Hacker News Reader

Comment by retbull | Hacker News Reader

I am seeing this happen to me even with a Computer Science degree. I just got out and am only making enough to pay for housing and food nothing else. I did end up in a shitty situation but I was under the impression that this wouldn't happen to me as I have a "STEM" degree.

I don't have that much debt but I can't get a job that will pay me more than 40k ish a year and Seattle is too expensive to live in for that little even with a roommate and cooking skills. This will hopefully change and my income with increase over the next few years but it is scary enough that I am regretting how I went to school. I should have worked for more than the first year even if I had to be in school for longer because of it.

View on HN

Look into using Hired.com (note: not all that apply get approval).

I used it when switching jobs and it help me land a 50% salary increase. I am not exaggerating that. It showed all the possible salaries that companies were willing to pay me before negotiation and interviews started. It helps show what you may actually be worth to employers. Obviously your milage may vary but 40k is extremely low for computer science. Now it obviously depends how good you are etc. For reference I struggled straight out of school as I did computer science minor with another computer degree as my major. However, once I landed my first job ($65K) it has been upwards every since. Best of luck and reach out if you'd like (or anyone else in a similar position).

Hey-o just signed up thanks for the advice.

If you have the skills, you're very underpaid. I made 40k straight out of college in 2000 after the dotcom crash. It was low even then. I was in central Florida. Unlike Seattle, there isn't much of a tech industry there.

I am aware but it is hard to show that if I don't have the experience for a resume. I work as an intern for a company that won't hire me but since I can't get anything else I am stuck here just indefinitely in limbo.

Gonna be blunt: either you're not very good or you're not displaying it in interviews, or you're not getting the right interviews. I find it mind blowing that you're making 40k out of school. I was making more than that in my internship in a non-high cost of living area of the country, and am making considerably more than that now.

I just threw a resume up on Dice and started getting decent to great recruiter contacts immediately. I still get hit up constantly on linkedin as well.

No interviews at all so far. I am an intern at a company that just got bought out and so they won't hire me "until they have more contracts" so they are keeping me on because they like me and want to hire me at some point. This means that it is very hard for me to get another job because I am not accruing experience in a "real" job and I am not qualified for any of the jobs I am applying for so I can't actually get real experience.

My immediate boss would love to hire me but as his boss says no I am stuck here looking.

I was actually kept in the same situation at my internship after I graduated myself. It sucks...I ended up leaving and getting a pretty significant bump in pay by just relentlessly interviewing any opportunity I got. I'll try to find the resume I used at the time and send it over to ya. I haven't had to make one in a couple of years, so...

It might be a lot more helpful to him if you contacted him privately and showed him your resume or whatever so he can see what is working for you and see if that somehow clues him what he can do differently. I am of the firm conviction that our current job acquiring culture is pretty broken. Being good at a job and being good at getting a job are distinctly different skills and you really shouldn't infer too much about his on-the-job competencies based on his lack of job hunting savvy.

In my experience this is pretty common unless your degree is from a top-tier school. The good news is a developer with a degree and 1-2 years experience is worth a lot more than one fresh out of college.

Put in a year and see if they give you a decent pay increase - some companies will give a 20-30% pay bump after the first year if all has gone well. If not, start looking for another job.

move to atlanta. lots of jobs, high salary:cost of living ratio

I'd have to abandon my GF which I am not really willing to do yet. If it gets any worse I will start looking in other places but until Dec I don't have to worry about paying my loans off so I have a bit of a break.

You should put some contact info in your profile.

added thanks I thought that my email was visible.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com