Comment by tony_vivaldi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by tony_vivaldi | Hacker News Reader

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Thanks for the tips. I am hiding out in a family member's vacation home in the southwest to save money. My phone number is 415 and I have a 646 google voice number I use when I apply to jobs in New York. As far as anyone knows on first contact, I am local. I usually do fine in the interview and once I get the job. My problem now is that I can't even get my foot in the door. Hardly anyone ever even responds to my email. One weird thing is, the places that actually did contact me were for the jobs that I was the least qualified for and just applied to on a whim.

The last place I worked full time was incredibly volatile and replaced almost the entire engineering team 3 times in the 2 years I was there. I probably should have left after the first mass exodus. I often wonder if that is what killed my career. Maybe that company on the resume is a black mark?

It's easy to spin a failure into a learning experience, that's a familiar story arc for everyone in the hiring process. My second job was a massive failure (with a public IPO and everything), doesn't seem to have hurt. I even got a job because of it once.

I don't know why it's so hard to get a job when you are already unemployed. I think there is even MORE bias about that around here than age. This article might be about age, but I suspect that is probably more your problem here. I'm not sure the best way out of that particular hole, but if you can get any kind of a consulting or freelance gig, that might help. Then you can just smooth over gaps with the "freelancing" qualifier and talk about how you're really interested in something long term / stable, especially after the volatility at the last place. Hopefully you can find employers who are nervous about someone sticking around for a couple of years, reassure them that's what you are interested in (even if it's not). If you drop me an email, I can forward you to a couple of recruiters who have contacted me in the last week or two.

Tony - Send me your resume and I'll be happy to review it. I might see something sticking out like a sore thumb.

If you were loyal and decided to stick around, I would see that as an asset if I was a hiring manager.

A lot of times we're harder on ourselves than we should be. I'm happy to help out a fellow geezer (j/k). Drop me a line if you want.

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