[hfsktr]

I have been unemployed for over a year. Today I just got my first offer, which made me go "Coincidence?! Probably." It was less than I wanted but really after a year I feel like I have no power to negotiate.

Add to that my personality (avoid confrontation) and the fact that my last job I fell into so I didn't have to negotiate (there wasn't a contract it was just spoken and my checks increased).

That excerpt kind of summed up what I had been thinking all along. It was all I could do not to shout YES right away (before I even saw the details).

[orangethirty]

I don't think you suffered from bad luck. Just bad marketing. Programmers need to realize that you have to learn how to sell yourself if you want a good steady job.

[hfsktr]

Some of it might have been bad luck but I didn't really think any of it was. I knew that I was bad at interviewing. I just didn't realize how bad.

My experience is probably more limited than I knew and the area I live in, while having jobs, isn't huge. That added frustration when the same companies had the same job pop up every 3 months (I applied for the new ones every time and never got a call).

I hope that I can prove to this new place I am worth taking a chance on. Just feels good to not have to worry that I am a failure (at least for now).

[Ecio78]

Some of it might have been bad luck but I didn't really think any of it was. I knew that I was bad at interviewing. I just didn't realize how bad

I've been working for 8 years in three different companies: I found the first job (out of university) because a friend of mine worked there. The two following jobs were "found" because our manager moved and we (me, my friend and some others) move consequently as a team. I did some interviews during these years, never an offer. I really couldn't say if it was because of my salary (definitively above - italian sh###y - market) or because of me (my skills, my attitude, whatever). Of course Headhunters and HR are so kind not to give you any feedback (sometimes neither a response).

Now our last companies has failed, I'm unemployed and I've decided with my wife to relocate to Luxembourg where she can have a stable job (at least her..).

So here I am, unemployed and looking for a job[1] in another country (with the additional problem of the language: I'm a real novice in French, I don't speak German and my English should be far better..). I think that probably I'll discover which part of me was the problem...

[1] or coming back to university or learning coding (i'm more a sys/net engineer) or studying some online courses or trying to think if some startup ideas I have are feasible

[rm445]

I could nitpick a couple of grammatical points, but your English is better than that of many native speakers I have worked with.

Unless you sweated over a dictionary for an hour to write the above comment, or your speaking is much worse, please make sure to market yourself as fluent in English!

[Ecio78]

Thank you for your kind words, could you tell me which grammatical points are incorrect so I can improve? Thanks!

[josephhardin]

Also the me should be an I, and listed after the others. Though to be honest, most people make the same mistake. Your English is at the level where you can pass off as a native from an English speaking country so I would not worry too much. Everyone has at least a few mistakes in almost everything they write.

[samatman]

The only error worth mentioning is "last companies has failed". It must be either "company has failed" or "companies have failed".

Good luck!

[roguecoder]

If you do well, it's also possible to negotiate once you are already employed. You'll probably be more valuable to the company after a year, since you'll know how things work, and chances are good that your alternatives will have improved. I've always brought it up in a positive way ("I think I've been contributing significant value and would like to find a way for my compensation to reflect that"), but the managers understand the subtext ("now that I have a year's experience here, other companies are calling me at home.")

Success will depend on the company, but it can work.

[orangethirty]

You will never be a failure.

[broham]

Congrats! Here's hoping that you'll be happy there.