Am I the only person who can’t get a job?

What companies and positions are you applying to?

Get a hair cut? Sharpen your dress code? Ask one of your female friends to go shopping with you, get a makeover.

You might also want to refrain from describing your current role and employer in negative terms.

Stop being a "good little slave", sharpen your image, attitude and ask for a raise and a promotion to get a fancier job title. That might in turn make you happier and make you more desirable in the eyes of potential employers.

not to be mean, but if you work like you ask, i get a feeling why

Over the years I have had several coworkers with STEM non-cs PhDs. It does carry over to fields like data science, but it doesn't carry over too much to the average software shop where the main struggles are things like tech debt, rotting technologies, API bugs, etc... you won't necessarily do better than someone with a solid high school education and companies know it. My advice is that you start showcasing your skills ASAP with some Github repos, it helped me get out of a similar situation.

Another pattern I've noticed is that they take a look at your background in your resume and get the idea that you'd rather do something else than what you applied for. You'd have to express your current path in your cover letter if it isn't clear from your resume.

I've successfully interviewed when I was younger and had long hair. Just keep it tidy (washed, brushed and in a ponytail). Your dress and manners are also important: don't reinforce any wrong preconceptions they may have,

[links redacted]

How long have you been applying? Python is nebulous.

Does this mean data science: pandas, matplotlib, numpy, etc.

Or machine learning: tensorflow, scikit-learn, etc.

Others: openCV, sympy, etc.

Knowing this I think would help others provide better feedback.

When I receive a rejection email (which is nice), I ask what I should work on. Last 4 companies said they did an in hire instead, and they would like to retain my information. I would like to get to the interview process.

A lot of other positions I applied to close on the last Friday of the month and then reopen on the first Monday of the next month. So it appears (as an outside observer) as though there no human in that loop.

@jstx asked "What companies and positions are you applying to?" I need to reflect and reconsider where I have been submitting my CV.

Also wouldn't hurt to know at least something about a major cloud provider like AWS/GCP/Azure.

At a minimum I would want git and docker experience, but really (since my company is cloud based), I would pass on anybody without AWS experience unless their resume was THAT impressive.

I suspect you are in the same position here. I think you know exactly why you aren't getting interviews but you just aren't ready to accept it yet.

Also, you posted your Linkedin. We know where you work. And you just publicly called them "shitty." If I were your boss I'd fire you. And if I were a potential boss I'd never hire someone who did that.

There are two things I would tell you:

1. Skip the recruiters! In tech I’ve come across some amazing and helpful recruiters, but that is a tiny minority. I used to hear the word “networking” and the sole concept was frightening to me, but at the end of the day all it means is making connections in whatever way you find comfortable for you. My current job came through a conversation in the golang slack. And I’ve had a few offers from just being part of meetups, in person and virtual. It is a completely different story when your first contact with a company is with a manager or through a referral. In such cases the recruiter job is not really to “judge” you but to facilitate you getting to know the company and the company getting to know you!

2. Show, don’t tell. Instead of telling people what you know, show them instead! A few blog posts that I’m not too proud about have had a pretty big impact on job conversations, and as a bonus it lets you know the level that a hiring manager might have in you. Make a few shiny things, at the end of the day, the people hiring are human and are attracted to shiny things thus, check out one or two cools projects in dribbble.com (with 3 b’s) and implement them. If you can have them hosted somewhere so people can click on them even better!

One last thing, which I want to say as sensibly as I can. Confidence is something hard to fake and realizing that very few companies, if any, simply can’t operate without somebody with your skills, your perspective starts changing from “somebody give me a job” to “are you (X company) good enough for me”. Is not about being a conceited jerk, but companies compete for people that seem confident, processes are expedited or even skipped if the individual is comparing companies/offers, etc. All I’m saying is, know that your skills are very valuable and in high demand and let that knowledge and conviction be conveyed in your conversation. Again, is not about being a jerk, but neither a push-over.

Best of luck on the search. My email is in my profile if you wanna continue the convo :)

You say 5 years python, but based on your linkedin you mean hobbiest experience, so you should expect that it's going to be harder. I was a hobbiest for 4 years before I got hired. There's no link to your GitHub, so it's impossible to see anything you've written. Hopefully you're including links to personal projects in your resumes.

Your best bet is going to be cashstrapped startups. They will likely pay less and demand more than an enterprise role, but don't worry about the size of your first paycheck, because you can level way up in a year or two.

However, small orgs like to hire generalists, full stack devs that can do it all. I was hired for frontend, but I had to write code in Django Rest Framework and Flask too. With a backend focus, I'd recommend building the rest of your toolset out and learning some frontend if you haven't. You'll likely have to touch frontend, so youre only helping your future self.

Networking is big, and I spent a lot of time first going to meetups and later speaking at them. Even if you don't get a job this way, you will get more comfortable talking to other devs and increase your confidence. Feel free to shoot an actual resume or GitHub over to ian at schwartz.world and I will happily give you more thorough feedback

One thing that stands out is the extreme asymmetry of the situation. Applicants need to have a brief and highly relevant cover letter or equivalent, a resume that emphasizes experiences directly relevant to a particular position, and some portfolio showing off their skills on github or such like. Anything goes wrong or isn't completely right at any stage means no thank you and maybe apply again. On the other hand employers post listings that have long and rambling laundry lists of nice to haves, listings get posted on job search sites and generate only that listing is no longer open responses, automated resume filters take out many applicants, and interviews are intimidating and loaded with questions about unrelated technical details.

Because many programmers have trouble with complex social situations and social problems this can end up being an extremely difficult situation. Alternatives like contracting and launching startups end up being easier and more accessible than actually getting a job even for those who would prefer employment.

Potential improvements may be more on the side of employers than candidates. Options like scanning more resumes personally instead of with machines, retaining contacts who were imperfect fits at one time, being flexible with qualifications, and offering options for evaluation periods or initial contracts might help. Expecting programmers to hone their social skills and appearance to get a job seems honestly unrealistic given the domain.

A quick note: Monster, LinkedIn and the job aggregation sites tend to have very poor job listings. A lot of them are just contractor companies listing terrible compensation roles that they want to fill with an H1B or justify a hardship loan based on "Not enough interest." If you go to the company websites directly you can find better roles. You can search for "Careers at ${EMPLOYER}" and get much better results applying directly.

Trust no one, they will say that they like you and all that, when it serves their purpose. They don't hate you either.

Expect to give atleast 50 interviews before you get hired for a position. Keep track of interviews on paper/document ( a spread sheet is best, IMO). Add new buzz words, lie if needed, ( provided you back it even with something trivial). The whole resume thing screening mainly works on keywords.

The market is indeed shitty for some people, generally the kind who cannot brag about themself and the everyday unglamorous work they do every day. When you do get hired remember one sobering thing: they most likely hired you because they were desperate, not because you were the ideal candidate.( there is no such thing as an ideal candidate for a job, as much as employers would like to believe).

It's a game of numbers really. And if you have long hair cut it. ( the advice form one of the commenters here about taking advise from your female friends is worth it. Ask your mom/sis if you don't have any. Many nerds are clueless on this front, it's an innate skill, so cannot be developed beyond a point).

Finally my sympathies with you, most likely you are not flawed in a major way, it's the employers, it is indeed a shitty virtue-signalling collective delusional world out there.

Also please remove your linkedin profile link form your post, it's not a wise idea.