How we used to get jobs: A newspaper classifieds story

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...

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.

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...

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

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

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

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).

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.

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

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

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.

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.

In case the headline makes no sense, the original title before being mangled by the HN headline censor:

"How We Used to Get Jobs".

[flagged]

>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?