Ask HN: Will I ever find a job?
Hello,
I have graduated for 3 months already. I have a B.S in Computer Science... until now, I just got 2 interviews after sending 180 or more applications and countless cover letters.
Since I could not find a job, I started to work on my personal project and I decided to share with the public:
https://github.com/woguan/Legend-Wings
I am losing my hope to get a job, and I feel like I must find a work not related to computer science. What do you think of my project? Is it good to show for recruiters?
Owner of Alibaba said he got rejected like 20-30 applications, rejected for applying for Havard, rejected to work at Fast-Food. I am getting close to him? I sent countless applications, cover letters, but I just got 2 interviews... Both of them told me I have no professional experience.
71 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 122 ms ] threadI'm a Computer Science myself with professional experience in IT since 2004 and I'm unemployed for 2 years now and I cannot get passed a decent interview without being labeled as "overqualified".
Right now I'm in the process to change path for good and become Security Guard because I have no other choice.
Technology works for countries like US, China, and such big industries, but not for tiny islands like my country I'm afraid.
My suggestion to original OP would be to find any job for now to make a living if he or she has no other financial support from family and work on his / her side projects until they gain momentum they deserve.
I have a broad experience with languages such as C, C++, Python, PHP, JavaScript, and such, but always on a personal level, apart from LAMP stack that I used it for 2 years professionally.
Right now I'm not looking for programming jobs anymore, because I have stopped believing in people from tech point of view after all this traumatic experience and decided to move on.
It just not worth it, it's not fun anymore at least for me.
No matter how good you are with education and research, when you are an introvert and you have to go for an interview but cannot express yourself clearly under stressful circumstances, like the case of being interviewed by CTO, CFO (don't ask me why, he was present with a special interest in knowing me in person for some reason?!), and the head of HR at the same time...then you can get an idea why I cannot make it anymore.
It wasn't like that before. In the past, you had the opportunity to go for an interview and you would have a normal chat with the HR or the Project Manager that would make you feel like talking to a closed friend of yours and you would exchange valuable information with this person and before you know it, through this interview you would realize how much you know and help you appreciate yourself even more.
Nowadays it feels like going through a drive-thru to buy junk food that feels so emotionless...they don't care about you, because they say "I can find millions like you" and they literally mean it!
Think about it, we are in EU and they announce they have opened some interesting positions with attractive salaries and benefits, and without noticing it many EU citizens sent their resumes for that position.
So, you stand no chance next to those people who have already acquired professional experience around this niche.
I don't feel it's worth it anymore, seriously.
So, to answer your question: not worth it I'm afraid.
I'm from Cyprus.
> I'm surprised that if there's no demand for such skillset, why do they have schools for teaching them ?
To rip off our pockets and claim prestige titles at university exhibitions? lol
Actually, that is the same question we have been asking ourselves for ages now and cannot get any valuable answer.
Edit: According to your github profile you are based in Dublin. So that's very strange you should easily get dozen interviews in 3 months.
Here are some iOS jobs in Dublin: https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?sort=i&q=ios&l=Dublin%2C+Irel...
Edit 2: Are you a EU citizen? This matters because if you don't need a visa then finding work in Europe is very easy for software engineers. If you need visa sponsorship then that might be more complicated!
You're a eu citizen or you're on visa ? because could be that companies can't afford the visa cost(money and time)
You can legally search for a job in all europe ? if yes, send cv to companies in berlin, london, amsterdam too. Have you tried to send the cv the Kings or rovio ?
Maybe you should learn nodejs/react and try to get a job in different eu countries.
Also, depending on the company and its size, you might want to reach out directly to engineering manager X at company Y, instead of sending it into the pit of despair that is HR.
Would disagree. If one has a good generic cover letter plus CV and a very good and wanted profile this would work.
Why? Because it's a number game and better send many standard applications than few individual ones. Leas work and better result.
Also, if you advocate for playing the numbers game then you can't complain about recruiters doing the same.
So, maybe his CV is just not good or has some huge mistake and it's not about personalized cover letters?
However, in the high demand market of software engineers an individual application is the not the key of getting a job. Not at all. It's your profile (is is good? does it fit?) AND that you applied at all. Just guess why devs get dozen of headhunter calls per week without writing a single cover letter...
OP is actually above average by having an actual side project. He just needs help with his resume or application.
Good point, I agree
In addition to that, I was asked to even apply for jobs that I am not totally qualified for. Like... If I am qualified for 50% of what they ask, I should submit my application. But again, I used to only to apply for position that I met all qualifications
- How much do you usually take per review?
- How do you generate leads? Which platforms do you use?
- Do client recommend you to other clients?
I usually charge the equivalent of $30 for a review and discount the full service by the same amount if they hire me for a rewrite. About 95% of the English resumes I see in-country are awful.
My leads have been through domestic e-commerce sites, referrals and infrequently a number of the mentoring/coaching/advice Q&A sites I answer questions on. I also do academic advisory services (school picking for undergrad, graduate and PhD programs) and applications preparation. Social media, like Wechat and Weibo, have been a complete bust with a lot of wasted promotional RMB spent, no matter how high the claimed MAU numbers in the aggregate continue to climb. While I am not 100% knowledgeable about what drives the mind of the young Chinese consumer, when I pay for promoted posts and within 5 seconds, get 250 page views, I know the bots rule this part of the world. No business has come through these channels no matter how I tweak the sales pitch; I have tried dark, inspirational, humourous, surveys, contests, promotions (buy a resume, get 1 hour of interview coaching), etc.
I am very lucky since word of mouth is one of the biggest business drivers, due to the high prevalence of fraudulent and generally poser businesses, so I get one to a handful of referrals per client and have an attractive referral fee program. Thanks.
- With which other languages, frameworks and platforms do you have experience?
- Are you willing to relocate?
- Are you citizen of an EU country?
Without knowing too mucch about you: Look that you offer more than just iOS. If it's just iOS you need to put your app to the app store and it ahould be really polished and get some ratings. Now, your app looks ok but it still has aome room for improvement.
If still nothing works out, try some freelancer gigs and maybe you find a long-term client. Being a freelancer is a lot of hassle in the beginning but once you have some reputation earned as a freelancer you nake more money than being employed.
EDIT: I looked again at your game. I think this is a huge project and can take months. Rather build a small typical iOS indie game. The ones with reduced visuals and sounds focussing on just one core game mechanics. Something where you can build the core of the game in one day. Polish it, make a start screen and put it to the app store as said. A work-in-progress on Girhub with many todos isn't attracting anyone. A very simple game you can finish in 1-2 weeks. Or: build not a game but instead an app, I could imagine that game dev iOS jobs are lower paid.
This is an apt observation. The number of jobs are seriously lacking for Objc/Swift, I was lucky to do an internship in iOS but could never get into another interview after that for the bleak number of iOS jobs available that I applied to. I transitioned into .Net web development and I have been given a lot more opportunities since.
Also, Apple also has a way of creating a walled-garden for their developers. Some of the best practices back when I was an iOS dev involved Apple-specific technologies like AutoLayout constraints and CoreData which doesn't give as many marketable skills if applying to non-iOS jobs.
Two things I found that helped.
A lot of big companied have more involved interview process. Filling out forms with a lot of questions like "give an example of when you showed leadership" or "overcame a difficult situation" and other such BS. It took a lot longer to fill out those forms than sending out a CV and cover letter. But it did result in a greater chance of getting an interview. Keep a note of the answers to the questions as once you have done a few, you can usually tweak and reuse the answers in other application forms and it gradually becomes less and less effort.
Second thing that really seemed to make a difference was doing some temporary work. First was manual some testing for a company (pretty boring, but I did create a small Access database to log issues). The second was a bit more interesting Visual Basic work, but paid pretty much minimum wage.
Even after that it took a while, but having some experience on my CV worked a lot better than having none. I reluctantly had to change location to where the majority of jobs were - close to London.
Having your personal project available is good, but it is a game. Maybe look at producing something more business oriented. Databases might seem boring, but they pay the bills.
You are very welcome to send me it and I can give it a look: kevin.simper@gmail.com
I will send you my resume. Thank you!
The only explanation is that your resume is terrible. Please make an anonymized version and send it here for review.
That is keeping in mind that the available jobs vary a lot by location. It's easier to find a job when living in SF or NY than anywhere else in the USA, yet there is nowhere where it should be as bad as 2/180 interviews.
Ref: http://sfist.com/2016/05/02/tech_industry_interns_making_ban...
Keep on working on it, improve its performance whenever is necessary, and start documenting it via blog posts.
This way you will start gaining traffic to your blog and sooner than you think you will attract some recruiters.
Ignore this comment if you aren't applying in English or if the teams are in locations where English isn't the native language.
When it comes to technology, be sure you learn reactjs, angularjs, java and puppets. 99% of companies are needing these technologies.
There is nasty companies out there, don't bother to do demos eather for them, you'll never know are they gonna use it in they products. (I experienced this)
A junior position at a mobile games place should definitely be a good fit if you can show a portfolio of such personal projects.
Find people to review your resume and letter. Pay for that service if you can't find friends or people e.g here on HN. Make sure to find people in your own job market to do this - so if you are looking for work in Germany then find Germans to ask for help. What's expected in an application is very regional.
Go to meetups and talk to people.
Finally, when you are rejected after an interview, ask someone for feedback on your application and interview. Ask them to be open about what you could improve. It could be something trivial like spelling.
I used to send 1~2 application each week between the time when I was still a student and couple weeks after my graduation. But as times goes by, I started to increase the rate.
There is a red flag in your application and you need to find it.
Are you 50+ years old? A non-citizen (visa required etc)? Degree is from a foreign school?
If no to all of the above then you should be fine as soon as you had a few people review your resume.
If you answered yes to any of the above then the situation may be different.
Edit: ok I checked your profile - you are based in Dublin, and you are not 50 years old... Given your Chinese(?) background, do you have any problems working in Dublin (visas etc) that might scare an employer? Are you a citizen so you are free to find work anywhere in the EU? Would you want to move?
Go to everything you can find that is related to programming / application development /web development, even if it isn't in a technology or topic you know or care about.
Post your resume on there. Be blunt and honest with the information. You have 4 years of academic experience. You probably can qualify 1.5 to 2 years of that as programming. You probably did 2 semesters of Java, C#, or C++. You probably did a semester of assembly language and another of some web development. Did you do a class on databases and SQL? Put some stuff on there. As soon as you hear back from recruiters, start telling them who you are and what you're looking for. They are not hiring you, so don't try to impress them. They are selling you to a company for a small payout. You are their product. Tell them you're fresh out of school and have an open source hobby project and you are looking for work. Save their contact information and bug them weekly until they get you a job. Do this with all of them. Don't tell them you've been searching for 3 months. Their job is to get you a job.
2) you need a phone number to go with the submit. Call and confirm that your stuff was received in good order. Ask if there were any questions. This means you have to find real openings with real companies, not just fight the computers. Talk to a human being.
3) you need to put in 20 resume's a week. That makes it a part-time job. You should call-back a week after you submitted to learn about the status of the application. If you were excluded for some reason, find it out. If they didn't like the cologne or paper type then you can buy a different quality of resume paper or wear an unscented cologne. That is a "cheap price of entry" for your next interview going better.
4)you really might go strong on learning how to make a great resume. criteria change over time. What was amazing a decade ago is not very great now. Most colleges have departments that are built around enabling you here.
5) look for jobs via networking, not just monster.com. I strongly recommend stack-overflow careers. They are an excellent resource.
6) make a strong linked-in profile. Make it complete. Get recommendations from professors you worked for, or team-mates you worked with. It is a resume as well. Make sure you hit the "I am looking for a job" switch in your settings that will have recruiters calling you.
7) review your other social media for unprofessional content. Facebook or myspace could be messing you up. What does one find when they google your name? Is there someone with the same name who is ... the professional equivalent of a pile of poo? Then you need to include your middle initial or give yourself a clear differentiator.
1) I have never spent over an hour writing a cover letter. I think the longest is 30 minutes, and in average I would say 10 minutes (Not including the time I spent looking their website)
2) I do include my phone number in both resume and cover letter. I have double checked it as well.
3) Yes, I need to work on this. I am quite inconsistent, some weeks I send only 5 where as others I send over 20.
4) I will definitely work on this
6) I have recently working on my LinkedIn profile to make it more professional.
Thank you for your advices.
So, I graduated in 2013 with BCom in Finance. I'm short sighted( chronic one, have been like this for more than 10 years), I have hearing impairment and to top it up I wasn't that good with my grades either so poor GPA.
For context, I had to pay TSH 10000 for someone to open an email for me so I can apply for college loan, meaning I never had any kind of access to computers until I was in college.
Fast forward, I graduated. The only valuable thing I had is a Laptop my sister bought for me since I couldn't attend lectures( can't see , can't hear and no one cares anyways) and I have to give myself the an education and needed to survive 3 years. This opened doors to the world of the World Wide Web, I read Wikipedia, mastered the art of googling and all those tricks to get the right information.
So, back home after college. There was no way for me to get a job, because.
* I can't last past the first screening , I had issues with communication
* I sucked at finance. I self educated myself so I was picky on what to learn, the jobs on the other hand were looking for people who had high grades and balanced accounts in their heads( pun intended)
It was me and my laptop, I gave up the prospect of being employed. I was too depressed to leave my room. So, I started programming to kill time and keep at bay the thought of suicide.
I started with PHP after playing for it for a while I wasn't that impressed I moved to Python, then Ruby then Erlang. Along the way I was learning and experimenting with all kinds of technologies I can grab for free on the internet be it CSS, HTML, Sass, etc.
Back then there was chronic power outages, so blackout were daily.
My routine was
* Leave the lights on, * Wake up when the lights are on( the power is back), and start coding. * Sleep when the power goes off ( blackout ) * Repeat the above steps for days in days out
I was earning 0, I decided to look for programming gig, I was depressed even more. there are only PHP shops here, in one occasion the lead engineer of one shop told me python was not a programming language.
When all hopes were lost, I came across this language called Go( Golang ). The way I was productive in it inspired me to think about building my own apps one day. So, I started sharing my projects on github. I was writing thousands of lines of Go like crazy. Just chasing the dead dreams. I can't remember how many unfinished ideas there was.
It was't until 2015 I decided to sum up my Go experinece into a little project I called utron. Utron was MVC framework for Go, which I hand rolled and loved, It caught attention of redditors and landed here on HN.
I landed my first gig november the same year. I moved to my own place and I have been independent ever since.
SUMMARY: Time is generous to all of us, keep doing what you feel is the right thing to do.
CONTEXT: I still program in Go, I'm probably the only professional Go programmer in my country (Tanzania) according to Github, folks here have no idea what I'm up to but that never stopped me from believing.
Legend Wings is nice, but the last several pages of commits are all just updating the README. I see that you committed your most code on the initial commit, however, I was also able to copy and paste and find exact code matches on StackOverflow. Forgot to mention, I use to be a teaching assistant so students would do this all the time.
Next up, you have a lot of boilerplate on your GitHub. You have a blank repo called VaporServer. Employers will check your most recent code as a basis of your skill. I'll ignore that one and look at the next one, WebJS (2 weeks ago). You were learning to use express and setting up a boilerplate.
The rest of your repos are tutorials or homework assignments. CalendarData is just a repo with a JSON file. Lots of forks aren't necessary good since the first thing I do is look for individual commits. Being that you come from a university I know there are a lot of group projects, I can't tell if you are the one working on the project or your peers.
This is all the information I gathered looking at half your repos more carefully. A recruiter will spend even less time than I did.
My suggestion would be to clean up any boilerplate repos or forks that don't really give much information or actually make things worse. CalendarData from April shows me that you probably don't know SQL. I can also tell you are starting to dive into node.js meaning you probably don't have backend knowledge. I noticed firebase implementation in your swift code so knowledge of APIs are good.
I would also try to find an internship as starters to get some experience and/or look for a job where they focus solely on the academia / whiteboard challenges. I'm not a big fan of those, but they have their place especially for college students without much experience. Just brush up on your data structures and algorithms and you should be good to go!
Good luck! Don't worry too much, it'll all work out in the end!
1) I did not understand about "most code on the initial commit". I have been updating the code basically every day. Is it because I have a dummy account? Like the accomplishment I wrote in the README, I recently put the dates I accomplish them.
2) About the repos, I think it has a lot because I recently cancelled the subscription. And I can't put them back to private. I will consider paying for the subscription and add back to private.
3) CalendarData is a repo where I can modify it with my app called: "MyAgenda" which is private since it contains a key to make HTTP requests via Basic Authorization.
I will definitely rework my GitHub page. :)
Well, the nice thing about git is that you can just remove the repo from GitHub and then push it back later. I would definitely recommend removing things like tutorials. I personally would rather see your school work than tutorials. Referring to (https://github.com/woguan/FlappySwift/commits/master)
For CalendarData, it might be better to add a README and add some context to it. Better yet, it's probably better to just hide it altogether since I interpreted the repo as you learning how to use JSON 6 months ago. If you need to store the JSON somewhere, one suggestion is to use gists https://gist.github.com/.
To publish private code that requires a private key, look into ENV variables.
These links might be able to help you if you don't know about ENVs already.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7501678/set-environment-... https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36219597/referring-to-en...
I'm not sure if you've already tried this, but in addition to applying to jobs related to your side project I suggest applying to other jobs that have a lot more jobs available. My guess would be the number of jobs for mobile game dev might be limited and competitive and that would make it difficult when applying as a recent graduate. Web technologies whether for front-end or backend development are greatly in demand and are worth considering.