A Real Jobs Plan

3 points by kirillklimuk 13 years ago | 5 comments

jfaucett 13 years ago |

I don't want to be rude here, but I think the idea you express in the article is really just describing the state of things as is. Also, I'd have to say for most companies that your traditional approach is pretty off target. And looks more like the following:

1. Employer has an internal Recruiter or recruitment team that posts jobs on website / monster. And/or Employer outsources hiring to Recruitment companies.

2. Potential Employee submits resume on website or the outsource Recruitment company actively searches for employees.

3. There is virtually no "Automated service that randomly picks for an interview". This is handled either by Recruitment companies who are in close contact with employeers about their needs for the job position, or the internal recruiter that also knows the specifics of what's required.

4. A pool of possible candidates are interviewed, and the person that best passes the interview (also possible tests) and has all the job requirements, gets the job.

So I think you're giving far too much credit here to personal contacts. Also, the hustle plan is really just what I think most applicants that end up getting the job do anyway, but of course it depends on the position. For Design areas and Web or even marketing it can make sense to have demo reels, videos, etc. But for bioenineering or accounting, you really just need a list of projects, references, skills i.e. your traditional resume.

I'd be interested to see another "job plan" maybe you have some ideas, based on this critique?

ljensen 13 years ago | |

Clinton's speech at the DNC emphasized updating Americans' skillset as a "pull strategy".

As it relates to tech, this means enabling people to apply technology to leverage their current skillset; from manufacturing jobs to the arts.

As it relates to entrepreneurship, this means investing in programs that encourage entrepreneurship - of any industry - throughout country. YC is an efficient model for entrepreneurship in tech. In the beer industry, the Samuel Adams Brewing the American Dream program (http://btad.samueladams.com/) is another good model because it offers a variety of resources and levels of assistance.

harrisosserman 13 years ago | |

I think that even in areas where a list of projects, references, and skills are required, it is still the one who has great personal contacts who often succeeds. For example, the great accountants get many of their new clients from other clients who think they do great work. Or the great bioengineers get connections to people in industry from professors who think highly of them. An introduction from someone who thinks very highly of you is often much more powerful than a list of projects.

nhaehnle 13 years ago |

The article completely misses the point of what mass unemployment is. Mass unemployment is a macroeconomic phenomenon. It is not the case that there are plenty of open positions and plenty of job seekers, with a simple mismatch (frictions). The fact is that more people want to offer work than is demanded.

If you get more people to follow the strategy outlined in the article, then they might have an advantage over other job seekers, and then this means that the composition of the workforce and the unemployed changes. However, no new jobs are created that way.

Micro-economic approaches to mass unemployment have been touted by some economists for a long time, and have been and are still being implemented all over the world. They just don't work in a satisfying way.

harrisosserman 13 years ago |

I completely agree. One of the most effective ways to find a job is to go into the interview with something that will help the company that you are interviewing for. For example, if you're looking for a business development internship, you should go into the interview with a concrete plan of some initiative that the company could execute on, and give hard data on why the company should do that. These types of applicants are always more impressive than those with just a nice resume.