Ask HN: How can a unhireable person get a job?
Got a low level customer support role at Amazon. But I only made $15 with no health insurance. Found some flaws within the anti-fraud system at Amazon, and wrote a detailed e-mail to the VP in charge of the anti-fraud system. It was fixed by 1am. Also was concerned about support reps being able to access any customer's data simply by pressing 'bypass' on the security question promt page. I couldn't transfer internally until a year later as well. Would ping your manager each time you apply as well. Have to delete your emails constantly due to only having 1gb email space. Assessment was similar to the one I took for CIA. Cognitive based assessment.
I even got ghosted after a interview for a manual labor job at Home Depot. I tried cold contacting executives at a few companies. Got meeting with SVP at Dell, Cisco etc. was fruitless though. Spoofed number to bypass contact whitelist etc.
I welcome any and all advice that any of y'all could offer. Even if it's brutally candid. I need a job with decent health/dental insurance. Medicaid is useless. I might be homeless soon. I'm scared, and I don't know what to do. I'm afraid that I'll end up like Bill Landreth.
e: dude@member.fsf.org will reply with a different email address.
875 comments
[ 3.9 ms ] story [ 586 ms ] threadLife happens and reasons happen but you didn't complete college, you complain about your entry level position at amazon but I see nothing that warrants a greater position than that. Obviously this may not be everything about you so it's difficult to judge.
I have no degree, but worked hard, stuck to jobs for 2-3 years before moving and developed a track record that hiring managers like to see. That means working for $15/hr in a position that you feel is beneath you. The thing that position provides you valuable experience and showing you can stick with things. Companies that hire you put forth a significant investment that takes roughly a year to pay off. Employees don't always realize that. If you look like you won't stick around they won't hire you.
One of the most important thing, especially as a junior is to be likable and present your suggestions in a likable way. Also it's key to know when no one wants to hear your suggestions. Sometimes your perspective may be a new thing that was never thought of or it could be one sided, the business knows it and had accepted the risk but it's not within your knowledge scope to know that.
I do technical interviews for the company I work for. If you're not likable to me, you're probably not getting hired. If I get the impression that every interaction will be a dick measuring contest because you come off as a smarty pants, I'm not recommend hiring. Someone who's knowledgeable and humble is going to get my recommendation. If you're good, and know how to communicate well you'll naturally rise to lead a team because they'll look to you for answers or ideas and everyone will notice.
It really sounds like you need to "pay your dues" by showing that you can stick to something. That's either complete college and get a degree or work entry level for 2 years and move up or out to the next position.
Like I mentioned in other comments. I think HM's see me as a quitter. Also other baises like ageism etc. I think are apart of the issue. I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting those issues, especially since I found them within my frist two weeks. I think that I come off as demure. I take a long time to answer sometimes. Due to my sutter, and southern drawl etc. But I try to listen, and pay attention to detail. Learn when to shut up, and when input/insight is wanted etc.
Sometimes when I do receive rejection feedback it's mostly "overqualifed", "not a good fit", and "not enough experience". I received a rejection from state farm today stating that I'm not a good fit. Even though I meet the qualifcations.
You won't ever get a promotion within two weeks, especially not over a single instance of good work. Do it a hundred more times, then think about a promotion.
I think you seriously need to re-evaluate your expectations about this stuff.
This is really important. Not only will it make your time at a company much easier, it will increase your chances of promotion and it will make it easier to get future jobs as you will have one happy manager who is willing to vouch for how good you are.
Speaking as someone who has interviewed a few dozen candidates, this likely means you're rubbing people up the wrong way. Based solely on reading this comment alone:
> I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting those issues, especially since I found them within my frist two weeks
If I interviewed someone who told me they left their previous job because they weren't progressing after raising issues immediately after being hired, that would be a hard no from me.
This.
OP's tales convey the idea of someone who holds himself at an uniquely high esteem that's not shared by anyone who contacted directly with him.
I mean,it's highly unusual that someone that barely can land an entry-level customer support role and still fails to keep it would be able to meet the bar of any of the FANGS, specially when they value personal traits.
To make matters worse, in the few jobs he managed to land he proceeds to act in ways that antagonize their leadership,both direct and skip-level, and also create problems for everyone around instead of solving them.
Managers want to hire people to solve their problems and help move things forward, not create more problems and act as a blocker.
Hiring a person has a pretty high fixed cost for the company (in time spent setting things up, doing their end of the paperwork, making time to show you the ropes, etc.), and it's only worthwhile if it's an investment - i.e., if the person being hired stays.
Your resume gives an employer absolutely no reason to believe that you'll stay. So you have to be extremely convincing about that when you talk to them - that means you have to be extremely convincing that you'll be happy working at a job even if it's not the right fit for you, even if they don't recognize you as much as you think you deserve, even if the internal email system maxes out at 1 GB.
(The person who's hiring you almost certainly also has an ambition to a higher role, has been slighted for recognition before, and has their own complaints about the IT setup! I've never heard anyone say "My company is over-promoting me and our internal email system is too good." So if you give them any reason to believe that those sorts of things are dealbreakers for you, and not things that you too will put up with, they'll expect you to leave. They're not going to convince themselves it's fine to hire you because that problem won't happen here.)
For instance, if they ask you why you left Amazon, you'd better not be saying "I found an important problem and I didn't get recognition for it." Tell them you had a personal emergency or something.
Can I push on that a little? Lying is a Bad Move. There are, however, ways to finesse the conversation if it comes to that.
But there's literally no reason you can't just come out and say, "I wasn't getting benefits, and I need benefits." Honesty works there. It's fine to say, "I'm looking for a career with a brighter future than warehouse work, and I think I have the skills to work here because {insert experience}."
I'm not a frequently flyer on either side of the interviewing table, so I don't know for sure how this sort of advice sounds, but when I interview I expect honesty. If the process isn't candid, neither party is happy and there's a lot of wasted time and money on both sides.
I don't advocate lying (and as a personal quirk I'm very unlikely to tell an outright lie). But it's going to be very difficult to explain why you left all of those jobs in a way that doesn't scare an employer. If you can drive the conversation to roughly "it was a bad time in my life," that seems a) basically true b) personal enough that it'd be unprofessional for the interviewer to probe for details c) unlikely to make the interviewer fear that it will be an ongoing problem.
I guess the real advice here is, come up with an answer for this very foreseeable question, which you can say with a straight face and without getting yourself into more trouble.
If you work at a place for two months, don't put it on the resume?
If you have a gap in your employment, you need to be able to talk about that, but you don't have to talk about each stop.
In an interview, I'll ask about gaps. One ran something like, "I was laid off in {year} and took {weeks} to recover. It took me {months} to find a job at {company}. I took the role because of my financial situation, but I'm interested in you because I think our situations overlap better." That's not quite verbatim, but similar to what I had with someone we hired (I was part of the interview team, but I've never been a hiring manager). It didn't raise any red flags to me. His experience at his prior employer wasn't good, but he communicated effectively that he felt like we'd be a better fit, and we were.
Anecdotally, we had a candidate come in who was junior but pretty well educated. A thin resume in his situation would have been fine: we understood where he was coming from. I perceived a little insecurity from the two-page resume that could've been reduced to a few line items with a stronger emphasis on skills he brought to the table, and with a little probing on technical matters found that his purported experience was not what I would've expected from his background. Less in this case would've been more.
I don't know the OP from Adam, so I'd hesitate to offer much advice here; from the comments I'd think that there's a good reason to talk to a good counselor about the personal background and challenges and address the professional retooling after: but that's hard when you're down on your luck without money. Churches often offer this sort of service, but reading between the lines I'd guess that may not be an avenue for the OP.
Professionally I'd concentrate on starting over or looking to see if there are trade schools that would accommodate. One local to me is completely free and would provide a skillset for at least earning a living while trying to pursue other interests.
Now, that might actually be the right answer in this case (your "starting over" suggestion, more or less).
E.g.
"Why did you leave Company X?"
"I hated it and was fired for low performance. But I'm much better now!" said no one ever.
Say "family emergency" and they'll always take you at your word and leave it at that. Just don't overdo it -- more than one of those might look a little fishy.
I suppose that's an opinion, though I disagree.
There are certain things, for example, that an HR rep is not allowed to ask you by reason of law. I omit questions and don't volunteer information like that all the time; is that a lie? I also never, or rarely, volunteer my current salary; is that a lie?
It's always the case that different perspectives tell the same story in different ways, and part of what OP may need is a changed perspective.
If I were fired from a job for cause, it's likely that I'd need to have an explanation. Not all places will check references or confirm employment history, but were I a hiring manager I would. If that came up I'd want to chat with references and the candidate about the situation.
The problem is that (a) you should have noticed the lack of benefits before you accepted the job, and (b) it doesn't make any sense to quit due to lack of benefits without another job lined up that does provide benefits.
You need to be a fulltime dev somewhere, and without a degree (let alone from a great school) or experience, you're not aiming at a company likely to hire someone like you. Startups won't either; to be blunt, you're a giant project I would have to pour senior engineering time into to maybe get a competent junior dev on the far side. If you don't flake again.
My suggestion is either a coding bootcamp (I've hired out of appacademy.io), or finding a company big enough to have (super) junior engineers -- meaning a devteam probably 75+ -- and impressing someone enough to get a job there. Then you need to bust ass for the next two years, and show a hiring manager elsewhere that you're worth taking a shot on.
You MUST show your programming skills.
How?
* Github. I spent 4 months programming a project in NodeJS, ReactJS, Postgres, (+ html/css of course) on Linux. I posted the code on Github for the world to see. Within 2 weeks I was hired to my first 100% programming job: $80k, on 1099 contract. Two months later, I was hired on salary at $105k by a different company. Once I had those on my resume, plus the github code, and the two next bullet points, recruiters began contacting me. Sure, no one paid me for those 4 months, and it was a grind, but now they certainly do pay me.
* A web portfolio. Web Dev is my bread and butter. How could I call myself a Web Dev without my own website?
* LinkedIn presence + LinkedIn Connections
To build skills:
* Udemy.com , Youtube, other video sites (google "sites like udemy" for more)
* IRC --> Google "nodejs community" and you'll find there's an IRC chatroom filled with hundreds of Node devs, many of whom are experts & work at major tech companies. There are also chatrooms on Discord and Slack, besides IRC. And they offer chatrooms in many languages & frameworks
* eBooks. Free ones.
I actually attended a bootcamp for 1 week, but thought it was over priced and didn't provide much instruction (25 students, 2 instructors, sometimes only 1 instructor. After a lecture on a topic, I'd spend 95% of the day just googling stuff. Also, the lessons were not structured in a pedagogical way in my experience there. That said, it was just after bootcamps became a thing-- I was one of the first cohorts at the one I attended).
So, I dropped out after the first week and was refunded remaining tuition. I went back to the workforce and learned dev part-time.
Bootcamps seem to be about 12 weeks (that's 3 months) plus about $12,000 or so. Whereas I took 4 months & paid zero. But that said, I already knew how to program when I started my project.
The project was more about showing strangers that I had the skills I claimed to have.
Take this with a grain of salt, since obviously I don't actually know you or the details of this situation. However, flagging issues to your boss' boss is rarely the best way to leave a good impression. It mostly signals you have problems working within the structure of the company and you're a 'troublemaker'. Whether that's fair or not, is not too relevant. You might get away with these things if you already have a lot of credibility, but since this was in your first 2 weeks, that's unlikely to be the case.
Your post also gave off some vibes of feeling too good for the job assigned to you. Again, I don't actually know you, so I might be misreading it, but if you give that impression during interviews, you'll have a hard time getting hired. Do you have any friends you could ask to do mock interviews with you? They could give you feedback on not just the quality of your answers, but also the way you answer.
Edit: Oh thought of one more comment regarding expecting to get rewarded for calling out issues. Typically it's not the person calling out the problems that gets rewarded, but the person that fixes them. Just calling this out, since you might be under the impression that you are adding a lot of value, while your boss might not see it that way. Honestly, the best way to add value is to do the job assigned to you. If you want to stand out, do it better and faster than expected.
It's good to be observable but just because your idea hasn't been implemented before doesn't mean no one has thought about it. At big companies there is friction in place for any change.
As someone new I think the best way to bring up something you notice is to ask your manager or a peer something like "Hey, I noticed we're not doing X and it could be a problem. Is there a reason for that?" That will allow them to fill you in on the context and organizational history.
If you bring up an idea, especially if it's been discussed many times before, and start raving about how it should be implemented, your co-workers are going to lose a lot of respect for you because you haven't taken a chance to learn first.
It comes down to you not having much power to fix anything as a child and parents who praise you for pointing out significant issues.
Anyways, it's not how society or workplaces work.
I'm currently mentoring a person who is transitioning into an engineering manager and this person has a noticeable stutter, but is an incredible candidate. If you don't like your southern drawl, change it. I'm from a place with a very strong accent but you'd never know it.
If you're getting a rejection to an application like "overqualified" or "not a good fit" it likely means your resume wasn't tailored to the position or there is something unbelievable about it.
And no one gets promoted in the first year.
Dude. What are you thinking? You get hired in a CS role and you're raising red flags about security issues and expecting more than a pat on the back?
I've been a supervisor. Trainer. CS agent. Let me tell you what I see: A guy comes in with tons of supposed experience but gets a CS job. All he does is talk about what an awesome dev he is and all the work he's done. Highly opinionated, and feels he's above the job but "Hey I gotta work so I'll do whatever I can for now." Nice. Not.
Two weeks in he sees a security issue. Does he bring it to me? No, he sends a detailed e-mail to the VP in charge of the anti-fraud system. Scratch "team player" off the list. And now he wants something more than a pat on the back? He went above and beyond in finding an issue but didn't follow the proper channels to report it and then expects a promotion to another department before he's even had his 90 day review? WTH?
I've managed folks who've pulled crap like this, and I was not impressed. You need to learn your place and get off your pedestal. If you're going to sit at the right hand of the king, by all means aim for it! But don't start off by showing off and telling the king all the reasons YOU should be his right hand man. Instead, work your way up patiently. If you're "all that", then he will choose you.
TL;DR: Humble yourself. Do the job your were hired for and do it well! Work your way up by proving you deserve it, not by insisting that you deserve it. Promotions are earned.
Dude, don't take this the wrong way but the workplace (and the world) do not operate the way you think they do. Your expectations are wildly out of line with reality. You need to adjust your expectations and learn some humility.
I am also confused about how you've never worked anywhere for more then two months but were also constantly maxing out your 1GB email quota in those two months? BTW, in the corporate world 1GB email quota is on the high end.
> I felt like that I should've got promoted after reporting those issues, especially since I found them within my frist two weeks.
> Even though I meet the qualifcations.
Your pattern of reasoning about your professional past seems to involve saying what you think "should have" happened as a result of your presupposition of deservedness, rather than considering how your approach might have effected the outcome negatively.
For example, finding a security bug in the first few weeks of a job is usually not a basis for promotion anywhere. Promotion is usually based on consistent dedication to improving something for the company or team over a long period of time.
This takes not only technical, but also emotional and interpersonal skills and awareness as others have mentioned, and the ability to balance your immediate personal desire for a promotion (which we all share) with the goals of the team or organization.
Basically, to progress in your career, you need both the grit to put your nose to the grindstone to stick through the tough part of any job, while also being open to others both in the technical and social sense, and developing a mindset of gratitude for all experiences, which is essential for learning.
Many of us have taken jobs we don't love, or that aren't at A-list employers, while simultaneously laying the groundwork for our personal growth. I spent a summer when in college literally filing the metal cases of networking equipment at a no-name network switch maker - effectively manual labor.
Sure, it wasn't a Google internship, but it sure taught me a lot about work, and I got to talk to some great network hardware and software engineers about their jobs. I work at Google today and sometimes when I have to do something that tests my need for instant gratification, I remember that experience and I'm grateful that I had it.
Don't have a friend? Hire someone. A friend cannot do mock interviews? Hand them a list of 10 questions that you remember from all those previous attempts and tell them to read it in solemn voice.
Nowadays the interviews are remote. Let a friend observe your interview and then ask their opinion. (I think recording these might be likely illegal? idk)
I did a mock interview with a friend a while back. But good suggestions for sure.
Or ask not-a-friend. A random person who is skilled in interviewing and doesn't have a personal relationship with you may give you more true answers.
Also, you seem to be listing big name tech companies and startups. Have you tried looking at non-tech companies? Sometimes the medium to small non-tech companies are more forgiving about not having a degree.
I'm not sure where you are located, but maybe look at jobs in other regions. Sometimes you can take a lower paying job in a cheaper region (with less competition) and do well.
I've tried applying to some smaller companies who might be willing to take a risk on me. Haven't had any better luck with those. I live in the south, there aren't a lot of tech companies local to me. Just oil/gas companies.
Don't be the type of person who says that. Be the type of person who says "I didn't know how to do that so I spent 30 seconds Googling it and now I do."
I don't think I'm a know it all. I'm only in my early 20s. I definitely have a lot to learn, and I'm receptive to new stuff.
Do you mean ... ageism against young people? I think from what it sounds like your expectation of compensation might be a little inflated based on your experience. Straight out of university I took a junior grad job that paid peanuts, but stuck with it for about 2 years and that was a solid basis to move somewhere that was a much better work environment and paid better.
I think as another poster may have said, you probably just need to stick it out with something for a couple of years to get that solid basis. As you say, if you're in your early twenties you have plenty of time and it's just the start of your career!
Also, at least in tech, almost no company will have made any serious attempt to evaluate your contributions after two months. It's assumed you're still figuring things out (both technical and social/political) and not making meaningful contributions until well past that point, and the nature of things you'll do even two years into a job are qualitatively different from those you're doing two months in (even if you are finding things that are valuable to do). So they don't have the data to re-evaluate you two months in, even if they had the process.
It is of course technically possible for someone sufficiently senior at the company (like, head of HR, C-suite, etc.) to override the standard process. But why should they do that for you? It's generally not in their interest, because it will endanger their own relationships with all the people under them implementing the standard process, even if it's the right decision, and they have no reason to be confident that it's the right decision.
I think that's something you need to figure out. What happened with the SVP/CISO phone calls that you mentioned in your post? What did you tell these people, whose job isn't recruiting candidates (there's a whole different department for that), to convince them to bypass the usual process and stick their own necks out and risk their own position to get you into the system? What did they say in return?
As other comments have mentioned you have to stick to something for a while. You didn't even finish school so you cant even say "At least I stuck with my degree". The way you read to me is that you will jump ship the moment you aren't liking something.
> I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation
Two things about this:
If you don't feel the compensation is appropriate you shouldn't take the job in the first place. If you've been somewhere for a while and been a high contributor then ask for a raise. Two months isn't nearly long enough to make that assessment.
Also you say you contribute "a lot" but I'm betting that it's not as much as you think. It probably only feels like a lot because you haven't ever stuck around anywhere long enough to see what "a lot" looks like. Hint: It's a marathon, not a sprint.
If I were you I'd try and get one solid year of a job on my resume, to start with. You said you're worried about becoming homeless anyway- why would you quit a $15/hour job if you don't have anything else lined up? Unless it's just a really toxic/destructive situation, that seems like a mistake. Paying the bills for the time being and building up some solid work experience seem like aligned goals right now. The healthcare thing is unfortunate (it's unfortunate that anybody in our society has to be in that position), but I don't think quitting without another offer is going to help.
Best of luck.
I had a stint of about 2 years of job hopping every 3-6 months at the beginning of my career. Worked great for me every time.
The trick is to get the new job while you still are employed, not quitting and then looking for something new. Employed = attractive to other employers, but still a bit of a red flag. Unemployed = just a big red flag.
Once you cross the 5-7 years of experience mark companies will start to ask the question more pointedly as 1.5 years roughly corresponds with a performance review cycle. We all know engineers who have failed upwards or outwards for years but are competent enough to pass an interview and personable enough not to be fired. Senior level positions also tend to involve multi-year commitments that the company needs to know you're onboard for.
You need to work somewhere, literally anywhere, for at least a year.
Hiring and on boarding is expensive, such that virtually no software companies are getting any ROI for someone who is there for two months or less. I get you may have had impact early on at these places, but I guarantee they all still lost money on you.
tldr; on paper you're a losing bet, build a history of being a winning bet and more companies will come around.
I don't understand. Aren't tech jobs generally in favor of young people? I've heard ageism against old people, but not the other way around. I guess you're mistakenly associating people's negative reactions with your age?
There's also a wealth of employeres who will hire people for below-market pay, and those are exactly the type of people who need to prove themselves and can't really afford to leave the job. It's kind of a catch-22, and hard to empathize with people in this situation once you've earned your stripes and feel you're past it.
The problem with OP is that they haven't been able to get the kind of job where they really respect your abilities. But they haven't gone through the grind to show prospective employers they're worth that.
I get it, that grind is really demoralizing, stressful, and stacked in favour of the employers. If you're actually capable of doing work that commands higher pay, but you don't have the network, the social skills, or the qualifications (including work history and references), I get why you'd feel jaded. I was in the same boat 6 years ago and still haven't fully shaken the mentality its left me with.
Anyway, just wanted to remind those of you who have distanced yourselves enough from that period of your lives, or who maybe skipped it altogether with recognition in the form of a degree or open-source contributions, that ageism definitely swings the other way as well.
Compensation is a negotiation game, so go and learn to negotiate well. One key aspect is to understand the perspective of the other side. In this particular case, you would learn that giving pay raises "out of cycle" is a pain for all involved, and a manager doesn't want to discuss salary every time a report of his does something great.
If you want something, make it easier for others to give it to you.
I don't hire people to promote them in two months. If I thought they were going to be up for promotion that quickly I'd have hired them at the next level up to start with.
Similarly, how can you feel like you're not getting appropriate compensation when sixty days ago you agreed to that wage? Everyone contributes a lot, that's what they're paid to do. Most large orgs of the type you've listed have set promotion cycles and nothing you do short of buying the damn company is going to get you special consideration for that.
Also, ageism doesn't really work that way for lower-level jobs like you've described. People in tech are not afraid to hand responsibility to a young employee who has demonstrated responsibility. Related: you cannot possibly demonstrate responsibility in two months. Two months is essentially zero hours of tenure. I don't even consider an engineer fully onboarded before they've been here a year.
I think you need to focus on strategic thinking rather than ladder-climbing at your next job. Get a foot in the door and then start asking yourself how your contributions can align with the strategic goals of your org, then work along those directions. Keep your sense of entitlement tamped down, because most managers do not want to hear it, but pursue opportunities within the org as they come your way.
At this point you need to hold a job for at least five years just as damage control for your resume. By then I think you'll have a better sense of how to handle these places.
Friend, this here's the problem. Consider that a working environment _when it's going well_ is a mutually supporting cooperation of individuals to some basic end. Could be you're creating something new, could be you're maintaining something but, the big thing to understand is, you're doing it with other people and you're all relying on one another _to do your share_. Ageism, Southern accents (hidy, fellow Southerner) and other biases haven't got anything on this one problem: you quit. Two months in isn't anything, even if you are talented and, to be blunt about it, two months isn't enough time to develop anything but a surface level understanding of something. There's no way to look at a resume with a string of 2-month stints and think that you'll be around to _do your work_ and that'll impact the team.
Hell, a few years ago I did a very short stint -- something like six months -- at Unity, moved on to Dropbox with my team from Unity and then got fired from Dropbox within four months. At this point I had 15+ years in my career and when I was searching for jobs _everyone_ asked me to explain why I'd switched jobs so rapidly. It's just a big red flag, even if you're someone that has shown they'll come and do the work all the rest of your career.
> I contribute a lot...
This contradicts you working no more than two months. _You_ might feel like you contribute a lot but I would suggest that if you stuck out a job for a year and then considered what you'd got done in that year what you see as "a lot" now won't seem like much.
> and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation.
Tell you what, in my heart of hearts I feel like everyone ought to make a living wage no matter how unstable of an employee they are and no matter how inflated their sense of their work is. But, in the US that's not the system we have. Your compensation is some function of the employer's sense of your worth derived from your past work history, what you negotiate for and a discounting based on your perceived risk to the employer. Someone that will not work for more than two months is a _very_ risky employee and will get a heavy discount on their compensation for the first year because of it, at least. You probably are getting appropriate compensation in this system of ours based on how unreliable you are.
It seems to me from what you've said here that you've dug yourself into a very deep hole. I don't know why you have done this, friend, but you have. If you're near homeless suggestions to do Bootcamps or finish schooling -- while _extremely_ valid, you should eventually do one of these things -- are probably too late in the game for you. I second recommendations to reach out to headhunters and land yourself any kind of gig and then stick with _whatever_ you get. Pay's going to be shit because you're a risky hire. Don't prove to be a risky hire. Keep doing good work, consistently. After a year, ask for a raise. See about finishing your schooling but DO NOT QUIT YOUR JOB. After a _few years_ start interviewing for another gig without quitting your job first. People are going to ask you about your resume of 2-month stints and you'll have to explain it as a thing you've grown out of, because if you get to this point you will have done.
Godspeed. My email's in my profile if any of this has struck a chord and you'd like to talk or what not.
2 months each job? holy shnizzle nobody will hire you like that. Next gig you get better suck it up for 2 years. I don't care how you don't like it. 2 months is barely enough for a ramp up. Have the fortitude and tenacity to stay on something even if it sucks. Remember your parent's stories "back in the day i walked 10 miles to school barefooted blah blah blah". That's the equivaalent of staying 2-3 years in a job. Everyone knows a job sucks even at FAANG companies.
Why do you feel like if you do more they have to pay you more? You agreed to give an employer 40 hours of your time to perform the responsibilities the job requires in exchange for an agreed upon, fixed amount of money. That's what the agreement between you and the employer is.
If you have other expectations, you should negotiate them before accepting the offer. Don't like the offer? Don't accept it. Once you accept it though, stick to your word, don't change the terms 2 months in because you feel like it.
Corporations just don't think the way you seem to - you don't get rewarded for A+ grades. You get the same paycheck. That's the default for most people at your level.
Don't set yourself up for failure by going into a job thinking you'll do more and get more money. You won't at first, and definitely not within 2 months. Maybe after 2 years as a promotion, but that means you have to work at the same company in the same position for 2+ years.
2) Don't talk about how you spotted some system deficiency three levels above you and reported it. That's just going to creep people out. And that is NOT the sort of thing that makes a manager think you're Good Will Hunting and say "What's that genius doing in the call center cubicles? Get him an office and insurance right away!" Instead they are 100x more likely to say "Yes, drone, we're all well aware of that issue, get back on the phones."
3) You're cold-contacting SVPs at Dell? Spoofing contact whitelists to get through their phone systems? Yeah, this isn't "War Games," so you're about 1000x more likely to anger somebody than you are to impress them with your skillz. There are the "normal" channels of getting a job (the HR application route) and the "usual" channels (having a friend at the company get you hired)... but anything else (walking into an SVP's suite) is really, really unlikely to help.
I mean this well -- twenty years ago, I was a college freshman dropout with no portfolio, no connections, and a rural drawl -- so you CAN succeed. But I had some rough years and I had to put in my dues as an entry-level help desk grunt before rising up as a sysadmin.
* Get some sort of stable job and don't quit it until a year has gone by AND you have a signed offer letter in hand for a provably better job.
* Don't give up on Medicaid! In most states and most scenarios, you're MUCH more likely to get decent subsidized ACA healthcare than you are to find a job that gives you insurance within 90 days, let alone 30 days. But you gotta do the research and the legwork.
Now that I think about it I'm not sure how to actually seek one out otherwise... you might attract them by putting buzzwords on your LinkedIn? It probably isn't too hard to Google for them either
I've never had one that did this (or told me about it, at least). My understanding was that the company is basically paying them to find talent, so you're the product being sold. Sometimes there's even a clause that if you quit too soon they have to give back their commission, which further incentivizes them to make sure you really are a good fit.
You don't pay someone less because they came via a recruiter because then they are going to be poached for being underpaid. You also don't pay someone more because they didn't come in via a recruiter otherwise now I have guys working on varying salaries which creates issues if that comes out in a team.
source: prior founder, hiring manager at large companies, etc
EDIT: based on the first reply I got I want to revise this slightly. Don't go into too much detail about who rejected you or how many times. In fact keep the details short but make it clear you think interviewing is a weakness they should coach you with
(Note that this only applies to recruiting agencies. A "recruiter" at the company you're interviewing for is the exact opposite story.)
Honestly, just a guess, you're probably giving off bad interpersonal vibes/people don't really like talking to you. Half of interviewing is just being very personable/being able to talk comfortably with other people. Generally in this space (this space meaning those interested in tech/startups/etc) sometimes people struggle in this area but really shine in tech. I would encourage you to spend some time reflecting on your interpersonal skills.
Some other red-ish flags from your post - you kinda seem like you might struggle just doing exactly what you're asked to do. Bringing up how frequently you quit things for various reasons or finding issues and bringing them up with your superiors' superiors, spoofing numbers to get in touch with very very senior people. Lots of lower-tiered jobs literally just need people to show up and do what they're asked. A part of getting a "first" or "entry level" job is accepting you're there mostly to learn, not to teach/move outside of your lane. The fact that you would even bring up Bill Landreth seems like you might not necessarily see yourself how the rest of the world sees you.
I'm not trying to offend you - I really hope you can line something up soon. I apologize if this feedback seems cold - I think reflecting on things like this can be hard because you have to face things about yourself you may disagree with or not realize. Unfortunately interviewing is such a biased game, you kind of have to play your opponent (meaning, be the person they want, not the person you are).
Happy to chat through any of this stuff if you have questions. Wish you all the best.
I like that one. I've done interviews where the answer should be at most a summary sentence, and 2-3 supporting points. I know the candidate knows the answer, it's a warmup question! Then what do I get? Word salad. A gigantic run-on sentence where the candidate talks and talks and talks and this, and that, and also, and furthermore... lasting 5 minutes or until I politely interrupt with, "OK let's move on to the next question."
When I was young I interviewed at Microsoft and was rejected. I asked the recruiter for feedback. She talked me through some of the feedback from the interviewers and gave me advice for the future. It was really helpful.
And in my experience, if you fail the technical portion of an interview, most companies will tell you. Meaning, if you ask and they don't bring up technical skills, it's probably not the technical skills.
(I'd hope it would be close to 0, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was much higher.)
It's also virtually always social skill related... if you weren't up to the task technically, you wouldn't have been asked to interview. The in person interview is normally to decide "do I want to see this person 40+ hours a week for the next 5 years" rather than "can they do the job."
Lots of exceptions obviously but mostly true across the board.
There are a lot of flaws in the way interviews are done in our industry that make it more subjective than it should be, but I still wouldn't consider the latter set of problems to be social skill related.
That's why we have discussions like this: https://blog.codinghorror.com/why-cant-programmers-program/.
If validating their technical qualifications is not the point of the interview, are you really only interviewing candidates to see if people like their social skills? That sounds legally shady for most cases, and honestly for extreme cases where there's a valid concern that IS the kind of thing I'd expect to be filtered out by an introductory call with a manager or something.
The phone screen should cover lots of technical areas with deep follow up questions and examples.
I work in a specific niche (not coding) and can tell you that I bat .1000 on technical fit... cultural fit cannot be assessed until you meet the person and they meet the team, or at a minimum, hiring manager.
Otherwise we miss interviewing people who can do the job, and in my experience, some of the most interesting people; but this means, one may sometimes be interviewing people that cannot do the job.
Since these are human-mediated processes, there is no accurate single-stage filter, and anyone claiming to operate an unbiased hiring process is either a fool or a liar. A hiring funnel (and really, any decision process) that recognises the inevitability of biases, and is phased accordingly, leads to more optimal outcomes.
I'm not saying no human should be involved. I'm saying an excellent human should screen candidates in a phone (or Teams or Zoom or whatever) interview before they are invited to sit across from you at your desk or in a conference room.
If you find yourself sitting across from someone who cannot technically do the job, your step one has failed (and should never fail).
If you don't hire someone because their in-person interview didn't go well, it is social skill (or cultural fit) related.
If that's not the case, reference step one to see that you have an error in who you are inviting for in-person interviews (or your phone screener should not be the person phone screening).
"If you find yourself sitting across from someone who cannot technically do the job, your step one has failed (and should never fail)."
The suggestion that any screening test must be infallible is simply nonsense, since simultaneous perfect specificity and sensitivity is impossible, and contradicts numerous findings in decision-theoretic research, and I therefore simply and absolutely disagree. All processes fail, and in particular, because individual process steps fail; it merely remains to determine whether you're biased for showing interesting people the door, or inviting them in to take a closer look. This is also the essence of a screening test in, say, medicine, that are necessarily biased to be sensitive over specific, since a false rejection of a patient may be health threatening; more specific (and generally more expensive) testing follows. Or perhaps in sales, where a lead attracts ever more attention as it moves through the qualification funnel.
As I say, these are general consequences of decision theory, a branch of mathematics to which hiring has no magical exemption.
Ergo, anyone claiming their screening is infallible is either a fool or a liar. Sadly, many recruiters are both, which partially explains why so many HR departments are essentially a mediocrity police that create barriers to accessing the entire talent pool. These are not to be trusted (and must, therefore, be bypassed at the earliest opportunity) when in comes to building teams of heterogeneous and interesting people with complementary skills and diverse perspectives, which is to say, any high-performance team, or at least every high-performing team I've been privileged to encounter in the last forty years.
Incidentally, my experience at AWS was the opposite. The talent acquisition team there, at least that assisting my own business unit, was very much on the ball when it came to pulling in candidates from left-field.
When we meet after an interview round "meh" is a much more common collective reaction than "run away now."
It is better to keep quiet about negative feedback in the lawsuit-heavy culture we inhabit.
Reason that I mentioned that I mentioned Bill Landreth was that I think that I'm kinda like him. I got in to programming, RE, VR, soldering etc. when I was very young. Like 8 years old. I knew some folks that Wired articles were written about etc. I hanged out with a Head of Research guy at IBM who told me himself that I know some stuff that he doesn't know, and have told me that I'm smart. Which sounds cringy now that I type this. But I'm not delusional lol. I was the second person at 18 years old to be hired full-time at IBM in a certain program.. The first guy works at Armonk. I can send proof, screenshots of interview emails with DKIM etc. if anyone would like to verify my claims. Trust but verify as former president Reagan liked to quote.
You’ve started a great dialog with yourself. Congrats, and keep it going.
In another post you brought up your longest stint being 2 months, and that you dropped out of college your freshman year. To be blunt, I don't think the achievements you list really count if you didn't actually complete them. There's a lot of "I worked with", "I got accepted to", "I got hired by" in your posts, but pretty much all of those things are followed by quitting almost immediately. When you're competing in a market with college grads and people with lots of previous experience, having gotten accepted to and then dropping out of a good school buys you much?
With an abusive childhood, homeschooling, no college, OP has a long road to travel. That all needs to be addressed, and finding a supportive environment will make that much easier. A career is based on achievement, however, beginning with simply doing the work and staying employed.
It's tough all around I think. It seems like OP might've observed signaling in the past that suggested that "appearing to be a good candidate" and "being a good candidate" are identical, and in actuality are usually not. It's tough because of nepotism, sometimes appearing to be a good candidate is good enough, but for most people you actually have to be at least close to as good a candidate as you appear to be. Meaning, if you include that you went to X university, you actually have to have worked through a substantial amount of that university's curriculum. Same with any internship/program/whatever - there's almost no value in having just been invited to attend.
Many jobs do not require much intelligence. Even those that do, usually its just one component of the skills required.
That's reading too far IMO. I see no mention of a degree at a reputable college. I see experience in support/QA, that has no relevance to the work of a developer (and it didn't go well apparently).
I don't expect that sort of profile to be invited to job interviews. The job market is brutal.
Meaning, if they're making it to an interview, they might be failing at a personality/conversational portion, and if they're not, it's probably because their resume/achievements do not get them to the next interview phase.
I definitely quit my first job because of that. My second job was better, but there wasn't all that much to learn, so I quit relatively soon. Now I'm on my third job, and there definitely hasn't been a lot of intellectual stimulation these days. Last time for something (that I was actually assigned and didn't just decide to do) was maybe late last year? The job itself pays well though and has some other perks.
I doubt there are many jobs that are interesting 100% of time. Better try to accept that.
Also most of my recommendations were rejected on my first job (large company), but most or even all were incorporated at my second job (startup).
@OP Did you mostly apply at well-known companies? Maybe go for a startup instead. Maybe you'll even be able to start a new department and not run out of stuff to do to keep yourself interested.
Focus on smaller companies that need help solving actual business problems with automation. Offer to do a project for $20 an hour. Get a job doing straight up IT stuff until you earn their trust, and then show them what you can do software wise. There is a lot of room for competent IT people, but you need to be way more realistic about who is going to hire you.
Honestly, I don't know why anyone wants to work for Google anyways. I took a developer course from one of their former employees, and it was a fucking joke. His ego trip was so ridiculous he said the words "no good Javascript developer uses four space indentions. Have you ever seen one??" And I was thinking, yes, in the library you had us review last week.
Lots of imposters and jackasses out there. Do honest work for smaller companies. It can lead to a lot more opportunity.
I can tell you why - www.levels.fyi
Google is quite literally one of the most well-known and powerful tech companies in the world - I assume it's not that hard to think people who work in tech would want to associate with an organization int hat position.
---
I don't understand your basis of judging the skills of their engineers either. You had one data point of taking a course from a former engineer - not working together with, not a current Googler. Google employs thousands of Software Engineers and represent a large part of the Internet.
Through hard work and some dumb luck, I've also interacted with other Fortune 10/50 corporations at the VP level. I wasn't impressed with them either. So it's not just an anti-Google thing.
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/technology/google-used-d...
< Proceeds to give advice on HN >
This part doesn't really seem worthwhile to post.
> Focus on smaller companies that need help solving actual business problems with automation. Offer to do a project for $20 an hour. Get a job doing straight up IT stuff until you earn their trust, and then show them what you can do software wise. There is a lot of room for competent IT people, but you need to be way more realistic about who is going to hire you.
Excellent advice.
Thirding this. Smaller companies are easier to get into and actually more satisfying to work for (YMMV). Another responder also said basically "keep your head down and learn for the first year" which is great advice too.
I restrict my social media time to a couple of hours a week. If you want to be successful, hustle on LinkedIn. HackerNews is a procrastination hole for people who want to talk about developing software instead of actually doing it.
LinkedIn is basically facebook. I would argue that anything Facebook-esque is a fundamental waste of time. Misinformation spewing influencer spam.
Also, I'm still curious on how many recruiters have contacted you through Facebook and viewed your resume, as compared to LinkedIn.
Do you think influencers go on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram because they aren't getting paid? They just like it?
> Also, I'm still curious on how many recruiters have contacted you through Facebook and viewed your resume, as compared to LinkedIn.
To compare, the answer is 0 to both. I haven't been on Facebook since probably 2013, and I only had a LI at all because we were required to make one in college, which I logged into for the second time ever to deactivate also probably around 2013.
I am, which is why I totally ignore LinkedIn :)
> Why are you so interested in chiming in on products you haven't used in 8 years?
I didn't realize I wasn't allowed to post verifiable information about products unless I also participated.
Your comments seem to be increasingly condescending and short. You're welcome to take that behavior to LI, but I will not continue participating in this discussion. Have a great day.
Bill Landreth was homeless in Santa Monica in 2016[1]. Plenty of smart people have ended up the same way.
I think you might be making the mistake of thinking that being smart matters. It doesn't matter very much - if the outcome is "success" (whatever that means) then generally speaking having people like you is a better predictor than being smart.
Do people like you? If not then fix that. Read "How to win friends and influence people" and follow the advice.
[1] https://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-untold-story-of-the-teen...
If you can't get hired at a place there is a gig economy of sorts with lots of sites where you can bid yourself on projects. Start with small easy stuff and use those projects to build a portfolio.
I about a year that portfolio should be enough to get you in the door (for entry level developer roles) of most companies even if you have never worked as a programmer yet.
For applications and interviews for the people hiring it is all about perception and reducing risk. When hiring managers/assistants go through the piles of applications they throw away any with red flags, or at best put them in the maybe pile. If a lot of non-red flag applications they discard the maybes as well.
Don't have red flags, or at least camouflage them as best you can on the CV, don't lie though.
In the interviews don't raise red flags either. Some of your original post and comments are potential red flags to me. Practice interviews over and over again, and have ready made answers to all awkward possible questions. No excuses though, make them a good thing for some reason.
I suck at the first interview I do every time I go through the finding-a-new-job/contract process. But by the 2nd, perhaps 3rd, I have remembered the fine art of interviewing, and regurgitate the same practised answers over and over again, and mostly get offered the jobs. Practice.
Don't have gaps on your CV. I have gaps on my CV, but you can't really spot them. E.g. I removed mentioning months to just state the calendar years I was at companies. Sometimes there was a 6 months gaps but you can't tell. I also took a long time off to help when the kids were young. On my CV I just list the smaller projects I was working on at the time instead, even if that was just 10 hours a week. It is all about perception for the person skim-reading your CV.
Ps. in an interview don't say "I did move to Austin when I received a lump sum of money, and hanged with some people". Reword that to something career positive. E.g. took a gap year, worked on startup ideas, taking mentoring lessons, or at best don't mention it. I know when you are young it is a normal thing to do, just it looks or sounds terrible in a hiring process. Again don't have gaps.
Also never again mention that other people say you are smart, know some smart people etc. It is irrelevant, and mostly off putting. Nice for your own self-esteem but not for anyone else. Instead show examples of things you delivered.
Remember you are not the only person applying for that role. Make them want you, as a non-risk option. You also need to seem keen on the company but also make them aware you have other options and are not desperate even if not true...
This is a red flag right here. You put this in a list of evidence you’re capable and not delusional? You were near semi-notable people.
A lot of your accomplishments read that way. You were near something cool. You dropped out of a good school. You got a (self described as) low paying job at 18 at IBM. Someone really accomplished there complimented you once. You knew people who had things written about them. You were in a program someone who works at armonk was in. Someone else fixed something quickly after you flagged it. None of this is about you, it’s all about other people.
The very fact that these are what you’re listing as positives (or at least as things relevant to you) is a red flag. Do you have any “I accomplished/completed...” accomplishments? You say you’ve been doing VR since you were 8, have you finished anything worth mentioning in all that time?
I agree with another commenter that your ego and expectations could be a problem. If you got one of the jobs you quit before, would you still quit it?
Yes, this is what stood out for me. OP sounds malcontented, and habitually dissatisfied with his role, and makes antisocial decisions (like spoofing numbers - which is not just dishonest but shows contempt for the target) that show poor judgement. He compounds the poor judgement by bragging about the previous poor judgement.
The antisocial stuff is implicit in what he doesn't mention: from his descriptions, his workplaces are hollow boxes with some juicy targets (execs) in them and nothing else. Where are the people? There aren't any because at some level they don't exist for the OP. This is, of course, a hallmark trait of narcissism.
The good news (great news, really), is that NPD is one of the most treatable of personality disorders if the person decides they want treatment. The reason? The narcissist is confident in their ability, and confidence helps when you want to shape your own behavior.
The caveat to all this being that free advice is worth what you paid for it, even less if given by a stranger on the internet. But, FWIW, it's my honest take. If it ends up being accurate (if you look up the disorder) and you get help, I'd love to know if this post help you. (See, I'm a little NPD too! ;)
...if they don't want to change. That is a true statement. But, if they do want to change, it's relatively straight-forward.
BTW the thing you can control is not your actions, or even your reactions, but rather your attention. The best thing a narcissist can do is learn to see themselves in others. Modulo the risk of projection (that is, ascribing too much commonality to the other), it's a nice judo move to turn a dark quality into a light one.
(BTW I agree I'm reading a lot into his post, Sherlock Holmes style, but without confirmation one way or the other, its hard to say if I'm on target. In any event, I do not believe that the OP would share your umbrage, given his post.)
But the primary false thing I want to address is the tacit assertion that "Telling someone they have NPD traits is a personal attack." I understand that assumption because, sadly, accusation of personality disorder has become a common style of personal attack. It's very similar, actually, to the classic status of "homosexuality" - once a pejoritive, now mostly just a fact. And I'm not sure if you noticed, but HN has a LOT of psychology-related content. As a group people here seem to show a lot of admirable compassion and empathy for each other's vulnerabilities. I think it's a remarkable feature of the place, and I hope you can take my words in that context. NPD is quite common in the world, in our field, and its entirely posssible to be a good person who struggles with NPD.
Your protective instinct speaks well of you! But you may need to reassess whether or not I actually attacked the OP, given his request and the context of my response.
And OP seems very concerned about medical insurance, which might suggest something bigger behind the curtains. Young folks often think they're invincible, and medical insurance is last in their list of worries.
I recently saw a junior CV that said "I can lead and I can follow" in personal skills... meanwhile his CV was full of spelling mistakes and his biggest project was setting up a website for some realestate agency.
The number one thing I would want to see in a junior hire is effort and attention to detail, on the extreemes I prefer working with someone who's less talented but reliable and paying attention over someone who's technically capable but unfocused and all over the place.
Well, indeed.
Great point. I interviewed at Bridgewater and they gave a good post mortem on why I didnt get the job. It is something that I now ask for after every interview process that matters to me.
Doesn't always work but has changed my approach in a positive way. For me it takes 12 - 15 attempts to get a job. I am an (old)Infra/Cloud Engineer coming from a sysadmin background and need to constantly improve programming skills.
Asking for post-rejection feedback with humility and in the spirit of self improvement has led to me making connections and leaving interviews with the feeling of an open door for future attempts.
It's deeply unjust we live in a society where simply being a person isn't enough to merit having a home and medical care, but that problem isn't going to be solved in time to help you.
Or, in other words, I'm not going to say "The world doesn't owe you a job" - but the world certainly acts as if it doesn't owe you a job, and you need to deal with that.
If I were a customer support manager and wanted to hire you, what would make me hire you over someone else? From your post, it sounds like the things you have to offer are that you'd help other parts of the company with their problems, and you'd want to transfer internally in well under a year. That's maybe good for the company, but that's not good for me - I don't get any recognition (or even headcount) for things my new hires on customer support do to help other random parts of the company, I'm evaluated on whether my customer support people do customer support. And new hires need to be trained on the company's procedures, which takes a while, so if they leave after a year - even if it's better for the company in the long term - that time is largely wasted.
Sure, you're providing value to the company. But that value is measured by one specific person, your boss. What are you telling potential bosses that you'll do? When they ask you about how you've brought value in previous jobs and about what you're likely to do, do they leave that conversation with the impression that hiring you will be a good decision for them personally?
I hope you're telling them things other than how you went off solving other problems unrelated to your job, no matter how cool it was.
It sounds like you're smart. Point that smartness in the direction of making it financially worthwhile for someone to hire you. You need to offer them more benefit than they offer you, and you need to offer them more benefit than the other applicants for the role would.
(So, if you want good compensation, you need to offer then quite a lot of benefit.)
We should really get moving on that. We still need to build housing for about 1.6 billion and I don't know of good estimates about how many more doctors and hospitals we need to provide that care. Right now, it feels like it's mostly the Catholic church building hospitals, which is why so many are named after saints.
Look into how you look visually and how you speak and your behaviour. Are there things you do that [incorrectly] raise a flag for other people? Like someone mentioned on here, get detailed feedback.
Yeah, it's unsexy work, but it pays okay, and if you prove yourself, it can lead to some senior roles. There are lots of folks that I work with now that started in contract QA and worked their way up to 6+ figure gigs inside the company.
This is great as it exposes you to a ton of different technologies and problem spaces (graphics heavy, data heavy, b2b, b2c etc). Each new project is a clean slate without the mistakes you previously made, or a chance to see how other people have put things together (and possibly learn from their mistakes).
The problem with these jobs is that sticking with them long term isn't for everyone; deadlines are often out of your control, as is the budget, because you're effectively working for a third party. They also tend to not pay big bucks, but they should still do better than most of what you seem to have had so far.
Once you get to a point where you feel confident leading teams of people, start looking at working for companies that make their own product- anything from FAANGs to small startups with good funding and existing customers (or whatever tells you that they are stable enough for you to be comfortable).
You don't have to follow this path of course, but it is a relatively safe one.
Also, if you aren't close to a decently sized city with any agencies or contractors, it couldn't hurt to go on LinkedIn and make sure that you have your programming experience- professional and hobby- listed. Also, be sure to log in at least every few days; logging in seems to give you a bump in search results. For me, LinkedIn is basically a place for recruiters to cold contact people, which may be helpful.
Final note: if you do get contacted by a recruiter about a position, see if they are working for the company they are advertising or not. If they are not, then they are likely getting a commission from placing you- and if they are any good, they can help coach you (and might be willing to do a practice interview if you ask very nicely). I will admit i haven't tried that last bit, but the two jobs I got through recruiters they were both genuinely good people who wanted to help however they could.
Sounds like you have anxiety tbh.
I was looking for positions and as soon as I made my profile public, I instantly started getting calls/emails from recruiters. Some of them are shady or hiring for bad companies, but if you know what you want (sounds like you do), it makes the process a lot easier.
College and good internships will improve upon all of that. If you can’t afford college, you’ll need to join the military (I recommend the Air Force if you want to take it easy, or the Marines if you don’t) and slave for four years. But it seems to me that your biggest stumbling block may be that you are shooting for the moon without realizing it.
Maybe we could recommend a path that does not include indiscriminant murder overseas?
If: * you're under 30 * you don't have any health problems or diagnosed mental health issues * you don't have a criminal record (or it's trivial stuff) * you are willing to make a drastic change in your relationship to authority
then the military might be an option. You won't like it, and they absolutely not put up with any shit about you knowing better than your superiors (hint: it's completely irrelevant if you do), but that is a way to hit reset.
You mention the CIA and they can be pretty selective, but that also suggests you're okay with patriotism. Remember the way to tell a recruiter is lying is their lips are moving. If you want a specific job get it in writing, and then assume a 50:50 chance.
If you want a job that translates to the outside world and aren't keen on getting shot at, I recommend the Air Force. The Navy isn't that bad in that regard either.
Or history of such, I was reject, in part because of two medications I was prescribed (and SSRI and an anti-psychotic) at 11 years old from two different branches even after traveling across states to be re ever lured by the doctors and getting a letter saying I was good.
OTOH my stepbrother was diagnosed with ADHD and was prescribed adderall for years, and was able to get in.
That might be good news, because you don’t have to change yourself but reframe your perspective.
Preferably I’d suggest a mental health professional who focuses on your self narrative.. but I understand that can be expensive.
Perhaps you could do something like a HealthyGamerGG coach. They are more affordable, and I think they’ll be able to give you the feedback you need to get past this.
Best of luck!
Unless you are willing to relocate to a saner country than the US, you need to give up one. Most commenters here advise to give up some of your freedom and stick it out somewhere, and it's a very valid advice. I just want to add that you can also consider going the opposite way - and just get a steady stream of shorter-term gigs freelancing (e.g. Upwork).
There is a lot of upsides - it's easy to work on projects completely remotely (including written only with no voice/video) which rules out any interpersonal issues; you can work on bite-sized projects which might be your cup of tea, at the same time some of the projects will turn into long term opportunities; you can actually put the best projects on your CV.
Freelancing won't give you great medical insurance. And at the beginning (with no history on the platform) it's a grind to succeed in the competition and you need to work your hourly rates up from a low base. Longer term it can pay nicely, you'll be working on a lot of different things and learn what you enjoy, and it should teach you a lot.
Derisk this experiment, try it out while you are looking for a job.
It's important there, as anywhere, to approach interactions with humility.
I wish there was, like, short and simple advice that I could give you to not be a creep. I just tried to google that, and I'm not finding a good clear resource. Like most social skills, there's a viciously sharp learning curve because people don't like giving feedback to creeps because that's usually an opening for even creepier behavior. Sorry.
And, maybe set your sights lower. Your intelligence will shine if you get a job at a very small company that doesn't know what it needs.
my first guess wasnt creep, but i do get some offbeat social cues from the text. my two choices are autism spectrum or sociopathic tendencies. the technicals sound good enough, so personality/culture fit problems seem more likely. im not sure how one would go about getting "cooler", but i would take some personality tests to see if youve got some uncommon traits. once you know what youre working with, you may have a path ahead.
dont give up, friend. theres is a place for you in this world.
In my experience, this has definitely not been true. People will assume you're being standoffish even though you're just minding your own business, just aren't a very talkative person, are focused on solving a problem, etc.
If you're trying to "play the game," you'll probably be better off (in some sense) spending less time on work and more time being affable.
But it's good to hear that you're seeing a therapist. I didn't figure that one out until my mid 30s
Edit: I'm not one to crab about downvotes, but if y'all downvoting the parent post could kindly quit that. This person has shared some deep vulnerability here, they're asking for help and doing the work. This shit's a process
I upvoted parent/OP's post because I agree with you there.
> Yeah, I'd guess that you're on the spectrum.
Unless you are a psychiatrist who has met with OP in person (well, Zoom, these days, I guess), please don't armchair diagnose someone as being autistic. You have no basis or qualifications for this, and reading a couple posts on HN does not count.
I got the impression they were also on the spectrum and speaking from a place of familiarity. Sure, not a basis for diagnosis, but "I'd guess" isn't a diagnosis. It's a "yeah that seems to line up for me".
People with neurodivergence spot each other whether we want to or mean to or not. It's incredibly delicate bringing it up, but it can be incredibly helpful when someone with like experience says "hey I see a familiar pattern".
Might be tough in the age of covid, but there's lots of socializing and networking opportunities outside traditional interviewing. Meetups could be good, because you'd practice in the context of technical discussions and presenting your skillset, which is sorta like interviewing.
My second piece of advice would be to read How to Win Friends and Influence People. It formally codifies a lot of the unspoken rules that charismatic people take for granted.
You MUST learn how to make friends, how to not upset people, how to be comfortable in social situations and empathy.
To do this I would recommend that you force yourself into social situations regularly. Afterwards spend some time thinking about how the interaction went, especially from the other persons viewpoint, practice empathizing (it is a skill that can be learned and will make you a better more considerate person).
So join several clubs that meets and does something in person. You should have two scheduled social events every week.
Try your best to be aware of peoples feelings and groups social structure so that you can try to not trample all over either.
Going straight to upper management as you described is generally not well accepted and most definitely upsets middle management (the people who would actually hire you).
Basically, realize that the problem is who you are and that you need to become someone else to succeed. Changing your own personality is one of the hardest things one can do, so expect it to take a few years.
I asked people that for a while. Except when one guy responded "It's time to get a watch" lol, I became blushed and kinda embrassed. I saw a comment recommending How to Win Friend and Influence People which I definitely want to read.
Your terminology here says a lot, right?
If you are going to a meetup to meet people, then the whole point is to get to know people. And yes, that will involve them knowing your name, and communicating with you.
To open up your job prospects: realize this is normal and desirable.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Obviously it’s not your technical qualifications but something in the way you approach people in interviews. The fact that you say you had to read how to talk to people at a party and couldn’t figure out how to diverge from doing exactly what you read over and over is what tipped me off to think you may be weirding people out.
Honestly, if you were to say “hey I know I have some weirdness but I have the best intentions”... I personally would appreciate that. The first step is acknowledging that and trying to convince the people you’ll work with that it won’t get in the way.
Also in the future, don’t quit a job if you don’t have a backup just because you wanted to get paid more.
Parties are not really good places to learn social skills, people are generally partially drunk and behave differently than they would anywhere else.
Look at this list of hobbies [1], pick two that you think looks interesting and has a club in your local area. Then join those clubs and show up at every opportunity. If you are asked to join a special event or help out with something or join a forum/chat room then smile and say "yes, I would love to".
Try to stick with the same club for at least a year.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies
Being, and therefore appearing, genuinely interested in what the other person is saying about themselves creates the best feelings in the world for the other person, and you won't run out of things to talk about.
"You just got a new dog? Cool!"
Then you can ask any follow up question you like.
What kind? What's their name? Where'd you get them from? Do you feed them "people food"?.. etc.
One question at a time of course, and avoid queuing them up in your head. When the other person is talking, try very hard not to think of the next thing you're going to say. If you do that, you'll miss what they're actually saying and eventually say something that makes it clear you weren't listening. Similarly, you'll miss out on each new bit of the conversation, and those new bits are the basis of new, honest, follow up questions.
You don't have to be interested in dogs generally, to be interested in them temporarily. "Being interested, intentionally" is a skill you can improve.
Don't try to direct the flow of the conversation too much either. Go into your next conversation with friends, family, coworkers, or strangers with a truly open mind about what you're going to talk about, with no agenda, and be happy knowing it could change at any time.
Your job is to listen and ask more.
A lot of supposed "conversations" are just two people looking at each other, waiting for their turn to talk. If you're going to do that you might as well each write your sentences down beforehand, exchange them, and then throw them away without reading them.
The truth is, nobody wants to hear what you have to say. They don't want to hear what I have to say. They want to tell you about what's going on in their lives and what's important to them.
If both of you dislike talking about yourselves then try to explain something about a subject that you find interesting.
Edit: I want to add that not liking something does not mean you can't be good at it.
Personally I don’t think I’ve ever really failed when I use this approach. You can go in with something as direct as, “so, what topic would you like to talk about?” And more often than not have a good conversation.
Which parts of it aren't true for you?
Have you found that making extra effort to be interested in the other person's ideas / topics / interests, listening carefully, etc. isn't well received?
Or is "nobody wants to hear what you have to say" not true, because you do care what other people have to say, for example? (Obviously that's great if so)
Or something else?
I ask because I started making that kind of effort a couple years ago, slowly but surely, getting better as I went. I didn't tell anybody, but after about a year one friend was like, "you know, you're interested in what we do and you really care. Nobody else does that." And another friend chimed in and agreed. (And I really do care! Sure it's intentional, but it's like eating healthy food, and then you grow to like it)
They were being serious. So if you believe me when I'm telling you this, it has been true for me and those friends.
I also think it's true that most people are oblivious to the extra mental effort that goes into approaching conversations this way, and just leave thinking "finally, someone who gives my ideas the credit and attention they are due. Now if I could just get everyone else to act that way"
And that's fine with me
I find are two types of people - talkers and non-talkers. There is significant but not complete overlap with introverts and extroverts, but some introverts are talkers if they can get someone who will actually listen - others won't really talk regardless, and really prefer to let the other person carry the conversation (or companionable silence, or end the conversation).
Conversation skills differ depending on the pairing - but everyone appreciates someone who listens to understand, not just waits while thinking about what they will say next.
Talker with another talker - listen, ask occasional questions, and give the other person lots of chances to talk. Reduce how much you share.
Talker with a non-talker: Also listen, ask occasional questions, but don't expect too much response - but keep trying to draw out more & find things the other person wants to talk about. Be willing to carry more than your half of the conversation, but that comes naturally, so be careful not to dominate.
Non-talker with a talker: The talkers will love you if you listen! Be attentive, follow along, give verbal and non-verbal acknowledgements and reactions, ask questions, push yourself to share more and "hold up your end of the conversation".
Non-talker with another non-talker. This is rough. You have to pretend you're a talker and carry more than half the conversation. Share more. Work harder to get questions and listen, consider, and ask follow-up questions. It can be really helpful to have questions and topics prepared in advance (good conversation doesn't have to be extemporaneous).
Bouldering? Ask for beta or work a problem with someone. Top rope or sport? The gym should have a program for people looking for belay partners.
Give it another shot
I would even argue this book can harm your friendships. Really, the whole book is only about friendships that you try to seek value from. That said, there are tons of books worth reading. The therapist can most likely recommend books that are really useful for "homework".
FWIW at some point in my life I also realized I need to improve my social circle and went for asking for the time and all that. Please don't do that, consult with your therapist and just learn by doing otherwise. People tend to think there is one way a person has to be.
Anyways, it's really bad with Covid right now but once that's over, there'll be plenty of opportunity to go to real Meetups, public events and all that.
I don't know what kind of climbing you were doing, but I've found bouldering very social. Bouldering problems are short and very intense so you spend most of your time sitting on the mat resting, which inevitably leads to conversation. If you don't have a group to go with or haven't tried bouldering, but would like to continue climbing, I would recommend taking a group bouldering class or the like once COVID dies down. That's a good way to meet people who like the sport and are the same level as you.
This might be a little presumptuous as I don't know anything about you, but since you're in Texas - church/temple/synagogueetc is also a great option if you want to meet people. People want you to join their church so they will be friendly and make an effort to welcome you. Many churches have coffee or small refreshments after the service just so people can socialize. There may even be programs, planned social activities, bible studies or whatnot for new members. This is my bias but I would go to a non-denominational Christian church, the crowd is likely to be younger, more diverse, more interesting, and the music will sound like it's from this century. If you don't like the people, the particular church, or just simply learn that you don't believe in God, you can always just leave, you have no obligation to stay. I myself don't attend church anymore but I must admit they are astoundingly effective social support structures. If you've ever been curious in any way about religion you might as well try it.
The above comment could almost be a quote from "The Speed of Dark" - a (science) fiction novel by Elizabeth Moon about autism (she has a child on the spectrum).
I've had better luck with do something with a more structured environment. E.g. take an in person class (something not work related. Learn sign language or something) but that takes $$$ and ymmv.
You are right that clubs will feel awkward, for the first 2-3 months anyway. But they will also challenge you to improve your social skills.
If you want some FANG interviewing advice or just a general career/life sounding board, feel free to email me at the email on my profile.
this goes for anyone else struggling.
I’ll also say I have been where you’re at as you describe. You sound very capable, but you haven’t had the opportunity to thrive. I also had an abusive childhood.
I won’t say what’s important is overcoming all your obstacles and persevering. I’ll say this: you have shown you have a desire for more and you’ve shown you have a capacity for more. I believe you can do it.
I’ll echo one thing other people said but in a different way. I don’t think you should set your sights lower. I think you should consider looking for smaller ponds and see how big a fish you turn out to be. Some of those smaller ponds are wonderful, might even be more wonderful for you than the big ones you’ve looked into.
No, disliking social norms is not sociopathic. The critical piece of being sociopathic is a lack of conscience.
A sociopath knows that he's doing something wrong and chooses not to regret it.
A psychopath otoh has a low neural activity in the area of the brain usually associated with empathy.
The main point being that being a sociopath is learned behavior.
Cf. https://youtu.be/6dv8zJiggBs
(I agree that disliking norms are not sociopathic. The norms might be sociopathic.)
(Also: I'm not an expert, I could well be wrong.)
Both sociopath and psychopath are terms stemming from the early 20th century, where our main concern was to lable people ASAP and prescribe them a "cure".
No professional psychology authority uses either of those terms today. Instead, you get ranked on the Antisocial personality disorder spectrum. This has several advantages, like having an actual statistical body of research behind it etc.
So your random YouTube video might not be wrong in a sense, but more like someone defining what "miasma" or "bloodletting" is: Interesting, but essentially just a talk about medieval medicine.
I would urge you to refrain from (especially) diagnosing people based on public wisdom on psychology.
Who would have thought that if you interact with robots (read: computers) long enough you turn into one yourself, dear Americans...
It's a clown show. I do not envy OP.
it is immensely frustrating to deal with automated systems, resume keyword matchers, no contact within a company and being ghosted after taking the time to write a proposal and cover letter that is a fit for the job description.
so what, he called an executive and got around their spam filter?
my advice
treat job hunting like a sales process.
you're successful based on the number of interviews you get.
figure out during the interview what's their decision making process.
read more books on sales and learn to handle rejection.
stop pursuing status jobs, at least until you have one with a good income.
I've not had terribly good luck with people who use the term 'go getter.' Quite a few of them have been creeps. Smooth and slick, definitely, but at the end of the day, manipulative people who I avoid making eye contact with at public events, hoping that they don't remember me. Creeps.
I tend to avoid dealing with such recruiters that use heavy handed forceful tactics, but there are a lot of them.
Many/most of those people, it seems to me, mean well but have difficulty connecting with you in the way you are used to. Many of those people have a bunch of insecurities, burdens, or even mental health concerns. I don't think it is useful to call those people creeps.
Some people are certainly toxic in the context of certain relationships or cultures, I get that.
If someone is using you without reciprocating, there are words for that, but I don't tend to use 'creep'.
Anyhow, I hope we can offer constructive (actionable) feedback to the OP.
Isn't that the normal definition?
I guess i agree that creep is a deregatory word and not really helpful in this context. At the same time, intentionally obfuscating who you are in order to trick someone into interacting with you against their will is not ok behaviour, and well within what most people consider "creepy". Possibly even crosses the line into harrasment.
> Many/most of those people, it seems to me, mean well but have difficulty connecting with you in the way you are used to. Many of those people have a bunch of insecurities, burdens, or even mental health concerns.
That's hard, but ultimately doesn't excuse actions that negatively impact other people.
Just take physical proximity for example. I know some close talkers. I find it awkward but not creepy. Various cultures have varying degrees of recognizing personal space.
And I wouldn’t hire them. That’s the point OP was trying to make.
In your view, what are some ways you think about the difference between persuasion and manipulation?
I've been reading about this very topic in the context of media persuasion.
Put another way, persuasion is helping someone explore the topic and come to their own conclusion, manipulation is going in knowing the answer and guiding towards it. If you are trying to help someone realize a truth you knew ahead of time, you're manipulating them.
Salespeople, marketers, and recruiters generally don't give two shits about the product they're selling.
So yes it's manipulative because they're displaying fake enthusiasm and trying to trick you into thinking it's genuine.
Of course under that assumption, basically every human communication is manipulative, but that doesn't mean it is intrinsically "evil". It's all rather subjective I guess.
"Evil", or maybe to be a bit more specific, "sleazy", would be to use such manipulation with the intent of personal or tribal benefit, which is what fits the people groups you mentioned above.
For instance, suppose I have a wonderful product people would love to buy, if only they knew about it. I would argue that advertising it wouldn't be "manipulative" as it is commonly understood, even though I am doing it for selfish reasons. But if I knew that the product was dangerous, or fake, or otherwise harmful, then that becomes manipulative behavior.
Actual persuasion is when you get them to want to do it. But a lot of forms of manipulation are disguised as persuasion - guilt, gaslighting, partial truth. A lot of "hustling" is manipulation too, they want to convince the higher up that they are willing to do anything for the job, despite not being the most qualified for it.
William Hazlitt, The Shyness of Scholars (1827)
That was before universities had PR departments.
Perhaps the difference is how succesful you are at it.
> so what, he called an executive and got around their spam filter?
Pissing off people you need something from is probably a poor tactic. Especially when you're not offering something particularly rare. Doubly so because the executive is not the hiring manager, so its unlikely they could help you, only hurt you.
I agree with most of the rest of your advice fwiw.
This is really the crux of it, for me. People hear stories about executives finding that diamond in the rough and slashing through the beauracracy to get them hired. That kind of thing almost never happens, especially from the perspective of the person looking for a job. I think this perspective might be hard to get until you've worked at a large organization, or better hired people at one.
Brutal honesty? You're probably just not that special, don't expect special treatment.
From sons perspective, executive found diamond, little bit pushed him on starter point.
From other employees perspective, it is nepotism. Friends son got a job that more experienced and qualified people could or should do.
Right, and any salesperson will tell you that acting like a creep isn't going to get you sales.
I wouldn't go as far to say OP is a creep, but some of the behavior mentioned does make me cringe a bit.
However, saying someone is a creep is not very helpful. There is a big difference between how one is perceived and what a person -is-.
The most helpful advice I've seen here is: get direct feedback from a candid friend.
This HN feedback offers a range of opinions, but -please- don't dwell on it. Find a way to have people you know help you ... practice interviews, talking out loud about your situation, your expectations, your goals, and so on.
I would describe op's behavior as "desperate" more than creepy. Desperation is really easy to spot and unappealing, my guess is that is shows through in interviews.
When does desperate become creepy? Everyone has a different definition.
If I was an exec on the receiving end, I'd definitely be put off by all of this.
But as someone who's done hiring before they are all pretty big put offs (maybe socially awkward isn't bad as long as it not a interaction heavy role).
Well, isn't it possible for a person to be desperate and still creep out others? Or even more, as desperation leads to more extreme behavior.
Hiring someone is a huge liability. Depending on their state it could be a 500k bet. Give me a reason to believe in you.
Red flag of this post is absence of self reflection. What has been learned during this? Why do you deserve a shot?
Well, there it is. It's better to give honest feedback so that the OP can fix these issues and realize how his behavior makes people feel.
The first step into fixing things is realizing the problem.
This person consistently gets rejected after the initial meeting, enough for a pattern to become obvious.
Sometimes you need to be brutally honest to be kind. I'm not a huge fan of harsh lessons and such in general, but there is a time and place for them, and this is probably one of them.
If the Op had a bit more credentials, and/or created something special, they might label it as "chutzpah" instead.
I recall a story (perhaps apocryphal) that involved Steve Jobs that was similar.
It is the fantasy vs reality difference. As much as you imagine yourself creative when doing these, other people see blinking red flags and boundary pusher that will cause trouble.
It is like those funny and cool characters on movies, that in reality you would cut out because they are assholes.
Not having those skills can lead to situations where actions with genuine intent are perceived as creepy by the counter party.
He sounds desperate. I can imagine the prospect of becoming homeless isn't comforting.
Often it isn’t one or the other. Steve Jobs was both a heartless ass at times while also being a brilliant hustler.
(in my stupid opinion, I could be wrong).
The feel that I get is that many quick things happen to the poster interspersed with lots of boring time between. Like flashes of lightening in their life.
The style gives whiffs of 4chan's greentext posts; depersonalized psuedo-fake tales from people who need therapy to help unravel the other parts of their memories and emotions, not just the low/highlights (not to say that OP is from there, just that the styles are a bit similar).
- What's your role? (dev, QA)
- What's your speciality? (python, mobile, etc)
- Are you good at your role and speciality? How can you show so? (I completed this course, read this book, have this portfolio project)
Following supply/demand rules, you will be offered a job when you clearly offer a value proposition that is fits a given company's needs. It's as simple as that.
Almost nobody will give you a firm reason for why they rejected you for a job. If you press them, they'll offer vague shit like the examples you gave. Accept this; it sucks, but it's the way things are. You're not being "ghosted".
As others have said, it is absurd to expect a promotion within a few months of hiring in a low-level position. "Working your way up from the mailroom" still involves spending time doing actual work in the mailroom, not barging into the boss's office day 1 and demanding a raise because you found some stamps that fell behind the desk.
I'm hesitant to tell you to go back to school, because that can be expensive as hell, but maybe look into your state universities? Tuition can still be reasonable at some of them. If you're no longer a dependent of your parents, maybe you'll qualify for better financial aid. Also, some schools (including my alma mater, RIT) offer free tuition for employees--even if it's just mopping floors, you're making money and getting an education.
FWIW “dependent status” in regards to financial aid has nothing to do with you tax classification and everything due to rigid, “unhackable” criteria. Save some extreme circumstances (homelessness, being an orphan, etc.) you are a dependent no matter what until 24 with no leniency. You can go read about people who’s parents disowned them, were incarcerated, etc. and basically being told “sucks to be you”. Not that I’ve seen anything to imply the OP is <24 though.
Getting ghosted is common, don't worry about that, it's not personal.
Work with a recruiter to get some feedback, you seem intelligent, so this may be an issue with socialization or disagreeableness or something like that, which is a common trait people are judged for, but wherein there might be specific industries or professions that are more suited.
And don't give up.
Seriously consider going back to school and finishing a degree. Although it's "known" that you don't really need a degree for a SW role, there are plenty of well established old school companies that will not consider you at all unless you have a degree. On the flip side, you'll get jobs more easily. A lot of interviewers who choose to interview someone without a degree are doing it "just in case he turns out to be a genius." You are not one (or at least have not shown you are one). Let me be brutally honest: In such companies, you will not get a job if you interview as well as the average candidate who has a degree. Managers don't want to have to justify hiring someone without a degree, and they look worse amongst their peers if a bad hire didn't have a degree than if they did.
> Reading Meyers, Knuth etc. books.
Improving technical skills is always good. However, your role in a company, and your performance, are due to lots of other factors. A person who is average in all areas is generally more desirable than a smart person in one area who is poor in others.
I did not look at bachelors vs coding camp certificate.
For the elite schools, a STEM degree does confer advantage over non-STEM degrees.
College - 212K tuition (current) - 4 yrs - no job guarantee
Bootcamp - 18K tuition - 3 months - money back if no job within a year
Can you spot the scam?
Personally i think neither are a scam (although 212k is ridiculous, glad i dont live in usa) just make sure you understand what they are selling and that it matches what you want.
It's as if I compared your average college with a crappy bootcamp. Let's not cherry-pick.
The number I want to see is the percentage of college grads with a BS in CS who get a (decent) job within a year, vs the percentage of people who complete a bootcamp who get a (decent) job within a year. I suspect the numbers will favor college, but I honestly have no idea.
Getting your money back sounds like a good deal, but you'd still have spent a whole year without a job, and nothing to show for it.
As someone who went both to an average university and one ranked 3rd in the country, I can tell you: The name doesn't mean much in the engineering discipline. Certainly, a CS degree from CMU will likely get you into more interviews, and they probably earn more in the long run, but the person who got his BS in CS from an average state school with a good GPA will almost certainly get a job within a year. Very few exceptions. With bootcamps, I expect that percentage is a lot lower.
As a data point, I work in a top tech company and while people from big name schools are slightly overrepresented, the majority of folks are not from big name schools. Certainly plenty of people from my average state school here have senior positions.
Look on LinkedIn for people who work at the companies you want to work at, and also went to bootcamps, to build a shortlist.
There are several boot camps today, in every major urban area, that carry major street cred in the local tech communities.
I’m sure there are other good ones, but I only personally know graduates of these programs.
I do know a handful of people who attended RC with minimal to zero prior programming skills, though this is definitely not the norm.
At this point in your life the best thing you can do is go to school, try to get some help from your parents or financial aid to focus on your studies, and absolutely do not try to carve your own way through the curriculum. Do the things they put in front of you. Show that you can take on tasks that are boring but necessary and get them done. Embrace the grind. And make some friends! Learning how to interact normally with your peers is a necessary skill that homeschooling rarely helps with.
Personally, I'm a college dropout. I was a mediocre student in high school and a worse one in college because I took time off in between, and was overly impressed with my own ability and didn't put in the work. It took me years to dig out of that hole professionally, but it's possible. And I would never have done it without the social skills and connections I made going to a major university, even if I didn't finish.
Also, depending on the college scene, you might have more opportunities to socialize with lots of people which you may have missed with your home schooling.
Depending on where you live, community college varies from amazingly affordable to right around the same as a state university. Check on student aid as well.
Sometimes you have to jump through the hoops to show you can.
University is very academic, work is very practical.
It is the highest ROI investment I have ever made in myself.
So some perspective for you to consider. The first is that as I have advanced in my career (its been solid if not extraordinary) the core curriculum stuff I thought was going to never apply working as a technologist has ended up being suprisingly useful. I wasn't a fan of linear algebra in undergrad, but now I'm using it on a data science related stuff. My politics concentration has ended up very useful at understanding the group and organizational dynamics. Even my forced sociology course lets me understand the reasoning of some my peers/superiors who buy into that line of research far more than if I was coming in blind. Theory of computation... remains useless, but they can't all be winners.
The second, and more important, perspective is that as a person who does some indirect hiring (interviewer plus technical lead, but not people manager), I worry that someone without a degree has trouble driving to completion in the face of disinterest, or is self sabotaging. My projects are mostly enjoyable, but sometimes I (or someone on my team) needs to spend 3-4 weeks writing up a government mandated security document. It sucks, but it has to be done. If I think you might be the type of person that will have trouble completing that independently because there is always more fun stuff to be working on, I don't want you on my team.
A degree is a noisy, loosely correalated signal that you won't be that person. However, as others have mentioned, your writing here indicates you MAY be that person, and not having a degree is a correalative signal that doesn't help your case.
A better way to learn, yes perhaps.
A degree shows that you can consistently show up and complete tasks. That's the important part. I haven't read all your posts but it is unclear to me that you actually completed a degree and got the slip of paper?
Unless you have notable (4-5yrs) experience for the position I am looking for, I probably wouldn't hire someone without a degree. It's just a baseline thing you need.
Based on your comments you seem talented but unreliable.
I don't think this person will be able to do consulting considering the actions they have done while interacting with managers, directors, executives.
You’re young and you can change your trajectory—have hope!—but it will not be through some home run fantasy. Don’t apply to FAANG or Deep Springs or MIT. Apply to your local community college and to local companies’ IT departments. Keep the job, stay enrolled, get good grades, learn to stay quiet, learn to listen, and only then learn to argue well. After two-three years at community college (depending how fast you go, based on need to work), take your good grades and apply to a few colleges. Go to one that you can afford and isn’t intimidating. Do the work there, too, and graduate. Five years. And then all will be well.
It often is a better way to learn, but that's not why I suggested going back to school. It doesn't sound like your technical skills are the reason you're not getting a job.
> So, it might be just one of those things that I'll have to suck up and just do.
Most jobs are full of things you have to suck up and do. As long as you work for someone else, sucking up and doing will be a big part of your career.
Oh, and if you start your own business and work for yourself, chances are you'll spend even more time doing tedious stuff - although it depends on your business.
Doing what you want is the domain of the financially independent, and (some) tenured faculty members.
In the world of software, that probably means having a portfolio of projects you can point to as examples (including but not neccesarily limited to open source projects. Other options include starting your own company (very hard), etc)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25467900
You seem to have a real problem accepting that you have to work within the system and follow the same rules as everyone else.
For entry level positions, the best predictor of success hiring manager have is your GPA when you've completed a degree. Further, autodidacticism certainly can be better for some people, but unfortunately it makes it much harder for you to get past initial screenings. If you had stuck with some of your other jobs for a few years, this would matter a bit less, but if you haven't stuck with any job longer than two months, you don't look like a potential asset.
My advice is to go to school. Accept that the core curriculum requirements are there for a reason, and unless the university offers a way to test of part of them, then deal with it. If it's stuff you already know, then look at it as a way to help ensure you have a great GPA for when you do graduate. And when you're in school, take advantage to everything else that's offered - join a few clubs, look for opportunities to learn leadership skills and develop them.
Once you graduate, start your resume there - don't even include things before that - they don't know how old you are, so they'll assume you're just like any other recent grad.
Finally, when you land a job, keep your mouth shut and do the work you're asked to do. Give input when asked, otherwise listen. Listen to what your manager is saying, and to what senior engineers are saying. Watch to see who has influence, and how they wield it. In a few months if your work is speaking for itself, then it's the time to start speaking up more. If you have a good manager, ask for their advice on how to do speak up effectively, if you don't have a good manager, ask one of the engineers that clearly has influence.
Above all, remember that life isn't easy for most of us. It doesn't matter how smart we are, we have to work hard, work well with others, and learn how to work within the system. Otherwise the system will spit you out.
After I got a degree I started getting responses from places.
You might see if you can re-enroll in your school.
Are you autistic? You sound like autistic people I know who have similar troubles. It’s helpful to find out if you are and learn about how this affects you earlier in your career rather than later. It can really change how you approach situations at work and with interpersonal relationships so you can stick with things longer. In addition you might find there are autistic hiring programs that can help. (It’s not something you need to advertise but it’s something that’s helpful for you to know about yourself.)