Ask HN: Why all the rejects? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Why all the rejects?

Hello HN. Long time lurker, first time poster.

I'm will be graduating this year with a Masters degree, and so I've been applying to a few places (big and small). And so far, all I've gotten are the polite "we don't have a position for your skills" replies or silence. Even for new grad positions.

Now, I consider myself a fairly competent developer and this is what I'd be doing even if I wasn't getting paid for it. I have professional .Net experience and multiple personal projects in sufficiently different languages. I would imagine that this would be sufficient to at least warrant a phone screen. But so far, I've got nothing. And I'm perplexed as to why.

Is this because I'm not from MIT or CMU? Is my resume not reaching the right people? Is there a stigma against .net developers (in startups, non MS shops)? If so, how do I convince people that I'm platform/language agnostic?

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When I was applying for jobs about a year ago, the only times I got anything other than silence for a response was when I had a contact "on the inside". It has been said that the success rate for just sending in a resume is under 5%; of course, people do get jobs by sending in resumes (or so I hear) - this just wasn't my experience.

On the other hand, I learned that the contact does not have to be a friend - reaching out to an engineer working at a company shows you care, and makes the process more human. Note that I'm not advocating spamming busy people with your resume - I think this only works if the interest is genuine.

Doing interviews made me realize just how much theoretical CS knowledge I was missing, algorithms especially (I did Computer Engineering for my undergrad). So that was the final push that made me decide to do a Masters (though I did get an offer). I hope that was the right decision :) But more to the point, make sure you brush up on your theory and practice solving problems on a whiteboard.

Very few people in HR respect the education they "require" in their job postings. With an M.S. you should almost certainly be able to pick up any toolkit or language quickly enough that, while you won't hit the ground running on day 1, by day 5 you should be full speed. You've almost certainly done harder things than learning LINQ, for example - that's what a degree is supposed to signal. I suspect that you're just getting caught by a moron somewhere in the pipeline, so you should not take this as a meaningful appraisal of your skills.

That said, not getting a job does suck. From the limited picture I see above, your technical chops aren't what's missing. I wouldn't spend a tremendous amount of time doing more coding work. Some folks like resume consultants, but I have never used one and can't speak to their effectiveness.

Best advice I can give you is to send out as many applications as you can get out. A few is not enough. In times of my life when I was in full-on application mode, I'd send out 5 relatively targeted applications a day, where targeted meant I wrote a specific cover letter and tailored my resume to highlight what they were looking for. Most places won't send anything back. Most places - startups and BigCo's alike - are staffed by assholes. Just keep plugging through whatever avenues you can find and something should turn up.

If so, how do I convince people that I'm platform/language agnostic?

Simple, code some personal projects in another platform/language. The sooner the better, because .Net along with most Microsoft technologies are a dead-end. Most startups already know this. No matter which buzzwords are used, basically everything is going mobile/cloud, and it absolutely won't be WindowsPhone/Azure that wins.

The sooner the better, because .Net along with most Microsoft technologies are a dead-end.

As opposed to Java, which has a bright future with Oracle?

I'm no fan of Oracle and Java either, my bet is on mobile-web (JS/HTML5). Microsoft technologies are a dead-end in the context of mobile/cloud technologies. It would be impossible to argue that Microsoft is going to win iOS and Amazon AWS converts to the Windows phone and Azure platforms. Perhaps it's wishful thinking, but there are no situations where I can envision any of Microsoft's mobile/cloud technologies are going to succeed in the future.

Are you able to show them your personal projects? It's possible that the stuff your applying for has a load of applicants, in which case you may find plenty of applicants with more targeted experience that may cause those hiring not to look much further.

My experience watching friends apply is that grad positions are quiet hard to get into.

Maybe you could look for a job that has .NET plus the opportunity to move into other languages down the track, from your post though it sounds like you don't really want to do that.

Maybe in the interim you could roll your own project that does show off your skills in another area, best case it might take off in it's own right, worst case you have something pretty good for the resume.

I don't have much experience with applying to startups (I work for an agency) but 99% of the .NET devs I know are .NET only. Explicitly stating that you are platform/language agnostic might help.

I've had good experiences with emailing the tech director or head of HR (as opposed to responding to hr@companyname.com addresses posted on job boards) at a place I'd like to work, saying something like "I saw the amazing work you did for __ and I'd love the chance to work with you on great projects like this in the future, do you have any positions open?"

I'd be happy to give some feedback on your resume if you want to post it.

I'm not sure where you are applying too, but whenever there is an economic downturn one of the first cost cutters is through the IT departments. As for startups, its a tight crowd and hard to jump onto a team or put together one with enough resources and time to pull it through.

What type of job were you looking for? Send over a PM if you'd like, we are currently looking for a CTO.

Do projects in the languages/platform you are applying for. There is no better way to concinve someone than to have actual proof.

Maybe its not your skills but how you display your skills in your resume/cv. Be sure your resume is up to par with what your competitors are handing out.

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