Tons of ghosting companies, lowball offers, etc. Maybe it was just vibes from it being the mass layoff era, but it also felt like the interview processes at a lot of places became a lot more unpleasant than usual.
It's not a fun time to be looking. To anyone who's still on the pointy end of a layoff, good luck and don't get too down on yourself.
The unemployment office also made me spam out 8 applications a month to other random crap jobs. Sorry about that, hiring managers. I sent half-baked ChatGPT cover letters to jobs I knew would not hire me (ageism is convenient when you DON'T want to be hired...)
What do you expect? Make stupid rules, get stupid behavior. Sigh
Also: shave if you have a grey beard. Save it for later when you need someone to listen to advice from hard-earned experience.
Considering going into the electrician trade while coding as a consultant/freelancer. I have ADHD (combined type), and find I much prefer working doing something a bit more physical. My previous and current jobs are both remote, which has posed some challenges despite the flexibility. Would much rather a hybrid or in-person experience at this point.
I managed to finally find a permanent position in April of this year. Needless to say, much more in debt than I had planned to be. I don't enjoy the job I'm in today which has been strictly in Architecture/Planning and hands off from code. Of course, through my passively looking at what's out there, there are a relatively few jobs and lots of people applying. The pay rates are also a lot lower than I would expect and much lower than just a couple years ago. I'm seeing senior positions paying what I made back in 2004 or so.
While searching, it just sucked. The only thing worse than no answer, was the relatively boilerplate answers. The resume upload sites mostly sucked even after specifically working through formatting and generating the PDF to get better, but still it doesn't work. Interviewing is also much worse. I hate the auto-graded leet-code type auditions. They all have way too many assumptions and give no indication of experience or actual problem solving ability. I'd much rather have a relatively simple "take home" assignment that is assessed by a human. Dropping me into a leet-code test using some ORM that I'd never seen and hiding half the code isn't going to be done in the timeframe and will only work against me.
I still think it would be nice to see a more formalized guild around software development and IT, where you stake reputation on endorsements, but even that could easily be gamed.
In any case, currently working through a technology consulting firm at a very large banking company on a large project. I sit in meetings most of the week, and make drawings and read technical documentation the rest of the time.
I'm working through a consulting company for where I currently am. if you email my username at gmail, I can shoot you a link for the company on LinkedIn. There's currently a few roles open.
Laid off last fall but luckily had severance take me to the beginning of 2024. Just started a job this week.
My experience with the job hunt this time around was horrible. I was overqualified for a large majority of positions I applied for and a perfect match for others yet I would be extremely lucky to even hear back a 'no thanks'.
The last time I was applying for jobs was during covid and I was at multiple stages of the interview process for multiple companies all at once and was actually able to make a choice regarding my future employment instead of just taking the first bone thrown my way like this time.I meet real people locally and have real world connections. It is really important to not resolve burntout alone at home.
Also i could have real work life balance to spend more time on passionate hobbies.
Can you share what you have learned?
After an intense and extremely hard job search for 5 months, I landed a job last month. In addition to the tough and time-intensive interview process, it was the first time in my 20+ career that the new job was at a lower compensation than the last.
It's easy to overlook that the job market as a whole is doing well but certain sectors, like tech, are down.
I was a 15 year JavaScript developer hired to do a job writing some Vue2 framework with a bit of MySQL. It was really about 75% stored procedures in SQL with no internal automation and the code felt really fragile with tremendous amounts of regression from everybody.
I have done that work long to know that is a special case, but it was also the bridge pillar that broke the camel’s back. After several months of looking and turning down other potential JS jobs I made a promise to myself to never do that work ever again.
Most JavaScript developers cannot program, as in articulate original logic, and instead rely on configuring tools and popular hysteria without question. That is a really complicated way of describing stupidity. Additionally, everyone seems to have these opinions full of emotion like defending a hilltop to the death in war, except there is no reason, evidence, or measures behind any of it. I can’t find where the narcissism ends and the stupidity begins. Why would anybody who is capable of writing original software ever want to go back to that world filled with so much bizarre emotional insecurity?
My very best advice for software is to appoint an MBA to be a technical team lead with a fist of death mandate to steer the ship right. Otherwise, it’s the blind leading the blind.
Fortunately, patience is a virtue. Eventually a recruiter found me for something completely unrelated. I am now a contractor to a major government agency doing enterprise API management and it’s great.
Glad your situation has worked out. This sounds like my ideal kind of opportunity. Do you have any search keywords, or perhaps tips on how to steer my career in this direction?
* a security certification like Security+ or better
* a government security clearance, but contractor employers might work with you to get this started if you don’t already have it
* a bachelor’s degree. This isn’t required but it is helpful.
* having experience that is both well rounded and a specialization. For instance in JavaScript land where I came from nobody can talk through networking, the OSI model, security or any other real world value. This kind on knowledge, at a very basic entry level, is generally expected in government work. Expect to compete or work with former military who will have this generalized knowledge in spades.
In my case I had all these already because I am part time military. I still had to go get an additional cert as a condition of this particular job.
No notable company names on my resume so I suspect that's why I'm still having a hard time.
Highly doubt having one or two "notable company names" on the resume will determine whether you get hired, especially with only four years of experience.
Know three good devs with over 15 years experience that are all pushing 6-9 months with no offers.
No one seems to know why it is so hard but universally across the board don’t know anyone who isn’t struggling even getting callbacks.