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Comment by frankwiles | Hacker News Reader

I think one area people miss out on is local meetups in a tech area you know and want to work with. Networking with those people you’ll discover which companies are good/bad/etc and then also know someone there.

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The local, in-person meetup scene was an absolute treasure! It didn't really recover after COVID; I'm still trying to find where those networking opportunities moved to.

Second this. Local meetups really didn’t survive COVID.

give it time, or go start something. in many places local meetups saw a huge revival since last summer

Around me most attendees are people looking for a job, with zero engagement in any other way.

that sounds frustrating.

I did _one_ virtual meetup. After the presentation we were paired into small breakout rooms. Two of the four guys in my room just gave a quick summary of their background and said they were looking for work -- they had nothing else to say.

(a) it ruined the networking time for everyone else and (b) if I had an opening, I'd be less likely to interview them than before.

i haven't been in this particular situation, but people who don't know what to say are all to common. i am not the most sociable guy myself, but i learned to get people talking by asking lots of question, searching for common interests, or simply anything interesting about them. it is a lot of work though, and after such conversations i tend to be exhausted. the irony is that if they didn't want to talk, but get me talking instead, all they would need is to ask a few open questions and then i'd be able to fill the space.

The other participant and I had a pleasant conversation, but the dynamic was weird for the other two who basically said "give me work" without saying anything else.

This used to be a really good thing. I feel like meetups have not recovered since Covid. I would love to see the meetup scene come back.

Now that you mention it, I've had my eye on a handful of meetups in my area. I've never gone, however, as I'm really not a very social person and would probably end up leaning against the wall, giving off antisocial vibes.

But perhaps I should give this a shot, just to put myself out there and see what happens.

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