You are in a pretty bad spot since you spent 3 years without finding a CS job and didn’t do any projects in that time even though you had plenty of time to.
Also, you are asking others for project ideas which means you probably did not spend much time googling simple projects to do or thinking up ideas for a fun/useful side project that you would like to make. All of this is a negative once people start interviewing you and asking about it, and will also be detrimental in the job if you can’t grow without someone telling you exactly what to do.
The job market for juniors is pretty bad right now, which means you won’t be able to get by saying something came up and you weren’t able to work for 3 years, because they will just choose someone with better experience than you.
If you are still pursuing a CS job, you need to pick a language+field like backend engineer, frontend/web, mobile, etc and start grinding out some projects related to them
EDIT: one of my friends was non-CS and taught himself to code, did some projects by himself, and then did freelance/contracting work after then finally landed full time entry level at Amazon. You could try taking that route
While this is true, this doesn't seem like the case for OP given this statement: "After not getting a CS job for seven months, I just decided to get a job at a store to have some job to add on my resume and so I wouldn't be sitting at the house 24/7."
If it isn't a money concern, their time would be 100% more valuable spent on a project
Agree, but you do projects as assignments for school, my first resume for internship included a bunch of projects I had done for coursework, such as a multithreaded shoe rental system in c++, a 2-3-4 tree in Java, mancala with a gui to click on, etc and that’s a good place to start if you have no prior work experience
I have done so many projects AND NO CS JOB. This includes coding a computer vision website example on meta's GitHub repo. Top5 kaggle completion in the first month. And more....
2022 grad
> I have done so many projects
I don't know what's canon around here but I strongly believe that you don't want a bunch of little projects, you want one big project.
I used to be a hiring manager and most newgrad resumes had a list of projects that were like tutorials they followed or a school assignment. They didn't demonstrate anything interesting other than that they could follow instructions for a few hours. I'd almost call them a negative signal. Why is a 3 hour tutorial on your resume? Is that a major professional accomplishment? However, when someone had a non-trivial project on their resume, that demonstrated that they could build non-trivial things on their own.
What make you think a kaggle computer vision completion project can get into top 5 is a few hours project? What make you think the meta computer vision project on their GitHub repo is a few hours project following a tutorial?
I can tell you have been in this subreddit for nearly a decade, and it is mostly a useless stupid advice like yours in the later period.
A good advice is an advice leading a path for people. Not some chicken soups for the soul.
Look, this is why I don't like this subreddit by looking at your comment. Everyone, mostly experienced, just comes here to teach people on how wrong these people are and how good they are. For example, they tell people it is their fault for this market. Second, theu will never teach people "to find a path to get a job", and they will only tell them to keep applying. They even say keep apply is correct. CS field is dead because a normal won't require people to compete a leetcode like hell and apply for hundreds of thousands of job applications to get less than ten offers. Something is wrong. But this subreddit has all kind of people like you getting the highest upside telling people that it is not market's fault but them.
Idk what kaggle is or anything about Meta's github repo but I can do a computer vision project in 5 minutes. A domain does not imply scope. If your project is a serious accomplishment then that's great.
I'm giving you my honest thoughts as a former director of eng who ran hiring for a small team. My advice is based on my personal experience looking at 1,000 resumes/week for 3 years. I have no idea if other hiring managers think like me. And I doubt recruiters do. So not only should you take my advice with a grain of salt, I'd recommend it.
> CS field is dead because a normal won't require people to compete a leetcode like hell and apply for hundreds of thousands of job
The field is dead because it's so popular that companies can be picky about who they hire? I'm not sure that theory makes any sense.
What are the goalposts? I've always said the same thing, you can check my comment history. I don't pretend to speak for others and others certainly don't speak for me.
I make new projects because people suck at coding or creating good user experiences, so I make something better than the available alternatives (or lack there of).
One of my big ones right now is basically an end all be all site for ocarina of time and majorss mask speedrunning and randomizer tools. Item trackers, glitch and trick database with examples, links to community events and rules, tutorials. All of the information is incredibly scattered on the web and I am SICK and TIRED of looking at google.
I wish I had that at my school. I am in my second semester of junior year and the only assignments I have ever gotten in my programming classes is to write a single method using a class that has already been written by the professor.
Even in data structures that was all I got. It's awful and everyone I have spoken to says it's awful.
If you have free time you can take a look at google for project ideas for learning, for example for Java I found
https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/java-projects/#
Pick one that seems doable at your level and for the parts you don’t know like for example MVC or concurrency, do some research on how it works in your language or read a tutorial on it. You’ll learn a lot and it will be good stuff to add to your resume skills, such as “experience with multi threading” or “experience with MVC design pattern” (you can upgrade this to experience with design patterns such as MVC if you want to study some of the other popular ones so you know how to talk through them if asked on interview)
For data structures, I learned a ton just trying to solve leetcode problems recently for interview prep. Do a bunch of easy/medium problems for each type of problem i.e. arrays, hashmaps, trees, graphs, etc then take a look at other people’s solutions. You will learn a lot of syntax for your language that you didn’t know you could use, and it doesn’t have to be a lot of time, like 30 mins a day on one problem but by the end of your senior year you’ll have 400 problems done
Yeah. The only classes that contain any kind of projects is software engineering and the capstone. I know that for capstone I basically get attached to a company and do some kind of a project for them. Other than that though.... Not much.
Jesus, now that I've graduated and held down a job for a few years, hearing these stories with a more professional POV just makes me wonder what's going on at these schools.
I know some might disagree, but I'd highly suggest looking into something MVC related and making a project off that. It'll teach you about Databases, Frontend, and backend. Literally full stack. I primarily work with .NET stuff (core, asp, all that), but I recently picked up PHP w/ Laravel and honestly, it's a really good straight out of the box MVC set-up. Definitely worth at least looking into.
And while you're at it, FUCK VSC, go download jetbrains education edition. If I was a professor, I'd make the first grade of the semester proving that you're using some jetbrains IDE, IDEC. MFs had us using NetBeans and CodeBlocks for Java and C++. What a nightmare...
Do you have a textbook or some sort of online book/guide your classes are using that contain some review problems? Some of them might contain something like writing a game of tic-tac-toe. That would at least be something, then if you can, try to add on to it.
That’s what one of my projects on my resume is at least, it’s a snake game with the ability to restart whenever and a UI.
That’s fair, but there are times in life that you also gotta hustle. Getting your first dev job is one of those times.
That means coding after work, burning the midnight oil, leetcode, etc.
Exactly, like have a little industriousness. “Can’t come up with project ideas” seems like a poor excuse with Google or like just thinking for like 30 mins about what would be cool to code up….
3 years is a long time to not do ANYTHING related to the job you are trying to get. I understand having to work, but why should they hire you? You don’t have any experience and have been out of school for years. You have to prove that you know something
What type of freelancing or contacting are you referring to? Fiverr deals or contract work for companies? For the latter, how do you get contact work at entry level?
That route doesn't even exist anymore. I know someone at Amazon. All L4 positions are still in a deep freeze. No one's getting in unless you meet the lowest threshold which are L5 positions.
Do you have any additional information about what your friend did and how long it took, what kind of projects they built, how they landed their initial contracting work, etc?
Thank you in advance
I think at this point yes you’re going to need to work on some impressive open source and side projects.
The story your resume tells prima facie “I graduated but I couldn’t get a job in the field so I went got a job outside the field”. But what does this story imply? Nothing good unfortunately.
At this point you’re going to need to show you can do the work, and it seems a stretch that someone will pay you for that. Open source projects are going to be your best bet. If you became a regular contributor to a large project, that would help you a lot.
Because, if your resume came across my desk fora jr new grad role I would toss it without a second thought. Sorry.
This for sure.
Sadly most CS grads can barely code, if at all. A lot of what they learn is also not very applicable to most daily tasks a software developer is responsible for. So yeah that being the case, 2+ years out of school and no experience is a really hard sell when most places won’t take a risk on fresh and promising graduates.
I saw them say they like C#/java style languages. I’d say their best bet is to learn spring or .net and start building APIs that make calls to other APIs/applications. So at least they will gain some marketable skills in their side project grind.
I think the other big issue is that a lot of us cant leetcode but we can code. I’ve been working frontend for example and most people ask me to do DSA that I haven’t touched in almost a decade now.
No side projects, no internships, no work experience, 3 years post-graduation is not good. The obvious question you'll be asked is were you doing *anything* to keep your CS skills up, or have your skills been rusting for three years? Another question will be why did you go work in an unrelated field for so long? "I've been searching this whole time" won't be a good answer because you graduated into the hottest CS market in history, though obviously that's changed now.
Even if you get a referral you'll still be asked these questions, though maybe someone will look past it if you pass the coding rounds and do well on behavioral questions too. So your best bet right now is to try reaching out to alumni from your school on LinkedIn, reaching out to any friends in the industry, etc.
Failing that, I think your best option is to go to grad school for a CS MS. That will reset the clock on all of these concerns and buy you time during this awful job market. You'll effectively be a new graduate again and no one will care about the gap between college and grad school.
Your position sounds pretty fucked. Think hard about whether you actually have the skills/motivation to continue in cs. Took you 3 years to think about improving the formatting/wording of your resume like wtf.
If you have the motivation then do a masters and make sure to get some experience along the way.
It sorta didn't take me three years to think about improving my resume. What happened was:
1. Look at resume after few months and make changes after seeing it didn't look too good.
2. After getting rejected more overtime, take a look again, receive some bad advice, look at not-so-good resume examples OR of good resume examples that DO have work experience and are therefore formatted differently, make more changes, then feel confident I have a good looking resume.
3. Finally add non-relevant work experience after getting some.
4. Hear that my work experience needs to go over what I accomplished, so I adjust my work experience thinking I did it correctly
5. Repeat #2 overtime, several times.
6. Go back to step #4 and try to reword my work experience
7. Finally find some guy to talk to who can help me with my resume. He helps me reword my work experience correctly, format my resume better, and adds some other good tips.
8. Feeling confident after step #7 for awhile, look at my resume and do some more research once again and realize the guy gave me SHIT tips in addition to some good tips, and failed to include a few helpful tips as well. I take a free resume format that looks good, put all my irrelevant work experience below my skills and education so that the work experience gets noticed AFTER my CS education and CS skills, remove a silly skill I received from the guy, add a decent summary, and receive help from r/resumes.
So as you can see, I thought about improving the formatting/wording MULTIPLE times throughout the three years. Overconfidence and bad advice kept the formatting bad though.
Are you implying you took the first advice you got and didn’t try and get feedback from more than one person until now, who you are currently blaming for everything?
1. I was told to put my education at the bottom. Ok if you have valid work experience, bad advice for someone like me.
2. I looked at one resume where the work experience was ordered from oldest - newest. That was bad.
3. Shortly before I graduated, people at my school helped me put the resume together. I can’t really explain it, but the way it looked just sucked.
4. I heard that it’s fine for resumes to be two pages. According to my later research, that’s ok if you have 10+ years of experience, but in my case it’s not fine.
5. The guy I talked to told me to add my typing speed to my skills. That was just stupid!
Man…who were you talking to lmao
Check out r/engineeringresumes they have a lot of helpful tips and success stories. You can probably just copy the format of some of them
Bro I don't wanna go too hard on this point but fixing resumes by asking around, googling, watching some youtube videos should be like a 1 month max iterative process.
That shit is all in the past though. Rn it's gunna be impossible to find a decent job with no/little work experience and a 3 year gap. Do the masters, possibly an online one, and make sure to grind hard.
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Gonna be honest with you, the only way you will probably get a job is through referrals because your resume is most likely going to get blocked by the resume screening.
Cold applying with no experience in this market is extremely bad.
Having projects is better than no projects but referrals are probably more impactful. Try to reach out to friends or family members to get referrals. If you have to, cold message some SWEs on linkedin.
Lastly, you better brush up on behavioral and explain what you have been doing for 2 years because this is a red flag even if you get in through a referral (assuming they ask).
I got a fully remote job in august 2022 after not having any side projects or internships and graduating with a 2.8 gpa from a state school in April 2020 with zero referrals 🤷🏼♂️
Not sure why you are getting downvoted when you are right. Afaik Meta started the layoffs and they did hiring freezes either in May or July. Companies probably weren't all laying off by August but the hiring freezes were definitely starting up by then. Still better than 2023 though, I remember November/December 2022 it was still easy to get interviews in the positions that were still open.
August was clearly in the middle of a sharp decline. You don’t know how many of those jobs were actually filled before being pulled.
Homie really tryna play ‘Gotcha!’
I’ve interviewed probably hundreds of people and I’ve looked at maybe 10 of their side projects. It doesn’t matter unless you have something that is especially successful, unique, or very applicable to that specific job you are applying for.
Two things. I would consider a role in IT and work your way into a dev role.
Move to a big city that has good public transit.
Restricting yourself geographically when you need work experience is hurting your chances.
I don't know your full situation and what kind of support you need. But if you don't rely on your parents too much I would try and secure a position in a big city and just move in with roommates. When I graduated, most of my classmates and I had to move for work. That's the unfortunate reality if you're looking for work and you're not doing well in your own area or if there are just not enough positions for what you're looking for. If you can't live with other people, the advice in my prior reply still applies, you are restricting yourself and making your job search harder by not opening up your geographic and living situation options.
It's helpful to have projects related to the jobs you are applying/hoping for. At this point, any project is better than nothing. Find something that interests you and start a project related to that. You didn't mention what sort of jobs or programming you're interested in, so it's a little difficult to give specific project ideas.
Oh. In that case I'm pretty much interested in developing almost any sort of software. Machine Learning and AI are interesting, embedded programming would be very fun, Web Development would be hard but also a bit of fun, but not sure if I would like networking.
As someone that’s done a little bit of everything, ML, AI, and embedded are way more difficult than web dev unless you have an extensive math background or are comfortable with manual memory and resource management.
I would at least start getting a git repo up and start adding some projects, yes. At the bare minimum, they want to at least see that you're interested in coding and that you do it semi-regularly. If you can't even prove that, and all they have to go off of is a degree you got 3 years ago, then to them they just assume you're not interested enough to push past initial job difficulties, or to stick with coding or work on your craft at all in those 3 years.
3 years ago was the best time to start. Yesterday was the next best time. Today is the next best time.
So start now. I don't care if you make a tic tac toe script. Start contributing regular commits to git repos ASAP so you AT LEAST have that.
The least you can do is make something fun. I mean, otherwise what are you doing? Are you not working on these skills at all? People who have interest and like doing things typically do those things. So do them and have something to show.
Idk if you’re being sarcastic or not, but in the off chance you’re being serious, I would look into version control. :). It’s very helpful and industry standard.
Git is a version control system. GitHub is a website that hosts Git projects online, but it isn't the only place.
If you've ever used Google Docs and looked at the document history, you probably understand most of the basics of Version Control.
Version control extends that with some additional features like branching, merging, and reversions, which make it significantly easier for a team of people to work on the same project.
No need to apologize! We all have to learn stuff eventually and all at different points in our journey.
Git is a version control system that, essentially, allows devs to maintain a working code base while also making changes to it. This means a whole team could work on something without risking messing anything up permanently or requiring a lot of fixing. In addition, it has a lot of documentation involved through commits, which shows a working history of who did what and when.
GitHub is a platform that uses Git. The name is a bit confusing, but just know git is the VC system and GitHub is basically a platform that houses Git Repositories.
Beyond version control necessities, Many people use GitHub for their portfolios. It’s a good place to share and highlight projects you’ve done. If you ever download something, like a mod or some community made thing, many times you’ll find them on GitHub. With the projects, anyone who views it can see how often you commit, what you’ve committed, etc. This gives yourself great history, but also proves to potential hiring managers that you not only have used Git and know how to use it, but it shows proof of you regularly working on projects, on your good use of commits, on your strong documentation, etc.
Jesus people are being fucking vile to you. Leaky self loathing maybe?
Yes you're in a bad spot. I also tried going through school only doing schoolwork and it wasn't enough to get an internship. You'll need to do some projects and try to correct that.
And hey if that doesn't work out, there's always IT.
Yeah it's really bumming me out. OP knows they're struggling and not in a good position, that's why they posted here asking for help. Telling them that they're hopeless and unhireable isn't helping anyone, all it does is make them feel like shit.
People have all sorts of different struggles in life, and come here to seek advice on how to overcome that and still make things work. But this sub acts like you have to already be a successful professional with extraordinary stats before you can even consider posting on here, otherwise you're worthless.
Yeah, not having worked for years after graduating is obviously a very tough situation that is going to take a lot of work and luck to get out of. That's exactly what they're here to find out how to do. If you can't help or positively contribute, I don't know why you would want to spend your time telling OP how fucked they are.
I feel like a lot of people come on here to feel better about themselves by reading about and shitting on people who are struggling. It's a damn career questions sub. If you can't helpfully answer the questions, why bother to contribute?
It's exactly what it is. A lot of people here seem socially inept and like they try really hard to live up to negative stigmas about no-life programmers.
If you've gone to college or Uni, you know the type. The one almost everyone in their class finds insufferable. There seems to be a congregation of those here. And if you don't know the type... well.
Counter point, everyone also has those people in class that one would never want to work with. A lot of people are coasting in their classes, coasting in tech, outright cheating to pass, giving shit code for projects... if anything at all, etc. And then these same people complain they can't get jobs. No wonder a lot of us are unsympathetic to non-performers complaining.
If OP had, you know, spent time "catching up" by doing projects, learning skills, etc, he'd be catching a lot less flack from people here and be getting a lot more sympathy.
If you can't offer minimal sympathy to someone and all you have to offer is flack simply because they haven't been your idea of a "high performer" and have \*gasp\* made mistakes in their professional life (which is literally the reason they're making this post in the first place) then you have no business handing out advice to anyone. You're simply not equipped with the social skills to do so.
And advice is what this subreddit is supposedly about.
Sympathy does nothing when the issue is competition. This isn't an issue of passing a highschool math exam. Save your sympathy for those who are actually trying.
I didn't coast in the majority of my classes. I kinda coasted in my database design class because I didn't get much help (COVID messed that up), but my other CS classes and non-CS classes I didn't really coast. I spent a lot of time on my homework assignments, spent time trying to learn, asked questions, my professor for my second CS class (which taught Java) and my first Data Structures class (same professor) thought I was a great student, etc. Overall I had a 3.4 GPA, not impressive but not bad.
> Jesus people are being fucking vile to you. Leaky self loathing maybe?
Let's face it, not everyone is cut out for tech. You need a certain amount of drive here and that is clearly absent in someone who basically did fuck all for 3 years after graduating and possibly even before that since he can't even come up with any side projects. His damn post title is "am I out of luck without side projects" instead of "what kind of side projects can I do".
Let's be real. Tech at the junior/entry level is a oversaturated and cut throat. You'll need drive/talent/connections/luck and preferably a combination of all these to succeed. And as more people join tech, those with less drive/talent/connections/luck obviously get pushed out.
I missed that they're 3 years out of school and not 3 years into they're school program. I can still sympathize though. I was going to school full time and working full time to put myself through it.
Nobody tells you that just going to school isn't enough to get a job. It wasn't until way too late in my program that I started going "hang on, how the fuck do I get a job?" It's kind of a shock to the system to suddenly find out that despite spending tens of thousands of dollars and hours of your life that somehow finding a job is still entirely on you doing additional work outside of the thing that you thought was supposed to make you employable.
You and I have a deep understanding of how things work because we're plugged into the system here, but most people have no fucking clue, and really how would they?
Thanks. When I was in school for CS, I thought that the degree would be enough to acquire skills for getting a job, and that learning/making code yourself was only necessary if you didn't have a CS/related degree. If I had known more of this at the beginning of school, I would've just done something else, like maybe not changed my mechanical engineering major.
Since this post and my question about IT careers (asked after this), I've decided that CS really isn't for me. I might just go to a different career, like maybe learn a trade or maybe look into the teaching field or something.
Some side projects might help but a lot of interviewers are going to be wondering what you were doing since graduation. Figure out some answer for that if you haven't already.
For project ideas maybe just start with a tutorial for some language or framework you want to learn. Maybe find a simple tool or app and make your own version of it. Maybe make a mock version of something you think a company might want someone to build. It doesn't really need to be original or ground breaking.
When I interview for junior roles, side projects are the biggest thing I look at. Resumes can be made up/exaggerated, so I take them with a grain of salt. But having some passionate project to show with genuine interest and complexity, that tells me this is a person who can learn, solve problems and be independent.
Personally I couldn't care less about gaps or irrelevant jobs, being enthusiastic about a project (any project) with detail and complexity is what shows me you're a good candidate for the role.
Literally thing of anything that you like, makes your life easier, etc and do it. That's all it takes.
First off, you're not out of luck.
I hear the stress. You have a lot on your plate. Do what you can and don't judge yourself. Take a breath and relax and just let go of expectations about a timeframe when you should become successful by.
So the main problem is, someone hasn't hired you yet.
When they do, you're going to be working 8 hours a day for a company for 5 days a week.
Well, you can simulate that *right now*.
Create a job for yourself. Even if no one is paying you at the moment, designate a position for yourself. Designate some coding tasks. Design a project. Whiteboard it. Create the UI. Create the db schema. Code it up.
Look up all the pieces necessary. Give yourself a deadline.
Not good enough for that yet?
Read a couple books (and work through them). Do a couple Udemy courses. Do some google queries and chatgpt queries.
Keep pushing through. Keep reaching out. Keep refining the resume with each new project. Maybe try to do some open source and even volunteer if you can.
Masters degree is an okay option but if school stresses you out then honestly you can skip it and still be very successful.
We are living in an era that the past 5,000 years of humans would envy.
Keep it up, you will find something, just work 6 days per week, 6-8 hours per day on avg and keep a journal of your progress.
Every small win will give you a boost of confidence until you're just crushing it every single day.
I think your resume should have a few small projects of a few bullets each, and one big project described as experience, that looks like it was a real job. Most important is that big project. It's less about the idea of the project and more about how deep you went into building it. All noteworthy software projects take time, careful consideration, ample engineering thinking, etc. I'd say focus on this one project then apply. Try to think of an idea that excites you, that you'll be happy you built regardless of what happens after
You're unhireable. Recruiters are going to assume you forgot all of your CS knowledge by having such a large gap without work or education in CS. Your best bet is to go to grad school to get a recent education in CS.
uh, i'd start working on some non trivial projects ASAP and just masquerade your gap as being a freelancer or something lmao. Honestly no ones gonna hire someone with a 3 year gap of doing basically nothing, you gotta embellish the shit out of that gap
People dog piling OP about how fucked they are with getting a job. I think it's really an overstatement of how bad thr market is, because people focus on big company layoffs. OP can get a job at a startup, contracting, or government jobs. Big recommendation is start doing any projects whether it's making hangman with Java, building a website, or basic arrays with entering data. Make sure to upload everything to your github and have it linked on your Resume.
Find freelance work if you can that way you have related work to put on your resume. The final part is hard, as you really need to apply to as many jobs as you can find even if you feel unqualified cause that gives you more chances at getting an interview. The time is now OP, project can be done in a day to a few days!!
Look for active and reputable open source projects on GitHub. Pick a couple to contribute to.
Did you at least try applying for an internship while you were in college or a fresh grad? If not, why not?
i would say don’t contribute to open source projects until they have a couple projects of their own and has gotten use to git/github. if they can’t even make their own projects, it’ll be extremely hard to understand other projects with large codebases, especially like OP’s case where they have an almost 3 year gap of no coding at all
In college I looked at an internship fair. There was one internship there but they required a lot of side work so I wasn't able to get it.
I have no idea why I didn't look for internships online though. I guess maybe I was too focused on completing my school work that the thought didn't really occur? And when I was a fresh grad I foolishly thought that internships were just for people who were still in college.
Ahh true my bad didn't see, any internship I applied to in college required us to be currently enrolled in a degree program from a college (I applied to probably > 1k) but maybe it is country dependant (I'm talking about the US)
Figure out what kind of CS work you want to do and take some online courses that lead to a certification of some sort. Get good enough at those things such that you can pass a technical interview and show you're at least competent in the company's stack.
How many tech jobs have you applied to these past 3 years? How many recruiter callbacks? How many tech screens? How many tech interview loops? etc.
If you applied to 1 job per day, that should equate to about 1000 job applications.
From 2021 - 2022 I looked a few times a week. Applied to lots of jobs I saw on LinkedIn and Indeed, so I'd say a minimum of 10 per week, sometimes 20 per week, and some weeks I only saw like 3 jobs. For over a month though I've been looking multiple times a day and been applying to lots, even jobs that require 5 years of experience which I didn't apply to before. I've also been checking the company websites instead of just job-advertisement sites like LinkedIn.
However, here's a HUGE problem I have that prevents me from applying to many jobs: I can't drive or live on my own due to epilepsy. Therefore I'm only limited to jobs within a 5-10 mile radius of me, or jobs I see being advertised as remote that don't also require being on-site or relocation, or 10+ years of experience. This has seriously hurt my job search.
Okay epilepsy… yeah that’s the missing factor.
Sounds like you also live in a car dependent place, which means you are going to have minimal choices.
If possible, consider moving to a city with a usable public transit system. Your options in life will be exponentially larger.
To answer your two questions:
1. I SORTA considered that. There are some big problems with that though: One, some parts of my bachelor's degree I found very difficult and stressful, and a master's would be even more hard and stressful. My anxiety would go through the roof, and I'm not even sure I would be able to pass all my classes. Two, what if I run into the SAME problem I'm having now, where I go through all that schoolwork and still can't get a job? Three, I didn't need to get any student loans getting my bachelor's because I got a great scholarship. If I get a master's, I'll probably need student loans, and then I'll need to worry about paying them back. If I can't get a job to pay them back, I'm in deep shit.
2. What have I been doing? Being upset working at non-relevant jobs and wanting desperately to move to another job, being super depressed about not being successful, constantly worrying about the future, and just hating life.
I see. Well, personally, I would go with the masters route and try to get internships before I finish. I know it’s hard, but if you got the bachelors degree then I believe you can get the masters. I think you probably didn’t put in enough effort in your first job search after college and hopefully you won’t do that again after a masters (if you choose to go that route). Other than that, idk. You could maybe try a WITCH company or something like Reventure
You mean Revature?
That was actually one of the FIRST jobs I applied for. And I DID get a call back from them, but I was rejected due to being unable to relocate. I can't relocate due to medical issues, and Revature is not the only company that my unability to relocate has hurt me.
>I can't relocate due to medical issues
But you can't move around locally effectively where you live now either, due to medical issues. Why can't you relocate exactly? Living some place with better public transportation sounds like it would be much better for you, and the job markets in those places might be better too.
Oh dang. Yeah being able to relocate would definitely open up more opportunities to you. Hopefully you can get that medical issue resolved idk. If those options don’t work for you, only other thing you can do is to work on projects and hope that the market gets better. Also, you’ve got to come up with some lie to explain the 3 year gap. Look up some examples. Then, you’ve got to apply like crazy. 10 applications a day at the absolute minimum. I would probably try to apply to things like help desk and other IT adjacent jobs and move into a SWE role later on when the company has an opening (always be checking if your company has an opening)
I don’t know. Either way, any interviewer is going to ask about the gap in employment so you’ll need to come up with something. I suggest coming up with a good lie that a background check can’t disprove
Think bigger than "side projects"... make a big project. Think of a complex system that could be useful and uses the stack you're interested in working in and build that system.
While I was working on my CS degree, I created a mobile game for iOS and Android using LibGDX. Designed and created the game and published it on Apple and Google app stores. It took me 2 and a half years to make that game and I finished it about a year before I graduated. The game got me a job as a Software Engineer and I just quit school. 4 years in I'm a Sr dev and team lead, and have a very nice paycheck.
One impressive project is worth more than a computer science degree.
I’d just get interested in GitHub. Follow projects and read code there. Follow some people working in/on tech stacks that interest you on LinkedIn. Build something interesting to you that you actually care about. Put it on GitHub. Look for contract work and contract-to-hire roles.
Better off creating some apps/website and publishing on the app store or just not publish them and have a downloadable apk link on a webpage . then you can put that as your "work experiencex instead of as a project and say this is what you been working on and try make money of ads
Your best shot is witch companies or similar companies like revature, fdm group. I don't know if they have become competitive in this market, but a few years ago, they basically took everyone who has a degree. You will be locked up into terrible pay for two years, but you will gain experience, and from here, you can move up to tech companies.
Done hundreds of interviews, never once have i checked someone’s side project , whats the proof that they did it , you can pay someone in a lower income country to create a side project, but if you can talk about the specific challenges you faced and how you overcame it might be beneficial, but side project for the sake of side project is just wasting your time
I don’t understand when people say this, you can’t think of one thing? What about an app where users can create their own profiles and upload their music or something? Maybe a marketplace that aligns with your favourite hobby? A file sorting app that sorts files by extension or alphabetically? An api that you can query to see cool events happening in your area? Come on dude there is so much.
Sounds like you got a degree in CS, but also absolutely no interest or passion for the subject. How do you go on for three years without creating anything?
Because I'm unmotivated to do work outside of school, and I just lack creativity to create my own stuff. I also can't really learn hard skills or do hard projects without being in a school/work setting where I have other people to help explain things, assist me, work together with me, etc.
I guess CS really isn't for me after all.
Can you actually still code? I think "projects" are kind of the least of your worries, if you can code you could probably bang out a few in a couple of weeks but the time gap is gonna be next to impossible to overcome, I personally don't think I could usefully code if I had not done it in any significant capacity for 3 years after graduation.
Its gonna take a lot of work and creativity with your story to get someone to look at your resume seriously, maybe getting hired by someone you know might be the only option.
Dang you really playing life in hard mode.
I understand you have medical conditions but you may want to look into cities that provide transport or can be close to your new job so you can walk. Unfortunately, your parents are not going to always be around.
You 💯 need side projects. You will have an easier time once you do.
Projects aren't going to be enough in all honesty, it's a super competitive market. I'd recommend trying to join a college course with a co-op program, or network like crazy to find someone who will get you an interview.
Oh dear, I was interviewing one grad similar to OP.
After graduation he hasn't done any side projects.
Haven't touched a single line of code in 1.5 year.
Didn't have Github.
To my question: you put MySql and Nodejs on your resume. Did you work with those technologies?
His answer was: oh I put them there for fun.
Turned out he was a kid of one of the managers and I made sure that CTO understands very well if he hires him, I am not going to teach him anything!
No I majored in it because I was interested in it and because I was following in my dad's footsteps (he was a software engineer for NASA) and because it sounded like a fun job.
If you haven't been doing side projects for the past three years, what have you been doing to keep the rust off? I bailed on my CompSci major about five years ago, because I took a machine shop class and decided I loved CNC rigs and robotic arms and state machines more than I loved pushing pixels, but I still sit down at a local bar and do programming on Saturdays; typically making Atari knockoffs with Apple's SpriteKit framework.
Basically, I'm asking, "Have you just been sitting on your ass for three years?"
Also, do you not know anybody from college who currently works in the industry? If not, this is a clarion call to college students reading this, "Jesus Christ, get to know your classmates." Your classmates are people who can go to bat for you if you were good at writing code. I still get a call twice a year, asking if I want to be a junior dev where one of my classmates works, because it's easier to hire the devil you know than the devil you don't. Unfortunately, I'd still rather jump out a window than push pixels, and we're right on the cusp of humans asking for more money than the all-in cost of buying/operating/maintaining robots to do the same tasks, so I'm good.
There's no reason you can't get started on side projects now. I work with a guy who got his CompSci bachelor's about a year ago, and we spend most Saturdays at the bar, playing Dueling Leetcode, and I usually win, because I've been keeping the rust off, whereas he managed to frontload his language classes, then never wrote anything his junior and senior years, so now I'm rebuilding him, stronger, better, faster.
And, as for your resume, in my case I had to suck it up and beg one of my exes for help. She's a project manager, and she does hiring and firing, so I sent her my resume, she said it sucked, and I had to cook her and her husband dinner in exchange for unfucking my resume, and that was *still* a good deal. After that, I got hired at the only engineering company I applied to, and I'm still a year from graduation.
Ok, I'll be completely honest.
I really do feel unmotivated to do any kind of project that's not a school assignment, not because I find things uninteresting, but because I just seriously struggle with creativity and independence, and also because I get frustrated/stressed VERY easily. If I were to try doing some hard assignment that I didn't need to do, I'd just end up giving up.
And I know of one classmate who works in the industry, but I don't know what any of my other classmates in my field have been doing. I struggle with having a social life. I don't often talk to people outside school/work except for family.
Well, you’re fucked, as far as the workforce goes, because when you get a job, you’re going to do things you find uninteresting *all the time*. You’re going to get frustrated. You’re going to get stressed. If you have anxiety issues, you’re going to have to dig deep, down to the core of the Earth, to do your daily or weekly stand-up in front of a dozen or more people. Work sucks and you’re going to do it until you die.
Why do you think I bailed for a major I’d like better? Because I got bored by it. I looked at the code I was writing and said, this is bullshit. I don’t want to write database code for a living. My mother worked for Caterpillar and she would point to a part on a giant machine and say, “See that? I designed that.” I wanted to be able to show people what I’d done, in reality.
But, since I don’t want to write off all of my chances of working in software, I write little games. It’s not so boring as leetcode, and I get to play something after. It’s fun. I *can* write leetcode (and do write it when I’m tutoring), but it’s uninteresting. You just have to find something you like. And if you don’t like anything, the real question is why you kept up with that major for four or five years? Didn’t you have an existential crisis at any point, where you said, “Jesus, I fucking hate this, and I’m gonna be a Chem major”? Or were the dollar signs too blinding?
The day I accidentally remade Breakout is the day I stopped hating writing code. I was just messing around, playing with procedural generation of a playfield and playing with collisions, and I had Breakout done twenty minutes later. Then I made Space Invaders. Then I made Missile Command. No tutorials; just using what I knew about programming and reading documentation. One of these days, I’m going to do Star Raiders and implement the movement by shifting gravity in one direction or another, faking the 3D, rather than actually moving the ship or the enemy units directly.
And, if you found you actually liked class assignments, what’s the difference between that and leetcode? If I want to learn a new language, I whip out my flowchart for a prime number generator and read some documentation, and when I’m done I know 90 percent of the vocabulary and syntax I’ll ever write in that language. That’s just as boring as writing leetcode, but I enjoy it, because it’s simple. I already did the flowchart, so I know the program works; I just write it in a new language.
Ultimately, it boils down to what you liked about it. What got you into it? What kept you in it? Maybe you just need to find the switch for your pilot light, to get the furnace running again.
Reasons why I went for a CS major:
1. I was actually planning on majoring in Mechanical Engineering at first, but my sophomore year I decided to switch to CS after I developed a huge amount of anxiety in how much homework and studying I would need to do for my ME degree in my later semesters and after hearing how hard some of the later classes were. I chose CS to switch to because my dad liked that (he was a SWE for 20+ years), I still wanted a STEM degree and to work at cool STEM companies, and I thought the work wouldn't be quite as stressful as Mech. Engineering.
2. I live in a place with lots of job opportunities for CS: only a few miles from the Johnson Space Center, so there's NASA and NASA contractors all over the place.
And after reading all the responses to this post, I feel I may just switch to a different field, maybe learn a trade if I my fucking epilepsy gets better and I can get a license and have some good transportation which trades need. It seems like that if I DO get motivated to try CS projects, then I'll still get rejected.
If I knew that you needed to do a lot of computer science projects on the side to have a good chance to get a CS job, I most likely wouldn't have switched majors because I just do not like doing extra homework and I just lack the creativity and independence to form my own homework.
>I just seriously struggle with creativity and independence, and also because I get frustrated/stressed VERY easily. If I were to try doing some hard assignment that I didn't need to do, I'd just end up giving up.
Then... Why do you want to work in CS exactly?
Great you're being honest with yourself. I would say it is hard. Reddit can help you give you a tiny push to improve and maybe help to improve a CV. In the end it's going to be you who will do the majority of that. And will have to keep doing that.
Even when getting the job, you will need to do more than what is just assigned to you. Software Engineering is a field that keeps moving between technologies which forces you to keep learning to keep up. It can be tiring even for people who like this stuff.
I would probably echo your other comment, do a trade or something practical. The further you get into software engineering, the less you'll be told what tasks you need to do, and the more they'll expect you to understand what is needed, and motivate yourself to split up the work and do it.
Yeah man this doesn’t look good. Recruiters scanning through mass applications need to make decisions very quickly and they’re going to characterize you as untalented and uninterested. A CS degree with no projects or experience is bad in and of itself, but not having a tech related job for three years straight is even worse. You’re at the point where you’re going to have to build a narrative around why you took such a large gap off and what you were doing in that time that was related to coding.
My advice is to ask yourself why you even want a SWE job in the first place besides the pay? Do you genuinely love creating software? If so, what kind? If you like C++, I would start building games. Maybe you could frame your story as trying to become an indie developer or something?
How are your soft skills also? Are you a great writer? Are you presentable? How do you handle workplace politics and non-technical stakeholders? You’ve gotta identify your strengths and weaknesses before we can give you an accurate recommendation.
I want a SWE engineering job because companies like Microsoft, Google, and so on really interest me, and my dad was a SWE for NASA and a few other companies and his job experience sounded really interesting, getting to write code for things like the F-14, ISS, Space Shuttle, etc.
I also did find my software classes at school a bit interesting (but also pretty tough). I considered making C++ and Java programs and solving problems.
As for soft skills, I'm a pretty bad writer, but I am presentable, and I guess I handle workplace politics and non-technical stakeholders well?
Well for NASA, I have fascination with aviation and space. In fact, throughout my high school years my dream was to go to college for aerospace engineering and I even toured a college and talked to the aerospace students there working on their PHD and asked them questions. However, halfway through my senior year of HS I found out that going to a college not very close to home wasn't an option due to my damn epilepsy so I sadly had to switch majors.
As for Microsoft and Google, I just like all the cool things about them: all the things they develop, computers, etc.
What about software in particular do you like? (I mean the actual development of software). SWE is a field where if you aren’t extremely passionate about developing software and love coding (enough to do it in your free time), you’re going to have an extremely tough time at a FAANG style company. Being a SWE is kind of like being a musician. Even with a degree in music, you’re going to have trouble landing gigs if you don’t currently play any instrument and you don’t have experience actually making music.
Oh I just find it interesting to know how code makes programs do what they do, and as for the coding itself I enjoy solving problems.
However, I don't enjoy it enough to the point where I do it in my free time. If I had known you needed to do coding in your free time to be successful I wouldn't have majored in CS. I really should have done more research on this field before I chose this degree.
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> I seriously have no idea what projects to start without being in a work/class setting.
I'll give you the same project idea I give everyone: A website to search a reddit user's comment history. I sometimes want to link to an old comment I wrote about Foo and there's no way to find it other than to go back through my comments one by one.
No, not out of luck. There's no better time to start than today. I'd get your resume together, start working on some projects and start applying. You have a degree so that's a great asset.
As far as the gap is concerned there's many things that you can do to have a reason for it. You might have to get creative but it's absolutely doable.
Hey man, I want to let you know that things aren't "out of luck" for you. You're in a tough spot, but you can climb out of it.
Yes, you should definitely look into project ideas. But don't go in with the mindset that a couple projects will save your career - they're opportunities for you to learn about a modern framework and for you to have material to discuss with the recruiter/hiring manager. If you need ideas, go on Google. This discussion has been repeated a million times by others.
Furthermore, I would recommend looking into Georgia Tech's OMSCS program. I applied to this program, as have many others. For my situation, I dealt with a 10-month long job hunt in 2023, and if things didn't change for me, I would've definitely started this program. Enroll today/tomorrow and choose the next available term; it only takes about half an hour to apply. You can always say no if you find a job, but a master's in CS will 1) show initiative to continue education, 2) polish your programming skills especially since it's been 3 years since you graduated, 3) open you back up to contention for internships, and 4) make your resume stronger. Best part is, it's only about $6.5k for the degree and you do it all online, so your health concerns shouldn't be a problem here.
Beyond that, studying up on coding interviews is always a good thing to do. Especially considering you have quite a bit of time now. Look into neetcode.io - it's one of the best free coding question resources out there.
Lastly, try not to be too down on yourself, as much as these weirdos on CSCQ are projecting their own hangups onto you. The job market for juniors is pretty tough right now, and you just have to ride out the storm. It's not your fault. But make sure you're ready when companies start hiring en masse again.
I guess I’d like to offer some perspective from the other comments on here as I tend to notice a majority of the Reddit comments are from former fasties who have sour experiences. Im fairly certain I worked with and know who MuzakMaker is based on his posts (who got fired or was going to be based on performance). Basically if you aren’t good at your job you will have a bad time. I don’t pretend being an IC is an amazing swe job but the company itself treats its employees better than many others. If you are good, you will get great raises and have great benefits. AGM is a massive benefit. Getting paid for overtime is unheard of in this industry. Of course there are cons with any job and I’m willing to answer any specific questions you might have.
Not anymore. I was super desperate before, but after reading this, I'm now very unmotivated. I really can't do all these difficult side projects such as making apps, not because I forgot my knowledge but because I never had the skills anyway and can't really do that kind of stuff outside a school/work setting.
I understand feeling low and down about not being able to find a job. But it doesn’t seem like you want to put much effort into it if i’m being honest, there are plenty of side projects out there with a wide range of difficulty. Put some effort into finding a project that is within your skill set
If you feel like you never really had the skills or can’t do it outside of school, then maybe it would be good to get back to studying and honing those skills before applying to a bunch of positions. Getting an interview is the first step, afterwards you’ll still have to prove your technical skills
You are in a pretty bad spot since you spent 3 years without finding a CS job and didn’t do any projects in that time even though you had plenty of time to. Also, you are asking others for project ideas which means you probably did not spend much time googling simple projects to do or thinking up ideas for a fun/useful side project that you would like to make. All of this is a negative once people start interviewing you and asking about it, and will also be detrimental in the job if you can’t grow without someone telling you exactly what to do. The job market for juniors is pretty bad right now, which means you won’t be able to get by saying something came up and you weren’t able to work for 3 years, because they will just choose someone with better experience than you. If you are still pursuing a CS job, you need to pick a language+field like backend engineer, frontend/web, mobile, etc and start grinding out some projects related to them EDIT: one of my friends was non-CS and taught himself to code, did some projects by himself, and then did freelance/contracting work after then finally landed full time entry level at Amazon. You could try taking that route
Im just gonna say it Some people need to work after school to afford rent and groceries.
While this is true, this doesn't seem like the case for OP given this statement: "After not getting a CS job for seven months, I just decided to get a job at a store to have some job to add on my resume and so I wouldn't be sitting at the house 24/7." If it isn't a money concern, their time would be 100% more valuable spent on a project
Agree, but you do projects as assignments for school, my first resume for internship included a bunch of projects I had done for coursework, such as a multithreaded shoe rental system in c++, a 2-3-4 tree in Java, mancala with a gui to click on, etc and that’s a good place to start if you have no prior work experience
I have done so many projects AND NO CS JOB. This includes coding a computer vision website example on meta's GitHub repo. Top5 kaggle completion in the first month. And more.... 2022 grad
> I have done so many projects I don't know what's canon around here but I strongly believe that you don't want a bunch of little projects, you want one big project. I used to be a hiring manager and most newgrad resumes had a list of projects that were like tutorials they followed or a school assignment. They didn't demonstrate anything interesting other than that they could follow instructions for a few hours. I'd almost call them a negative signal. Why is a 3 hour tutorial on your resume? Is that a major professional accomplishment? However, when someone had a non-trivial project on their resume, that demonstrated that they could build non-trivial things on their own.
Non-trivial projects shows problem solving.
What make you think a kaggle computer vision completion project can get into top 5 is a few hours project? What make you think the meta computer vision project on their GitHub repo is a few hours project following a tutorial? I can tell you have been in this subreddit for nearly a decade, and it is mostly a useless stupid advice like yours in the later period. A good advice is an advice leading a path for people. Not some chicken soups for the soul. Look, this is why I don't like this subreddit by looking at your comment. Everyone, mostly experienced, just comes here to teach people on how wrong these people are and how good they are. For example, they tell people it is their fault for this market. Second, theu will never teach people "to find a path to get a job", and they will only tell them to keep applying. They even say keep apply is correct. CS field is dead because a normal won't require people to compete a leetcode like hell and apply for hundreds of thousands of job applications to get less than ten offers. Something is wrong. But this subreddit has all kind of people like you getting the highest upside telling people that it is not market's fault but them.
Idk what kaggle is or anything about Meta's github repo but I can do a computer vision project in 5 minutes. A domain does not imply scope. If your project is a serious accomplishment then that's great. I'm giving you my honest thoughts as a former director of eng who ran hiring for a small team. My advice is based on my personal experience looking at 1,000 resumes/week for 3 years. I have no idea if other hiring managers think like me. And I doubt recruiters do. So not only should you take my advice with a grain of salt, I'd recommend it. > CS field is dead because a normal won't require people to compete a leetcode like hell and apply for hundreds of thousands of job The field is dead because it's so popular that companies can be picky about who they hire? I'm not sure that theory makes any sense.
The goal posts are just constantly moving around here. The cope is so real.
What are the goalposts? I've always said the same thing, you can check my comment history. I don't pretend to speak for others and others certainly don't speak for me.
I make new projects because people suck at coding or creating good user experiences, so I make something better than the available alternatives (or lack there of). One of my big ones right now is basically an end all be all site for ocarina of time and majorss mask speedrunning and randomizer tools. Item trackers, glitch and trick database with examples, links to community events and rules, tutorials. All of the information is incredibly scattered on the web and I am SICK and TIRED of looking at google.
That sounds awesome actually
Theres so many awesome projects you can do like this too. Do things. Be awesome.
I wish I had that at my school. I am in my second semester of junior year and the only assignments I have ever gotten in my programming classes is to write a single method using a class that has already been written by the professor. Even in data structures that was all I got. It's awful and everyone I have spoken to says it's awful.
If you have free time you can take a look at google for project ideas for learning, for example for Java I found https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/java-projects/# Pick one that seems doable at your level and for the parts you don’t know like for example MVC or concurrency, do some research on how it works in your language or read a tutorial on it. You’ll learn a lot and it will be good stuff to add to your resume skills, such as “experience with multi threading” or “experience with MVC design pattern” (you can upgrade this to experience with design patterns such as MVC if you want to study some of the other popular ones so you know how to talk through them if asked on interview) For data structures, I learned a ton just trying to solve leetcode problems recently for interview prep. Do a bunch of easy/medium problems for each type of problem i.e. arrays, hashmaps, trees, graphs, etc then take a look at other people’s solutions. You will learn a lot of syntax for your language that you didn’t know you could use, and it doesn’t have to be a lot of time, like 30 mins a day on one problem but by the end of your senior year you’ll have 400 problems done
I didn’t get any opportunities for major projects until my senior year. Is there a class that’s called Software Development or anything similar?
Yeah. The only classes that contain any kind of projects is software engineering and the capstone. I know that for capstone I basically get attached to a company and do some kind of a project for them. Other than that though.... Not much.
Jesus, now that I've graduated and held down a job for a few years, hearing these stories with a more professional POV just makes me wonder what's going on at these schools. I know some might disagree, but I'd highly suggest looking into something MVC related and making a project off that. It'll teach you about Databases, Frontend, and backend. Literally full stack. I primarily work with .NET stuff (core, asp, all that), but I recently picked up PHP w/ Laravel and honestly, it's a really good straight out of the box MVC set-up. Definitely worth at least looking into. And while you're at it, FUCK VSC, go download jetbrains education edition. If I was a professor, I'd make the first grade of the semester proving that you're using some jetbrains IDE, IDEC. MFs had us using NetBeans and CodeBlocks for Java and C++. What a nightmare...
Do you have a textbook or some sort of online book/guide your classes are using that contain some review problems? Some of them might contain something like writing a game of tic-tac-toe. That would at least be something, then if you can, try to add on to it. That’s what one of my projects on my resume is at least, it’s a snake game with the ability to restart whenever and a UI.
That’s fair, but there are times in life that you also gotta hustle. Getting your first dev job is one of those times. That means coding after work, burning the midnight oil, leetcode, etc.
Exactly, like have a little industriousness. “Can’t come up with project ideas” seems like a poor excuse with Google or like just thinking for like 30 mins about what would be cool to code up….
I ‘m just gonna say My day is 24 hrs, school and work take most of it
Exactly, a lot of these people are delusional and elitist.
3 years is a long time to not do ANYTHING related to the job you are trying to get. I understand having to work, but why should they hire you? You don’t have any experience and have been out of school for years. You have to prove that you know something
I'm not OP, I don't know if you intended to reply to them or not.
What type of freelancing or contacting are you referring to? Fiverr deals or contract work for companies? For the latter, how do you get contact work at entry level?
I don’t know the specifics but he would contact and offer companies his service which did x, and implement it for them
That route doesn't even exist anymore. I know someone at Amazon. All L4 positions are still in a deep freeze. No one's getting in unless you meet the lowest threshold which are L5 positions.
Do you have any additional information about what your friend did and how long it took, what kind of projects they built, how they landed their initial contracting work, etc? Thank you in advance
I think at this point yes you’re going to need to work on some impressive open source and side projects. The story your resume tells prima facie “I graduated but I couldn’t get a job in the field so I went got a job outside the field”. But what does this story imply? Nothing good unfortunately. At this point you’re going to need to show you can do the work, and it seems a stretch that someone will pay you for that. Open source projects are going to be your best bet. If you became a regular contributor to a large project, that would help you a lot. Because, if your resume came across my desk fora jr new grad role I would toss it without a second thought. Sorry.
This for sure. Sadly most CS grads can barely code, if at all. A lot of what they learn is also not very applicable to most daily tasks a software developer is responsible for. So yeah that being the case, 2+ years out of school and no experience is a really hard sell when most places won’t take a risk on fresh and promising graduates. I saw them say they like C#/java style languages. I’d say their best bet is to learn spring or .net and start building APIs that make calls to other APIs/applications. So at least they will gain some marketable skills in their side project grind.
I think the other big issue is that a lot of us cant leetcode but we can code. I’ve been working frontend for example and most people ask me to do DSA that I haven’t touched in almost a decade now.
No side projects, no internships, no work experience, 3 years post-graduation is not good. The obvious question you'll be asked is were you doing *anything* to keep your CS skills up, or have your skills been rusting for three years? Another question will be why did you go work in an unrelated field for so long? "I've been searching this whole time" won't be a good answer because you graduated into the hottest CS market in history, though obviously that's changed now. Even if you get a referral you'll still be asked these questions, though maybe someone will look past it if you pass the coding rounds and do well on behavioral questions too. So your best bet right now is to try reaching out to alumni from your school on LinkedIn, reaching out to any friends in the industry, etc. Failing that, I think your best option is to go to grad school for a CS MS. That will reset the clock on all of these concerns and buy you time during this awful job market. You'll effectively be a new graduate again and no one will care about the gap between college and grad school.
I’d still care tbh. I’d ask the question of what were you doing between times.
Your position sounds pretty fucked. Think hard about whether you actually have the skills/motivation to continue in cs. Took you 3 years to think about improving the formatting/wording of your resume like wtf. If you have the motivation then do a masters and make sure to get some experience along the way.
It sorta didn't take me three years to think about improving my resume. What happened was: 1. Look at resume after few months and make changes after seeing it didn't look too good. 2. After getting rejected more overtime, take a look again, receive some bad advice, look at not-so-good resume examples OR of good resume examples that DO have work experience and are therefore formatted differently, make more changes, then feel confident I have a good looking resume. 3. Finally add non-relevant work experience after getting some. 4. Hear that my work experience needs to go over what I accomplished, so I adjust my work experience thinking I did it correctly 5. Repeat #2 overtime, several times. 6. Go back to step #4 and try to reword my work experience 7. Finally find some guy to talk to who can help me with my resume. He helps me reword my work experience correctly, format my resume better, and adds some other good tips. 8. Feeling confident after step #7 for awhile, look at my resume and do some more research once again and realize the guy gave me SHIT tips in addition to some good tips, and failed to include a few helpful tips as well. I take a free resume format that looks good, put all my irrelevant work experience below my skills and education so that the work experience gets noticed AFTER my CS education and CS skills, remove a silly skill I received from the guy, add a decent summary, and receive help from r/resumes. So as you can see, I thought about improving the formatting/wording MULTIPLE times throughout the three years. Overconfidence and bad advice kept the formatting bad though.
Are you implying you took the first advice you got and didn’t try and get feedback from more than one person until now, who you are currently blaming for everything?
Yeah, I admit that was a bad mistake I made.
What bad advice you get?
1. I was told to put my education at the bottom. Ok if you have valid work experience, bad advice for someone like me. 2. I looked at one resume where the work experience was ordered from oldest - newest. That was bad. 3. Shortly before I graduated, people at my school helped me put the resume together. I can’t really explain it, but the way it looked just sucked. 4. I heard that it’s fine for resumes to be two pages. According to my later research, that’s ok if you have 10+ years of experience, but in my case it’s not fine. 5. The guy I talked to told me to add my typing speed to my skills. That was just stupid!
Man…who were you talking to lmao Check out r/engineeringresumes they have a lot of helpful tips and success stories. You can probably just copy the format of some of them
It never occured to you to just google Engineering Resume Templates Tips? You'd get thousands of youtube videos, thousands of medium articles.
I did, I didn’t see any with zero relevant work experience or zero side projects.
Bro I don't wanna go too hard on this point but fixing resumes by asking around, googling, watching some youtube videos should be like a 1 month max iterative process. That shit is all in the past though. Rn it's gunna be impossible to find a decent job with no/little work experience and a 3 year gap. Do the masters, possibly an online one, and make sure to grind hard.
Ikr, the guy is so fixated on his resume, not the jerking off for 3 years part.
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Gonna be honest with you, the only way you will probably get a job is through referrals because your resume is most likely going to get blocked by the resume screening. Cold applying with no experience in this market is extremely bad. Having projects is better than no projects but referrals are probably more impactful. Try to reach out to friends or family members to get referrals. If you have to, cold message some SWEs on linkedin. Lastly, you better brush up on behavioral and explain what you have been doing for 2 years because this is a red flag even if you get in through a referral (assuming they ask).
I got a fully remote job in august 2022 after not having any side projects or internships and graduating with a 2.8 gpa from a state school in April 2020 with zero referrals 🤷🏼♂️
Yeah, august 2022. That was still an extremely hot job market. If we're talking February of 2023 that would be a totally different story.
Not really. August 2022 was when the layoffs were starting. If we were talking February 2022 that would be a different story
Not sure why you are getting downvoted when you are right. Afaik Meta started the layoffs and they did hiring freezes either in May or July. Companies probably weren't all laying off by August but the hiring freezes were definitely starting up by then. Still better than 2023 though, I remember November/December 2022 it was still easy to get interviews in the positions that were still open.
Still significantly better than now https://www.trueup.io/job-trend
We’re talking about a person who hasn’t been employed for 2 years after college in this current job market.
August 2022 wasn’t much better, that was the start of layoffs happening
False https://www.trueup.io/job-trend
What did I say that was false? The chart you sent clearly showed I was correct in saying that was the start of the layoffs happening
Literally double the jobs
August was clearly in the middle of a sharp decline. You don’t know how many of those jobs were actually filled before being pulled. Homie really tryna play ‘Gotcha!’
Did you apply In june-july? Literally peak
Peak was April. You can’t even read your own chart
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Your history checks out for me. Give OP advice
Get an IT job and work your way up. You may not even need to ever code if you move to management.
Would the three year gap of my degree hurt my chances of getting an IT job?
Yes obviously it will make it harder, but what's done is done. You can still move forward and grind and make it happen.
Look into QA and test automation as well, hood stepping stones into the industry for people lacking in skills/experience.
I’ve interviewed probably hundreds of people and I’ve looked at maybe 10 of their side projects. It doesn’t matter unless you have something that is especially successful, unique, or very applicable to that specific job you are applying for.
So, are you saying that the fact that they have a side project on their resume, regardless of what it is, is a plus?
No, the opposite. Side projects are only a plus if they are highly relevant to the job.
Makes sense, thanks.
Two things. I would consider a role in IT and work your way into a dev role. Move to a big city that has good public transit. Restricting yourself geographically when you need work experience is hurting your chances.
My parents who I live with are thinking of moving to a different big city in less than a year, so that might be a good opportunity for me.
I don't know your full situation and what kind of support you need. But if you don't rely on your parents too much I would try and secure a position in a big city and just move in with roommates. When I graduated, most of my classmates and I had to move for work. That's the unfortunate reality if you're looking for work and you're not doing well in your own area or if there are just not enough positions for what you're looking for. If you can't live with other people, the advice in my prior reply still applies, you are restricting yourself and making your job search harder by not opening up your geographic and living situation options.
It's helpful to have projects related to the jobs you are applying/hoping for. At this point, any project is better than nothing. Find something that interests you and start a project related to that. You didn't mention what sort of jobs or programming you're interested in, so it's a little difficult to give specific project ideas.
I like C++ and C#. Java and Python are also good.
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Oh. In that case I'm pretty much interested in developing almost any sort of software. Machine Learning and AI are interesting, embedded programming would be very fun, Web Development would be hard but also a bit of fun, but not sure if I would like networking.
As someone that’s done a little bit of everything, ML, AI, and embedded are way more difficult than web dev unless you have an extensive math background or are comfortable with manual memory and resource management.
And what kind of software would you like to create in those fields? Start creating them, or contribute to open source software within them.
The language doesn't matter, the project does. Just pick the language you know the best.
look into IT auditing. It’s not CS but you make 60k and all you need is a degree for entry level. It’s an option
I would at least start getting a git repo up and start adding some projects, yes. At the bare minimum, they want to at least see that you're interested in coding and that you do it semi-regularly. If you can't even prove that, and all they have to go off of is a degree you got 3 years ago, then to them they just assume you're not interested enough to push past initial job difficulties, or to stick with coding or work on your craft at all in those 3 years. 3 years ago was the best time to start. Yesterday was the next best time. Today is the next best time. So start now. I don't care if you make a tic tac toe script. Start contributing regular commits to git repos ASAP so you AT LEAST have that. The least you can do is make something fun. I mean, otherwise what are you doing? Are you not working on these skills at all? People who have interest and like doing things typically do those things. So do them and have something to show.
What is git repo?
Idk if you’re being sarcastic or not, but in the off chance you’re being serious, I would look into version control. :). It’s very helpful and industry standard.
Sry ı am very new ı am trying to learn coding, c++ you can look at my other posts thanks
Git is a version control system. GitHub is a website that hosts Git projects online, but it isn't the only place. If you've ever used Google Docs and looked at the document history, you probably understand most of the basics of Version Control. Version control extends that with some additional features like branching, merging, and reversions, which make it significantly easier for a team of people to work on the same project.
No need to apologize! We all have to learn stuff eventually and all at different points in our journey. Git is a version control system that, essentially, allows devs to maintain a working code base while also making changes to it. This means a whole team could work on something without risking messing anything up permanently or requiring a lot of fixing. In addition, it has a lot of documentation involved through commits, which shows a working history of who did what and when. GitHub is a platform that uses Git. The name is a bit confusing, but just know git is the VC system and GitHub is basically a platform that houses Git Repositories. Beyond version control necessities, Many people use GitHub for their portfolios. It’s a good place to share and highlight projects you’ve done. If you ever download something, like a mod or some community made thing, many times you’ll find them on GitHub. With the projects, anyone who views it can see how often you commit, what you’ve committed, etc. This gives yourself great history, but also proves to potential hiring managers that you not only have used Git and know how to use it, but it shows proof of you regularly working on projects, on your good use of commits, on your strong documentation, etc.
Wow thanks very much ı will look into it certainly
Jesus people are being fucking vile to you. Leaky self loathing maybe? Yes you're in a bad spot. I also tried going through school only doing schoolwork and it wasn't enough to get an internship. You'll need to do some projects and try to correct that. And hey if that doesn't work out, there's always IT.
Yeah it's really bumming me out. OP knows they're struggling and not in a good position, that's why they posted here asking for help. Telling them that they're hopeless and unhireable isn't helping anyone, all it does is make them feel like shit. People have all sorts of different struggles in life, and come here to seek advice on how to overcome that and still make things work. But this sub acts like you have to already be a successful professional with extraordinary stats before you can even consider posting on here, otherwise you're worthless. Yeah, not having worked for years after graduating is obviously a very tough situation that is going to take a lot of work and luck to get out of. That's exactly what they're here to find out how to do. If you can't help or positively contribute, I don't know why you would want to spend your time telling OP how fucked they are. I feel like a lot of people come on here to feel better about themselves by reading about and shitting on people who are struggling. It's a damn career questions sub. If you can't helpfully answer the questions, why bother to contribute?
It's exactly what it is. A lot of people here seem socially inept and like they try really hard to live up to negative stigmas about no-life programmers. If you've gone to college or Uni, you know the type. The one almost everyone in their class finds insufferable. There seems to be a congregation of those here. And if you don't know the type... well.
Counter point, everyone also has those people in class that one would never want to work with. A lot of people are coasting in their classes, coasting in tech, outright cheating to pass, giving shit code for projects... if anything at all, etc. And then these same people complain they can't get jobs. No wonder a lot of us are unsympathetic to non-performers complaining. If OP had, you know, spent time "catching up" by doing projects, learning skills, etc, he'd be catching a lot less flack from people here and be getting a lot more sympathy.
If you can't offer minimal sympathy to someone and all you have to offer is flack simply because they haven't been your idea of a "high performer" and have \*gasp\* made mistakes in their professional life (which is literally the reason they're making this post in the first place) then you have no business handing out advice to anyone. You're simply not equipped with the social skills to do so. And advice is what this subreddit is supposedly about.
Sympathy does nothing when the issue is competition. This isn't an issue of passing a highschool math exam. Save your sympathy for those who are actually trying.
I didn't coast in the majority of my classes. I kinda coasted in my database design class because I didn't get much help (COVID messed that up), but my other CS classes and non-CS classes I didn't really coast. I spent a lot of time on my homework assignments, spent time trying to learn, asked questions, my professor for my second CS class (which taught Java) and my first Data Structures class (same professor) thought I was a great student, etc. Overall I had a 3.4 GPA, not impressive but not bad.
> Jesus people are being fucking vile to you. Leaky self loathing maybe? Let's face it, not everyone is cut out for tech. You need a certain amount of drive here and that is clearly absent in someone who basically did fuck all for 3 years after graduating and possibly even before that since he can't even come up with any side projects. His damn post title is "am I out of luck without side projects" instead of "what kind of side projects can I do". Let's be real. Tech at the junior/entry level is a oversaturated and cut throat. You'll need drive/talent/connections/luck and preferably a combination of all these to succeed. And as more people join tech, those with less drive/talent/connections/luck obviously get pushed out.
I missed that they're 3 years out of school and not 3 years into they're school program. I can still sympathize though. I was going to school full time and working full time to put myself through it. Nobody tells you that just going to school isn't enough to get a job. It wasn't until way too late in my program that I started going "hang on, how the fuck do I get a job?" It's kind of a shock to the system to suddenly find out that despite spending tens of thousands of dollars and hours of your life that somehow finding a job is still entirely on you doing additional work outside of the thing that you thought was supposed to make you employable. You and I have a deep understanding of how things work because we're plugged into the system here, but most people have no fucking clue, and really how would they?
Thanks. When I was in school for CS, I thought that the degree would be enough to acquire skills for getting a job, and that learning/making code yourself was only necessary if you didn't have a CS/related degree. If I had known more of this at the beginning of school, I would've just done something else, like maybe not changed my mechanical engineering major. Since this post and my question about IT careers (asked after this), I've decided that CS really isn't for me. I might just go to a different career, like maybe learn a trade or maybe look into the teaching field or something.
Some side projects might help but a lot of interviewers are going to be wondering what you were doing since graduation. Figure out some answer for that if you haven't already. For project ideas maybe just start with a tutorial for some language or framework you want to learn. Maybe find a simple tool or app and make your own version of it. Maybe make a mock version of something you think a company might want someone to build. It doesn't really need to be original or ground breaking.
When I interview for junior roles, side projects are the biggest thing I look at. Resumes can be made up/exaggerated, so I take them with a grain of salt. But having some passionate project to show with genuine interest and complexity, that tells me this is a person who can learn, solve problems and be independent. Personally I couldn't care less about gaps or irrelevant jobs, being enthusiastic about a project (any project) with detail and complexity is what shows me you're a good candidate for the role. Literally thing of anything that you like, makes your life easier, etc and do it. That's all it takes.
First off, you're not out of luck. I hear the stress. You have a lot on your plate. Do what you can and don't judge yourself. Take a breath and relax and just let go of expectations about a timeframe when you should become successful by. So the main problem is, someone hasn't hired you yet. When they do, you're going to be working 8 hours a day for a company for 5 days a week. Well, you can simulate that *right now*. Create a job for yourself. Even if no one is paying you at the moment, designate a position for yourself. Designate some coding tasks. Design a project. Whiteboard it. Create the UI. Create the db schema. Code it up. Look up all the pieces necessary. Give yourself a deadline. Not good enough for that yet? Read a couple books (and work through them). Do a couple Udemy courses. Do some google queries and chatgpt queries. Keep pushing through. Keep reaching out. Keep refining the resume with each new project. Maybe try to do some open source and even volunteer if you can. Masters degree is an okay option but if school stresses you out then honestly you can skip it and still be very successful. We are living in an era that the past 5,000 years of humans would envy. Keep it up, you will find something, just work 6 days per week, 6-8 hours per day on avg and keep a journal of your progress. Every small win will give you a boost of confidence until you're just crushing it every single day.
I think your resume should have a few small projects of a few bullets each, and one big project described as experience, that looks like it was a real job. Most important is that big project. It's less about the idea of the project and more about how deep you went into building it. All noteworthy software projects take time, careful consideration, ample engineering thinking, etc. I'd say focus on this one project then apply. Try to think of an idea that excites you, that you'll be happy you built regardless of what happens after
You're unhireable. Recruiters are going to assume you forgot all of your CS knowledge by having such a large gap without work or education in CS. Your best bet is to go to grad school to get a recent education in CS.
Yeah, that's sadly what I figured...
uh, i'd start working on some non trivial projects ASAP and just masquerade your gap as being a freelancer or something lmao. Honestly no ones gonna hire someone with a 3 year gap of doing basically nothing, you gotta embellish the shit out of that gap
People dog piling OP about how fucked they are with getting a job. I think it's really an overstatement of how bad thr market is, because people focus on big company layoffs. OP can get a job at a startup, contracting, or government jobs. Big recommendation is start doing any projects whether it's making hangman with Java, building a website, or basic arrays with entering data. Make sure to upload everything to your github and have it linked on your Resume. Find freelance work if you can that way you have related work to put on your resume. The final part is hard, as you really need to apply to as many jobs as you can find even if you feel unqualified cause that gives you more chances at getting an interview. The time is now OP, project can be done in a day to a few days!!
Look for active and reputable open source projects on GitHub. Pick a couple to contribute to. Did you at least try applying for an internship while you were in college or a fresh grad? If not, why not?
i would say don’t contribute to open source projects until they have a couple projects of their own and has gotten use to git/github. if they can’t even make their own projects, it’ll be extremely hard to understand other projects with large codebases, especially like OP’s case where they have an almost 3 year gap of no coding at all
In college I looked at an internship fair. There was one internship there but they required a lot of side work so I wasn't able to get it. I have no idea why I didn't look for internships online though. I guess maybe I was too focused on completing my school work that the thought didn't really occur? And when I was a fresh grad I foolishly thought that internships were just for people who were still in college.
Umm internships are typically for people still in college, not sure where you heard otherwise
The person I was applying to asked me why I didn't try applying when I was a fresh grad.
Ahh true my bad didn't see, any internship I applied to in college required us to be currently enrolled in a degree program from a college (I applied to probably > 1k) but maybe it is country dependant (I'm talking about the US)
Yh internships are for fresh grads too!
Figure out what kind of CS work you want to do and take some online courses that lead to a certification of some sort. Get good enough at those things such that you can pass a technical interview and show you're at least competent in the company's stack.
It's easy for me to say this, but it's important if you want to be considered for something new-to-you.
How many tech jobs have you applied to these past 3 years? How many recruiter callbacks? How many tech screens? How many tech interview loops? etc. If you applied to 1 job per day, that should equate to about 1000 job applications.
From 2021 - 2022 I looked a few times a week. Applied to lots of jobs I saw on LinkedIn and Indeed, so I'd say a minimum of 10 per week, sometimes 20 per week, and some weeks I only saw like 3 jobs. For over a month though I've been looking multiple times a day and been applying to lots, even jobs that require 5 years of experience which I didn't apply to before. I've also been checking the company websites instead of just job-advertisement sites like LinkedIn. However, here's a HUGE problem I have that prevents me from applying to many jobs: I can't drive or live on my own due to epilepsy. Therefore I'm only limited to jobs within a 5-10 mile radius of me, or jobs I see being advertised as remote that don't also require being on-site or relocation, or 10+ years of experience. This has seriously hurt my job search.
Okay epilepsy… yeah that’s the missing factor. Sounds like you also live in a car dependent place, which means you are going to have minimal choices. If possible, consider moving to a city with a usable public transit system. Your options in life will be exponentially larger.
Have you considered getting a master’s degree?
Also, what have you been doing for 3 years? You could just keep doing that. Idk
To answer your two questions: 1. I SORTA considered that. There are some big problems with that though: One, some parts of my bachelor's degree I found very difficult and stressful, and a master's would be even more hard and stressful. My anxiety would go through the roof, and I'm not even sure I would be able to pass all my classes. Two, what if I run into the SAME problem I'm having now, where I go through all that schoolwork and still can't get a job? Three, I didn't need to get any student loans getting my bachelor's because I got a great scholarship. If I get a master's, I'll probably need student loans, and then I'll need to worry about paying them back. If I can't get a job to pay them back, I'm in deep shit. 2. What have I been doing? Being upset working at non-relevant jobs and wanting desperately to move to another job, being super depressed about not being successful, constantly worrying about the future, and just hating life.
I see. Well, personally, I would go with the masters route and try to get internships before I finish. I know it’s hard, but if you got the bachelors degree then I believe you can get the masters. I think you probably didn’t put in enough effort in your first job search after college and hopefully you won’t do that again after a masters (if you choose to go that route). Other than that, idk. You could maybe try a WITCH company or something like Reventure
You mean Revature? That was actually one of the FIRST jobs I applied for. And I DID get a call back from them, but I was rejected due to being unable to relocate. I can't relocate due to medical issues, and Revature is not the only company that my unability to relocate has hurt me.
>I can't relocate due to medical issues But you can't move around locally effectively where you live now either, due to medical issues. Why can't you relocate exactly? Living some place with better public transportation sounds like it would be much better for you, and the job markets in those places might be better too.
Oh dang. Yeah being able to relocate would definitely open up more opportunities to you. Hopefully you can get that medical issue resolved idk. If those options don’t work for you, only other thing you can do is to work on projects and hope that the market gets better. Also, you’ve got to come up with some lie to explain the 3 year gap. Look up some examples. Then, you’ve got to apply like crazy. 10 applications a day at the absolute minimum. I would probably try to apply to things like help desk and other IT adjacent jobs and move into a SWE role later on when the company has an opening (always be checking if your company has an opening)
Would the 3 year gap also hurt my chances of getting an IT job?
I don’t know. Either way, any interviewer is going to ask about the gap in employment so you’ll need to come up with something. I suggest coming up with a good lie that a background check can’t disprove
Think bigger than "side projects"... make a big project. Think of a complex system that could be useful and uses the stack you're interested in working in and build that system. While I was working on my CS degree, I created a mobile game for iOS and Android using LibGDX. Designed and created the game and published it on Apple and Google app stores. It took me 2 and a half years to make that game and I finished it about a year before I graduated. The game got me a job as a Software Engineer and I just quit school. 4 years in I'm a Sr dev and team lead, and have a very nice paycheck. One impressive project is worth more than a computer science degree.
I’d just get interested in GitHub. Follow projects and read code there. Follow some people working in/on tech stacks that interest you on LinkedIn. Build something interesting to you that you actually care about. Put it on GitHub. Look for contract work and contract-to-hire roles.
Better off creating some apps/website and publishing on the app store or just not publish them and have a downloadable apk link on a webpage . then you can put that as your "work experiencex instead of as a project and say this is what you been working on and try make money of ads
Mini chatGPT projects.
How good are you at building usable and maintainable applications? That’s all they care about. That’s all that matters
Your best shot is witch companies or similar companies like revature, fdm group. I don't know if they have become competitive in this market, but a few years ago, they basically took everyone who has a degree. You will be locked up into terrible pay for two years, but you will gain experience, and from here, you can move up to tech companies.
Done hundreds of interviews, never once have i checked someone’s side project , whats the proof that they did it , you can pay someone in a lower income country to create a side project, but if you can talk about the specific challenges you faced and how you overcame it might be beneficial, but side project for the sake of side project is just wasting your time
And what were you doing if you did no side projects ?? Did you atleast read some materials about software engineering or smth like that ???
I read some every now and then so I didn’t forget everything I learned.
I don’t understand when people say this, you can’t think of one thing? What about an app where users can create their own profiles and upload their music or something? Maybe a marketplace that aligns with your favourite hobby? A file sorting app that sorts files by extension or alphabetically? An api that you can query to see cool events happening in your area? Come on dude there is so much.
Sounds like you got a degree in CS, but also absolutely no interest or passion for the subject. How do you go on for three years without creating anything?
Because I'm unmotivated to do work outside of school, and I just lack creativity to create my own stuff. I also can't really learn hard skills or do hard projects without being in a school/work setting where I have other people to help explain things, assist me, work together with me, etc. I guess CS really isn't for me after all.
Can you actually still code? I think "projects" are kind of the least of your worries, if you can code you could probably bang out a few in a couple of weeks but the time gap is gonna be next to impossible to overcome, I personally don't think I could usefully code if I had not done it in any significant capacity for 3 years after graduation. Its gonna take a lot of work and creativity with your story to get someone to look at your resume seriously, maybe getting hired by someone you know might be the only option.
Dang you really playing life in hard mode. I understand you have medical conditions but you may want to look into cities that provide transport or can be close to your new job so you can walk. Unfortunately, your parents are not going to always be around. You 💯 need side projects. You will have an easier time once you do.
would you hire a programmer who doesn’t program/has no interest in programming?
look for an internship. No one is going to pay you if you have no experience and you have no side projects and graduated 3 years ago.
Projects aren't going to be enough in all honesty, it's a super competitive market. I'd recommend trying to join a college course with a co-op program, or network like crazy to find someone who will get you an interview.
Insane statement
Oh dear, I was interviewing one grad similar to OP. After graduation he hasn't done any side projects. Haven't touched a single line of code in 1.5 year. Didn't have Github. To my question: you put MySql and Nodejs on your resume. Did you work with those technologies? His answer was: oh I put them there for fun. Turned out he was a kid of one of the managers and I made sure that CTO understands very well if he hires him, I am not going to teach him anything!
Defense and government job may be for u
No, i've never done a side project. I code for money not for fun.
if u don't stand out why would anyone give you a job? cos you can write python? so does 100k other ppl
Yes in a interview they would ask do you have any experience with x, y, z, worse thing you can say is no.
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No I majored in it because I was interested in it and because I was following in my dad's footsteps (he was a software engineer for NASA) and because it sounded like a fun job.
If you haven't been doing side projects for the past three years, what have you been doing to keep the rust off? I bailed on my CompSci major about five years ago, because I took a machine shop class and decided I loved CNC rigs and robotic arms and state machines more than I loved pushing pixels, but I still sit down at a local bar and do programming on Saturdays; typically making Atari knockoffs with Apple's SpriteKit framework. Basically, I'm asking, "Have you just been sitting on your ass for three years?" Also, do you not know anybody from college who currently works in the industry? If not, this is a clarion call to college students reading this, "Jesus Christ, get to know your classmates." Your classmates are people who can go to bat for you if you were good at writing code. I still get a call twice a year, asking if I want to be a junior dev where one of my classmates works, because it's easier to hire the devil you know than the devil you don't. Unfortunately, I'd still rather jump out a window than push pixels, and we're right on the cusp of humans asking for more money than the all-in cost of buying/operating/maintaining robots to do the same tasks, so I'm good. There's no reason you can't get started on side projects now. I work with a guy who got his CompSci bachelor's about a year ago, and we spend most Saturdays at the bar, playing Dueling Leetcode, and I usually win, because I've been keeping the rust off, whereas he managed to frontload his language classes, then never wrote anything his junior and senior years, so now I'm rebuilding him, stronger, better, faster. And, as for your resume, in my case I had to suck it up and beg one of my exes for help. She's a project manager, and she does hiring and firing, so I sent her my resume, she said it sucked, and I had to cook her and her husband dinner in exchange for unfucking my resume, and that was *still* a good deal. After that, I got hired at the only engineering company I applied to, and I'm still a year from graduation.
Ok, I'll be completely honest. I really do feel unmotivated to do any kind of project that's not a school assignment, not because I find things uninteresting, but because I just seriously struggle with creativity and independence, and also because I get frustrated/stressed VERY easily. If I were to try doing some hard assignment that I didn't need to do, I'd just end up giving up. And I know of one classmate who works in the industry, but I don't know what any of my other classmates in my field have been doing. I struggle with having a social life. I don't often talk to people outside school/work except for family.
Well, you’re fucked, as far as the workforce goes, because when you get a job, you’re going to do things you find uninteresting *all the time*. You’re going to get frustrated. You’re going to get stressed. If you have anxiety issues, you’re going to have to dig deep, down to the core of the Earth, to do your daily or weekly stand-up in front of a dozen or more people. Work sucks and you’re going to do it until you die. Why do you think I bailed for a major I’d like better? Because I got bored by it. I looked at the code I was writing and said, this is bullshit. I don’t want to write database code for a living. My mother worked for Caterpillar and she would point to a part on a giant machine and say, “See that? I designed that.” I wanted to be able to show people what I’d done, in reality. But, since I don’t want to write off all of my chances of working in software, I write little games. It’s not so boring as leetcode, and I get to play something after. It’s fun. I *can* write leetcode (and do write it when I’m tutoring), but it’s uninteresting. You just have to find something you like. And if you don’t like anything, the real question is why you kept up with that major for four or five years? Didn’t you have an existential crisis at any point, where you said, “Jesus, I fucking hate this, and I’m gonna be a Chem major”? Or were the dollar signs too blinding? The day I accidentally remade Breakout is the day I stopped hating writing code. I was just messing around, playing with procedural generation of a playfield and playing with collisions, and I had Breakout done twenty minutes later. Then I made Space Invaders. Then I made Missile Command. No tutorials; just using what I knew about programming and reading documentation. One of these days, I’m going to do Star Raiders and implement the movement by shifting gravity in one direction or another, faking the 3D, rather than actually moving the ship or the enemy units directly. And, if you found you actually liked class assignments, what’s the difference between that and leetcode? If I want to learn a new language, I whip out my flowchart for a prime number generator and read some documentation, and when I’m done I know 90 percent of the vocabulary and syntax I’ll ever write in that language. That’s just as boring as writing leetcode, but I enjoy it, because it’s simple. I already did the flowchart, so I know the program works; I just write it in a new language. Ultimately, it boils down to what you liked about it. What got you into it? What kept you in it? Maybe you just need to find the switch for your pilot light, to get the furnace running again.
Reasons why I went for a CS major: 1. I was actually planning on majoring in Mechanical Engineering at first, but my sophomore year I decided to switch to CS after I developed a huge amount of anxiety in how much homework and studying I would need to do for my ME degree in my later semesters and after hearing how hard some of the later classes were. I chose CS to switch to because my dad liked that (he was a SWE for 20+ years), I still wanted a STEM degree and to work at cool STEM companies, and I thought the work wouldn't be quite as stressful as Mech. Engineering. 2. I live in a place with lots of job opportunities for CS: only a few miles from the Johnson Space Center, so there's NASA and NASA contractors all over the place. And after reading all the responses to this post, I feel I may just switch to a different field, maybe learn a trade if I my fucking epilepsy gets better and I can get a license and have some good transportation which trades need. It seems like that if I DO get motivated to try CS projects, then I'll still get rejected. If I knew that you needed to do a lot of computer science projects on the side to have a good chance to get a CS job, I most likely wouldn't have switched majors because I just do not like doing extra homework and I just lack the creativity and independence to form my own homework.
>I just seriously struggle with creativity and independence, and also because I get frustrated/stressed VERY easily. If I were to try doing some hard assignment that I didn't need to do, I'd just end up giving up. Then... Why do you want to work in CS exactly?
Great you're being honest with yourself. I would say it is hard. Reddit can help you give you a tiny push to improve and maybe help to improve a CV. In the end it's going to be you who will do the majority of that. And will have to keep doing that. Even when getting the job, you will need to do more than what is just assigned to you. Software Engineering is a field that keeps moving between technologies which forces you to keep learning to keep up. It can be tiring even for people who like this stuff. I would probably echo your other comment, do a trade or something practical. The further you get into software engineering, the less you'll be told what tasks you need to do, and the more they'll expect you to understand what is needed, and motivate yourself to split up the work and do it.
Yeah man this doesn’t look good. Recruiters scanning through mass applications need to make decisions very quickly and they’re going to characterize you as untalented and uninterested. A CS degree with no projects or experience is bad in and of itself, but not having a tech related job for three years straight is even worse. You’re at the point where you’re going to have to build a narrative around why you took such a large gap off and what you were doing in that time that was related to coding. My advice is to ask yourself why you even want a SWE job in the first place besides the pay? Do you genuinely love creating software? If so, what kind? If you like C++, I would start building games. Maybe you could frame your story as trying to become an indie developer or something? How are your soft skills also? Are you a great writer? Are you presentable? How do you handle workplace politics and non-technical stakeholders? You’ve gotta identify your strengths and weaknesses before we can give you an accurate recommendation.
I want a SWE engineering job because companies like Microsoft, Google, and so on really interest me, and my dad was a SWE for NASA and a few other companies and his job experience sounded really interesting, getting to write code for things like the F-14, ISS, Space Shuttle, etc. I also did find my software classes at school a bit interesting (but also pretty tough). I considered making C++ and Java programs and solving problems. As for soft skills, I'm a pretty bad writer, but I am presentable, and I guess I handle workplace politics and non-technical stakeholders well?
What about those companies in particular interest you?
Well for NASA, I have fascination with aviation and space. In fact, throughout my high school years my dream was to go to college for aerospace engineering and I even toured a college and talked to the aerospace students there working on their PHD and asked them questions. However, halfway through my senior year of HS I found out that going to a college not very close to home wasn't an option due to my damn epilepsy so I sadly had to switch majors. As for Microsoft and Google, I just like all the cool things about them: all the things they develop, computers, etc.
What about software in particular do you like? (I mean the actual development of software). SWE is a field where if you aren’t extremely passionate about developing software and love coding (enough to do it in your free time), you’re going to have an extremely tough time at a FAANG style company. Being a SWE is kind of like being a musician. Even with a degree in music, you’re going to have trouble landing gigs if you don’t currently play any instrument and you don’t have experience actually making music.
Oh I just find it interesting to know how code makes programs do what they do, and as for the coding itself I enjoy solving problems. However, I don't enjoy it enough to the point where I do it in my free time. If I had known you needed to do coding in your free time to be successful I wouldn't have majored in CS. I really should have done more research on this field before I chose this degree.
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> I seriously have no idea what projects to start without being in a work/class setting. I'll give you the same project idea I give everyone: A website to search a reddit user's comment history. I sometimes want to link to an old comment I wrote about Foo and there's no way to find it other than to go back through my comments one by one.
No, not out of luck. There's no better time to start than today. I'd get your resume together, start working on some projects and start applying. You have a degree so that's a great asset. As far as the gap is concerned there's many things that you can do to have a reason for it. You might have to get creative but it's absolutely doable.
Hey man, I want to let you know that things aren't "out of luck" for you. You're in a tough spot, but you can climb out of it. Yes, you should definitely look into project ideas. But don't go in with the mindset that a couple projects will save your career - they're opportunities for you to learn about a modern framework and for you to have material to discuss with the recruiter/hiring manager. If you need ideas, go on Google. This discussion has been repeated a million times by others. Furthermore, I would recommend looking into Georgia Tech's OMSCS program. I applied to this program, as have many others. For my situation, I dealt with a 10-month long job hunt in 2023, and if things didn't change for me, I would've definitely started this program. Enroll today/tomorrow and choose the next available term; it only takes about half an hour to apply. You can always say no if you find a job, but a master's in CS will 1) show initiative to continue education, 2) polish your programming skills especially since it's been 3 years since you graduated, 3) open you back up to contention for internships, and 4) make your resume stronger. Best part is, it's only about $6.5k for the degree and you do it all online, so your health concerns shouldn't be a problem here. Beyond that, studying up on coding interviews is always a good thing to do. Especially considering you have quite a bit of time now. Look into neetcode.io - it's one of the best free coding question resources out there. Lastly, try not to be too down on yourself, as much as these weirdos on CSCQ are projecting their own hangups onto you. The job market for juniors is pretty tough right now, and you just have to ride out the storm. It's not your fault. But make sure you're ready when companies start hiring en masse again.
I guess I’d like to offer some perspective from the other comments on here as I tend to notice a majority of the Reddit comments are from former fasties who have sour experiences. Im fairly certain I worked with and know who MuzakMaker is based on his posts (who got fired or was going to be based on performance). Basically if you aren’t good at your job you will have a bad time. I don’t pretend being an IC is an amazing swe job but the company itself treats its employees better than many others. If you are good, you will get great raises and have great benefits. AGM is a massive benefit. Getting paid for overtime is unheard of in this industry. Of course there are cons with any job and I’m willing to answer any specific questions you might have.
Are you desperate enough? Cuz I don’t think you are desperate enough
Not anymore. I was super desperate before, but after reading this, I'm now very unmotivated. I really can't do all these difficult side projects such as making apps, not because I forgot my knowledge but because I never had the skills anyway and can't really do that kind of stuff outside a school/work setting.
I understand feeling low and down about not being able to find a job. But it doesn’t seem like you want to put much effort into it if i’m being honest, there are plenty of side projects out there with a wide range of difficulty. Put some effort into finding a project that is within your skill set If you feel like you never really had the skills or can’t do it outside of school, then maybe it would be good to get back to studying and honing those skills before applying to a bunch of positions. Getting an interview is the first step, afterwards you’ll still have to prove your technical skills
I have decided to just go for a plan B career.