[PragmaticPulp]

When I mentor college grads, I always emphasize that they should not get too attached to any one specific job listing. Like it or not, getting a job is a lot like a sales process, and you can't close every deal. Putting all of your chips in one basket is a recipe for disappointment.

Regardless, about 1/3 of them fall in love with a specific job posting and lose a lot of time assuming their first choice will work out.

Everyone should treat the interviewing process like a numbers game. Apply to many companies. Don't get into a position where a single company decided to pass on you will destroy your finances or make it difficult to put food on the table. Don't become emotionally attached to companies before you've been hired.

[leto_ii]

> Don't become emotionally attached to companies before you've been hired.

The problem here is that as an applicant you're usually expected to show commitment, enthusiasm, passion for the work etc.

It's very hard to work yourself up about a job without actually caring about it. The underlying enormous asymetry of power between you and the employer means that what is strictly a numbers game for them will always have at least some emotional significance for you.

[PragmaticPulp]

From the hiring side of the table, I can tell you that we're not simply looking for over-eager candidates who are brimming with enthusiasm. We're looking for someone professional who can get the job done without being a pain to work with.

You don't have to show up with exaggerated, faked interested in the company or industry. In fact, it can come off as very fake if a candidate shows up and pretends they're supernaturally excited to work in our industry that they just learned about 2 days prior.

However, you can't expect to show up to a job interview and ooze disinterest and boredom and still be considered for the job.

Don't think of it as getting excited to work for a company. Think about it as getting to know your potential future coworkers. If you need to become emotionally invested in a company before applying, I'd strongly recommend that you work on breaking that habit before it makes your job search artificially difficult.

[leto_ii]

What people think they're looking for and what they're actually selecting for can be two different things.

Often the interview process is based on an expectation that, for example, you will exaggerate your previous achievements. Every past project you describe has to sound amazing, your cv has to seem like a carefully thought out career path that will culminate in the final fulfillment of some great life goal.

You can't just say that you took some job for the money or just to be in the same town as your girlfriend etc., you have to pretend it was some significant step on a path. Otherwise you sound like you're unmotivated, not serious about your career etc.

[eropple]

IME: you absolutely can say those things, and still get a job. They're often not even negatives. They just can't be all of the things you say.

My resume is, if you just look at it, not a "great" one. But it's good enough to get in the door, and then it's not really relevant anymore because we're then having a conversation about how I can bring value to the organization.

[itronitron]

The same goes for job postings. If the position description is gushing with enthusiasm over how exciting the company is to work for then that is a red flag in my book.

[PragmaticPulp]

The term "red flag" usually refers to a dealbreaker, like if the company tells you to expect working 7 days a week or that you need to answer e-mails urgently on weekends and holidays for no good reason.

I wouldn't rush to dismiss a company just because they let the HR person spruce up the job description with some boilerplate. You really need to talk to the team you'll be working with and the future manager you'll be working under.

Unfortunately, it's just not possible to tell what a job will be like by reading a job description. You have to talk to the teams.

[leto_ii]

With the risk of nitpicking, I think red-flag means a warning sign, not a deal breaker [1].

> Unfortunately, it's just not possible to tell what a job will be like by reading a job description.

While I agree completely, isn't this wrong though? Shouldn't a job description be well written? Isn't "sprucing up" just code for false advertising?

I for one have seen countless job descriptions that were a ridiculous exaggeration of the kind of work that you would actually have done. It's important to note that it always want one way: making the job sound a lot more interesting than it was and demanding a lot more skill than was actually needed. Nobody went overboard with downplaying things.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/red-flag

[WalterBright]

> enormous asymetry of power between you and the employer

I've sat on both sides of the table, and know that isn't accurate. If it was accurate, everybody would be working for minimum wage.

BTW, if you're unemployed because of the pandemic, the best use of your time is to level up your skills so you'll be in a stronger position once it's over.

[leto_ii]

> If it was accurate, everybody would be working for minimum wage.

A lot of people actually are working for (close to) minimum wage.

> BTW, if you're unemployed because of the pandemic, the best use of your time is to level up your skills

I am not, but your recommendation only highlights the inequality I was referring to. In your conception the entire burden is placed on individuals. Companies seem to have no responsibility to train people at all, that's smth you have to do on your own time for free.

[WalterBright]

> A lot of people actually are working for (close to) minimum wage.

2.1% of workers work for minimum wage.

> Companies seem to have no responsibility to train people at all,

They don't. Neither do people owe them fealty.

> that's smth you have to do on your own time for free.

Consider a company that decides to train you for 4 years while paying you. Then, you decide to leave and take a better offer elsewhere. A company cannot make you stay. Taking that on would be very risky and very expensive for any company.

"Companies" that do this tend to force you to work for them so many years afterwards, like the military.

[leto_ii]

> 2.1% of workers work for minimum wage.

I'm pretty sure that's the federal minimum wage. Many states have a higher bar [1]. Many people working for 10 bucks an hour will still be earning minimum wage in their respective state.

If you take a look at the nation-wide wage distribution, you'll see things don't look that good. At the 50'th percentile the income for a family with 2.56 people is 57k, before tax etc.

> They don't.

Maybe they should. In the end they're benefiting from all the education that you as an individual pay for (or that is state-supported) and from all of the extra training you're supposed to do on the side without remuneration.

> Neither do people owe them fealty.

On the other hand there's no reason why people should ever owe fealty to a corporation. Societies are (de jure and should be de facto) centered on human individuals, not on various legal fictions. Corporations have no natural rights and they are not people (despite what the US supreme court might say) - no need for a human being to owe them anything.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_wage_in_the_United_Sta...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United...

[WalterBright]

> In the end they're benefiting from all the education that you as an individual pay for

So are you, as you get paid more for the extra value the education imparted to you.

> no need for a human being to owe them anything.

You don't owe corporations anything, unless you made a deal with them and owe them your side of the deal. And vice versa. That's how free markets work.

[eropple]

> It's very hard to work yourself up about a job without actually caring about it.

I'm very lucky in that my current job hits on most of my skills as well as many of my non-work interests, and that's not a job I'd have to fake anything for, but it's not as if every startup coming down the pike is the greatest thing since sliced bread. This is a skill, and it is one that you can learn to be good at.

That enthusiasm is just the polite enthusiasm of a sales call. It may require a few minutes of reading and thinking (because tbh I also see a lot of folks who have no idea what a company does when they go in to interview), but it is almost always either a baseline "do they get what we do here?" check (which is what you can learn and practice for) or it is a cult you should avoid.

[MrPatan]

It's not "a lot like a sales process". It is a sales process.

[WalterBright]

So true. Everyone should read books on how to sell. It can make your life much better.

[kelnos]

I think your comment is missing the overall point.

If you have a communication line open with someone for some sort of transactional activity, you do not just drop off into oblivion. Ever. It's rude and disrespectful, full stop.

Yes, I agree that the interview process can be a numbers game: candidates should apply to many opportunities that fit their skills, and expect no interest from nearly all of them.

But if a candidate has received a response, and there's any kind of open dialog, no matter how minimal, then out of a sense of basic civility and respect, they deserve a reply, even if it's just a canned one-liner rejection.

That's the only decent thing to do. Anything else is disrespectful.

[PragmaticPulp]

I never said otherwise? I was responding to the specific of the parent comment.

Regardless of how the communication is flowing (or not), candidates shouldn't perform their job search as a serial process. Parallelize as much as possible and don't stop searching until you've been given a start date somewhere.

[HenryBemis]

> Everyone should treat the interviewing process like a numbers game

THAT!! Everyone should try and get as many interviews as possible. And a friendly and weird suggestion is this.. record your call (YOUR voice) and replay the mp3 later. And listen to what you said. 99% of the people never wonder what they said, never have mock interviews with a friend/colleague. You hear them on a call with a recruiter, it is a trainwreck, and you ask them and they think it was brilliant.

Feedback, feedback, feedback!