What not to say
I got this phone call the other day from a guy with a shiny new degree in Computer Science, looking for a job.
We generally need 2 years of professional experience, or at least some heavy internship experience, before we can work with someone, and I told him so. I suggested that he might try looking at companies that had specifically been recruiting from colleges to try to find his first job.
He said, “Wow, the market really isn’t like 1999, is it?”
I laughed. “No, no it’s really not. It’s picking up, though.”
Then he made his fateful mistake. “Well, maybe when we get a new president…”
And that set me off. I had to school the guy.
I am not particularly a fan of George W. Bush, but this guy’s statement betrayed a shocking level of ignorance.
The Internet boom of 1999 was an anomaly. Venture capitalists with more money than they knew what to do with were throwing scads and scads of money at anyone who could toss up a website about his hamster because they were convinced that someone had to figure out how to make money off “that Internet thing.”
The events that led up to the Internet boom were set in motion in the 1970s, and, I might add, the entire boom AND ensuing bust happened entirely within the administration of Bill Clinton. The economy was tanking before the 2000 election.
The problem, of course, is that the dot-com boom spoiled all these kids who went into college to become programmers, thinking they were going to get hired the day after graduation for ungodly amounts of money, wear jeans to work every day, and have foosball tables in their offices. But that isn’t how it works, it probably won’t work that way again in our lifetimes, and it’s astonishing that 6 years later, this guy still thinks it can happen for him.
I let the guy have it with both barrels of this rant, but that isn’t the point of this story.
The point is, don’t share your political opinions with a recruiter you’ve only been talking to for 2 minutes, especially when they’re as mind-bogglingly stupid and ill-informed as this guy’s.
September 26th, 2005 at 5:23 pm
Okay, so I’m probably the most anti-W guy on the planet, but even I’m not dumb enough to (a) think that the dot-com collapse was somehow W’s fault (as much as I wish I could pin it on him, just for the hell of it), or (b) start spouting my political leanings in a completely unknown business-related situation.
Then again, I did have a potential employer at a publishing company go off on a homophobic rant during my first phone conversation with him, so ignorance can clearly flow from either end of the interaction.