Its the dumbest fucking advice I’ve found since everything is centralised and run from head offices but they dont seem to understand thats not a thing
Because life was literally that easy for them.
If they had a pulse, they usually got the job
You were guaranteed if you also dressed like the fancy people on television.
Ok, I agree with you, I do, buuuuut
If someone shows up to an interview wearing pajamas, they are probably less likely to get a job. So you do have to dress up a little bit, depending on what the job is.
Not even just job stuff, its as impractical as pushing you to apply for something government related and that your dressing up and showing up in person will somehow override literal requirements you know you dont meet
Gen-X here. The reason they’re giving you that advice is because that used to actually work. If you wanted a job, for instance, you needed to comb through newspapers or physically go around and look for places that were hiring. It wasn’t uncommon for ads to to say “apply in person.” Without the Internet making applying for a job almost trivially easy compared to how it used to be, going through the extra effort of showing up dressed professionally was a way to show that you were serious and willing to put in real effort.
The Boomers and Gen-Xers telling you to do the same aren’t living in the same decade as the rest of us, mostly because the Internet wasn’t pervasive in the time they were looking for jobs. Back in the 90s the Internet was kinda a novelty that you had to go looking for. It wasn’t, IMO, until smart phones came along that being online REALLY took off, though arguably iMac computers really pushed the “tech is trendy” idea out there.
That’s what they did the last time they searched for a job. It used to work.
This.
It’s old advice that used to work, and it worked very well.
fun fact, in the medieval times it was custom that you could not sentence a person in front of court without their consent. yes, the consent of the person about to be judged. how times have changed.
There was a scene in mythic quest like this.
Must be localized, doesn’t happen here. Where?
Maybe more of a north american thing
My dad was a big believer of this when I was younger. Finally I humored him and had him drive me around town as I went into every buisness ask for a paper application. I printed and stapled 30 resumes for the trip, got dressed up, on the way into town he was so smug about how I was finally “really trying to get hired”. Four hours later, we’d been to nearly 50 businesses, I’d gotten two paper applications and only 16 of my resumes were accepted. Everyone else said to apply online or “we only hire through the temp agencies”. My dad for his part took it way harder than me. I think he actually realized that’s not how it works anymore because he never suggested it again and took me seriously when I said I’d been putting in applications online.
temp agencies
what i’ve been wondering recently is whether unions aren’t just big temp agencies. instead of hiring people directly, the company forms a contract with the union and people work for the company as long as the union finds the working conditions (including pay) acceptable. if the working conditions drop, the union withdraws all workers at once, instead of the workers having to choose whether they continue to work at the company or strike individually.
I’d say they’re the good and evil versions of each other. They do the exact same thing, but the union has the worker’s interest in mind and the temp agencies have the company’s interest in mind.
also he might not realizing before AI, they were using Software to screen out peoples resume, or keep peoples resume just for the sake of weeding out people. and many listings purposely have no plans of hiring at all.
Congrats on getting your dad to change his mind, even if begrudgingly.
There are so many people in his generation that simply do not understand what this job market is like, what navigating Indeed or LinkedIn is like, or how people apply for those jobs anymore. Very little human interaction happens applying for jobs these days.
using subterfuge
The part that gets me is they surely cant have had any recent success with it. Like, the first time they ever get to following their own advice in the modern day, they inevitably realize its bullshit. They voted and used their positions or authority in society to literally make it so that wasnt a thing that would ever be possible after them, shareholders dont care for opportunity or paying to train anyone or giving any rando a chance anymore
That would conflict with all the big cash payoffs
They probably did have recent success with a variation on the theme. While they’re likely old enough and established enough now that they’re not having to walk around to retail businesses off the street and attempt to get a job like they did when they started out, this approach likely helped in more recent times in their career in the context of promotions or switching to a new job in their same field or at a similar level in a new field. They might have succeeded in getting that new job or promotion in large part due to their social connections and direct interface with the right people just like they’re advising you to do, except in their case it’s now at the higher level, which is probably one of the few places left where showing up at the right time, having the right manner and air about you and dressing nicely actually still makes the difference. The tactics wouldn’t work on their own, they still needed their credentials and connections and experience to get that far in the first place, but it probably helped cinch the position. Now they’re trying to give practical advice to someone just starting out and for them those tactics genuinely are still helping even if they’re not the sole factor in their success and when they cast their minds back to when they started out it helped a lot then too. With this experience in mind, in their shoes, it worked way back when, and it still works now at the higher level and the youngster you’re earnestly trying to help doesn’t have much else going for them since they’re starting out so of course they should at least do this and if everyone else is applying online then this alone will make them a memorable candidate for putting in the extra effort and place them ahead of 90% of the pack.
In reality, it doesn’t really work that way, the processes are centralised, the people physically in the office or location don’t really handle this themselves so they don’t care what you were like to talk to or how you dressed because it’s not their decision and the way the jobs market is, the employers have the leverage and there’s way more people looking for the jobs than there are jobs so it’s not going to be practical to have them all turning up in a suit because they want to be remembered and they prefer to streamline the process rather than deal with people directly.
I totally see why it would seem like sensible advice to someone who started working when these simple steps were a marker of basic competency and motivation and for whom it now continues to matter to this day. They’re just insulated from the way the situation has shifted.
I’m a millennial, the last time this advice worked for me was in 2019. I applied to the job online and went and sat in their office for an hour and a half waiting to talk to the manager for the position I wanted.
Eventually we chatted for like 5 minutes, I told him my name, that I applied on line, and that I’m ready to start as soon as they’re ready to hire me.
I got the job. The next one was a bit less dramatic but still involved some extra bugging after applying online.
But all of this in a county of 30k people for a labor job that I was overqualified for. I think this would still give you a leg up in the right environment or job search. But I haven’t looked for a job in 4 years and my wife is a programmer and you can’t do this stuff for those jobs. We’re at least 50 applications deep at this point with no contact from companies.
Have you heard the expression ‘pulling the ladder up after themselves’ in relation to Booomers, and the housing/labour market?
*Boooomers
the extra o is for oh your god just retire you are the last generation with pensions
Boooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomers
with job sites being the primary source of job hunting, you wont even get a chance in most cases to even an interview.
The only time showing up in person works in the UK is if you’re a teenager looking for part time or apprenticeship work in independent shops/hospitality/mechanics etc.
They believe that because that’s how it used to work (and still does in some industries). That’s their lived experience.
it definitely didn’t work that way for Black boomers
Maybe not in general, but it IS the reason that if you look at photos of the million man march, they’re all dressed up. Reason being, they were afraid any media coverage would paint them as degdnerates, thugs, and vandals. It’s much harder to paint that picture if they’re marching in unison wearing 3 piece suits, and their sunday best.
This in the middle of the summer when that was wildly uncomfortable.
That was also a time when a man wouldn’t dare leave his house without wearing a hat.
Times have changed. The only people who care about the shit anymore are boomers. People can go to work in the pajamas for all I care.
This. I work in un-unionized trades, which is arguably the least changed career since the time of the Boomers, and this advice does still actually apply
Lived experience and/or delusion. Many can’t seem to absorb that the labour market didn’t stop changing in 19-fucking-73, and it shows.
I couldn’t believe how dogshit so much of their advice was the last time I was searching for new work, and how irate they were that I wouldn’t take it - because it was useless and/or hazardous to my financial stability in the situation at hand. That coffee drinks-avocado toast shit seemed like satire at first, but some of them actually believe it, and had I been spineless/stupid enough to allow them to push me into the courses of action they were insisting on I think that it might have killed me.
and had I been spineless/stupid enough to allow them to push me into the courses of action they were insisting on I think that it might have killed me.
yep, my experience exactly
Glad to hear that you made it out the other side as well. I’m worried about contemporaries stuck eating shit, or worse living back at home with Boomer parents eating shit.
yep that is definitely happening. development is a slow progress.
“Naughty corporations” made me chuckle, but “I don’t know what the solution is” definitely rang true.
Most boomers actually don’t know where to begin, even though many of the solutions would be a 6-year-old’s first guess, and are actually proven to work, simply because they grew up being told that every single one of those obvious, proven solutions were “socialist” and that socialism was anti-American.
That indoctrination was so thorough that these solutions can be put right in front of them, gift-wrapped, with a neon arrow pointing at an easy button labeled “fix that shit,” and they’ll still shrug and say “we’re all out of ideas, maybe ask a billionaire what to do, surely they know how to fix the system.”
And the sad part is that they do and, in fact, already did.
That’s what happened to them. If they were white.
only works for white people, it only works for POCs if they are rich or very affluent, so they have EXTRA fluff on thier resume. i assume its for job hunting, there was less competition for jobs like 30-50+years ago, now its oversaturated.
For POC with white-passing names maybe.
Otherwise they’d just throw out the application and turn them away at the door
This works for small businesses. Sending them an email will just wind up in spam. But show up in person, and you might get to talk to an actual person. This distinguishes you from some random, semi-anonymous piece of paper or text header.
If you’re applying at some gigantic mega-corporation, then none of that matters. They won’t have time to see you anyway, and will only look at your application if they specifically asked you to give them one.
This distinguishes you from some random, semi-anonymous piece of paper or text header.
It also just gives them a lot more information about who you are as a person. A list of skills or lived experience can be misleading in all kinds of ways. And they only allow inferring personality traits indirectly, like someone with good grades is less likely to be a slacker, but ultimately you don’t know.
Yeah I was going to say the same. Currently work at a small business run by a boomer so if the random person walking in looking for a job happens to catch him there’s a 50/50 chance that person will get hired. Bonus if the person looking for work has a degree from a ivy league university, boomers love that shit. I don’t know why someone with that sort of degree would be applying for a low wage small business job but the job market is a bit crazy nowadays.
The practice can backfire of course - I’ve seen the same boomer boss hire other boomers that barely know how to use a computer and then proceed to fail at his/her job spectacularly. It’s interesting when you run into boomers looking for work and it turns out they spent most of their career relying on others to deal with the mundane tasks of dealing with email, spreadsheets, etc. So many of them spent their careers falling upwards into management roles until they were laid off/fired/whatever.
Probably, yeah.
It’s how I found internship a year ago. It was really just vague “something related to computers”, so I ended up in a small PC repair and sale shop. I just asked the owner, and that was that. Although, since that was for free…On the other hand, the large company where someone else went in the past… they just told me “write an email to this person”.
But also, that was kinda rare. He usually wasn’t there, especially soon before I left, as he apparently ended up receiving some threats and a few mad people showed up after he helped organize some protests.
It does work sometimes because people can ignore an email or phone call, but its harder to ignore a person standing in front of you.
As an example we were contacting a business abut something we offered that we knew they needed.
Emails and phonecalls always got the reply of: I have left a note for the owner and when he has time he will contact you.
After months of that, and us happening to be in their area, we just dropped in unnounanced and asked for the owner.
He engaged with us , asked lots of questions, asked for samples and info. As we were doing that the secretary realized who we were and said something like " oh I’ve been meaning to have you read their emails and setup a meeting" lol
Too late lady.
I’ve never encountered anyone of any age that thinks that. Presentation of yourself is important, but nobody has ever even implied that just looking nice is enough to get everything. It’s simply part of the whole equation.
Generationally, the only thing here I’ve seen disconnected between Boomers/Xers and yoinger generations like my own and Gen Z are that they have a different sense of what looks good or professional. Personally, I like that younger people also hate suits. Suits are stupid.
Every generation just gets more casual and I love it!
Pretty soon I won’t even need to put on pants to run to the store!
I would love to live like an actual cartoon dog and only wear tshirts to express myself.
You put on pants for the store?
Most of the “boomer” discussion is veiled ageism and ignorance. The younger generations are setting themselves up to be “boomers” themselves. Inevitably they will be old. They’re already willfully ignorant. They take joy in it even. Not on a good track there.
There is also such a thing as trying too hard. I once saw a guy show up in a blue button shirt with white collar and tie, to apply for a cook job. He got the job, and was good. But that outfit was a fucking costume and all it communicated was “I am into putting on a false front.”
Suits aren’t stupid! There’s casual suits, for one, and really there’s suits for basically every occasion… There’s so many different fits, different materials, different cuts…
That’s just such a violent generalization, I simply can’t stand by and say nothing.
Maybe the idea you have of a “suit”, in your mind, sucks balls, but suits certainly don’t suck balls.
I look positively bad ass in a sport coat, and I’m every bit as comfortable as in any other clothing.
what even is a proper suit supposed to represent?
like, i’ve grown up hating them as much as i hated everything else that was pushed onto me and i didn’t understand.
i’ve never seen a single suit that looks good or made sense to me. what is the purpose in it?
At the end of the day, it’s fashion – you may just not like them. It’s OK not to like suits, I’m not trying to push anyone here to like suits, I’m just saying they’re not stupid.
I mean, why wear chinos? Why wear blazers? It’s not like they’re “superior” garments or something, they just… Look nice! That’s it!
Suits are about showing that you care about what you wear and how you present yourself, because it’s intentional – you’re wearing matching pants and blazer, maybe even a matching vest on top of that – and that says that you meant to wear that, and didn’t just happen to wear it because you liked those pants and you liked that shirt. A suit is an outfit that looks like it’s meant to be worn as a single item: a suit. Not pants and a blazer; A suit!
That’s what makes it “special”, but it’s really just clothes.
Maybe when you think of “suit” you think of something like this:
But this is also a suit:
Do they look the same to you? Is it the same vibe? Do you think they fit the same and are equally as comfortable?!
HELL NO!! I wouldn’t want to wear that first skinny ass suit a single day in my life, but I think the second more relaxed suit looks very comfortable and reasonable, and something I could wear around without a problem.
Even if you still think both suits look bad, I hope this at least sheds some light on how not all suits are the same. What they do have in common is a cohesion that says that you meant to wear An OutfitTM, as opposed to putting on some pants and a jacket. Well, and they’re a little more formal than a t-shirt and jeans, too.
Something that I think might’ve also been a problem for you when suits were pushed on you was that maybe you weren’t wearing very good materials or very well-made stuff. I don’t mean to say that I know your upbringing, but odds are you were forced to wear poorly-made polyester clothes that draped weird, didn’t breathe well, and felt weird on the skin – that’s not exactly a good way to get a kid (or anyone, frankly…) to enjoy wearing anything.
I, at least, for the longest time, hated wearing collared shirts! Why? Not sure, but I assume a reason for that was that I was forced to wear them to church growing up and I hated both church and being forced to wear anything! Also, I was wearing shitty shirts that felt horrible to wear, regardless of occasion. Maybe you went through something similar.
The only suits that aren’t stupid are fursuits. 😤
That entirely depends on which Venture was the one who made it. Rusty, Hank, Dean, Jonas Jr., or Jonas Sr?
