Its the dumbest fucking advice I’ve found since everything is centralised and run from head offices but they dont seem to understand thats not a thing
Because that’s how it worked for pretty much everything back in the day when your chances of getting a loan from the bank depended on the impression of trustworthiness you projected on the bank manager when you asked for it, rather than some obscure algorithm running in the bank’s systems that didn’t take in account any feedback from an actual human.
Amongst large companies automation removed humans from the loop, at least at an early stage, so now your machine processable input and/or information about you extracted from some other sources about what you’ve done so far, matching whatever the algorithm is configured to favor is all that matters. Sure, beyond that you’ll almost certainly end up with a person making a final decision (for hiring, not for bank loans), but you first have to pass that big initial automated hurdle that’s supposed to separate the wheat from the chaff.
Amongst other things this has killed “being judged as having potential” as a way to get a foot on the door, unless you have a high score on a metric supposedly correlated to it such as good grades at a supposedly elite university, since unlike “impression” such metrics can be mathematically evaluated and compared by algorithms.
Mind you, when looking for work in smaller companies that haven’t outsourced their hiring, impressions still work since your first point of contact is going to be a person whose opinion counts rather than an algorithm or a person too low on the pecking scale for their judgement to be taken in account.
You can get into a lotta places wearing a hard hat and reflective vest while carrying a ladder.
Or a clip board with some technical papers on it, in case you don’t want to lug a ladder.
It depends upon the setting and what you want. Showing up to a McDonalds shift in a suite and tie trying to get the CEO job. Not so much.
Showing up to your first office job and meeting with your bosses in a nice polo or button down shirt and slacks looking professional, yes. It signals you are eager and want to succeed. Which will go a long way.
Of course you still have to put the work in. But your boss will be more likely to give you more training/work/promotions if they know you want to learn and work over someone who doesn’t give a shit.
No, they aren’t talking about for an interview. They are talking about going in someplace in a suit and asking for a job. My mother insisted I did this when I got out of college. It only took a few receptionists looking at me like I’m crazy to be reaffirmed that this was a dumb idea. Even places that did have openings told me to apply online.
Never mind. I read some of their replies. You are correct.
That place you were going to will owe to give you the thing you want as a reward for your effort. This is exactly how the world works.
You need to know someone who works there I find. That way they actually read your CV.
That’s some white people shit. Sorry, but it’s true.
It’s about respect, it goes a long way. If you didn’t come across as an entitled little cunt, and oh you very much do, you could garner some respect. But you are and so you don’t and as such you will probably be lost at honor.
Because life was literally that easy for them.
If they had a pulse, they usually got the job
You were guaranteed if you also dressed like the fancy people on television.
The world has changed for sure. They still have their positions but how they got them no longer works. The pay no lomger buys either.
*If you were white
Black people had jobs they just weren’t paid
Ok, I agree with you, I do, buuuuut
If someone shows up to an interview wearing pajamas, they are probably less likely to get a job. So you do have to dress up a little bit, depending on what the job is.
Not even just job stuff, its as impractical as pushing you to apply for something government related and that your dressing up and showing up in person will somehow override literal requirements you know you dont meet
Movie recommendation - Catch me if you can (2002)! Apparently Jobs used to work like that so much that in the late 1960’s a 16 year old just conned his way into becoming a pilot, a doctor and a lawyer with no previous qualifications.
hell, even to this day in…1/3rd of US states there are literally zero requirements to become a judge, it’s just a popularity contest.
You should probably know the best con that Abagnale pulled is making people believe he actually did all of those things. Journalists have discovered that the vast majority of his claims are completely fabricated.
If I remember correctly he was also kinda a creep. Stalking women and what not.
If you want a good con look up the story about England’s brief #1 restaurant the shed at dulwich
Dude made a fake restaurant that became #1 on trip advisor even though it never existed. He then did one fake day of operation where he served microwave tv diners. Then when he was found out he did a bunch of interviews…. Except he didn’t, he hired actors to pretend to be him.
That’s the kinda con man I like.
Gen-X here. The reason they’re giving you that advice is because that used to actually work. If you wanted a job, for instance, you needed to comb through newspapers or physically go around and look for places that were hiring. It wasn’t uncommon for ads to to say “apply in person.” Without the Internet making applying for a job almost trivially easy compared to how it used to be, going through the extra effort of showing up dressed professionally was a way to show that you were serious and willing to put in real effort.
The Boomers and Gen-Xers telling you to do the same aren’t living in the same decade as the rest of us, mostly because the Internet wasn’t pervasive in the time they were looking for jobs. Back in the 90s the Internet was kinda a novelty that you had to go looking for. It wasn’t, IMO, until smart phones came along that being online REALLY took off, though arguably iMac computers really pushed the “tech is trendy” idea out there.
My mom knows I’m job searching so she brought me a newspaper lol “mom those jobs are 100 percent human trafficking. I’ll just go online”
That’s what they did the last time they searched for a job. It used to work.
It still kind of works in some industries. I got my last 3 jobs, and 2 of them “weren’t hiring”, by walking into the joint and asking to talk to the boss and saying I can start in 2 weeks I juat have to give my current biss notice. In demanding industries, showing up in person makes an impression, another app on a stack of applications gets you nowhere. Lots of people apply, few can talk the talk and walk the walk or actually do the work. I the auto industry you show up and impress the foreman or manager with your knowledge and your pretty much in. I know people that work in welding and a construction that this also works for. I also have siblings that are white collar that this absolutely does nothing for. Supposeit also depends on how much of a giant corp you work for, as I never work for monolithic corporations. If I can’t meet my boss I can’t work there.
This.
It’s old advice that used to work, and it worked very well.
My dad was a big believer of this when I was younger. Finally I humored him and had him drive me around town as I went into every buisness ask for a paper application. I printed and stapled 30 resumes for the trip, got dressed up, on the way into town he was so smug about how I was finally “really trying to get hired”. Four hours later, we’d been to nearly 50 businesses, I’d gotten two paper applications and only 16 of my resumes were accepted. Everyone else said to apply online or “we only hire through the temp agencies”. My dad for his part took it way harder than me. I think he actually realized that’s not how it works anymore because he never suggested it again and took me seriously when I said I’d been putting in applications online.
Kinda wholesome
temp agencies
what i’ve been wondering recently is whether unions aren’t just big temp agencies. instead of hiring people directly, the company forms a contract with the union and people work for the company as long as the union finds the working conditions (including pay) acceptable. if the working conditions drop, the union withdraws all workers at once, instead of the workers having to choose whether they continue to work at the company or strike individually.
I’d say they’re the good and evil versions of each other. They do the exact same thing, but the union has the worker’s interest in mind and the temp agencies have the company’s interest in mind.
Congrats on getting your dad to change his mind, even if begrudgingly.
There are so many people in his generation that simply do not understand what this job market is like, what navigating Indeed or LinkedIn is like, or how people apply for those jobs anymore. Very little human interaction happens applying for jobs these days.
using subterfuge
also he might not realizing before AI, they were using Software to screen out peoples resume, or keep peoples resume just for the sake of weeding out people. and many listings purposely have no plans of hiring at all.
The part that gets me is they surely cant have had any recent success with it. Like, the first time they ever get to following their own advice in the modern day, they inevitably realize its bullshit. They voted and used their positions or authority in society to literally make it so that wasnt a thing that would ever be possible after them, shareholders dont care for opportunity or paying to train anyone or giving any rando a chance anymore
That would conflict with all the big cash payoffs
For sure. Tbf though, things have gone to hell even more in our generation. Is it their, and now our, faults for not stopping a business plot hatched in 1972 at the biz roundtable to subjugate and impoverish workers and remove protections?
To some degree, we need to do more for sure. But divided we will not, we need organization to combat the organized biz plot(s,) and blaming the boomers by the same logic would as of yet utterly condemn our own generations.
They probably did have recent success with a variation on the theme. While they’re likely old enough and established enough now that they’re not having to walk around to retail businesses off the street and attempt to get a job like they did when they started out, this approach likely helped in more recent times in their career in the context of promotions or switching to a new job in their same field or at a similar level in a new field. They might have succeeded in getting that new job or promotion in large part due to their social connections and direct interface with the right people just like they’re advising you to do, except in their case it’s now at the higher level, which is probably one of the few places left where showing up at the right time, having the right manner and air about you and dressing nicely actually still makes the difference. The tactics wouldn’t work on their own, they still needed their credentials and connections and experience to get that far in the first place, but it probably helped cinch the position. Now they’re trying to give practical advice to someone just starting out and for them those tactics genuinely are still helping even if they’re not the sole factor in their success and when they cast their minds back to when they started out it helped a lot then too. With this experience in mind, in their shoes, it worked way back when, and it still works now at the higher level and the youngster you’re earnestly trying to help doesn’t have much else going for them since they’re starting out so of course they should at least do this and if everyone else is applying online then this alone will make them a memorable candidate for putting in the extra effort and place them ahead of 90% of the pack.
In reality, it doesn’t really work that way, the processes are centralised, the people physically in the office or location don’t really handle this themselves so they don’t care what you were like to talk to or how you dressed because it’s not their decision and the way the jobs market is, the employers have the leverage and there’s way more people looking for the jobs than there are jobs so it’s not going to be practical to have them all turning up in a suit because they want to be remembered and they prefer to streamline the process rather than deal with people directly.
I totally see why it would seem like sensible advice to someone who started working when these simple steps were a marker of basic competency and motivation and for whom it now continues to matter to this day. They’re just insulated from the way the situation has shifted.
I’m a millennial, the last time this advice worked for me was in 2019. I applied to the job online and went and sat in their office for an hour and a half waiting to talk to the manager for the position I wanted.
Eventually we chatted for like 5 minutes, I told him my name, that I applied on line, and that I’m ready to start as soon as they’re ready to hire me.
I got the job. The next one was a bit less dramatic but still involved some extra bugging after applying online.
But all of this in a county of 30k people for a labor job that I was overqualified for. I think this would still give you a leg up in the right environment or job search. But I haven’t looked for a job in 4 years and my wife is a programmer and you can’t do this stuff for those jobs. We’re at least 50 applications deep at this point with no contact from companies.
Have you heard the expression ‘pulling the ladder up after themselves’ in relation to Booomers, and the housing/labour market?
Blaming the generation for losing to the 1972 biz roundtable plot would utterly condemn our own as things are getting way way worse right now.
Their and our sins were not stopping a ruling class power grab.
We need to organize. They are organized.
1972 biz roundtable plot
I’d appreciate some illumination on this point, having never heard anything about any specific business reorganization in '72? America specifically, or was there some kind of global shift that I’m not recalling?
there is one consolation atleast…consolidation makes this problem easier to fix, in theory
*Boooomers
the extra o is for oh your god just retire you are the last generation with pensions
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomers
They believe that because that’s how it used to work (and still does in some industries). That’s their lived experience.
it definitely didn’t work that way for Black boomers
Maybe not in general, but it IS the reason that if you look at photos of the million man march, they’re all dressed up. Reason being, they were afraid any media coverage would paint them as degdnerates, thugs, and vandals. It’s much harder to paint that picture if they’re marching in unison wearing 3 piece suits, and their sunday best.
This in the middle of the summer when that was wildly uncomfortable.
That was also a time when a man wouldn’t dare leave his house without wearing a hat.
Times have changed. The only people who care about the shit anymore are boomers. People can go to work in the pajamas for all I care.
I like that a lot. I’m GenX but I always hated the suit & tie bullshit. These days I don’t even own a suit that fits. The last time I wore one was at a wedding in 2005 or so.
This. I work in un-unionized trades, which is arguably the least changed career since the time of the Boomers, and this advice does still actually apply
Lived experience and/or delusion. Many can’t seem to absorb that the labour market didn’t stop changing in 19-fucking-73, and it shows.
I couldn’t believe how dogshit so much of their advice was the last time I was searching for new work, and how irate they were that I wouldn’t take it - because it was useless and/or hazardous to my financial stability in the situation at hand. That coffee drinks-avocado toast shit seemed like satire at first, but some of them actually believe it, and had I been spineless/stupid enough to allow them to push me into the courses of action they were insisting on I think that it might have killed me.
and had I been spineless/stupid enough to allow them to push me into the courses of action they were insisting on I think that it might have killed me.
yep, my experience exactly
Glad to hear that you made it out the other side as well. I’m worried about contemporaries stuck eating shit, or worse living back at home with Boomer parents eating shit.
yep that is definitely happening. development is a slow progress.
“Naughty corporations” made me chuckle, but “I don’t know what the solution is” definitely rang true.
Most boomers actually don’t know where to begin, even though many of the solutions would be a 6-year-old’s first guess, and are actually proven to work, simply because they grew up being told that every single one of those obvious, proven solutions were “socialist” and that socialism was anti-American.
That indoctrination was so thorough that these solutions can be put right in front of them, gift-wrapped, with a neon arrow pointing at an easy button labeled “fix that shit,” and they’ll still shrug and say “we’re all out of ideas, maybe ask a billionaire what to do, surely they know how to fix the system.”
And the sad part is that they do and, in fact, already did.
Children, when given appropriate tools and knowledge can function well together, that is until the parents get involved. The kid cities in Mexico (more of a theme park parents weren’t allowed to interfere in) proved this. Kids can get shit right because they’re not clouded by the dirt and crap by everyone around them yet.
By the way those aforementioned kid cities, they always seemed to fall into chaos when parents were allowed to to put their direct involvement in them.
There was a scene in mythic quest like this.
The only time showing up in person works in the UK is if you’re a teenager looking for part time or apprenticeship work in independent shops/hospitality/mechanics etc.
