

Ask HN: Advice After A Year Struggling to Land an Entry-Level Job - ask5353

Since graduating with my BS in EE, and despite a solid resume with multiple F100 internships, I&#x27;ve had little luck in drawing interest from employers. Hundreds and hundreds of submissions and emails to recruiters, ~10 interviews netted, and no luck landing an offer.<p>I&#x27;ve targeted (entry-level) and have immense interest in product, marketing, and operational roles at tech companies and startups. I know I have the skill set and passion to be able to contribute and grow in such roles, but again, little luck drawing interest.<p>After having so much time pass unemployed, I&#x27;m not sure how to proceed, since the spray-and-pray thing clearly hasn&#x27;t been working out so well. Any thoughts or advice would certainly mean a lot to me.
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EllaMentry
You have a degree in EE and are failing to find a job....where are you
looking?

Seriously, the job market for skilled workers at the moment is booming (Maths,
Physics, Chemistry, EE, CompSci), most of the companies I have come in contact
with are gasping for talent - this leads me to believe you are doing one of
the following things:

\- Limiting your search space - Are you limiting yourself to a city? state?
country? Most companies are hiring all over the place and attempting to
concentrate certain talents in certain places.

\- Not tailoring your resume to the job. (see point 4)

\- Not being prepared for the interview...are you researching the company
before hand? Do you want to work for the company? Are you getting the point
across?

\- Applying for jobs which you want to do but don't have the background for -
You have an EE degree but say you are interested in Marketing...these are very
different skillsets.. it might be better to get a more focused tech job, then
attempts an internal transfer after a year, while also building up your
portfolio for the other area

Best of luck on the search.

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chadkruse
Not sure if I have any advice per se, but here's a quick hack that worked for
me when I first got out of school:

1) Find a few companies you WANT to work at (legitimately). 2) If they have
openings in your realm, send a quick email to the senior-most person in that
group (e.g. SVP Hardware if you want an embedded software job). Just introduce
yourself, say you applied via the standard HR process, but wanted to say how
psyched you are to possibly work there. Three lines max. 3) What happened is
the senior person forwarded my email to the hiring manager, and I instantly
went from just-another-resume to "hey, Johnny SVP thinks I should look into
this kid". This is how I landed jobs 2-4 out of school.

PS - you'll feel dirty. That's OK...just be concise.

~~~
relaunched
You shouldn't feel dirty. From the inside, when you see how far removed HR is
from the actual hiring manager, you'll be shocked with how the process
actually works.

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rahilsondhi
This doesn't sound right. You have good credentials. You should be able to get
a job.

1\. Are the companies looking at your transcript? If so, are your marks
acceptable?

2\. Are you targeting the right jobs?

3\. How far are you able to get through the HR process? Do you get interview
requests? Do you pass the first interview with HR that usually just measures
culture? Do you pass technical interviews?

4\. For companies that you've had some sort of convo with, have you asked them
for constructive feedback? I've done that successfully many times

5\. Make sure your GitHub project clearly demonstrates your programming
skills. If you don't have any open sourced projects on your account, that's a
serious disadvantage. I had a few private repos that I recently open sourced,
I said "ah what the heck, why do I need to keep this code private?" and it's
really helped my job search process. Employers don't feel the need to test me
so much in technical interviews because they've seen a lot of my code on
GitHub.

6\. Spray and pray is just one tactic. There are many others. Use LinkedIn and
request to connect with people who work at your desired companies. You
absolutely must write a personal message <300 chars and sell yourself. Or
google those people at your dream companies, find their email address, email
them, sell yourself, ask for a convo. Some will respond and have a convo with
you or they'll connect you to HR. This got me some great opportunities.

7\. You should be working your network. Go through your LinkedIn contact list,
use your discretion on who to message, send a short note that you're looking
for X role in Y type of company. People will help! Again, this has worked for
me.

Find my contact info on my profile, I'm happy to help via email/skype.

------
brg
Ask your friends who were able to land jobs to refer you. The fastest and
simplest way through the hiring gamut is to network. Networking means
approaching friends, colleagues, former employers, and others. It doesn't mean
begging or lying, it means asking if they are interested in forwarding your
information onward.

If you have had 10 interviews and no offer, I think that is a sign that you
are unprepared for the interview process. I would spend some time better
preparing yourself as well. There are literally hundreds of sites that will
help you on this, as well as many books.

~~~
a3n
Continuing the theme of possibly not being prepared, try to get feedback from
some of your unsuccessful interviews. Why didn't we go to the next level, what
was I lacking in knowledge or interaction, etc.

You might also think about any interview where you really feel you were
qualified, and then ask for a do-over, another interview. I actually got a job
in this scenario. The first phone screen went terribly, to my surprise. I
called the guy up the next day and told him I'm better than how I interviewed,
and can we try it again. He later told me he hired me partly based on my
persistence, and of course my better performance on the 2nd interview.

~~~
ask5353
This I will definitely try. Thanks for the tip.

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brent_noorda
To be blunt and rude and so on: maybe you're doing something that is turning
the potential employers off. Maybe you just interview poorly and have no idea
what you're doing wrong. Maybe you forgot to look up "big O" before walking
into an interview. Maybe you smell funny. Maybe it's some reason that's
completely bogus or even illegal discrimination (too old, too young, too
black, to white, too wheelchair-bound, etc...) The thing is, potential
employers aren't going to tell you what this thing is, they might not even
know themselves or aren't going to admit it to themselves.

I wonder if there's a place for a service for practice job interviewing, where
no holds are barred, no one can be sued and cry, and we can be blunt and tell
each other why we're not being hired. An "Ask HN to interview me" thing?

------
a3n
1\. Try to focus on personal contacts.

2\. Be willing to work in positions that are not obviously in the technical
areas and paths you prefer. They could either lead to what you prefer, or they
could change what you prefer.

Optional: consider doing something completely different than whatever you've
been trying to do with a BS/EE. This to make some money, clear your head, and
get you out of a possible rut.

Disclaimer: I did not use personal contacts on my first entry level job out of
school, but most of my subsequent jobs have involved personal contacts.

------
michaelpinto
1\. Can you try temp and/or freelance work? That might at least start to build
up your resume and get you into the work force.

2\. Most people get jobs through personal connections, have you reached out to
your personal network of friends and family?

3\. It sounds to me like you're doing something wrong: Maybe it's not a bad
investment to talk to a career counselor?

~~~
ask5353
There's one thing I'm particularly concerned about:

At this point, I know I have a solid, unique background and a great skill set,
but its been several months since I graduated without a job. I have to believe
the gap alone is sending my application to the trash in most cases.

So one of the big things I'm probably doing wrong is not addressing this. But
how would I go about doing so?

~~~
sejje
I know your situation is becoming frustrating and that we're unaware of other
pressures, but I firmly believe that if an employment gap sends your resume to
the trash, you should be happy to let it stay there. I wouldn't be happy at a
place that couldn't evaluate me for my talents.

