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Comment by blisterpeanuts | Hacker News Reader

I'm just one data point, but after quitting a 12-year position writing RFID related apps, I'm raising chickens and writing.

There are no jobs for me; even for positions that totally align with my skills, the employers express no interest. For one thing, they get hundreds of applicants per posting. For another, DEI.

One nice thing--my old employer is hiring me back on a consulting basis. Meanwhile, I'm retraining and looking into side hustles, AI-related opportunities, manufacturing (a lifelong interest).

Technology as a career is not dead, but it has significantly downsized and is no longer a guaranteed job.

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> There are no jobs for me; even for positions that totally align with my skills, the employers express no interest.

I often wonder who they have working there and applying that is so much better than me they won’t grant me an interview. I’ve always been a top performer so it’s really quite puzzling.

Many positions are not actively hiring. I’ve been applying on linkedin and the same positions are reposted weekly for months on end, never getting taken down and never getting replies.

They’re cluttering up job boards because so few roles are available.

Top performers are divas. Much better to have an average youngster who can be more readily abused.

I could see a future where people switch to other white collar jobs like accounting, law, and engineering. Software skills will come in handy here.

> Software skills will come in handy here.

Less than you think. In many of those the corporate issue machines are so locked down and the red tape so bad that just getting to a python hello world is a challenge.

I’ve used coding skills in accounting maybe half a dozen times in a decade.

No doubt there are exceptions but the 5 places I’ve worked for were 0 for 5

>For another, DEI.

What is DEI?

Diversity, equity and inclusion. In extreme cases, this is affirmative action. Hopefully in most cases it means hiring managers keeping an open mind and checking their biases when comparing candidates of differing genders and cultural backgrounds.

Is this that US thing I heard about where women and minorities of color get hiring priority over white men?

Yes

That’s how it gets described sometimes, but it’s about as accurate a description as “US white men prioritize hiring white men over any other demographic unless they are actively discouraged from doing so”.

One of the things to come out of discovery in the Damore lawsuit was Google's head of HR declaring a moratorium on hiring white males. Technically a Civil Rights Act violation, but more commonly practiced and tolerated on the downlow than one might suppose absent insider information like what came out of discovery in the Damore lawsuit.

> One of the things to come out of discovery in the Damore lawsuit was Google's head of HR declaring a moratorium on hiring white males.

Do you have a source for this? The closest thing I could find is [1], which says some Google employee (not the head of HR) suggested such a moratorium on an internal mailing list. It’s not clear that such a policy was ever implemented or even seriously considered.

[1]: https://thefederalist.com/2018/01/10/19-insane-tidbits-james...

No, it's that thing where white guys complain that women and minorities are being hired instead of them even though there is no objective evidence of that.

Companies generally don't use DEI in hiring decisions since this would be a violation of anti discrimination laws (they protect white guys too). DEI only applies to the start of the hiring process to get more female and diversity candidates. Candidates still need the skills and background to make it the rest of the way. So when you hear someone complain about DEI, it's really a complaint that they no longer have the skills to get hired.

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