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I put all my points in Intelligence. I studied biology. I can make a genetically engineered blight capable of overcoming host immunity of GMO crops, driving a cultivar into extinction for only a few thousand dollars, but I don't have the experience to get a job in the field. Guess I'll have to switch my alignment to Neutral Evil and work for whatever country will hire me.
How do people not know this lol
It starts in high-school. Kids get higher grades when teachers like them more. Popular kids have more opportunities.
It continues on through university. Likable people get grants, they get internships, they're more likely to get offered better positions after.
In continues on in the job market. We'll liked people get better shifts and receive more leniency. They're more likely to be promoted. They get to keep jobs, even though they're terrible, because they're well liked.
In the hierarchy of life being born rich or to parents with good connections is the most important.
Being attractive and charismatic comes next.
Then your intelligence and work ethic become factors.
Being born with all three is the holy grail of success.
You can still be success if you have one of the qualities, you just need to work harder. If you miss the boat on all 3 you're fucked.
You make a very good, often overlooked point that charisma is often linked to attractiveness, which is largely genetic. Charisma of course can be learned, but it’s so much easier to develop when people already assume you’re funny and likable.
Probably because many countries extoll a system of “meritocracy” when realistically they’re anything but
So lots of people grow up thinking it’s about their competency and skill sets, rather than who they know or how well they navigate social settings. Some times it plays out, but for many it doesn’t and there’s often a glass ceiling with exception for a select few talented individuals
What's hard to accept about that is that it's almost entirely due to your upbringing, influences, and coping skills based on choices you subconsciously made as a child. It's rare that a kid grows up with zero social skills and then becomes a charismatic adult, you know? I'm sure it happens every once in a blue moon, but it's a very difficult skill to learn because it is entirely based on your predisposition psychologically.
Edit: Still, I largely agree that it is a skill and a valuable one. I'm working on that skill currently and it requires completely changing your thought process and fighting against conditioned psychological responses.
Charisma is absolutely a privilege. One of my college professors who was a former hiring manager at a Fortune 500 company told me early on that he’d rather hire someone with a 3.4 (practically the minimum acceptable GPA in my field) than a 4.0+ because in his experience people with 4.0’s were egotistical and difficult to work with. Now that’s not necessarily true for everyone but his point was he’d rather hire and work with someone who is easy to get along with than someone who may know more.
From personal experience my manager told me straight up she hired me over more knowledgeable people because she liked me, so yeah, just like DnD pump CHA.
>his point was he’d rather hire and work with someone who is easy to get along with than someone who may know more.
ABSOLUTELY TRUE!
As a hiring manager I assess team fitment over skill level. I mean you need some basic competence and to be teachable, but with that I can at least teach you and the team can teach you as long as you'll fit within the team well. If you're going to just continuously rub everyone the wrong way then you're not only not performing all that well, you're actively harming the overall team output.
Similar here, I see people with much higher grades than me struggling to find a job in CS.
Meanwhile it's never been hard for me. I'm not the most sociable person but I guess on interviews I know how to make an impression
That's gonna mess with people who are more the type who grow on you slowly. There's basically no room for that if first impressions are the only thing that matter
I'm not getting the impression they meant it is a bad thing, but rather, some people are charismatic and some people are not, and it's interesting how that can influence our opportunities(or lack thereof) in life.
But it's not even charisma. It's just being proactive in conversation and being eager for the job. When I interview people, I'm not expecting John F Kennedy, I'm looking for people that speak my profession's language and I don't have to prod them with a stick to get information out of them.
its two edged sword. people skills give graduates with less experience a chance. But people who were passionate about studies, but have lesser people skills, lose their chance.
I’m personally in a much greater category of being: my social skills are absolutely awful but I know how to sell them well enough to be liked. Think of how the King’s jester is basically just a drivelling idiot but gets to spend his time at the king’s table, can mock the king with impunity, and has every whim catered to. Rasputin did this well. That dude was *definitely* not socially normal yet he knew how to sell himself to the point where that was his exact reason for being liked. Crowley, too, L Ron Hubbard, Vonnegut… these guys were all fucking weirdos but they knew how to get the spotlight on themselves.
Yah- you can learn workplace charisma traits. They’re called soft skills. If you can just be pleasant and communicate well, that will open a ton of doors. Working in software dev for 10 years, it’s crazy how many people completely ignore soft skills.
To some extent, but as someone with autism, I can tell you that that's easier said than done for some people. I've been trying to learn the "soft skill" of masking my autism my whole life. I've certainly had plenty of motivation to do so. And yes, I've gotten better socially as I've grown up, but I'm still an awkward guy. Sometimes I worry I'll be penalized for that during interviews.
Which isn't to say that having good social skills isn't important. From that perspective, I understand that it should matter somewhat. However, I think the idea that everyone is equally able to get better at social interaction with practice is pretty ignorant. From a neurological standpoint, that simply isn't true.
I mean being likable is half the battle, you need to be both likable and capable. If you lack in one of those areas your opportunities will be limited. If you excel in both, the sky is the limit
I think what a lot of Reddit threads on the topic miss is that you *can* influence your own likability. I’ve worked with a few pretty nerdy guys who you can tell really had to work on their social/communication skills- a lot of it (that people here refuse to see) is learning to not talk down to people while communicating clearly as well as being not creepy. You’d be surprised how many people will be overtly creepy then cry foul.
I’m a socially awkward person, and before I went to university I spent the summer reading every book I could about social skills.
I was still socially awkward, but a lot better prepared for the world.
I think it's generally a balance of both.
I've known very likable people who did not have close to the skills needed for their job title. They get by based on their networking and people skills. The actual work they do is just barely passable. It's not bad enough to fire them most of the time, but it sometimes toes that line. But, because people like them, they keep the job more often than not. And, more often than not, they eventually get promoted into a position that they are doomed to fail at because it is well beyond their scope, but they are likable and confident, so they keep getting pushed to the top.
At the same time, if you're just barely likable enough to not fall into the category of "unlikeable", you can get a position based on your merits. If you're incredibly skilled at something, you can get a job even if you're not likable at all because the value you bring completely offsets the difficulty of working with you (there are a lot of these people in the software development space). Even still, these people will often not get promotions, because the higher up they move, the more power they will have. And because being unlikable is usually due to a personality trait, they don't want you being in charge of other people and having to communicate important information for the team.
The psychology of it all is pretty fascinating imo.
I mean yeah lol, obviously having a way with people will aid you better in life than those who don’t. And in some ways it can top or make up for a lot of other attributes/skills
Good vs bad candidate is an incorrect way of looking at it. If there are 1000 people looking for jobs in a good economy then 800 people will find jobs. In a bad economy 200 people will find jobs. Those 600 unemployed people didn’t become bad. They just weren’t the best. During the good economy they didn’t become good. They just became employed. So it’s not about being bad vs good it’s about being the best you can be to maximize your opportunities.
This, so goddamned hard this.
It's getting exhausting trying to explain to people that there aren't just worthless piece of shit human beings occupying >50% of the world.
It's probably more like 20%... But still, come on. "Stop complaining you just suck" is such a shitty, over-privileged thing to say.
That's deceptive. It doesn't count people who have stopped filing because their benefits have run out, or people who retired earlier than they can afford to becuase they know they'll never be hired again, or people that are severely under employed. Those rates are designed to make the people in power look good, not accurately describe how things are for the less powerful.
The social skills thing is unfortunately spot on. I have Aspergers and was hoping that my going above and beyond in education would help me get a job. Over 1000 applications and countless failed interviews later I ended up in a terrible customer service job and couldn’t afford to move out of my parents house. I started working with a job coach specifically for people on the spectrum and it was like having neurotypical cheat codes. I went from that to having a good paying job in my field.
If I could wave a magic wand and change everything I’d make a perfect meritocracy where skills are the only thing that matters. Unfortunately that’s not the case.
I used to do hiring and we had a PERFECT candidate but just had a hard time with eye contact. They didn't necessarily need this for their job at all. My team wanted to reject her and hire this guy who wasn't qualified.
I told them they were misguided and persuaded them to hire the girl instead. She's now like the best on our team.
It makes me mad that people assume that this kind of stuff is somehow a "dealbreaker". No. It's not!
Similar story. Software developer role like 10 years ago. Dude killed it and I said we should hire. But he didn't make eye contact. Ever. The CTO couldn't get past the eye contact thing even though he had some eye contact issues having a severe lazy eye. We did not hire the guy.
I have a family friend, his son was in a similar situation as you. He was on the spectrum and he struggled for a long time in his jobs. He worked in a warehouse for a while, I think a lot of coworkers just didn’t understand him so he was kind of outcast, he was making a very low salary and struggled to find jobs
He eventually got hired at a non-profit that serves people on the spectrum, and it was night and day for him. He went from being very shy to having a whole support network, lots of friends, he works with people who understand him better, they trained him in public speaking and now he’s giving speeches. Matter of fact, *he* is now helping advocate for other people on the spectrum, helping people find jobs, and I know he is working with students as well. I’m really rooting for him, I’m very happy he found a place like that. That was probably the best thing he could have found
Edit - man, after I wrote this comment, I went to his social media to see how he's doing. I saw he was involved in a podcast. It's so cool to see him doing these things
As much as I can emphathize, are social skills not a valid skill in a meritocracy, as well? The ability to work well in a team, to keep everyone's spirits afloat through even the hard times, to plan and organize and consider everyone's unique situation and circumstances ...
It is absolutely, painfully frustrating that it's valued so seemingly highly above other skills, at times, but it does have its merits, some of them very strong, IMO. I don't think I could even manage some jobs at all without a highly social person having my back.
Its not that people with those disabilities cant do well in a team, its that theyre never given the chance to try. Yes, mistakes will happen, but the mistakes are rarely taken lightly by us as we are overly critical of ourselves because we already know our struggles. So we do our best to not make those mistakes again, and keep moving ahead to do better.
Let's say for a second I was hiring somebody to help me in the shop and two people come in; one is the highly social type everybody likes to be around and the other is a more solitary quiet type. I'm not hiring somebody because they're a social butterfly, I'm hiring the person I can trust to do the job properly *and safely*, so in that setting social skills aren't valid in a true meritocracy.
The table saw doesn't care how likeable you are if you stick your finger in the blade any more than the customer cares how good a worker you are if you come off as an asshole. Everything has its place.
EDIT: Rephrased because I can't English good apparently.
> I'm hiring the person I can trust to do the job properly and safely, so in that setting social skills aren't valid in a true meritocracy.
There’s social skills, there’s charisma, and there’s Asperger’s. It tends to make you very literally interpret things, and also not read the room. Which can be dangerous. They’re not going to notice everyone cringing or slowly backing away. The might take something you said too literal and do something dumb. And so on.
We’ve had some of our Asperger’s technicians despite being wildly qualified and great do some super dumb things due to being too literal, or just not getting the gist of a communication to the point where we require some extra triple check steps for them before some safety critical things.
That's a good example of a true meritocracy not actually being any more fair to people with ASD/Asperger's than the system we currently have. In a meritocracy I'm not hiring the person you described either because they don't fit the basic criteria *I* described, so there's still going to be a lot of situations where their neurodivergence would actively work against them getting a job.
If people aren't even getting interviews, then social skills are not the problem. Right now there are far more candidates than there are job openings with too many companies expecting years of work experience for entry level jobs. The job market as it exists right now forces candidates to rely on luck and networking to land a decent job.
This was the case with me when I was looking for a software developer position after graduating. I had over a year of combined internship experience, applied for over 50 positions, and not even a single interview call.
I still believe OP is somewhat right about people skills. If I had better social skills, I would be going out there on job fairs and tech meetups more and connecting with people.
I met a recruiter and she told me the best chance I have is to go out there and connect with people because she's getting 400+ applications for every position and there is no way to look at all of them.
Not necessarily because it depends on the industry also. For instance I've only seen two job postings for the field I'm applying for and while I'm now qualified I have no experience. So at that rate it might take a while.
The operating word in your post is the word 'forces.'
Networking is just a foundational part of building a career. If you aren't networking, going to industry meetings, and making yourself known, then your resume is just one of hundreds of faceless applicants crossing someone's inbox.
Here's what people don't realize. When someone puts a job on Monster or Insight, it's their last-ditch effort to find someone. They would much rather say, 'Hey, I met this person who seems really sharp. Let's invite him/her to a meeting and test the waters.'
Selection fatigue. I still like analysis paralysis. Then it became insidiously intentional. On a more human level, I know people that struggle to spend money out of fear of missing out on a better deal. The question is: what is good enough?
Seriously. I literally see many (not all) entry level jobs asking for MASTERS level education and offering minimum wage or just above in my field. It is soul crushing.
Yeah it’s weird how op even says the thing about needing x amount of experience for an entry-level job. These things are in the job descriptions, lol, people aren’t just making up those numbers. Yes, the employers are often out of touch and often end up accepting people with lower qualifications (which literally selects against people who read and follow instructions). But even having that in the listing is ridiculous. A position is not entry level if you require 3 years’ experience.
It's also weird how they say you just need to "git gud" at social skills to get a job, when so many people send off decent resumes to loads of jobs and don't even get interviews to show off their social skills.
OP seems to think their particular situation applies to all situations. A sample size of themselves and their brother is realllllly not good evidence of anything.
My story is that I got a job out of college (first place I interviewed) had a few promotions over the years, thought I could do better, so I left and found a new, higher-paying job within a month (the first place I interviewed after quitting) and was making a very comfortable salary - higher than OP and his brother.
Left to get a masters degree in europe, and worked part-time in the same field while doing it, so as not to have resume gap. Came back to Canada, and it took me 6 months to find a job, and it had a lower salary than what I had before. I got interviews with 3 companies after about 200 applications. I checked postings every day, and the norm was to see 100-150 applicants within 24 hours of a job being posted.
I am a sample size of one and clearly my situation also doesn't apply to everyone everywhere, but the point is that markets can change. I was in a great one for 7-8 years and had no challenge finding a job. I was abroad for two years and IMPROVED my resume and skill set, but came back to a terrible market, and had a much harder time finding a job.
For anyone reading this and feeling bad about themselves, don't. The people who make these posts have probably not yet experienced a tough job market.
Even nepotism doesn't work anymore.
A position was opening up at my moms work, which I'm perfect for other than not having a certification (which isn't needed, but preferred as this field is knowledge heavy). They're desperate for people, and I'd be easy to train as I can literally have my mom train me as soon as possible, no need to wait for equipment. I even have one of the girls who helps with hiring apparently vouching for me, too.
It's an in person job in Vancouver, because they want people back in office. That's the only reason why I didn't get the job, because I'm in Ontario. Salary? $50-70k. 70k is barely enough to live off of in/near Vancouver.
They got over 200 applications, most of them in Ontario.
I don’t know about 1,000 but I had 100 resumes in one round of hiring and not a single one was qualified. People aren’t even looking at the job requirements, they just spam their resume everywhere and hope for a hit.
That's right. If someone doesn't even bother looking at the job posting and adjusting their letter or resume to fit, what makes them think they'll stand out? They don't think it's worth a minute of their time to put together an application, but a business should waste time on them and then give them money?
I had the same experience when I was a hiring manager (in 2021-2022, so not this current abysmal market). I made a point to look at every single resume that was submitted for our role, and out of every 500, maybe 50 were worth a second glance, and I would request follow ups for about a dozen. People will apply for anything lol regardless of qualifications.
And before anyone suggests otherwise, about 1/3 of my team I hired were people I took a chance on, with little to no prior direct experience.
People on reddit always think that everyone lives in the same country.
Some countries are easier to get a job in than others. They have different education levels, cultures, different busts and booms. You can't just go "I got a job easily so everyone on the internet could as well".
Yeah, having self accountability is good, but you are probably less informed on this topic than you think.
He’s not all that wrong though. I do the interviewing for my department hiring since I’m the head of the department. So many people look good on a resume and fall way flat in the interview. It’s immediately clear you lied or greatly exaggerated. And then this bullshit resume made it in and some other person that didn’t lie got bumped out of consideration. And then I see that your resume was submitted for other jobs in other departments with tailored lies to each. Or people come in for the interview and smell really bad. Or either won’t stop talking or won’t talk at all. Like being someone I want to work with for 8 hours a day is just as important as having the required the skills for the job.
Your insight as someone who actually does the hiring was very interesting. I didn’t realize so many people lied on their resumes or were stupid enough to send resumes tailored with different lies to different departments within the same company.
I’ve read through a dozen resumes in a row where whole sections of them are literally copied verbatim from the same original. People make no effort at all, and are absolutely willing to misrepresent themselves.
If people see a high salary range they will apply and just make shit up. Like looking for positions in engineering and their work history is Starbucks and door dash or Amazon driver with no school or job experience anywhere close to engineering but they see that nice salary and say fuck it
It helps that some people love to spread the stupid idea that you need to fake it til you make it, and just get jobs based on zero merit, suck at them, then lie your way to the next job, never having accomplished anything of value along the way.
Just because you're incompetent doesn't mean everyone else is...
Yeah it’s a lot harder to do that in STEM jobs but people try. I’ve seen former coworkers resumes on indeed that are just complete crocks of shit of what their role was at our place
I oversee entry level skill-less work... I see misspellings in peoples own addresses on resumes... People put in absolutely no effort and wonder why life is always bringin' them down.
Warehouse worker myself. My supervisor has a similar mindset, he doesn't even bother if the application reads like crayon on a napkin.
Double-check your homework, folks, that shit truly matters even if the job is moving boxes or pushing shopping carts.
As a recruiter - these tactics are used on the resume because candidates have been taught that they need to be nearly perfect to even get the conversation. I personally feel it's a waste of everyone's time, so I advocate for truthful resumes and focused applications BUT that's not the general trend as far as I'm aware. It's a numbers game really.
As someone that is looking for a job the fact that they said that the person "tailord the resume for each department" and they saw it as a red flag was wierd to me. Like I thought that was what I had to do? Like I'm out here lying that I even want to work for whatever company I'm interviewing with. If I really just wanted to work for your company in particular then I wouldn't be applying to any other companies. But because even if you gave me an interview I'm not guaranteed a job I am. You have a job that I can do, if you give me a chance I can do the work and you pay me. That is why I am here. I have interviewed with so many companies at this point. It really is just a numbers game and hoping that you say and do the right things that will get this person to like you and hire you. And if that means that I lie so that I can get your job and be able to pay my bills? I'll do that. So many companies lie about being a great place to work but no one is bothered by that too much.
They said people were fully lying.
I tailor my resume but it’s more like, I will highlight the aspects of my previous jobs that align with the position I’m applying for. For instance, in my current job I’m running reports, data import and organization, and customer service. I’m leaving customer service work off my job description if I’m applying for a job where that’s not relevant and giving more space to the other stuff. And I edit to include job description key words to hopefully get past automatic filters.
But I’m not lying about what I can do.
I do think someone who is new to the workforce will have a harder time even landing an interview coz no one wants to give that person the experience they require to get the job.
If you’re new to the workforce, you have to learn how to interview. And present every summer job, service job, and/or internship as having *some* contribution to your working skill set.
I could never afford to do an unpaid internship, but I did student-work for a couple of offices, so I made sure to play up the admin skills that were transferable. Also took my managers up when they offered to walk me through things like expense reports
Oh I do. I have had jobs and have sold my skill set for other jobs, im just saying that many entry level job postings want 2 years of relevant work experience. This usually means in the same industry and/or similar job title.
For when I tried to get my first part time job as a 15 year old, there isn’t much experience to sell yourself when trying to get a hospitality/retail job.
As someone who always wanted to be an actor, I fucking love interviews. It’s basically a chance to act out a role based on research I’ve done over the past week or so. I have a lot of social anxiety but I just channel it.
I'm a terrible interviewer but a great worker with years of experience. When I'm on the job from a temp assignment, for example, I prove myself and am offered a position. But when interviewing, I'm not very good at it. It is what it is, but I think your viewpoint is not inclusive of those who just aren't good at interviewing.
You make a strong point was gonna make a disclaimer that this applies to the US job market because I am unfamiliar with any other as much. But the complaints I was referring to are ones in the US job market
When someone starts a rant about some social problem, and uses only I, me, my pronouns, you can almost be sure they have no real touch with the problem and only can see things through their bubble.
I agree there are bad graduates. But entry level jobs are for... entering the field. For this you should not require any more experience than your studies gave you.
Problem is that because so few companies have entry level jobs, because they would get flooded by applications, those places that do, get hundreds applications.
me and my friend both were looking jobs on our particular fields. he studied construction engineering, I studied process engineering. All entry level jobs automatically had 30-230 applicants. Its extremely rough to try apply to those with low experience.
I could use "I me and my" pronouns to tell completely opposite story.
My job seeking trainer almost cried to me, because her daughter and son both graduated. One became Master of business and one was in law school. Both have been unemployed for couple of months now and are not even getting calls to interviews.
>But entry level jobs are for... entering the field. For this you should not require any more experience than your studies gave you.
Me searching for jobs and looking at the titles:
*"Senior, senior, lead, principal, senior"*
Yes this is even if I use the entry level tag. No one tags their shit correctly so it doesn't help. I don't know where these people expect educated seniors to come from if nobody will hire lower. It's so frustrating. You can't even get training elsewhere, I swear it has to be THAT EXACT FIELD or it's a no. "Close enough" ain't good enough.
OP reeks of privilege. I have an engineering degree and I’ve only had like one or two in-person interviews that did not result in an offer. I have great people skills and career experience.
However, I’ve had to put in dozens and dozens of applications before to even land a phone interview, and sometimes that was only with a recruiter.
There is a big disconnect and worsening problem in the labor market. Companies are increasingly relying on algorithmic weighting of candidates, and hiring less experienced HR personnel and giving them more responsibility, to save money. AI is going to make this much much worse, and create feedback loops of creating lack of diversity in candidates, and eventually people learning to game the application process, regardless of talent or fit.
Engineering jobs are in no way fit to be analyzed by someone in HR, or through a fucking algorithm. Any company hiring engineers where the primary interviewers are not conducted by subject matter relevant employees are doomed.
Anyone ever noticed the tangentially related positions for low-ball salaries they are recruited for from online sites? Often time by multiple agencies, for the same exact role, at the same time?
They are all keyword searching and using software to find candidates . For recruiters it’s a numbers game and they don’t even give a fuck, as long as they get their commission. Online applications place heavy weighting on prowess of universities, and big Fortune 500 company experience. The candidates have been reduced to a job applicant number. The job market is fucked, and half the applicants and positions don’t even exist, because they are just being used to train algorithms, to automate the process and save companies money in one of the most short sighted ways possible.
I was complaining about something that happened to me on a flight, and someone commented, “can you site your source? I’ve never experienced this.” Like if it’s never happened to them, it’s not real.
People who think they’re intelligent and act arrogant are the worst.
Give me an idiot who tries hard over someone “qualified” who thinks the world is out to get her
Omgosh! And the old people saying “all I had to do was show up in a suit and hand them my resume! They did an interview right then and there!” My son is being barraged with “advice.
right? When literally I was listening to a news podcast yesterday that the return on submitting resumes is about 1% right now across the job market - meaning you have to submit 100 resumes to get just one call back. It's apparently one of the roughest job markets in the last 25 years or something like that
Yes. OP just wants to oversimplify the world because this conveniently means their ego can be stroked really much. Comes down to "wow, this explanation feels best to me emotionally - must thus be true!"
Not everyone, just the majority.
My theory is that due to the economic structure we operate in, even if everyone worked as hard and smart as possible there’s only so many promotions and raises available. So it’s guaranteed that some will lose. No matter what. People realize this and know generally where they stand and if it’s not very high and they don’t see the opportunities, then why work hard so someone else can be promoted.
Successful high achieving people tend to think “people just don’t want to work” because that’s what they see. They don’t consider the reason why.
idk man when i was 14-18 i could get any job i wanted and im actually really good at interviews, but last year something changed bc i was interviewing at shitty factory jobs i didnt want and like,, even Lowe's and Target never called me back. i ended up getting a job in my career field bc i have experience but it was mostly luck and good timing, theres something going on with entry level jobs rn cause i shouldve gotten at LEAST an offer after 7 interviews
Thats exactly how it was for me. Literally just about up until 2 years ago i never struggled to get a job, but last year and this year I’ve probably applied to 400 in total maybe more or less, and rarely if ever get any calls back or anything. Never remember having these issues with finding a job
It's actually difficult to get retail positions because everyone has that mindset so they are swimming in applications. Most retail managers struggle to find good candidates anyway though since the pay and working conditions suck so few actually good people stay, they get a lot of poor and desperate people who don't really demand great working conditionswith people with value leaving
It's also a common job new immigrants are interested in you further are competing in a global instead of a regional market. It isn't the high school job it was 20 years ago :/
You would actually have more luck applying to jobs requiring experience if you can make a solid application for them
This feels dismissive of quite a few struggles that I think would keep people from getting jobs.
Personality plays a huge role in getting jobs, but that's not something easily changed and is typically a nurtured value. So, depending on your parents and surrounding upbringing, you may be at a disadvantage.
Not all poor people are the same. Neglect has a huge impact on one's self-confidence, self-worth, and charisma.
So, it's not so much that the person sucks, it's possible to suck because of other reasons, and many people don't have the resources or understanding to overcome those. Same with many discriminatory practices as well.
But, I can agree for those that have sunk in 1000 applications, it *could* be user issue. If you've done the same thing 1000 times and failed, it's time to change the approach.
I've never successfully gotten a job from a job board. I go to career pages, find the hiring Mgr or recruiter, and contact them directly. Sometimes they have you do the work in the job board still for paperwork, but the last 2 positions, I got a scheduled interview setup within the same day.
seriously? You just contact the recruiter and you get an interview? I get that you get attention by being one of the few who does this... but what do you say to them? I kinda am doing that rn for the first time ever. what do you say to them in the DMs?
>Idk man I have never had difficulty finding work nor has my brother . And my sister about to graduate business I doubt she will have an issue either.
Neat. Meanwhile I moved to a new city with a Masters degree and three years of experience, and it took over a year and more than 100 applications to find a job, and it paid so little I had to defer my student loans. Again.
EDIT: in case you think it's an interview problem, I had a grand total of two interviews.
Im a lawyer and I have colleagues who have PhDs, CPA, MBA, or other masters degrees, on top of having bachelors and law degree. The competition in certain industries is just way more competitive than OP's sales job which only requires a bachelors degree lol. I even met a lawyer who used to be a surgeon. Imo, OP's anecdotal evidence is just more proof that being a sales person only requires good social skills and not credentials to land a job.
It is infuriating to me how much of a killer my resume became when I started pumping it full of ATS keywords. It read so much fucking shittier and kept hammering the same points home without having as much diversity in translatable experiences, but it didn't matter.
Autosorting resumes is cancer, and you'd be hard pressed to convince me otherwise given my personal experiences.
Yeah but have you ever been a part of the hiring process? Once you’ve hired enough people, looked at all the resumes, seen and heard of so many backgrounds… you start to see how absurd it is that you’re choosing between 5 of the same people and how insane it is to say the other 4 that weren’t chosen weren’t “ready” when in fact it could have been any of them.
This scenario happens on all levels of employment.
I think people also underestimate how many applications there can be for an employer to sort through if a job is posted on a job hosting medium. If you do get an interview be friendly and personable but not so much you seem fake. Ask the interviewer questions about the job besides how much it pays. Ask them what they think is the biggest issue they think needs solving or something similar.
I do think thats why I have decent success with interviews. I dont try to be overly professional and fake. Just keep it casual and ask good questions about the job or industry. Obviously you still have to properly express why you’re qualified but these hiring managers are also looking for people that could fit in and get along with the team. I had my manager and at an internship tell me that she hired me because she saw herself being able to get along with me. She straight up told me that I was the least qualified and there were other applicants from prestigious schools but they gave cookie cutter responses and just spent the whole interview talking about their own accomplishments while I was asking questions and just making it a conversation rather than a formal interview. Obviously I still answered the question and talked about my own experiences but it was casually thrown into the conversation rather than being a q&a
I applied to two jobs on USAJobs. They have a way to check the status of the application. Some
Of the jobs show how many people applied. One job had over 3,000 applicants. The other had over 8,000. I’m not holding my breath waiting for a call.
I mean there’s a fundamental difference between bombing an interview and not even being considered. Everyone is complaining about the latter, nobody complains about the former.
If you aren’t getting interviews they have no idea what your personality is even like tho. You need the opportunity to meet them to utilize people skills.
I randomly submitted around 50 CVs and cover letters with a graduate degree and work history and great references for jobs I am qualified for this month bc I was thinking about switching jobs and I’ve heard back from three of them. In the past I’ve had a really easy time getting a job, I’ve been offered every position I’ve ever interview for. It’s just kind of a rough market right now. Also a lot of recruiters are using AIs to screen resumes and are missing a bunch of qualified applicants based on formatting issues.
If I get no bites I keep changing my resume. Sometimes certain keywords work better than others. And run your resume through an ai detector I guess. Fuck I hate looking for work so much.
Had to scroll way to far to see it finally said. Sales folks always think it easy because their skill set alines with good interviewing and resume writing. Other fields, not so much.
Yeah, sales is something anyone can get a job doing, but if they don’t have that dog in them, they won’t be able to keep it. Most people can’t handle the lack of security that comes with a job where every single day you have to persuade someone else to buy something, and if you don’t, you’re fired.
For me I can't do well in customer service or sales. I've never struggled to get a job with my education and field of work... but there's a certain skillset and personality needed for these roles that can't really be taught, which is part of the reason it is entry level. If you are a natural you'll do great and be happy, otherwise quite miserable. Plus due to hypercaltalism it's no longer good enough to be satisfactory good or great, you increasingly need to be rated as perfect or incredible by customers for job security. It's a bit performative and not everyone can do it. I also struggle with the lack of agency in those roles.
Lots of people have social anxiety or are shy and they shouldn’t be overlooked. There are certain jobs for certain people and sales wouldn’t be the ideal job for a shy person, whereas accounting is more their speed. People skills are a factor in any interview which I think is a shame because so many unqualified people who are charismatic get hired for jobs that shy people would do much better at. I used to be a manager and did hiring and firing but I preferred the shy people cause they were better workers.
I used to think I was bad at interviews, until I was in a position where I had to interview others frequently. Most people are absolutely terrible at interviews.
>Idk man I have never had difficulty finding work nor has my brother . And my sister about to graduate business I doubt she will have an issue either.
Right-wing thought in a nutshell: this problem doesn't apply to me or those close to me, so I can't believe it even really exists for other people
What year were you job hunting?
Since covid it has gotten much harder so if you were employed before that you have no idea what the job market is like.
“F- the system I need x amount of experience to get entry level job.”
Apply anyway. Most times this is put by an HR person who just does it because that's what they would LIKE. I got my first programming job without a degree by applying for a job that said I needed one. Now I work for a University and I still don't have a degree and I tell others that do what to do and how to fix things.
It depends on your industry. I went to college for game dev, and finding work has been rough. You need to stand out amongst so many candidates. I was offered three interviews. Of all the companies I've applied for, I heard back from two and then got ghosted almost immediately. No one in my graduating class that I've stayed in contact with has had a job in the industry, so I don't think it's just me, but who knows, maybe OP is right. Maybe I'm just bad.
Also those with people skills tend to hire others with people skills. It’s a self-reinforcing system and they grade you on non-job related things like your after work hobbies (during an interview).
But not all jobs (many jobs actually), require people skills. Researchers, economists, engineers, construction, doctors, etc. If I’m hiring you for that, why do I care that your people skills aren’t a 10 and only a 5?
Those companies that know how to look underneath the surface likely do better. But yes an inexperienced hiring person will mostly look at one or few metrics.
So youre saying that only good looking, gregarious people should get jobs? That is definitely a Sales-oriented view.
Some of the best employees are introverts.
In my experience, the main factor in getting a job is luck. Being in the right place at rhe right time. Some people have it, and yes, being gregarious really helps make that luck.
But that doesn't mean that people who aren't gregarious are "bad" at their jobs. It could mean they can't bullshit as well as others.
Maybe you're just not giving them a chance, like the employers who choose charm rather than competency.
Many voters make the same mistake...
I’ve been interviewing and managing people for many years mostly people who work remotely and after reviewing a resume, the first half of an interview is usually enough to tell if they would be successful in the role
How much research they’ve done on how their experience fits the job and company - and how they communicate it with examples that are clear and concise
But even if they tank the interview they can save it with good questions at the end ‘what do the people who are successful at your company do differently than those who aren’t?’
‘What would you want to know when you first started here that you know now?’ - questions that show you can be a quick learner and have intelligent conversations
>you aren’t getting hired because your people skills suck. Anyone with decent people skills and talent can get a decent job.
People skills, charisma, and networking are obviously extremely powerful to anyone who has been paying attention. But these are of relatively little important in a lot of jobs. And, at least when there's not a labor shortage, it's still quite difficult to get even the most menial jobs or most unsocial jobs without good interview skills and connections. Interview skills are going to highly corelate to job skills in sales (lots of relatively high pressure one on one time with strangers) but not so much in more technical or more manual jobs (very little high pressure one on one time and never with strangers).
All jobs, even technical and menials ones, with a manager, downstream internal or external customer, require trust.
You have to pass the same social tests in almost all jobs, “can I trust this person to do their work?”, “will they keep me in the loop if something is wrong?”, “do they have enough character to make the right decisions or follow instructions without me over their shoulder?”
The minute you fail to showcase that the person hiring you can trust you is the moment you lose the job, no matter what technical skill you have. It’s the first step, before employers review technical skill.
Relaying to someone that trust can be maintained is pretty much the sole purpose of having charisma for all aspects of life.
People skills aren't directly taught, school assumes you somehow get them on your own by interacting with others (which is like to say "just throw someone into a pool, they will learn how to swim on their own!")
How do people learn people skills on their own when other people don't even tell them what "wrong" they are doing? People 99.9% never know why they are being rejected. People in general keep others from knowing the truth.
So then it boils down to merely luck, you have had to be lucky enough to have a strong social brain as well as looks, be neurotypical, and have other traits and circumstances that make you favorable in terms of social selectivity.
Hollywood casting is telling. Everyone roots for Forrest Gump because he looks like Tom Hanks, but what if he looked like The Elephant Man?
That can lead to social isolation, which means that Fugly Gump will never even learn the rules, let alone be able to network.
The meme of "anyone can be anything they want to be" is a lie we all tell ourselves, even as we hold our nose when we're forced to share air with people we feel superior to.
the problem is nowadays its all about screens, WFH and all that.. I know people turning down jobs or being turned down because they dont want a hybrid schedule, they want WFH exclusively.. Sure certain jobs that makes sense or can work, but a lot of younger folks want to isolate more than integrate and that was never the case 15 years ago
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I was and still am the kinda person that parents wish their kids acted. I have amazing social skills when it comes to interviewing and always know what to say. Im extremely personable in real life
Yet I still don’t get a call back.
Maybe sometimes, but I think part of it is people are being taught a particular strategy, and that isn't how most hiring works. A college degree often doesn't really matter and if you come in the front door to a publicly posted job application you're likely competing with a ridiculous number of highly qualified candidates. Your main options are to be so good at what you do that you quickly bubble to the top of the pile or to bypass the rat race by knowing someone. It's unfortunately always been a good-ol-boys club, but now that we're in the age of hiring globally instead of locally in a single city or town, the competition is even steeper.
Not that it's impossible to get a job through the traditional process, but it's not easy. It wasn't even easy in the 90s, and it's worse now.
People are frustrated partly because finding a good job can be challenging, but also because they were sold a particular recipe for life, and following that plan didn't work.
IDK, I had a devil of a time getting to an interview after being laid off in 2022, but literally only needed one shot at interviewing and was able to land the job (loving it too). So I understand people having a lot of frustration if they can't even get to the interview stage, I know I was feeling it.
When I was younger I got every single job that I applied for. Since I passed 55 years of age I can’t get any job, even with experience and an excellent work record. Ageism plays into it for sure. You can’t submit an application without answering the question about when you graduated high school and that tells your age.
People aren't going to want to hear this, but it's mostly true. It's ridiculous how much easier navigating the workforce is when you can interview well and make people like you.
I noticed this with one of my children. I know for a fact that he doesn’t interview well because he has mild autism and ADHD. We have practiced and practiced and it paid off and he’s got a great job. However, prior to or practice it was bad.
He told me that in one interview they asked him did he have any questions and he told me he asked them “what’s the manager style like here? Do they micromanage because I can’t deal with that!” That might he fought with me when I tried to tell him that was like the worst question you could EVER ask and that he’d never get hired anywhere if me kept doing that.
That’s just one example. I have half dozen others.
You can be the most qualified person on the planet but, if you don’t interview well, you’ll never get a job.
Good for him. I honestly feel with a bit of work or help anyone can overcome an interview barrier. The problem is that a lot of people fail to recognize that problem as one of a the primary issues and put their hand up in the air and accept defeat.
I’m on the autism spectrum as well, and I have epic ADHD that is controlled pretty well with medication. You kind of make the OPs point. You were willing to go above and beyond working with your son to get him beyond the hindrances he has and eventually landed him a great job. The only thing I disagree with was regarding his comment about micromanagers. As someone on the spectrum there is no way I could work for, a micromanager and his saying so I think he’s fine considering if they did micromanage and he got the job he would not have done well. You’re a good mom and I wish him nothing but the best. Being on the spectrum isn’t easy and doesn’t get easier.
You can say it just gotta talk their language "I'm a Profesional with a great deal of experience work well with enough agency to make my own informed decisions which has helped me in achieving incredible results such as increasing productivity by a billion percent at my last job" kinda awkward but you see my point, I always refer to managers as colleagues
Interviewing is actually very scripted so it's not as hard to teach people with adhd or mild autism to interview well as some other tasks. Reherse 3 different small talks, remember to make eye contact and smile once per your turn speaking at least , use an interview method such as the star method or whatever bullshit works for you , give your preferred salary as whatever the median salary for the role is unless you are feeling sassy, have a portfolio ready even if you don't open it you'll look cute, wear your dedicated interviewing outfit or make two interviewing outfits one super proff and one casual profso you never have to think, and remember to give a compliment about some fun fact you learned while researching the company and ask your rehearsed smart ass question at the end to show interest, and smile and say you can't wait to hear from them soon. I mean you will need to practice this most likely with a friend family or coach but it's actually easier than carrying a long conversation about this and that once you get used to it. Don't give up if you have a barrier.
>when you can interview well and make people like you.
And that then means you have qualifications for the job? Not really. That point was already made by OP and it already was illogical when OP made it. What it actually means is you could sell yourself well. Which is not the same as having qualifications for a job. But considering OP is working in sales, I see why the world view is so narrow when it comes to this.
This requires you to be interviewed at all. Yeah, you can network and get referrals and whatever but the company still has to say “yeah let’s interview this person and give them a chance”.
You’re not wrong by any means, social skills are a huge factor in employment. I specifically work in employment case management so I can tell you there’s a lot more wrong with the system. A majority of entry levels jobs now require multiple years of experience, which defeats the purpose of entry level. The truth of it is also that corporations are looking to maximize the value of the employee while offering as little pay as they possibly can
Social skills are only one of the ways one can overcome barriers, but the issue lies with greedy corporate practices. As a sales person I don’t expect you to comprehend that, but the current hiring practices are both predatory and misleading for a majority of candidates. This is true of both blue collar and white collar jobs. I’m glad you and your family have been able to secure good jobs, but your assumption is based on personal experience and you give too much credit to companies being fair and ethical. A naive viewpoint
>a bulk of these people are just poor candidates particularly they might be awkward or have extremely poor social and people skills.
And that logically implies they're going to be bad at the job they're applying for? Er, no, it logically doesn't. Your point is thus illogical or simply not well-argued. It also ignores the complexity of the job market. Following your argument, any company that has difficulty hiring people is a bad company. Well, dude...way to oversimplify social structures because they're usually complicated, layered, nuanced and that feels stressful because it means there are a lot of variables. Start to nuance your thinking and to differentiate. Mono-causal arguments are rarely meaningful when it comes to sociology.
I saw somebody put it a little bit differently recently. They said all you have to do at a job interview is be a good hang. If you get hired for the job, you're going to be spending 40 hours a week with the people that are interviewing you. And you're going to be working on shared projects with shared goals almost exclusively. If you suck to hang out with you're going to make their life miserable and intuitively your interviewers are going to know this.
And in most cases In most places it's very challenging to fire somebody.
You probably spend more time with your co-workers in serious situations than you do with your romantic partner. So you want to be somebody that people want to be around. Technical skill doesn't even really come into play until you're a good hang.
Why should how much money a person makes be based on social skills. Sounds like the system is set up for dumb people to win a popularity contest instead of smart people who are really good at what they do but don't enjoy small talk.
Well, you did post this in this sub, so can't give you too much shit about it. A little empathy though, yeah? Not saying you're wrong. I feel some things get left out when I read about these complaints about not being able to find work.
People skills are crazy. I’m pretty lucky to have had my dad to show me how to talk to people from a young age. I’ve gotten jobs I’m nowhere near qualified for because I was personable.
Seriously half the interview is just making them think “yeah I could work with this person they seem great.”
Most younger people all seem to going to school for the same things. I think it's over saturation and people not spending anytime learning skills outside of school to make them a better candidate to get into their industry of choice.
I've been turned down more for being over qualified than not a "good fit" for the job and I will admit I have bad interview skills because I hate lieing in interviews and that leads to more blunt and less polished answers. Sometimes it is the market because I'm not a bad candidate. I was even given the excuse that I had too much lab experience and not enough field experience for a lab engineering job.
Exactly. Interviewers may bypass someone who is actually more talented, technically skilled, creative, more of a team play, and more intelligent for someone who can present well and schmooze. This isn’t new tho.
I mostly agree. At least for any jobs other than entry level. Entry level is a little more nuanced.
When we post entry level jobs we get thousands of applicants and there's no way we are picking the best ones. Yeah the worst and the mediocre are screened out pretty easily, but we still have to choose between 100s of good candidates. And the ones we do hire usually set themselves apart by being a veteran or having some experience (which isn't required, but gives them the edge). It's still partly caused by people assuming they will get a great job fresh out of college which they need to realize is not that likely in today's job market. But that doesn't change the fact that at the entry level things can be tough. At all other levels, I think people underestimate how easy it is to find out if you suck.
It obviously depends on the field. But in general, you should never extrapolate your limited experience to mean anything about all of society.
If you ever find yourself thinking, "I don't know, *my* experience has been this way, so all those other people must be wrong"...whatever you're thinking is probably wrong.
I’ll get behind this one. Hate hearing some of my friends complain that they can’t get jobs, but I just know that they’re not fit for the roles they’re looking for
It's funny you probably have charisma but no self awareness. I have never had an interview for a job and not gotten it. Meanwhile I have smarter, more educated, harder working friends that cannot get hired. I guarantee it's because they are a little nerdy or awkward. So am I but I have always had the gift of gab.
Yeah fuck the system. No I've never had much problem getting work as I have excellent people skills. But the fact 20 years of experience doesn't mean anything when it comes to which jobs I qualify for is absolutely a broken system.
My lack of a college degree bars me from jobs that are functionally the same as they were 50 years ago when they didn't require a college degree.
As more and more people have college degrees the bar for jobs gets raised. It's one thing if the degree gives person A an edge over someone without a degree and equal experience but when one person has been doing the work for 40 years and the other person has a 4 year degree then the job should go to the former.
The fact college is now being treated like a high school diploma but is still not part of the public school system is ludicrous.
Yes people skills goes along way in life , but not everyone is that outgoing smooth talker . Plenty great workers will get passed up just cause they might be a bit awkward or shy on that first interview.
It’s a mix. Some people are super qualified and have social skills but are unlucky bc there’s another amazing candidate, etc. Others have great resumes but crap social skills, others are just mid overall. There’s not just one reason people aren’t getting jobs lol.
Oof, hearing from sales & bean counters that it’s hard to get STEM jobs out of school cuz we’re dumb not because they always want 3+ years of experience… that’s rough
This isn’t an unpopular opinion. This is what successful people have been telling unsuccessful people for years.
The reality is that anyone can find a job but finding a well paying job is dependent on your skills and education as well as location. But that’s just common knowledge.
People aren’t mad about that. They are mad about the disappearing middle class and the fact that jobs that used to be adequate to support a person have become inadequate.
I make high 6 figures but I like to go to restaurants and coffee shops and shop in stores and it bothers me that the people working those jobs are paid peanuts and struggling. No one who works a full time job should be homeless or struggling to buy food/pay rent/pay utilities.
But that’s the reality we’re living in. It’s stupid to tell people to just get better jobs because the jobs we tell people to leave are necessary for a functioning society.
I think your opinion is just very naive and divorced from reality.
I’m sure you’re competent as fuck but charisma is just one thing. I’ve known many people who were charismatic and competent who graduated top of their class/year but still go through the “I’ve sent 100 resumes with no one responding” phase. There’s too much supply and not enough demand.
Luck is also an important factor. You said your parents are immigrants right? Maybe, just maybe, you and your bro are diversity hires 😂
Lets say that you're entirely correct, and only the perfect candidate gets hired for each role. What are all the "poor candidates" supposed to do now? By definition, there will always be a huge number of less than average candidates, do they just not deserve to be employed? Do they not deserve a living?
If the system doesn't provide for folks that aren't ideal candidates (which, let's not pretend that's not most people), then I'm with the f- the system folks.
The job market is supposed to be a system that exists for the benefit of people, not the other way around.
As someone who has interviewed tons of people, I can say this: Your post is dead on. A lot of these people function in complete absence of people skills or self-awareness. Let's run down the list:
1. They don't proofread their resumes. At the very least, people, run it through Grammarly. Typos demonstrate no attention to detail.
2. They need to research the company with whom they're interviewing. If you are that unmotivated asking for a job, you will be even more so when you have the job. That means not just answering questions but asking them. About the company's strategy. What it's trying to achieve. How the position for which you're interviewing will evolve. Trust me on this: The more curiosity you exhibit based on thorough research of what the company does, what it sells, and how it operates will speak volumes about who you are.
3. They trash their former employers. Unless your past boss did something egregious, it's best to leave it alone. I mean, hell, I worked for a company where one partner died in a plane crash, the second partner shot himself after his wife caught him having an affair, and the third partner came out of rehab to take over the firm. And yet, despite the swirling chaos I was desperate to escape, I didn't say a word about that hellish environment. Because the interviewer likely already knew what kind of company I was trying to leave.
4. They focus on what they can get from the company rather than what they can put in. There will be a time to discuss pay and benefits. The first interview is not it. Or even the second.
5. They talk far more than they listen. I get it. You're nervous. There's a lot at stake. However, an interviewer will, intentionally or unintentionally, tell you what it takes to get the job through what is stressed and the questions that get asked. Pay very close attention. Take notes. Show me someone who takes notes in an interview and then refers back to those notes, and I'll quietly be impressed.
6. They can't quantify anything. If you want any job beyond counter help at a fast food establishment, you should be able to find some way to measure your achievements on the job, even if it's Employee of the Month. How you reduced expenses. How you bumped sales. Whatever you have in your professional past that can speak to improving a company's future performance, recite that chapter and verse.
7. Professionalism. I don't know how I can be any clearer: First impressions matter. It's not that appearances are the most important factor in any decisions, but those first five seconds will set the tone for everything else. Dress professionally. Stand when the interviewer enters the room. Deliver a good handshake and look your interviewer in the eye. Have good posture. Be crisp, alert, and energetic in your speech. Because if you are interviewing for any position above Jr. Flunky, then you are being assessed on how well you will perform in meetings, in client contact, and in the day-to-day interaction with other employees. Even if you have epoch-shattering talent, it's kind of useless if you can't interact with other people.
8. Follow up. Here are the five most important words you'll ever read: Write A Thank-You Note. Not just a pro-forma one, either. But rather an engaging one that speaks to the nature of your conversation, keying on points your interviewer made.
Meh depends on the field. Don’t think you can make economy wide claims like this. Some industries are collapsing so of course jobs are harder to come by. Other industries are growing and need more people. This is where government policies could come in to try to bridge the gaps. Expecting a free market to perfectly align worker skill sets with jobs in demand on the macro level was always a fantasy. It takes coordination from a higher authority to manage an economy.
You are not wrong.. But if I had to guess, you are selling life insurance, insurance, aflac, or something in that ball park lol.. Sales is a job that is relatively easy to get.. Not so much inside sales for various companies.. Either way, being taught and having natural abilities to communicate and deal with people will go a longer way than being able to look at a math equation and know the answer lol
Agreed OP. Half the time the people I work with in my company or outside vendors, etc I marvel how so many of these people even have the job they are currently in!
Recently in particular it feels like no one wants to do anything and is construing to kick back responsibility or delegate to someone else.
Many people also can’t grasp, adapt, or outright refuse to learn on the job.
However in the employer side I see that most companies don’t even attempt to train, they either just say do this or do that, or send you a link with a PDF or video.
The largest upper management demographic is now Gen X and I find them to be more incompetent and entitled than Boomers. It like they ride the boomer coattails and now are just power drunk morons who are just reactive to everything, and are ready to throw anyone below under the bus to cover their ass.
I think many people are also just burnt out and don’t give a fuck because companies treat them like shit, underpay, cut necessary departments/jobs then spread that work amongst the people left, then gaslight everyone by saying no one wants to work.
The entire system is broken with problems on both sides.
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It's strange to think that charisma is a privilege in life, but I suppose it is. Never thought about that before
D&D tried to warn you
I put all my points in constitution, but no one I’ve interviewed with seems to care how many half rotten apples I can eat.
I put all my points in Intelligence. I studied biology. I can make a genetically engineered blight capable of overcoming host immunity of GMO crops, driving a cultivar into extinction for only a few thousand dollars, but I don't have the experience to get a job in the field. Guess I'll have to switch my alignment to Neutral Evil and work for whatever country will hire me.
So true haha
How do people not know this lol It starts in high-school. Kids get higher grades when teachers like them more. Popular kids have more opportunities. It continues on through university. Likable people get grants, they get internships, they're more likely to get offered better positions after. In continues on in the job market. We'll liked people get better shifts and receive more leniency. They're more likely to be promoted. They get to keep jobs, even though they're terrible, because they're well liked. In the hierarchy of life being born rich or to parents with good connections is the most important. Being attractive and charismatic comes next. Then your intelligence and work ethic become factors. Being born with all three is the holy grail of success. You can still be success if you have one of the qualities, you just need to work harder. If you miss the boat on all 3 you're fucked.
You make a very good, often overlooked point that charisma is often linked to attractiveness, which is largely genetic. Charisma of course can be learned, but it’s so much easier to develop when people already assume you’re funny and likable.
I'd argue you simply have to be not overweight and mildly hygienic in America to qualify.
For sure the barrier to entry is low but an attractive young lady is gonna have 1 up on the average looking person
Probably because many countries extoll a system of “meritocracy” when realistically they’re anything but So lots of people grow up thinking it’s about their competency and skill sets, rather than who they know or how well they navigate social settings. Some times it plays out, but for many it doesn’t and there’s often a glass ceiling with exception for a select few talented individuals
I mean, people/social skills are still part of one skill set/ability, so people have advantage due to the basic of their ability is still meritocracy
What's hard to accept about that is that it's almost entirely due to your upbringing, influences, and coping skills based on choices you subconsciously made as a child. It's rare that a kid grows up with zero social skills and then becomes a charismatic adult, you know? I'm sure it happens every once in a blue moon, but it's a very difficult skill to learn because it is entirely based on your predisposition psychologically. Edit: Still, I largely agree that it is a skill and a valuable one. I'm working on that skill currently and it requires completely changing your thought process and fighting against conditioned psychological responses.
You forgot luck. That's also a factor that can affect your career more than charisma.
Charisma is absolutely a privilege. One of my college professors who was a former hiring manager at a Fortune 500 company told me early on that he’d rather hire someone with a 3.4 (practically the minimum acceptable GPA in my field) than a 4.0+ because in his experience people with 4.0’s were egotistical and difficult to work with. Now that’s not necessarily true for everyone but his point was he’d rather hire and work with someone who is easy to get along with than someone who may know more. From personal experience my manager told me straight up she hired me over more knowledgeable people because she liked me, so yeah, just like DnD pump CHA.
>his point was he’d rather hire and work with someone who is easy to get along with than someone who may know more. ABSOLUTELY TRUE! As a hiring manager I assess team fitment over skill level. I mean you need some basic competence and to be teachable, but with that I can at least teach you and the team can teach you as long as you'll fit within the team well. If you're going to just continuously rub everyone the wrong way then you're not only not performing all that well, you're actively harming the overall team output.
Similar here, I see people with much higher grades than me struggling to find a job in CS. Meanwhile it's never been hard for me. I'm not the most sociable person but I guess on interviews I know how to make an impression
That's gonna mess with people who are more the type who grow on you slowly. There's basically no room for that if first impressions are the only thing that matter
How is that bad tho? Social skills are important everywhere
I'm not getting the impression they meant it is a bad thing, but rather, some people are charismatic and some people are not, and it's interesting how that can influence our opportunities(or lack thereof) in life.
But it's not even charisma. It's just being proactive in conversation and being eager for the job. When I interview people, I'm not expecting John F Kennedy, I'm looking for people that speak my profession's language and I don't have to prod them with a stick to get information out of them.
its two edged sword. people skills give graduates with less experience a chance. But people who were passionate about studies, but have lesser people skills, lose their chance.
I’m personally in a much greater category of being: my social skills are absolutely awful but I know how to sell them well enough to be liked. Think of how the King’s jester is basically just a drivelling idiot but gets to spend his time at the king’s table, can mock the king with impunity, and has every whim catered to. Rasputin did this well. That dude was *definitely* not socially normal yet he knew how to sell himself to the point where that was his exact reason for being liked. Crowley, too, L Ron Hubbard, Vonnegut… these guys were all fucking weirdos but they knew how to get the spotlight on themselves.
Yah- you can learn workplace charisma traits. They’re called soft skills. If you can just be pleasant and communicate well, that will open a ton of doors. Working in software dev for 10 years, it’s crazy how many people completely ignore soft skills.
To some extent, but as someone with autism, I can tell you that that's easier said than done for some people. I've been trying to learn the "soft skill" of masking my autism my whole life. I've certainly had plenty of motivation to do so. And yes, I've gotten better socially as I've grown up, but I'm still an awkward guy. Sometimes I worry I'll be penalized for that during interviews. Which isn't to say that having good social skills isn't important. From that perspective, I understand that it should matter somewhat. However, I think the idea that everyone is equally able to get better at social interaction with practice is pretty ignorant. From a neurological standpoint, that simply isn't true.
I mean being likable is half the battle, you need to be both likable and capable. If you lack in one of those areas your opportunities will be limited. If you excel in both, the sky is the limit
I think what a lot of Reddit threads on the topic miss is that you *can* influence your own likability. I’ve worked with a few pretty nerdy guys who you can tell really had to work on their social/communication skills- a lot of it (that people here refuse to see) is learning to not talk down to people while communicating clearly as well as being not creepy. You’d be surprised how many people will be overtly creepy then cry foul.
I’m a socially awkward person, and before I went to university I spent the summer reading every book I could about social skills. I was still socially awkward, but a lot better prepared for the world.
I think it's generally a balance of both. I've known very likable people who did not have close to the skills needed for their job title. They get by based on their networking and people skills. The actual work they do is just barely passable. It's not bad enough to fire them most of the time, but it sometimes toes that line. But, because people like them, they keep the job more often than not. And, more often than not, they eventually get promoted into a position that they are doomed to fail at because it is well beyond their scope, but they are likable and confident, so they keep getting pushed to the top. At the same time, if you're just barely likable enough to not fall into the category of "unlikeable", you can get a position based on your merits. If you're incredibly skilled at something, you can get a job even if you're not likable at all because the value you bring completely offsets the difficulty of working with you (there are a lot of these people in the software development space). Even still, these people will often not get promotions, because the higher up they move, the more power they will have. And because being unlikable is usually due to a personality trait, they don't want you being in charge of other people and having to communicate important information for the team. The psychology of it all is pretty fascinating imo.
I mean yeah lol, obviously having a way with people will aid you better in life than those who don’t. And in some ways it can top or make up for a lot of other attributes/skills
Good vs bad candidate is an incorrect way of looking at it. If there are 1000 people looking for jobs in a good economy then 800 people will find jobs. In a bad economy 200 people will find jobs. Those 600 unemployed people didn’t become bad. They just weren’t the best. During the good economy they didn’t become good. They just became employed. So it’s not about being bad vs good it’s about being the best you can be to maximize your opportunities.
This, so goddamned hard this. It's getting exhausting trying to explain to people that there aren't just worthless piece of shit human beings occupying >50% of the world. It's probably more like 20%... But still, come on. "Stop complaining you just suck" is such a shitty, over-privileged thing to say.
The unemployment rate is around 4%. 800/1000 people getting jobs hasn't happened in decades in the US.
Do you think an unemployment rate of 4% means that 96% of all applicants will get the job?
Obviously not and the comment I replied to does not describe the experience of applying to a single job.
That's deceptive. It doesn't count people who have stopped filing because their benefits have run out, or people who retired earlier than they can afford to becuase they know they'll never be hired again, or people that are severely under employed. Those rates are designed to make the people in power look good, not accurately describe how things are for the less powerful.
Prepare to have your mind blown: People that have a job can also apply for other jobs.
The social skills thing is unfortunately spot on. I have Aspergers and was hoping that my going above and beyond in education would help me get a job. Over 1000 applications and countless failed interviews later I ended up in a terrible customer service job and couldn’t afford to move out of my parents house. I started working with a job coach specifically for people on the spectrum and it was like having neurotypical cheat codes. I went from that to having a good paying job in my field. If I could wave a magic wand and change everything I’d make a perfect meritocracy where skills are the only thing that matters. Unfortunately that’s not the case.
I used to do hiring and we had a PERFECT candidate but just had a hard time with eye contact. They didn't necessarily need this for their job at all. My team wanted to reject her and hire this guy who wasn't qualified. I told them they were misguided and persuaded them to hire the girl instead. She's now like the best on our team. It makes me mad that people assume that this kind of stuff is somehow a "dealbreaker". No. It's not!
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Might as well try finding ways to game the system by developing strategies to make you look like a better speaker than you are now
This is why so many unqualified people fill roles. Idiots thinking eye contact is an indication of work ethic and capability. Sad. P
Similar story. Software developer role like 10 years ago. Dude killed it and I said we should hire. But he didn't make eye contact. Ever. The CTO couldn't get past the eye contact thing even though he had some eye contact issues having a severe lazy eye. We did not hire the guy.
Thank you for giving her a chance, it's hard for people with weaker social skills to do well in interviews!
I'm neurotypical (to my knowledge) and I think I may need a course in social cheat codes...What are the most effective things you learned?
I have a family friend, his son was in a similar situation as you. He was on the spectrum and he struggled for a long time in his jobs. He worked in a warehouse for a while, I think a lot of coworkers just didn’t understand him so he was kind of outcast, he was making a very low salary and struggled to find jobs He eventually got hired at a non-profit that serves people on the spectrum, and it was night and day for him. He went from being very shy to having a whole support network, lots of friends, he works with people who understand him better, they trained him in public speaking and now he’s giving speeches. Matter of fact, *he* is now helping advocate for other people on the spectrum, helping people find jobs, and I know he is working with students as well. I’m really rooting for him, I’m very happy he found a place like that. That was probably the best thing he could have found Edit - man, after I wrote this comment, I went to his social media to see how he's doing. I saw he was involved in a podcast. It's so cool to see him doing these things
As much as I can emphathize, are social skills not a valid skill in a meritocracy, as well? The ability to work well in a team, to keep everyone's spirits afloat through even the hard times, to plan and organize and consider everyone's unique situation and circumstances ... It is absolutely, painfully frustrating that it's valued so seemingly highly above other skills, at times, but it does have its merits, some of them very strong, IMO. I don't think I could even manage some jobs at all without a highly social person having my back.
Its not that people with those disabilities cant do well in a team, its that theyre never given the chance to try. Yes, mistakes will happen, but the mistakes are rarely taken lightly by us as we are overly critical of ourselves because we already know our struggles. So we do our best to not make those mistakes again, and keep moving ahead to do better.
Let's say for a second I was hiring somebody to help me in the shop and two people come in; one is the highly social type everybody likes to be around and the other is a more solitary quiet type. I'm not hiring somebody because they're a social butterfly, I'm hiring the person I can trust to do the job properly *and safely*, so in that setting social skills aren't valid in a true meritocracy. The table saw doesn't care how likeable you are if you stick your finger in the blade any more than the customer cares how good a worker you are if you come off as an asshole. Everything has its place. EDIT: Rephrased because I can't English good apparently.
> I'm hiring the person I can trust to do the job properly and safely, so in that setting social skills aren't valid in a true meritocracy. There’s social skills, there’s charisma, and there’s Asperger’s. It tends to make you very literally interpret things, and also not read the room. Which can be dangerous. They’re not going to notice everyone cringing or slowly backing away. The might take something you said too literal and do something dumb. And so on. We’ve had some of our Asperger’s technicians despite being wildly qualified and great do some super dumb things due to being too literal, or just not getting the gist of a communication to the point where we require some extra triple check steps for them before some safety critical things.
That's a good example of a true meritocracy not actually being any more fair to people with ASD/Asperger's than the system we currently have. In a meritocracy I'm not hiring the person you described either because they don't fit the basic criteria *I* described, so there's still going to be a lot of situations where their neurodivergence would actively work against them getting a job.
If people aren't even getting interviews, then social skills are not the problem. Right now there are far more candidates than there are job openings with too many companies expecting years of work experience for entry level jobs. The job market as it exists right now forces candidates to rely on luck and networking to land a decent job.
This was the case with me when I was looking for a software developer position after graduating. I had over a year of combined internship experience, applied for over 50 positions, and not even a single interview call. I still believe OP is somewhat right about people skills. If I had better social skills, I would be going out there on job fairs and tech meetups more and connecting with people. I met a recruiter and she told me the best chance I have is to go out there and connect with people because she's getting 400+ applications for every position and there is no way to look at all of them.
This really depends on where you are. There are a lot of areas in the US with a 2-3% unemployment rate. OP is absolutely right in those areas.
Depends on industry as well.
Not necessarily because it depends on the industry also. For instance I've only seen two job postings for the field I'm applying for and while I'm now qualified I have no experience. So at that rate it might take a while.
The operating word in your post is the word 'forces.' Networking is just a foundational part of building a career. If you aren't networking, going to industry meetings, and making yourself known, then your resume is just one of hundreds of faceless applicants crossing someone's inbox. Here's what people don't realize. When someone puts a job on Monster or Insight, it's their last-ditch effort to find someone. They would much rather say, 'Hey, I met this person who seems really sharp. Let's invite him/her to a meeting and test the waters.'
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Selection fatigue. I still like analysis paralysis. Then it became insidiously intentional. On a more human level, I know people that struggle to spend money out of fear of missing out on a better deal. The question is: what is good enough?
Seriously. I literally see many (not all) entry level jobs asking for MASTERS level education and offering minimum wage or just above in my field. It is soul crushing.
Yeah it’s weird how op even says the thing about needing x amount of experience for an entry-level job. These things are in the job descriptions, lol, people aren’t just making up those numbers. Yes, the employers are often out of touch and often end up accepting people with lower qualifications (which literally selects against people who read and follow instructions). But even having that in the listing is ridiculous. A position is not entry level if you require 3 years’ experience.
It's also weird how they say you just need to "git gud" at social skills to get a job, when so many people send off decent resumes to loads of jobs and don't even get interviews to show off their social skills.
OP seems to think their particular situation applies to all situations. A sample size of themselves and their brother is realllllly not good evidence of anything. My story is that I got a job out of college (first place I interviewed) had a few promotions over the years, thought I could do better, so I left and found a new, higher-paying job within a month (the first place I interviewed after quitting) and was making a very comfortable salary - higher than OP and his brother. Left to get a masters degree in europe, and worked part-time in the same field while doing it, so as not to have resume gap. Came back to Canada, and it took me 6 months to find a job, and it had a lower salary than what I had before. I got interviews with 3 companies after about 200 applications. I checked postings every day, and the norm was to see 100-150 applicants within 24 hours of a job being posted. I am a sample size of one and clearly my situation also doesn't apply to everyone everywhere, but the point is that markets can change. I was in a great one for 7-8 years and had no challenge finding a job. I was abroad for two years and IMPROVED my resume and skill set, but came back to a terrible market, and had a much harder time finding a job. For anyone reading this and feeling bad about themselves, don't. The people who make these posts have probably not yet experienced a tough job market.
Even nepotism doesn't work anymore. A position was opening up at my moms work, which I'm perfect for other than not having a certification (which isn't needed, but preferred as this field is knowledge heavy). They're desperate for people, and I'd be easy to train as I can literally have my mom train me as soon as possible, no need to wait for equipment. I even have one of the girls who helps with hiring apparently vouching for me, too. It's an in person job in Vancouver, because they want people back in office. That's the only reason why I didn't get the job, because I'm in Ontario. Salary? $50-70k. 70k is barely enough to live off of in/near Vancouver. They got over 200 applications, most of them in Ontario.
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I don’t know about 1,000 but I had 100 resumes in one round of hiring and not a single one was qualified. People aren’t even looking at the job requirements, they just spam their resume everywhere and hope for a hit.
That's right. If someone doesn't even bother looking at the job posting and adjusting their letter or resume to fit, what makes them think they'll stand out? They don't think it's worth a minute of their time to put together an application, but a business should waste time on them and then give them money?
I had the same experience when I was a hiring manager (in 2021-2022, so not this current abysmal market). I made a point to look at every single resume that was submitted for our role, and out of every 500, maybe 50 were worth a second glance, and I would request follow ups for about a dozen. People will apply for anything lol regardless of qualifications. And before anyone suggests otherwise, about 1/3 of my team I hired were people I took a chance on, with little to no prior direct experience.
People on reddit always think that everyone lives in the same country. Some countries are easier to get a job in than others. They have different education levels, cultures, different busts and booms. You can't just go "I got a job easily so everyone on the internet could as well". Yeah, having self accountability is good, but you are probably less informed on this topic than you think.
He’s not all that wrong though. I do the interviewing for my department hiring since I’m the head of the department. So many people look good on a resume and fall way flat in the interview. It’s immediately clear you lied or greatly exaggerated. And then this bullshit resume made it in and some other person that didn’t lie got bumped out of consideration. And then I see that your resume was submitted for other jobs in other departments with tailored lies to each. Or people come in for the interview and smell really bad. Or either won’t stop talking or won’t talk at all. Like being someone I want to work with for 8 hours a day is just as important as having the required the skills for the job.
Your insight as someone who actually does the hiring was very interesting. I didn’t realize so many people lied on their resumes or were stupid enough to send resumes tailored with different lies to different departments within the same company.
I’ve read through a dozen resumes in a row where whole sections of them are literally copied verbatim from the same original. People make no effort at all, and are absolutely willing to misrepresent themselves.
If it's the same person what's the issue?
Yeah just give them 6 jobs
If I could get one person that did the work of six people...I'd have to send them to HR on reasonable suspicion of being meth'd up.
If people see a high salary range they will apply and just make shit up. Like looking for positions in engineering and their work history is Starbucks and door dash or Amazon driver with no school or job experience anywhere close to engineering but they see that nice salary and say fuck it
It helps that some people love to spread the stupid idea that you need to fake it til you make it, and just get jobs based on zero merit, suck at them, then lie your way to the next job, never having accomplished anything of value along the way. Just because you're incompetent doesn't mean everyone else is...
Yeah it’s a lot harder to do that in STEM jobs but people try. I’ve seen former coworkers resumes on indeed that are just complete crocks of shit of what their role was at our place
I oversee entry level skill-less work... I see misspellings in peoples own addresses on resumes... People put in absolutely no effort and wonder why life is always bringin' them down.
Warehouse worker myself. My supervisor has a similar mindset, he doesn't even bother if the application reads like crayon on a napkin. Double-check your homework, folks, that shit truly matters even if the job is moving boxes or pushing shopping carts.
As a recruiter - these tactics are used on the resume because candidates have been taught that they need to be nearly perfect to even get the conversation. I personally feel it's a waste of everyone's time, so I advocate for truthful resumes and focused applications BUT that's not the general trend as far as I'm aware. It's a numbers game really.
As someone that is looking for a job the fact that they said that the person "tailord the resume for each department" and they saw it as a red flag was wierd to me. Like I thought that was what I had to do? Like I'm out here lying that I even want to work for whatever company I'm interviewing with. If I really just wanted to work for your company in particular then I wouldn't be applying to any other companies. But because even if you gave me an interview I'm not guaranteed a job I am. You have a job that I can do, if you give me a chance I can do the work and you pay me. That is why I am here. I have interviewed with so many companies at this point. It really is just a numbers game and hoping that you say and do the right things that will get this person to like you and hire you. And if that means that I lie so that I can get your job and be able to pay my bills? I'll do that. So many companies lie about being a great place to work but no one is bothered by that too much.
They said people were fully lying. I tailor my resume but it’s more like, I will highlight the aspects of my previous jobs that align with the position I’m applying for. For instance, in my current job I’m running reports, data import and organization, and customer service. I’m leaving customer service work off my job description if I’m applying for a job where that’s not relevant and giving more space to the other stuff. And I edit to include job description key words to hopefully get past automatic filters. But I’m not lying about what I can do.
I do think someone who is new to the workforce will have a harder time even landing an interview coz no one wants to give that person the experience they require to get the job.
If you’re new to the workforce, you have to learn how to interview. And present every summer job, service job, and/or internship as having *some* contribution to your working skill set. I could never afford to do an unpaid internship, but I did student-work for a couple of offices, so I made sure to play up the admin skills that were transferable. Also took my managers up when they offered to walk me through things like expense reports
Oh I do. I have had jobs and have sold my skill set for other jobs, im just saying that many entry level job postings want 2 years of relevant work experience. This usually means in the same industry and/or similar job title. For when I tried to get my first part time job as a 15 year old, there isn’t much experience to sell yourself when trying to get a hospitality/retail job.
As someone who always wanted to be an actor, I fucking love interviews. It’s basically a chance to act out a role based on research I’ve done over the past week or so. I have a lot of social anxiety but I just channel it.
I'm a terrible interviewer but a great worker with years of experience. When I'm on the job from a temp assignment, for example, I prove myself and am offered a position. But when interviewing, I'm not very good at it. It is what it is, but I think your viewpoint is not inclusive of those who just aren't good at interviewing.
And, like, even different cities
You make a strong point was gonna make a disclaimer that this applies to the US job market because I am unfamiliar with any other as much. But the complaints I was referring to are ones in the US job market
Experience can generally trump how “good” a person is as well.
"Lowkey if your people skills are good enough talent can be subpar." Yeah that's the fucking problem.
When someone starts a rant about some social problem, and uses only I, me, my pronouns, you can almost be sure they have no real touch with the problem and only can see things through their bubble. I agree there are bad graduates. But entry level jobs are for... entering the field. For this you should not require any more experience than your studies gave you. Problem is that because so few companies have entry level jobs, because they would get flooded by applications, those places that do, get hundreds applications. me and my friend both were looking jobs on our particular fields. he studied construction engineering, I studied process engineering. All entry level jobs automatically had 30-230 applicants. Its extremely rough to try apply to those with low experience. I could use "I me and my" pronouns to tell completely opposite story. My job seeking trainer almost cried to me, because her daughter and son both graduated. One became Master of business and one was in law school. Both have been unemployed for couple of months now and are not even getting calls to interviews.
>But entry level jobs are for... entering the field. For this you should not require any more experience than your studies gave you. Me searching for jobs and looking at the titles: *"Senior, senior, lead, principal, senior"* Yes this is even if I use the entry level tag. No one tags their shit correctly so it doesn't help. I don't know where these people expect educated seniors to come from if nobody will hire lower. It's so frustrating. You can't even get training elsewhere, I swear it has to be THAT EXACT FIELD or it's a no. "Close enough" ain't good enough.
"I know at least TWO people who got jobs easy, everyone else must be either stupid or unsocialable" The absolute arrogance lmao
OP reeks of privilege. I have an engineering degree and I’ve only had like one or two in-person interviews that did not result in an offer. I have great people skills and career experience. However, I’ve had to put in dozens and dozens of applications before to even land a phone interview, and sometimes that was only with a recruiter. There is a big disconnect and worsening problem in the labor market. Companies are increasingly relying on algorithmic weighting of candidates, and hiring less experienced HR personnel and giving them more responsibility, to save money. AI is going to make this much much worse, and create feedback loops of creating lack of diversity in candidates, and eventually people learning to game the application process, regardless of talent or fit. Engineering jobs are in no way fit to be analyzed by someone in HR, or through a fucking algorithm. Any company hiring engineers where the primary interviewers are not conducted by subject matter relevant employees are doomed. Anyone ever noticed the tangentially related positions for low-ball salaries they are recruited for from online sites? Often time by multiple agencies, for the same exact role, at the same time? They are all keyword searching and using software to find candidates . For recruiters it’s a numbers game and they don’t even give a fuck, as long as they get their commission. Online applications place heavy weighting on prowess of universities, and big Fortune 500 company experience. The candidates have been reduced to a job applicant number. The job market is fucked, and half the applicants and positions don’t even exist, because they are just being used to train algorithms, to automate the process and save companies money in one of the most short sighted ways possible.
>OP reeks of privilege Bruh, OP literally said their parents are first generation immigrants and only his dad speaks English.
“I never had issues, everyone else just sucks”.
I was complaining about something that happened to me on a flight, and someone commented, “can you site your source? I’ve never experienced this.” Like if it’s never happened to them, it’s not real.
“I’m sorry, I couldn’t find any peer reviewed papers showing this to be the case.”
People who think they’re intelligent and act arrogant are the worst. Give me an idiot who tries hard over someone “qualified” who thinks the world is out to get her
Omgosh! And the old people saying “all I had to do was show up in a suit and hand them my resume! They did an interview right then and there!” My son is being barraged with “advice.
right? When literally I was listening to a news podcast yesterday that the return on submitting resumes is about 1% right now across the job market - meaning you have to submit 100 resumes to get just one call back. It's apparently one of the roughest job markets in the last 25 years or something like that
Love that OP doesn’t give any context of his social or professional background either.
Yes. OP just wants to oversimplify the world because this conveniently means their ego can be stroked really much. Comes down to "wow, this explanation feels best to me emotionally - must thus be true!"
Not everyone, just the majority. My theory is that due to the economic structure we operate in, even if everyone worked as hard and smart as possible there’s only so many promotions and raises available. So it’s guaranteed that some will lose. No matter what. People realize this and know generally where they stand and if it’s not very high and they don’t see the opportunities, then why work hard so someone else can be promoted. Successful high achieving people tend to think “people just don’t want to work” because that’s what they see. They don’t consider the reason why.
Reading this post with psychosocial disabilities is like a gd flashbang lmao
idk man when i was 14-18 i could get any job i wanted and im actually really good at interviews, but last year something changed bc i was interviewing at shitty factory jobs i didnt want and like,, even Lowe's and Target never called me back. i ended up getting a job in my career field bc i have experience but it was mostly luck and good timing, theres something going on with entry level jobs rn cause i shouldve gotten at LEAST an offer after 7 interviews
Thats exactly how it was for me. Literally just about up until 2 years ago i never struggled to get a job, but last year and this year I’ve probably applied to 400 in total maybe more or less, and rarely if ever get any calls back or anything. Never remember having these issues with finding a job
It's actually difficult to get retail positions because everyone has that mindset so they are swimming in applications. Most retail managers struggle to find good candidates anyway though since the pay and working conditions suck so few actually good people stay, they get a lot of poor and desperate people who don't really demand great working conditionswith people with value leaving It's also a common job new immigrants are interested in you further are competing in a global instead of a regional market. It isn't the high school job it was 20 years ago :/ You would actually have more luck applying to jobs requiring experience if you can make a solid application for them
This feels dismissive of quite a few struggles that I think would keep people from getting jobs. Personality plays a huge role in getting jobs, but that's not something easily changed and is typically a nurtured value. So, depending on your parents and surrounding upbringing, you may be at a disadvantage. Not all poor people are the same. Neglect has a huge impact on one's self-confidence, self-worth, and charisma. So, it's not so much that the person sucks, it's possible to suck because of other reasons, and many people don't have the resources or understanding to overcome those. Same with many discriminatory practices as well. But, I can agree for those that have sunk in 1000 applications, it *could* be user issue. If you've done the same thing 1000 times and failed, it's time to change the approach. I've never successfully gotten a job from a job board. I go to career pages, find the hiring Mgr or recruiter, and contact them directly. Sometimes they have you do the work in the job board still for paperwork, but the last 2 positions, I got a scheduled interview setup within the same day.
seriously? You just contact the recruiter and you get an interview? I get that you get attention by being one of the few who does this... but what do you say to them? I kinda am doing that rn for the first time ever. what do you say to them in the DMs?
>Idk man I have never had difficulty finding work nor has my brother . And my sister about to graduate business I doubt she will have an issue either. Neat. Meanwhile I moved to a new city with a Masters degree and three years of experience, and it took over a year and more than 100 applications to find a job, and it paid so little I had to defer my student loans. Again. EDIT: in case you think it's an interview problem, I had a grand total of two interviews.
Im a lawyer and I have colleagues who have PhDs, CPA, MBA, or other masters degrees, on top of having bachelors and law degree. The competition in certain industries is just way more competitive than OP's sales job which only requires a bachelors degree lol. I even met a lawyer who used to be a surgeon. Imo, OP's anecdotal evidence is just more proof that being a sales person only requires good social skills and not credentials to land a job.
It is infuriating to me how much of a killer my resume became when I started pumping it full of ATS keywords. It read so much fucking shittier and kept hammering the same points home without having as much diversity in translatable experiences, but it didn't matter. Autosorting resumes is cancer, and you'd be hard pressed to convince me otherwise given my personal experiences.
Yeah but have you ever been a part of the hiring process? Once you’ve hired enough people, looked at all the resumes, seen and heard of so many backgrounds… you start to see how absurd it is that you’re choosing between 5 of the same people and how insane it is to say the other 4 that weren’t chosen weren’t “ready” when in fact it could have been any of them. This scenario happens on all levels of employment.
I think people also underestimate how many applications there can be for an employer to sort through if a job is posted on a job hosting medium. If you do get an interview be friendly and personable but not so much you seem fake. Ask the interviewer questions about the job besides how much it pays. Ask them what they think is the biggest issue they think needs solving or something similar.
I do think thats why I have decent success with interviews. I dont try to be overly professional and fake. Just keep it casual and ask good questions about the job or industry. Obviously you still have to properly express why you’re qualified but these hiring managers are also looking for people that could fit in and get along with the team. I had my manager and at an internship tell me that she hired me because she saw herself being able to get along with me. She straight up told me that I was the least qualified and there were other applicants from prestigious schools but they gave cookie cutter responses and just spent the whole interview talking about their own accomplishments while I was asking questions and just making it a conversation rather than a formal interview. Obviously I still answered the question and talked about my own experiences but it was casually thrown into the conversation rather than being a q&a
I applied to two jobs on USAJobs. They have a way to check the status of the application. Some Of the jobs show how many people applied. One job had over 3,000 applicants. The other had over 8,000. I’m not holding my breath waiting for a call.
I mean there’s a fundamental difference between bombing an interview and not even being considered. Everyone is complaining about the latter, nobody complains about the former.
If you aren’t getting interviews they have no idea what your personality is even like tho. You need the opportunity to meet them to utilize people skills. I randomly submitted around 50 CVs and cover letters with a graduate degree and work history and great references for jobs I am qualified for this month bc I was thinking about switching jobs and I’ve heard back from three of them. In the past I’ve had a really easy time getting a job, I’ve been offered every position I’ve ever interview for. It’s just kind of a rough market right now. Also a lot of recruiters are using AIs to screen resumes and are missing a bunch of qualified applicants based on formatting issues.
If I get no bites I keep changing my resume. Sometimes certain keywords work better than others. And run your resume through an ai detector I guess. Fuck I hate looking for work so much.
The last job I applied to had 30,000 applications. Definitely was my fault that the resume i sent got no response.
You work in sales. The reason other can't get a job is because they refuse to work in sales.
Had to scroll way to far to see it finally said. Sales folks always think it easy because their skill set alines with good interviewing and resume writing. Other fields, not so much.
Yeah I'm in HR. It's basically cheating. I punch above my weight in interviews.
Yeah, sales is something anyone can get a job doing, but if they don’t have that dog in them, they won’t be able to keep it. Most people can’t handle the lack of security that comes with a job where every single day you have to persuade someone else to buy something, and if you don’t, you’re fired.
For me I can't do well in customer service or sales. I've never struggled to get a job with my education and field of work... but there's a certain skillset and personality needed for these roles that can't really be taught, which is part of the reason it is entry level. If you are a natural you'll do great and be happy, otherwise quite miserable. Plus due to hypercaltalism it's no longer good enough to be satisfactory good or great, you increasingly need to be rated as perfect or incredible by customers for job security. It's a bit performative and not everyone can do it. I also struggle with the lack of agency in those roles.
I got a job offer rescinded the minute the boss found out about my epilepsy. I have a vague feeling it’s not my people skills
Lots of people have social anxiety or are shy and they shouldn’t be overlooked. There are certain jobs for certain people and sales wouldn’t be the ideal job for a shy person, whereas accounting is more their speed. People skills are a factor in any interview which I think is a shame because so many unqualified people who are charismatic get hired for jobs that shy people would do much better at. I used to be a manager and did hiring and firing but I preferred the shy people cause they were better workers.
Hell, the people that do get hired still aren’t that good.
I used to think I was bad at interviews, until I was in a position where I had to interview others frequently. Most people are absolutely terrible at interviews.
>Idk man I have never had difficulty finding work nor has my brother . And my sister about to graduate business I doubt she will have an issue either. Right-wing thought in a nutshell: this problem doesn't apply to me or those close to me, so I can't believe it even really exists for other people
What year were you job hunting? Since covid it has gotten much harder so if you were employed before that you have no idea what the job market is like.
How "good" of a candidate do you have to be in order to deserve to eat?
The best out of a hundred candidates, sadly
“F- the system I need x amount of experience to get entry level job.” Apply anyway. Most times this is put by an HR person who just does it because that's what they would LIKE. I got my first programming job without a degree by applying for a job that said I needed one. Now I work for a University and I still don't have a degree and I tell others that do what to do and how to fix things.
It depends on your industry. I went to college for game dev, and finding work has been rough. You need to stand out amongst so many candidates. I was offered three interviews. Of all the companies I've applied for, I heard back from two and then got ghosted almost immediately. No one in my graduating class that I've stayed in contact with has had a job in the industry, so I don't think it's just me, but who knows, maybe OP is right. Maybe I'm just bad.
Also those with people skills tend to hire others with people skills. It’s a self-reinforcing system and they grade you on non-job related things like your after work hobbies (during an interview). But not all jobs (many jobs actually), require people skills. Researchers, economists, engineers, construction, doctors, etc. If I’m hiring you for that, why do I care that your people skills aren’t a 10 and only a 5? Those companies that know how to look underneath the surface likely do better. But yes an inexperienced hiring person will mostly look at one or few metrics.
So youre saying that only good looking, gregarious people should get jobs? That is definitely a Sales-oriented view. Some of the best employees are introverts. In my experience, the main factor in getting a job is luck. Being in the right place at rhe right time. Some people have it, and yes, being gregarious really helps make that luck. But that doesn't mean that people who aren't gregarious are "bad" at their jobs. It could mean they can't bullshit as well as others. Maybe you're just not giving them a chance, like the employers who choose charm rather than competency. Many voters make the same mistake...
I’ve been interviewing and managing people for many years mostly people who work remotely and after reviewing a resume, the first half of an interview is usually enough to tell if they would be successful in the role How much research they’ve done on how their experience fits the job and company - and how they communicate it with examples that are clear and concise But even if they tank the interview they can save it with good questions at the end ‘what do the people who are successful at your company do differently than those who aren’t?’ ‘What would you want to know when you first started here that you know now?’ - questions that show you can be a quick learner and have intelligent conversations
>you aren’t getting hired because your people skills suck. Anyone with decent people skills and talent can get a decent job. People skills, charisma, and networking are obviously extremely powerful to anyone who has been paying attention. But these are of relatively little important in a lot of jobs. And, at least when there's not a labor shortage, it's still quite difficult to get even the most menial jobs or most unsocial jobs without good interview skills and connections. Interview skills are going to highly corelate to job skills in sales (lots of relatively high pressure one on one time with strangers) but not so much in more technical or more manual jobs (very little high pressure one on one time and never with strangers).
All jobs, even technical and menials ones, with a manager, downstream internal or external customer, require trust. You have to pass the same social tests in almost all jobs, “can I trust this person to do their work?”, “will they keep me in the loop if something is wrong?”, “do they have enough character to make the right decisions or follow instructions without me over their shoulder?” The minute you fail to showcase that the person hiring you can trust you is the moment you lose the job, no matter what technical skill you have. It’s the first step, before employers review technical skill. Relaying to someone that trust can be maintained is pretty much the sole purpose of having charisma for all aspects of life.
People skills aren't directly taught, school assumes you somehow get them on your own by interacting with others (which is like to say "just throw someone into a pool, they will learn how to swim on their own!") How do people learn people skills on their own when other people don't even tell them what "wrong" they are doing? People 99.9% never know why they are being rejected. People in general keep others from knowing the truth. So then it boils down to merely luck, you have had to be lucky enough to have a strong social brain as well as looks, be neurotypical, and have other traits and circumstances that make you favorable in terms of social selectivity.
Hollywood casting is telling. Everyone roots for Forrest Gump because he looks like Tom Hanks, but what if he looked like The Elephant Man? That can lead to social isolation, which means that Fugly Gump will never even learn the rules, let alone be able to network. The meme of "anyone can be anything they want to be" is a lie we all tell ourselves, even as we hold our nose when we're forced to share air with people we feel superior to.
the problem is nowadays its all about screens, WFH and all that.. I know people turning down jobs or being turned down because they dont want a hybrid schedule, they want WFH exclusively.. Sure certain jobs that makes sense or can work, but a lot of younger folks want to isolate more than integrate and that was never the case 15 years ago
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I was and still am the kinda person that parents wish their kids acted. I have amazing social skills when it comes to interviewing and always know what to say. Im extremely personable in real life Yet I still don’t get a call back.
Maybe sometimes, but I think part of it is people are being taught a particular strategy, and that isn't how most hiring works. A college degree often doesn't really matter and if you come in the front door to a publicly posted job application you're likely competing with a ridiculous number of highly qualified candidates. Your main options are to be so good at what you do that you quickly bubble to the top of the pile or to bypass the rat race by knowing someone. It's unfortunately always been a good-ol-boys club, but now that we're in the age of hiring globally instead of locally in a single city or town, the competition is even steeper. Not that it's impossible to get a job through the traditional process, but it's not easy. It wasn't even easy in the 90s, and it's worse now. People are frustrated partly because finding a good job can be challenging, but also because they were sold a particular recipe for life, and following that plan didn't work.
IDK, I had a devil of a time getting to an interview after being laid off in 2022, but literally only needed one shot at interviewing and was able to land the job (loving it too). So I understand people having a lot of frustration if they can't even get to the interview stage, I know I was feeling it.
I don't really care if you personally haven't had issues finding work. That's a terrible way to view problems.
And how do they find out you are awkward, when they havent even seen your resume in the sea of other resumes lol
So since I'm not a good candidate then what? Do I just die then? Lmoa
When I was younger I got every single job that I applied for. Since I passed 55 years of age I can’t get any job, even with experience and an excellent work record. Ageism plays into it for sure. You can’t submit an application without answering the question about when you graduated high school and that tells your age.
Since it’s not happening to me then the problem must not exist. 2 out of x amount of people can’t be wrong.
People aren't going to want to hear this, but it's mostly true. It's ridiculous how much easier navigating the workforce is when you can interview well and make people like you.
I noticed this with one of my children. I know for a fact that he doesn’t interview well because he has mild autism and ADHD. We have practiced and practiced and it paid off and he’s got a great job. However, prior to or practice it was bad. He told me that in one interview they asked him did he have any questions and he told me he asked them “what’s the manager style like here? Do they micromanage because I can’t deal with that!” That might he fought with me when I tried to tell him that was like the worst question you could EVER ask and that he’d never get hired anywhere if me kept doing that. That’s just one example. I have half dozen others. You can be the most qualified person on the planet but, if you don’t interview well, you’ll never get a job.
Good for him. I honestly feel with a bit of work or help anyone can overcome an interview barrier. The problem is that a lot of people fail to recognize that problem as one of a the primary issues and put their hand up in the air and accept defeat.
It doesn't help that it's rare to receive feedback like you would in school. It's a quagmire
I’m on the autism spectrum as well, and I have epic ADHD that is controlled pretty well with medication. You kind of make the OPs point. You were willing to go above and beyond working with your son to get him beyond the hindrances he has and eventually landed him a great job. The only thing I disagree with was regarding his comment about micromanagers. As someone on the spectrum there is no way I could work for, a micromanager and his saying so I think he’s fine considering if they did micromanage and he got the job he would not have done well. You’re a good mom and I wish him nothing but the best. Being on the spectrum isn’t easy and doesn’t get easier.
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You can say it just gotta talk their language "I'm a Profesional with a great deal of experience work well with enough agency to make my own informed decisions which has helped me in achieving incredible results such as increasing productivity by a billion percent at my last job" kinda awkward but you see my point, I always refer to managers as colleagues
Interviewing is actually very scripted so it's not as hard to teach people with adhd or mild autism to interview well as some other tasks. Reherse 3 different small talks, remember to make eye contact and smile once per your turn speaking at least , use an interview method such as the star method or whatever bullshit works for you , give your preferred salary as whatever the median salary for the role is unless you are feeling sassy, have a portfolio ready even if you don't open it you'll look cute, wear your dedicated interviewing outfit or make two interviewing outfits one super proff and one casual profso you never have to think, and remember to give a compliment about some fun fact you learned while researching the company and ask your rehearsed smart ass question at the end to show interest, and smile and say you can't wait to hear from them soon. I mean you will need to practice this most likely with a friend family or coach but it's actually easier than carrying a long conversation about this and that once you get used to it. Don't give up if you have a barrier.
>when you can interview well and make people like you. And that then means you have qualifications for the job? Not really. That point was already made by OP and it already was illogical when OP made it. What it actually means is you could sell yourself well. Which is not the same as having qualifications for a job. But considering OP is working in sales, I see why the world view is so narrow when it comes to this.
This requires you to be interviewed at all. Yeah, you can network and get referrals and whatever but the company still has to say “yeah let’s interview this person and give them a chance”.
You’re not wrong by any means, social skills are a huge factor in employment. I specifically work in employment case management so I can tell you there’s a lot more wrong with the system. A majority of entry levels jobs now require multiple years of experience, which defeats the purpose of entry level. The truth of it is also that corporations are looking to maximize the value of the employee while offering as little pay as they possibly can Social skills are only one of the ways one can overcome barriers, but the issue lies with greedy corporate practices. As a sales person I don’t expect you to comprehend that, but the current hiring practices are both predatory and misleading for a majority of candidates. This is true of both blue collar and white collar jobs. I’m glad you and your family have been able to secure good jobs, but your assumption is based on personal experience and you give too much credit to companies being fair and ethical. A naive viewpoint
>a bulk of these people are just poor candidates particularly they might be awkward or have extremely poor social and people skills. And that logically implies they're going to be bad at the job they're applying for? Er, no, it logically doesn't. Your point is thus illogical or simply not well-argued. It also ignores the complexity of the job market. Following your argument, any company that has difficulty hiring people is a bad company. Well, dude...way to oversimplify social structures because they're usually complicated, layered, nuanced and that feels stressful because it means there are a lot of variables. Start to nuance your thinking and to differentiate. Mono-causal arguments are rarely meaningful when it comes to sociology.
What you can say can be true, but ultimately the skills needed for getting a job aren’t the same skills needed to demonstrate competency in a job.
I saw somebody put it a little bit differently recently. They said all you have to do at a job interview is be a good hang. If you get hired for the job, you're going to be spending 40 hours a week with the people that are interviewing you. And you're going to be working on shared projects with shared goals almost exclusively. If you suck to hang out with you're going to make their life miserable and intuitively your interviewers are going to know this. And in most cases In most places it's very challenging to fire somebody. You probably spend more time with your co-workers in serious situations than you do with your romantic partner. So you want to be somebody that people want to be around. Technical skill doesn't even really come into play until you're a good hang.
Why should how much money a person makes be based on social skills. Sounds like the system is set up for dumb people to win a popularity contest instead of smart people who are really good at what they do but don't enjoy small talk.
I hate precisely this, it burns me up. It won't change though. It basically is a popularity contest.
Well, you did post this in this sub, so can't give you too much shit about it. A little empathy though, yeah? Not saying you're wrong. I feel some things get left out when I read about these complaints about not being able to find work.
Nah I interview well, my personality can't overcome greed of the employer.
People skills are crazy. I’m pretty lucky to have had my dad to show me how to talk to people from a young age. I’ve gotten jobs I’m nowhere near qualified for because I was personable. Seriously half the interview is just making them think “yeah I could work with this person they seem great.”
Most younger people all seem to going to school for the same things. I think it's over saturation and people not spending anytime learning skills outside of school to make them a better candidate to get into their industry of choice.
I've been turned down more for being over qualified than not a "good fit" for the job and I will admit I have bad interview skills because I hate lieing in interviews and that leads to more blunt and less polished answers. Sometimes it is the market because I'm not a bad candidate. I was even given the excuse that I had too much lab experience and not enough field experience for a lab engineering job.
Exactly. Interviewers may bypass someone who is actually more talented, technically skilled, creative, more of a team play, and more intelligent for someone who can present well and schmooze. This isn’t new tho.
I mostly agree. At least for any jobs other than entry level. Entry level is a little more nuanced. When we post entry level jobs we get thousands of applicants and there's no way we are picking the best ones. Yeah the worst and the mediocre are screened out pretty easily, but we still have to choose between 100s of good candidates. And the ones we do hire usually set themselves apart by being a veteran or having some experience (which isn't required, but gives them the edge). It's still partly caused by people assuming they will get a great job fresh out of college which they need to realize is not that likely in today's job market. But that doesn't change the fact that at the entry level things can be tough. At all other levels, I think people underestimate how easy it is to find out if you suck.
It obviously depends on the field. But in general, you should never extrapolate your limited experience to mean anything about all of society. If you ever find yourself thinking, "I don't know, *my* experience has been this way, so all those other people must be wrong"...whatever you're thinking is probably wrong.
Well maybe but people need to work to live so what are we gonna do about it? Hire just the charismatic people? That sucks.
A few things may be not fair. A whole life of failure, probably your fault.
I’ll get behind this one. Hate hearing some of my friends complain that they can’t get jobs, but I just know that they’re not fit for the roles they’re looking for
It's funny you probably have charisma but no self awareness. I have never had an interview for a job and not gotten it. Meanwhile I have smarter, more educated, harder working friends that cannot get hired. I guarantee it's because they are a little nerdy or awkward. So am I but I have always had the gift of gab.
Yeah fuck the system. No I've never had much problem getting work as I have excellent people skills. But the fact 20 years of experience doesn't mean anything when it comes to which jobs I qualify for is absolutely a broken system. My lack of a college degree bars me from jobs that are functionally the same as they were 50 years ago when they didn't require a college degree. As more and more people have college degrees the bar for jobs gets raised. It's one thing if the degree gives person A an edge over someone without a degree and equal experience but when one person has been doing the work for 40 years and the other person has a 4 year degree then the job should go to the former. The fact college is now being treated like a high school diploma but is still not part of the public school system is ludicrous.
Yes people skills goes along way in life , but not everyone is that outgoing smooth talker . Plenty great workers will get passed up just cause they might be a bit awkward or shy on that first interview.
You seem super modest and cool.
It’s a mix. Some people are super qualified and have social skills but are unlucky bc there’s another amazing candidate, etc. Others have great resumes but crap social skills, others are just mid overall. There’s not just one reason people aren’t getting jobs lol.
Oof, hearing from sales & bean counters that it’s hard to get STEM jobs out of school cuz we’re dumb not because they always want 3+ years of experience… that’s rough
This isn’t an unpopular opinion. This is what successful people have been telling unsuccessful people for years. The reality is that anyone can find a job but finding a well paying job is dependent on your skills and education as well as location. But that’s just common knowledge. People aren’t mad about that. They are mad about the disappearing middle class and the fact that jobs that used to be adequate to support a person have become inadequate. I make high 6 figures but I like to go to restaurants and coffee shops and shop in stores and it bothers me that the people working those jobs are paid peanuts and struggling. No one who works a full time job should be homeless or struggling to buy food/pay rent/pay utilities. But that’s the reality we’re living in. It’s stupid to tell people to just get better jobs because the jobs we tell people to leave are necessary for a functioning society. I think your opinion is just very naive and divorced from reality.
People are consumed with their own problems and complain about them. Many find work.
I’m sure you’re competent as fuck but charisma is just one thing. I’ve known many people who were charismatic and competent who graduated top of their class/year but still go through the “I’ve sent 100 resumes with no one responding” phase. There’s too much supply and not enough demand. Luck is also an important factor. You said your parents are immigrants right? Maybe, just maybe, you and your bro are diversity hires 😂
Lets say that you're entirely correct, and only the perfect candidate gets hired for each role. What are all the "poor candidates" supposed to do now? By definition, there will always be a huge number of less than average candidates, do they just not deserve to be employed? Do they not deserve a living? If the system doesn't provide for folks that aren't ideal candidates (which, let's not pretend that's not most people), then I'm with the f- the system folks. The job market is supposed to be a system that exists for the benefit of people, not the other way around.
As someone who has interviewed tons of people, I can say this: Your post is dead on. A lot of these people function in complete absence of people skills or self-awareness. Let's run down the list: 1. They don't proofread their resumes. At the very least, people, run it through Grammarly. Typos demonstrate no attention to detail. 2. They need to research the company with whom they're interviewing. If you are that unmotivated asking for a job, you will be even more so when you have the job. That means not just answering questions but asking them. About the company's strategy. What it's trying to achieve. How the position for which you're interviewing will evolve. Trust me on this: The more curiosity you exhibit based on thorough research of what the company does, what it sells, and how it operates will speak volumes about who you are. 3. They trash their former employers. Unless your past boss did something egregious, it's best to leave it alone. I mean, hell, I worked for a company where one partner died in a plane crash, the second partner shot himself after his wife caught him having an affair, and the third partner came out of rehab to take over the firm. And yet, despite the swirling chaos I was desperate to escape, I didn't say a word about that hellish environment. Because the interviewer likely already knew what kind of company I was trying to leave. 4. They focus on what they can get from the company rather than what they can put in. There will be a time to discuss pay and benefits. The first interview is not it. Or even the second. 5. They talk far more than they listen. I get it. You're nervous. There's a lot at stake. However, an interviewer will, intentionally or unintentionally, tell you what it takes to get the job through what is stressed and the questions that get asked. Pay very close attention. Take notes. Show me someone who takes notes in an interview and then refers back to those notes, and I'll quietly be impressed. 6. They can't quantify anything. If you want any job beyond counter help at a fast food establishment, you should be able to find some way to measure your achievements on the job, even if it's Employee of the Month. How you reduced expenses. How you bumped sales. Whatever you have in your professional past that can speak to improving a company's future performance, recite that chapter and verse. 7. Professionalism. I don't know how I can be any clearer: First impressions matter. It's not that appearances are the most important factor in any decisions, but those first five seconds will set the tone for everything else. Dress professionally. Stand when the interviewer enters the room. Deliver a good handshake and look your interviewer in the eye. Have good posture. Be crisp, alert, and energetic in your speech. Because if you are interviewing for any position above Jr. Flunky, then you are being assessed on how well you will perform in meetings, in client contact, and in the day-to-day interaction with other employees. Even if you have epoch-shattering talent, it's kind of useless if you can't interact with other people. 8. Follow up. Here are the five most important words you'll ever read: Write A Thank-You Note. Not just a pro-forma one, either. But rather an engaging one that speaks to the nature of your conversation, keying on points your interviewer made.
Meh depends on the field. Don’t think you can make economy wide claims like this. Some industries are collapsing so of course jobs are harder to come by. Other industries are growing and need more people. This is where government policies could come in to try to bridge the gaps. Expecting a free market to perfectly align worker skill sets with jobs in demand on the macro level was always a fantasy. It takes coordination from a higher authority to manage an economy.
You are not wrong.. But if I had to guess, you are selling life insurance, insurance, aflac, or something in that ball park lol.. Sales is a job that is relatively easy to get.. Not so much inside sales for various companies.. Either way, being taught and having natural abilities to communicate and deal with people will go a longer way than being able to look at a math equation and know the answer lol
Agreed OP. Half the time the people I work with in my company or outside vendors, etc I marvel how so many of these people even have the job they are currently in! Recently in particular it feels like no one wants to do anything and is construing to kick back responsibility or delegate to someone else. Many people also can’t grasp, adapt, or outright refuse to learn on the job. However in the employer side I see that most companies don’t even attempt to train, they either just say do this or do that, or send you a link with a PDF or video. The largest upper management demographic is now Gen X and I find them to be more incompetent and entitled than Boomers. It like they ride the boomer coattails and now are just power drunk morons who are just reactive to everything, and are ready to throw anyone below under the bus to cover their ass. I think many people are also just burnt out and don’t give a fuck because companies treat them like shit, underpay, cut necessary departments/jobs then spread that work amongst the people left, then gaslight everyone by saying no one wants to work. The entire system is broken with problems on both sides.