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Ask HN: What to do if your CV is too bad to get an interview?
1 point by throwawaycv on Sept 13, 2018 | hide | past | favorite | 2 comments
Hi HN,

I'm in my mid-thirties, and my CV basically contains only two items (plus four foreign languages at different levels): a bachelor degree in CS and a two-year programming job (from which I got fired). The rest of the time I struggled with (mental) health issues (depression, anxiety, injuries from a suicide attempt).

That's not much, considering my age. And it seems to be not attractive to potential employers, because so far I was unable to get invited to any interview. I guess the long period of health issues/unemployment is a big red flag. And there is also the issue of not being up-to-date with current languages/tools/practices, though I don't know how much that matters for entry-level jobs.

I'm not sure what I could do to improve the odds to pass this first hurdle. While I can work on the outdatedness to some degree, I cannot change the past. And of course, the second hurdle, the interview, still awaits. Probably with low odds, too, due to being a listener/observer and not a talker (for the first job I had to interview at more than twenty companies before getting an offer, though getting the interviews was not much of a problem back then).

Any ideas, thoughts? Thanks in advance.




Try contracting; set up as a limited company and offer your services through that.


Work on your side projects.

Go out to hiring events and network.




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