Learn to code, everybody said. There’s so many jobs, and they pay well. Dumbass me fell for the bait. Graduated with a degree in computer science a year and a week ago. Didn’t get any internships because I didn’t realize how important they are. Graduated with a 2.3 GPA because I always heard people don’t care about your GPA once you graduate. If you’re generous and cut out the hours from when I failed out of college the first time, it’s a 2.6.
I’ve applied to over a thousand jobs by now. Almost entirely entry level, but I took shots at some nonspecified experience level postings once I got more desperate. I’ve managed to get two interviews. To add insult to injury, one of the interviewers said that their main concern with me was that I’d move on to a new job in a year or two. I couldn’t do that if I wanted to, man. I’m so burnt out on how bad applying for shit sucks when I know most of these companies are throwing my application in the trash in less than 5 seconds.
I’ve been able to stay stable so far. I live with my parents, who are the best parents I could ever ask for. They’re understanding, supportive, and want to help how they can. No worries on the living expenses front, at least, but it’s not a situation that can last. In the long term, obviously, they’re not gonna be around forever. In the short term, it’s just going to drive me completely insane. I’ve used my leftover student loans and a generous graduation gift from my uncle for the non-essential stuff and managed to limit my spending to about $100 a month, but the well will dry up on that front, too.
All this is to say that I don’t think I can get a job with my degree. A year long gap is a bad sign on an already weak resume. Soon it’ll be as good as if I had never gone to school in the first place after I spent years forcing myself through math classes I tore my hair out over (why was this 75% of my degree again?) I’ve tried doing some independent game development to maybe transition in that direction, but I can’t force myself to do it because the whole time I just feel like I’m wasting time I should be spending looking for a “real” job. My parents have frequently encouraged me to go get a master’s while I wait for the job market to improve. After telling them for months that I didn’t want to sink any more money in education (read: training) until it showed some returns, I caved and started looking into grad programs. Looks like I couldn’t do it if I wanted to because lmao 2.3 GPA. I’m confident I could get a great score on the GRE, I’ve always done pretty fantastic on that kind of test. It’s the one academic skill I have that I can brag about, honestly. But the GRE for Math would kick my ass into next week, and I’m pretty certain most MS in CS programs would want me to take it.
So I can’t get a job in my major, I’m too neurotic to do anything on my own, my grades are too shit to get a graduate degree. I’m 28 now and not getting any younger. I’m beyond sick of being dependent on others. But what else can I do? Service jobs suck tremendously and don’t pay enough for me to live off of anyways, especially around where I live. It’d be equivalent of choosing to live in poverty. Every road seems closed off to me. I don’t know what I can do to make my way through life and I feel like even if I did, I’d be too much of a coddled loser to take that path.
Sorry for turning it into a blog, I’m basically just some random failson whining. Anybody relate?
Edit: Thanks for the replies, everybody. Feeling a little bit less down. Probably gonna try and make some contributions to a FOSS project and get a job at a grocery store or something while I still live at home.
You are entering the job market at a bad time, unfortunately. Many places are under hiring freezes still and have likely done recent layoffs that likely disproportionately impacted more jr workers.
The GPA doesnt matter once youve got a job or two under your belt but before that they dont have much to go on and particularly in this market they can be choosey. I would suggest doing open source projects and contribute to open source projects you use. This will keep you learning new things with the added benefit of producing materials you can talk about on your resume.
Personal projects and open source contribution are great ways to build a portfolio outside of employment.
Yeah, this was pretty much how I landed my first software development job. It was at a small mom-and-pop company, and I brought in my laptop to the interview to show off code samples from some game dev projects I had been working on.
Honestly, having been on a hiring committee, the most important thing you can do (if you land an interview) is to do your research about the company. Pretend you’re joining a cult, and you have to learn their Masonic sigils and secret handshakes from the outside.
it’s not a silver bullet to your situation, but “gap” time can be reframed fairly easily as self-employment on resumes.
It can work but companies are wise to this. They’ll ask what projects you worked on and with what clients. You can say it’s all under NDA but that will only get you so far since you can still talk about the projects in very general terms like “used technology X, deployed webservices, wrote code in language Y”, etc.
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Im university educated, have been unemployed for years in the past while looking for work in my field, and now work in the same job that I had when I was 16. its helpful to at least have a place to go, people to speak to, a routine and a space to organise in, its good for you.
revolutionary optimism doesnt always come easily, dont lose hope comrade.
I was in a similar situation: unemployed for 2 years after college, eventually just bit the bullet and got a min-wage job (thankfully not customer-facing). A year later I got a job actually in my field entirely through nepotism. I don’t know what to say, other than death to america, burn this blighted system to the ground.
I’ve tried doing some independent game development to maybe transition in that direction, but I can’t force myself to do it because the whole time I just feel like I’m wasting time I should be spending looking for a “real” job.
I think efforts along these lines are good. I personally wouldn’t choose indie game dev unless you really feel the need to express yourself artistically, but FOSS contribution is a great way to split your time while job hunting. This has many benefits, from building out your network to practicing your skills (which need development, fresh grads are basically useless professionally for a few years) to giving you something to actually work on that other people care about and not sink into the black hole of feeling like you’re useless. If you’re good at self-motivating then a few years of FOSS contribution is much, much, much better than a masters in CS that you take to kill time. The only reason I would do a masters (which is IMO totally useless in CS) is to get an internship through the school program. Which certainly is valuable; work experience is the #1 thing you are missing from your resume.
Hang in there, was in the same situation early 2000 during the it-bust. Keep some job and reeducate if needed. If you like coding, keep at it for fun while your not in an energyzapping corporation. Your time will come and there is more to life than work (dumb as it sounds and I know it’s no fun having to rely on others)
Honestly, I don’t dislike coding, but I don’t like it enough to do it over most other hobbies. It would definitely fall more into the category of unpaid work than something I do for fun. I suppose it’s mostly something I have to deal with. The suggestions here seem to lean towards contributing to an open source project or, if I really can’t do that, keeping up with my game dev. Appreciate the encouragement. I’m sure I’ll keep chugging, I just feel like the frustration boils over more easily the longer this keeps up. Being able to post stuff like this and the encouragement people give in response genuinely do help me keep from like I’m trapped in an asylum.
I’m closing in on a year unemployed after getting laid off. It’s hard out here, and don’t let anyone tell you different just because the stock market is up.
I know you’re hesitant on extra education, but it doesn’t have to be a masters or grad program. There’s often certificates out there that might help you stand out with much lower time and monetary investments and get you in somewhere. Maybe part-time work to build up savings/contribute to household while you knock one of those out would be manageable?
I hear that from time to time but I’m never really sure what to do with that. I never see job postings that list a certification in the requirements or preferred qualifications outside of maybe some IT jobs, and they’re usually pretty hyper-specific. Have any suggestions on certs and where to take them?
I know for IT and helpdesk stuff CompTIA is the standard, and according one reddit thread IT/helpdesk can be a path forward for programmers who didn’t land an internship during undergrad
it took me a year back in 2014 to get my first job out of college, basically as a QA/basic scripting person. I got completely lucky with it because a recruiter on one of those job sites like Indeed reached out to me with it. A big bonus you can add to your resume is to have open source projects you have contributed to on it, that you can talk about at length during the interview. That will make you stand out from the other applicants.
Regardless, yeah the job market for programmers has been pretty terrible this past year or two. It sucks. I would probably not go further in debt for a masters; maybe just do lots of open source work you can put on a resume. I personally did a lot of work on emulators like ppsspp and citra
This thread has mostly convinced me to lean more towards open source contributions than a masters, yeah. I don’t know what you did on citra, I’ve used it to emulate a few gens of Pokemon, so thanks for your work!
Its been a long time but i think i added
- Gateway cheats support
- Added support for gamepads (though i think my initial implementation was replaced at some point)
I had the same situation when I graduated. I ended up finding a technical sales-related job that sucked but led to a better position. Then I got laid off and couldn’t find another similar job for a long time until I got one through a recruiter and had to move states again. Some advice I have:
- Use recruiters. Not just for your situation, but in my experience going through recruiters is a much easier way to find and get jobs since they have relationships with these companies and know how to navigate the process. They can also basically coach you through the interviews so that you have a leg up on most people who would apply directly through the company. They also are better at negotiating pay and benefits and can help you there as well. I think all of the recruiters I’ve dealt with I found on LinkedIn (the paid job seeker thing puts you on their lists, or you can search directly and message them) and also I’d look for technical recruiting agencies and sign up on their websites.
- Be willing to move - Some job markets are better than others and being willing to move for a job gives you a lot more options. On the other hand, I’ve moved way too often and haven’t really been able to settle down anywhere and make any good real life friends, which sucks, but what are you gonna do. I have my pup to keep me company at least, and you all too of course.
- Embellish your resume - You don’t want to blatantly lie about your qualifications and put yourself in a risky position, but I’d definitely say you should exaggerate as much as you can get away with without arousing suspicion. ChatGPT is very helpful for this.
- Sort of related, also tailor your resume and cover letter to the job description of where you’re applying and using the same key words and phrases, since that will make it more likely you’ll get through the automated software screening and to an actual interview.
- Be flexible and look for opportunities that others might ignore. For example, maybe also look for programming jobs in areas like manufacturing, health care, small businesses, etc. and not just software companies. Sounds like you’re probably already doing this, though.
- I’m not a software dev but I’ve used hobby projects a bit in the past as a way to “demonstrate skills” when I had not much experience but wanted to pad my resume any way I could. Some hobby like 3D printing for example isn’t that big of a deal as far as a skill, but I was able to fluff it up quite a bit to my advantage. Seems like software would make hobby projects easier to get into, given you don’t need buy a bunch of stuff besides having a computer. Also sites like Coursera and edX have free classes that include projects that can be also be useful for this sort of thing.
Sorry for the wall of text here. I’m sure you’re already doing a lot of this already but I hope at least some of it is helpful.
i’m at 10 years since graduation and the only jobs i’ve had since then were pizza delivery and doordash. Liberal Arts instead of coding though so i was always doomed. my ‘plan’ for whenever i lose access to free housing (i.e. when/if my parents kick me out) is to just be homeless until i die, which will probably not take long.
Took me over a year to land my first job too. I’m doing quite well for myself now, so it’s painful to remember that there was a time not that long ago when I was full of self-loathing and doubt, questioning my intelligence and inherent value.
Marxism is about more than exploitation and surplus value. It includes the subjective human experience within capitalism, the alienating aspects of capitalist society. You are unfortunately experiencing this hard right now. I can’t promise anything for you, other than that things can turn around suddenly and quickly.
I don’t miss the promises things will surely get better for me, I’ve known those are mostly empty for a long time now. If anything, it’s encouraging to hear people drop them without going full doomer like so many people do. The undeniably spiritual component of even the most orthodox Marxism very often gets overlooked. I found a lot of solace in Matt Christman’s cushvlogs for that reason.
How many applications did you send out to get the first job? Did you have to grind DSA practice problems for the interviews? I sent (spammed) about 400 in the past few months and only got 1 interview which rejected anyways. I haven’t graduated yet, so if I can’t find anything I was going to do what OP’s parents recommend and try to finish a CS MA.
How do you feel about joining the trades? I was unemployed for years for various reasons. I signed up for a class a few months ago and have been working now for two months. The situation where I live at least is that people are desperate for workers. If you use boomer methods (call nearby businesses and ask if they’ll train you) some might say yes.
what do you do? I thought usually you have to complete an apprentice program or something which is a couple years?
I took a free five-week class to become an apprentice oil burner technician but I later found out that I didn’t even have to. If you call local businesses they will tell you if they’re willing / able to train you or not. Some (particularly those with signs out front saying they are looking for workers) might be desperate enough to take you. Try to work for a bigger company so you have less of a chance of getting screwed. (Smaller businesses tend to be poorly and incompetently organized and run by bosses who will steal your wages.) The job is physical and dirty and it’s fucking oil but it’s far from the worst job I’ve had and I feel like there’s a lot of job security and potential for growth. It can also just be a gateway into the blue collar world.
I would assume equipment are only going to be moving more towards electricity systems now no?
Yeah definitely and I welcome that because this shit is not safe and it should have all been replaced decades ago. And I actually live in a state where we have a lot of heat pumps and more being installed every day. I just intend to keep doing this until I get fired or find something better. I’ve also written on hexbear about starting a worker co-op.
There’s always plumbing, too.
Never found nothing, been working retail for 15 years since I graduated. I’ve tried going back to school to try out teaching, but my head isn’t in that place anymore. And I got a job teaching students English, but the pay was worse than retail once you factored in needing to spend hours on prep and assessment and left me an exhausted wreck, who was also still working 12 hours of retail.
I really empathize with katz who got their degrees and graduated into this mess of job market. The game is all fucked up, it’s been fucked up, but I’d say it’s uniquely fucked up in a way I haven’t seen it fucked up since maybe 2009.
