What sucks the most about job searching?

[Aero Denezol]

The reason for the long job interview is to wear you down, so the real you can be seen.

^^That's very interesting.

Personally I have a college degree, but I value work experience, good attitude, and cultural fit far and above any college degree. I did spend some time in Corporate America after college, and they were very big on college degrees. No college degree, no interview. The irony is, that environment is so average on the inside, people just have no idea.. Especially at the grunt/middle management level, everyone is dead on the inside. When you see advertisements for those really big companies during the Superbowl, those are made by ad agencies somewhere far away. The truth is anyone who has a single creative bone in their body will over time wilt inside Corporate America.

I can only speak for us, as we are a small business, but if I advertise for a very specific skill set and experience, then I absolutely 100% need that specific skill set and experience. So get your resume very specific for the job you applying too, and leave everything else off. If you were in a career field, left that career field, and then came back, be prepare to explain why. I get dozens of unqualified applicants who will blindly send out resumes just to see what sticks. Those people make it hard for the good candidates to get through. Managers can get cynical after a while. The other thing is cultural fit. We don't always hire the most qualified candidate for this reason. We are very gun friendly here, for example. I let people know this when they interview.

My best advice probably is, that the best jobs are not on job boards - those are all by word of mouth. Chat people up, network people, let them know you're looking. You'd be surprised.

 

[The Heretic]

Speaking of degrees.

One of the best devs I worked with was hired right out of high school. He was good, but he just needed more experience.

At my experience level (25+ years) most employers don't care about degrees. No degree will get you to that level of skill/experience. I have two unrelated AS degrees (both tech) that I no longer put on my resume. If an employer still requires a degree at my level, then I won't be wanting to work for them - too stupid/rigid to bother with.

A lot of HR depts put the degree on there to weed out all the resumes they get, it is reflexive anymore. HR often doesn't know how to attract good candidate so they just stick to the old format.

Yes, I have an attitude now - I can afford it, so don't follow my example, especially if you are starting out. If I don't get a job by the end of the year, I am most likely going to just stop looking altogether and officially retire.

 

[The Heretic]

Watchmaker... not too much need anymore... kind of a specialty... maybe New York. But the last watchmaker I knew was also a master jeweler... maybe start your own biz...

Maybe repair classic/antique watches of value? Antique clocks?

 

[DB is Here]

work experience, good attitude, and cultural fit far and above any college degree.

Interesting take, the only thing the college degree meant for us was that the prospect had the ability to start and finish something. We also hired military folks based on the same. We hired based on three things: Team fit (Prospect would fit our Company Culture), Can do (Prospect had or could be taught the requisite skills) & Will do (Prospect possessed the desire to achieve). The "Will do" was always the toughest to ascertain, but we felt our question set gave us some incite.

 

[Doomtown]

I've had a very different experience than my wife. She went to college, graduate degree, latest interview (2 weeks ago) featured two phone screenings and three in-person interviews with 6 different people. Last time I interviewed was about 10 years ago. I was working construction but wanted a step up. I worked all day and had about 20 pounds of mud on my boots when I went to my afternoon interview. Walked in and seen 5 guys sitting there wearing slacks and polos. Manager walked out, we talked for 10 minutes and I had the job. FWIW, the job was pipeline for Exxon.

Today I manage a small surface mine/mill. I'm straight to the point when I interview, probably because every interview I've been through was no BS. Bullbubblegum breeds bullbubblegum - a lot of this corporate red-tape in the interview process is likely to justify multiple HR people's salary and because it's the system they know. The most important thing to me is a persons ability to recognize the fact that they can and will fail, and it's how they deal with that and resolve that's more important. I find much of the hiring red-tape is over zealousness in ensuring the "right" decision was made, with the backdrop being that "right" = no failure. Ironically, I find it's companies like this that have a never ending supply of unanswered failure and a clear lack of self-consciousness in development and coaching.

 

[The Heretic]

Speaking of degrees.
...

A lot of HR depts put the degree on there to weed out all the resumes they get, it is reflexive anymore. HR often doesn't know how to attract good candidate so they just stick to the old format.

Speaking of which, one of my biggest pet peeves; poorly written job descriptions. Out of date. Copy and pasted. I have encountered a lot of positions where the description was flat out wrong and they knew it - their excuse? They were too lazy to change it. It had requirements that not only were no longer requirements, but were disqualifiers.

Then there are the job descriptions where they require experience/knowledge of some internal application/process that no one outside of the org would know.

My last job description (when I interviewed almost 9 years ago) required experience in the app I wound up working on - it was an internal application that nobody outside the org and their customers even knows of its existence. The only valid reason for that would be to hire someone inside the org that knows what it is, or someone outside who used to be a dev for that product (may two or three people out of a million). I was hired nonetheless. They did hire someone who had worked on it before and who had left to work elsewhere, but came back, then left after 8 years.

 

[albin25]

Two things can suck about a job search ...

1 - The search
2 - The job

 

[Ducati_Meister]

Maybe repair classic/antique watches of value? Antique clocks?

I thought about it, but after spending time with Rolex watchmakers in their service center in Dallas, TX, many of whom were independent watchmakers. They said to me with the lack of parts and time spent trying to find parts for vintage pieces on Ebay etc., there's simply no money in it. Plus manufacturers like Omega sends all their vintage watch parts back to Switzerland, so you have to send your watch to Omega at the least. Clock making is whole different animal and it was not a part of many school curriculums, including mine.

 

[OldTengu]

The worst part of a job search is that it costs money. Going back and forth across town to little or no result depletes a resource that you currently have no way to replenish.

 

[Tarawa86]

Employers who ask stupid questions

"What type of animal are you/what's your greatest weakness", etc.

 

[Ducati_Meister]

The worst part of a job search is that it costs money. Going back and forth across town to little or no result depletes a resource that you currently have no way to replenish.

True indeed, and it's a sunk cost by all means. Most police testing you even have to pay for around here if an agency contracts with places like public safety testing or national testing network. That all adds up quickly.

 

[Tarawa86]

If you're interested in IT at all, Microsoft is moving to new certs based on the Azure platform. They also have a decent amount of free training. The cloud stuff is pretty amazing actually, much to my surprise - it's moved on quite a bit from the old days of just being a storage platform. I'm still employed but as a field engineer my travel wings have been clipped and thought it would be a good time to update my skills.

Edit: Here is the Cert i'm currently studying. Most of the training material is free, and you can download Windows 10 images to use for practice installation/configuration, etc. in VirtualBox.

Microsoft 365 Certified: Endpoint Administrator Associate - Certifications

Plan and execute an endpoint deployment strategy, using essential elements of modern management, co-management approaches, and Microsoft Intune integration.

docs.microsoft.com

 

[The Heretic]

Clock making is whole different animal and it was not a part of many school curriculums, including mine.

At least it is a different scale, I wouldn't know. But it seems to me there are a lot more people with antique clocks (I have several) that no longer work and they want them to run just for sentimental value (mine came from my family and have a history). Possibly the same with 'grandfather' clocks? Not sure if the latter are electronic or not. I do know there are a few shops that specialize in this domain.

 

[The Heretic]

If you're interested in IT at all, Microsoft is moving to new certs based on the Azure platform. They also have a decent amount of free training. The cloud stuff is pretty amazing actually, much to my surprise - it's moved on quite a bit from the old days of just being a storage platform. I'm still employed but as a field engineer my travel wings have been clipped and thought it would be a good time to update my skills.

Edit: Here is the Cert i'm currently studying. Most of the training material is free, and you can download Windows 10 images to use for practice installation/configuration, etc. in VirtualBox.

Microsoft 365 Certified: Endpoint Administrator Associate - Certifications

Plan and execute an endpoint deployment strategy, using essential elements of modern management, co-management approaches, and Microsoft Intune integration.

docs.microsoft.com

That is another pet peeve of mine. Such certs mean nothing to most dev teams. Just means someone took an online course. What we look for is real project experience.

 

[The Heretic]

The worst part of a job search is that it costs money. Going back and forth across town to little or no result depletes a resource that you currently have no way to replenish.

It depends on the job and the employer and where you are, etc.

UI benes are supposed to help with that (hint: there is a thread in the pub forum - the forum that shall not be named that I started just for tips for the unemployed). The stimulus bill will get us an extra $600 per week on top of current benes - that should help.

I had a 2 hour commute when I was employed, and that sucked up the gas, so the occasional interview (maybe once a week at most) is not a big deal to me. Granted, other jobs may require in person applications, mine do not (my first real job out of college I was hired via a phone call - I was in San Francisco looking for a job and someone in Seattle called and hired me sight unseen - they needed a warm body with a EE degree and I fit the bill).

 

[Ducati_Meister]

At least it is a different scale, I wouldn't know. But it seems to me there are a lot more people with antique clocks (I have several) that no longer work and they want them to run just for sentimental value (mine came from my family and have a history). Possibly the same with 'grandfather' clocks? Not sure if the latter are electronic or not. I do know there are a few shops that specialize in this domain.

I would call any independent watchmaker you might have near you and see if they know someone, chances are they might. Funny thing is in school, since we worked on customer repairs along with the academics, people would bring in their Garmin, Suunto GPS watches to us, probably because we worked on quartz watches, however, we did not touch GPS equipped watches lol.

 

[P7M13]

@Ducati_Meister - best wishes to you in your search. You may be a trained watch maker, but your marketable skills are in looking at complex precision machinery and fixing it. Lots of semiconductor manufacturers here that make mind-bogglingly complex equipment that could use a skill set like yours.

Job searches. Meh.
Wait until you get older. Age discrimination is a real thing.
The ideal situation is one where someone asks for your resume.

3) Employers who ask me to write code during a phone interview - if you want code, give me an example problem and I will think about it and send you an example of how I might solve it. Employers who have me take a personality test.

Had one where they asked me to design an object oriented database schema for a specific solution, submit the DB and how long it took me to develop, in SQL server. That was fun. They called me and wrote letters for me to come in, but my ex screened and buried them all while I was on the road for work. I only found out because I called the company after a few weeks and asked what was the status of the position.
The company I work for now had a pre-screen interview that was much harder than many full company interviews I have had.
My favorite question

That's very interesting.

I've had a few where they try to mind-fork you.
One where the interviewer lowered his office to 55° and kept talking to me for over an hour. I was 185 at the time and <10% body fat. After a while, I started shivering, then my voice started wavering, but I never once made a comment on the temperature. They made me a fat offer.
Another where the hiring manager looks over my resume and asks, "there's a lot of deep tech here, how much of it is true?". "All of it." "How'd you get that experience?" " I sold the job and had to perform." We then spent two hours discussing each project in detail. The guy was whip-smart and a good manager.
My favorite interview question was "which one of these projects in your resume do you consider a failure, and why." Turns out the interviewer was an expert in that field, and had failed at the same issues I had. Great chat, and I still work for that company.

 

[User 1234]

For vets, check into Hire Our Heroes.

 

[bentoncity]

Gettin outa bed..

Dan

 

[Ducati_Meister]

@Ducati_Meister - best wishes to you in your search. You may be a trained watch maker, but your marketable skills are in looking at complex precision machinery and fixing it. Lots of semiconductor manufacturers here that make mind-bogglingly complex equipment that could use a skill set like yours.

Job searches. Meh.
Wait until you get older. Age discrimination is a real thing.
The ideal situation is one where someone asks for your resume.


Had one where they asked me to design an object oriented database schema for a specific solution, submit the DB and how long it took me to develop, in SQL server. That was fun. They called me and wrote letters for me to come in, but my ex screened and buried them all while I was on the road for work. I only found out because I called the company after a few weeks and asked what was the status of the position.
The company I work for now had a pre-screen interview that was much harder than many full company interviews I have had.
My favorite question

I've had a few where they try to mind-fork you.
One where the interviewer lowered his office to 55° and kept talking to me for over an hour. I was 185 at the time and <10% body fat. After a while, I started shivering, then my voice started wavering, but I never once made a comment on the temperature. They made me a fat offer.
Another where the hiring manager looks over my resume and asks, "there's a lot of deep tech here, how much of it is true?". "All of it." "How'd you get that experience?" " I sold the job and had to perform." We then spent two hours discussing each project in detail. The guy was whip-smart and a good manager.
My favorite interview question was "which one of these projects in your resume do you consider a failure, and why." Turns out the interviewer was an expert in that field, and had failed at the same issues I had. Great chat, and I still work for that company.

Is 30 considered too young? I understand the age discrimination as it's hard to prove nonetheless.