
Ask HN: Has anyone ever been a “shadow employee”? - freework
Every time I have to find work it is an absolute slog. I send resume after resume, do phone interview after phone interview. Each time I get hired, I do everything in my power to keep the job. I try to make friends with everyone at the company, even the people that I would loathe otherwise.<p>Once I&#x27;m hired, I have no problems. 100% of the technical challenges I&#x27;ve been tasked with solving I&#x27;ve been able to solve. I have never been stumped by a technical challenge.<p>Yet no one will hire me. It&#x27;d be one thing if I can&#x27;t code, but I can. I can do mentoring if thats what a company wants me to do. If the company wants me to just write code I can do that too.<p>No one will give me a change. I&#x27;ve been programming for 20 years, and professionally since 2008.<p>Is it possible that even though <i>I</i> think of myself as a productive programmer, that I&#x27;m actually not? Is it possible that these companies that have me do phone interviews actually know more about my programming abilities that I do?<p>Is there anyone else in the same situation as me? Is there anyone who has a programming job but can&#x27;t keep up want to hire me as a &quot;shadow employee&quot; that does all the work for you while I get a salary that draws from your salary. Has anyone else ever been part of such an arrangement?
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PhilWright
It could be one of several issues...

1) Your terrible at the recruitment process and do not give a good and fair
account of yourself, making it hard to get past the recruitment and into the
actual job.

2) You suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. You think you are great but
everyone else realizes you are way below average.

3) You are applying for jobs that are not a good fit for you and so not
getting anymore. Are you a tech lead that is applying for routine programmer
jobs or vice versa.

4) You did not mention your age and so it could be you are coming up against
age discrimination. If you are 40 then people expect you to be applying for
team leader or higher level jobs and not standard programmer jobs.

I would say that if you are not currently working then your full time job is
getting a job. You can do an awful lot in 38 hours of time when looking for
work. Customize the covering letter for each position you apply for. Have
several different versions of your CV, each one targeting a type of position
you want to apply for. Research a list of software companies in your city and
then find out the software development manager at each company (not the HR
person!). Then reach out to them. Spend time working on a project that would
show off your skills and put it up on GitHub. Try putting an ad in your local
newspaper offering to work on custom software projects for small businesses.

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ccajas
I have a similar problem, so you're not alone. I've been in the game
professionally since late 2007. But those 10 years to now are only calendar
years. In reality, my experience is closer to 7 years, because I have
unemployment gaps in between, and every job hunt is longer than the last.

I am also STILL carpet bombing resumes, but I also know this doesn't feel
right. It may be okay for looking for your first job but I know that it's bad
to rely mainly on this brute-force job application strategy if you've already
worked at past jobs. You are expected to have built a professional network
that will enable you to find jobs more easily.

My network exists, but it's rather disappointing. With a stronger network you
would not need to blindly apply to so many companies.

So with that said, how is your network? I have been starting to build a new
one from scratch, by going to local meetups. Progress would feel slow at
first, but eventually I started seeing some of the same people from past
meetups, talk to them, and exchange contact info. They could give you an "in"
for getting priority in the hiring process.

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kk_cz
> Each time I get hired, I do everything in my power to keep the job.

> Once I'm hired, I have no problems. 100% of the technical challenges I've
> been tasked with solving I've been able to solve. I have never been stumped
> by a technical challenge.

> Yet no one will hire me.

OK, it feels like something is missing here... What was your last job and the
one before that? How long did you last on those positions? Why did you leave?

Also:

> I try to make friends with everyone at the company, even the people that I
> would loathe otherwise.

This sentence raises a red flag for me. It's hard to come off as genuinely
friendly if your actual feelings are opposite.

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PortableDave
Assuming you are a good coder then you must lack skills in the job hunting
game.

I am the same, my solution to this was to seek out people who will write my
resume (with my assistance) and give me advice on the "recruitment game" (this
is paid of course). I think quite often for a technical person our mindset is
so far removed from people involved in recruiting and hiring.

If you aren't good at that bit, I think its best sometimes to admit defeat and
get some outside help.

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JSeymourATL
May I suggest you are asking the wrong question. Shaddow employment will not
solve your problem.

Instead ask "How to sell yourself for a job"-- incidentally, this yeilds tons
of results on Google. Grant Cardone comes up, while his delivery can be a bit
huckstery, still good food-for-thought >
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PFYZde5SPk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PFYZde5SPk)


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byoung2
What languages do you know?

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wayn3
what kind of salary would you be happy with?

