[sjg007]

My take. You have a 30% success rate landing an onsite interview. That is actually really good. You have had 9 technical interviews with 2 rejections and 2 on sites and I assume 5 pending? So your on site is probably enriched > 30% even though it stands at 22% now.. My guess is that if you need to do anything then maybe you just have to practice your onsite interview skills. Maybe some of these are technical e.g. whiteboard problem solving or something else.

Remember the goal here is to get through this with a job offer at the end. You only need 1 offer. Also remember this is as much about the company as it is about you. The companies/groups you have not had success with might be a total mess.

Another thing to do is, if you have an opportunity, is to ask a lot of questions about the interviewer in a social, friendly way. Be genuinely curious about others. People love more than anything to talk about themselves.

-- Also Apple and even Google have noted that their best individual performers tend to be self-taught. I think that means that if you have the skills and interest to learn programming you tend to be pretty good at programming.

[ryandrake]

Also 15 initial interviews from 50 cold applications is astoundingly good. I generally expect about a 10% rate, which would require 150 applications to get this many interviews. I think there is nothing wrong with the top of the funnel here. OP’s resume is likely great.

[mikekchar]

Another thing to consider: there are a lot of bad companies out there. If you aren't turning down about 1/3 of the jobs that you are interviewing for, you're probably having trouble identifying the good places to work. Similarly, many times it will be a fine company, but just not a good fit for you. No shame in not being offered a job that won't be good for you!

Finally, it's a bit like finding a girlfriend/boyfriend. If you approach the exercise as some way of validating your worth, then you get a bit of a stink to you. Nobody really wants to start out a relationship that way. On the other hand if you are just keeping your eyes open for opportunities that are mutually beneficial things will go much more smoothly.