"Since I moved to the Bay Area, I’ve worked on two startups. I had a substantial equity stake in one of them and was promised an equity stake in the other once the next round of financing came through."
Good story. And sad. But still not following Mom's advice and betting on something that has a very small chance of success.
I wonder how much salary he is giving up to get that lottery ticket?
There always is the possibility that startups are the only place that would accept a homeless guy with little experience.
He seems to have writing skills, which is a useful skill, but with very little "resume fluff" to prove it. A white-collar job looks down upon even 6-months of unemployment... seeing years and years of unemployment / odd jobs is just a giant red mark.
Even if someone is fully qualified, you are simply going to favor the resume with a "solid work history" over someone with a whole bunch of holes.
Startups on the other hand, cannot afford that luxury. They often need the skills immediately and don't about those sorts of matters as much.
> There always is the possibility that startups are the only place that would accept a homeless guy with little experience.
From reading HN I get the impression he'd have very little chance because of his age. This guy has white hair, and posters here seem to think that over 26 is past it.
While the ageism of the startup scene is legendary, I think it's incredibly myopic. The assumption seems to be that older people who are hardworking and exceptionally intelligent are likely not to be conversant with the latest technology/programming language du jour and therefore have nothing to offer. I also wonder if startups feel that they can more easily exploit younger workers with airy, hand-wavey promises of future payoffs that older workers would be less likely to accept.
"seeing years and years of unemployment / odd jobs is just a giant red mark."
Guess what? In that case you have to be smart enough, for survival purposes, to make something up. For god's sake you can say you are a consultant. Or say you worked at a company that recently went out of business. And if you get caught later? Who cares by then you will have hopefully used it as a stepping stone to something else. Of course if you want to be honest you can continue to live on the street and hope for the best.
I am not doubting that it is difficult if you are living w/o a home to present an image that is consistent with that (so maybe you need to get a job care taking a property in order to have a place to live and using a po box) but it is not impossible. Very hard but not impossible.
or maybe survival? Lol some bullshit bias against holes and some guy tries to survive and it's said and done in your eyes. profile:jodrellblank tow-the-line drone
You're both right. He's suggesting to lie for survival.
Nonetheless, it is lying, and that has its own risks associated with it. Beyond honor, if people notice that you are lying on your resume, you start getting added to blacklists and those blacklists start spreading around.
You see, if you fail the typical interview, you are simply not hired. If you LIE in the typical interview, and the interviewer notices it, you may be banned for life from that company.
This is doubly-so for consultants. Consultants are sold based on their resume. IE: They may have found a Government Contract position that requires 3 years of experience, and naturally... they'll then look for people with 3 years of experience. They may be put in a very perilous legal position, and their Government Contract may be terminated. You aren't only putting yourself at risk here, but also the company that just hired you.
PS: its much much worse now that Mr. Snowden ruined it all for Contractors without a degree and little experience. Mr. Snowden has been cited explicitly as a case WHY you don't hire non-graduates.
He's got several years as a staff writer on a hit TV show, and his magazine publishing experience before that. The gap is real, and obviously important, but what came before is a lot more than "fluff".
He is _MISSING_ fluff. He just needs some job, ANY job that proves that he wasn't wasting his time during the gap.
He clearly has real world working experience. But any resume that is missing out on even a couple of months worth of experience signals a red flag to me.
This is the culture of corporate America. Holes are EXTREMELY bad in your resume. Period.
you were on the run from the Feds living in Argentina
you went to Pakistan to attend a Jihadist training course (BTEC-diploma)
you were kidnapped by aliens and given daily anal probes (that never impresses the interviewers)
you were being trained in cutting-edge industrial espionage techniques by a rival company of the interviewer
you spent the time going through sex-reassignment procedures and changed your name to Gladys
you worked for the NSA
The average interviewer will think all of the above and more in the space of two milliseconds, whether any of these delusional thoughts have any basis in reality.
There is no logic in it. Holes are bad because holes are bad. I'm sure I can make up a reason for you, but IMO, its better to cut out the bullshit and just tell it to you straight.
Holes in a resume are bad because most people who look at resumes think that holes are a bad thing. Its simply the bias that exists in most jobs (that I've come across... anyway)
That was my take as well. It seems he wants that long-term, corporate job, but it's just not there for the taking. The startups seemed to be the step-up from the Craigslist gigs.
"Sir, are you sure you want stack loaves of bread here at Trader Joe’s? Yes, I really do. Well, we’ve decided to hire the 24 year-old woman with purple hair and nose piercings instead."
He tried to get more traditional jobs, but they don't want him.
Jobs are hard to find. No doubt. But the truth is of course the manager at Trader Joe's knows he's not going to stick around for a long time. If you do hiring (in a traditional business) you will always run across people who are desperate and overqualified. They will tell you anything and everything to get the job. But a business is not a charity it's a business. And it needs to hire the person that (from experience) will stick around more than a short period of time. Doesn't mean the manager was right about him. But we have to assume that his judgement was based on what he ran into in the past in similar situations.
And the example he is giving is for dramatic effect anyway. We have no statistics on how many jobs he applied for that he was overqualified for but more on the mark that made sense for the person hiring (like writing for priceonomics on a per article basis).
"knows he's not going to stick around for a long time."
Why? I worked my way thru school in retail and then a short stint in retail management (long enough to learn I'm not doing that for a living if there's any way to avoid it...)
So our annual turnover rate ranged from 100% to 200% and this was not considered noteworthy in the biz. Retail is not like working for Ma Bell for 40 years and retiring in place. This dude was unemployed and/or homeless for what, like 5 years, at what point do you think a retail manager will think, hmm, he's been unemployed 10 times longer than the average employee lasts here, maybe, just maybe, he's going to stick around?
The other pure bogosity is I actually worked retail management and my three favorite employees were a carpenter and two accountants. God knows he wouldn't be the first dude trying to work a second job part time nights to make ends meet, and managers love to hire a guy (or woman) who the boyz will look up to as something of a parental figure or at least older bro figure (basically they were team leads working under me). High school kids were a dime a dozen but the store really rose or fell based on the adults...
You never, ever hire some high school or college student slacker if you can get a real dude with a real work ethic. Strange claims from people who haven't been there, while I have been there, strike a discordant tone.
Gotta be some "other" issues. Such as maybe 100 other applicants in the same situation who did get hired. Perhaps this "Rosanne" show writer didn't get hired because they hired a dude from the "Cosby show" or 100 other guys in the same situation.
I guarantee he didn't get hired because the kids would obey him like a parent, or because he had too intense of a work ethic, or too much life experience, or too focused on the prize aka paycheck.
But the truth is of course the manager at Trader Joe's knows he's not going to stick around for a long time.
You're right on average. Interestingly, one of the part-timers at my local (Menlo Park) Trader Joe's is apparently a retired multi-millionaire tech entrepreneur. He does it just to be around friendly people for part of his day.
Good story. And sad. But still not following Mom's advice and betting on something that has a very small chance of success.
I wonder how much salary he is giving up to get that lottery ticket?