
A 29-year-old on the difficulties of landing a first job  - jteo
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/personal-finance/rob-carrick/a-29-year-old-on-the-difficulties-of-landing-a-first-job/article2434807/singlepage/#articlecontent
======
patio11
If you were my little brother, and you told me that you had applied to 100
jobs you were strongly qualified for and got zero offers, I would put on my
big brother pants and make some fairly pointed observations about your skills,
beginning with lead qualification. I would then advise working on skills like
lead qualification over sending out 100 more resumes into a process which, as
your big brother who loves you has to point out, you must have _designed_ to
fail. It should not be difficult to get radically better at it, because a)
you've got nothing but free time and b) the place where you're starting from
is not terribly advanced.

Also coming from the place of big-brotherly-introvert love: if you are aware
that networking is important and networking takes place at events that you
don't go to, this suggests a _fairly obvious strategy that actually works_.

~~~
JPKab
"At the age of 29, I've likely forever lost the following opportunities due to
cost and probable inability to make up for lost wages and career potential:

\- Getting married. \- Having children. \- Studying any more, whether that
means grad school, law school, or even just night classes at a random
community college."

So let's go through this step by step:

1) Getting married doesn't require money if you find the right wife, the kind
you REALLY want. My wife and I were married by a justice of the peace in a
living room with nobody watching. Why? Because we didn't have money, and post
2008, our families didn't either. We "eloped" so that we could be the bad
guys, and eliminate the guilt from our families about not being able to pay
for a wedding. It worked great. Her parents and mine felt zero guilt, although
there was temporary anger towards us. Having zero guests made sure there was
no envy between relatives, and all is well now.

2) Having children: Interesting how white, middle class people think having
kids is the most expensive thing ever. It's not. My wife was considered to be
so infertile that the Dr. wouldn't even prescribe her birth control. She
wasn't even having periods. She got pregnant through some crazy and awesome
quirk, and we became parents when we hadn't planned on it at all. At first we
freaked, but then when I met neighborhood kids (El Salvadoran) in the barrio
(very safe by the way) we were living in, and realized how well they were
doing in school, life, and health, I realized you don't have to be rich to
have kids. You just have to be smart enough to realize that kids need love,
patience, shelter, and food. They DON'T need $800 strollers, $400 cribs, a
nursery, NEW clothes. NEW anything. You can get all of it at the thrift shop.
I make decent money now, but I didn't then. LEARN from immigrants. You live in
fucking Canada, and like the U.S. your nation is filled with people who know
how to stretch a buck and be happy. Your parents didn't know how to do either
thing nearly as well, IMHO. (I'm speaking generically about the baby boomer
generation, who I think as a whole were shitty savers and rather shitty
parents. I exclude my Dad from this, because he taught me to live on the cheap
my whole life.)

3)Studying any more: If you think that law school, or grad school are what it
takes to get ahead from your situation, you are a fucking fool. Both are rip
offs even IF you HAVE the money and time. You are much better served by going
to night classes at community college (provided you have access to one that
works with the private sector business community to train in valuable,
marketable skills). Or you can go online and educate yourself in the arcane
technological arts which are guaranteed to get "your foot in the door" of a
business. I got into my field as a lowly programmer. Now I do IT strategy,
data governance, business analysis, as well as the fun techy stuff that I
choose to focus on. Point is this: if i wanted to, I could just be the
business guy that most people want to be. But I got my foot in the door on a
weird skill that universities suck at teaching in a time and cost efficient
manner. Where did I learn said skills? Online classes that cost me $300 a pop.
A total of 4 over the course of a year. I attended a major university. I loved
it, but compared to the new generation of online education, it was a fucking
rip off.

Stop whining, and start learning from others who have made a life for
themselves. We are not the baby boomers. The house in the suburbs doesn't
really make sense. Kids don't need their own yard if they can go to a park
that's the size of a 100 yards and filled with 100 kids for them to play with,
instead of 1 yard where they play by themselves.

~~~
Diederich
> 2) Having children: Interesting how white, middle class people think having
> kids is the most expensive thing ever. It's not. ...

Exactly.

Our child's clothing, toys and books come from:

1\. Yard sales 2\. Helping hands 3\. Friends and neighbors 4\. Craigslist and
Freecycle

Guess what? We give 100% of those things away in time. We've taught our son
the concept of not holding onto physical things. All of his things came from
someone else, and he gives all of his things to someone else.

He's completely good with that; at 9 years of age, he'll bring a bag of toys
and books to the car and say that he'd like to give these away.

Our biggest child related expense is where we're living. We wanted an
excellent public school, so we're living in Mountain View, where it's CRAZY
expensive, instead of somewhere else that's cheaper.

We are fortunate that we have very solid and affordable health care through my
company, though he has needed very little of it.

Thanks, JPKab, for pointing this out.

~~~
ChrisHugh
How "white"? How odd. I didn't know attitudes and ideas had colors.

~~~
JPKab
You got me there. I wish I could think of a word to describe the group of
people who have been brainwashed into thinking that if they don't spend
shitloads of money on stuff, and buy a big house in the burbs, that they are
bad parents......

But you are right, saying it's a "white" thing is racist of me. There are
people of all colors who get trapped into this bullshit, as well as people of
all colors who are not fooled by it.

~~~
WiseWeasel
Bourgeois. Closest English term I can think of which conveys a similar notion
is WASP.

I believe they might have been called "city-folk" at some point... maybe the
equivalent of suburbanites or gated-community-dwellers today. Maybe saying,
"that's a gated-community mentality!" would convey a similar meaning in a
succinct and relatively PC way.

~~~
drcube
What do you think the "W" stands for in WASP?

~~~
WiseWeasel
I am fully aware of what it represents, hence the need to come up with a less
divisive term. I was just observing that it's often used in that context.

------
DanI-S
There are a shocking number of people here with no outward empathy,
understanding nor willingness to see outside of their own limited experience.

The world is not the tech industry. Not everybody has the same perspective as
you. In fact, more people find themselves in this chap's shoes than in yours.

You're likely posting on here because you're under some illusion that you're
an entrepreneur. How can you build a successful product if you can't put
yourself in another's position?

~~~
tatsuke95
I'm going to assume, since the newspaper is Canadian, that he's Canadian, like
myself. He is also near to my age. There is ample work in our country, but you
have to be mobile and willing to do labour.

It sounds to me that this fellow's problem is this:

> _" I wanted the tailored suits, the chance at a high income, the BMW, the
> prestige, the respect, and the power."_

Yet he wants that opportunity to be given to him, rather than going out and
making it happen. He seems entitled, after graduating from University, to
these opportunities. That ship has sailed. Our (my generation) father's worked
in labour and helped create the middle class of North America. Why are we so
against it?

~~~
jarek
If you're 29, your father would have most likely been born around 1955,
reached adulthood in the 70s, and have middle class handed to him on a
platter. Other than that, I have no concerns.

------
wheaties
I feel his pain. We just got done interviewing someone who had studied "web
page" design. It's sad because whatever he was taught for those 4 years (while
getting a 3.96 GPA) amounted to a very limited skill set. His designs were
half there but his ability to actually apply or use them to a problem weren't.

This is a recurring theme in many applicants that walk through our doors.
There's tons of degrees I've never heard of that make me think "There's a
degree in that!?" Most have no applicable skills. Most don't even know what
they need to know. Finally, most don't have a way to learn it without a mentor
to guide them.

~~~
sp332
So he's an excellent learner and has a background in the field, and you're not
willing to train him or let him learn on the job? "his ability to actually
apply or use them to a problem weren't" probably describes 95% of college
graduates.

~~~
wheaties
A high GPA is not caused by a massive intelligence, it is caused by the
ability to study effectively. Intelligence and GPA are often correlated but
not always. Don't make that assumption.

There's a ton of people I know who did poorly in their coursework but their
design skills and ability are bar none. I don't look at GPA as much of an
indicator anymore. It shows potential, only.

~~~
sp332
_Don't make that assumption._ I didn't. _It shows potential, only._ That's
what I said.

------
GFischer
"Owning a home that's bigger than 500 square feet. (hint: that's not big.) "

That's U.S. entitlement for you. 500 square feet is perfectly reasonable, I
live on about the same, and I rent it (and I'm 31 years old).

A 500 square feet small apartment in Barcelona is about 200.000 euros right
now, and 80.000 here in Uruguay.

I agree that it's not ideal for raising kids, but it's not something to whine
about.

Edit: as others pointed out, most have a lot of work experience by 29 years
old. I had 8 years' experience at the time and I expect people in the U.S. to
have even more since they graduate earlier and have summer jobs and all that.

Also, he says he can make 36.000 dollars/year?, well you can save a bit and
try your hand overseas. During hard times, people emigrated in the past. My
grandparents did, and endured hardships. In the U.S., you might have read
about pilgrims. I doubt they complained about not being able to afford a dog.
And being a foreigner has a charm that will make you popular with girls (not
to mention the U.S. passport if it comes to that).

~~~
mbenjaminsmith
I'm formerly of the US but I was going to say most of what you did.

There is absolutely a sense of entitlement in North America that seems pretty
odd if you've lived in other countries.

My place is lot bigger than 500 sq feet but I've also been working since I was
14, left the US for Asia at 23 and have worked my ass off every day since
college.

Beyond getting laid being a foreigner isn't usually a net gain in my
experience. For every door is might open it closes one or more. My first
company had heavy staff requirements (which meant lots of salaries, lots of HR
time and lots of rent) but no bank would even talk to me (and my partners)
because we were foreigners. We had to bootstrap the company with will alone.

Where the advantage lies is the perspective emigrating gives you. It allows
you to better see how things truly are and focus on what's important. As
screwed up as the US economy might be I have many Asian friends who have
emigrated there in the last decade and have done very well for themselves.
Why? Because they were willing to work their assess off.

~~~
lotu
> As screwed up as the US economy might be I have many Asian friends who have
> emigrated there in the last decade and have done very well for themselves.
> Why? Because they were willing to work their assess off.

So much to this, their are so many dry-cleaners and Chinese food store owners
who are millionaires because of this.

~~~
mbenjaminsmith
Wow, I love racism.

My friends are: in art (on the business side), in beer (import), in tech (a
couple of them) and one is a chef in NYC.

None of them are millionaires but they've done better in their careers than if
they didn't go to fight it out in a different market.

~~~
GFischer
I didn't read the gp comment as racist. He was just pointing out that there
are dry cleaners and food store owners that are doing well.

(I haven't been to the U.S., are all dry cleaners foreign?)

------
masterponomo
Please tell me when it was ever easy. Rumors of the job market being easy in
the past are vastly overstated. Before the Internet, before entry to IT was as
easy as it later became, I graduated high school as valedictorian and took the
highest paying job I could find based on my skills: factory labor in a box
factory. I got married a year after high school, we had a son, and THEN I
started junior college. Before I got my associate degree in IT 3.5 years
later, we had two more children. I worked the factory job for 5.5 years. When
laid off, I worked in convenience stores, chem labs, other factories, whatever
I could find (and finding short-term work was not easy--sometimes spent weeks
finding a job, only to be called back to the factory.) In my last semester, I
worked an unpaid internship in a bank IT department while still working the
factory job at night. The bank hired me. I have worked on the same software,
following it from owner to owner, ever since. I have done extremely well. But
I was in no way prosperous until I hit my mid-30's. We lived in apartments for
years, then a mobile home, and finally a house when I was 31. So from age 19
through about 35, you might say it was a struggle. It's not that I don't
sympathize with 20-somethings who think they have it rough, but I would like
to tell you that for most people, getting along is NOT easy and NOT
guaranteed. This whole business of getting the right degree and then
networking your way to fun and glory--if you can pull it off, cool. If not,
perhaps you ought to start grinding at whatever you can, save up some money,
and keep grinding for the chance you want. Oh, and get off my lawn (kidding--I
know I sound like that guy.) Good luck, but more than that I wish you the
benefits of every second of your own efforts--eventually.

~~~
capsule_toy
I feel like there's this huge disconnect and I'm not sure who to believe. Some
people say it wasn't easy back in the day and that the younger generation are
simply too entitled. The younger generation would then say that even the
lowliest jobs don't exist.

Imagine if you were laid off and no convenience stores, chem labs, or whatever
you could find simply didn't exist. Instead of weeks to get back to you, it
took months, and the factory never called you back. Then, someone from an
older generation started with the same rhetoric you're on now.

I'm not saying that's the case, but just as you want 20-somethings to have
some perspective, accept the possibility that it could just be worse now even
compared to the struggles you had.

~~~
masterponomo
The disconnect is probably because the OP, and many other 20-somethings, look
for some macroeconomic cause for their plight. Some people think too much in
terms of generations, demographics, better or worse economic stats, etc. I, on
the other hand, tend to focus on my own behavior on my own behalf. My reply
did not describe the wider economic conditions in which I grew up, because I
thought my own choices (early marriage and kids, delayed college, etc.) were
more important than any set of economic indicators you can name. I dug a very
deep hole for myself. I learned to look very hard at my own decisions.

I won't go into exhaustive detail, but if you wanted to compare economic
conditions, consider this: 1) My first job (paperboy at age 12) was during the
Nixon years. Price and waged controls, going off the gold standard, etc.
Didn't affect me--I was working locally, delivering the freaking paper, not
existing in some statistical milieu. 2) My next job (dishwasher, age 15) was
during Ford years. Whip Inflation Now buttons, anyone? Irrelevant--I had my
head in a sink. 3) My next job (cashier, age 18) was during Carter years.
Insane levels of inflation, stagflation, and a president lecturing us that we
were all in a national malaise. Screw you, Carter, I was working and finishing
high school, regardless of wider economic conditions. 4) Next job (factory,
age 19-24) was during Carter and then Reagan years. End of stagflation, let
the Stockman budget battles begin. Irrelevant--I was working my butt off,
multiple jobs if I had time, and going to school. 5) Next jobs (IT, age
25-now) I have worked through all the ups and downs of the economy, including
the current supposedly impossible economy. I am competing against the
20-somethings and the offshore developers. I don't think it's easy for anyone
(myself included) and I don't take my current hourly contract for granted.
Yes, hourly contract. I am one manager's decision away from not having a
paycheck. I could either a) panic or b) make sure I deliver value, all the
time. And of course hope for the best:-)

So the perspective I suggest is one of perhaps being aware of larger economic
conditions as a point of interest, but not telling yourself that the
unemployment rate, the dearth of new jobs, the shift to overseas labor, etc.
is going to control your destiny. YOU control it. Nothing but crappy jobs out
there? Fine, take two, they're small. What's that, I'm an insensitive clod and
there are not even any crappy jobs to be had? Oh, then I assume you have
broadened your search out to 50 miles, then 100, then 150. And I don't mean
emailing resumes. Nothing like showing up in person to demonstrate
seriousness. Oh, and now new jobs? Well, why not go take an existing job from
some sad sack who is just marking time? Every company has them. Don't ask for
openings--make openings.

As long as this is, it is incomplete. I'm sure a determined complainer could
pick holes in it easily, and trump me with some difficulty that I haven't
included. But that's the difference in perspective. I accept difficulties as
part of life, and set out to survive at the very least, prosper if possible,
and triumph (even if in only small ways, and only in my mind where I keep
score in a game no one else knows we are playing).

So yes, there's the disconnect.

------
goodside
While we're providing isolated, non-representative examples: I graduated in
2009 from a crappy Podunk school whose average SAT was 980 (on the old 1600
scale). It only costs about two grand a semester. I majored in CS. I had an
internship at a credit union, then a job in insurance lined up before
graduating, and then two years later I was hired by OkCupid. I have sent out
exactly three resumes in my life, and never been rejected. I don't have any
extraordinary accomplishments that I'm omitting.

As far as I can see, the economy is fine. Your mileage will almost certainly
vary.

~~~
danking00
I really wish someone could explain this to me. My local observations are the
same as parent. I have no unemployed, graduated friends, in fact, I have
still-in-school but employed friends. They're all making great salaries and
living in fun cities like San Fran, New York, and Boston.

I practically have a job offer at a firm in New Tork and I'm a year from
graduating and I've a decent shot at graduate programs too.

I must be doing something fundamentally different, or there's some systemic
bias in my favor. I am lower middle class, white, male, nerd, not particularly
socially apt, average university, ~100k loans, American, CS and physics
maajor, living in the northeast.

~~~
Wilya
CS field in America is about as easy as it gets, in terms of finding a job.
Demand is absurdly high. That's not the case for every field. That's not even
true for CS, as soon as you get out of the country.

The column is about someone in (apparently) Canada, who doesn't seem like he's
in tech.

~~~
_delirium
Even in CS in the US it varies a lot by specialty and region. I know some
sysadmins in the Midwest who've been having trouble finding work lately. It
seems that even if you _can_ do other things, having an N-year CV of doing
Unix sysadmin work (and an age >M, for some N,M) puts you into a ghetto which
doesn't currently have a lot of jobs. Especially true if you don't have a
degree. CS has a reputation of caring less about degrees than many other
fields, but the combination of a sysadmin CV and no degree seems to raise the
odds that you'll get typecast as "computer janitor".

~~~
base698
EC2, Google Apps for business come immediately to mind :)

------
jonknee
> Am I bitter about all of this? Not entirely, because it all just sort of
> works itself out. If I can't get married (dating is tough when you're broke)
> and have kids, I don't need a home bigger than 500 square feet, nor is more
> study to obtain employment that I'm not only happier with and better at than
> what I already do but also more lucrative really necessary, since I'll only
> be supporting myself. As for the issues revolving around savings,
> investments, and retirement, you may be surprised to find out how much
> happier one can be if you simply accept that you'll be working until very
> close to your death

He has a hard time applying for jobs which he may or may not be qualified for
and he's resigned himself to living alone in a 500 square foot apartment until
he dies... Yikes. With an attitude like that I'm sure he interviews really
well.

------
aestetix
My best advice to anyone in this situation: time management, and cool
projects.

Bottom line is, if you're spending 100% of your time trying to find a new job,
then your time is not well managed. Set aside some of that time to contribute
something positive to the world.

A few suggestions:

Volunteer at a local nonprofit. They are constantly overwhelmed with work, and
will love the help, even if it's only 20% of your time. It will be great for
networking, and you'll have a good feeling about it, not to mention something
to pad the resume with. Also, you'd be surprised how many places you think are
official are nonprofits who could use the free help.

Go to meetup groups. Spending money on a conference for networking is not
useful when you can get the same thing for free. If you're technical, there
are LUGs, programming language groups, database stuff, etc. Consider book
clubs of people with similar interests.

Start a blog and actively maintain it. Rather than brooding on why the system
is keeping you down, study up on things and write articles to teach others.
Once you get a flow going, people will start linking to your articles and
you'll have some recognition.

Just a few starting points. You can easily spend 1 day a week (20% of your
time) working on a cool project like that, and still have plenty of time to
search for work. And the next interview you get, you'll be a lot more
confident.

~~~
randomdata
This may be more difficult as you move beyond jobs that directly create
things, but I can safely say that I was chosen for every job I have held
because of to the "cool" projects I was doing on my own time. One of my
projects even had employers contacting me.

------
jwoah12
I was hesitant to criticize this person because I know how shitty the job
search can be for recent grads (or anyone for that matter), but a few things
bug me about the letter.

\- It is written with a tone that lacks accountability and instead seeks to
blame the situation on outside factors. To a certain degree this is true, but
the bit about nepotism bothered me. There are plenty of people who are able to
get jobs without being related to the CEO.

\- Does it mention what industry or city/region the author is looking in (I
admit I skimmed some of the article because it's really long and was making me
depressed)? I know I'm somewhat insulated because I live in New York and I'm a
developer, but I am trying to be unbiased. I went to a good (not top 10) state
school, had a really bad GPA, and graduated right in the heart of the
recession. I still had many good opportunities and a job within 3 months. The
same goes for almost all of my friends, many of whom are not engineers or
programmers. Maybe the author should consider looking in a different
geographic region.

\- The part about probably never being able to get married and have kids
because of money seemed a bit melodramatic to me. People who aren't rich have
been getting married and having kids for thousands of years.

\- Is moving in with his parents an option while he looks for a suitable job?
I got the impression that he has parents with at least some means because of
the bit about sending him cash if they felt bad. This would seem like a good
idea rather than spending everything you make on rent.

The moral of the story is that I understand the job market sucks, but if he is
really as qualified and hard-working as he claims, it shouldn't be _that_ hard
to find something.

------
insaneirish
I'm a bit confused. He says he got his undergrad degree around when Lehman
collapsed, which was September of 2008. So if he's 29 now, why didn't he
graduate until he was 25 or 26?

And if it took that long to graduate, I'd like to think he was doing something
worthwhile in those extra years that would have easily turned into a job.

There is no secret sauce. Work begets work. I started working as a [very bad]
programmer and [mediocre] sys admin when I was 13. That job got me the job I
had throughout college. The job in college got me the job I have now. Six
years later and things are good.

My anecdotal observations are that the longer people I know waited to get
their first job, the longer they've remained unemployed or stuck in dead end
jobs.

~~~
drcube
Anecdote time:

I was in the Army before I went to college, so I didn't graduate until I was
27. I got a 3.8 GPA in electrical engineering, but I was still unemployed for
over a year before I got hired as an engineer. It was a pretty disheartening
year, and I doubted whether I was worth anything to anybody. I finally got a
job through a friend. All the cold calls, resumes and interviews were for
naught, I got hired through cronyism.

I have a friend who got a degree in sociology, at the age of 28, by working at
a hotel and paying out of pocket for a class or two per semester for a decade.
She still works at that hotel, two years later, making just above minimum
wage. I thought I had it bad being unemployed for a year, but I had military
experience and technical skills that were at least somewhat in demand. She's
was looking in the social work field, but now she's just looking for any job
with benefits and growth, paycheck or industry be damned.

You could argue that sociology is not a degree you should get if you actually
want to work. But this woman was written off as "not college material" by
teachers and family alike, mostly because she was socially awkward in high
school. She worked her ass off for a decade to put herself through school and
I'm proud of her. She's shown more grit and determination than I have,
certainly. And yet she's unemployable. Hell, she probably couldn't get that
hotel job if she started now, because she's got a degree.

"My anecdotal observations are that the longer people I know waited to get
their first job, the longer they've remained unemployed or stuck in dead end
jobs."

Who is waiting?? We're talking about people who've been trying to get decent
jobs for a long time, and have come up empty. So saying "They should have
gotten jobs before" is begging the question. They've been trying all along.

~~~
infinite8s
That's not cronyism, that's networking (unless your friend was directly
responsible for getting you hired).

~~~
drcube
Well he told the boss to hire me. He didn't hire me personally.

I think there's a fine line between networking and cronyism. Someone off the
street ought to be able to get a job without knowing any of the employees. In
my experience, that's pretty much impossible these days, even for minimum wage
jobs.

~~~
greedo
That's not cronyism, that's getting a recommendation from someone who knows
you. That's valuable information from for someone making a hiring decision.

Cronyism would be getting the job despite a lack of qualifications but due to
your relationship with someone at the company.

Most of the jobs I've had have come from people knowing me, knowing my skill
set, and keeping me apprised of openings.

------
renegadedev
I can empathize with his frustration as my wife, early 30s,is going through
similar issues searching for jobs. Most people, wife included, don't realize
that job search is not about blasting a 100 uninspiring resumes on Monster.com
and hoping they get noticed. I've tried to explain to her the concept of
networking her way through companies to reach individuals in decision making
position and also to keep tweaking her resume to align her existing skills
with the job description she's applying for, but hey, it's always easier to
get frustrated and vent.

------
jheriko
Rubbish. It certainly sounds like he has made an effort to at least bring
money in, and has had jobs.

However, this tells me it is not hard to find a job, just hard to find a nice
job. This is different. Having a nice job is an incredible luxury nobody has
an inherent right to...

This opinion is compounded by various complaints about immigrants "taking"
jobs. The truth is everybody feels they are entitled to do something amazing -
regardless of if they are good enough. Some of us have to suck it up and stack
shelves or staff factories...

Aspiring to more is great and everyone should do that imo. But reality might
mean working a lot of crap jobs in the meantime to survive.

Survival is shockingly easy in today's world. Not surviving requires a
concerted effort in fact...

To sum up. I think this complaint is valid when worded properly - its just
completely unimportant.

------
scott_w
> these places assume I'll leave as soon as something "corporate" pops up.

This sentence struck me as a little odd. Is the USA at a point where
McDonald's expect a burger flipper to commit to a career with them?

Maybe I'm biased because all the non-skilled jobs I worked were before/during
university, but I never got the feeling that anyone believed I'd retire from
there.

Yes, we had the whole rigmarole at the interview "I want to work here because
you do great customer service blah blah", but I was never asked about spending
my entire career there.

I even know a guy who was begged by the McDonald's staff to work weekends
there (after he left for a corporate job), because he was better than all the
other staff.

~~~
plorkyeran
They want people who at least aren't actively looking to leave before they've
even started.

~~~
scott_w
That's almost certainly the case. I just find it a little odd. For most jobs
like this, training costs are negligible - usually a day of watching videos.
Food services probably have an extra day for health and hygiene regs, but it's
not a massive burden.

As long as the guy has half a brain and is reasonably personable, I'd rather
have someone like that for 3-6 months than the standard buffoon who will last
just as long before getting fired/bored of working, and do some damage in the
process.

------
Negitivefrags
While this may not be the case with everyone of this age, it seems to me that
a lot of people purchased a crappy education, and are now surprised to find
themselves in debt with a worthless degree. As a 25 year old, I'm finding this
is true of about half the people I left High School with.

Like buying almost anything, it's possible to pay a lot of money but still end
up with something crap.

The real shame is that kids are not taught to think about education in the
same way they they would consider the value of any other purchase.

------
jpxxx
He's 29 and can't get married because the job market sucks and now he's a 21st
century spinster? Jesus help this precious snowflake.

------
moe
Why am I not surprised he's not finding someone willing to hire a _29 year
old_ with zero work experience.

Others have a CV reaching back 5+ years at that age.

Don't put that much time exclusively into uni unless you intend to stay in
science or aim for a cushy cubicle job that hires on the premise of paper-
planes.

~~~
ebiester
The article I read said that he had short term contracts. That may mean one
month, that may mean 6 months to a year. Those are still jobs.

~~~
lotu
So then the title is wrong and he isn't trying to find his first job.

------
alasdair_young
I think the thing that concerns me most about the authors post is the implicit
assumption that selling ones labor to a company and being managed, coddled and
generally told what to do and how to do it is the only way to make money.

It seems like the author has never thought of creating their own job. It's
pretty humbling to walk around the neighborhood offering to cut lawns or paint
fences and building up business that way but sometimes it needs to be done.
The author must have _some_ skill worth selling after all those years of
schooling. Even if they make less than minimum wage initially they can do
something.

The fact that the author isn't running their own business isn't what concerns
me, it's that it's something that doesn't seem to have even been considered.
To me, this seems like a societal problem as well as one for the author.

In terms of advice, I can only offer my own experience: I quit my first job at
18 (worked full time through college) to work for less than minimum wage at an
ISP because I valued experience.

I moved. Twice. First to London, then to the US. If you are in a town where
you have seriously gone after all the jobs you can and still can't get
anywhere, it's time to look at places that ARE hiring and move there.

I was willing to make atrociously bad amounts of money (I was living in a
country with no minimum wage law) for five years in order to get the
experience and proof of ability to execute that I needed to move and get a
"real" job.

In my mind, the 29 year old author's only real hope is to create their own job
- they have nothing to show an employer that they have any kind of tenacity or
desire to work in a specific industry and so they will need to get their
experience elsewhere.

This sucks for the author. I get that but I see no other feasible way for them
to explain why they are 29 with no relevant work experience in their field.
More generally, this sucks for society - we seem to have convinced a large
amount of the population that the only way to make money is to sell ones labor
to someone else and have that person tell you what to do and how to do it. In
short: there is a dearth of autonomy in the world.

------
anditto
Boy does this hit close to home. I was almost exactly in the same place 2
years back. Dropped out of PhD, start looking around for a gig, then promptly
rejected by almost every top IT/telco related Japanese companies. My solution
was similar to @patio11's advice: a) iterate and refine your process, b) hack
something on something, anything, on the side, and c) go to the events where
networking actually takes place. All of these will give you both tangible and
social proof to bring to table once you eventually get through to the
interview round.

------
ctdonath
He missed one step: MOVE. If you're where jobs aren't, don't be there.

The unemployment rate in North Dakota is 3%.

------
pnathan
I recently reviewed a _large_ number of resumes from CS majors from a wide
variety of universities. They were collected through career fairs sort of
things.

Nearly all of them were crap. There was a constant and persistent inability to
demonstrate what they had to offer my company. There was a massive focus on
class projects and a complete "meh" in terms of work history.

Now, some of these people might have been excellent hires. But they could
_not_ demonstrate their aptitude. The people I did contact did have a
differentiating factor: it was that they did something... almost anything...
out of the ordinary in their life and put it on their resume.

People I contacted included a YC company intern, someone who liked Haskell,
and someone who had gone from total programming novice to real-time operating
system coder in 4 years.

Danger signs included gaps in employment (why does $applicant's resume stop in
2008?), inability to spell correctly, and lack of knowledge of the tech world.

It's not hard to apply Sturgeon's law and lift yourself out of the drek that I
saw. If you want help resume building, feel free to email me. I can help you
tune your resume to demonstrate your awesome (at least to another CS geek! :-)
I can't say anything about what other fields look for ).

~~~
stonemetal
_Danger signs included gaps in employment_

For the uninitiated why is this a danger sign?

~~~
pnathan
It means that... something happened.

Did they get fired? Did they get a pile of money and go roll around on a beach
somewhere? Did they have to take care of family? There can be insanely great
reasons... just as easily... insanely bad reasons.

It's an unknown, which adds pure risk. For someone to be out of work for years
indicates some sort of ... something. I can't tell with just a gap if that is
a problem or just someone living life in a non-career fashion for a while.

I don't personally really view time under a year as significant, as that can
simply be time spent in finding a new job. This might particularly be true for
someone who doesn't have a faddish skillset.

So in _my_ view, if you took off for a few years, allude to why you did so,
along with an explanation of how you kept your skill current.

Example: "I was an early google employee and cashed out after a while, then
travelled the world for a few years. I've kept myself current by working on a
compiler for my own language with the latest theoretical contributions... you
can find it at github/blah/blah. I'd like to resume work at your fine
institution". Or that could be restructured into a a line in the resume:
"worked on cutting edge compiler as personal project: Last Few Years. See
Github Address".

------
itsmequinn
I feel the pain, but I also don't think there's much else someone in an HR
department can do for you. There are no jobs and especially no entry-level
jobs since they are the lowest priority to fill/create. What do you propose
they do for you?

It's frustrating and wrong but it's not HR that put everyone in this mess.
Edit: and it's definitely not HR that's going to get everyone out.

------
xarien
If you send out 100-200 resumes a week and it's not working, the obviously
thing to do is to send out more right? I can't tell you how much this article
rubs me the wrong way as I'm a firm believer of working smarter over working
harder (although both would be pretty awesome). Yes, the system is kind of
jacked at the moment especially with the way that jobs get posted, but you
can't just bang your head against it all day long while complaining...

IMO, the easiest thing to do is actually volunteering some time (crazy right?)
for a non-profit organization to:

1) Build up skill sets with real experience 2) Network with people of
influence 3) Give back to the community

Paying it forward has always worked well for me and it makes a positive
impact. Who doesn't love a win-win situation?

------
FuzzyDunlop
The general tone of what this person says just screams "you're doing it
wrong." It lacks optimism, and the attitude is, as has been said, one of
entitlement.

> _"Those 14 steps assume everything goes well and roughly according to
> plan."_

Yeah, definitely, if you plan to fail. Playing the numbers game with
applications (sending off hundreds a month) is doing it wrong. He says he does
research and tailors his applications to each one. With so many, they can't
possibly be tailored enough. Those kinks will have been optimised out to save
time.

Job hunting is a difficult and thankless task. But go about it the wrong way,
with the wrong attitude, and it'll never get any better. Cutting the "woe is
me" attitude and focussing more positively on what you can do to fix a shitty
situation would be the first step.

I was in a position of thinking I'd never amount to anything, a couple of
years ago. I spent 7 years in a supermarket, with only the faint tease of
career prospects and progression (rapidly pulled away when I actually went for
them). I thought I'd never get out, and I applied for all sorts of jobs
(though not on the mass-production scale this fella has), slowly becoming
bitter about them hiring other people over me.

Then I thought, "what can I do to get out of this rut?" I'd taught myself how
to design and develop a website many years ago and for some bonkers reason
didn't capitalise on that at the time (that's 7 years of good career progress
I consciously chose not to take - no one's fault but mine). I got back into it
and got a contact who gave me good work that I chose to do for free. It wasn't
long before I was approached by an agency with the offer of a job. My first
full-time position, at 23 years old. That was only 12 months ago.

It's been onwards and upwards ever since, even with recent redundancy.

Maybe if I'd done what this guy did, I would still be sending off 100
applications to any old job every month. The time spent doing that could
easily have been spent making myself a more attractive prospect. After all,
you're not being paid to 'troll' a jobsite 7 days a week, so you may as well
do some unpaid work that puts you in a better position instead.

------
readme
I suggest that anyone who feels like the guy in this article does get a copy
of Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill and read it cover to cover or listen to
the audio book.

I've never gone to university and I was much worse off than that guy was
success wise, but I managed to pull myself up and I make a living contract
programming now.

Don't give up. Also, don't assume that the only correct path is through the
front door.

------
greedo
Can't say I have much sympathy for him. He's 29, and despite having reasonable
writing skills seems to have expected a Beemer and a blonde upon graduation.

He also seems to signal that he's far more into what a job gives him than what
he can bring to a job in terms of skill. This is something that is easily
sniffed out, even just through his writing. Oh, he gives the usual "hard work,
sacrifice, and a bit of luck," bit, but then goes on to blame HR, the economy,
etc instead of applying any rigor to his own skills and experience.

It's never been easy to break into a job. The idea that a college degree is a
Golden Wonka ticket to riches and Everlasting Gobstoppers needs to die.

If you don't have the entrepreneurial spirit to create your own
job/startup/career, then you're going to be a piece of phytoplankton, carried
by the vagaries of the ocean's currents. There are jobs for people lacking
this motivation, but they're not the ones with "I wanted the tailored suits,
the chance at a high income, the BMW, the prestige, the respect, and the
power."

And I have to say that this isn't particularly credible from what I've
witnessed:

"due to job-hunt and financial issues, my age group finds it extremely hard to
go out and be in social settings, so the usual networking and schmoozing that
previous generations indulged in isn't nearly as possible for us"

And finally, playing the blame game with the faceless and apparently evil
minions of HR is just ridiculous. In my experience, HR tends to weed out
people so as not to waste a hiring manager's time. And in 90% of the people
I've seen hired, the manager took their resume to HR to have it vetted after
already having received recommendations for the applicant. In other words, if
you're trying to get to the hiring manager through HR, you're doing it wrong.

------
stephengillie
This is EXACTLY how I feel about life.

~~~
skooter
That sucks when I read that, because I know how that feels.

Email me (in my profile) if you want to talk and bounce some ideas around and
make life better.

~~~
chousho
Hi, I actually tried e-mailing you, as I'm having this same situation. However
I received a reply from gmail that "Hotmail can not find this address". I
would actually like to talk with you, and find any ideas for help, if you're
willing.

------
option_greek
Would it help if the number of non-STEM field seats are regulated every year
based on employment statistics ?

I don't have anything against non-STEM fields and believe everyone should be
allowed to choose what they want to graduate in, just letting people graduate
while piling up debt only to end up jobless seem tragic.

~~~
randomdata
The purpose of university has never been to enable you to find a career, so by
limiting the number of seats by industry metrics, you will only take away
spots from people who want to legitimately study the material.

------
sritch
Maybe knowing how to network properly is important... You can't just meet
someone and say "Call me when you hear anything!" I got my current job
essentially through LinkedIn. I reached out to employees at the firm/agency I
wanted to work at to hear about what it was like to work there, etc. After a
couple weeks we talked again and I asked how to get started in the industry,
if they had anything available, etc.

Networking isn't a one-off kind of thing, essentially you are trying to be
something of a 'friend' to this person, benefiting both parties.

------
pjmo
I think what we are seeing over and over again as articles similar to this run
in papers all over (HuffPo, NYT, WaPo) is this point: Most young people are
bad at searching for jobs! Just like we're bad at dating, we're are bad at job
searching. Obviously not everyone is bad, but a large majority of people who
are unemployed or underemployed do not have a system in place that makes there
job search efficient or effective. I'm currently working on addressing this
problem, so hopefully stories like this can stop.

~~~
drcube
How can this be true? When companies are hiring, do young people suddenly get
better at finding work? Or is it more like the bottom X% of job seekers will
be under- or unemployed, and sometimes X is 5%, sometimes it's 40%? A lot of
people got jobs with these same tactics in previous eras, so there's something
about "now" that's worse than before.

~~~
galfarragem
Globalization.

------
msh
How can it be possible to write 100+ good applications in a week? That seems
unrealistic to me.

------
billpatrianakos
This is so true. Everyone wants to say we're not trying hard enough but we
really are the guys with the awesome grades, extra-curriculars, part time
jobs, and involved in sports plus finding time to be social.

The silver lining is that if you're in the right industry it can be easier.
Last week I sent out 10 resumes and got 4 interviews for web development
positions. My chances are good at every company I interviewed with but only
time will tell if I'm not being too optimistic. Your location has a lot to do
with it too im sure. I live in Chicago so it was relatively easy to land those
interviews but if you're not in a major metro area (New York, Chicago, LA,
etc.) then surely it's a lot tougher to break in. The solution is probably to
move. Half the people at the companies I interviewed at told me they moved
from places like Kentucky, Mississippi, Michigan to where the jobs were.

It's tough though no matter where you are and what you're trying to break
into.

~~~
bhickey

        This is so true. Everyone wants to say we're not trying hard enough but we 
        really are the guys with the awesome grades, extra-curriculars, part
        time jobs, and involved in sports plus finding time to be social.
    

Don't confuse the sweat of your brow with hard work.

No employer has ever asked me about part time jobs, clubs or sport. Frankly I
don't think any of them cared about my grades either.

These things are noisy signals, proxying for hoop jumping. What's more
important is proving that you have relevant skills.

    
    
        It's tough though no matter where you are and what
        you're trying to break into.
    

This generalization is false. If you can program your way out of a soggy paper
bag there are hordes of folks who will fill that bag with money.

