- 4 year Bachelor's degree in Fine arts (digital media concentration)*
- Male, age 39
- from 2008-14 my jobs came from Craigslist. Call it a habit from applying to PT jobs in college. I moved onto LinkedIn and other more "real" career boards in 2015 and the job search got much tougher
- I would count at least 2000 applications from 2015 onward. No offers came from applying on LinkedIn etc. Instead they were all from word of mouth from a local tech group that I am a part of. All of them part time, and temp contract jobs
- At least 1000 applications from 2020-present, interviewed at around 20 companies. Most with LinkedIn Easy Apply. A few interviews from direct emails from some manager/sourcer that came across my resume.
- I took an application break to cut back on burnout. The last 6 months are almost application-free
- Nearly all jobs applied are for software engineering. 95% are mid-level or lower rest are senior-level (just to feel things out). I might get as far as 3 rounds with a few interviews.
* Actual time it took to finish the degree was 6 years because I changed majors prior. At year 5 I was in my final year in Art, and I also had a growing interest in comp. sci, but I had to make a tough choice. Graduate at >5 years with the BA degree, or double major BS in CS with Art graduating in >8 years. I thought it would look awful to stay in college that long (plus my debt really started growing at that time) so I cut my losses short and graduated with just the BA.