Recession Proof Graduate - How to get any job after college | Hacker News Reader

Recession Proof Graduate - How to get any job after college

slideshare.net

61 pointskevinburke32 comments

Jesus, it took 19 slides to get to the point which can be summarized in exactly one sentence:

1) Have skills

Newsflash: What we call a "job" is simply the trading of one currency (actual monetary currency) for another currency (useful work). If the work you are doing does not have some element of skill then you will not get a job. If your degree supplies some of those limited in-demand skills then you may not need more than your degree. If your degree does not then you will need to acquire useful skills in another manner. Period.

Agreed, but there was also a lot of insight about how career websites suck, and you're better off using your network and/or working for people on a trial basis

To be fair, what we call a "job" is more than the transactions of skills and currency: it's also the presumed security of constant transactions for an extended period of time.

True, but the base requirement is still some kind of scarce skill set. If it weren't scarce it wouldn't be an economy.

I think also

2) Be passionate

3) Get your name out there(blogs)

I tried reading it, then skimmed after page 10, then really skimmed/skipped after page 15. I'm not the target audience and maybe I've heard/read it all too many times to care to read it again in 30 slides.

I really didn't care to read quote from misc bloggers with their self-named domains. Seems like the part of the post was to get his name and other bloggers names out there.

I would have preferred to find out what the author did to get himself jobs with authors, VCs, directors, etc. He never goes into details about that. I don't care about quotes and general ideas. I want the real details about exactly what he did. Maybe I skimmed/skipped too much?

I'll add to this his lengthy discussion of "free work" as opposed to "internship". I don't think that's something I would have even thought about right out of school and even if I did I would have blown it off as a silly idea. I think he made a reasonably compelling case for it, especially forcing potential job seekers to think about using prospective employers decision framing to their advantage.

Oddly, I read it as having an orthogonal subject: not having skills, but demonstrating them. The presentation seems to be aimed at the sort of entitled mindset that believes employers will _just_know_ that they deserve 40k fresh out of college. Whether you have skills or not, if all you do is write your bachelors degree and some dot-points on your resume, you're not going to get much credit from employers.

Of course, as your skills go up, the chance that you'll get credit for them increases. Truly world class skills would market themselves. The point, however, is that there _is_ an independence between your skills and employers perception of them. It's not always going to be obvious to an employer that you can provide them with value.

It's not enough to simply have skills. It's necessary to demonstrate them, to get them out there. The techniques the presenter outlines might be familiar to someone who has done some reading on the general subject, but to the sort of entitled mindset that the presentation seems to be directed at, they mightn't be so obvious. Blogging, building a portfolio, networking: basic stuff to some, but not to everyone.

I clicked through to his blog and it appears he was one of the Seth Godin interns.

The tone of his writing and constant links to others with own-name domains now makes more sense... as do their Squidoo pages.

Sort of a tangental topic, but I hate it when people post slides like this. These sorts of things should always work better as a blog post. If your slides are good presentation slides, they're not detailed enough to work without a presenter, and if they are they're bound to be too wordy for the actual presentation. Either way, it's not a presentation I want to be in.

Totally agree. These aren't presentation slides, there is way too much text on them. They are clearly designed for reading, so it should have just been made as a text based blog.

Why force people to use flash to read text.

There are a lot of reasons to do things this way. First of all it was originally distributed as a pdf e-book. An ebook even if the same length as a long blog post makes you more professional, or at least appear to be so.

Once you have the pdf, it's trivial to upload it to site a like slideshare and let people view it there. As a side note, because Charlie has worked with Seth Godin and this is something Seth does, he probably is just emulating something that worked for seth.

I'm not sure if it says it in the ebook, but this originally was going to be a guest post, but ran a little long.

Why do some folks make it so hard on themselves, and for others, just to convey some idea? Just use some simple, concise text. You can even use 1990's era HTML to mark it up. It's dead simple. Concise. And do it all in one web page. The world will not end, honestly.

If I ever got an applicant for a position I was interviewing for and they said, "So if you want to look at some of my code, it's available here.", and they gave me a link to a little project they work on, that ALONE would move them up near the top of the pile, even if the code was crap.

Maybe it's different because of the industry I work in, but nobody seems to want to show the goods.

Out of curiosity, what industry do you work in?

he doesn't want to show you those goods

Investment Banking apparently, he's a data miner.

Google + 30 seconds.

Finance,but I didn't think it was particularly relevant because I'll bet a dollar to any taker that any other given industry that hires IT besides software itself is probably the same way.

I agree with a lot of the sentiment here that the presentation is a little overly drawn out and meandering, but the end point in spot on.

I recently took the advice to contact entrepreneurs I was interested in working with on the advice of a friend. The response was overwhelmingly positive and generous.

I emailed the founders of two companies I've been following for a while (one a former YC company) simply introducing myself and asking for advice on what I should do to put myself in a position so that they might want to hire me in the future.

The response I got from both was more than overwhelming. One responded to my first email within an hour with detailed explanations of what I should be doing and what I can do in the future. Furthermore, he responded to each of my follow up questions almost instantly after receiving them.

The second responded offering to set up a skype call in the next couple of weeks to talk over my questions with me more thoroughly.

These are both guys whom I have to assume are insanely busy and get far more important emails than random cold calls every day.

I feel like a lot of people don't take approaches like this and don't reach out to people because they have the same assumptions I did. I guess all I can say is, never underestimate the generosity and outgoingness of the entrepreneurial community.

As a software developer, I would have figured contributing to major open source projects to be equivalent or better than this. Still has the same element of demonstrating your skills, but also shows that you can work in a team, do things like unit tests etc., and actually know the codebase for whatever project you contributed to.

That does fall under the "free work" heading.

This presentation reminds me of the motivational self help books I see in Fedex. A lot of buzz words, but not much substance. The key requirement for landing any job is personal value. If you are not valuable to an organization, you are not going to be hired.

Yeah, it's written in marketing speak, the kind of thing that must have been rigorously tested as some point to appeal to the widest audience but instantly turns me off.

"I used to be struggling like you but now I'm on the top the world and I'm going to show you how", this kind of thing just never appeals to me even if they are sincere because of all the insincere stuff that has come before in the same format.

Excellent post on your blog regarding higher education.

Thanks, it's been something I have been meaning to do more once I get some more time to collect my thoughts on certain subjects.

One thing that's always baffled me is how many students at my school had mediocre or crappy jobs off campus while going to school. Yeah, you can make more money working off campus, but you could probably be gaining experience (and usually getting paid for it) while going to school. Most every state university has at least one or two large experiments that just need manpower, be it chem, math, cs, bio (especially bio), physics, whatever.

The first 3rd of the slides sounded like a pyramid scheme presentation.

After reading his latest post on his blog, it seems he has lost quite a bit of the fire he had when writing this 'e-book': http://charliehoehn.com/2010/08/18/the-5-month-break-comes-t...

WOW. Thank you for posting. Sincerely, College Senior.

Really, downvoted? The people here are ridiculous. I'm fucking done. Peace out.

He's missing some major points; I mention two:

FIRST POINT

Somewhere in the part of the economy he is depending on, the 'rubber has to meet the road'. That is, someone has to have a business with customers and revenue. So, he wants to work for that business. So, when the business brings in, say, $1 million, he gets maybe $10,000 of it, eventually, if his plans all go well.

So, his work really is providing crucial value for the business, but he is getting only a tiny fraction of the money from that value. Bummer for him.

So, he would be much better off just being the person running the business and doing the work that is providing the business value and then keeping all the revenue for himself.

E.g., if the business is a Web site with ad revenue and if he is a Web developer, then HE should be the one running the Web site instead of the other guy who likely doesn't know how to do the technical work for the Web site.

Or, mowing grass is hard work with some value. But why just mow grass for someone else running a lawn service? Instead, start a lawn service, mow grass much as before, and keep all the revenue for yourself. That is, once are good at mowing grass, which is the real work, the extra to start your own grass mowing service can add a lot of revenue and need not be too difficult.

SECOND POINT

Basically he is advising people to be 'free lancers', that is, with a 'portfolio', 'clients', etc. For what he is suggesting here, that is, software usage and/or development, there is a big, HUGE problem: Suppose it takes, on average 1000 times as long to write some software as to learn to use it. So, roughly 1000 programmers can write enough software that it takes one person all their time just to learn to use all that software. But the world has many more than 1000 programmers writing software. So, it is easy to spend more than full time just learning to use software. Indeed, new software comes forward so fast that it could be more than a full time job just being a 'librarian' getting the materials, cataloging them, and arranging them on shelves, DVDs, or hard disk.

So, it is crucial to reduce, even minimize, the 'overhead' time for learning to use software.

Here's the BIG RUB: As a free lancer, mostly he must use the software his clients want used. So, this week it's Windows Vista, next week Debian Linux, next week Mac, then Windows Server, Android, iPhone, etc. Or it's Excel, SAS, SPSS, R, Mathematica. Or it's Word, TeX, LaTeX, or some high end thing from Adobe for making PDF files. There is no end of such nonsense.

Fundamentally, the free lancer has to pay for the learning overhead and gets paid only for using it. So, it's crucial to keep down the overhead. There's no shame in this: No one can hope to learn all that junk; just being a librarian for all it would be more than a full time job.

Yes, maybe Fortran, Cobol, Algol, PL/I, Pascal, C, C++, Visual Basic .NET, and C# are closer to each other than English, French, Spanish, and Italian. Similarly for DB2, SQL Server, Informix, and Oracle. Similarly for SPSS, SAS, R, etc. Windows and Linux are both multiple virtual memory operating systems on x86 processors with a TCP/IP stack. So, there is a lot of overlap so that learning 1000 programs is much less than 1000 times the work of learning just one program.

STILL, learning all that software is TOO DARNED MUCH overhead.

Here's how to cut down the overhead: Don't be just the free lancer; instead, be the entrepreneur where the rubber meets the road. Then pick ONE of Windows or Linux and f'get about the other one. Say pick Windows. Then pick ONE of C++, C#, or Visual Basic .NET and f'get about the other ones. Pick just ONE relational data base, say, SQL Server. For some 'non-SQL', likely on really simple operations as for non-SQL, the real bottleneck is disk I/O, and, net, SQL Server can be about as fast as 'non-SQL'. If at times need more than 'non-SQL', and the history of computing strongly indicates that you will, then you are better off with a serious relational data base manager than just some key-value pair system. Pick just ONE way to develop Web pages, say, ASP.NET. So, just pick tools sufficient and good for the work where the rubber meets the road and f'get about competitive tools and their overhead. E.g., my tools just now are Windows, KEdit, ObjectRexx, Visual Basic .NET, a little C (HORRIBLE language), SQL Server, ADO.NET, and ASP.NET, and I've never touched Python, Apache, Ruby, Linux, or even C++. And I don't use an 'interactive development environment' (IDE) since I use KEdit and ObjectRexx for as much as possible.

Enough for the first two points I mentioned above.

I move on to several smaller points:

COMPUTER CENTER OVERHEAD

He also failed to mention: Now for any very significant work with computers, especially if working as a free lancer for several clients, too soon need multiple computers, an office LAN, etc. So, he's talking a home based 'computer center' with just one person for ALL the work to be done -- hard/software installation, computer and network system management and monitoring, operations, e.g., backup, recovery, repairs, computer and network security, in addition to the 'money' activities. He's talking significant upfront, overhead investments of time, money, and effort not easy for a new college graduate.

FEAST AND FAMINE

People in 'free lance' too soon see that they are in a world of feast and famine. So, can go for two months with no income and suddenly four clients each want four weeks of work in the next two weeks. Bummer.

FEW OR MANY

Not quite the same but closely related, generally (although not always) it's better to have many smaller customers than a few larger ones. A free lancer has a BIG problem here, but many of the free lancer's clients do not. So, it can be better to be the client entrepreneur where the rubber meets the road than the free lancer.

ASYMMETRY

Next, there's the issue of 'asymmetric economic information': A free lancer who works for one client for a week and gets paid $40,000 lets the client know that he just paid about $1000 an hour for the work. Then the client will start to look for cheaper labor. So, the client has too much 'economic information'. And, really, the free lancer does NOT know what the work was really worth to the client, and that might me much more or much less than $40,000; so the free lancer has too little 'economic information'.

Instead it is much better if the customer has no real idea about the supplier's revenue, cost of goods sold, gross margins, net margins, pre-tax earnings, and after-tax earnings. These may be small or large, but when they are large it is important up to crucial for the supplier to keep these numbers confidential. One cute, old example was in the early days of casino Blackjack 'card counting': A guy went to a casino in the Bahamas or some such, dressed like a bum, kept complaining about all the money he was losing and how poor he was. The individual casinos didn't keep careful track of what he was making or losing so didn't know. In fact, he was cleaning up big time. I made a big mistake: I was a good Blackjack player and saw the first 'Sports Illustrated' article and E. Thorpe's book early on but assumed that the casinos would be swamped. They weren't for years! And only a dumb player would show off how much money they were making. Net, if you are making good money, then keep it QUIET. For this, generally it is better to have many customers. E.g., a neighbor had little peanut vending machines -- put in a coin and get out some peanuts. How much was he making? There was no easy way for the customers to know, but he did live in a nicer house than I did!

BARRIER TO ENTRY

There's another big issue, especially over the past 20-40 years in the US economy: He is recommending being a 'virtual business'. This is DANGEROUS in the US. Consider someone in plumbing, HVAC, roofing, grass mowing, auto repair, Chinese carryout, Italian family restaurant, etc. Notice that they are not in competition with anyone more than 100 miles away. So, if they are among the best in a radius of 100 miles, then they can do okay. Many industries cannot have dedicated sales forces so use 'manufacturing representatives' (MRs) that specialize in one industry and stand between many manufacturers and many customers. So, can have MRs in, say, sporting goods, commercial building supplies, etc. Well, typically an MR has a geographical 'territory'. Darned right they have a 'territory': They don't want any close competition. Net, it is important to have a 'geographical barrier to entry', and his idea of a 'virtual business' is not careful about this point.

COLLEGE

He runs down college. Well, maybe didn't learn Ruby in college, but he should have learned some things more important such as how to communicate and analyze effectively; these are important lessons for a lifetime but maybe not for a first job out of college. There may be times in life when these lessons are crucial at a big fork in the road and, then, crucial for the whole life. Also some of the technical material might be quite valuable in the future.

KNOWLEDGE SHOULDN'T KNOW

One of the biggest dangers of 'knowledge' is not the good knowledge you don't yet know and have to learn but the bad knowledge you have been led to believe and then act on. So, 'critical thinking' can be more important than 'skills'. College is one of the best places to get good at 'critical thinking'.

I graduated in May and got a job with a startup merely because I spent my spare time building a fairly cool product built in Ruby on Rails. I would argue if you've shipped a product and can show it off, thats more valuable than having a degree from a well-known school.

But my real advice: Start a startup out of college if you've got no debt and have a good idea. It is what I'm doing right now and I'm pretty sure its the right time to take risks. At the very least you'll fail, have another product, and be even more employable than you once were.

have a good idea

That's the part that keeps stopping me.

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