Found this pose he's striking here with the tiny hand very amusing, hence the doodle
this is both the most joe hills question and the most joe hills answer imaginable, feat. deeply confused jimmy and ren,
Also, key context:
People constantly come into Joe's chat asking him to rank things (particularly fellow Hermits??). Joe HATES ranking things. This is an in-joke question being given a masterful answer :D
Lemme tell u guys a story
In my freshman year, my great grandma passed away. She never threw out or sold anything worth keeping if she could help it, having grown up in the Depression, so when she passed, my grandma suddenly inherited a lifetime’s worth of treasured items. She distributed most of them to her kids and grandkids, saved some sentimental items, and donated most of the clothing and trinkets to charity. I got back the stuffed leopard I’d given great-grandma in the hospital; the fur was still as soft as it’d been when I bought it. One of the biggest things she had to sort through was jewelry. For a year after my great-grandma died, my grandma was setting out organized rows of costume jewelry on basement tables and chivvying her granddaughters to take what they wanted.
And then, after all the choosing, she snuck me into her room while my cousins picked through wristwatches. On her bed were two small jewelry boxes: an old wooden one, and a cushioned one in white pleather.
“I brought you in here because if I gave these to your cousins, they’d sell it. I don’t want these sold. Do you understand?”
I understood.
This is the story of the biggest lie my grandma ever told her mom.
Great-grandma’s birthstone was garnet, and she loved the look of the stones, but could never justify paying for some. Her husband worked constantly, and so did she, and new clothes for the kids was more important than jewelry at the time. When my grandma was 16, she saved her first paychecks to buy her mom a garnet ring for Mother’s Day; that’s what was in the wooden box. The original receipt, handwritten, was crammed into the lid. Great-grandpa saw that ring and teared up; he’d always wanted to get his wife something nice like that, but hadn’t ever had enough money for it. Determined, he vowed to change that. He set aside money for years, slowly, hiding it away in a box in the attic, vowing to buy his wife something she could always wear with her ring.
Time passed, and inflation happened, and he slowly squirreled money away in the hopes that jewelry might get cheaper again sometime. Time passed again, and age had little mercy on him. He got older, typed up a note, and placed in in the box, describing what the money was for; he knew his time was near. Under no circumstances was the money to be spent on anything other than giving his wife a nice gift. The letter read, “One day, my dear Ruth, you’ll have garnet earrings to match that ring.” It’s what great-grandma had always mourned missing; she had such a nice ring, and no good earrings to go with it.
Well, men don’t live forever, and when great-grandpa passed away, my grandma cleaned out her mom’s attic as she prepared to move somewhere smaller. Going through boxes of polaroids and paper clips, she stumbled on the box of earrings money, note and all. She stashed it with her coat, and after that day of cleaning, went to the jeweler before her mom could try and spend the money on something too sensible. She came back with the white pleather box; sure enough, still nestled inside that box were two clip-on garnet earrings.
”Mom never got her ears pierced, you know. That’s why it took so long to find a good pair.”
Once she’d gotten the earrings, grandma presented them to her mom, along with the note. The paper was obviously old and warped by moisture, but it was legible. My great grandma cried happy tears and treasured those earrings more than any other jewelry; the last gift her husband could give her. Decades after the fact, I’d seen her wear them to Christmas parties and worry over them, checking that they stayed on her earlobes.
There was never any note from great-grandpa. Never any box. Never any earring money. My great-grandpa had spent his saved money keeping himself and his wife confortable throughout retirement. To set aside hundreds of dollars, even a bit at a time, for garnet earrings, was never a thought that crossed his mind. My grandma had seen her mom, exhausted, wracked with grief, and lied through her teeth about where she’d gotten the money for those earrings. She faked the note and everything, making sure her mom wouldn’t wonder where the money came from, and never winced at the pinch in her own pockets. And she never told a soul, not even my mom, until great-grandma was safely and thoroughly buried herself.
Hey kid you want a job?
Great get online and go to a job board. Indeed, Linkedin whatever. Now you're gonna search for a role that's in your city, fits your qualifications, and doesn't seem like a bad time.
See that easy apply button? Don't hit it they just throw those in the trash. Now you're gonna want to go to the company's website and check their careers page.
Oh? That job doesn't exist anymore. Cool go back to the job board and find another one.
Great you found another job, you're on the company's career page and the job exists!! So you're going to need to make an account on the career page website. They're using Workday, the same site as the last job you applied for? Who cares? You need to make another account for THIS job's workday page.
Now you're going to upload your resume. That'll autopopulate about 15 boxes with everything on your resume, except formatted wrong and with tons of errors. So just go through and painstakingly check the dates on all of that and rewrite everything you already laid out in an aesthetically pleasing format on your resume.
Ok time for the cover letter, explain why this specific job and company are deeply important to you. You love their mission statement and wouldn't even laugh if their ceo was gunned down in the street. You'll really want to reiterate the things you just spent the last 20 minutes filling out on the resume section
(Remember to include language from the job description, people who work in HR are lower than dogs and they need patterns or they get confused.) Write about a page, but hey don't sound too desperate or robotic this is where they judge your character!
Maybe add your portfolio site at the end here, who knows if that helps no one has ever clicked mine haha.
Anywayyy time to hit apply! Congrats! You'll see that confirmation email come in and you should be getting the rejection letter in about 2 weeks. Unfortunately your resume didn't have the right buzzwords and the AI auto rejected you :(
Time to start again and try not to kill yourself!
Listen to me
Listen very closely
The above is exactly why half of my friends come to me, and cry they're suffering, and I get to bestow my job hunting knowledge on them. I love this shit, it's a game.
For credentials my fastest job hunting time has been 1 week. I searched for 1 week, got an interview, and was hired within a week. My slowest was 1 month, while out of work, while telling ALL my interviewers that I quit my work without notice (I was testing my interviewers to see how shocked they'd get when I'd tell them why, anyone who wasn't shocked I would tell them at the end that I will keep them in mind (not)). My entire average is 2-3 weeks.
Firstly, what you're gunna do is pick a job sector. You're gunna pick a few of these by the end, but for now pick one. Maybe you wanna do bookkeeping, maybe you wanna do something in doggy daycare. Maybe you're a sous chef. Idk! Figure out what abouts you want first. Do not apply to anything yet. You're gunna look at the job description, I've picked out a few for bookkeepers below.
Now what you're gunna do is you're gunna look for "buzz words", or rather words that are gunna appear commonly and indicate the tone for that job. I've highlighted some, but not all in my examples below
Just look at that snout at how similar those descriptions are!
Now that you've got your buzzwords, you're gunna slap those babies into your resume! You see, since your resume is usually read by a computer first, you're gunna trick the computer into giving it to a person. Really what the computer is scanning for is how similar your resume is to the job description. Remember your bullet points, and to keep it short, try to only have 3 to 5 bullet points per job:
- Processed over 500 invoices a day in an efficient and accurate manner
- Curated reports for management review by utilizing available data
- Monitored and recorded over 100 submissions each day increasing accuracy by 50%
These are some great, made up examples I pulled from those buzz words. You might notice I added some numbers into there. That's something you'll wanna try and note for yourself, how much of something you can do, how accurate, how much efficiency you increased, these look GREAT when your resume gets past the computer and is moved in front of a real person.
Now you have your sector-based resume with lots of buzzwords. This is great! Now for the easy part. You're gunna channel your inner "IDGAF" And you're gunna send that to every listing you like on indeed. Filter for "Apply on Indeed" and spam that shit. Sometimes you gotta answer a few extra questions, but if they give me more than 5 quick questions I trash the submission and move on.
Don't waste your time jumping through hoops, streamline it for yourself and use the same methods companies are using. Push MASSIVE amounts of average quality resumes out. The more opportunities taken = the greater the chance of success. For every opportunity taken you've now pitched a chance of success, for every resume you cannot submit because you're piddling around on their stupid website or answering 50 interview questions online, you send out a 0% chance of success.
So go, try this, and see how it works for you.
Some additional things to consider:
- Add random shit in your resume, I added my "Board Game Club" (BDSM group) into my resume for hobbies and discussed how I got my start using sparklines there
- Never underestimate the flair of a little Clipart fleur-de-lis or something on your resume. Never put colored Clipart, but a little floral or swirl design located somewhere nice makes it stand out
- if you don't have a degree that doesn't mean they won't pick you, twice now I've come to a job without a bachelors and being honest that I was only getting an associates before I think of my next steps
- Embellish, do not lie. Jargoning your job description to make it sound cool and professional is GREAT. Do not give me a resume saying you can use CNC machinery when you've only used a 3D printer. Just tell me you know how to program and manage a 3d printer and want to learn CNC machinery.
- Keep. Your. Resume. To. Two. Or. Less. Pages. You don't need EVERY job, only the relevant ones, if your interviewer asks about the gap, tell them what job you had during that time (or if you wanna lie say you were taking college courses and were on a break, you dont need a degree to say you took courses) and that you only wanted to showcase the most relevant ones
- I'm serious on that last one I'll eat your fucking resume
HERE'S HOW TO WRITE A COVER LETTER FROM SOMEONE WHO HAS DONE IT PROFESSIONALY:
IF YOU CAN FIND THE NAME OF A HIRING PERSON: Dear [Name]
IF YOU CAN'T FIND THE NAME OF A HIRING PERSON: Fuck the usual salutation and just roll directly into "I was very excited when I saw this job application. I feel I am a great fit for this role."
Now, look at the three things you chose from their list of what they want. Write a paragraph like this.
I am an adept multitakser who routinely handles several projects/deadlines/needs (whatever). In my current position I [multitask example]. In my previous work, I [second example].
SECOND PARAGRAPH SAME AS THE FIRST DIFFERENT THING THEY WANT BUT NOT ANY WORSE:
In my current position, I work with multiple teams daily, including [name any team you have waved hello to in the hall] and through my work we have [list an accomplishment that required multiple teams].
THIRD PARAGRAPH HERE WE GO AGAIN:
Staying in budget is something I am very familiar with. When I worked on [team], my contributions [list] not only brought the project in on time but under budget by [number]. I have also brought in other projects under budget [examples].
AND NOW THE FINALE:
Thank you for your time in reviewing my cover letter and resume. I look forward to discussing my qualifications and interest in the role with you at length. I can reached at [phone number] and [email].
Sincerely,
[NAME]
And remember, any question that is looking for a negative story ("Tell me about a time you had a conflict with a co-worker") should ALWAYS be presented by you as "I do have a story for that, and I'm pleased with how I handled it." and then you focus on the all the positives in that situation. So, state what the problem was, and then how you fixed it, and then how fixing it improved your working experience. For example:
"Well, I worked with a man named Bob, and he never answered any emails he got after 3:00 PM, so if I had a question after 3, I'd start a draft email and just add to it if i had further questions. And then I'd schedule it to send at the top of his workday. He started earlier than me, and I'd usually come in to a reply from him with the answers I needed when I first sat down for the day. I actually had another co-worker who was having trouble getting Bob to answer questions, and I said, "Oh, are you sending them after 3?" and when she said yes, I shared my own process so it was easier for her to get information, too."
You see how you acknowledge there was an issue but put most of the focus in your answer on the fix? That's the sort of answer they're looking for. The "tell us about something bad at work" questions are about weeding out people who will take any moment to go into a full-on complaint about anything. Any questions that SOUND negative are about wanting to hear your POSTIVIE ability to manage conflict and difficulties.
Skizz: “Well I know my power, I wanna heal people.”
Everyone: “OH COME ON, SKIZZ”
Joe: “Hey he could use it for evil! Let’s hear him out!”
GRIAN AND JIMMY WINNING A GAME FOCUSED ON NOISE AND COOPERATION?!
me: if I become the evil overlord I will never harm my minions
[5 years later]
highly throwable imp: hoohoohee
me: hmm
Just checking in with the chuckable imp union, how's negotiations going?
it's really up in the air right now
Boar and boar babies
