MIT has a mailing list devoted to CS-related job opportunities. In the last few years I've gotten over 6500 joblist emails. I recently graduated and I'm working hard on my first startup, but not a day goes by without a few emails that catch my eye. The author writes:
much better jobs are out there, but they’re only available to people with much better skills than most of their peers
There's a lot of truth to this statement. It almost seems unfair that my inbox is filled with jobs, while people like my mother and some of my friends spend hours sending out their resumes.
Were your mother and friends unable to acquire the required skills, or were they simply not interested in doing so? Perhaps there are thousands of job requests, but few that would suit your friend's taste?
I am pretty sure even your mom could become a Java developer...
My twin brother graduated from UGA last week with a degree in English. Four years ago he had no clue what he wanted to do in life, and three years ago he discovered that he loves writing. Since then he's been doing everything in his power to become a better writer. He's about a month away from finishing his first novel, and from what I've read it looks quite promising. His writing abilities have improved drastically.
My situation is similar in some regards. I've always known that I wanted to start a business, but it wasn't until halfway through college that I even started gathering the skills I figured I'd need. Two years later, I'm a practiced web designer and developer. I'm proficient with HTML, CSS, PHP and CakePHP, Ruby on Rails, JS and jQuery, SQL, etc. I'm lucky enough that I can spend the next 6+ months without a job, living off of funding and savings while I work on my company.
My bro and I have the ability and the work ethic to make most of our dreams a reality, and we're confident in our potential to learn new things at any time. If life's an RPG, why not spend your time upping your skills and gaining experience? I suspect there are millions of other people with this same mindset, including a large slice of people on HN.
But for every person who's driven, there are a bunch of people who aren't for various reasons. All of my friends think I'm crazy for spending so much time reading, learning, and working. My brother's friends are absolutely perplexed at his tendency to stay in and write while they go out drinking. And all of the above + my mom have expressed a lack of self-confidence when it comes to self-improvement... They look at a few lines of code, or a well-written paragraph, and say, "Wow I could never do that." And they believe it.
i don't know about the exact nature of these jobs emails, but oftentimes the positions are only advertised to current students and recent alums of the universities. even if his mom could learn java quickly, she might not be eligible for those jobs, since they want to interview fresh-faced 20-year-old college seniors from College X
much better jobs are out there, but they’re only available to people with much better skills than most of their peers
There's a lot of truth to this statement. It almost seems unfair that my inbox is filled with jobs, while people like my mother and some of my friends spend hours sending out their resumes.