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LuciousSandwich wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 4:20 pm I got laid off about 6 months ago after 20+ years at the same company.

I just attended a seminar about (essentially) making yourself appear less old on your job applications, resume, LinkedIn profile, etc.

You might think having lots of experience and knowing things about being good at your job could be a really good thing..........

What a world.

It's even harder for women of a certain age. My wife is feeling it big time. Best wishes.

hbiden@onlyfans.com wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 2:48 am

penningtron wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 2:15 pm Oh! And recruiters! I've talked to nearly 100 on the phone at this point and there are about 3 of them I don't want to murder. Just absolutely insulting, holograms of human beings who barely understand the nature of the work they are hiring for. One last week insisted I add a line about "I like to break things!"

So I should just announce why I lost my last job?
Bold strategy, I can’t wait to try it!

The reality is that the buzz-word mindset continues once you're hired. I would be shocked if upskilling in AI is not on the company goals for everyone this year.
Two thoughts:

• Lean on/build your network. I've received most of my new employment from ex-colleagues, also you never know when that mail clerk you were friendly with is going to become a Director.

• The Office Space model of being promoted for being brash and unprofessional is alive and well. I agree with the recruiter in the sense that have a bit of an "edge" is not a bad thing, however stupid, irrelevant or unfair such a qualification might be.

I make the bulk of my living as a freelance translator in the cultural sector. Things were good up through 2019, but it's been a struggle since. The twin pressures of budget cuts and AI are making themselves felt for real now. Peripheral fields that interested me where I have dabbled successfuly and thought of making a move, such as subtitling, have shown themselves to be even less viable over the past years, established folks are feeling a variation of the same squeeze there etc. I am currently stuck in the "don't-know-what-to-do" phase.

My heart goes out to everyone here grappling with employment issues.

I’m a - building - architect by trade that pivoted into design software technology. I feel your pain. I don’t really have a massive amount of advice beyond, keep at it.

I would say that longer term, every position change I’ve made, either by choice or due to redundancy has always resulted in being in a better place. It sounds like you’re in a better position that many, in that you still have a job and are looking. It’s much more stressful when you have bills piling up.

Hang in there, keep at it and you will look back and see the move was a good change.

zorg wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 10:08 am

hbiden@onlyfans.com wrote: Thu Mar 21, 2024 2:48 am

penningtron wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 2:15 pm Oh! And recruiters! I've talked to nearly 100 on the phone at this point and there are about 3 of them I don't want to murder. Just absolutely insulting, holograms of human beings who barely understand the nature of the work they are hiring for. One last week insisted I add a line about "I like to break things!"

So I should just announce why I lost my last job?
Bold strategy, I can’t wait to try it!

The reality is that the buzz-word mindset continues once you're hired. I would be shocked if upskilling in AI is not on the company goals for everyone this year.
Two thoughts:

• Lean on/build your network. I've received most of my new employment from ex-colleagues, also you never know when that mail clerk you were friendly with is going to become a Director.

• The Office Space model of being promoted for being brash and unprofessional is alive and well. I agree with the recruiter in the sense that have a bit of an "edge" is not a bad thing, however stupid, irrelevant or unfair such a qualification might be.

This is crazy. I actually was an edgy mail clerk until Tuesday and now I’m going to be director of an international trading firm.
You’ll know I have made it when I nuke this account.

If anyone is an IT director, ours just put in notice because they couldn't live in Arizona and be %100 remote. San Diego is economic hell, but if you're already living in LA, come on down.

andyman wrote: Wed Mar 20, 2024 5:08 pm Working in tech, the most annoying things are that (i) there's no adequate way to gauge coding skills but they'll still make you do a free project, nitpick it, then reject you and (ii) the "tech experts" interviewing you are usually either tech bros with power/ego complexes or weirdos with their eccentric foibles, and getting past them is an absolute fucking chore in itself.

Hell is definitely other people.

Edit: I forgot to also mention recruiters - greedy middlemen who are a step below used-car salespeople and add absolutely no value at any stage, but siphon large amounts of money and ensure your application doesn't make it anywhere near the company if they don't like your vibe

Yes! Exactly!

I have been processing the assessment I failed and best I can describe it is: I'm a person that could build you a really solid brick house. What they were looking for is someone who could build the CERN lab. In other words, there's all kinds of engineers out there. You could call me an application architect, whereas the job was for a UI engineer. The experience has me getting ahead of this during my phone screens by asking what kind of engineer they are looking for, because job descriptions are not really a good picture, just a blabber about tech stacks and general process concepts. I had a really great phone interview with an ed-tech startup and after I sort of went through that spiel, I got a much better idea of what they are looking for. I've got an interview next week with both tech leads.

Looks like my wife and I are both back on the job market, uhg.

My department did a reorg last year and gave us the option to either reapply for the "new" jobs or take severance. Since I had been w/ the company for 18 years and was at the max severance rate, we decided that I'd take that, then just be a stay at home dad for our kid (born six weeks after my last day) since infant care is insanely expensive in Seattle and I really wanted to have that bonding time w/ the little dude.

Then, last week, just two weeks before the end of my wife's leave, she was laid off due to her team getting broken up and dispersed across her company (small software company of ~100 people). There was about 15 people laid off, so doesn't seem like there's much recourse for firing her during leave.

So now we're both going to go back on the job market. Luckily we have very different fields, and I'm guessing I will likely get a job first (in HR, yeah I know) but won't pay nearly as well as anything she gets. Money wise we're fine, even without a substantial change in our spending we'd have 14-16 months just with our savings, not including unemployment, or me dipping into selling stocks. And really we (okay really it's me!) could stand to curtail back our spending.

Just really sucks to have our plans for the next 8-12 months just swept right from under us (including should we get a bigger house or start meeting w/ contractors for doing an addition to our current house, etc), and I'm not looking to start going through the time and hassle of the interview process just to not get a job over and over.

Luckily this is one of the times of year when roles in my field pop up, when annual planning has ended at some companies and people leave and they want to hire and get people up to speed before reviews begin again in the fall.

tallchris wrote: Sun Mar 24, 2024 2:15 pm Looks like my wife and I are both back on the job market, ugh.

Damn.. sorry to hear that. I think between the 2 of you your chances are pretty good for getting at least one income going again, being in an area with tons of employers. But yes, this is just another one of those things none of us would have predicted even 2 or 3 years ago. Tech (and adjacent) jobs were supposed to be a solid bet, right..

The suckiest part of job applications:

- Step 1 - Submit your LinkedIn profile, which has all your experience also found on your resume
- Step 2 - Upload your resume, which is already on your LinkedIn profile
- Step 3 - Fill out your past experience, one painful input at a time, even though you submitted a pdf that was your resume and your resume is also found on your LinkedIn profile

Shit like this is just a giant fucking time suck, and it happens to come from all levels of companies, not just the low-barrel ones. I can't tell if it's supposed to be a painful gauntlet so you can be laughed at for jumping through each hoop like a prancing pony, or if there's just total ignorance on the other side. It just feels very defeating to have to bow down to such stupid requirements.