Thank you. I've been researching job search related stuff for the past ~4 months (still stuck in a limbo during that time) and so I would say I know more about the job search than most people :) Especially those that have been able to just get a job out of university (I don't have a degree) or who are already so wanted that they don't really have to worry about these things.
What I pointed out are mistakes whether you know job search best practices or not (as most people will agree).
Let's take this sentence:
If you say you're willing to work for free, that tells me one thing: You think your work is of no value to me. And so if you think that, I will also think that your work is worthless to me. Instant turn-off.
As someone who has never even held a job, apparently, let alone hired another person, why would anyone believe that what you would think in this situation is in any way similar to what an actual employer would think? (Have you ever done or used any open source work? If so, how does that reconcile with your apparent theory that work done for free is valueless?)
Yes, my post is saying 'you do not have enough experience to make the statements you just made'. Ad Hominem is a logical fallacy because theoretically, 100 monkeys typing could have come up with the world's greatest business plan. However in practice, that does not make it worth people's time to read everything typed by monkeys.
I see from your other replies that you are using HN to practice sounding confident. Consider this as feedback that while it is sometimes valuable to sound confident even when you are ignorant, it is more often valuable to be able to understand when you actually don't know and what the limits of your understanding are, and on many occasions it is even more valuable to be able to communicate your own knowledge of these limits. Learning to use simple qualifiers like 'in my experience' will help you avoid sounding like an idiot and being easily tripped up by someone who hears your foolish generalization and says 'actually if you want to work in x, you pretty much always have to start by working for free'. Then you will say 'obviously I meant this advice only for y' and they will ask why you didn't say that?', and you will think 'because I made a bunch of stupid assumptions!' but feel too ashamed to say that and start blustering. You might as well say 'database x is always the best choice'.
Of course, that is only my experience (from both sides) of how those conversations often turn out, you might go through something different ;)
I'm not asking anyone to believe. I'm asking to have a discussion on the points I bring forward.
>how does that reconcile with your apparent theory that work done for free is valueless
Work done for free has value. I was discussing the psychology & relationship between employer and employee when all employees at the company are already salaried and "new person" comes in and offers to work for free.
>you are using HN to practice sounding confident
That's not the way I would put it. I think (similarly to pg) that points are best expressed tersely, and so I try to keep my writings very brief and to the point.
>sounding like an idiot
Why, thank you.
>Learning to use simple qualifiers like 'in my experience'
Not necessary. This follows from the context.
>being easily tripped up
I don't see where I've been easily tripped up. Though I do enjoy that so many people jumped to respond. Even though almost no one managed or even really tried to refute my points and rather took issue with other things (boohoo you don't have enough experience to be talking about this kind of stuff, etc.)
>Then you will say 'obviously I meant this advice only for y'
This is Hacker News. We're talking tech startups here. Yeah I won't add another paragraph to talk about other industries because it's _obvious_ to everyone what I'm talking about and "Don't work for free" is an oft repeated advice on here anyways.
>'because I made a bunch of stupid assumptions!' but feel too ashamed to say that and start blustering.
I think that none of the assumptions I made are stupid. Though I am starting to notice that if I don't carefully package my opinions I will get a bunch of people in the comments who APPEAR to talk about the points I made, when really they're just annoyed at my attitude. This leads to the kind of circulatory arguing we see here, when my advice is sound but people still feel I should be less confident about my position.
>You might as well say 'database x is always the best choice'.
I would only say something like that if the purpose of the database was very clear from the context. I would never randomly drop such a statement onto HN, because everyone here uses all kinds of different databases. Your analogy is invalid.
>100 monkeys typing could have come up with the world's greatest business plan. However in practice, that does not make it worth people's time to read everything typed by monkeys.
Again an analogy that does not work. However much time however many monkeys spend on trying to understand human psychology they will not make much headway. Though if _I_ as a fellow human, take some time to try and understand human psychology, I do think it is worth the time to hear my points and argue on their merits, no matter if I had 0 or 100 jobs before. If I'm indeed talking gibberish, you're free to try and argue against my points, but since I see you talking about everything BUT my points, I'm assuming that you don't really take issue with them, but rather with me.
If I leave some of the thorns on, I tend to get more replies
I take issue with both your points and with you. I had written up a fairly thorough response, but I'm not interested in talking to someone who is basically trolling for attention. If you don't think your points are interesting enough to discuss on their merits, I guess it's a valid strategy to inject a bunch of extraneous flamebait, but you can hardly expect to be taken seriously for complaining that people address your flamebait presentation instead of your weak argument.
I think what you're trying to say to me has merit, but you keep overreaching in your choice of words to a point that makes it extremely difficult for me to respond positively. If you say that I
- sound like an idiot
- am blustering because I'm ashamed I'm in the wrong
- think open source is valueless
- am ignorant
These are only some of the excerpts but I keep noticing that you read what I say and then concoct some grand scheme in your head instead of taking the precise wording I used to closer heart. Disagree? Then please point me to the "extraneous flamebait" I injected into my very terse OP. Maybe it's extraneous flamebait to you that I don't preface my thoughts with "In my experience ..." ?
>I had written up a fairly thorough response
I appreciate hearing your thoughts - after all that's the reason I'm on here writing these replies. Though I do feel that you take the gist of what I'm saying, creating another standpoint adding some of your own summaries of what what you believe I'm talking about to that and then arguing against that.
Again. In my OP I told OP not to say he wants to work for free and not to say out right that he's willing to work 12/7 if he wants to maximize his chances of landing a job. Do you disagree with that? If you do, I would be happy to hear your thoughts.
I think what you're trying to say to me has merit, but you keep overreaching in your choice of words to a point that makes it extremely difficult for me to respond positively
You could call them thorns, and see if you can draw any parallels to your own communication style, like the way you constantly overreach the actual points you're able to make. If your OP was so terse, how were you able to boil down your points from three paragraphs originally to a single sentence here? (Hint: you left out all the extraneous flamebait in this version).
4 whole months? You definitely just doubled down on overconfidence. It's only one job search, you have no idea which lessons apply generally and which are only true for the current ecosystem. Read about the Dunning-Kruger effect and avoid coming off as overconfident at all costs, when interviewing young developers/technical people that is a giant red flag in my experience. It's almost a deal breaker for me.
Also: No, that's not an Ad Hominem (which is the term you want to use rather than DH1 if you want to sound like you know what you are talking about by the way, it's a classic logical fallacy)
I didn't state 4 full months. It was however something that I spent my free time researching over the course of 4 months. I also did a lot of other things though :)
>Read about the Dunning-Kruger effect and avoid coming off as overconfident at all costs, when interviewing young developers/technical people that is a giant red flag in my experience.
Don't worry, when doing interviews a bigger risk for me is coming off as too unsure of myself. I like to state my opinion as directly and confidently as I can on HN. Mainly because it's good writing practice and because there's nothing at stake (I care very little if some of the readers on HN get a bad opinion of me because they don't agree with what I'm saying).
> No, that's not an Ad Hominem
It very clearly is an Ad Hominem. He's trying to refute my point by arguing against my person (You don't have the right kind of experience to be talking about this) instead of refuting my arguments on their own merit. This happens often as I'm not shy about what I've done in the past and enjoy saying things that I believe in but that I feel many others don't like to hear (makes for good discussions ... well at least if they try to refute my points)
This is clearly in the fuzzy definition area since your argument is that you have gained enough experience in this area to give subjective life advice, the argument against simply has to involve a judgment of your level of experience.
In the same way that I can't meaningfully ask "am I attractive enough to professionally model?" and respond to every "No" with "ad hominem!", when you bring your person into the argument as support, either implicitly or explicitly, the scope of things classed as ad hominem fallacy is constrained. Ad Hominem's are also in the class of fallacies that can still inform a decision even if, like all logical fallacies, they cannot prove anything.
To exit the pedantic logic argument for a second: That confidence and directness is a good practice, and writing practice and avoiding seeming unsure are great reasons to do it. In my experience if you also use that confidence and directness to preemptively address potential weaknesses in your argument (as in "I know I'm new at this but here is exactly why, in this case, I am right anyway") you are even more convincing.
>your argument is that you have gained enough experience in this area to give subjective life advice
Nowhere do I use my "authority" to try and support any of my statements. I give a list of what I thought are his mistakes and then I go off into giving some advice (the snippet) based on my own (successful) experience doing phone screens.
> In my experience if you also use that confidence and directness to preemptively address potential weaknesses in your argument
I think that is very sound advice. But one my motivating factors is to stir up a conversation. If I leave some of the thorns on, I tend to get more replies as people inevitably find themselves caught up in them and feeling the need to reply :)
What I pointed out are mistakes whether you know job search best practices or not (as most people will agree).
Finally I would like to submit that your post is a form of DH1 (http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html)