[danvonk]

If it really is a bottomless well everywhere, I must be doing something wrong...I just graduated from a well-regarded university in Germany with a degree in computer science and to be honest, it's not all that easy to get a job.

For example, in London, as someone with no experience, you'll probably have to go with a graduate scheme--mostly at tech companies and banks. But when you apply, you'll be barraged first by cognitive aptitude tests, followed by situational judgement tests, then a LeetCode/HackerRank test. Deutsche Bank additionally requires you to pre-record answers to interview questions that they pose in an e-mail. Perhaps afterwards you'll be invited to an on-site interview where you can repeat the process.

All of this machinery to filter out candidates doesn't scream out that they are that short on candidates.

[i_have_an_idea]

> All of this machinery to filter out candidates

That's because most of the people that graduate with a CS degree can't code and, what is worse, can't be taught how to code.

As an employer, it is also very expensive and time consuming to hire someone like that, since you're not just wasting money by paying someone who's non-productive, but you're also wasting the productive time of the team (or whoever is in charge of mentoring you) in a potentially fruitless attempt to teach you how to code.

Unless you have work experience, there's no quick way to tell if you'll be able to learn or not. Faced with that problem, a lot of big companies just throw all the cognitive tests they can find at you and hope for the best.

[initplus]

There is a shortage of people - with experience. A side effect of this is employers are less willing to take on less experienced staff as they lack the employees to act as mentors.

Getting my first job in tech was the hardest - but since it has been smooth sailing as I have a track record of experience & war stories to tell.

[foxyv]

Yeah, hiring processes for Software Developers is just the pits. Due to accounting rules, most established companies don't want to hire full time positions anymore because it reflects as a recurring expense which counts against profit making management look bad. Contractors can be applied against capital expenses making the figures look a lot better. "Sure we spent $5 million extra on the project because contractors are expensive, but we made $3 million more in profits! What do you mean who will maintain it?"

The result is that we aren't maintaining core groups of subject matter experts anymore. Instead the idea is that teams are interchangeable and software should be well documented and replaceable. Developers are expected to be able to pick up immediately and need to have the skills ahead of time. So there is no mentoring, skills development, core subject matter experts, or entry level positions for college graduates in most companies.

This means that things will suck for anyone with less that two years experience. Also it means that employees will have zero loyalty and company IT culture will rot like an old tomato in the sun. However, once you get that initial experience you will be getting offers to apply constantly from your company's competitors looking for someone.

If you want to find a company to look for, the big banks and such will be a hard pull for entry level work. Working as a contractor or at a smaller company with poor capitalization may be easier to get into. Unfortunately degrees don't mean much anymore unless your senior project was something relevant to industry like Kubernetes, AWS, Kafka, etc...

[jahnu]

That's institutional inertia and bureaucracy. Don't mistake it for the typical case.

First job out of uni and can handle a lowerish salary? Find the startup scene in your area and network like crazy.

[moooo99]

Interesting, my experience was the exact opposite. I recently got my bachelors in business information systems and finding a well paid job turned out to be fairly easy (although my working student relationship with my current company certainly contributed to the easy hiring process). This seems to be a fairly common experience, at least among my peers.

[oblio]

Get the first job in the field, almost no matter what.

Once you have that first job and about 1 year of experience, things become much easier.

Also, practice interviews, find books, courses, etc.