Ask HN: What happens to people who graduate and can't find an entry job?

[greyostrich]

A year ago, I asked HN what can I do get an entry job. HN told me to keep on grinding. That I will get lucky. Some HN people offered to look at my resume. I talked to them through email, and they offered advice. I followed their advice.

A year later, I still haven't been able to get any job. Two weeks ago I had an on-site for a position near Philly. Expected salary would be $40K - $50k. I passed the final interview and was told I was one of the best candidates. I was supposed to get an answer today, but it appears I've been ghosted. I've also been ghosted by another company after doing a phone tech interview with the VP.

I'm currently at the 14 month mark unemployed after graduation with a BS degree in CS. I went to a public state school centered between Philly and NYC. I live by Hoboken, Jersey City, and NYC.

Since I've either been ghosted or rejected by everyone so far, I have only one choice left. I managed to pass LaunchCode, then skipped a few steps (since I already have various personal projects and a CS degree), directly into interviewing with a local company. The thing is this will be a $10 - $15/hr internship. While I'm grateful for anything, it scares me to be at this point in time of my career looking forward to a low wage internship.

Everyone says there are jobs everywhere for CS graduates, but it's been so hard for me personally to get anything. I am not as smart as most HN people here. I did not go to an amazing school. But I am passionate and competitive by heart. Computers have been my life. So, what happens to people who graduate and can't find an entry job?

Apology if this thread does not belong here.

Here are a few other things I've done:

1) 2 unpaid websites for a business

2) volunteer programming for nonprofit

3) attend NJ Tech Meetup every month and some others.

4) volunteered PropellerFest in Hoboken

5) worked on two unpaid programs for companies during the interview process (spent a minimum of 2 weeks on each)

[greyostrich]

If anyone reads this, I have an update. I ran an in-person mock interview with an HN user. It wasn't anything extensive; just a few simple questions. After it, I really looked at what I've been doing. It made me realize that I'm shit at interviews. Maybe I'm not that bad. Maybe other people do worse and still get jobs. But honestly, there's so much I can improve. I have no idea how I even passed some of my past interviews.

[SatvikBeri]

The good news is that's fairly easy to fix! When I graduated college, I failed my first twelve interviews before making a serious effort to get better. The main thing that helped was actually just practicing in front of a mirror–taking common questions and watching my body language while I did. I immediately noticed several problems–e.g., I never smiled–and with a few days' practice, was then able to pass all the interviews I had afterwards.

[tedmiston]

There are at least two startups out there for engineers seeking to do practice interviews and improve their skills: Pramp (YC F2) [0] and Interviewing.io [1].

[0]: https://www.pramp.com

[1]: http://interviewing.io

[patio11]

I am not as smart as most HN people here.

n.b. A thing I would not suggest overly dwelling on.

If it makes you feel any better, my first job (2004) in a similarly situated city was $12.50 an hour. I was so despondent about the chance of getting a real engineering job that I emigrated, where I landed the princely sum of $30k per year. That is no longer a major economic anchor for me 12 years later. I don't think you should necessarily accept either of these numbers but not the end of the world either way.

It is an unfortunate reality that "zero experience" and "non-zero experience" (for values of experience which generally include "paid" and "production" and "in an obviously software-producing role") are treated differently than each other, so getting that first job is often excessively difficult.

You should probably own your job search, and approach it as if it were a job. You go to your job search in the morning and you leave it in the evening. Your job search is a results-oriented work environment. Despite the fact that your job search doesn't have anyone who will fire you if you e.g. play League of Legends (picking something that I'd worry about for myself, not you) instead of lining up coffee dates, it has similar economic consequences for tradeoffs.

Nobody explicitly tells people this in college, so: sending in your resume to companies and then waiting for callbacks is not the primary way that people get jobs. You should cold approach every person with hiring authority you can identify at a local software company, demonstrate probability of value over email, escalate to a Skype call or coffee date, make a good impression, and then ask whether they know of anyone hiring.

In the short term, you should be shooting for ~10 good, targeted emails a day, ~2 Skype calls a day, 3~5 coffee dates a week, and ~2 requests for escalation to a formal interview a week. At the end of one month of this, you've sent 200 emails, had 40~50 Skype calls, had 10+ coffees, and done 5~10 interviews. If you are not sustaining these numbers, the fact that you are not sustaining these numbers is the problem. Your CS skill is not the problem. Your degree is not the problem. Your location is not the problem. You just happen to be currently employed in a job which is utterly unlike the job you trained for. It is called "sales." The first and most important thing sales reps have to do is make the conversations actually happen. Virtually no rep is successful without doing so.

I was supposed to get an answer today, but it appears I've been ghosted. I've also been ghosted by another company after doing a phone tech interview with the VP.

Another thing you learn from sales: this is totally normal even from people who will eventually buy the thing. You should, and I appreciate that this will be difficult, continue pinging these folks until you start working at their company or they tell you, explicitly, that they will not hire you. Sometimes hiring folks just go dark on candidates as a way of constructively terminating the conversation. That sucks but it happens. Sometimes hiring folks go dark for reasons which have nothing to do with the candidate. You won't believe how many don't check their #%()#%ing vacation calendars prior to making representations like "I'll have an answer to you next Tuesday." You won't believe how easy it is, when running a business, to get absorbed in the crisis du jour and straight-up forget that you were in conversations with an engineer you were excited about.

"Hiya Bob,

Thanks for interviewing me the other day. Just dropping you a line to check on our progress here."

"Hiya Bob,

Thanks for working on getting me hired at $FIRM. Is there anything I can do for you to expedite the process?"

It feels deeply unnatural to send variations on that email twelve times. Sales guys would continue doing it 20+ times. They do this because -- and this will blow your mind -- the sale often happens after the 18th email with no externally visible indication that this was likely to be the case.

[greyostrich]

Yes, being more saleslike would help. I have never tried it that way.

[Mimu]

I'm not the best developer but I never had any issues during interview except when I didn't want the job. Damn I'm even stammering but still looks like it goes well most of the time. Big note, I'm from the EU, interviewed in France and UK (London), none of them had big technical steps like in the US (from what I read here), nor a billion steps.

Why? I think (I didn't analyze anything) that is because I'm just being myself. I talk to the interviewer like it's a friend. If I think of a joke I just say it. Thoughts like "will be it ok if", "should I say this or that", etc NEVER cross my mind. I'm having a conversation, not a test. Same for technical stuff, if I don't know something I just say I don't know. Hopefully I still have an idea, so I would say something like "I don't know this / never used that, but my first guess would be X", then usually it ends up being a discussion that at the very last would teach me something, even if I don't get the job.

That being said, I understand it's hard to do stuff like that if this is not your default mindset and you are being close to desperate.

[greyostrich]

I understand what you're suggesting. I do act very confident and unafraid to ask any questions. I don't act "desperate." When I voice my concerns through a forum, I do sound desperate because it's a way for me to voice my emotions; but I never act this way in person.

[samblr]

Write down each of your interview in a file. Divide them by parts of interview, questions asked and answers you gave. It helps you to visualise where it could have gone better.

I gave 24 interviews after graduating - in every single of them I passed coding or tests but failed in face to face interview. I just gave answer to question in interview and never expanded on it and was never confident enough. Writing about interview then helped. I was in a shell during interviews and only writing about it helped me recognise in first place and develop a mindset to overcome it.

[skylark]

Where are you having troubles with the interview process?

Getting past the initial resume screen? Passing the technical phone screen? Passing the onsite?

Where are you located? Where do you want to work?

[greyostrich]

"Where are you having troubles with the interview process?"

It's random. I pass resume screens, and I fail them. I'm just going to talk about phone screens for now. On-sites are an entirely different story, where a lot of them have been tech trivia or just entirely behavorial.

============== PHONE SCREENS ============== Random unknown, non-tech company -- easily pass.

Jet -- I passed. Easily. Because of my connections. I failed the 2nd phone screen when they saw I lacked professional experience.

Walmart Technology -- failed within 10 minutes. I was referred to it by an HN user, who said they were looking for entry people with no tech requirements. The recruiter randomly called me. She saw I had no experience with Java frameworks (I use mainly C# for projects). She couldn't read the between the lines, so I was rejected.

Wayfair Labs -- failed within 10 minutes. No explanation given. The recruiter didn't even allow me to ask any questions.

Quick Loans -- passed phone screen, but the tech team wasn't interested in me.

I rarely get tech phone screens. I did get one last week, but I have no idea how it went. It involved general questions about how HTML, CSS, JavaScript, frameworks and my projects worked.

"Where are you located? Where do you want to work?"

Like I said, I'm located right by NYC. I want to work anywhere with some sort of public transportation (even if I can only rely on a bicycle), because I have permanent blindness in my left eye (no 3D vision, and get nauseous in cars).

[kyled]

My first real job was with a small non tech company. They wanted to move to a digital system for processing orders.

Did you teach yourself most of what you know before going to college? If so, up play that factor. Being able to teach yourself and answer your own questions goes loooong way. What have you been working on in the past 14 months?

Companies want to know how you can provide value to them. Be proud of the work you have done and talk about a interesting problem you solved. Giving clear cut answers is always good. Be confident and passionate, but but not cocky or ignorant. Try to avoid the words "I don't know" . If you don't, then explain how you would find a answer to the question. Always follow up the interview with a thank you letter, making it personal is key.

Go to a company hosted meetup event, mingle with the employees and if your interested let them know.

Look for events that require participation from those attending and help others when they are stuck.

Stick out from the crowd and you'll be good.

[greyostrich]

"Did you teach yourself most of what you know before going to college?"

No. It was during college. I transferred from community college, then graduated in 1.5 years. Outside of classes, I spent time on improving.

"Go to a company hosted meetup event, mingle with the employees and if your interested let them know."

This has worked twice for me already. The hardest part is usually everyone has 10+ years of experience, so it's tough to connect myself to them.

"Look for events that require participation from those attending and help others when they are stuck."

Good idea.

[solutionyogi]

From your comment, it looks like you are hustling but haven't seen the results yet. Please do not give up and keep hustling.

Few notes:

1. Do you know about Ramit Sethi? He has tons of free material on finding a job. I would highly recommend that you go through it.

2. How systematic are you about your interviews? Do you have a log of all interviews and questions which you have been asked? I strongly believe that interviewing is a skill by itself. You need to work on it. When I was trying to break in to finance industry, I gave more than 40+ interviews before I could catch a break.

3. I have helped quite a few friends in their job search and all of them ended up in a better place. Though I have never had a chance to work with someone who is a fresh graduate. I live and work in NYC. Please contact me (details in my profile) and I will try my best to help you out.

Good luck.

[greyostrich]

1. Never heard of him before now.

2. Not systematic at all.

3. I'll consider it.

[hogu]

Hi, have you ever done any practice interviews? You should get since honesty feedback on your interview/job search. It's possible that there is something you are doing that is sabotaging your chances which had nothing to do with your technical ability

[greyostrich]

"have you ever done any practice interviews?"

Honestly no (I had one a very, very long time ago though), and it would be stupid not to. Maybe it was stupid of me to think that practice from meetups, volunteering, and other interviews would be enough.

[ruler88]

I have 2 thoughts about this

A) $10-$15/hr is not too bad for an entry level position. I started around the same level and 5 years later I'm doing six-figures. Everyone needs to start somewhere, and the first step is sometimes the hardest.

B) If you are having trouble with the interviews, you need to practice your interviews. (Assuming you are actually a good coder). The technical interview process is not all that different. There are certain types of questions that everyone will ask, figure out what they are (there are many books), and practice practice practice. You have 14 waking hours in a day, practice the questions every day you will be pro at interviews in 2-4 weeks.

[greyostrich]

A) Ok. That's my situation, so I will not disagree with it.

B) I've only had one whiteboard technical interview ever, and I passed it. I've read and practiced Programming Interviews Exposed; and I've practiced up to and including trees in CtCI. Studying coding problems barely helps for the type of companies I get interviews at. My whiteboard consisted of nothing like CtCI; it was simple string parsing with the help of library functions.

[mter]

A number of my classmates weren't able to find jobs. Some have left this field, others went to grad school, some are self employed and others have gone into it/networking.

[bozoUser]

A few things that helped me get a job out of school. 1. Start working on a portfolio.ex: if you are a frontend dev work on creating some sample websites. 2. Algorithms & data structures play a major role for most of the s/w engg positions. The khan academy, coursera ate good places to start. 3. Something to build on 1. would be to see if any open source projects interest you n start contributing. Good luck...don't give up.

[throwaway7658]

I dont think a CS degree from a non-high-end school moves your career very far unless you want to work for the gov (have you given that a shot?).

So think of yourself as a person whos built a couple of websites. An internship would be a huge step up.

Think about what kind of technologies you want to work in. Do you want to do web dev? You should probably learn a popular mvc framework (laravel, rails, django, Etc)

[greyostrich]

"I dont think a CS degree from a non-high-end school moves your career very far unless you want to work for the gov "

Most people from my school go work for defense contractors, then move up from there. I've only seen one person in LinkedIn work at Amazon. Nothing Google nor Facebook.

"have you given that a shot?"

I tried with the help of the CS department's chairperson, but I never made it past the resume filter. I don't think my low GPA qualifies for anything gov related.

"An internship would be a huge step up."

Sure. Unfortunately, I've had one unpaid internship, and was offered two more unpaid internships (what a joke). The closest to a paid internship I know of getting would be launchcode.com.

"Think about what kind of technologies you want to work in."

I decided on .NET; mainly C# for now. I don't really care whether it's web dev or something else. I'm familiar with ASP.NET MVC.

[gregwagner]

I was in a similar position when I graduated in 2002 and I went to grad school. I went to grad school because I couldn't find a job, not that I really wanted to; but, it was probably the best career decision I ever made.

[isuckatcoding]

Hang in there man. While I'm thankful to be employed, I too am desperately looking for a real software engineering role but I just suck hard at technical interviews.

[tboyd47]

What language/framework do you use? Not every technology has the same kind of job market attached to it.

[greyostrich]

University focused on Java. I mainly use C# with some interest in PHP (personal project), F# (went to several meetups and a workshop), and JavaScript.

[Jugurtha]

Similar situation. No practical advice to give but hang in there and don't despair.

[asimuvPR]

Email me. I might be able to help. :)

[J_Darnley]

They realise that they have bought into the "not enough programmers" lie and give up.