Ask HN: Anyone else riding out a crummy job in this market? My job is pretty terrible aside from the pay. What that means is, in this market, it's been basically impossible to land any job interviews for positions equal to or greater than my current pay (or honestly even close). Does anyone feel in the same boat and are just waiting it out? |
I spent the last 2 weeks looking at the job market but it seems really bad right now. I had a few where it was like "yes this is so obvious for both of us" clearly not even read the cover letters.
My current plan is to try to monetize a side project and wait for this current state of affairs to blow over. Rejection letters are demoralizing and I'd rather just build at this point. This path makes me a little anxious, but the formerly fantastic pay has given me quite a bit of runway to play with.
I read an article on Reddit about something very similar; It's on the tip of my brain, but I can't recall.
The jist was that after the latest recession there was very little in the way job "churn", or where people would quit jobs and move to others. There as a noticeable trend of staying at whatever company they were at, and working, even if there was a serious mismatch between skills and job. They theorized that this was because the job market was so tight, and that they had been burned so many times, that they held on to a known job (even if terrible) to keep their finances in shape.
Then, if you're in nerdy work (just assuming you are), then there's been a lack of a rebound in such jobs after the last major downturn. However "blue collar" (not so nerdy?) jobs have bounced back. And so finding work in nerdy fields is especially challenging at the moment.