<story><title>Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/business/economy/long-term-unemployed.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>melvinroest</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m honestly experiencing this as a CS grad in the Dutch job market. I find it weird and frustrating.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve noticed why:&lt;p&gt;1. Companies don&amp;#x27;t dare to value creativity [1]. University is so liberal and the job market is so the opposite.&lt;p&gt;2. Most companies can&amp;#x27;t value a CS degree. The exception is when enough people in the company did a CS degree and that&amp;#x27;s a lot more rare than I thought.&lt;p&gt;3. University didn&amp;#x27;t teach me to focus on a portfolio and I got distracted with doing multiple degrees all at the same time fast-tracked (nobody cares that I fast-tracked), which (as you can see in point 2) proves that I&amp;#x27;m worth very little. It taught me a lot personally and made me smarter (in terms of crystalized intelligence). But my portfolio is rather terrible compared to what I&amp;#x27;m capable of.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll fix it, but right now I&amp;#x27;m just tired of being not called back (50% of the time) or rejected (the other 50%). I know I&amp;#x27;m capable, and pass the bar. I&amp;#x27;m not perfect, I&amp;#x27;m not the best, but I&amp;#x27;m capable.&lt;p&gt;[1] I created an app called Doodledocs which is a Canvas-based app that allows P2P privacy free collaborative doodling with a pressure sensitive stylus. In my interviews with companies they don&amp;#x27;t trust enough that I&amp;#x27;d be capable helping along with CRUD applications, because I didn&amp;#x27;t do any CRUD in the Doodledocs app. And I&amp;#x27;m just thinking: figuring out how to do WebRTC for free in a serverless manner (while seeing all of it for the first time) is a lot tougher than writing some models for a basic login system that you already know about (the same can be said for poking around in VMs in view libraries like Glimmer). Anyways, it&amp;#x27;s on a show HN right now see: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=21399910&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=21399910&lt;/a&gt; -- also for anyone who wants to do free WebRTC, check the Bugout library, it&amp;#x27;s really cool. If you have any questions about it, I can walk you through it (I understand most to all of it). My email is my hn username at gmail.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cletus</author><text>It sounds like the company made the right decision based on your words alone.&lt;p&gt;The tone of your description of their &amp;quot;CRUD applications&amp;quot; comes across as dismissive. What the company wants is people who are happy to work there or at least not unhappy enough to leave (and, even better, will keep their unhappiness to themselves). The company wants this more than technical ability. You might be really talented but it seems like you&amp;#x27;d be unhappy there. Perhaps that&amp;#x27;s not the case and you&amp;#x27;re just bitter about the rejection?&lt;p&gt;But don&amp;#x27;t make the mistake that the the sole purpose of recruiting is to find the most technically capable people. It&amp;#x27;s not. It never was and it never will be. It&amp;#x27;s to find people who will fit the company&amp;#x27;s goal of coming to work, doing their job, going home and doing the same thing day in and day out.&lt;p&gt;You may well be bored developing CRUD apps. If I was an interviewer for that company I&amp;#x27;d certainly be worried about that. Isn&amp;#x27;t that a possibility here?</text></comment>
<story><title>Lots of Job Hunting, but No Job, Despite Low Unemployment</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/business/economy/long-term-unemployed.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>melvinroest</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m honestly experiencing this as a CS grad in the Dutch job market. I find it weird and frustrating.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ve noticed why:&lt;p&gt;1. Companies don&amp;#x27;t dare to value creativity [1]. University is so liberal and the job market is so the opposite.&lt;p&gt;2. Most companies can&amp;#x27;t value a CS degree. The exception is when enough people in the company did a CS degree and that&amp;#x27;s a lot more rare than I thought.&lt;p&gt;3. University didn&amp;#x27;t teach me to focus on a portfolio and I got distracted with doing multiple degrees all at the same time fast-tracked (nobody cares that I fast-tracked), which (as you can see in point 2) proves that I&amp;#x27;m worth very little. It taught me a lot personally and made me smarter (in terms of crystalized intelligence). But my portfolio is rather terrible compared to what I&amp;#x27;m capable of.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll fix it, but right now I&amp;#x27;m just tired of being not called back (50% of the time) or rejected (the other 50%). I know I&amp;#x27;m capable, and pass the bar. I&amp;#x27;m not perfect, I&amp;#x27;m not the best, but I&amp;#x27;m capable.&lt;p&gt;[1] I created an app called Doodledocs which is a Canvas-based app that allows P2P privacy free collaborative doodling with a pressure sensitive stylus. In my interviews with companies they don&amp;#x27;t trust enough that I&amp;#x27;d be capable helping along with CRUD applications, because I didn&amp;#x27;t do any CRUD in the Doodledocs app. And I&amp;#x27;m just thinking: figuring out how to do WebRTC for free in a serverless manner (while seeing all of it for the first time) is a lot tougher than writing some models for a basic login system that you already know about (the same can be said for poking around in VMs in view libraries like Glimmer). Anyways, it&amp;#x27;s on a show HN right now see: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=21399910&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=21399910&lt;/a&gt; -- also for anyone who wants to do free WebRTC, check the Bugout library, it&amp;#x27;s really cool. If you have any questions about it, I can walk you through it (I understand most to all of it). My email is my hn username at gmail.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>csomar</author><text>I think 1. companies are burned out with CS grads who simply can&amp;#x27;t code 2. companies are burned out from new employees just learning the job and then jump somewhere else and 3. companies are looking to on-board you as fast as possible.&lt;p&gt;A few problems you should be working on:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; nobody cares that I fast-tracked&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; in terms of crystalized intelligence&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; But my portfolio is rather terrible&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; compared to what I&amp;#x27;m capable of [*hint: Unless you did something that you can&amp;#x27;t show publicly, what you are capable of is nothing if what you did in terms of production is nothing]&lt;p&gt;I think you are over-confident when it comes to your skills.</text></comment>