Ask HN: Been job searching for 3 years. Do I need speech therapy?

3 years of dedicated searching by a qualified programmer is not the norm. 3 months is probably more typical. You probably know this but are depressed and in denial.

Speech therapy, impossible to say as an outsider, but why not try it? Your family members probably have some reasons for thinking that could be a factor. Whatever you’re doing now isn’t working, and you haven’t been able to diagnose the problem, so getting outside advice seems prudent.

Can you elaborate on being depressed? Maybe I'm not being in denial of depression so much as being ignorant about the symptoms.

Here are some things I will state about my personal life: I have gradually went on "silent mode" with most people I know. I stopped hanging out with friends to dedicate more time to my job search. I don't really use Facebook anymore. My friends aren't very effective job leads, anyways. They're not really familiar with my kind of work, not even through a second-hand connection.

Asking this question on a public forum is a leap of faith, and to be applauded. Perhaps you'd get better feedback if you recorded yourself doing a mock interview on your webcam if you have one, and then upload as private/unlisted YouTube video, and then repost here but with a link to the video as well. If you need to you could also just upload an audio recording if you're worried about anonymity. Regardless, 3 years is a long period to search. You definitely need to try tweaking variables in your approach. There's something that's not working. It could be the # of companies you apply to per day or per week. It could be the quality of your resume or application. It could be your communication style. It could be your code. But without demonstrating those things in a tangible way to others on this forum or to other software developers online or in real life, no one can diagnose your issue.

I encourage you to continue to open yourself up and make yourself vulnerable enough to show those aspects of your job hunt persona and work to others so they can give you candid feedback. Just be aware everyone online can only speculate without seeing you do a mock interview, seeing your resume, seeing your code.

If you've spent 3 years, you might consider hiring a software specializing recruiter to work with you or finding one that works on commission. Getting honest feedback from a third party like a recruiter is more valuable than this forum. GL.

Lastly, it might be the 3 year gap itself that looks like a red flag to hiring departments. You might want to come up with a story about how you were sailing around the world, or spent time as an English teacher in Cambodia, or lived in a monastery as a Catholic monk.

For a majority of that time I have been taking the "shotgun approach" of applying to tons of software development positions regardless of the company and its size, and only trying to meet some of their requirements. Then I realized that I was doing that too much.

In all, I probably have applied to somewhere between 1000 and 1500 job listings in the past three years, if I were to take a guess. I have taken about 40 first round interviews and about 10 on-sites. 90% of the jobs are local (I live in Chicago), and the other 10% are out of state or remote.

I stopped trying that brute-force approach sometime last summer and have been focusing more on research and applying only to companies that I truly have a vested interest in. My interview-to-application ratio has improved so I can now use my time more efficiently.

I can’t think of 100 positions near me that suit my skillset let alone 1000-1500. Personally it sounds like your shotgun/brute-force approach is spreading yourself thin and employers aren’t finding value in a ‘jack of all trades’. I’d suggest working on personal projects with tech that you’re interested in: it’ll strengthen your expertise, give you something to talk about regarding your time off, and be a nice activity between the applying for positions.

Good luck, and I’m sure even if it might take some time it’ll work out :).

Obviously, I don't know your situation but I know that self-taught programmers are harder to quantify in terms of their skills. I've known self-taught programmers that right beautiful code but I've also known self-taught programmers that write spaghetti code. I know it's the same situation with cs degree students but at least there I know they've gone through a training program that at least tried to teach them the basics. I can't say the same thing for self-taught programmers.

Keep in mind that for a while now IT careers have been the hot field so a lot of people have gone into it to study. When you got your job 11 years ago that was not really the case so employers can now be picky as to who they hire. I know many of my friends complain that they've gotten jobs that don't pay what they were expecting and that's basically because there's more supply than demand for those possitions.

I know for a fact that if I'm hiring for a full-time position I would look for a programmer that has a CS degree. My advice to you is to get some kind of degree while you're looking for a job so at least you can show it in the future.

I also suggest to you that you start working on your professional contacts and create a network of people that understand what your skills are and let them know that you're looking for a job. If people understand your skills they're more likely to hire you or recommend you to an employer.

Also, keep this in mind, people are more likely to hire people that look like themselves so when you go into these interviews make sure you don't stand out. Make sure that from the start they feel that you are part of the team.

You should also look into going to mock interviews so that your interviewers can let you know what they thought you did well and what you did bad.

Unless your speech is horrible then speech therapy classes will do little for you.

>My advice to you is to get some kind of degree while you're looking for a job so at least you can show it in the future.

That's a possibility for me. I'd like to learn more low-level work through CS or ECE. The million dollar question though is if it's feasible to enroll full-time while also balancing it with a job that can pay all of your bills, and keep your sanity. I'm not necessarily into night school or online school, either.

>Also, keep this in mind, people are more likely to hire people that look like themselves so when you go into these interviews make sure you don't stand out. Make sure that from the start they feel that you are part of the team.

How can this be achieved before you have met most of the team? And does this also mean in terms of physical appearance? I think they're more willing to be flexible, though, if they are promoting hiring in conjunction with "culture add" instead of culture fit.

>You should also look into going to mock interviews so that your interviewers can let you know what they thought you did well and what you did bad.

I used Pramp a short time ago, and got rated 2/7 or 3/7 in most of the qualities they grade on the mock interview. I can take more mock interviews, so going to practice there again.

Also, although not a mock interview, I took the Triplebyte interview and got some good feedback on what I need to work on the technical front. Looks like those jobs where I had little physical contact with other programmers were holding me back lots!

> if it's feasible to enroll full-time while also balancing it with a job that can pay all of your bills, and keep your sanity.

If you want to stay in the same career, you'll have to find a way. Night school is your best bet.

>How can this be achieved before you have met most of the team?

Learn about the company before you go into the interview. Look at your average programmer at other places. How do you differ? Learn from the interviews you've done.

Also keep in mind that the more interviews you do the better the odds of getting a job. Aim for a few a week until you get a job. Also don't be quick to refuse a lower paying job. You can use it to get a better one. Recruters are a great source for leads but they are not the only source. Look for other lead sources.

Don't give up.

Good Luck!

No one can know if you need speech therapy without first having heard your voice. And even if we on HN could hear your voice, most of us aren't speech therapists so how should we know?

That said, there is definitely an autism voice. It sounds "throutish" and is especially apparent among women. Perhaps because non-autistic women in general tend to have more melodic voices. However, that is a distinctive way of speaking and not a speech impediment in itself.

So unless you believe that employers are discriminating against autistic candidates, altering your voice won't help. But perhaps you can try and speak louder -- it is often seen as a marker of confidence.

Because of my financial situation I had to move back in with my mom a couple of years ago. She is now recently telling me to seek some professional therapy of some kind to improve my speaking ability since she also knows that I have been consistently failing interviews. She's at retirement age and supporting me financially is starting to mentally wear her out.

Can you elaborate on sounding "throutish"? I'm curious about that as I haven't heard that before about autism.

I know this is almost cliche for such a specific question, but it's helped me in so many ways, it's worth saying, exercise. Find a gym routine, let your guard down, make friends there and stick to it. If you haven't tried it, it's difficult to imagine how much it helps with life in general.

Where do you live? Don't need your zip/post code, just want to know the city/country. I think this makes a huge difference. Based on your employment history I don't see how your speech can be an issue unless your previous employers were all super desperate for someone.

I live in Chicago, IL and the majority of the jobs I apply to are in that metro area. Occasionally, though, I draw interest from companies in the west coast (including some larger tech companies and VC funded startups). So I feel I have the skills and talent, but then get "slept on".

So how many interviews? In what way do you think you're failing verbal interviews? You say getting offers in the past hasn't been a problem - this suggests communication patterns might not be the key issue (assuming you haven't regressed in that respect).

Record your voice and answer Tell me about yourself? and put on the soundcloud or somewhere and share it with HN.

I think HN might help you. But without listening your voice they can not able to judge or answer.

Unfortunately, unemployment is sticky[1]. That might be your entire problem.

When I'm hiring software people, I get three types of applications:

1) Self-taught, usually working in startups and small companies; often a little bit older

2) CS grads, usually working at larger companies

3) Totally unqualified (non-technical applying for technical role, etc.)

It sounds like you're in bucket #2. As an employer, I'm naturally going to wonder why you've been unable to find a job in a good market. Hiring (like venture capital, dating, and all other human selection processes) is highly social. We tend to want the people who are in high demand.

What makes my job hard is that a lot of the CVs in each bucket are very, very similar. My job becomes finding ways to narrow the applications down from hundreds to, hopefully, less than 10. But how do I do that?

You eventually start finding excuses to exclude someone: got an unrelated Master's degree, went to a lesser-known school for undergrad, etc. These are usually really bad filters, but unless you start using software to do this process for you, there isn't much choice. You can't interview 100 people for every role[2].

If I had to guess from my own experience, I'd guess that your biggest problem (by far) is the gap in your resume. If you can find a way to retroactively fill it (adding volunteering, descriptions of contract work, etc.) then you'll be much better off.

My other guess is that many companies are getting more reluctant to hire self-taught people. There are enough CS grads that you just don't need to hire self-taught people anymore (if you don't want to), and if that person turns out to suck, you can cover your ass by saying, "Well, they had the degree..."

If you've been burned out by doing Github projects, I think you should think about whether a career change makes sense. You could also try to become a freelancer. If you need to build up your portfolio, you can try to do work for free for non-profits until people want to hire you.

I hope that helps! Unfortunately, there are no easy answers. Your family knows you best and is probably right that seeking to learn and practice social skills could help.

1. https://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2011/07/labour-...

2. I know there are startups created to solve this exact issue, but I despise the idea of whiteboard-style interviews (even the online ones that work more like homework or a standardized test)

I most fit in bucket #1. I have a non-STEM degree and (aside from a few CS classes) have been self taught, and primarily working with early stage startups and small companies.

I worked at a mom & pop business, 2 small web agencies, and one startup. The last three companies outsource a lot of their development work and I don't have much physical contact with other developers on the job.

The situation with long term unemployed is an interesting one. Seems like some employers have a "triage" system with applicants, where they put the long term unemployed under the "unlikely to work regardless of treatment". I'm also aware that more CS grads and bootcamp grads are entering the workforce so they might find some of my skills only comparable to them and prefer them as a choice. Experience depreciates so quickly in this field, it seems.

Another option is to go back to college to get a BS in CS (or maybe ECE since I have an interest in low-level stuff) and somehow manage it full-time attending in person while also being able to pay all of my bills.

College is free in some places, even to foreigners. I think Germany is one such place.

A lot of great US schools give full tuition based on need now, and it's possible to get a loan or find temporary work to pay the other bills.

Is there an oversupply of software developers? 100 applicants per role, does sound like it.

There is an oversupply of average and less-than-average. My companies are too small to hire at that level.

There is an undersupply of most highly specialized roles.

You might just be nervous instead of needing "speech therapy". You could try to practice and improve on sites like interviewing.io

I'm kinda surprised that roughly 40 phone interviews hasn't been enough practice to be competent. Interviewing.io is still not in public beta, and I've already registered my e-mail.

This is a great time. Low unemployment levels.

As long as you are happy to serve, there are lots of jobs.

Stay the course!

I have not read all the responses, so maybe this has been mentioned already. But just in case it hasn't and if you think it has to do with your communication style, I would highly recommend something like Toastmasters (https://www.toastmasters.org).

I did it for a few years way back when and it really helped me be a better communicator, both on the job (and in job interviews) as well as in daily life.

BTW, I have no affiliation, just a satisfied previous club member.

Hope that helps.