Honestly though, I searched for at least 6 months before my brother in law was like “I might be able to recommend you to a guy I know at a company I used to work at” and within the month I was hired.
I hope I don’t need to go this route. I’m currently looking for a new job, and I barely know anyone who can give me the hook-up.
A lot of it is cyclical, hit it at the right time and they’ll hire any resume that comes across their desk. The other 90% of the time, yeah, get in line behind the guy that knows a guy…
I interviewed for 3 weeks in Manhattan 1988, whoever would talk to me. Dressed well, suit, nice tie, matching black belt and shoes. Every single interviewer dumped on me: “no real experience, nobody cares about your degree or what grades you got, you’ve got nothing to offer.” Finally, I bought a $2 bright red necktie from a street vendor, had my shoes shined and went and saw an agent who interviewed me at a glass table. She took a long look at my shoes through that table, then at me, and declared she absolutely could get me a job with (investment banking firm). One glance at my resume: “you do computer stuff, right? They always need computer guys, and you’ll fit right in! They’re going to love you.”
I have no real experience to back this up, but I feel like nowadays dressing up in a full suit and tie for a computer science job interview would be overdressing (if you are not going to work for a bank). I generally go with just suit pants and a button up shirt and that seems to have worked fine for me so far.
My last interview was in 2014, for a transfer within a big company from one metro area office to another. I had been on-site in my present office many times (still, mostly working from home), so I took the “dress like you would dress during a normal workday” advice - brand new sharp pair of dark blue jeans (solid - no holes or wear), long sleeve dress shirt, loafers. I already “had the job” within the company, everybody on the actual team I was to be transferring to loved me, but… the final interview was with my new Boss’ Boss, and my to-be-new boss told me, “yeah, you’re going to have to come back to see him, he’ll flat out refuse to hire anybody who wears blue jeans to an interview.”
I feel like a lot of people involved in the hiring process are incompetent and shouldn’t be there. Like you have HR people who can barely use Word asking if you know Java or JavaScript
A month after I graduated college I got an interview for a springboot position and I was telling the guy about my springboot project and he was like “we don’t actually use springboot here, we use kafka instead” and I was just like wtf. Dude supposedly had 10 years experience as a dev and somehow my fresh out of college ass knew more than him. (Didn’t get the job, still unemployed and its been a bit over a year since)
See your problem was knowing how to do the job. You should have focused on knowing Dave. Dave would have got you in.
At past employers it has seemed to me that most of what the internal recruiters do is look back and forth between resumes and job descriptions and throw away the resumes that don’t have enough bullet points matching.
And now we have AI that can do it even worse and even faster!
I got contacted randomly on Linkedin by some recruiter. I needed a job right after college, and figured might aswell hear her out. Turned out my dream job just kinda fell into my lap that day.
The thing is I hate dealing with recruiters because they’ll never tell you anything unless you go behind their back, but the only reason I’d be incentivized to go behind their backs is because they are all universally useless, don’t answer emails, don’t negotiate a decent salary for you, and don’t listen to basic instructions like I’m not willing to move out of the local area (they define the local area to be the entiretive of planet Earth, but predominantly Dubai).
As a furry that doesn’t attend conventions, this is having me reconsider it.
you should they’re super fun
Just to be the contrarian: my first job in my current industry was through a recruiter on LinkedIn. It got me an instant 50% salary bump and after a few years and promotions I was making double the previous job.
My second job was… through a recruiter on LinkedIn. It got me an instant 30% salary bump and now after more years and promotions I’m over double the first job.
This in in a country where I had immigrated 10 years prior. For me linkedin is the best social network ever.
I have similar experience with Linkedin.
i reckon you could walk away from a con with a new job, living situation, and even a romantic partner if you wanted. furries are weirdly good at networking for how often they’re treated as weird pariahs by normies.
The absence of shame is almost a social superpower.
Wait… How do I get a job at a furry convention? And is that job “full-time pet?” 🤔
I hate that I know this, but there is this running gag that furries are mostly made up of computer geeks who are in rather advanced positions within different digital fields. Everything from cyber security to CG animation in kids movies.
there is this running gag that furries are mostly made up of computer geeks who are in rather advanced positions within different digital fields
The joke I heard is that a plane going to a furry convention crashing would cripple the IT industry.
Yeah, that is probably the most famous joke. There were also a lot of jokes when the “live action” pinocchio movie came out that the reason the fox was the only well animated thing in that movie was because they got the furry artist to build and animate the model. I believe it. That fox was animated with passion, lol.
Animating foxes with passion, exhibit B: Zootopia
I heard of some guy working 20+ years for blizzard because his dad knew someone in the Company. But he doesn’t mention it that often.
Knowing a guy is a goated strat tbh, hardest part is being competent enough that someone you know would vouch for you
I know my mother-in-law, and she knows everyone apparently. Excellent strategy on my part, having a sibling that got married. 40 years in the making that plan.
sounds like you’re not faking it enough
I was out of work for four months spamming resumes on different job websites before a recruiter cold called me and got me in at my current place so can confirm. Out of five different professional jobs I’ve had, only one of them has been off of job search platforms :/
“My Dad runs the furry convention”
golden ticket to literally any tech-adjacent industry, dealer’s choice
I’ve found that having an opinion helps in job applications, from personal experience. There’s so much AI garbage being thrown around in terms of job applications, so if you can throw in an actual opinion about something, especially if it’s tech related, then that might at least stand out.
Job platforms so bad that D and E just got yeeted into the shadow realm i guess
job platforms are the grindr of job search… flaky, poorly built, disappointing experiences, and you feel dirty afterwards
(and this isn’t slut shaming; this is just… grindr is a trash fire)
I forgot Monster still existed.
Conventions generally are great for networking
And for getting laid
