About 9 months before I graduated I crossed paths with a guy who'd started his own software business. He said "look me up when you graduate."
I knocked on his door a couple weeks before my last exam, and told him I was ready to start.
Unknown to me, he was overloaded, working 220 hours z month, and his wife was telling him to hire someone.
I wrote my last exam on the Wednesday, started work on Monday. That was 31 years ago last month.
Sometimes it's just right place at the right time. But I did make the effort to go to his office and knock on the door. Getting the first job can be hard, but showing people you're prepared to put some effort in, is always a good start.
My dad worked for this computer company. I applied there. I got an interview. The hiring manager said, "I don't see a lot of computer classes on your transcript." I said, "No, I have a math degree; I'm basically self-taught with respect to computers." And I figured, that's it, so much for my chances at this job.
Turns out the hiring manager had a master's degree in math, and was self-taught about computers, so she couldn't hold that against me. And she hired me.
If you're in college as a CS major, look for a summer internship. Some companies are looking for people between junior and senior year, although some will take earlier. If they like you, you may get a job offer. Find out when they want you to accept an offer by, and see if you can line up other offers at that time.
If you're not in college it is tougher. Large companies usually cycle in junior people via those college internships. You can join a consulting company, as big companies are only committing for you to be onsite for three months or so, so are more willing to let you work for them via consultancies.
Small, pre-series-A companies don't have the money to hire senior people like big companies or VC-funded companies. So you may have a better shot there. You can look at angel.co which has some openings for different companies.
My first summer job was doing manual labor in a _tiny_ CNC / small scale manufacturing shop in some guy's garage. It was hard work but I learned a lot and ended up contributing beyond what was expected (e.g. adjusting g-code to account for the age of the machines we were using). My boss was extremely happy with my work and wrote a glowing recommendation.
That recommendation resonated with the next small business owner I applied to and he gave me (a freshman Math major with one programming class) a chance at a web development internship (which led to the series of progressively better jobs I've had in the last decade -- now Senior Dev at a Fintech startup).
Not sure I'd recommend the exact path, but I think core lesson is: convince someone to give you a chance (no matter how small) and then make them very happy that they did.
Another lesson is that recommendations can be very powerful, yet they are severely underutilized from what I've observed. Just take a chance and ask, most people don't mind and the few rejections are never too painful.
I cold emailed a company in NYC and asked for an unpaid internship before college. I had just seen a documentary called Aardvark'd, and was intrigued. The company obliged.
I had a productive and great time that summer, and then returned to that company four years later... after getting a degree in spanish literature :s.
Cold applied to the one company in Warsaw that didn’t ask for anything more than PHP + MySQL. Since that’s all you really need (as I am now convinced, 14 years later). I had no experience, degree, or anything. One interview question was „so you want to escape from your village?”.
I’ll reply with my second job as I really consider it my first. It came 9 months after I graduated from school. Didn’t have people lined up to hire me!
There was a time (2005 when Monster.com helped with finding roles and making connections. A recruiter from an insurance catastrophe modeling vendor contacted me about a role as a data cruncher for their home replacement cost (for insurance) estimation product.
My practical data experience was all self-taught. Taught myself PHP/HTML/SQL in high school to make websites for my touring bands and ended up landing a job working heavily with SQL that changed my career trajectory in the best way possible.
Fun fact: it was my first and only job ever sourced through a pure random contact / job board. Every role since has been connections, referrals, etc
My brother referred me to a summer internship. After that, 1 or 2 years later I joined a "students work" company who placed me at a web development agency, and I worked there part time during my studies for more than a year. Tried to do some of my own projects after that for 2 years, continuing my studies (I was a bad student, it took a long time for me to fail out of university).
Moved to the UK and submitted a lot of CVs, did the take home test, and one hired me as a web developer. This is what I'd consider my first real job. It was a nice job with nice people.
My mom forwarded me an ad from our neighborhood listserve while I was in college. A couple middle aged guys wanted to build an app, and were looking for someone young to mentor. The app didn’t end up going anywhere, but I learned a ton, and found out from my first job that offices are pointless.
For my first “real” job, I got it indirectly thanks to winning a hackathon. A teammate got a job from that and then he hooked me up when I graduated.
I’d definitely recommend hackathons for networking. I think they are dumb as an actual exercise, but you can meet a lot of interesting people and show off to them.
I knew a couple friends who worked at a startup. I was career changing at the time, and the company happened to have need of people to do very entry-level programming tasks. I had them put in a good word for me and got to interview for an internship. Got hired, and then brought on full time at the end of my internship period.
Lots of great stories of people really hustling and making their own opportunities here, but really mine just came down to the network I built in college.
I called someone I knew from college and asked if they were hiring. I think I interviewed the next day and started a week later. Turned out I had gone to college with the rest of the team too but only vaguely knew one of them and another's husband.
Second job, the same guy had moved on and let me know they were hiring. I'd already had lunch with him and his boss a couple of times so the interview was a formality.
I applied to various jobs on my school's job board. It was during the great recession so employers were super picky. I took a job at an unglamorous government consulting firm as a warm body and jump ship the moment i was no longer considered a recent grad to actually start my career. A solid way to earn some paychecks even if I didn't actually learn anything or even make any good connections.
Applied for 30+ jobs available in countrywide job listings. less than 10 wrote back. in my 3rd interview i got my current job. One had no idea what they want to hire, one i failed the interview and the last i had an interview over the web (pre corona) where i had an good offer for an first job. It took 4 months.
Every good job I've ever got was a result of someone who already worked there recommending me. Every terrible job I've ever had was the result of applying for open positions.
My first job was through a friend. A network of people who work in your field and who like working with you is invaluable.
I applied to 100-150. I only got a follow-up from maybe 5, I got 1 offer, declined it as it was in the wrong location and not exactly what I wanted to do, then later got an offer I accepted. This was 5 years ago
I subscribed to some freelance websites as a 17 year old. Registered with my mom's credit card. I received 300$ for a wordpress job and 11 years later we're here.
I was hired for my first job through my internship. It wasn’t at the company I interned at but from my contacts there. It is worth asking your network, especially for your first job.
I will make the assumption that you mean "First professional offer" -
I took a coop position with a big telecom company. After 6 months they offered me a full time job when I graduated. I happened to have the foresight to do this just before the telecom/internet boom of the late 90's. If I actually had a clue my personal assistant would be doing the first draft of this post for me to review :)
I knocked on his door a couple weeks before my last exam, and told him I was ready to start.
Unknown to me, he was overloaded, working 220 hours z month, and his wife was telling him to hire someone.
I wrote my last exam on the Wednesday, started work on Monday. That was 31 years ago last month.
Sometimes it's just right place at the right time. But I did make the effort to go to his office and knock on the door. Getting the first job can be hard, but showing people you're prepared to put some effort in, is always a good start.