dookehster

Sorry to hear it's been hard. It depends what you're going for.

I'm an EE, less relevant than CE to CS (if you're going after software positions). There are plenty of EEs, physicists, etc. who are in top posts at most tech companies for software. Your degree isn't limiting you.

Job hunting is about demonstrating value to people who matter. If you can demonstrate value to the hiring person (hiring manager, HR, etc.), then you'll get hired.

So while the resume and education are one thing, they're really the tip of the iceberg. You can contribute on open source, you can showcase papers you've authored, you can build relationships with hiring managers to show that you know your stuff.

If you're going for hardware, hardware positions are lower paying, harder to get, and require more experience than software positions. You might want to apply for internships. Broadcom, Qualcomm, Nvidia, all have great internship programs. They might get you to do fun things you'd never do as a full timer as well (Apple gets lots of interns to go to Shenzhen, Nvidia gets it's interns to drop boxes on the floor to test packaging).

Almost all tech companies I've ever interacted with have different staff that deal with new grads/university students than the rest of HR. A typical HR person probably doesn't like new candidates, but new grads are what university recruiters are supposed to do. I'd seek out university recruiters specifically (you can search "university recruiting" on LinkedIn).

I know lots of people who start companies because the jobs they're qualified for, suck. Honestly, I started my first company because I engineering stopped being challenging/fun and no business wanted to take me on. Now I can say I've scaled businesses, sold my B2B SaaS product to $B companies, etc.

Finally, on the motivation/keeping the hope alive. I've had my fair share of dark times. Tony Robbins, Art Williams, and Zig Ziglar are all great to listen to.

Best of luck!

You're arguing advertising and the way business is done worldwide is morally dubious.

Why is it morally dubious?

You have to become better at demonstrating value, yes.

This book is an incredibly good book for making this kind of decision: https://www.amazon.com/How-Will-Measure-Your-Life/dp/0062102...

Author here.

A few notes:

I'm not proposing high touch methods are incorrect. I'm proposing there exists an alternative.

HR professionals, the receiving end, spend their day spamming people on LinkedIn, email, etc. The same is true about sales people, marketers, and anybody trying to get the word out, except they do it at scale. I'm a little surprised by how many folks take issue with messaging people who might be interested and also do exactly what you're doing.

If everybody does this, then job hunting becomes more like marketing since your message/resume has to stand out more. Consumers are bombarded with messages every day, they're good at ignoring things they don't want. The folks doing the hiring would become better "consumers".

Engineering roles are, in general, way easier to land than a non-engineering roles because there aren't enough decent engineers.