactivated my LinkedIn account, which I had planned on doing for the last month. Thanks for giving me the motivation to do so tonight. It is a silly echo chamber that has never lead to anything positive for me. I didn't even have an account until a few years ago so it will not be missed. It's clear that maintaining a LinkedIn social media account is a career hazard. That's the most useful thing your unsolicited feedback has turned up. 6. > political posts Political posts online prevent me from working? That's absurd. My politics haven't even been stated aside from my position on H-1B and globalism. I should be allowed my political opinions without fear of reprocussion from a biased hiring manager such as yourself, but i really haven't even put any out there other than this post. I have political opinions, and I am registered to vote, but I'm "socially apolitical" aside from a small amount of activist work I've done which hasn't been broadcast on the internet. I don't bring politics or religion to the workplace.

2y ago

therightstuff 2y ago

this, especially points 1, 2 and 3, are precisely why the recruitment industry needs to be completely disrupted. most recruiters have absolutely no understanding of how to read developer skills and history, nor how to match them to a company's requirements. i've worked with many, many recruiters over the years, and only a handful who weren't actively interfering with finding a good dev / company fit. between that, automated resume filtering and linkedin's requirements to serve linkedin before serving anyone else, we're all living in a situation that would be hilariously ridiculous if it wasn't so sad.

vbi8iBEX 2y ago
Their feedback was the last push I needed to motivate me to delete my LinkedIn account. I'll take my chances and apply to jobs without one. I completely agree that we need a disruption on the hiring front. The entire hiring process is broken.