What exactly are you doing? It sounds like you're hitting the HR screening which means you need to apply more or apply more effectively.
Cold applications are well and good at scale, particularly when combined with custom cover letters. But using your network often yields a faster response. Also, being open to relocation helps.
Eh, that isn't quite true because determining the quality of the "result" is biased by our opinion of its author and, equally important, how they present their results. Race and sexual orientation impact your speech patterns and habits which you very much are judged on.
Additionally, when a woman works with a man on something often the woman's contribution is assumed to be less than the man's contribution if they're listed as co-authors - I would be very surprised if this weren't the case beyond academia but also in artifacts like design docs.
I can see why someone would be like wtf if their "viking" input produced less than 90% white people results, but there should be an equal wtf if "CEO" produced 90% men.
One is a historical fact that is never going to change, the other is a job in society where the demographics can and will change --- at least partially as our expectations of what "normal" looks like for that role are updated. By perpetuating the current (or historical) norm for a given role the biases of what person we naturally consider appropriate for that role remain unchallenged.
Yep. I was raised moving a lot and assumed I'd do the same as an adult. But then I thought of how rarely my parents saw their parents. And how much I love my parents and siblings. I ended up marrying a man who also traveled a lot as a child; both of us are happy to prioritize being near family.
Whoa. My siblings and I were in and out of my family house throughout our 20s. Hell, during COVID a bunch of us moved back in in our 30s, kids in tow.
And we spend HOURS per day with our parents when living at home, even when teens. Evenings were hanging out as a family usually, whether that meant reading in the same room, watching movies, playing board games, whatever. All during the evening when they got home from work.
Huh. I guess I see the sacrifice as making my old-person life not shit not because I have kids. So I'm investing prime years so the potentially long amount of time I'm all aged has more meaning/purpose/love in them. I'll say my aunt didn't have kids. And while we were little I guess she told my Mom she had no regrets. But at some point in our 20s, she backed off that a bit as she (finally) saw the benefit of kid.
I assumed I'd hate having kids until they were like 11/12 but to have the adults would make it worthwhile --- even just the chance of a close relationship with them as adults. But I'm actually shocked to find I even enjoy the baby/potato stage.
I don't think it will be pure shit, no, but at the point I can't physically do fun things anymore (whenever you think that will be) there really isn't much let to DO which means your relationships are going to be clutch. And the longer the relationship the more meaningful (generally), so having kids seems like a strong enhancement.
I don't think it's binary "sucks/not sucks", but I do think, for me, it'd clearly be sig LESS fun to be old without kids based on what I've seen of the older people in my life with different family situations. Seems shitty to me.
I'm sure there are people who have the opposite experience, but I was trying to explain why the "sacrifice" of prime years can be seen as an investment rather than a straight loss.
I have a dog. I totally thought having a kid would be like having a dog. In the sense that I do a bunch of shit with my dog that I don't necessarily want to do and she is often a burden to things I want to do (mainly travel) but, in aggregate, is worth it. And if having a kid was that negative shit multiplied by some large x with similar or even higher positives, it would be a huge no go. Happily I got the dog a month before I got pregnant.
And it is not the same at all. So many things I do for my dog I do out of obligation. I do not often want to walk her. Once I'm walking her or going to the dog park or whatever, I have a nice time but I don't naturally WANT to do it.
In contrast, I want, like actively WANT, to do all sorts of absurdly unpleasant things for my eight month old. And society is set up to bring kids to all sorts of activities my dog can't go to --- despite my pup being sig more pleasant to have out and about than my baby.
I will say I think a sig portion is hormonal. I would say having a kid was a genuine metamorphosis for me. In contrast, I think my husband had more of a dog-like sense of obligation and is only recently enjoying the kid.
As sexist as it may sound, I'd suggest most women who are financially stable with good partners to have at least one kid because I am shocked, utterly shocked, by the fundamental shift in self I've experienced and, frankly, it's cool. Life is short. It's a cool, unique experience worth having.
But men? Unless they actively want kids, I'd suggest staying away from it --- the sacrifice to their relationships, lives, etc. seems sig harder to bear since they don't seem to have quite the same hit to their hormones. As my husband says, I take care of baby and he takes care of me. Who takes care of him? I try but baby comes first. That's a hard hit for a man not excited for kids (thankfully my husband is and remains so).
As the traditional formula goes, you take care of the household. Food, cleanup, chores, shopping, calling the repair guy, etc. Especially as you start getting more free time and school starts acting as a baby sitter.
I know that I come from a family of five and was starved for attention. My husband comes from a family of 2 and felt he always got attention when he wanted it.
Like some of my strongest memories are of leaving notes for my Mom about how I felt neglected and was in <x> room waiting for her just to BE there with me. She'd last about ten minutes before she'd begin multi-tasking. Not because she was a bad mom but because she just had so. much. to do with five kids and a full-time job.
If you're going to have a large family older kids have to take on some of the emotional labor or the younger kids are totally shafted.
It's interesting how opinions on this change depending on how it's phrased.
Sometimes I see it phrased as older kids taking on some of the labor in what is perceived as maturity building activity that may serve them in adulthood.
Others use a completely different phrase, calling it "parentification" and then call it child abuse or worse, believing it's better for the kids to all fight for the resource of the parent rather than share the burden with older children.
I withhold a conclusion of what the results are. But it's funny to me to see how the opinions can be gamed based on how you frame it.
A proffessional athlete was asked, in the context of a knockout tournament where different conpetitors had different waiting period between matches: "is it better to have more time and rest between the fights, or to have less time but more momentum?" She replied: "Whichever happens to you, you turn into a positive frame."
I moved back in with my Dad with my husband. I'm 32, hubby is 30. He had two strokes and my little sister didn't want to be the only one nearby. It's been 6 months. Is it the easiest? No. But it's amazing to have this day-in-day-out time with my Dad again after not having lived at home for years.
My older sister moved back in with her husband and two kids for 2 months as she studied for her medical school USMLE exams so she could take advantage of the free baby-sitting.
Neither my sister's family or my own would've made this decision without the pandemic. My husband and I were both pushed remote (same salary) and my sister's child care plans went up in smoke.
While 2020 has been shit, moving home in some cases isn't an indicator of a problem. It's just a smart reaction to the new reality of working from home.
Cold applications are well and good at scale, particularly when combined with custom cover letters. But using your network often yields a faster response. Also, being open to relocation helps.