Hacker News Reader

Comment by kyle_martin1 | Hacker News Reader

I used to do mobile development. You need a strong portfolio to compete. I had made around 6 apps (some my ideas and some for clients) when I got my first mobile job. Consider making some novel apps without any expectation of being paid. Nothing guarantees you a job. If you’re not hearing back...there’s got to be a logical reason. Be honest with yourself and come up with a list of 25 things that will give you an edge and start doing them. Just don’t give up!

Regarding the education comment...I’m going to disagree with you there. Employers don’t care where you went to school. They care about what you’ve done in the past (doesn’t matter if it’s at work or on the side) and what you can bring to the table. I had to compete with people with PhDs for my current AV job but I got the job because of the whole package of skills that I bring rather than theoretical knowledge in a single niche topic.

View on HN

> Employers don’t care where you went to school.

This depends on the employer. Google is notorious for not only caring about your school, but your GPA. Also as someone who has looked at hundreds, if not thousands, of resumes over the years - the reality is you very quickly start to look for any sort of signal and schools are definitely something some (I would guess most) consider.

Do I think it's unfair? Sure. But recruiters simply do not have the time to look into every applicant with any sort of detail.

I’m not so sure anymore. I’ve worked at a couple FANGs and I have never looked at a candidates resume beyond their last job or two. I only look at their degree to calculate years of experience in my head. But ultimately we put faith in our interview process more than a resume. I would totally hire someone who has relevant experience than what their degrees were (or any), as long as they passed the normal interview gauntlet that everyone takes.

Engineers typically don't care so much about school, but the first filter is recruiters who do. A recruiter has <10s to read your resume and has no technical knowledge, so a good school or FANG on your resume helps you pass their screen.

years of mostly pointless assignments, lectures and pre-test cramming coupled with thousands of hard earned dollars spent on getting <10s of attention from a recruiter. Feels harsh, strange and unproductive enough to be true.

No longer true at Google about degree/GPA.

Let's say you get past recruiters and/or HR. You're sitting in a room full of potential coworkers who question how you wake up in the morning and put on your pants because they went to a four year school and have that degree. It's a club and you're not in it.

This is not the experience I had when interviewing at my current employer (or any employer I’ve interviewed at!) and I didn’t go to college.

Play around hr. Network.

> Consider making some novel apps without any expectation of being paid.

This part is non-trivial, is it? Coming up with a new kind of app idea (which is useful, not just shows 3 twirling balls or something) is not easy.

And doing the millionth todo app or something is not the same.

If you were a novice painter/cook/carpenter/sculptor/singer/accountant/mechanic what would you include in a portfolio? Now, the portfolio exists to demonstrate a skill you posess.

You'd look for established people and their works from your domain and copy them to study their methods, their style. Figure out and differentiate the core from the frills. Tweak, mix, combine, jam and fuse what you've learnt.

Then you'd merge your favorite styles together to create your own, novel work. Repeat enough times and you have a solid portfolio.

Unfortunately, the programming world is crippled with 'get rich quick' apps/websites/products.

Most newbie programmers believe that unless they have a novel idea, they cannot and should not build an app or a website. That attitude sucks the life and joy out of learning anything including programming.

I strongly urge you to copy, steal and be inspired by as many apps and websites as you can before going for novelty.

What you will learn in the process far outweighs any commercial success that you can hope for.

Good luck.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com