Job Hunting

Cutlery said:

Sorry about the double here, but I figured I should expand on this

I'm an operations supervisor. You could (and my resume did) say that I support warehouse function across inbound/outbound freight, picking, etc.

Well, it wasn't until I switched things up and said "okay, what is weak here to a hiring manager?" that it pointed out that phrase.

"Support is weak. Change to 'drives'"

Holy shit. That one word change completely transforms the way the resume looks. Of course I don't support warehouse function. I mean, I do - but it's so much more than that. I DRIVE the fucking ship.

It's that kind of shit. The simple, easy things that you could spend hours and hours on, or pay someone for every few years. You can literally just dictate to chatgpt "this is what my day is like in this role" and it builds bullet points for you. You build a Master resume, and then every job you apply for, tell to "optimize this to pass ATS scanners for this job" and paste the posting. It does all the tedious bullshit for you. I figure if recruiters are putting in zero effort and outsourcing the entire process to AI, then I should put in minimal effort and outsource the entire process to AI.

From there on out, it's just reps until you get lucky, which seems to be what you need these days. You need luck or a guy on the inside.

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My last post wasn't aimed at you or your points in particular, but rather makework in general. I agree that using AI to encrispen your resume is a good idea. Anything that stands out to AI/HR/etc is a good idea. There are lots of people out there who don't know how to use new tools and submit pretty potato-assed resumes.

Pal of mine was in HR and did HR consulting after that, and she said people misspelling their own names wasn't uncommon. It is almost as if these people don't want to work at all.

I agree with your final point. I was the catalyst in starting a company, and just about everyone I poached hired to form the core of the company were people I knew on a professional basis. From there it is luck, and polish increases your luck %.

In terms of inflating your own sails...is good. Make sure to suss out examples you can use in an interview. You can also use AI to refine and boil down/encrispen your responses.

How exactly would this pal of yours know if someone misspelled their own name? Was she personally familiar with all these people?

Sounds more like she was a typical HR retard making shit up to validate her needless existence. HR consultant... fucking LOL.

Khane said:

How exactly would this pal of yours know if someone misspelled their own name? Was she personally familiar with all these people?

Sounds more like she was a typical HR retard making shit up to validate her needless existence. HR consultant... fucking LOL.

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She was probably black too.

TJT said:

I am beginning to sketch out my exit from the tech industry. As much as I love programming and problem solving I am nearing 20 years of it now. I just don't really think I want to do 20 more years of it. Be it as a management or some other tangental role. But I still love technology. Something that gets me out of the office/house more and is generally a technical job is what I am looking at. This wont be for 6-7 years as I complete some financial goals I have for my kids.

I will be in a strong situation with about $5M in investment assets between 401ks, personal accounts, real estate, and whatnot. So this job's income will be much less important. Its more about a lifestyle change I guess.

All that said I am currently looking at a BAS/systems type job as I will get to use my technical skills but on physical machinery like HVAC. I like the idea of working on something physical but also leveraging my decades of experience in programming and system design. I am in much more of a DGAF mode at my current job because coding these days feels like chopping wood to me. I don't really have any words to describe it. Not boring, but easy and not interesting.

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It's such an enticing notion. I never really watched YouTube until I had so much free time on my hands and now I find myself watching a TON of DIY channels.

The biggest issue for me with a career change like this is... I'm 43 now and I don't think I want to START contorting my body in tight, uncomfortable spaces from time to time fixing/installing shit like ductwork.

TJT said:

Not sure what you are looking at but I don't see much of that kind of work in it. Access points for the control mechanisms aren't in impossible crawlspaces but external places like the roof. Side rooms that have no climate control and so on. I've been watching this guy's videos. A lot of it is very very familiar to a developer and from what I understand the growing IOT space gives you a lot of leverage. As the industry itself has far less of that expertise.



I am going to take a beginner HVAC course at the community college next year and just start out how I can be taken seriously looking for such a position. But at the moment this is the plan.

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There is typically A LOT of variance in how these things can/are installed depending on codes, the building itself, etc. It's one of those things where like 95% of the time its probably no trouble at all. But that 5%...

I might be overthinking it but that's my middle aged man brain at work.

TJT said:

It will be nice to be out of the house and onsite around the area doing stuff. A great change from the WFH/office life I have known my entire working career.

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This is the most enticing part of it. I can honestly say I'd do a job I found interesting and satisfying for like $60k/yr and not even blink despite it being a fairly low salary (at least where I currently live).

TJT said:

I am beginning to sketch out my exit from the tech industry. As much as I love programming and problem solving I am nearing 20 years of it now. I just don't really think I want to do 20 more years of it. Be it as a management or some other tangental role. But I still love technology. Something that gets me out of the office/house more and is generally a technical job is what I am looking at. This wont be for 6-7 years as I complete some financial goals I have for my kids.

I will be in a strong situation with about $5M in investment assets between 401ks, personal accounts, real estate, and whatnot. So this job's income will be much less important. Its more about a lifestyle change I guess.

All that said I am currently looking at a BAS/systems type job as I will get to use my technical skills but on physical machinery like HVAC. I like the idea of working on something physical but also leveraging my decades of experience in programming and system design. I am in much more of a DGAF mode at my current job because coding these days feels like chopping wood to me. I don't really have any words to describe it. Not boring, but easy and not interesting.

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Have you considered something like industrial controls? I'm sure you could easily pick up something like Logix on an Allen Bradley PLC with your background. You honestly wouldn't be taking much of a pay cut if you got good at it.

TJT said:

I am not against it or anything but IDK where to start with much of this. All I got so far is to take the HVAC course at the community college just to familiarize myself with something.

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It's hard for me to offer advice there - I didn't have any coursework, was just sort of thrown to the wolves and forced to figure it out.

I know of some people that used The Learning Pit — LadderLab Temporary Sales Pause but it's currently down while they update the courses or something.

I'd definitely suggest something project based that utilizes Allen Bradley PLCs since they're the dominant player in the US. The fundamentals are pretty easy to grasp, so, you won't really learn anything without applying it to a whole system.

Can't speak to the quality, but this might be a decent thing to take a look at: Controls Engineering Academy

You could also do something like this Udemy course to see if it is of interest: https://www.udemy.com/course/plc-programming-from-scratch/

TJT said:

I am not against it or anything but IDK where to start with much of this. All I got so far is to take the HVAC course at the community college just to familiarize myself with something.

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Going from a 250k+ desk to an 80k+ wrench turn does not seem very realistic without some consternation.

You would have to stay away from P.E. Having a 5m+ chest and going from fire to fire to fire to fire to fire would burn you out in a couple of months.

I am a niche wrench turner in a very underserved market. The only thing that keeps me in it is that I am surrounded by complete and utterly impressive retards from top to bottom across the entire industry. I have zero support. It is ACTUALLY what I enjoy. I am kind of past the video game/drugged out loser part of my life and enjoy getting "smarter" at everything I do. It is a "man's job". Meaning 90% of people quit because of long hours and some pretty unsafe conditions, or basic bitches cannot handle their own nerves. But everyone around me has their life in shambles, and it's a constant "fuck you" from all sides around.


Maintaining some type of SCADA network would be up your alley where you have a strong mix of field work that is far from back-breaking. I am assuming controls will fall in that same area.

Medical industry field support may be up your alley. I have zero experience there, but most of those will sit around 80K with very high automny. Hospital spaces are a drag, honestly, because of women who have no concept of business outside their reality.

HVAC though? I mean, that is roughneck extreme. Or foreigners.


Seriously consider something low-voltage near the defense industry. Those guys have it pretty cake and probably maintain 40 % bullshit office vibes.

Defense industry is full of really exciting competing contracts. It’s a lot more agile than people would dream of right now. Not necessarily talking the top dogs

Shit, go work on Elon bots. That actually looked really interesting.

I mean honestly, AI is going is already changing everything so fast.

Computer security is going to come back in a giant fucking way because AI cannot factor in dependencies all these complex db rely on. Human built systems is going to need strong human level threat detection for the next couple years for sure. This would all be remote though, but that work is probably more tangible. Just have to be a ghost.

Love that cve on adobe zero day…

I also build out IT racks for different customers. I use do all my own for a previous job, very rewarding but fighting costs in that environment gets old when your department is a cost retention tool.


It’s very, very therapeutic. Even the ones that try to force hilarious elevations - most people design things entirely wrong and typically do not care for corrections when they see finished products. So you get a lot of “artistic” flare.

Carpel tunnel is a thing. The cost is so high the incidentals doesn’t really matter if I drop 1000$ on a misc line item because it’s already factored in. Amazon is a good example, no one is going to care on a 1000$ line item on an IDF for a 250K drop when there is zero to little interaction needed for integration.


bunch of assholes out there have a fetish for putting everything on walls lately. I definitely just look at people and go “why?”