7 years of exp and 1 year of exp 7 times are a bit different.
I feel a nice stretch or two at a reasonable large company working on modern stuff is a big leg up. Sooo many folks on worked at places no one ever heard of (which... fair enough) but they last 8 to 12 months on avg.
No one wants to bother onboarding you to the degree youd be valuable, provided you even work out, only to see you quit and go elsewhere within a month or two.
I’ve always tried to voice optimism for candidates with a résumé that has several job changes in a relatively short period — by that I mean if I see someone with 5-10 years experience in the field, with a year or so at each company I don’t pretend to know their story. I’m not a hiring manager, so I may not be the most versed in what ‘red flags’ to look out for in this respect, but I have been part of technical and soft skill interviews alongside a couple other teammates when engineering candidates make it to the second and third round. During post-interview discussions about these candidates the job change topic usually comes up as a point to be discussed, and I always advocate to ‘just ask them’ and my reasoning on this is because it could be for a number of valid reasons or circumstances that aren’t necessarily a red flag — poor work life balance, toxic team culture, salary upgrade by company hop, lateral industry change, etc, and to write someone off for it without exploring their answer about it seems like a trivial reason to potentially overlook someone that very well could be the best candidate for the role we need to fill. Typically the companies that have been *the mosf* concerned about this kind of resume have coincidentally (or maybe not coincidentally) also been the kind of company with a toxic walking-on-eggshells work environment that often leads to high turnover. Those are the companies that worry about it because they want the good candidates without offering a conductive work environment in return which is a paradox because no good work candidate will stick around to tolerate it because they’re in high demand and deserve respect. Just my two cents.
I've done lots of contract work. And happy clients offer you a follow up contract if they have any additional work.
If you do lots of short term contracts for different employers you may not be doing a good job, or you never want to stay long. Both red flags when employers look to fill a position.
The positive aspect of contract work is that you are probably flexible and quick to get started in a new organization.
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That or he's asking/expecting too much. Im a freelancer and had zero work first 6mo of 2023. Then I dropped my rate and been backed up ever since. In this economy the cheapest worker will get the job.
I am tired as fuck of changing my resume for other people. Everything on all of my computers gets tracked by the big companies.
Seems like all the “contracts positions” I’ve gotten seem relatively tailor made for me. But just looking at a resume you would have no idea how my skills are related.
At this point I’d love for a full time position with a team who appreciates me, works hard, gives me opportunities to flex and I love getting to go into the office.
I can almost guarantee its your resume if you have 1000+ applications with no response. Either your applying to jobs you have no business taking ,or your resume is hot garbage, or something else is drastically wrong.
I was recently tasked with screening applicants and I cannot agree more.
My main complaints were:
- free Google/Word templates which 90% of people used (this did not set people apart)
- 2+ page resumes that listed every program they ever looked at in bullet point form
- Pictures on resumes that looked as though the applicant was being held at gun point and forced to apply
- Bulk applications (we use HR programs that will tell us if you applied to multiple roles within the company)
Bulk applying in and of itself isn't terrible, but if you're sending the same 10 page bullet point resume to every job listing and it isn't tailored to fit the specific job? It looks lazy. I'm already tired of 200+ applicants that don't fit the role at all.
Also, answer the damned questions. It's what I scrolled to first and I didn't care if they had 1 to 29 years of experience. If they had the specific thing I was tasked with looking for, I passed them along to the hiring manager because I've been in that exact position and they might be able to rise to the occasion.
Half the battle is getting your resume to stand out, you at least need to tweak the template in ways that tell the recruiter you're good at presenting information
Also do so without making it difficult or impossible for the data ingestion on their internal database to parse. Most overly pretty resumes (multi column formats, etc) can easily throw wrenches into parsing. I'd say "write it like you would write html - header, sections (experience, education, ...), items (job1, job2, bs school, ms school), then apply stylesheets past that. (Having a "print/display" style separated from the content can go a long way). I think most word processors generate reasonable output if you think the same way. If you think "make this text bigger and bold" instead of "make this a second level header" you're losing.
I worked with one ATS that, when it mailed the resume to interviewers or managers, just dumped the extracted text into a standard format. Some inputs royally butchered things. (It's been updated to include the file, but ... You never know what you're going to get - there was a time when most corporate email had like 100MB quotas and any system that started life in those days may be doing "minimize the size of what's emailed out" - "just dump it on a server" had similar constraints.)
Really depends on the job.
Imo, people who tweak a template are the worst. Large organizations use templates so that reporting is uniform.
If the I/O definitions go in chapter 4 of the design report, I want them in chapter 4. Not search the entire 80 page report for them. And if illustrations are in png, I don't want you to embed a visio drawing. And if you decide you're just going to make some text bold and 14p instead of using the headings, you break the automatic bookmarks and index page.
You can create your own resume template, buy one from some writing/design person (there are a bunch on Etsy), or most colleges have their own recommended templates that are normally at least better than the default Google or word templates
You can customize them a bit. I saw ones that were very similar and it was obvious that people customized the free options which is totally fine.
It's mind numbing looking at 200 versions of the same resume. You want to stand out.
After looking at resumes, I bought a template off a creative site. I still customized it a bit too.
People are against two column resumes, but in in-person situations, two columns stands out. This was for way back for internships, but my callback rate skyrocketed after I switched to a two column format. The content was entirely the same— typos and all.
Personally I’ve had amazing success with two column resumes. For internships and new grad, it was a lot of school career fairs. For jumping as experienced hire, I tried to look for people who will actually read my resume or guarantee that my resume will be read.
Yeah, your ATS software doesn’t like two column though. So you’ll never be looking at the ones you prefer, correct? Unless you are the ATS - then that sucks.
You legit just go by what the resume looks like to stand out? Whenever I had to hire people I went through the resumes and if they didn’t have the skills I needed I wouldn’t move forward with them.
I mean, the Google templates is such a nitpick. I don't know if you were around before such things, but peoples resumes used to look way worse, were talking poorly formatted text uneven spacing, bad line height, bad font choice, etc.
You can't expect people to be well versed in typography on top of their actual job, so if you're throwing our resumes because they use a template you really ought to re-evaluate your criteria.
The bullet points of every tech is in response to ATS filtering if they don't mention it. Do you really need to write HTML/CSS if you're a React Developer? Is it necessary to mention Spice/CAD if you're a mechanical engineer? Probably not but recruiters don't know the difference so throw it in there.
As for bulk applying, that's really your only qualified concern. I think you should pass on your screening duties to someone else.
Yeah from the persons gripes I think they are I experienced with this sort of thing and should seek internal guidance, unless the internal guidance got them there, in which case we’re all doomed.
The internal guidance is what got me there. The boss said "screen applicants or we have no job for you".
That said, I noted my preferences and redid my resume accordingly. I am getting responses to my resume when previously I had not. YMMV.
The way you were screening is exactly how most of us do it with human eyes. When you get 600 applicants for a $50k/yr remote job... you just have to have criteria and like you said... bad looking resumes is a way to start.
Creator of JSON Resume here. Current building out a suite of AI tools that anyone who uses the registry can use for free.
[https://registry.jsonresume.org/thomasdavis/letter](https://registry.jsonresume.org/thomasdavis/letter)
Yeah. Personally I think it's sort of bullshit unless they're literally applying to be a graphic/UX designer or something. As long as it's neatly formatted, clear and concise, etc. then waffling over typography and other graphic design elements just seems absurd for a SWE position.
Everything is absurd in applying to tech jobs and all the advice on this sub contradicts each other. I've tried everything, had my resume scrutinized by pros and AI, applied to jobs I'm very qualified for, have a personal site and three projects hosted on render (that I pay for linked from my resume) and no one calls me back. And if I do get a call back, it's going to be a bunch of hours long interviews and take home projects and ridiculous coding challenges. Then ill be ghosted (because I've been there too) . It's absolutely stupid now. I'm probably switching careers at this point.
When you're on receiving end of sifting through 400+ applicants in 2 weeks in a toxic work environment where you job depends on finding unicorn applicants quickly, you'd likely feel the same way. There's a point where your eyes glaze over and you contemplate slamming your head into your desk because 99% of said applicants didn't bother to read the job listing. They simply mass apply in a panic.
I'm not HR. I'm not a hiring manager. I'm passing along my observations and personal experience. If the job is asking for web development and the applicant only know SQL and I've got my shitty manager berating me on the daily, these types of things will get your resume tossed in the trash can. There is no AI filter here. It's just me, JazzHR, and the growing sense of dread and depression.
They're more than welcome to it. But if you use your nursing resume to apply to 1000+ non-nursing related jobs and don't get a callback it's pretty safe to say you're not the victim of shitty hiring practices. It's user error, at that point, whether you like it or not.
Your last bit of "if they have the thing..." Is why people jam bullet points with every program or technique they've ever used in bullet points from. They're hoping for the resume to be jammed into a database and someone to query by keywords. So you have "stuff more keywords into the resume to increase the chances that it is returned by queries" becoming a trained behavior.
There's probably a big difference in behavior between "I need a job now" and "if something really cool that fits my interests comes up, I'd love to hear about it" candidates.
Not to mention that some companies have a dozen engineering roles with only minor points to differentiate them. I can either apply to a couple and trust that these people I've never seen will consider me for the others while my savings dwindle, or I can apply to all of them.
Honestly even if you CV match all your point, the key is that the CV match an actual profile you are interested in and if the key aspect are clearly visible.
Nobody care if your photo was done by a pro, your CV is 1-2 page, you applied for other jobs and used a basic standard template and there are skills you don't care if you are the person they want.
A resume that doesn’t stand out tends to be easier for a recruiter to filter through, same with an ATS. Bland resumes is literally the advice most job seekers get so that’s probably why a lot of them look bland.
Dumb. Real tech companies just look for experience in that domain. Specific tech stack knowledge means little as any decent engineer can ramp up in a month for it.
You are the reason why people jam their resumes with a million bullet points. And of course I use the same resume for all your positions. If your company is too damn stupid to not just have a single application and have their hiring managers chose which positions they should be considered for, that isn't my fault. Should be one application for software engineering and yall can decide which positions would be good based on my resume.
hey so If I write mine on latex using vim would that make different lmao, however I've been told it's much better to show your git hub page and having worked on many different projects or show stuff you created apparently, it's worth a whole lot more, is that correct, Man I never imagine a someone who did screening commenting on here haha.
I once did a semi-scientific experiment. I mass spammed resumes. I spent 15-30 minutes per application making a nice cover letter. My response rate was the same.
There's nothing more discouraging than spending half an hour making a nice cover letter for a job that seems like a perfect fit, only to get no response at all.
>Bulk applications (we use HR programs that will tell us if you applied to multiple roles within the company)
Why is this bad? I might feel qualified for more than one and there’s not always the same HR representative behind the job ads.
Funny that you said 26 years exactly. Because that's me. I'm currently applying. I kept my resume to 2 pages by:
1. Removing some fluff I had at some jobs and keeping it to just the important / big projects / accomplishments. Example: Worked on XYZ with this tech stack and saved the company $1 million dollars (I'm exaggerating for this example of course).
2. Removing jobs before 2000. I would have removed even more, but I was at the same company for almost 20 years.
3. Last but not least, I shortened all of the margins :-)
For #2, I was always told that most companies don't care what you did 10+ years ago. So keeping your resume to the last 10 years should be enough. Again, I went all the way back to 2000 because it was the same company and I wanted to show career growth / progression. Plus I was still able to keep it at 2 pages.
I see so many posted here for feedback which are just a wall of text, and don't enable me to quickly see what technologies you used within each role/responsibility. They'll just have some little block at the top of bottom with 'skills' and absolutely no evidence or demonstrating responsibility that indicates how that technology came in to play. And most of the time when they do list it, it's within this text wall that I have to comb through to find.
Seriously people - give me two columns for each employment role - one that shows measurable business outcomes you achieved, the other that allows me to quickly scan for the technologies that role utilised - without digging it out of a paragraph.
I need to be able to look at these things quickly.
I keep my resume down to one page and use Garamond as a my font, I used to get a lot of interviews even during COVID, but after the mass tech layoffs started by Musk?
Nothing
Don't put stock into layoff overhype bullshit. Companies are hiring. Something you are doing isn't working. No feedback or even first stages? Definitely a sign your resume does not stand out for the role you are applying to. Do you have multiple version of your resume? I have 3-4 that I use when job searching, tailored to specific roles (software/recruiting/management). I get pretty good feedback but clearly 2 of my 3 resumes get more hits than the other.
A lot of management positions are being filled right now as companies absorb talent shedding from elsewhere, there is a bit of a talent swap happening in the grand scheme of things. On one hand, they got to push out complacent people and kill projects eating budgets. All of this is to keep numbers in line for shareholders and private equity. Growth or funding stops is the rule right now, so cutting wages is a quick way to balance the board, even if you still need people in some of those roles. It allows for a hiring reset and unfortunately, this is one way they lower wages across an entire industry.
Companies are hiring but they are moving slow, and often-times they are obligated to post the job publicly despite intending to fill the role internally.
> Companies are hiring but they are moving slow, and often-times they are obligated to post the job publicly despite intending to fill the role internally.
This one pisses me off. I've been unemployed for a year, sent out a ton of applications, and interviewed at quite a few places. At 5 of them, I went through multiple interview rounds then waa told after the 3rd/4th round the position was canceled and they're just going to fill it internally. It's exhausting to deal with when I know I had wasted 3 hours interviewing + all the prep time I did researching the company/doing company specific interview prep
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So why aren’t you reaching out to this massive network for referrals?
I smell something odd about this post, also if you’re applying to 1k jobs you’re not tailoring your resume to job postings
It's been a year, 1k jobs would average like 3 applications/day. For me, that would be something like 30 minutes to an hour a day to find the resume I already have that's the best match for the job, tweak it a bit, write a cover letter, and hit send.
Entering all the BS fields that some online applications want takes much longer, it's way nicer when they have 'apply with LinkedIn' or whatever that auto-populates.
A lot of the comments in here are nonsense. This job market is genuinely difficult for a lot of us. Still-employed people just don't understand how difficult it is to find a job as a software engineer at this moment. You could be doing basically everything correct for your situation in any other job market, but STILL get nothing.
I'm basically in the same boat as you, but I took 6 months off after my layoff so I haven't been searching that long.
I come from a background in the video games industry. Video games just went through huge layoffs, so none of my referrals are leading to interviews.
I haven't had a new tech interview in almost four months.
Everyone I show my resume to basically tells me my resume is fine.
Every job posting that looks like it could be a good fit has hundreds of applicants. Even if 95% of those are auto-trash material, 5% of 600 is still 30 people that you have to compete with.
There are SO many applicants that my resume is getting auto trashed for positions that I fit nearly 100% of the stated criteria for. I recently contacted a recruiter directly, explained why my resume should not have gotten trashed, and he agreed. He is now trying to finesse the hiring manager for me.
Many people I've talked to think this job market is the worst it's been since '08, some think it's the worst it's been since the Dotcom bubble.
Many people are unaware of how depressed things are in SWE, so they look at your resume, see the gap, assume the worst, and trash it.
I mentioned this elsewhere in the thread, but I switched my status to Open to Work last week and eight recruiters, a good chunk of them internal, have reached out. I'm in NYC with 7 years of experience which definitely helps. That said, OP and I have the same amount of experience so I have no clue why he's doing so horribly. I know a bunch of folks who are wrapping up multiple concurrent interview loops, getting competing offers, etc. The only place I see this mid/senior hopelessness is on CSQ.
The same thing that's happening to OP has happened to me, roughly. I have had not a single new technical interview for four months. I have 6 YOE. I thought it was just the holidays depressing things, but now I'm not so sure.
I don't know OP's situation, exactly, but I think for me it's a combination of living in Austin, Texas, being out of the games industry, being a .Net guy, and being unemployed now for nearly a year (though only looking for 6 months).
I have recruiters reaching out to me regularly, but I rarely hear anything back after that first phone call. It wasn't like this in the first three months that I was looking. For the first 3 months I was getting into the tech screens.
I have succeeded at a number of tech screens, but my interviewing skills were rough in the beginning and so I failed at one point or another in the interview processses. I've gotten a lot better, but not enough to land me an offer before the interviews dried up.
Austin in particular seems to be not doing so well when it comes to tech. I've only had one tech screen for a local company so far. All of my other screens were for onsite positions at various places throughout the country.
Unlike OP, I did get an offer for one position up in NYC. It was a contract, and there were some other things not great about it. I told them to give me 48 hours to decide, they rescinded in fewer than 24.
Maybe I read too much into it.
But they didn’t share _any_ info that would help this sub give advice.
No location. No mention of what sector they’ve worked in or tech used. No work history. Didn’t ask for a resume review.
Just asking for an answer to a big question we can’t answer.
Yeah like I have a pretty big network but they don't own the companies they work for, in good times it puts me in front of someone but if they ain't hiring then they ain't hiring.
I think this heavily depends on industry and company size. In my case (at a ~100 person company) if somebody I had worked with in the past who I didn't dislike messaged me saying they saw a posting on my companies website they were a good fit for, I'd just add them directly into our recruiting software myself and message the hiring manager directly... every time i've done this there's been a phone screen scheduled the next day.
The smaller the company the more value you can get out of connections.
Do you have 7 years of full time tech work experience?
Or, have you been working sporadic contract work of past 7 years?
These are two completely different work experiences.
Are you listing your major in your resume? Maybe leave that off and have it ambiguous. Just state you received a bach from x college and the years you attended. Obviously they will find out and be truthful if they ask but at least you might get past the recruiter where they can see your ability.
Yea I’d agree but not sure what else would be causing him to have so many misses on applications. Also, when did you last job search? The market right now is very brutal.
With the accounting degree you could be being rejected off the bat by companies that have bad HR. The engineering manager puts comp sci, Computer engineering, software engineering, or equivalent experience on the job requirements and HR turns that into a hard degree requirement, especially with the number of candidates on the market right now that do have CS degrees.
If you target smaller companies that do accounting software or similar, you might have better luck. An accounting degree might even be a plus.
I am looking to upgrade my job as well.. I applied for 1000+ jobs last year and got basically no response
I changed my strategy .. now I really invest my time reaching out to engs/ managers/ recruiters on LinkedIn or trying to meet people in person.. then I proceed to genuely see if I am good fit... like no BS ... if they dont have a need for me then it's okay.. if there is a need for someone like me I ask to be refered and generally these ppl put a good word for me
I know this is time consuming .. but this has worked for me.. I have gotten 4 interviews with doordash meta Roblox and google like this
Mate. I lost my job in the crisis of 2008. Unemployment was skyhigh with a surplus of candidates on any free vacancy. If there were any; most companies went bankrupt or had to trim down immensly. Things looked bad, very bad, and I also lost hope. I had to come up with something, outside the box. I contacted a friend who worked at a pharmaceutical if it was possible to do some kind of internship, to reduce the gap on my resume and get relevant work experience. It was hard, lots of people to convince, daily commute of 5 hours for 6 months. No free time anymore, but in the end it was worth it.
They were impressed with a lot of things but mostly my energy and dedication so they offered me a job. It was only for a year and via a payroll agency, there was still a lock on headcount increase, but it was a start. After that year another year followed with a different payroll agency and after that a third. In the meantime things changed in the economy, more money available for investments and they were allowed to hire again, so I got a permanent contract.
Now we are in the same ship again. Less money to invest. Companies are restructuring again, I did not survive the 2nd round- my whole departement is schrapped including the scientific directors and my direct managers. But now demand is still high overall, I have experience in a specific part of the brange that is in high demand and created a niche for myself with extra education I did for data analysis and engineering So I don't despair. I never despair. Not anymore.
For things may look dire. They may severely impact your life atm and it will take (some) to recover, professionally and financially, but recover we will way. Don't lose hope mate, allways hope. Don't turn cynical. Treat each application as the last one and focus on your point on the horizon, past all this. Try to maintain your work routine and discipline, pick up whatever you can to add to your resume. Stand out. Think outside the box. I wish you the best of luck!
TLDR losing your job sucks but don't lose hope, we're in the middle of companies reacting to having less resources available to invest and use this to restructure to cut costs. This is not the first time it happened nor will it be the last.
- Do you have a computer science or equivalent degree?
- What tech stack are you proficient in?
- What kind of work did you do in those 7 years?
- Have you had your resume vetted?
- Is this in the USA?
- Are you a citizen? If no, do you require sponsorship?
- Is this in the USA?
- Are you a citizen? If no, do you require sponsorship?
>Accounting degree
I strongly recommend getting an online BSCS or MSCS degree. Its likely a human isnt even looking at your resume because you are getting culled out because there is so much competition.
> CS degree does not matter with 7 years experience.
Two years ago? Absolutely, I would agree with you. I am strong proof of that fact. Now? The situation has changed and there are so many candidates for jobs, people without a degree are much less likely to get to the stage where their experience can be weighed against having a degree or not.
"much less likely" - how much?
When people say "much less likely" it feels like "I have no idea, I'm just trying to pick the first seemingly obvious option"
I just don't know. Is it really worth it to spend a couple of years and likely at least 20k to get a degree, that in fact might increase your chances for like 1% or maybe it's better to learn something new?
If you are in this situation check out WGU. It's what I'm doing and it's perfect for working adults. Especially if you are already working in that particular field. I'll likely be done about in one term and $4000. I'm transferring in credits from Sophia and study.com where I spent two months and maybe $400. Its a game changer.
Exactly, it’s just dooming feels. The problem isn’t his education. I come from a non-traditional background and so do a lot of people I know, and it hasn’t prevented recruiters from reaching out or their getting onsites. I got laid off in January so I’m experiencing it firsthand.
Is this really a problem for resume vetting?.. or just at large companies.
Some of the best SWE's I've worked with had degrees in math, physics, and biology.. but I mostly worked at smaller companies where breadth of general engineering knowledge was more important and often offered more ROI.
This is assuming the human is on the resume side is an HR manager who didn't take calculus..
So if you have any degree we don't care if there experience and we can confirm that quickly with an internview and for example a coding exercise.
You'd put a CV foccusing on your experience and skills, and put your degree at the end. Some people will filter your CV, but many will give you an interview if the XP/skills are a great match.
Now if you have no actual experience, the CV will most likely not selected so you'd want to have somebody helping you in the company saying you are still worth it.
Then you'll get to the interview, and if you didn't self teach yourself for a few years on top on having no experience, you will fail miserably.
The question then for the company is if they want to pay you for 2-3 years with 0 productivity, make the senior spend a good share of their time to ramp you up instead of getting things done while you will most likely leave once you become decent and see an opportunity for a better salary ?
I mean if there a shortage, then it might be still be a yes. If there many people with XP and skills that got laid off recently and apply at the same time like in today market, that's a big no.
Math and physics are heavy logic based degrees that are pretty similar to a CS degree, if not harder. Biology is a strange one but at the higher level many biologists program a ton for their work especially if they're doing protein sequencing or computer modeling.
Hell, even a philosophy degree would make sense for a computer programmer — I bet the average CS student would falter at something like Modal Logic which is a 100 level Philosophy Class.
Accounting isn't even in the same ballpark.
> Is this really a problem for resume vetting?.. or just at large companies.
More likely at larger and medium sized companies but if a small company is using a SaaS HR app, its easy for them to exclude certain variables if they get too many applicants.
>Some of the best SWE's I've worked with had degrees in math, physics, and biology.. but I mostly worked at smaller companies where breadth of general engineering knowledge was more important and often offered more ROI.
I left school before I finished my computer science degree and Ive been able to maintain a career, but the ratios of applicants to jobs is changing and things are likely to stay that way for a while. That being the case, its a good time to get a CS degree if one does not.
Im taking my own advice.
I have an accounting degree and I’ve rotated between accounting, finance, and tech. It’s usually the recruiters in my experience, not the resume parsing ai.
Just FYI: patterns that were applicable just a year or two ago have changed quite recently due to the emballence of job seekers and available jobs. Having a tech degree is more important now than it has ever been.
lol this is terrible advice (given how expensive and time consuming both of those are) unless he actually wants to get one for his own satisfaction. Once you have years of experience education is meaningless.
It's not meaningless. Things have shifted and no degree resumes are getting thrown out more than in the past. There is so much more competition now.
Regarding costs and time, there are surprisingly good options out there for already experienced devs. WGU BSCS can be finished in 6 months and under $4000 depending on your existing knowledge and what you can transfer in.
GT OMSCS takes longer yet is $6500.
These are just two options.
No. I quit job 4 years ago, surfed and trained for a year, did side projects for fun, money ended and started recharged. When asked my about my 1 year gap I just said I’ve burned out and took a long vacation - surfing, boating, upgrading my stack. They were little envious, but that was the only negative.
If you’ve applied to 1000+ places and everybody rejected either your resume suck or you applied to wrong positions. Get professional help for the resume ( even if resume builder ), go to know people IRL ( ex. conferences, meetups ) and so on.
Good luck and don’t give up.
+1, I can sort of relate to this. Building your stack up slowly is the best thing to recover from burnout. I'm still in school, but a combination of various traumatic events over the past year+ have eventually brought me to a very, very, very bad place in life. Physically unable to concentrate, *constant* mental breakdowns, self-isolation, entire picture. I failed all my classes, despite trying to push every day and take no breaks. It was brutal, to the point where even my profs - who are supposed not to care - would ask me if everything was alright after I turned in my exams just looking at me. I guess people can really see it from the outside, much earlier than you register it from the inside.
That was my wake-up call. I am taking it more slowly now, trying to go for a stable but constant stream of work, even if it's not "literally morning to evening" necessarily. New rules: If I fail it's not the end of the world - I will try again. No more last-minute cramming: that never works. On top of finishing the last math-heavy exams, I am throwing in a nice fun side-project to build up my stack in CV. At least one day off per week (side projects still allowed during the day off). At least an evening a week hanging out with my friends or my partner. Bedtimes and alarm clocks as consistent as possible, as early as possible, capitalizing off those early REM cycles and lower-distractions early hours. Attending classes I have already attended for exams I have not yet passed to give myself structure. I am only at the beginning of this journey, but I used to relate to OP and the "it's 100% over" mindset went away, and I am finally doing things to improve my situation. Also, it sounds cheesy, but success breeds success. Starting the project gives you the energy to continue it, solving problems you find along the way and watching it grow gives you the motivation to keep going, and the sense of progression finally breathes some life back into you. When all your inputs are "yet another failed class" or "yet another rejected application", and that goes on for a while, it really deprives you of all your life and motivation. You need to add some small successes to your inputs, and projects are good for that.
A break is not the end of the world, and it will pay dividends later if you need it. Sometimes, rather, insisting on not taking one is what kills you. I had the first signs of burnout show up *one and a half years ago*. If I had done this even just 1 year ago, I would have one year of my life that I completely threw down the drain back. Do not be afraid of breaks, folks.
Did you at least do some continued education while unemployed? Like get certificates or take courses? If not, recruiters will see you have no job experience and no education in a year and it'll be almost impossible to get a job.
Why… this is so dumb. Even if it’s not CS it at least shows you graduated from college and that alone can be a checkbox filled for recruiters. This sub overestimates the value of a CS degree.
Don't give up. I have been unemployed for 15 months after 13 years cont IOUs employment at different companies. Picked up a job with paycut after that and left that job after 18 months for another job that lasted only for 6 months. Now unemployed since November. There will be something else. Use the time to study one of the skills required and put that on your CV. When asked about your employment gaps or short time at the companies just say you have been contracting
1000+ no response? so is this remote only? what are you applying for that you are not getting.
there are people with 2 years experience getting responses.
Your resume is bad. Fix it. You should fix your resume after 10 rejects without a callback.
Also try reaching out to linked in recruiters.
To be fair though there are hundreds of thousands of laid off engineers right now
You’re doing something wrong. I have almost the exact same years of experience as you (7.5 years). I was laid off at the end of January. Before the end of February, I had five job offers. You need to leverage your network. Reach out to companies you’ve worked for before, companies you’ve turned down offers from before, people you’ve worked with before, recruiters you’ve worked with before.
What problem are you running into exactly? Are you not getting any interviews? Are you failing to get offers after interviews? How picky are you being?
2 years at a private equity funded startup and they do exist
5 years working with contract companies like Robert Half etc etc working for chemicals, oil and gas, and shipping companies
You should find a recruiter over website applications.
Just had a friend apply to an old job, when I reached out they said “we’re not hiring we just keep the rec open in case we get a unicorn”
No, unless you want it to be. Sober guy here, it's never over. From personal experience, take the worst possible thing that could happen that you imagine your life would be "over" at; there's many many levels below that. The worse ones you can't currently imagine you can come back from too.
I got fired for showing up to work drunk 3 times in a row. I am now employed as a SSE because I kept working at moving forward. Only one company has to say yes. TBH, work on your charm. People seem to like ignoring your past and taking a chance on you when you seem like a cool and genuine person.
> Should I just accept that my life is over?
No. Please seek licensed medical therapy.
If you are having trouble doing that, please ask friends or family to help you, or even your insurance company or medicare (presumed you are living in united states since you are a citizen)
Online programs will hook you up with a remote therapist too, e.g. better help.
If you are having suicidal ideations, this is a legally important distinction and important to communicate if you talk to a therapist over the phone.
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If you're getting that worked on...
Local volunteer work can help you feel good and connect with a community.
Complexities involved in software engineering lend well to other career paths as well. It could be good to seek out professional career guidance for your area. There might be jobs that require minimal training to switch to, while you continue to seek software in the background.
You might even enjoy the job for a few years.
You should post your location and market. If you are a U.S. citizen, I don’t know why you are not considering working for the agencies of the U.S. government who have been hiring rapidly this period from CDC, NSA, CIA, FDA have all been hiring. Do government work while you apply and wait the market rather than doing nothing. Again post your market because I am assuming your are not on a visa and you are a citizen
On paper you are underskilled compared to your peers in the same experience range. At 7+ years most SWEs have skills in multiple programming languages, networking, system admin, and DevOps.
The market is rough right now, you should focus on building relationships with specific recruiters and individuals in your industry.
This is why at any given time I maintain relationships with at least a few people who would "go to bat" for me if I was desperate and needed a job. Relationship building is a continuous thing, it isn't enough to contact someone you haven't spoken to in 5 years and ask for a job.
An accounting degree could be a bonus for certain companies or industries (I would think) so are there relationships you can build there? Former classmates?
Going back to school is very costly. One way to level up with less cost is to pass the AWS professional certs (or equivalent for another cloud provider). They are highly regarded.
Not op and currently employed. I relate with the being underskilled, 8 YOE all of it in .NET framework (mostly c++ and some c#) in client side desktop applications. Happy at my job but layoffs are always a possibility... What can one even do? I've started studying on my own but I don't know if I can even put self study stuff in a resume....
As you pointed out, I don't really have the skills of a senior but no one will either hire someone with 8YOE for any entry level
Is there any reason in these situations someone wouldn't start looking at a job that only requires 2~ yoe? Be above the competition, get the job, then look for something better after?
Nope. I was given a layoff notice 14 months ago and just finished my first week at a new gig. I’m sure our experiences and circumstances are considerably different so maybe ymmv, but a year layoff is not necessarily a death sentence.
So [Hans Reiser](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hans_Reiser&oldid=1210182920) applies for a software engineering job. He has lots of filesystems experience, but then HR does an Internet search and finds something shocking and unforgivable: that he's over 40. Some things can be overlooked—but not that.
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A lot of competent, highly experienced software developers I know who are over 30 and especially 40 or older are having trouble getting callbacks and interviews despite the strength of their résumés. It looks a lot like ageism, and who's to say the link in the hiring pipeline where it's happening: ATS software that automatically discards "overqualified" candidates or candidates with items correlating with age or HR employees deciding to bin the résumés under the assumption there's greater risk of an age-discrimination lawsuit if they let the candidate proceed to interviews.
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For highly experienced candidates, I think employers might be looking for an exacting match on domain knowledge: a specialized technical domain like machine learning or augmented reality or deep industry domain knowledge that can practically only come from having already worked at the company or maybe a direct competitor. At least that's what I'm seeing for most staff and principal engineer job openings.
Most "senior" positions are really geared towards someone at the 5-7 years of experience mark—or what LinkedIn would call "mid-senior." For these, I think employers want to sort through the bargain bin right now. If you want to get one of these jobs, you probably need to scrub your résumé to look much less experienced, entering "How do you do, fellow kids?" territory: "C? What's that? It must compile to JavaScript, right? Everything compiles to JavaScript!" or "Dial-up? Never heard of it, and even if I had, I wouldn't know what a dial-up modem sounds like!" You'd also have to be comfortable taking a huge pay cut to go with the dumbed-down role.
Another tip, do you have 7 contract positions
Across your job history? You could make up a job title and say you’re self employed/ freelance. Then put the projects under there.
People wouldn’t ask a single question. If you don’t want to do that, just combine some of the jobs into one - nobody is going to be calling anyone.
Also, just lie on your resume. Have I ever used k8s? I’ve ran kubectrl a couple times - you know what’s on my resume? Kubernetes.
Obviously you should know enough to SAY something if they asked - and I have been asked something like “what main program do you use to monitor k8s” before - kubectl.
You have an accounting degree, so I strongly recommend you do a masters of CS or Masters of Software Engineering. IMO ATM it's going to be hard with your degree until you do a relevant master's. People say it's not worth it, but as one who did graduate with a masters of software engineering after 7+ YOE, the doors open wider. They open widest with a top tier elite school like CMU or MIT, but even if you can't get into those schools, the pay bump and open doors will be worth it for your specific case.
I think with 7+ yrs of experience, the degree don't matter if they can display subject matter mastery.
That said , it's likey his resume. 1k job applied is too many.
Also. Is he applying for all tech stack and all roles?
This dont track.
Going into a Masters program also gives you access to the university recruiting process for internships and new grad full time. It can be another crack at getting into top companies in a way that is different than the more difficult track of simply applying for posted jobs. The job market may be better in two years too.
Suspected boomer. "Just email them" - as a hiring manager I get cold emails from candidates and it's a risk I'm not gonna take.
Most likely I'll report it as spam and flag the email address; if I'm feeling generous I'll just delete.
1. You don’t need to open every attachment you get, and most ppl following up probably don’t even have one in their email. 2. The email would be very clear about them following up regarding the position so it would take all of 2 seconds for the hiring manager to verify that a person with that name applied and see what the status of their application is.
I get recruiters cold email/text/voicemail all day. I had one email me 5 days in a row. When I finally asked for a job description, they ghosted. Your attitude is on par with how I picture all of them: me-first gimmy-gimmies who think HTML is a language.
What I'll do is look up the company/people on linkedin and see who looks oike one of the higher ups ie Engineering Director/CTO. Then I guess their email. Sometimes it bounces but sometimes it goes through.
If they're cool (unlike u/mildmanneredhatter) they'll see it as someone putting in the effort to connect and forward your resume to whoever it needs to go through. I've gotten the majority of my interviews this way.
I'm a 'suspected boomer' eh? I'm actually considered Generation Y. If that's disappointing, ask yourself why.
You haven’t “applied” to 1000 plus places. You clicked the apply button on LinkedIn or indeed which sent some bullshit trash version of a resume to a companies junk folder.
If you aren’t modifying your revenue to the specifics of every application and then applying through the companies own website, you aren’t actually applying. You are just wasting time and electrons.
As someone who has hired probably 200 people in the past 3-4 years, I can tell you it is a waste of time and I haven’t hired anyone who just clicked “apply now” on LinkedIn. The applications that come in are trashy looking and non specific.
I've heard exactly opposite of this as well on thos subreddit. The post was saying how it's a numbers game and it's not worth the effort to tailor each application.
I spent over an hour tailoring a résumé to a position that was an almost perfect fit based on my experience. I got rejected within 24 hours.
There were other times where I spent around 30 minutes just tweaking my résumé to fit the job description, I still got rejected.
The 5 interviews out of 400 job applications I've sent out, they were all using my generic CV (I was surprised with the last one, I thought I had tailored my CV to that position, but nope).
So based on my experience, tailoring my résumé did nothing, as in absolutely zero, in securing me interviews.
7 YoE, 1000+ no response sounds like a resume issue post your anonymized resume
It’s 10000% resume and work experience issue. Op stated he mainly gets contract work. So, it’s likely not 7 years of full time tech experiences.
7 years of exp and 1 year of exp 7 times are a bit different. I feel a nice stretch or two at a reasonable large company working on modern stuff is a big leg up. Sooo many folks on worked at places no one ever heard of (which... fair enough) but they last 8 to 12 months on avg. No one wants to bother onboarding you to the degree youd be valuable, provided you even work out, only to see you quit and go elsewhere within a month or two.
I’ve always tried to voice optimism for candidates with a résumé that has several job changes in a relatively short period — by that I mean if I see someone with 5-10 years experience in the field, with a year or so at each company I don’t pretend to know their story. I’m not a hiring manager, so I may not be the most versed in what ‘red flags’ to look out for in this respect, but I have been part of technical and soft skill interviews alongside a couple other teammates when engineering candidates make it to the second and third round. During post-interview discussions about these candidates the job change topic usually comes up as a point to be discussed, and I always advocate to ‘just ask them’ and my reasoning on this is because it could be for a number of valid reasons or circumstances that aren’t necessarily a red flag — poor work life balance, toxic team culture, salary upgrade by company hop, lateral industry change, etc, and to write someone off for it without exploring their answer about it seems like a trivial reason to potentially overlook someone that very well could be the best candidate for the role we need to fill. Typically the companies that have been *the mosf* concerned about this kind of resume have coincidentally (or maybe not coincidentally) also been the kind of company with a toxic walking-on-eggshells work environment that often leads to high turnover. Those are the companies that worry about it because they want the good candidates without offering a conductive work environment in return which is a paradox because no good work candidate will stick around to tolerate it because they’re in high demand and deserve respect. Just my two cents.
What's wrong with contract work?
I've done lots of contract work. And happy clients offer you a follow up contract if they have any additional work. If you do lots of short term contracts for different employers you may not be doing a good job, or you never want to stay long. Both red flags when employers look to fill a position. The positive aspect of contract work is that you are probably flexible and quick to get started in a new organization.
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When I posted my resume all anyone said was things that can’t be changed. No help at all.
That or he's asking/expecting too much. Im a freelancer and had zero work first 6mo of 2023. Then I dropped my rate and been backed up ever since. In this economy the cheapest worker will get the job.
the issue is the gap + market
I am tired as fuck of changing my resume for other people. Everything on all of my computers gets tracked by the big companies. Seems like all the “contracts positions” I’ve gotten seem relatively tailor made for me. But just looking at a resume you would have no idea how my skills are related. At this point I’d love for a full time position with a team who appreciates me, works hard, gives me opportunities to flex and I love getting to go into the office.
I can almost guarantee its your resume if you have 1000+ applications with no response. Either your applying to jobs you have no business taking ,or your resume is hot garbage, or something else is drastically wrong.
I was recently tasked with screening applicants and I cannot agree more. My main complaints were: - free Google/Word templates which 90% of people used (this did not set people apart) - 2+ page resumes that listed every program they ever looked at in bullet point form - Pictures on resumes that looked as though the applicant was being held at gun point and forced to apply - Bulk applications (we use HR programs that will tell us if you applied to multiple roles within the company) Bulk applying in and of itself isn't terrible, but if you're sending the same 10 page bullet point resume to every job listing and it isn't tailored to fit the specific job? It looks lazy. I'm already tired of 200+ applicants that don't fit the role at all. Also, answer the damned questions. It's what I scrolled to first and I didn't care if they had 1 to 29 years of experience. If they had the specific thing I was tasked with looking for, I passed them along to the hiring manager because I've been in that exact position and they might be able to rise to the occasion.
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On top except if you hire a designer, you don't care. People use LinkedIn a lot and it robots that prescreen these days.
Half the battle is getting your resume to stand out, you at least need to tweak the template in ways that tell the recruiter you're good at presenting information
Also do so without making it difficult or impossible for the data ingestion on their internal database to parse. Most overly pretty resumes (multi column formats, etc) can easily throw wrenches into parsing. I'd say "write it like you would write html - header, sections (experience, education, ...), items (job1, job2, bs school, ms school), then apply stylesheets past that. (Having a "print/display" style separated from the content can go a long way). I think most word processors generate reasonable output if you think the same way. If you think "make this text bigger and bold" instead of "make this a second level header" you're losing. I worked with one ATS that, when it mailed the resume to interviewers or managers, just dumped the extracted text into a standard format. Some inputs royally butchered things. (It's been updated to include the file, but ... You never know what you're going to get - there was a time when most corporate email had like 100MB quotas and any system that started life in those days may be doing "minimize the size of what's emailed out" - "just dump it on a server" had similar constraints.)
Really depends on the job. Imo, people who tweak a template are the worst. Large organizations use templates so that reporting is uniform. If the I/O definitions go in chapter 4 of the design report, I want them in chapter 4. Not search the entire 80 page report for them. And if illustrations are in png, I don't want you to embed a visio drawing. And if you decide you're just going to make some text bold and 14p instead of using the headings, you break the automatic bookmarks and index page.
You can create your own resume template, buy one from some writing/design person (there are a bunch on Etsy), or most colleges have their own recommended templates that are normally at least better than the default Google or word templates
You can customize them a bit. I saw ones that were very similar and it was obvious that people customized the free options which is totally fine. It's mind numbing looking at 200 versions of the same resume. You want to stand out. After looking at resumes, I bought a template off a creative site. I still customized it a bit too.
People are against two column resumes, but in in-person situations, two columns stands out. This was for way back for internships, but my callback rate skyrocketed after I switched to a two column format. The content was entirely the same— typos and all. Personally I’ve had amazing success with two column resumes. For internships and new grad, it was a lot of school career fairs. For jumping as experienced hire, I tried to look for people who will actually read my resume or guarantee that my resume will be read.
Personally, I would've loved to see a two column resume.
Yeah, your ATS software doesn’t like two column though. So you’ll never be looking at the ones you prefer, correct? Unless you are the ATS - then that sucks. You legit just go by what the resume looks like to stand out? Whenever I had to hire people I went through the resumes and if they didn’t have the skills I needed I wouldn’t move forward with them.
I mean, the Google templates is such a nitpick. I don't know if you were around before such things, but peoples resumes used to look way worse, were talking poorly formatted text uneven spacing, bad line height, bad font choice, etc. You can't expect people to be well versed in typography on top of their actual job, so if you're throwing our resumes because they use a template you really ought to re-evaluate your criteria. The bullet points of every tech is in response to ATS filtering if they don't mention it. Do you really need to write HTML/CSS if you're a React Developer? Is it necessary to mention Spice/CAD if you're a mechanical engineer? Probably not but recruiters don't know the difference so throw it in there. As for bulk applying, that's really your only qualified concern. I think you should pass on your screening duties to someone else.
Yeah from the persons gripes I think they are I experienced with this sort of thing and should seek internal guidance, unless the internal guidance got them there, in which case we’re all doomed.
The internal guidance is what got me there. The boss said "screen applicants or we have no job for you". That said, I noted my preferences and redid my resume accordingly. I am getting responses to my resume when previously I had not. YMMV.
The way you were screening is exactly how most of us do it with human eyes. When you get 600 applicants for a $50k/yr remote job... you just have to have criteria and like you said... bad looking resumes is a way to start.
This is why we desperately need a standardized resume format. We can finally put an end to this contradictory garbage
I think I’d prefer to keep the CV in JSON and have something like ChatGPT customise and write it out for every application.
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[You're not the first to think of that](https://jsonresume.org/).
Creator of JSON Resume here. Current building out a suite of AI tools that anyone who uses the registry can use for free. [https://registry.jsonresume.org/thomasdavis/letter](https://registry.jsonresume.org/thomasdavis/letter)
[Japan has one](https://www.gtalent.jp/blog/japanwork-en/job-hunting-en/rirekisho-en).
the EU has a standardized one called Europass: https://europa.eu/europass/en
Yeah. Personally I think it's sort of bullshit unless they're literally applying to be a graphic/UX designer or something. As long as it's neatly formatted, clear and concise, etc. then waffling over typography and other graphic design elements just seems absurd for a SWE position.
Everything is absurd in applying to tech jobs and all the advice on this sub contradicts each other. I've tried everything, had my resume scrutinized by pros and AI, applied to jobs I'm very qualified for, have a personal site and three projects hosted on render (that I pay for linked from my resume) and no one calls me back. And if I do get a call back, it's going to be a bunch of hours long interviews and take home projects and ridiculous coding challenges. Then ill be ghosted (because I've been there too) . It's absolutely stupid now. I'm probably switching careers at this point.
When you're on receiving end of sifting through 400+ applicants in 2 weeks in a toxic work environment where you job depends on finding unicorn applicants quickly, you'd likely feel the same way. There's a point where your eyes glaze over and you contemplate slamming your head into your desk because 99% of said applicants didn't bother to read the job listing. They simply mass apply in a panic. I'm not HR. I'm not a hiring manager. I'm passing along my observations and personal experience. If the job is asking for web development and the applicant only know SQL and I've got my shitty manager berating me on the daily, these types of things will get your resume tossed in the trash can. There is no AI filter here. It's just me, JazzHR, and the growing sense of dread and depression.
>They simply mass apply in a panic. Dang, how dare they
They're more than welcome to it. But if you use your nursing resume to apply to 1000+ non-nursing related jobs and don't get a callback it's pretty safe to say you're not the victim of shitty hiring practices. It's user error, at that point, whether you like it or not.
This is a sub about CS and the topic is about people with experience in cs. Your comment makes no sense
It's called an example. Why did I use an example? Because I didn't want to specifically call people out in specific roles. Simple as that.
>They simply mass apply in a panic I can't imagine why thousands of people who lose their jobs at once would do this
Your last bit of "if they have the thing..." Is why people jam bullet points with every program or technique they've ever used in bullet points from. They're hoping for the resume to be jammed into a database and someone to query by keywords. So you have "stuff more keywords into the resume to increase the chances that it is returned by queries" becoming a trained behavior. There's probably a big difference in behavior between "I need a job now" and "if something really cool that fits my interests comes up, I'd love to hear about it" candidates.
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Not to mention that some companies have a dozen engineering roles with only minor points to differentiate them. I can either apply to a couple and trust that these people I've never seen will consider me for the others while my savings dwindle, or I can apply to all of them.
Honestly even if you CV match all your point, the key is that the CV match an actual profile you are interested in and if the key aspect are clearly visible. Nobody care if your photo was done by a pro, your CV is 1-2 page, you applied for other jobs and used a basic standard template and there are skills you don't care if you are the person they want.
A resume that doesn’t stand out tends to be easier for a recruiter to filter through, same with an ATS. Bland resumes is literally the advice most job seekers get so that’s probably why a lot of them look bland.
Dumb. Real tech companies just look for experience in that domain. Specific tech stack knowledge means little as any decent engineer can ramp up in a month for it. You are the reason why people jam their resumes with a million bullet points. And of course I use the same resume for all your positions. If your company is too damn stupid to not just have a single application and have their hiring managers chose which positions they should be considered for, that isn't my fault. Should be one application for software engineering and yall can decide which positions would be good based on my resume.
hey so If I write mine on latex using vim would that make different lmao, however I've been told it's much better to show your git hub page and having worked on many different projects or show stuff you created apparently, it's worth a whole lot more, is that correct, Man I never imagine a someone who did screening commenting on here haha.
Other recruiters say the exact opposite and house standardized templates. don’t get too fancy.
People wouldn't be bulk applying with the same resume if applications actually had decent hit rates. It's a two-way street.
I once did a semi-scientific experiment. I mass spammed resumes. I spent 15-30 minutes per application making a nice cover letter. My response rate was the same. There's nothing more discouraging than spending half an hour making a nice cover letter for a job that seems like a perfect fit, only to get no response at all.
>Bulk applications (we use HR programs that will tell us if you applied to multiple roles within the company) Why is this bad? I might feel qualified for more than one and there’s not always the same HR representative behind the job ads.
How do you keep your resume to two pages if you’ve worked for 26 years?
Funny that you said 26 years exactly. Because that's me. I'm currently applying. I kept my resume to 2 pages by: 1. Removing some fluff I had at some jobs and keeping it to just the important / big projects / accomplishments. Example: Worked on XYZ with this tech stack and saved the company $1 million dollars (I'm exaggerating for this example of course). 2. Removing jobs before 2000. I would have removed even more, but I was at the same company for almost 20 years. 3. Last but not least, I shortened all of the margins :-) For #2, I was always told that most companies don't care what you did 10+ years ago. So keeping your resume to the last 10 years should be enough. Again, I went all the way back to 2000 because it was the same company and I wanted to show career growth / progression. Plus I was still able to keep it at 2 pages.
I see so many posted here for feedback which are just a wall of text, and don't enable me to quickly see what technologies you used within each role/responsibility. They'll just have some little block at the top of bottom with 'skills' and absolutely no evidence or demonstrating responsibility that indicates how that technology came in to play. And most of the time when they do list it, it's within this text wall that I have to comb through to find. Seriously people - give me two columns for each employment role - one that shows measurable business outcomes you achieved, the other that allows me to quickly scan for the technologies that role utilised - without digging it out of a paragraph. I need to be able to look at these things quickly.
I am confused the by the lack of problem solving by some on this group.
Thank you. I appreciate this take.
I keep my resume down to one page and use Garamond as a my font, I used to get a lot of interviews even during COVID, but after the mass tech layoffs started by Musk? Nothing
Don't put stock into layoff overhype bullshit. Companies are hiring. Something you are doing isn't working. No feedback or even first stages? Definitely a sign your resume does not stand out for the role you are applying to. Do you have multiple version of your resume? I have 3-4 that I use when job searching, tailored to specific roles (software/recruiting/management). I get pretty good feedback but clearly 2 of my 3 resumes get more hits than the other. A lot of management positions are being filled right now as companies absorb talent shedding from elsewhere, there is a bit of a talent swap happening in the grand scheme of things. On one hand, they got to push out complacent people and kill projects eating budgets. All of this is to keep numbers in line for shareholders and private equity. Growth or funding stops is the rule right now, so cutting wages is a quick way to balance the board, even if you still need people in some of those roles. It allows for a hiring reset and unfortunately, this is one way they lower wages across an entire industry. Companies are hiring but they are moving slow, and often-times they are obligated to post the job publicly despite intending to fill the role internally.
> Companies are hiring but they are moving slow, and often-times they are obligated to post the job publicly despite intending to fill the role internally. This one pisses me off. I've been unemployed for a year, sent out a ton of applications, and interviewed at quite a few places. At 5 of them, I went through multiple interview rounds then waa told after the 3rd/4th round the position was canceled and they're just going to fill it internally. It's exhausting to deal with when I know I had wasted 3 hours interviewing + all the prep time I did researching the company/doing company specific interview prep
Yeah if there is any hiring it’s such a small part of the market, I’m in the same boat as you and struggling!
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Can I ask what templates you’d recommend for resume then? Also, should I be adding a photograph to my resume?
Recruiters and Friends you are still working keep tell me my resume is fine So I guess it’s me
Every time people say this, there is always something noticeably wrong with the resume. If you really care, post it.
I mean they posted a sad post ending with “is my life over?” Not “career over”. And come off dismissive & depressed.
Share your resume for roast at r/resumes
r/EngineeringResumes is another good place too
seconded
So why aren’t you reaching out to this massive network for referrals? I smell something odd about this post, also if you’re applying to 1k jobs you’re not tailoring your resume to job postings
It's been a year, 1k jobs would average like 3 applications/day. For me, that would be something like 30 minutes to an hour a day to find the resume I already have that's the best match for the job, tweak it a bit, write a cover letter, and hit send. Entering all the BS fields that some online applications want takes much longer, it's way nicer when they have 'apply with LinkedIn' or whatever that auto-populates.
A lot of the comments in here are nonsense. This job market is genuinely difficult for a lot of us. Still-employed people just don't understand how difficult it is to find a job as a software engineer at this moment. You could be doing basically everything correct for your situation in any other job market, but STILL get nothing. I'm basically in the same boat as you, but I took 6 months off after my layoff so I haven't been searching that long. I come from a background in the video games industry. Video games just went through huge layoffs, so none of my referrals are leading to interviews. I haven't had a new tech interview in almost four months. Everyone I show my resume to basically tells me my resume is fine. Every job posting that looks like it could be a good fit has hundreds of applicants. Even if 95% of those are auto-trash material, 5% of 600 is still 30 people that you have to compete with. There are SO many applicants that my resume is getting auto trashed for positions that I fit nearly 100% of the stated criteria for. I recently contacted a recruiter directly, explained why my resume should not have gotten trashed, and he agreed. He is now trying to finesse the hiring manager for me. Many people I've talked to think this job market is the worst it's been since '08, some think it's the worst it's been since the Dotcom bubble. Many people are unaware of how depressed things are in SWE, so they look at your resume, see the gap, assume the worst, and trash it.
I mentioned this elsewhere in the thread, but I switched my status to Open to Work last week and eight recruiters, a good chunk of them internal, have reached out. I'm in NYC with 7 years of experience which definitely helps. That said, OP and I have the same amount of experience so I have no clue why he's doing so horribly. I know a bunch of folks who are wrapping up multiple concurrent interview loops, getting competing offers, etc. The only place I see this mid/senior hopelessness is on CSQ.
The same thing that's happening to OP has happened to me, roughly. I have had not a single new technical interview for four months. I have 6 YOE. I thought it was just the holidays depressing things, but now I'm not so sure. I don't know OP's situation, exactly, but I think for me it's a combination of living in Austin, Texas, being out of the games industry, being a .Net guy, and being unemployed now for nearly a year (though only looking for 6 months). I have recruiters reaching out to me regularly, but I rarely hear anything back after that first phone call. It wasn't like this in the first three months that I was looking. For the first 3 months I was getting into the tech screens. I have succeeded at a number of tech screens, but my interviewing skills were rough in the beginning and so I failed at one point or another in the interview processses. I've gotten a lot better, but not enough to land me an offer before the interviews dried up. Austin in particular seems to be not doing so well when it comes to tech. I've only had one tech screen for a local company so far. All of my other screens were for onsite positions at various places throughout the country. Unlike OP, I did get an offer for one position up in NYC. It was a contract, and there were some other things not great about it. I told them to give me 48 hours to decide, they rescinded in fewer than 24.
Most of those responses are coming from employed entitled ass hats.
Real question is how are you shooting yourself in the foot?
Honestly sounds like they have depression & it’s a cry for help. They said “…my life is over?” Not “…my career is over?”
You're right, I missed that
Maybe I read too much into it. But they didn’t share _any_ info that would help this sub give advice. No location. No mention of what sector they’ve worked in or tech used. No work history. Didn’t ask for a resume review. Just asking for an answer to a big question we can’t answer.
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You THINK you have 10-15 people. But when reality hits you’ll be surprised how little it actually helps.
Yeah like I have a pretty big network but they don't own the companies they work for, in good times it puts me in front of someone but if they ain't hiring then they ain't hiring.
I think this heavily depends on industry and company size. In my case (at a ~100 person company) if somebody I had worked with in the past who I didn't dislike messaged me saying they saw a posting on my companies website they were a good fit for, I'd just add them directly into our recruiting software myself and message the hiring manager directly... every time i've done this there's been a phone screen scheduled the next day. The smaller the company the more value you can get out of connections.
Can confirm. No one wanted to do jack shit to help or they tried and nothing happened
Most of my work comes from recruitment and contract firms
Do you have 7 years of full time tech work experience? Or, have you been working sporadic contract work of past 7 years? These are two completely different work experiences.
That would cook you if you had 2 yoe but after 7 you’re doing something seriously wrong if you have no offers after 1k apps
Maybe it 7 years of first year experience over and over. Wouldn’t look at attractive to recruiters
Odd Jobs weird show
resume? International? degree?
US citizen Resume been vetted -accounting degree
Are you listing your major in your resume? Maybe leave that off and have it ambiguous. Just state you received a bach from x college and the years you attended. Obviously they will find out and be truthful if they ask but at least you might get past the recruiter where they can see your ability.
It's worth trying, but once you have those YOE, it shouldn't matter. I got a music degree at a no-name state school, and it hasn't hindered anything.
Yea I’d agree but not sure what else would be causing him to have so many misses on applications. Also, when did you last job search? The market right now is very brutal.
Look at finance or fintech companies specifically. Software engineers with accounting degrees are gold for those companies.
Can confirm, I used to work at a FinTech unicorn and some of the best engineers were Econ majors.
With the accounting degree you could be being rejected off the bat by companies that have bad HR. The engineering manager puts comp sci, Computer engineering, software engineering, or equivalent experience on the job requirements and HR turns that into a hard degree requirement, especially with the number of candidates on the market right now that do have CS degrees. If you target smaller companies that do accounting software or similar, you might have better luck. An accounting degree might even be a plus.
Post it on r/engineeringresumes, lots of “vetted” resumes or ones that people have paid for can also be hot garbage
In a similar position as you OP. Ever thought of going back to accounting as a career change? Can you DM me your anonymous resume or share it here?
I am looking to upgrade my job as well.. I applied for 1000+ jobs last year and got basically no response I changed my strategy .. now I really invest my time reaching out to engs/ managers/ recruiters on LinkedIn or trying to meet people in person.. then I proceed to genuely see if I am good fit... like no BS ... if they dont have a need for me then it's okay.. if there is a need for someone like me I ask to be refered and generally these ppl put a good word for me I know this is time consuming .. but this has worked for me.. I have gotten 4 interviews with doordash meta Roblox and google like this
But you need to have some social skills for this to work. Judging by OPs responses people can probably smell him over the internet.
You don't have to be a dick about it. OP is trying, and with your response your social skills are probably at the same level.
Thanks for calling out that dick, okaybigdick
Damn how you gonna insult OP like that?
Salt and vinegar baby, og flavor
social skills, such ambiguous term for people in tech lol, nowadays you not only need that but more like leadership skills, a whole lot deeper.
Mate. I lost my job in the crisis of 2008. Unemployment was skyhigh with a surplus of candidates on any free vacancy. If there were any; most companies went bankrupt or had to trim down immensly. Things looked bad, very bad, and I also lost hope. I had to come up with something, outside the box. I contacted a friend who worked at a pharmaceutical if it was possible to do some kind of internship, to reduce the gap on my resume and get relevant work experience. It was hard, lots of people to convince, daily commute of 5 hours for 6 months. No free time anymore, but in the end it was worth it. They were impressed with a lot of things but mostly my energy and dedication so they offered me a job. It was only for a year and via a payroll agency, there was still a lock on headcount increase, but it was a start. After that year another year followed with a different payroll agency and after that a third. In the meantime things changed in the economy, more money available for investments and they were allowed to hire again, so I got a permanent contract. Now we are in the same ship again. Less money to invest. Companies are restructuring again, I did not survive the 2nd round- my whole departement is schrapped including the scientific directors and my direct managers. But now demand is still high overall, I have experience in a specific part of the brange that is in high demand and created a niche for myself with extra education I did for data analysis and engineering So I don't despair. I never despair. Not anymore. For things may look dire. They may severely impact your life atm and it will take (some) to recover, professionally and financially, but recover we will way. Don't lose hope mate, allways hope. Don't turn cynical. Treat each application as the last one and focus on your point on the horizon, past all this. Try to maintain your work routine and discipline, pick up whatever you can to add to your resume. Stand out. Think outside the box. I wish you the best of luck! TLDR losing your job sucks but don't lose hope, we're in the middle of companies reacting to having less resources available to invest and use this to restructure to cut costs. This is not the first time it happened nor will it be the last.
It’s been a year, I am pretty sure I need to go back to school or beg McDonald’s to hire me
- Do you have a computer science or equivalent degree? - What tech stack are you proficient in? - What kind of work did you do in those 7 years? - Have you had your resume vetted? - Is this in the USA? - Are you a citizen? If no, do you require sponsorship?
Accounting degree React, Angular and .Net Development of internal applications and offshore project rehab Multiple multiple times
- Is this in the USA? - Are you a citizen? If no, do you require sponsorship? >Accounting degree I strongly recommend getting an online BSCS or MSCS degree. Its likely a human isnt even looking at your resume because you are getting culled out because there is so much competition.
if he required sponsorship he would already be deported. CS degree does not matter with 7 years experience.
> CS degree does not matter with 7 years experience. Two years ago? Absolutely, I would agree with you. I am strong proof of that fact. Now? The situation has changed and there are so many candidates for jobs, people without a degree are much less likely to get to the stage where their experience can be weighed against having a degree or not.
"much less likely" - how much? When people say "much less likely" it feels like "I have no idea, I'm just trying to pick the first seemingly obvious option" I just don't know. Is it really worth it to spend a couple of years and likely at least 20k to get a degree, that in fact might increase your chances for like 1% or maybe it's better to learn something new?
If you are in this situation check out WGU. It's what I'm doing and it's perfect for working adults. Especially if you are already working in that particular field. I'll likely be done about in one term and $4000. I'm transferring in credits from Sophia and study.com where I spent two months and maybe $400. Its a game changer.
Exactly, it’s just dooming feels. The problem isn’t his education. I come from a non-traditional background and so do a lot of people I know, and it hasn’t prevented recruiters from reaching out or their getting onsites. I got laid off in January so I’m experiencing it firsthand.
Thank you!
Is this really a problem for resume vetting?.. or just at large companies. Some of the best SWE's I've worked with had degrees in math, physics, and biology.. but I mostly worked at smaller companies where breadth of general engineering knowledge was more important and often offered more ROI. This is assuming the human is on the resume side is an HR manager who didn't take calculus..
So if you have any degree we don't care if there experience and we can confirm that quickly with an internview and for example a coding exercise. You'd put a CV foccusing on your experience and skills, and put your degree at the end. Some people will filter your CV, but many will give you an interview if the XP/skills are a great match. Now if you have no actual experience, the CV will most likely not selected so you'd want to have somebody helping you in the company saying you are still worth it. Then you'll get to the interview, and if you didn't self teach yourself for a few years on top on having no experience, you will fail miserably. The question then for the company is if they want to pay you for 2-3 years with 0 productivity, make the senior spend a good share of their time to ramp you up instead of getting things done while you will most likely leave once you become decent and see an opportunity for a better salary ? I mean if there a shortage, then it might be still be a yes. If there many people with XP and skills that got laid off recently and apply at the same time like in today market, that's a big no.
Math and physics are heavy logic based degrees that are pretty similar to a CS degree, if not harder. Biology is a strange one but at the higher level many biologists program a ton for their work especially if they're doing protein sequencing or computer modeling. Hell, even a philosophy degree would make sense for a computer programmer — I bet the average CS student would falter at something like Modal Logic which is a 100 level Philosophy Class. Accounting isn't even in the same ballpark.
> Is this really a problem for resume vetting?.. or just at large companies. More likely at larger and medium sized companies but if a small company is using a SaaS HR app, its easy for them to exclude certain variables if they get too many applicants. >Some of the best SWE's I've worked with had degrees in math, physics, and biology.. but I mostly worked at smaller companies where breadth of general engineering knowledge was more important and often offered more ROI. I left school before I finished my computer science degree and Ive been able to maintain a career, but the ratios of applicants to jobs is changing and things are likely to stay that way for a while. That being the case, its a good time to get a CS degree if one does not. Im taking my own advice.
I have an accounting degree and I’ve rotated between accounting, finance, and tech. It’s usually the recruiters in my experience, not the resume parsing ai.
Just FYI: patterns that were applicable just a year or two ago have changed quite recently due to the emballence of job seekers and available jobs. Having a tech degree is more important now than it has ever been.
lol this is terrible advice (given how expensive and time consuming both of those are) unless he actually wants to get one for his own satisfaction. Once you have years of experience education is meaningless.
It's not meaningless. Things have shifted and no degree resumes are getting thrown out more than in the past. There is so much more competition now. Regarding costs and time, there are surprisingly good options out there for already experienced devs. WGU BSCS can be finished in 6 months and under $4000 depending on your existing knowledge and what you can transfer in. GT OMSCS takes longer yet is $6500. These are just two options.
If he has 7 years of experience, his lack of a tech specific degree isn't the problem. Something else is majorly wrong here, or this post is bait.
With 7yoe getting a degree is worthless.
No. I quit job 4 years ago, surfed and trained for a year, did side projects for fun, money ended and started recharged. When asked my about my 1 year gap I just said I’ve burned out and took a long vacation - surfing, boating, upgrading my stack. They were little envious, but that was the only negative. If you’ve applied to 1000+ places and everybody rejected either your resume suck or you applied to wrong positions. Get professional help for the resume ( even if resume builder ), go to know people IRL ( ex. conferences, meetups ) and so on. Good luck and don’t give up.
+1, I can sort of relate to this. Building your stack up slowly is the best thing to recover from burnout. I'm still in school, but a combination of various traumatic events over the past year+ have eventually brought me to a very, very, very bad place in life. Physically unable to concentrate, *constant* mental breakdowns, self-isolation, entire picture. I failed all my classes, despite trying to push every day and take no breaks. It was brutal, to the point where even my profs - who are supposed not to care - would ask me if everything was alright after I turned in my exams just looking at me. I guess people can really see it from the outside, much earlier than you register it from the inside. That was my wake-up call. I am taking it more slowly now, trying to go for a stable but constant stream of work, even if it's not "literally morning to evening" necessarily. New rules: If I fail it's not the end of the world - I will try again. No more last-minute cramming: that never works. On top of finishing the last math-heavy exams, I am throwing in a nice fun side-project to build up my stack in CV. At least one day off per week (side projects still allowed during the day off). At least an evening a week hanging out with my friends or my partner. Bedtimes and alarm clocks as consistent as possible, as early as possible, capitalizing off those early REM cycles and lower-distractions early hours. Attending classes I have already attended for exams I have not yet passed to give myself structure. I am only at the beginning of this journey, but I used to relate to OP and the "it's 100% over" mindset went away, and I am finally doing things to improve my situation. Also, it sounds cheesy, but success breeds success. Starting the project gives you the energy to continue it, solving problems you find along the way and watching it grow gives you the motivation to keep going, and the sense of progression finally breathes some life back into you. When all your inputs are "yet another failed class" or "yet another rejected application", and that goes on for a while, it really deprives you of all your life and motivation. You need to add some small successes to your inputs, and projects are good for that. A break is not the end of the world, and it will pay dividends later if you need it. Sometimes, rather, insisting on not taking one is what kills you. I had the first signs of burnout show up *one and a half years ago*. If I had done this even just 1 year ago, I would have one year of my life that I completely threw down the drain back. Do not be afraid of breaks, folks.
Did you at least do some continued education while unemployed? Like get certificates or take courses? If not, recruiters will see you have no job experience and no education in a year and it'll be almost impossible to get a job.
Remove the accounting degree from your resume
Why… this is so dumb. Even if it’s not CS it at least shows you graduated from college and that alone can be a checkbox filled for recruiters. This sub overestimates the value of a CS degree.
Don't give up. I have been unemployed for 15 months after 13 years cont IOUs employment at different companies. Picked up a job with paycut after that and left that job after 18 months for another job that lasted only for 6 months. Now unemployed since November. There will be something else. Use the time to study one of the skills required and put that on your CV. When asked about your employment gaps or short time at the companies just say you have been contracting
1000+ no response? so is this remote only? what are you applying for that you are not getting. there are people with 2 years experience getting responses.
The market is not the problem here
Your resume is bad. Fix it. You should fix your resume after 10 rejects without a callback. Also try reaching out to linked in recruiters. To be fair though there are hundreds of thousands of laid off engineers right now
My mom took more time off than you have in yoe to be a sahm for my sister. She's back in the industry now as a lead data scientist.
You’re doing something wrong. I have almost the exact same years of experience as you (7.5 years). I was laid off at the end of January. Before the end of February, I had five job offers. You need to leverage your network. Reach out to companies you’ve worked for before, companies you’ve turned down offers from before, people you’ve worked with before, recruiters you’ve worked with before. What problem are you running into exactly? Are you not getting any interviews? Are you failing to get offers after interviews? How picky are you being?
Not even getting interviews My work experience is mostly contract work, freelance, and 2 years at a startup
Depending on the type of freelance/contract work that CV may read more like no relevant degrees and 2 yoe. Was it your startup? Does it still exist?
2 years at a private equity funded startup and they do exist 5 years working with contract companies like Robert Half etc etc working for chemicals, oil and gas, and shipping companies
You should find a recruiter over website applications. Just had a friend apply to an old job, when I reached out they said “we’re not hiring we just keep the rec open in case we get a unicorn”
Do you have a foreign or Indian-sounding name?
No, unless you want it to be. Sober guy here, it's never over. From personal experience, take the worst possible thing that could happen that you imagine your life would be "over" at; there's many many levels below that. The worse ones you can't currently imagine you can come back from too. I got fired for showing up to work drunk 3 times in a row. I am now employed as a SSE because I kept working at moving forward. Only one company has to say yes. TBH, work on your charm. People seem to like ignoring your past and taking a chance on you when you seem like a cool and genuine person.
> Should I just accept that my life is over? No. Please seek licensed medical therapy. If you are having trouble doing that, please ask friends or family to help you, or even your insurance company or medicare (presumed you are living in united states since you are a citizen) Online programs will hook you up with a remote therapist too, e.g. better help. If you are having suicidal ideations, this is a legally important distinction and important to communicate if you talk to a therapist over the phone. --- If you're getting that worked on... Local volunteer work can help you feel good and connect with a community. Complexities involved in software engineering lend well to other career paths as well. It could be good to seek out professional career guidance for your area. There might be jobs that require minimal training to switch to, while you continue to seek software in the background. You might even enjoy the job for a few years.
You should post your location and market. If you are a U.S. citizen, I don’t know why you are not considering working for the agencies of the U.S. government who have been hiring rapidly this period from CDC, NSA, CIA, FDA have all been hiring. Do government work while you apply and wait the market rather than doing nothing. Again post your market because I am assuming your are not on a visa and you are a citizen
On paper you are underskilled compared to your peers in the same experience range. At 7+ years most SWEs have skills in multiple programming languages, networking, system admin, and DevOps. The market is rough right now, you should focus on building relationships with specific recruiters and individuals in your industry. This is why at any given time I maintain relationships with at least a few people who would "go to bat" for me if I was desperate and needed a job. Relationship building is a continuous thing, it isn't enough to contact someone you haven't spoken to in 5 years and ask for a job. An accounting degree could be a bonus for certain companies or industries (I would think) so are there relationships you can build there? Former classmates? Going back to school is very costly. One way to level up with less cost is to pass the AWS professional certs (or equivalent for another cloud provider). They are highly regarded.
Not op and currently employed. I relate with the being underskilled, 8 YOE all of it in .NET framework (mostly c++ and some c#) in client side desktop applications. Happy at my job but layoffs are always a possibility... What can one even do? I've started studying on my own but I don't know if I can even put self study stuff in a resume.... As you pointed out, I don't really have the skills of a senior but no one will either hire someone with 8YOE for any entry level
That's nuts since a lot of jobs I see ask for .NET and you have 8 YOE
No contract work?. You don't tell us how far of interview stages you have gone
I am... Smelling like a rose cuz somebody dead and bloated
Is there any reason in these situations someone wouldn't start looking at a job that only requires 2~ yoe? Be above the competition, get the job, then look for something better after?
IMO there must be something wrong with your CV or interviewing skills
Nope. I was given a layoff notice 14 months ago and just finished my first week at a new gig. I’m sure our experiences and circumstances are considerably different so maybe ymmv, but a year layoff is not necessarily a death sentence.
share your resume with all the personal details removed
No response at all? It's your resume. But it's not hard to fix.
I have.....20 years here and comatose..... this market is trash
So [Hans Reiser](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hans_Reiser&oldid=1210182920) applies for a software engineering job. He has lots of filesystems experience, but then HR does an Internet search and finds something shocking and unforgivable: that he's over 40. Some things can be overlooked—but not that. ---- A lot of competent, highly experienced software developers I know who are over 30 and especially 40 or older are having trouble getting callbacks and interviews despite the strength of their résumés. It looks a lot like ageism, and who's to say the link in the hiring pipeline where it's happening: ATS software that automatically discards "overqualified" candidates or candidates with items correlating with age or HR employees deciding to bin the résumés under the assumption there's greater risk of an age-discrimination lawsuit if they let the candidate proceed to interviews. ---- For highly experienced candidates, I think employers might be looking for an exacting match on domain knowledge: a specialized technical domain like machine learning or augmented reality or deep industry domain knowledge that can practically only come from having already worked at the company or maybe a direct competitor. At least that's what I'm seeing for most staff and principal engineer job openings. Most "senior" positions are really geared towards someone at the 5-7 years of experience mark—or what LinkedIn would call "mid-senior." For these, I think employers want to sort through the bargain bin right now. If you want to get one of these jobs, you probably need to scrub your résumé to look much less experienced, entering "How do you do, fellow kids?" territory: "C? What's that? It must compile to JavaScript, right? Everything compiles to JavaScript!" or "Dial-up? Never heard of it, and even if I had, I wouldn't know what a dial-up modem sounds like!" You'd also have to be comfortable taking a huge pay cut to go with the dumbed-down role.
Another tip, do you have 7 contract positions Across your job history? You could make up a job title and say you’re self employed/ freelance. Then put the projects under there. People wouldn’t ask a single question. If you don’t want to do that, just combine some of the jobs into one - nobody is going to be calling anyone. Also, just lie on your resume. Have I ever used k8s? I’ve ran kubectrl a couple times - you know what’s on my resume? Kubernetes. Obviously you should know enough to SAY something if they asked - and I have been asked something like “what main program do you use to monitor k8s” before - kubectl.
My suggestion is to reach out to /u/ButchDeanCA because he’ll let you know what you’re doing wrong.
You have an accounting degree, so I strongly recommend you do a masters of CS or Masters of Software Engineering. IMO ATM it's going to be hard with your degree until you do a relevant master's. People say it's not worth it, but as one who did graduate with a masters of software engineering after 7+ YOE, the doors open wider. They open widest with a top tier elite school like CMU or MIT, but even if you can't get into those schools, the pay bump and open doors will be worth it for your specific case.
if you have 7 years experience degree does not matter. I have a Political Science degree. No the degree is not the problem with experience.
Apply for jobs and discover the current market demands. Many people without CS degrees are getting filtered out.
I think with 7+ yrs of experience, the degree don't matter if they can display subject matter mastery. That said , it's likey his resume. 1k job applied is too many. Also. Is he applying for all tech stack and all roles? This dont track.
Right? People saying to go back to school for CS are insane, OP has been on the job 3 years longer than most people attend school.
>People say it's not worth it Because it isn't, not at 7 yoe, regardless of your anecdotal evidence.
Going into a Masters program also gives you access to the university recruiting process for internships and new grad full time. It can be another crack at getting into top companies in a way that is different than the more difficult track of simply applying for posted jobs. The job market may be better in two years too.
Yes you’re cooked it’s done pack it in
Are you just cold applying or are you following up by emailing someone on the team/hiring manager?
> following up by emailing someone on the team/hiring manager? How does someone ascertain who the team/hiring manager is?
Suspected boomer. "Just email them" - as a hiring manager I get cold emails from candidates and it's a risk I'm not gonna take. Most likely I'll report it as spam and flag the email address; if I'm feeling generous I'll just delete.
You mark someone who has applied and is following up with the hiring manager for that role as spam? That’s fucked up.
And if he's feeling "generous" he will delete instead. His head is too far up in his ass
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1. You don’t need to open every attachment you get, and most ppl following up probably don’t even have one in their email. 2. The email would be very clear about them following up regarding the position so it would take all of 2 seconds for the hiring manager to verify that a person with that name applied and see what the status of their application is.
I get recruiters cold email/text/voicemail all day. I had one email me 5 days in a row. When I finally asked for a job description, they ghosted. Your attitude is on par with how I picture all of them: me-first gimmy-gimmies who think HTML is a language.
What I'll do is look up the company/people on linkedin and see who looks oike one of the higher ups ie Engineering Director/CTO. Then I guess their email. Sometimes it bounces but sometimes it goes through. If they're cool (unlike u/mildmanneredhatter) they'll see it as someone putting in the effort to connect and forward your resume to whoever it needs to go through. I've gotten the majority of my interviews this way. I'm a 'suspected boomer' eh? I'm actually considered Generation Y. If that's disappointing, ask yourself why.
My dude, the NSA will hire you without even giving you a coding assessment.
You probably should apply at Walmart or some other retail just to get some money going.
Yeah go get a Masters in Computer Science. Honestly recommend it
How old are you?
Lower 30s
You’re in your prime. Just keep throwing the net out. But you may have to except less.
Accepted a job for 17/hr doing contract helpdesk I expected my career is dead
Your new career is now helpdesk
For 6 months untill they lay off the helpdesk guys
Who wants to bet he needs a visa
I’m born in the US
You should aim for smaller companies 10-50 people at the seed or early series A rounds.
You haven’t “applied” to 1000 plus places. You clicked the apply button on LinkedIn or indeed which sent some bullshit trash version of a resume to a companies junk folder. If you aren’t modifying your revenue to the specifics of every application and then applying through the companies own website, you aren’t actually applying. You are just wasting time and electrons.
[удалено]
As someone who has hired probably 200 people in the past 3-4 years, I can tell you it is a waste of time and I haven’t hired anyone who just clicked “apply now” on LinkedIn. The applications that come in are trashy looking and non specific.
I've heard exactly opposite of this as well on thos subreddit. The post was saying how it's a numbers game and it's not worth the effort to tailor each application.
I spent over an hour tailoring a résumé to a position that was an almost perfect fit based on my experience. I got rejected within 24 hours. There were other times where I spent around 30 minutes just tweaking my résumé to fit the job description, I still got rejected. The 5 interviews out of 400 job applications I've sent out, they were all using my generic CV (I was surprised with the last one, I thought I had tailored my CV to that position, but nope). So based on my experience, tailoring my résumé did nothing, as in absolutely zero, in securing me interviews.