
Ask HN: Will I ever find a job? - dwgdev
Hello,
I have graduated for 3 months already. I have a B.S in Computer Science... until now, I just got 2 interviews after sending 180 or more applications and countless cover letters.<p>Since I could not find a job, I started to work on my personal project and I decided to share with the public:<p>https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;woguan&#x2F;Legend-Wings<p>I am losing my hope to get a job, and I feel like I must find a work not related to computer science.
What do you think of my project? Is it good to show for recruiters?<p>Owner of Alibaba said he got rejected like 20-30 applications, rejected for applying for Havard, rejected to work at Fast-Food. I am getting close to him? I sent countless applications, cover letters, but I just got 2 interviews... Both of them told me I have no professional experience.
======
rickyc091
So I did a quick audit of your GitHub and minimal experience is definitely a
correct assessment. But, don't worry! That doesn't mean you can't get a job.
You'll just need to work harder or join a company that has the capacity to
train you.

Legend Wings is nice, but the last several pages of commits are all just
updating the README. I see that you committed your most code on the initial
commit, however, I was also able to copy and paste and find exact code matches
on StackOverflow. Forgot to mention, I use to be a teaching assistant so
students would do this all the time.

Next up, you have a lot of boilerplate on your GitHub. You have a blank repo
called VaporServer. Employers will check your most recent code as a basis of
your skill. I'll ignore that one and look at the next one, WebJS (2 weeks
ago). You were learning to use express and setting up a boilerplate.

The rest of your repos are tutorials or homework assignments. CalendarData is
just a repo with a JSON file. Lots of forks aren't necessary good since the
first thing I do is look for individual commits. Being that you come from a
university I know there are a lot of group projects, I can't tell if you are
the one working on the project or your peers.

This is all the information I gathered looking at half your repos more
carefully. A recruiter will spend even less time than I did.

My suggestion would be to clean up any boilerplate repos or forks that don't
really give much information or actually make things worse. CalendarData from
April shows me that you probably don't know SQL. I can also tell you are
starting to dive into node.js meaning you probably don't have backend
knowledge. I noticed firebase implementation in your swift code so knowledge
of APIs are good.

I would also try to find an internship as starters to get some experience
and/or look for a job where they focus solely on the academia / whiteboard
challenges. I'm not a big fan of those, but they have their place especially
for college students without much experience. Just brush up on your data
structures and algorithms and you should be good to go!

Good luck! Don't worry too much, it'll all work out in the end!

~~~
dwgdev
Wow.. that indeed was a very very good advices. Thank you so much for your
time to give a very detailed list in the areas that I must improve.

1) I did not understand about "most code on the initial commit". I have been
updating the code basically every day. Is it because I have a dummy account?
Like the accomplishment I wrote in the README, I recently put the dates I
accomplish them.

2) About the repos, I think it has a lot because I recently cancelled the
subscription. And I can't put them back to private. I will consider paying for
the subscription and add back to private.

3) CalendarData is a repo where I can modify it with my app called: "MyAgenda"
which is private since it contains a key to make HTTP requests via Basic
Authorization.

I will definitely rework my GitHub page. :)

~~~
rickyc091
Ahh, sorry, an initial commit is the first commit you do on a repository. In
this case, I noticed that most of the code logic was on this commit
([https://github.com/woguan/Legend-
Wings/commit/0df03c7657cc13...](https://github.com/woguan/Legend-
Wings/commit/0df03c7657cc13291e3f3fdcd2dc9a5c5b63fa7c)). It's actually better
to have multiple commits to show your progress and thought process.

Well, the nice thing about git is that you can just remove the repo from
GitHub and then push it back later. I would definitely recommend removing
things like tutorials. I personally would rather see your school work than
tutorials. Referring to
([https://github.com/woguan/FlappySwift/commits/master](https://github.com/woguan/FlappySwift/commits/master))

For CalendarData, it might be better to add a README and add some context to
it. Better yet, it's probably better to just hide it altogether since I
interpreted the repo as you learning how to use JSON 6 months ago. If you need
to store the JSON somewhere, one suggestion is to use gists
[https://gist.github.com/](https://gist.github.com/).

To publish private code that requires a private key, look into ENV variables.

These links might be able to help you if you don't know about ENVs already.

[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7501678/set-
environment-...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7501678/set-environment-
variables-on-mac-os-x-lion)
[https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36219597/referring-to-
en...](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/36219597/referring-to-environment-
variables-in-swift)

------
troydavis
Are you applying for a job that's conducted in English, particularly in a
country where English is the native language? Your HN question is phrased
awkwardly and has more significant grammar errors than I think is typical. A
resume with similar errors could easily get disregarded before skills are even
considered.

Ignore this comment if you aren't applying in English or if the teams are in
locations where English isn't the native language.

------
collyw
I graduated in the dot com bust of 2001. It took me over a year and a half to
get something permanent. The usual excuse was "no experience" but how are you
to get experience if no one will try you out?

Two things I found that helped.

A lot of big companied have more involved interview process. Filling out forms
with a lot of questions like "give an example of when you showed leadership"
or "overcame a difficult situation" and other such BS. It took a lot longer to
fill out those forms than sending out a CV and cover letter. But it did result
in a greater chance of getting an interview. Keep a note of the answers to the
questions as once you have done a few, you can usually tweak and reuse the
answers in other application forms and it gradually becomes less and less
effort.

Second thing that really seemed to make a difference was doing some temporary
work. First was manual some testing for a company (pretty boring, but I did
create a small Access database to log issues). The second was a bit more
interesting Visual Basic work, but paid pretty much minimum wage.

Even after that it took a while, but having some experience on my CV worked a
lot better than having none. I reluctantly had to change location to where the
majority of jobs were - close to London.

Having your personal project available is good, but it is a game. Maybe look
at producing something more business oriented. Databases might seem boring,
but they pay the bills.

------
user5994461
>>> Hello, I have graduated for 3 months already. I have a B.S in Computer
Science... until now, I just got 2 interviews after sending 180 or more
applications and countless cover letters.

The only explanation is that your resume is terrible. Please make an
anonymized version and send it here for review.

That is keeping in mind that the available jobs vary a lot by location. It's
easier to find a job when living in SF or NY than anywhere else in the USA,
yet there is nowhere where it should be as bad as 2/180 interviews.

~~~
zepolen
The explanation is that a fresh graduate provides zero or even negative value
to a company initially.

~~~
lz400
Have you kept an eye on how much fresh graduates are making in SV these days?

~~~
winter_blue
Just for others reading this thread, interns (and new graduates) make around
$10,000 per month these days, in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Ref:
[http://sfist.com/2016/05/02/tech_industry_interns_making_ban...](http://sfist.com/2016/05/02/tech_industry_interns_making_bank.php)

------
vfulco
I run a Shanghai based firm creating English resumes, doing interview
coaching, and LinkedIn Profiles, amoung some other products, for both Chinese
and foreigners. Our business is RMB and USD oriented. I typically charge for a
general resume review. Send me your resume and I will give you a brief review
for free (dwgdev only) so you can DIY it better. My email is
vfulco[@]weisisheng.cn. Give me 72 hours as I have a full schedule the next
few days.

~~~
thinbeige
Nice business, out of curiosity:

\- How much do you usually take per review?

\- How do you generate leads? Which platforms do you use?

\- Do client recommend you to other clients?

~~~
vfulco
There is a really strange anomaly in mainland China whereas the economy is
still in a state of transition. Young people see the "value" in consumer
products of all kinds but not so much investing in services that will improve
their lives except for foreign language lessons and maybe standardized test
training. As an aside, about 90% of my clients are women. They seem to be much
more understanding that resume creation is not their strong suit so why not
hire a professional and have a document which can be used in any HR dept in
the world in 3 days? Young men, on the other hand, seem to want to DIY theirs,
even after I point out gross errors I am sure they do not know how to fix
themselves.

I usually charge the equivalent of $30 for a review and discount the full
service by the same amount if they hire me for a rewrite. About 95% of the
English resumes I see in-country are awful.

My leads have been through domestic e-commerce sites, referrals and
infrequently a number of the mentoring/coaching/advice Q&A sites I answer
questions on. I also do academic advisory services (school picking for
undergrad, graduate and PhD programs) and applications preparation. Social
media, like Wechat and Weibo, have been a complete bust with a lot of wasted
promotional RMB spent, no matter how high the claimed MAU numbers in the
aggregate continue to climb. While I am not 100% knowledgeable about what
drives the mind of the young Chinese consumer, when I pay for promoted posts
and within 5 seconds, get 250 page views, I know the bots rule this part of
the world. No business has come through these channels no matter how I tweak
the sales pitch; I have tried dark, inspirational, humourous, surveys,
contests, promotions (buy a resume, get 1 hour of interview coaching), etc.

I am very lucky since word of mouth is one of the biggest business drivers,
due to the high prevalence of fraudulent and generally poser businesses, so I
get one to a handful of referrals per client and have an attractive referral
fee program. Thanks.

~~~
vfulco
I should mention while the review fee seems high, it filters for only those
willing to pay for a high quality service. I have tried free review and lower
priced review with either no conversions occurring or prospects wanting me to
move the moon and stars with no additional follow-on business. There is no
such thing as provide a free service leading to real biz generation here.
There is get as much as possible for free.

------
seanwilson
I didn't look much at the code but for what it's worth your project looks
really cool. The screenshots/gifs and readme made a really good first
impression. Having the motivation to pursue side projects and actually
finishing them is a massive plus for me.

------
thinbeige
iOS developers do not face a huge demand like they have seen years ago. Still
you should be able to get more than two interviews.

\- With which other languages, frameworks and platforms do you have
experience?

\- Are you willing to relocate?

\- Are you citizen of an EU country?

Without knowing too mucch about you: Look that you offer more than just iOS.
If it's just iOS you need to put your app to the app store and it ahould be
really polished and get some ratings. Now, your app looks ok but it still has
aome room for improvement.

If still nothing works out, try some freelancer gigs and maybe you find a
long-term client. Being a freelancer is a lot of hassle in the beginning but
once you have some reputation earned as a freelancer you nake more money than
being employed.

EDIT: I looked again at your game. I think this is a huge project and can take
months. Rather build a small typical iOS indie game. The ones with reduced
visuals and sounds focussing on just one core game mechanics. Something where
you can build the core of the game in one day. Polish it, make a start screen
and put it to the app store as said. A work-in-progress on Girhub with many
todos isn't attracting anyone. A very simple game you can finish in 1-2 weeks.
Or: build not a game but instead an app, I could imagine that game dev iOS
jobs are lower paid.

~~~
morbidhawk
> iOS developers do not face a huge demand like they have seen years ago

This is an apt observation. The number of jobs are seriously lacking for
Objc/Swift, I was lucky to do an internship in iOS but could never get into
another interview after that for the bleak number of iOS jobs available that I
applied to. I transitioned into .Net web development and I have been given a
lot more opportunities since.

Also, Apple also has a way of creating a walled-garden for their developers.
Some of the best practices back when I was an iOS dev involved Apple-specific
technologies like AutoLayout constraints and CoreData which doesn't give as
many marketable skills if applying to non-iOS jobs.

~~~
thinbeige
Interesting insight, I haven't expected that the iOS market is that down
already. I hear from app developing companies that the entire app market on
iOS is kind of stagnating.

------
a-saleh
The complain of your interviewees about `no professional experience` hits
home. Try to look at your past experience and list anything that would
translate as professional experience.

In my case, having a root account on a few public-facing web servers
translated to "Linux sysadmin, 3y experience", helping out a classmate with
his freelancing project "C++ and Qt framework, 1y experience", e.t.c.

Second, if you want to continue in your studies, you should be able to get a
paid internship in some local corporation. It is then easier to transition to
full employment with one leg in the door already. That is how I got to company
I work for now :)

Or you might go even further into academia, i.e. if you enjoyed writing your
thesis, your advisor might help you with a teaching-assistant job, or a
faculty sysadmin job and some universities even have their own developer
departments (mine had one developing their university information system). Or
maybe even a research fellowship.

And last, ask your classmates.

Some of them might be freelancing, and you might be able to get client/work
from them (i.e. a friend of mine had a a mobile-app shop, and once he needed
to finish one more app in the pipeline he had people for, and thats how I paid
for half of my wedding :-)

Some of them might already be working, and if they remember you as a guy they
would like to work with, you might be able to get a round or two of interviews
head-start :-)

Ok, I think I might start with my friends/classmates first :-) That is how I
got to the "Linux sysadmin, 3y experience" anyway :)

Good luck!

~~~
dwgdev
Hi,

Since you have mentioned freelance, I do actually have an account at Upwork.
But I did not complete my full application yet. I just keep thinking, I do not
have an actual job, and I have not delivered a project. Summing up these two
issues, how possibly people would "believe" me? There are so many high
profiles in there.. what are the chances I might be asked to do a job? I am
considering to be a freelancer after I get an actual jobs, and have a couple
years of experience to proof I can do it.

~~~
a-saleh
In my case, freelance always was through a friend-of-a-friend. And those
freelance jobs were nothing major.

For example, looking at your example project, thing that I did as a work for
hire seemed to have been simpler.

There was an existing android app showing on 3 screens weather in Dubai or
Abudabi (I don't really remember anymore) and I were to write the IOS port.

The reason why the guy chose me, even though I neither had an actual job, nor
delivered a project was that he knew me personally for a really long time :-)

So, if I were in your shoes, I would literally be emailing classmates I liked
working on projects during school and asking them for work, because that is
what I did and it worked out well for me :-)

------
charlesdm
Are you sending customised cover letters etc to those employers? Generally,
you don't want to be sending the same thing to 180+ companies, and you want to
make sure you actually know the company you're applying at.

Also, depending on the company and its size, you might want to reach out
directly to engineering manager X at company Y, instead of sending it into the
pit of despair that is HR.

~~~
thinbeige
> you don't want to be sending the same thing to 180+ companies

Would disagree. If one has a good generic cover letter plus CV and a very good
and wanted profile this would work.

Why? Because it's a number game and better send many standard applications
than few individual ones. Leas work and better result.

~~~
gk1
Well it's clearly not working in this case. Having hired people before,
boilerplate cover letters tell me that the applicant couldn't be bothered to
take 10 minutes to customize the cover letter.

Also, if you advocate for playing the numbers game then you can't complain
about recruiters doing the same.

~~~
thinbeige
> Well it's clearly not working in this case

So, maybe his CV is just not good or has some huge mistake and it's not about
personalized cover letters?

However, in the high demand market of software engineers an individual
application is the not the key of getting a job. Not at all. It's your profile
(is is good? does it fit?) AND that you applied at all. Just guess why devs
get dozen of headhunter calls per week without writing a single cover
letter...

~~~
sotojuan
Because they are experienced. For a fresh grad, the job market _is_ tough.
Very tough in some cases.

OP is actually above average by having an actual side project. He just needs
help with his resume or application.

~~~
thinbeige
> For a fresh grad, the job market is tough

Good point, I agree

------
ccrush
Dice.com

Post your resume on there. Be blunt and honest with the information. You have
4 years of academic experience. You probably can qualify 1.5 to 2 years of
that as programming. You probably did 2 semesters of Java, C#, or C++. You
probably did a semester of assembly language and another of some web
development. Did you do a class on databases and SQL? Put some stuff on there.
As soon as you hear back from recruiters, start telling them who you are and
what you're looking for. They are not hiring you, so don't try to impress
them. They are selling you to a company for a small payout. You are their
product. Tell them you're fresh out of school and have an open source hobby
project and you are looking for work. Save their contact information and bug
them weekly until they get you a job. Do this with all of them. Don't tell
them you've been searching for 3 months. Their job is to get you a job.

------
deepaksurti
The fact that you have shipped a game, should make it relatively easy to find
a job, as shipping a game end to end is really praise worthy. However, note
that I am not sure if the jobs you have applied to value this. And definitely
as others have pointed out, your representation package (resume, cover letter,
comm skills) need an upgrade.

Here are some very specific action points for your project though:

1\. Please move all your TO-DOs etc to Issues page, your README must talk
about your game, any relevant documentation, installation steps, contribution
process etc.

2\. Comment your code exhaustively.

3\. Add design documentation, which describes in detail your game design, host
it on readthedocs and link it to your README. That is one way to clearly
highlight both your communication and design skills.

4\. I am not sure if you have shipped to iOS store, if not ship it. If you
have already done so, apologies for my oversight.

5\. Have a separate github.io website just as your game's home page, with
download buttons for the app store. Have a reverse link to your GH repo as
well on that page.

Now take the above and add a cover letter which describes your motivation to
make the game, the fact that you shipped it and what you can contribute to as
a developer through this experience; but don't be verbose. Be specific in
terms of contributions you can make, that will need you to study the company
and the job you are applying to and it will reflect in the cover letter.

I would strongly recommend you apply to game studios where your skills will be
relevant. I am not sure if those TO-DO list and other bakery maker nonsense
app makers are anyways going to value your skill, the ROI is too low to even
bother.

Please check the past 6 month HN Who's hiring threads, for job postings from
game studios or something relevant. Ex: Many times there are positions like
asset pipeline developers where someone who has shipped a game end to end is a
great fit.

I think you need to course correct, else you will keep seeing the same
results. Wish you the best.

~~~
dwgdev
Hi deepaksurti,

1) I am thinking to create a web/blog to put those in. I thought that it might
interested people to know what are the new features I am working on or will be
working on. Beside the To-Dos, I do not know what else I can talk about the
project

3) This is a good idea. Like I mentioned in (1), I will see if I can make a
good looking blog and put the link on README

4) I did, but I am not so proud of the product. It has over hundred downloads,
but I lack graphic skills. [https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dodger-
me/id1069760106?mt=8](https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dodger-
me/id1069760106?mt=8)

------
reboog711
I didn't see anyone say it yet; so I would recommend looking for local user
groups / networking events. The personal connection can help a long way to
getting an interview.

Go to everything you can find that is related to programming / application
development /web development, even if it isn't in a technology or topic you
know or care about.

~~~
dwgdev
Thank you! I think one of my biggest issue is that I am not very socially
active.

------
alkonaut
Don't send hundreds if applications. Find jobs you want and positions where
you are a good fit (know relevant Lang platform at least from school or hobby
project etc). If a position asks for an experienced person - don't bother
applying! Send a small number of very good applications.

A junior position at a mobile games place should definitely be a good fit if
you can show a portfolio of such personal projects.

Find people to review your resume and letter. Pay for that service if you
can't find friends or people e.g here on HN. Make sure to find people in your
own job market to do this - so if you are looking for work in Germany then
find Germans to ask for help. What's expected in an application is very
regional.

Go to meetups and talk to people.

Finally, when you are rejected after an interview, ask someone for feedback on
your application and interview. Ask them to be open about what you could
improve. It could be something trivial like spelling.

~~~
dwgdev
Hi,

I used to send 1~2 application each week between the time when I was still a
student and couple weeks after my graduation. But as times goes by, I started
to increase the rate.

~~~
alkonaut
As others have pointed out, something doesn't seem right.

There is a red flag in your application and you need to find it.

Are you 50+ years old? A non-citizen (visa required etc)? Degree is from a
foreign school?

If no to all of the above then you should be fine as soon as you had a few
people review your resume.

If you answered yes to any of the above then the situation may be different.

Edit: ok I checked your profile - you are based in Dublin, and you are not 50
years old... Given your Chinese(?) background, do you have any problems
working in Dublin (visas etc) that might scare an employer? Are you a citizen
so you are free to find work anywhere in the EU? Would you want to move?

~~~
dwgdev
I'm not foreign citizen. I just added my citizen status on my resume.

------
MechEStudent
1) when there is a position description it takes ~5 person-hours to make.
Spend at least 1 person-hour to make your cover letter and resume for it as a
sign of respect to folks who made the position description. Those keywords are
important. If you don't have enough then your resume doesn't get past the
computer. It is how you can know if you should apply.

2) you need a phone number to go with the submit. Call and confirm that your
stuff was received in good order. Ask if there were any questions. This means
you have to find real openings with real companies, not just fight the
computers. Talk to a human being.

3) you need to put in 20 resume's a week. That makes it a part-time job. You
should call-back a week after you submitted to learn about the status of the
application. If you were excluded for some reason, find it out. If they didn't
like the cologne or paper type then you can buy a different quality of resume
paper or wear an unscented cologne. That is a "cheap price of entry" for your
next interview going better.

4)you really might go strong on learning how to make a great resume. criteria
change over time. What was amazing a decade ago is not very great now. Most
colleges have departments that are built around enabling you here.

5) look for jobs via networking, not just monster.com. I strongly recommend
stack-overflow careers. They are an excellent resource.

6) make a strong linked-in profile. Make it complete. Get recommendations from
professors you worked for, or team-mates you worked with. It is a resume as
well. Make sure you hit the "I am looking for a job" switch in your settings
that will have recruiters calling you.

7) review your other social media for unprofessional content. Facebook or
myspace could be messing you up. What does one find when they google your
name? Is there someone with the same name who is ... the professional
equivalent of a pile of poo? Then you need to include your middle initial or
give yourself a clear differentiator.

~~~
dwgdev
I am taking a short break to learn my mistakes. And your post is very
interesting.

1) I have never spent over an hour writing a cover letter. I think the longest
is 30 minutes, and in average I would say 10 minutes (Not including the time I
spent looking their website)

2) I do include my phone number in both resume and cover letter. I have double
checked it as well.

3) Yes, I need to work on this. I am quite inconsistent, some weeks I send
only 5 where as others I send over 20.

4) I will definitely work on this

6) I have recently working on my LinkedIn profile to make it more
professional.

Thank you for your advices.

------
richardknop
Where are you based? If you are in some small city, expand your search to
other areas. Send CV to companies based in large cities. As iOS dev you should
be able to find a job pretty easily as there aren't enough mobile developers.

Edit: According to your github profile you are based in Dublin. So that's very
strange you should easily get dozen interviews in 3 months.

Here are some iOS jobs in Dublin:
[https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?sort=i&q=ios&l=Dublin%2C+Irel...](https://stackoverflow.com/jobs?sort=i&q=ios&l=Dublin%2C+Ireland&d=20&u=Miles)

Edit 2: Are you a EU citizen? This matters because if you don't need a visa
then finding work in Europe is very easy for software engineers. If you need
visa sponsorship then that might be more complicated!

------
morbidhawk
> I feel like I must find a work not related to computer science

I'm not sure if you've already tried this, but in addition to applying to jobs
related to your side project I suggest applying to other jobs that have a lot
more jobs available. My guess would be the number of jobs for mobile game dev
might be limited and competitive and that would make it difficult when
applying as a recent graduate. Web technologies whether for front-end or
backend development are greatly in demand and are worth considering.

~~~
dwgdev
Initially, I was just applying for mobile developer positions. But, since it
did not work quite well, I have started applying to many other area

------
HenryBemis
>> Owner of Alibaba ..... I am getting close to him?

Hold your horses :) I do wish the best of luck to you, but sometimes we have
to "prove to the world" that we deserve X-Y-Z and then we get "lucky" but
having people believe in us.

Now, if you are going for jobs that require 5+ years of XP, then tough luck.
If you are going for internships, well then again you have to compete with
plenty of people. Either way, you need to get strong at something, and then
conquer people's minds!

good luck and don't give up!

------
CCing
I saw that you're from dublin but you looks asian. Sorry for the question, but
is important for understand better your situation:

You're a eu citizen or you're on visa ? because could be that companies can't
afford the visa cost(money and time)

You can legally search for a job in all europe ? if yes, send cv to companies
in berlin, london, amsterdam too. Have you tried to send the cv the Kings or
rovio ?

Maybe you should learn nodejs/react and try to get a job in different eu
countries.

------
kevinsimper
What does your applications and cover letters look like? My best advise would
be to go to some meetups and meet the companies that hire, this often give you
a direct entry into the company that you would not get with a cover letter.

You are very welcome to send me it and I can give it a look:
kevin.simper@gmail.com

~~~
dwgdev
Many people told me to go to meetups. I know I must do this, but what pushes
me back is that I have lack of social skills. I am trying to overcome this and
I am planning to join an iOS group that I just found online.

I will send you my resume. Thank you!

------
dwgdev
Hello everyone,

I want to first thank you all for your useful information, and the time to
tell me steps to improve.

I did not expect to receive that many comments. I have read all of them
already, and I will answer to some of the comments. Please, do not feel your
comment is not helpful if I do not reply to it.

Thank you all again.

------
stephen82
I have just checked your project. It looks really cool mate, well done!

Keep on working on it, improve its performance whenever is necessary, and
start documenting it via blog posts.

This way you will start gaining traffic to your blog and sooner than you think
you will attract some recruiters.

------
leke
Nice game demo. If you are having trouble finding a job with work of that
quality, then I've got no chance, lol. Good luck, I'm sure that's all you are
lacking right now. I'm going to send you good vibes right now.

------
paktek123
Applying to the right places is also key, many job boards simply post up fake
jobs for their numbers. Stackoverflow and university job boards are normally
legit places to start from. Don't even get me started on graduate schemes.

------
jnardiello
Very very very strange. CS is exploding and everyone is hiring. Where are you
based? Can you be more specific on what you would like to do? We are hiring -
interns/junior too :)

~~~
stephen82
It would be better to say "many are hiring" in place of everyone.

I'm a Computer Science myself with professional experience in IT since 2004
and I'm unemployed for 2 years now and I cannot get passed a decent interview
without being labeled as "overqualified".

Right now I'm in the process to change path for good and become Security Guard
because I have no other choice.

Technology works for countries like US, China, and such big industries, but
not for tiny islands like my country I'm afraid.

My suggestion to original OP would be to find any job for now to make a living
if he or she has no other financial support from family and work on his / her
side projects until they gain momentum they deserve.

~~~
federicoponzi
What about a remote job position? What kind of job are you looking for?

~~~
alfl23
Considering the average level of engineering in the Western world, if you are
as good as you're implying you'll have no trouble securing a remote job with a
million companies in the Valley. If this feels like a fairly trivial/standard
problem: [http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/remove-nodes-root-leaf-paths-
le...](http://www.geeksforgeeks.org/remove-nodes-root-leaf-paths-length-k/),
you'd be well above a lot of engineers.

~~~
stephen82
I know many scientists that suffer the same way as I am.

No matter how good you are with education and research, when you are an
introvert and you have to go for an interview but cannot express yourself
clearly under stressful circumstances, like the case of being interviewed by
CTO, CFO (don't ask me why, he was present with a special interest in knowing
me in person for some reason?!), and the head of HR at the same time...then
you can get an idea why I cannot make it anymore.

It wasn't like that before. In the past, you had the opportunity to go for an
interview and you would have a normal chat with the HR or the Project Manager
that would make you feel like talking to a closed friend of yours and you
would exchange valuable information with this person and before you know it,
through this interview you would realize how much you know and help you
appreciate yourself even more.

Nowadays it feels like going through a drive-thru to buy junk food that feels
so emotionless...they don't care about you, because they say "I can find
millions like you" and they literally mean it!

Think about it, we are in EU and they announce they have opened some
interesting positions with attractive salaries and benefits, and without
noticing it many EU citizens sent their resumes for that position.

So, you stand no chance next to those people who have already acquired
professional experience around this niche.

I don't feel it's worth it anymore, seriously.

------
ceautery
You could also finish your game and get it into the app store. I'd pay a few
bucks for that, and judging by some comments here, other HN-ers would as well.

------
gernest
I will share my story with you. Hopeful it will inspire you to keep trying and
never give up.

So, I graduated in 2013 with BCom in Finance. I'm short sighted( chronic one,
have been like this for more than 10 years), I have hearing impairment and to
top it up I wasn't that good with my grades either so poor GPA.

For context, I had to pay TSH 10000 for someone to open an email for me so I
can apply for college loan, meaning I never had any kind of access to
computers until I was in college.

Fast forward, I graduated. The only valuable thing I had is a Laptop my sister
bought for me since I couldn't attend lectures( can't see , can't hear and no
one cares anyways) and I have to give myself the an education and needed to
survive 3 years. This opened doors to the world of the World Wide Web, I read
Wikipedia, mastered the art of googling and all those tricks to get the right
information.

So, back home after college. There was no way for me to get a job, because.

* I can't last past the first screening , I had issues with communication

* I sucked at finance. I self educated myself so I was picky on what to learn, the jobs on the other hand were looking for people who had high grades and balanced accounts in their heads( pun intended)

It was me and my laptop, I gave up the prospect of being employed. I was too
depressed to leave my room. So, I started programming to kill time and keep at
bay the thought of suicide.

I started with PHP after playing for it for a while I wasn't that impressed I
moved to Python, then Ruby then Erlang. Along the way I was learning and
experimenting with all kinds of technologies I can grab for free on the
internet be it CSS, HTML, Sass, etc.

Back then there was chronic power outages, so blackout were daily.

My routine was

* Leave the lights on, * Wake up when the lights are on( the power is back), and start coding. * Sleep when the power goes off ( blackout ) * Repeat the above steps for days in days out

I was earning 0, I decided to look for programming gig, I was depressed even
more. there are only PHP shops here, in one occasion the lead engineer of one
shop told me python was not a programming language.

When all hopes were lost, I came across this language called Go( Golang ). The
way I was productive in it inspired me to think about building my own apps one
day. So, I started sharing my projects on github. I was writing thousands of
lines of Go like crazy. Just chasing the dead dreams. I can't remember how
many unfinished ideas there was.

It was't until 2015 I decided to sum up my Go experinece into a little project
I called utron. Utron was MVC framework for Go, which I hand rolled and loved,
It caught attention of redditors and landed here on HN.

I landed my first gig november the same year. I moved to my own place and I
have been independent ever since.

SUMMARY: Time is generous to all of us, keep doing what you feel is the right
thing to do.

CONTEXT: I still program in Go, I'm probably the only professional Go
programmer in my country (Tanzania) according to Github, folks here have no
idea what I'm up to but that never stopped me from believing.

~~~
dwgdev
Thank you for sharing your awesome story

------
crispytx
Welcome to the real world :)

------
kapauldo
Please apply to our job posting
[https://buffalo.craigslist.org/eng/6186221427.html](https://buffalo.craigslist.org/eng/6186221427.html)

------
AngelCruz
Please compare your Github portfolio to someone who is employed in the field
which you are trying to enter.

