Maybe the tech industry mostly sucks? Most programmers will write anything for the right cost, regardless of how evil a company overtly acts? I hope I’m just being cynical but I assume most think “if I don’t work for this company someone else will”.
There are also enough engineers looking for jobs that companies can be picky and only hire the ones who seem agreeable and inoffensive, which reinforces the dynamic. “Idealistic” folks accumulate employment gaps that they have to explain or which cause AI ATS systems to auto reject their application before a human ever sees it, meanwhile management and hiring panels become increasingly corporate and less tolerant of difference because that’s who gets hired.
I don’t disagree with a lot of the advice here as a practical thing (e.g., having a scrubbed public image online, assuming that someone evaluating your job application will research you), but I also remember a time when you didn’t have to do that to work in the industry. A lot of the smartest, most creative folks in my CS program were also outspoken on (e.g.) privacy or civil rights in ways that could be tied to their real name, and it makes me kind of sad to think that they’d probably have to hide that today if they wanted to get hired as a new grad.
ive thought that but it didn’t make me take a job at a place i know is evil af
In the spirit of offering some constructive feedback/raise awareness,
Developers are not the only ones using AI. Nowadays recruiters use AI ao automatically filter potential good fits for a position based on whatever signal they can gather. This means CV but also cover letters, portfolios,etc. sites such as LinkedIn even started offering a quick fit assessment based on the metadata you provide in your profile.
What this means is that, from a candidate perspective, it’s crucial that you start your application with a CV that you create specifically targeting the position you’re applying to. Your first barrier to entry is the AI assistant that is tasked with assessing fit.
You can still create your CV by hand, but your CV must be created with the express purpose of being parsed and evaluated by AI assistants, and you need to present yourself in a way that ticks the boxes that the position want to tick.
Nowadays, 95% of the job adverts don’t represent a position that will be filled. In those 5% that do, you need to make your application count. I had recruiters reach out to me for positions that I am clearly not a good fit just because my profile ticks the right boxes, and I had FANG recruiters reach out to me and let me know that they literally don’t read past the first page of a CV. To get them to pay attention, you need to make your case that you are the ideal candidate for that very specific position. Otherwise, others will.
; thank you OpenAI nee Microsoft.
What does this nee formulation mean, or is this a typo?
They’re being snarky and saying OpenAI is a subsidiary or spinoff of Microsoft. Maybe because of the amount of money MS has dumped into it?
This dude maybe should learn to keep his mouth shut and play the game. Delete the blog, wipe the presence, reset the online identity. Until he finds a job, he could contribute to opensource to have something to show, or retrain in some other thing like a trade job.
Being loud on the internet and showing that you can and will be a problem for the company, even if you’re fighting the good fight, will get you in trouble. Unless of course he finds a job with like-minded people.
My online identity isn’t tied to my real identity. At least, I try hard not to because otherwise I’ll have to add a disclaimer to every post “these are my views and not that of my employer”. The more you give to recruiters, the more reasons they have not to pick you. Your online presence (if any) must be the cleanest, most professional that you can manage - especially if you’re a minority.
People posting with their real names should just learn to STFU sometimes. Free speech doesn’t mean “no consequences”.
You’re getting Lemmy downvoted, but you are spot on with this. My wife has a very public facing job and she is very blunt with the things she says, I made sure all her accounts can’t be traced back to her employer. Anything she posts on her separate public accounts goes through AI first, to sanitize it. She’s not a bad person, but she doesn’t pull her punches. In person she looks like your standard severe Chinese woman, so it doesn’t bother people when she’s blunt with them.
