How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

mikestew

In case the headline makes no sense, the original title before being mangled by the HN headline censor: " How We Used to Get Jobs".

rzzzt

Looking straight into the eyes, strong handshake, exuding confidence?

subpixel

Not only jobs, but NYC apartments - although in the Voice not the Times.

aksss

Very self-satisfied, and deservedly so. Like when you use that one piece of scrap wood in the garage you've been saving for this one occasion, or something from that drawer of metric-threaded bolts that just saves the project you're working on. It was all worth it, see? This is why we do it. No different with the author's digital preservation and online tool use. Pleasant read.

pudgywalsh

How tech company HR departments game the system for PERM jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

tayo42

Idk if it's true but it seems like life was simpler before the Internet took off. Now that guy is probably competing with tons of people more talented willing to work for less

II2II

Another tidbit, based upon finding out which company the phone number belonged to: you could go to the library and access business directories. Think the yellow pages, only they were geared towards businesses rather than towards consumers. Print versions were broken down by industry, but electronic ones (on CD-ROM) were searchable. It was also a tool for looking for unadvertised jobs, since those directories seemed to be geared towards making cold calls (albeit, for people doing sales).

bluedino

You'd mail your resume in (it was a 'hack' back then to hand-deliver it), then get a call in a couple days or weeks. Then someone who was home during the day (if you already had a job) would answer the phone and take the message from the HR person (or they'd leave one on your answering machine), you'd then have an appointment to go in or return a call to set one up...

krackers

>I’ve just gone through a butt load of resumes Perhaps she said "bulk load of resumes" and you misheard it as the funnier version?

andyjohnson0

You still had to do a coding test -- but it was pointing to the bug in the C++ linked-list implementation on a single sheet of line printer paper. Because nobody was going to carry a Sun workstation down to the meeting room just for your interview.

yonran

The newspaper does still have job listings e.g. for Amazon, NVIDIA, DoorDash, Tesla, Chewy. I haven’t been having much luck applying to them though...

ogou

We were told the quality of paper mattered and that the envelope should have the same high-end watermark that the resume sheet had. Inkjet printed resumes were discouraged because the quality back then was low and the resolution made anti-aliasing on the type come out weird. Laser printed only, please.

clintmcmahon

Or attending a local job fair with a stack of printed resumes.

mustafak99

imo the job process is totally broken its an AI arms race. You have people doing mass ai apply with slop CVs and then recruitment just doing the inverse with AI ATS. Working on something I think could help solve the issue just need to find recruiters to talk to see if it's any good.

Pawel_SkimmIQ

Mine is from Poland, early 90s, and even more analog. I worked at a Polish-Italian company. Our accountant used an ERP program, DOS, written in Clipper. There was no internet, so the vendor's consultant had to come to the office in person. The consultant was a young woman. She became my girlfriend and she pulled me into ERP. The girlfriend left. The ERP stayed for over 30 years ;)

beepbopboopp

Unpopular take: This was significantly better for employers and employees. It worked as both an effort and presentation filter which both reduced the overload of candidates, allowing for more attention, higher variation of skills that didnt often show like traditional resume bonafides and mad companies more likely to invest more in employees as it was a pain to go do again. For employees it was great too. Much like the world pre-dating apps the business world wasnt all looking for the equivalent of trust fund, 6'5", blue eyes. As well as the points mentioned above.

arnonejoe

Classified ads for jobs were still a thing up until around Y2K. MonsterBoard (what it used to be called) was one of the first online job platforms and then Dice came along. I used to have good luck finding contract gigs through dice.

nabbed

I responded to an ad in the newspaper for a C programming job way back in mid-1980s. The team that posted the ad was not impressed with my resume, but they sent it on to a different team within the same company. That team hired me and I stayed at that company for 14 years. Unlike the author, I kept the ad in a box for 35 years, at which point I scanned it and threw out the hard copy. Edit: Also, the resume I mailed to them was printed by a print shop.

thataccount

I remember back when the Thrifty Nickle was how you could find all kinds of things up to and including your next vehicle.

sosodev

I had an old coworker who told me he got into software development in the sixties by walking into an IBM office and asking for a job. He had no education beyond high school and no experience with computers. They just had him take an aptitude test and then he worked on mainframes for decades.