Ask HN: Unemployed for 2 years, looking to find a steady programming job

[achicagodevdude]

I'm an experienced web developer, always worked in Chicago, but now I'm having trouble finding a company that would hire me. I feel like I've been displaced from the programming industry.

* Got my first web dev job in 2007

* Graduated 2007 with an unrelated degree

* Worked on-and-off. I never had another job lined up when I left/laid off from the old one.

* Looking to settle into a salaried job. I don't even know what it's like to be a salaried employee. All the job offers I could get have been contract-to-hire, and they paid well below average.

Based on the last point, I quickly learned that "being a bargain" doesn't make you any more employable. In fact, I'm starting to think there is a correlation between programmers with low salaries and having more difficulty finding jobs.

I don't know where to begin filtering for higher yields in getting interviews. At this point, I'm just throwing anything at the wall waiting for something to stick.

The programming job doesn't have to be web dev related. Maybe the glut of bootcamp graduates is making it harder for me to stay relevant? I am okay with working in one of the bigger but non-sexy places if they are the easier places to get in. So what are some places in the Chicago area that:

* Don't care what tech stack you've used

* Have a large enough tech team to tolerate a greater ramp-up time for new hires

* Years in the field mean less to them, because they can just hire and place someone where it's appropriate

So where to begin changing my approach so I get higher yields for interviews, and offers?

[partisan]

Have you tried city or utility jobs? They are not as sexy, but they have the potential to meet every one of your requirements.

Secondly, the way you talk about your abilities makes me want to shake you. You are no less capable than the next person. You're not going to be the next big developer evangelist or the founder of some amazing startup, but neither are 99% of the other people. HN is a concentration of successful, smart people. It can skew the way you view yourself so don't use this site as a barometer for your skills.

Also, you sound depressed and defeated and that is understandable after what seems like a constant onslaught of rejection, but the only way to change that is by building your own self worth and confidence in your skills. You can't expect an employer to meet you where you are so you have to meet them where they are. Find your passion in this field and run with it.

I have 13 years in the industry and I still feel like a fraud most days. That doesn't seem to go away.

[chuck32]

Seems like you are looking for a company who will accommodate your needs (i.e. "Don't care what tech stack you've used") but maybe you need to think about what you can do yourself to accommodate what companies need from you?

You say you're looking for somewhere that will "tolerate a greater ramp-up time for new hires" and thats fair enough but there are also plenty of things you can be doing now to prepare for a job to minimize the ramp-up time.

Also your approach of "looking for a job as a web dev, or anything really" is not going to look very attractive to employers. I'm sure you wont be saying that in an interview of course but why would they hire someone with that attitude when there are plenty of people who can say "I love working with Rails/Python/Javascript/whatever because x, y and z and even though I've been unemployed recently I've done this, this and this which is related to this technology".

I'm not saying you have to become one of these web-dev obsessed hacker-newsy types who spend all their free time reading tech blogs and experimenting with no-sql databases but at least pretend to have an interest in one or two particular aspects of web development and spend a bit of time to code something or do something to demonstrate that interest.

[achicagodevdude]

I've had a Github profile for a couple of years, usually filled with some graphics programming or game projects, coded in C#. That's one of the languages I'd be interested in finding a job in. In 3 years went from learning what a reference type in C# is, to writing a graphics engine using .NET that uses object pooling for best performance, and can be implemented as a DLL for other projects. And learning HLSL for writing my own shaders, doing thing like optimize a parallel split shadow mapping algorithm to run in a single pass within the 512 instructions limit of the Shader Model 3.0 spec.

I also made a software rasterizer in JavaScript, it's very small in size uses no 3rd party libraries but supports z-depth checking and texture mapping.

As you can see I like doing graphics stuff in my spare time. But I'm not sure how to sell my skills in those projects to more "mainstream" web development jobs. My real world JS work is not as novel or even up to current standards. At the last startup I worked on a front end JS code base totaling over 25K lines. And it didn't use any modules. No Grunt or Webpack, no packages to automate builds, bunch of jQuery function calls with little grouping to them- it is JS but JS circa 2009.

So basically I have some novel projects but my dev practices may be "out of time" with certain companies. So I'm looking to see how to show the better side of my skill set.

[chuck32]

Ok well it sounds like you've done some pretty solid work there and should have things to talk about in an interview. Have you ever gotten an feedback from employers or recruiters as to why you were not picked for a job?

[achicagodevdude]

It's usually pretty generic stuff. I wasn't a good fit, or they found someone else that's a better candidate, etc. Liability reasons cause them to withhold details. Many people consider all interviews practice, but practice only makes you better if you get proper feedback.

[Mz]

The Gig Economy is on the rise. I keep seeing posts similar to yours saying "I have been unemployed for a year a longer. How do I fix this?" Meanwhile, I have seen articles that suggest that by 2020, about 40% of the US economy will be gig work/freelancers/contractors and similar.

Let me suggest you look for paid work. You can keep looking for a job too, but just figure out how to get money coming in the door.

[achicagodevdude]

Well, I started in 2007 so your projected statistic wouldn't have been very relevant. In 2007 I should have been able to get a full-time job more easily, yeah? Yet even in 2007-13 I only have gotten cheap contractor offers.

I'm not interested in part time gigs. My contract jobs pay too low, highest paid one was $25/hr. I'm looking to settle down for a salaried position with benefits (as any decent job would have) while I still can. Nearly all the jobs on the local boards are still full-time with benefits.

[ahazred8ta]

Go meet more people in person who already work in the industry - https://www.meetup.com/topics/web-development/us/il/chicago/

[achicagodevdude]

By the way, I've been with countless recruiters in the past. They haven't been very helpful.

I've been to their offices a few times, have been on many phone calls and get moved around from job opening to job opening but I never have gotten an offer because of a job recruiter.

Currently I use BuiltInChicago, Indeed, Craigslist, WeWorkRemotely, Angel.co, and LinkedIn for sending in applications.

I still need the following questions answered, as mentioned in the OP...

What are some places in the Chicago area that:

* Don't care what tech stack you've used?

* Have a large enough tech team to tolerate a greater ramp-up time for new hires?

* Years in the field mean less to them, because they can just hire and place someone where it's appropriate?

[clark-kent]

Use recruiters, they are very good in landing you interviews, put your side projects on your resume and bring them up during interviews. Try hired.com. The most important thing is to get exposure to as many job interviews as possible. I have no doubt that you will land a job soon.

[throwmeaway32]

If the info was accurate in your other answers then I believe you're focusing on the wrong questions to ask.

[telebone_man]

In answer to your questions..

- Don't care what tech stack you've used

I would argue that most companies aren't too concerned about your tech-stack. You're applying to businesses with dev's who like you appreciate development skills are transferable to other stacks and languages.

HOWEVER, if you are one of 10 applicants, of which 2 just happen to have experience in their tech-stack, then they will get preference over you. This is a logical route for them to go down.

- Have a large enough tech team to tolerate a greater ramp-up time for new hires

If this was the case, they'd be looking for 'juniors'. If you're applying for anything other than that, assume that they don't have the capability to tolerate a slow learning curve.

- Worked on-and-off. I never had another job lined up when I left/laid off from the old one.

If I see a CV with noticeable gaps in employment, I will put it to the bottom of the pile. I suggest you fill in those gaps with something.. personal projects.. volunteering.. you must have been doing something other than looking for your next job?

- Years in the field mean less to them because they can just hire and place someone where it's appropriate

Again I think the majority of businesses don't care too much about years, as such. Context matters. Again, if you're one 10 applicants, and the other 9 have 5 more years than you, then they'll preference them.

Can I suggest you reconsider your approach to applying? 1000 applications in 3 years are almost 1 a day. That's crazy. Your CV must be all over the place, and that isn't always a good thing (for example, if you've adjusted it over time, it may look like you were lying before).

Have you considered sending a portfolio with your applications?

[achicagodevdude]

I do send my resumes with a list of projects in them, with Github links. Only a few have said anything about them. If you want to take a look, it's here: github.com/ccajas

If I have to be considered as a junior to be on boarded and learning from other, so be it. I never had much guidance from more experienced people anyway. Small companies usually cannot provide that, so it's possibly time to get a fresh start as a junior at a large company. A good old "soft reset" might be the thing my career needs. I'll remove past jobs from my resume, and just keep my education info and list of projects.

> Can I suggest you reconsider your approach to applying?

Yes, you can suggest that. What other approaches do you recommend for applying?

[telebone_man]

Something other than what you've done 1000 times?

[sbahr001]

Best thing to do is create a portfolio with the latest tech stacks, and make them open source so they can see what your capable of.

[throwmeaway32]

Have you actually found positions you're interested in?

Have you been applying, but not getting interviews?

Have you been getting interviews but not succeeding?

[achicagodevdude]

>Have you actually found positions you're interested in?

Yes.

>Have you been applying, but not getting interviews?

about 1000 applications since late 2014, and about 20 interviews

>Have you been getting interviews but not succeeding?

No offers from any interviews in the current job hunt.

What is the usual percentage of offers that I should expect? How many applications is the usual to send before someone gets their first offer?

[throwmeaway32]

1000 applications and 20 interviews in around ~3 years?

I don't have stats to back up my opinion but that to me is crazy crazy low (unless you were applying for completely unsuitable jobs).

- Do you alter your resume per applications?

- Is there a common theme amongst positions you're applying for? (i.e. 'junior' or 'senior' etc) or are you applying for just every dev role you see?

- Do you do any networking (i.e. meetups?)

- Would you be willing to share your resume? (perhaps remove identifiable things if you are concerned).

- Can you share some links to recent job postings you've applied for?

[achicagodevdude]

I don't alter my resume on a per-application basis, but I have a web development focused resume for web dev jobs, and a more general software engineering one for non web jobs. I make changes to both of them every month or two.

I apply to very few junior or senior jobs. Mostly mid level jobs or other SWE jobs that have no title modifiers. Most of the feedback leads me to the conclusion that I have too many years to be considered for a junior role, but lacking the experience for a senior one.

That lead me to ask about jobs that are more lenient with ramp up time. I'm the career version of the student that repeats the same grade. I've had poor opportunities to follow industry trends.

I am going to meetups more often this year. Trying to do at least two a month. This is the only way I talked to developers BTW. I don't have any Facebook friends who are SWE's or even know a SWE.

Can't share a resume, at least not now, as I'm typing from my phone. And I cannot use the laptop for internet at the moment. My resume docs are in my laptop.

No links now, but recent companies I've applied to: Akuna Capital, Braintree, Vokal, Cloudflare, DialogTech, BMW, ParkWhiz, Enova, Power Reviews, Vivid Seats, Uptake, Amazon, Morningstar, Rocketmiles, Nerdery, Sprout Social. I am willing to move if relocation is paid for. Most rejected me at submitting my resume. I bombed first tech interview with Amazon. But I'm in the interviewing stages with Cloudflare and Akuna Capital.

[Spoom]

Please share your resume, your cover letter / emails to one of these jobs, and an overview of how a typical interview goes. You're could be screwing up one of these on a regular basis. Alternatively, a lot of employers may be dismissing you out of hand due to the long gap, which may need some explanation.

[achicagodevdude]

Here's my resume (with most names redacted): https://www.dropbox.com/s/6290viuyjbr09jc/web_resume_swe.pdf...

I have also a short freelance job that at least shortens the gap of time.

[achicagodevdude]

Finally, I can show my resume (with most names redacted)

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6290viuyjbr09jc/web_resume_swe.pdf...

[throwmeaway32]

I agree with another poster regarding the 'not very compelling' and that I would classify you in the junior range of experience.

Honest feedback coming up..

Initial advice:-

- Remove 'professional' from the experience subtitle, it immediately frames your resume to me that there will be non-professional experience later on and therefore you might not have much professional experience.

- Remove the professional and personal experiences programming languages/tools parts, merge them into one. Rank them in order of your overall experience, splitting them makes it look amateurish.

- If you've been unemployed for 2 years, then I would expect your github profile to be way more active if you're really looking and planning to get a job.

- A lot of your experience descriptions don't really mention much tech and come across as vague; reading your resume fills me with doubtful questions about you rather than answers that make me picture you clearly in your head and what your capabilities are.

i.e. 'Migration of [startup's] corporate websites and blogs to a new host' - what tech were they running on?, what tech did you move them to?

'Addressed the needs of dozens of business and non-profit clients to improve their online presence via CMS websites' - what does this even mean? You made some wordpress sites? You wrote your own framework?

- Have you been practising for interviews? (phone and onsite), P.S. This advice is given based on the variable state of interviews that are given.....buy a whiteboard and pen and practise coding and explaining your thoughts whilst writing, revise for the interview ('Cracking the coding interview' etc).

[achicagodevdude]

Regarding interviews I hardly get any algorithm questions that are found in CTCI.

Most of the technical interviews ask me practical knowledge on languages or tools, like how would I write a query for some problem, build a simple splash page with X set of features, etc.

It may be more of a west coast thing to ask CTCI questions. Interview styles might be like hip hop or food styles...it probably varies by reason. Local companies don't ask them much. The only companies that asked me those are Amazon and TripleByte.

I don't know of any resources for mock interviews.. my friends and family aren't familiar enough with my work to do a proper one. There doesn't seem to be much of a market for professionals to do mock interviews, which I find interesting.

Also, looking into the future, when I get my next job, what can I do on the job that will keep my interview skills fresh?

[askafriend]

So I'm going to be honest. Your resume is not very compelling. The impression I get is that you've got perhaps an internship or two worth of actual experience on there. The short stints are not helping your case and are in stark contrast to how you started this post: "I'm an experienced web developer". Just based on reading your resume, I just don't see that statement being qualified.

Even the details of the short stints are not compelling. Things like "Documented over a hundred logical and syntax errors for the storefront's legacy PHP framework" or "Assisted in improving UX workflow for a new storefront design, collaborating with a QA tester" just feels like empty experience.

So I think you need to lower your targets a bit and get real, consistent experience. You need to prioritize career growth over all else in your new job search. That means you need a position where you can make significant contributions over a long period of time (~2 years or so). That will allow you to have some meaty experience to go off of for future job search and hopefully get you out of the career rut that you're in now.

Others here have offered some good advice. Reach out to them and take them up on their offers to chat. It's going to be a grind but you also need to be honest with yourself about where you are and realize it's going to take some work to get to where you want to be. Just cold applying with that resume isn't going to cut it.

Also FYI, a link to your github is in your resume which links to your full name. I believe you were trying to obfuscate that so you should rip that out.

[achicagodevdude]

As far as experience goes, I call myself experienced only in the sense that I held a few paid jobs in this career. It would be splitting hairs to redefine "experienced" in some other way.

The oldest job in my resume was indeed a hard one to put much detail in it, given my short time there. I wasn't even allowed to write code in that job at the time I was working there. It literally was just look over these source code files, document possible errors in Excel- all without having to run the code- and send it over to the team lead. (code analyst would be a better title, then?)

The second job was mostly CMS/WordPress type setup of websites, and occasional custom backend work like the essay reviewing system and the CRM application for the cleaning company. These applications were for my company's clients, and did not directly contribute money for the company. It's a web dev agency, and in these places, it's the salespeople that make the company money, not the programmers.

Most of my career has been job hopping from small company to small company with little mentorship or guidance for good development practices. Lowering my targets would invariably lower the quality of companies I'd be able to go at, or can it not be that way? I need to improve myself by positioning myself as a junior hire, and surrounding myself by employees much better than me.

So work at a place where I can experience better career growth, while juggling the task of lowering my target. I think that is where you're referring to, when you said go some place where I can make significant contributions.

So looks like a reset in my career is in order then. Would it be fine removing my oldest job from the resume?

As far as my name on Github goes, I'm okay with it showing up, just didn't want to post a very direct connection to personal info.

[deeteecee]

I have those same questions other than the first.

Also, one easy way to ramp up is it looks like you've only been looking in Chicago. Obviously, trying the rest of the US would help increase your odds.

[Glibaudio]

@achicagodevdude

If you're open to chatting 1:1 I could try and give you some advice.

Do you have a profile I can DM you at?

[achicagodevdude]

I'm newish to HN so I don't know if I can DM you through here. Do you mean another website, such as LinkedIn?

[stevenwu]

You are right to think that there is a correlation between previous salaries and difficulty in finding jobs. In an ideal world, if your true worth is $X/year but you're willing to work for $(0.90X)/year, then you should be able to nab a job right? After all, you're a bargain. I struggled with this myself as a student job hunting, fighting the mentality of self-worth. All my jobs previous to my new one were low pay for our industry (highest was $25/hr CAD). As someone who's had to learn to embrace this mental shift when negotiating with much better offers relative to what I was used to, the first thing I will say is that you are spot on: a race to the bottom helps no one.

So OK, let's talk about your main question: where to begin to command interviews and ultimately a better salary? The advice here so far has been standard: (a) look outside of one area (b) do side projects and (c) talk to recruiters/network. This is fine advice, but IMO, not the most helpful. Advice like "find your niche" is better... but that is a difficult task on its own, to decide on one path that is by definition obscure.

Again I will draw from personal experience to try and share what I've learned. What worked most for me was to aim for a dream job, and to do things that would lead to building skills that would make me qualified for this dream job. I was in my 3rd year of undergrad - at the time, it was to work in an NBA front office - I was studying stats, and didn't have many interests besides having fun and following basketball. In following this pursuit to its limit, I learned many skills along the way that I didn't have until I decided what I most wanted: web scraping, web development, databases, scripting, algorithm development, computational statistics, explaining statistics to non-technical users, trying to build a business, etc. Side projects, building a network (both local and out of town), and finding my niche (data science + web dev + product skills) resulted from this goal. They would have never happened on my own initiative - I would have been one of many people dreaming of app ideas and side projects to start but never finish. This has a nice benefit that comes for free: you are now different than the rest. Your perspective to solving problems and your experiences will be unique (to what degree, matters based on whatever it is you choose).

The downside of my advice is that it is not a short fix: myself, I am now 3-4 years from when I started this story, as I am soon to graduate from my MSc Stats. But you can accelerate this process, and I can tell you it works: applying to jobs coming out of my undergrad, I only heard from companies that you wouldn't recognize. This year, I got on-sites at Amazon and Capital One before deciding to accept a dream job offer at Shopify. You can do it - and I hope that this is an answer and story that can help you in your search of where to begin your change in approach.

P.S., when you get there, do not underestimate the truth behind how useful resources like CTCI, whiteboarding, etc. are for the interview stage.

[smt88]

Talk to a recruiter

[achicagodevdude]

I've already tried. None of the recruiting firms have been able to lead me to job offers. I got a few interviews, but that's it.

There's a lot of detail in my original post, so you would need to provide more detailed, personalized advice. "talk to a recruiter" would be already attempted for someone that's been on the job search as long as I have.

[smt88]

Check out Rural Sourcing. They look for bargain devs specifically.

[ahazred8ta]

as long as you relocate to one of their four locations...

https://www.ruralsourcing.com/about-rsi/development-centers/