I can't seem to land a programming job | Hacker News Reader

I can't seem to land a programming job

14 pointsomgazwashere28 comments

Hello all,

I’ve graduated a Bootcamp last year and afterward, I taught myself Javascript and ReactJS. After a couple of months I landed a Contract Position at Calvin Klein and now I am Freelancing at a small company, but as much as I try I can't seem to get a Full-time role. I've applied on various sites, utilized recruiters and I've even started doing cold emails but no luck. I consider myself to be a junior but I believe I can code, so I don’t understand why I’ve had no luck. For the first time the other day I really thought about giving up on this profession. Any type of input would be much appreciated.

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You've left crucial information: at what stage do you get rejected?

If you're not even invited for interviews, then your resume needs work. Have someone review it and provide feedback.

To improve your resume, do some open source projects, blog about programming things, have a decent website with portfolio. Do something to stand out from the crowd.

If you get the interviews but bombing them, then you probably need to improve your algorithm skills. There are plenty of websites to help with that (https://www.google.com/search?q=programming+interview+questi...).

Know any good resume review services that are free or really cheap?

I don't think such a thing exists because there's no demand for it.

Ask your colleagues.

If you don't have those, go to any programming meetup, strike up a conversation and if the conversation flows, ask the person if they would be willing to give you feedback on your resume. People like to feel important so they most likely will.

In the worst case, ask strangers on the internet. Do Ask HN or do it on r/programming. Like I said, people like to feel important so it's likely to work.

I can't claim any expertise but I'll be happy to look at your resume and provide suggestions with my experience. Email is in my profile. :)

/r/cscareerquestions/ has a weekly resume thread

Send me an email (email is in profile)

Use my resumegen before sending it and ensure it's one page or less on overleaf before creating the PDF. (http://writecodeeveryday.github.io/projects/resumegen)

First thing I'd say is keep learning. Be sure you fill in all the gaps to be able to build something from the front all the way to the back, typically referred to as a full stack engineer. This will give you more opportunities and help you widen your job possibilities.

Since you really need experience, try interning somewhere. You won't make your true potential but you are learning and you have to start somewhere. Very valuable experience.

And lastly, I work at Quicken Loans and we have 200 openings in technology. I was Director of Software Engineering for over 12 years before switching roles and it sounds like you want to learn, get better, and honestly that's a quality I valued when interviewing. Take a look at our careers site, we have a great culture, http://quickenloanscareers.com. If you like what you see, shoot me your resume at keithelder@quickenloans.com and I'll take a look at get it to our recruiting team directly if it has potential.

All the best!

Aside from your development skills and portfolio I think you have to work on your self-esteem. Even if you have great knowledge about js and react if you act like a junior who had no jobs before they wont hire you. I've gone through this and when I realized there are many companies in need for developers I knew I'm valuable. Be a little more confident and don't let them scare you - they need you as much as you need a job. Of course you have to have knowledge with this attitude, but it's easier to gain knowledge than gaining confidence. Just be optimistic, don't give up and I'm pretty sure you'll find jor full-time job.

I would build some cool side projects. Not a ton of them (like not 50 CRUD websites), but a few good ones. Things that showcase interest and ability to pick up on new things.

Remember, you're taking a shortcut into a well-paying profession. People that study other engineering disciplines for 4 years still have to search for jobs for months, often chasing lower salaries. If you have to invest even a couple more years building your portfolio and gaining what experience you can, and you land a job, your ROI is still better than the majority of technical college graduates.

Just try to make yourself stand out from other bootcamp graduates by building something cool. And you'll develop better skills in the process.

There are a lot of responses here about resumes, self-confidence, etc, so I won't reiterate those things. What type of companies are you applying for? My background is a lot like yours (minus the boot camp), and I've had much better luck applying for smaller companies that are off the beaten path. I think if you find a small company that needs an in-house developer, could find a position to cut your teeth on and build experience.

I really have to agree on this.

I have a small software company looking for developers, and I get close to zero applications. 95% of people just don't consider applying at a small no-name shop, hell most of them have probably never even heard of my company (we are just two people after all).

So everyone applies to the well known companies, who don't even send a reply, and wonder why noone hires them, while all the small companies that would hire practically anybody don't even get any applications.

Anyway, that's what it looks like from my perspective.

Are you still hiring? If so, I'd like to check your company out and send a resume over.

Yes, I'm hiring: https://eggerapps.at/jobs.html

Off the bat, I wish you the best of luck and diligence will get you there. That having been said, invest in a good resume preparation service known for servicing your niche. I am being self-serving here since I run a Shanghai based English resume editing, LinkedIn profile creation, and interview coaching service. In most cases, working with the right mentor/consultant/whatever you want to call it will cost you a few days and a few hundred dollars max. If the final result is 1) a document that sells you extremely well, 2) interview skills that are well polished leading to a secure FT position with perhaps higher salary than you were targeting, isn't that worth the investment?

Reach out to me with questions at vfulco[@]weisisheng.cn. You were asking about cheap/free services. We do generalized critical resume reviews for ~15USD and full resumes creation/rewrites for between 150-400USD. This is the time to consider working with someone who does them day in and day out. Go for cheap beer (if you want) not cheap professional career services.

What did the bootcamp teach?

There aren't a lot of full time front end only, javascript only roles around, which are the only two skills you've listed.

For employability you need to expand to something more common on the back end like c#/java and especially sql.

There aren't that many junior positions out there to be honest. On top of that there are way to many junior candidates. Where do you live? Are you getting to an interview stage?

Yes, I do get a couple of interviews. I live in New York City.

So that means your resume is good enough to get interviews but you're not passing those? Did you bootcamp go through whiteboarding exercises and prep you for what to expect for a dev interview?

NY is tough for a junior. You have a lot of bootcamps, universities, people who want to live there, etc. looking for the same jobs as you. Try opening your geographical preferences.

1. shape your past work at calvin klein and any other projects into a nice little portfolio.

2. make a simple, clean resume which states those experiences in text form.

3. dont call yourself a junior. speak to the experiences you have had, which are several.

4. continue learning, make yourself an expert on one or more of the emerging, most common frameworks and language.

5. document your finds and solutions on a blog and github

6. link all this together, send out short emails with a link to your links.

You can't miss. You will get a job.

Keep doing the freelancing and keep doing contract positions, build up a portfolio and gain some more work experience in the field, which you can then talk about more in detail in interviews for full time roles. I think one or two years of experience doing contracting and freelancing would be a good idea. Get some more references and testimonials.

Build a side-project about something you're passionate about that you can showcase, both in production and Github.

I've always done this, and it worked out great for me even to the point of forgoing the technical part of a couple of interviews (two of which landed me jobs).

patience & time. have patience and give it some time. I became a developer late in the game, I was in my late thirties when I decided to go back to school and study fulltime. I can feel your frustration but eventually you will get a break and chance to prove yourself.

What kind of job(s) did you hold while you were going to school in your late 30s? I'm single so I pretty much can't rely on someone else's income like I could when I took college in my 20's.

There are a lot of websites (mostly full-time home-based coding job) out there where you can post your Résumé, etc.

Also, while you still have a lot o' free time, do some swing trading in the stock market to earn some bucks.

At this point (been coding for 4 years) I even consider leaving my full-time programming job to focus on stocks and just do part-time coding.

Swing trading, seriously? The OP mentioned nothing about having a) money to invest or b) any financial knowledge.

Just throw your money into something and then sell it when it goes up. This isn't hard! /s

Seriously OP, DO NOT just start buying stocks without having a clue as to what you're doing.

What kind of skills do you have, OP?

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