Ask HN: How to start career during a downturn?

For those who graduate during a downturn, how did you start your CS career? There has been a few downturns during the last 30 years: Early 1990s, dot-com crash in 2000, financial tsunami in 2008 and, most recently, covid-19.

During a downturn, the number of internships and new grad openings were greatly reduced from the peak times. The large enrolment of the CS programs was largely determined by the hot market a few years prior. The competitions for internships and new grad openings were great.

I graduated from college after the dot-com crash. I felt that I did nothing wrong and struggled to get my foot in the door of just anything. I was told that great people should get jobs, but my job applications did not even get me a chance to interview. There was no useful playbook on what to do: The adults at that time told us countless stories about how every graduate got a job without much competition. Doing nothing and waiting for the market to improve might not be a useful strategy because there would be another class of new graduate next year. I pursued grad school while keep applying for jobs.

Some folks graduating in the early 2020 could be agonizing about getting their careers started like I did 20 years ago. On the other hand, I work with a number of individuals who started their career during one of those downturns and are quite skillful. Many of the experienced individuals are in staff or leadership positions. It was completely possible to start a CS career, but I could be discouraged and disappear from the field altogether.