Let me flip the script here a little - I'm a hiring manager (though, not in your country, and not in your languages/skillset). I've been interviewing a fair amount recently (despite the economy), hired 2 juniors and I'm looking for maybe 1-2 seniors.
One of the juniors I just hired, is currently waiting for his final marks from his university course. I couldn't care less about where he studied or what his grades will be, the interview told me everything I needed to know to make my decision (and the only coding test he got was me sharing my screen on Skype).
The whole industry has a number of problems with recruitment and candidates having to jump through hoops, but I know what it's like to be in a candidates shoes, so I changed things up.
Keeping this specific to you... you graduated, two months later moved to Texas, and have since applied for 300 positions. In 4 months. That's 75 applications a month - around 2 and a half a day! You've been networking lately - recruiters network, and hiring managers network (across companies & industries). I can promise you, in my industry & country, at least 7 people would have talked to me about you, and the conclusion that almost everyone would have is that you're "spamming" applications - you don't care where you work, you just want to get your foot in the door so you can start climbing the career ladder. As a result, your resume would be almost instantly filtered out by HR before someone like me sees it, and you would probably never know why.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but it's the reality of the job market. Sure, all candidates just want to get paid, but as a hiring manager, we would like to at least pretend you want to sit in our office because you like what we do as a company.
And that, is the one thing you can do to save yourself from the current situation.
Putting in 2.5 applications/day, there is no way you can dedicate the time to tailoring your application/resume for the specific company (and hiring manager) that you're targeting, especially while also coding for 6-10 hours a day. Slow is fast. So slow down, use a sniper rifle (and breathe) instead of using a shotgun.
You might think that putting in the effort to tailor applications is a waste, because most of the time you never hear back. But we have a lot of different needs as hiring managers, and as I said, we network too - so why not use that? For example, if I see a well thought out application/approach for a junior dev, but I don't have a seat to fill, maybe the candidate knows other languages that one of our team uses and their upcoming projects mean they'll SOON be hiring - I'll forward it over. Maybe a friend in a completely different industry is hiring for the same skillset that I was - I'll forward it over. If a hiring manager forwards your resume to another hiring manager, you completely bypass the HR selection process, and word of mouth virtually guarantees you an interview.
Imagine what it would be like to apply for Joe Blogs Inc, who have a total of 3 developers on staff... and you get a reply from Google inviting you to apply there instead, and your work comes with a glowing recommendation from the CEO at Joe Blogs Inc because she saw your personal projects. That's why you need to slow your roll a little.
Thank you so much for writing such a thorough and insightful response. That was the wake-up call that I needed. I had not considered that putting in so many applications would actually hurt my chances.
This is incredible advice, and while it stings a little to think I may have damaged my chances or even my reputation, it also comes with a little bit of relief. Not only is it okay that I slow down and take my time with applications, but it is seems critical!
I have a lot to think about: how and when I apply to roles, researching roles more and tailoring my resumes more specifically to that role. I am so grateful to you and everyone who took time to give me feedback. That is exactly WHY I posed this question and this community is awesome.
The one thing to remember about the IT world (and it probably translates wider still) - everyone makes mistakes.
We estimate tasks, the estimates are wrong. The tasks themselves are at best, inaccurate. The requirements that drove us to create those tasks are wrong. Customers complain about our software being wrong, and sometimes the customers are wrong.
In your position now, if a recruiter phoned/emailed with something along the lines of "I've got a guy to talk to you about, he probably has a bit of a bad reputation - but that's simply because no-one told him how to get things right at the start, I think he's worth looking at, can I send the resume across?" ... my reply would be "sure, lets have a look."
Getting things wrong isn't a problem, especially when you don't know any better. Putting things right when you know they're wrong is the true sign of character.
While I will agree that I didn't "know any better", I could definitely sense that something was wrong. More specifically, I knew I was doing something wrong. But I didn't know what that was! Which is why I posed this question and I am glad I did.
I always think about the definition of insanity (apparently not a direct Einstein quote!), "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
I am just glad to break out of that cycle and explore new methods and practices, and hopefully learn from my mistakes and right my wrongs!
The bonus to this approach is you are more likely to end up in a position (and at a company) that you ACTUALLY want to be in. There's nothing more soul sucking (even as a jr because let's face it, we deal(t) with some shit as jr's) than working on projects that you have no interest in for a company that you don't value.
One of my teachers in school always preached about how important, in his opinion, that you carefully consider your first position and that you are able to both willing and able to stay there for 1-2 years at least. According to him, you don't want to be bouncing around from role to role, gaining little experience, traction, and possibly even a bad reputation.
So I guess in a way it's a blessing that I haven't been in serious consideration for some roles, because truth is, there have only been a handful of roles that I've really wanted and been excited to apply for.
I think it will really help me to spend some time just researching and narrowing down roles that I truly want to apply for.
That's some sage advice from your teacher. It's far better to take your time and find a jr role with a solid mentor (or at least prospect of one).
It also goes the other way, if you happen to find yourself in a toxic environment, get out! Some jr devs make the mistake of thinking "I just need my 2 years", but it will be detrimental to your mental health and possibly career where it's possible to burn out or become jaded.
I wish you all the best and know if you focus on what you want, it will come your way 👍
👋 Web developer, working with Ruby on Rails and React at UNION. Built an iOS app once.
Ruby Mentor at exercism.io ✨
❤️ inclusive teams, code maintainability, testing, learning, teaching
Let me flip the script here a little - I'm a hiring manager (though, not in your country, and not in your languages/skillset). I've been interviewing a fair amount recently (despite the economy), hired 2 juniors and I'm looking for maybe 1-2 seniors.
One of the juniors I just hired, is currently waiting for his final marks from his university course. I couldn't care less about where he studied or what his grades will be, the interview told me everything I needed to know to make my decision (and the only coding test he got was me sharing my screen on Skype).
The whole industry has a number of problems with recruitment and candidates having to jump through hoops, but I know what it's like to be in a candidates shoes, so I changed things up.
Keeping this specific to you... you graduated, two months later moved to Texas, and have since applied for 300 positions. In 4 months. That's 75 applications a month - around 2 and a half a day! You've been networking lately - recruiters network, and hiring managers network (across companies & industries). I can promise you, in my industry & country, at least 7 people would have talked to me about you, and the conclusion that almost everyone would have is that you're "spamming" applications - you don't care where you work, you just want to get your foot in the door so you can start climbing the career ladder. As a result, your resume would be almost instantly filtered out by HR before someone like me sees it, and you would probably never know why.
I'm sorry if this sounds harsh, but it's the reality of the job market. Sure, all candidates just want to get paid, but as a hiring manager, we would like to at least pretend you want to sit in our office because you like what we do as a company.
And that, is the one thing you can do to save yourself from the current situation.
Putting in 2.5 applications/day, there is no way you can dedicate the time to tailoring your application/resume for the specific company (and hiring manager) that you're targeting, especially while also coding for 6-10 hours a day. Slow is fast. So slow down, use a sniper rifle (and breathe) instead of using a shotgun.
You might think that putting in the effort to tailor applications is a waste, because most of the time you never hear back. But we have a lot of different needs as hiring managers, and as I said, we network too - so why not use that? For example, if I see a well thought out application/approach for a junior dev, but I don't have a seat to fill, maybe the candidate knows other languages that one of our team uses and their upcoming projects mean they'll SOON be hiring - I'll forward it over. Maybe a friend in a completely different industry is hiring for the same skillset that I was - I'll forward it over. If a hiring manager forwards your resume to another hiring manager, you completely bypass the HR selection process, and word of mouth virtually guarantees you an interview.
Imagine what it would be like to apply for Joe Blogs Inc, who have a total of 3 developers on staff... and you get a reply from Google inviting you to apply there instead, and your work comes with a glowing recommendation from the CEO at Joe Blogs Inc because she saw your personal projects. That's why you need to slow your roll a little.
"So slow down, use a sniper rifle (and breathe) instead of using a shotgun."
Love this.
Wow. That is an invaluable tip there. Thanks a bunch.
Dave,
Thank you so much for writing such a thorough and insightful response. That was the wake-up call that I needed. I had not considered that putting in so many applications would actually hurt my chances.
This is incredible advice, and while it stings a little to think I may have damaged my chances or even my reputation, it also comes with a little bit of relief. Not only is it okay that I slow down and take my time with applications, but it is seems critical!
I have a lot to think about: how and when I apply to roles, researching roles more and tailoring my resumes more specifically to that role. I am so grateful to you and everyone who took time to give me feedback. That is exactly WHY I posed this question and this community is awesome.
The one thing to remember about the IT world (and it probably translates wider still) - everyone makes mistakes.
We estimate tasks, the estimates are wrong. The tasks themselves are at best, inaccurate. The requirements that drove us to create those tasks are wrong. Customers complain about our software being wrong, and sometimes the customers are wrong.
In your position now, if a recruiter phoned/emailed with something along the lines of "I've got a guy to talk to you about, he probably has a bit of a bad reputation - but that's simply because no-one told him how to get things right at the start, I think he's worth looking at, can I send the resume across?" ... my reply would be "sure, lets have a look."
Getting things wrong isn't a problem, especially when you don't know any better. Putting things right when you know they're wrong is the true sign of character.
While I will agree that I didn't "know any better", I could definitely sense that something was wrong. More specifically, I knew I was doing something wrong. But I didn't know what that was! Which is why I posed this question and I am glad I did.
I always think about the definition of insanity (apparently not a direct Einstein quote!), "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results."
I am just glad to break out of that cycle and explore new methods and practices, and hopefully learn from my mistakes and right my wrongs!
The bonus to this approach is you are more likely to end up in a position (and at a company) that you ACTUALLY want to be in. There's nothing more soul sucking (even as a jr because let's face it, we deal(t) with some shit as jr's) than working on projects that you have no interest in for a company that you don't value.
One of my teachers in school always preached about how important, in his opinion, that you carefully consider your first position and that you are able to both willing and able to stay there for 1-2 years at least. According to him, you don't want to be bouncing around from role to role, gaining little experience, traction, and possibly even a bad reputation.
So I guess in a way it's a blessing that I haven't been in serious consideration for some roles, because truth is, there have only been a handful of roles that I've really wanted and been excited to apply for.
I think it will really help me to spend some time just researching and narrowing down roles that I truly want to apply for.
That's some sage advice from your teacher. It's far better to take your time and find a jr role with a solid mentor (or at least prospect of one).
It also goes the other way, if you happen to find yourself in a toxic environment, get out! Some jr devs make the mistake of thinking "I just need my 2 years", but it will be detrimental to your mental health and possibly career where it's possible to burn out or become jaded.
I wish you all the best and know if you focus on what you want, it will come your way 👍
I think this is super important, yes. This blog post should be very helpful in helping you change your mindset into crafting unique applications.