The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) tools has led to mass layoffs across the tech sector. Software engineers (SWEs) have been the hardest hit by companies moving towards complete automation by using AI agents. With job opportunities coming at a premium, an unemployed techie decided to take the old-school approach of walking into the companies and offering his resume to fish for a job.
“I was talking to a friend yesterday, and he said, “bro, just walk into businesses and ask” and I wanted to scream at him. I didn’t, but I did, however, decide to do some looking for smaller companies in my college town and seeing whats available,” the user wrote in a Reddit post.
The techie found seven businesses in their town which were hiring for some sort of developer role. Encouraged by the prospects, the techie printed out the resume, put on their best suit, charged the car and spent the afternoon driving across the town to hand deliver the resume.
“Two of the businesses were bigger companies. I walked into the lobby and asked the lady at the front office, “Excuse me, I would like to apply for xyz position.” Each time I was looked at like an alien, and they told me to apply online and wouldn’t accept a paper resume.”
The techie added that the other two companies were smaller, and he repeated the process. “One company told me that the position on LinkedIn was accidentally reposted and they needed to take it down because ‘it’s been months’ and the other was kind and took my resume but asked me to apply online.”
Meanwhile, three of the companies did not exist. The techie drove to the location of two companies and found out that the buildings were empty, didn’t have any signs or people inside.
“The last one was just a door that opened up to a huge room with two indian guys in the corner on laptops. They seemed confused when I asked if this was xyz company and asked me to leave. It was so strange.”
Social Media Reactions
As the post gained traction, the majority of social media users pointed out that the cold-approach process does not work in modern-day, expecially with most recruitment being done online.
“Was your friend born in 1953? Maybe it worked for them back in the day, but just randomly walking in off the street to get an office job stopped working decades ago,” said one user, while another added: “Even fast food places have QR codes posted if you want to apply for a job.”
A third commented: “I did this once a long time ago. One time. Never again nor would I ever recommend this. It’s a terrible idea unless it’s an entry-level retail job at a small store and you’ve already applied online. Maybe then.”
A fourth said: “It works sometimes, it’s how my spouse got a job last year. They had no success applying for 100s of jobs online and it was a last ditch effort. They did look at her like she was crazy and told her she needed to apply online but she was moved to the top due to her efforts.”