I’m fucking tired of explaining to business ghouls that I AM FUCKING DESPERATE. I’M INTERVIEWING WITH YOU BECAUSE I WANT TO SURVIVE. I DON’T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT MY DREAMS OR WHETHER THIS JOB OR YOUR COMPANY LINES UP WITH MY CAREER GOALS. WE ARE HOLY-SHIT PAST THE POINT WHERE I’M ABLE TO BE CHOOSY. ALL YOU FUCKING NEED TO DO IS READ THE FUCKING RESUMÉ THAT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR GOD-DAMNED EYES, ASK ABOUT MY QUALIFICATIONS, AND TELL ME WHETHER OR NOT I’M A GOOD FIT.
NO, your company isn’t special to me, and it isn’t special to ANYONE but you and your business-ghoul friends. Your company is merely the LABEL that will decorate my paycheck and LITERALLY NOTHING ELSE, AND I’M SICK OF PRETENDING OTHERWISE.
And WHY the FUCK are you calling me to literally REPEAT SHIT YOU’RE TOO FUCKING IGNORANT TO READ ON THE GOD-DAMNED FUCKING RESUMÉ?
I’ve applied for at least 200 engineering jobs (I recounted the ones on job sites; but even that’s nowhere near all of them) this year and gotten zero offers. This job search is LITERALLY DRIVING ME INSANE, because I can no longer fucking afford antidepressants and I’m on the verge of blowing up in people’s faces all the goddamn fucking time. I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE.
Try [insert nearby industry here]
Funny story: turns out, there are people who studied for degrees in those nearby industries. No I can’t land a software developer, data scientist, IT, etc., job, because (1) I’ve applied for all those several times and not even gotten an interview and (2) my school produces students who actually studied those topics as a major!
So thank you genuinely to the dozens of people who have recommended that, I really do appreciate the help … but that only works if you’re an appealing candidate in general.
Why are you unhirable?
Bad GPA (~2.8; many firms have hard cutoff > 3 or 3.1), no experience/internships, no support/professional network, recent downward trajectory on transcript, autistic, mentally ill getting more unstable by the day, terrible attitude that’s impossible to fully hide, no charisma to accommodate for my deficiencies, no access to a time machine. I KNOW how I got here, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it.
At least when I worked in food delivery I managed to make non-trivial money. AT LEAST I WAS HAPPY while being exploited. Now I’m thousands of dollars in debt, literally a hundred pounds heavier, psychologically and emotionally BROKEN, and no closer to getting a real job than I was before.
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Dude I’m much older than you, not nearly as well educated, and feel the exact same way, with a job. But I was in your position last year and I fucking get it. This is my advice, lie, lie your ass off, I don’t give a fuck if you haven’t been doing anything exciting or not since you graduated, YES you fucking have, get on the selfhosted or sysadmin on here and find something someone else did and say you did it. And when asked to present it(this will not happen) you had a power surge and lost everything or something, your cat knocked a water bottle on your setup, it doesn’t matter. You are slowly rebuilding because it’s difficult to get back in that headspace due to the frustration.
This bit worked for me when I was interviewing but your mileage may vary, watch a bunch of pro wrestling clips and specifically watch how they talk about themselves. That is how you need to talk about you, and I know you don’t fucking care, this is all bullshit, but thinking about yourself as the baddest motherfucker that ever is gonna walk into whatever shitty company you’re applying to will help you get what you want.
Everything is fucking terrible in the IT world right now. But remember most people doing the hiring are dumber than a sack of hammers, manipulate them.
I hope this doesn’t seem like I’m talking down, I really feel for your situation, but playing dirty is necessary. You ain’t doing anything wrong
This is great advice. It’s all a game and if you wanna win, you’ve gotta play it and cheat codes are fair play!
This is my advice, lie, lie your ass off
The problem with lying is that I’m not built to do it. I can barely remember the truth; how am I supposed to keep track of my own lies?
That being said, I literally just lost out on an opportunity because I told the truth. The recruiter asked a question “do you want X type of job” and I answered (truthfully) “yeah I’d love to do an X type of job” and they responded “well our company doesn’t have X jobs, you’d be better off somewhere else.” They quickly ended the phone call at that.
Like they couldn’t have done this over email or in the application form? Did they really have to call me? And no shit I’d be a better fit somewhere else in their business-ghoul fantasy world where everyone gets what they want, but in the REAL WORLD I’d be better off if they hired me to do literally anything, and there’s nowhere else I can fucking go!
find something someone else did and say you did it.
I’ve had a few employers ask for my GitHub profile or samples of my code as an optional field, which leads me to think that they’re going to ask for those things once I get far enough in the interview process. I’ve actually used in interviews a software project I wrote by following a YouTube tutorial to discuss my familiarity with DSP, but I’m terrified for the day they ask to see my GitHub profile…
get on the selfhosted or sysadmin on here
Engineering interviewers at least are kinda pro-proprietary-software. Interviewers have bragged that the company uses proprietary software as if that’s a feature. I’ve had to stop asking the question “what software can I teach myself to be better prepared for this role?” because the answer is usually “all our software is proprietary, you can’t train yourself for this” in an annoyed tone, as if I crossed a line. The self-hosted projects are free and open-source and imply my position against proprietary software. Unfortunately, the lack of open-source alternatives [1] in industrial systems ensure firm’s exclusivity in the industry, so even a preference for open-source software would be taken as a negative.
That being said, I am looking into self-hosting just for my own sake. But I haven’t had the time to do it properly.
This bit worked for me when I was interviewing but your mileage may vary, watch a bunch of pro wrestling clips and specifically watch how they talk about themselves.
I’m gonna give this a shot!
Thank you for reaching out. Life hurts right now.
[1] I would definitely be interested in developing such (free and) open-source industrial automation systems, but (1) I don’t have the time, expertise, or experience to do it alone, (2) I would need access to industrial systems to test on, and (3) I would have to find a team of people basically willing to burn the possibility of a career in engineering, because the big proprietary-software players would not take kindly to some nerds disrupting their profits.
I am in no way qualified to address any of that. Really sorry you’re going through it all, it sounds like hell. I do want to ask/suggest you could do food delivery again, for now, to pay for your gas and antidepressants in between interviews. A food delivery job should be flexible I’d think? So maybe you can work around interview times. Maybe you do a few less interviews per time week (or whatever your preferred time interval of measurement) and pull the nose of the plane up on some what’s got you so stressed, while still not giving up on your goal and dream of being an engineer.
I’m not an engineer, but I can relate to this.
I’ve been trying to get a new job this year and have been lied to repeatedly with fake jobs that didn’t even exist.
I’m fucking sick of it. I hope you come up with something legit.
So while I can’t pay for gas without begging my parents for gas money, my literal gas tank is about half full, so I should be good for a couple weeks. I meant “out of gas” metaphorically. Sorry if that was deceptive.
I do want to ask/suggest you could do food delivery again, for now, to pay for your gas and antidepressants in between interviews.
If I can’t get an internship in the field, then that would be the move. The problem with pizza delivery is that it was customer facing and additionally extremely stressful. It was getting a lot more difficult when I left, e.g. less room for mistakes… basically, we were in the midst of a corporate clampdown. Customers also got a lot worse after the pandemic. Even when it was good, food delivery was the only thing I had energy to do, even on antidepressants without the weight gain. Food delivery would probably mark the end of my engineering career as it previously marked the end of my music production career. Engineering internships pay more than food delivery anyways. Employers are already asking about the gap in my work history since I graduated in May, and my food service experience doesn’t count as engineering experience or basically anything other than to verify that I wasn’t just sitting on my thumbs for seven years.
Maybe you do a few less interviews per time week (or whatever your preferred time interval of measurement)
It’s not so much the number of interviews as it is the applications. I’ve had 11 interviews total spread out over about four months, but I got these interviews by filling out hundreds of applications, which is frustrating and demoralizing.
I’m so burned out, but I have to be doing something.
That’s all fair reasoning, not that you actually had to explain it to to me, some stranger. But I appreciate that you took the time to talk to me. Especially when you’re dealing with everything and like I said, I’m not really qualified to help, and my one suggestion wasn’t exactly useful. Still, I’m rooting for you, dude.
Something that helps me sometimes is reading a book called the Enchiridion by Epictetus. It isn’t a religious book or anything but it helps. I like the translation by Elizabeth Carter. I’ve found listening to it occasionally helps me learn something about myself or something dumb like that. It’s not dumb though, and maybe it could be interesting to you. But if not that’s also really fair and I hope you find something that helps you manage the stress you’re feeling.
I put the book on my reading list 😊. Thank you for your kind words.
Another thought occured; you could try a different place not going through a corporate clampdown, if there’s another delivery place where you live, or there are also app jobs you can deliver for and those are super flexible. I don’t know, I’m maybe barking up the wrong tree. But you’ve got at least one stranger out there in the world brainstorming about helping so that’s something you’ve got going for you, which is nice.
I do have a DoorDash account lying around. But food delivery is really dangerous. I live (and worked in) a nice area, but even our drivers got robbed; one had their car stolen. Plus, my car is getting old and I can’t afford the wear-and-tear that driving it all day would bring. But thank you for your advice; it’s nice to know someone cares.
Just view the whole thing as a game. It’s a stupid game alright but you just have to play it. And the business ghouls you’re talking to are playing the game too, they don’t believe any of if that shit either.
Depending on whether your state or county sucks or not, you may be able to get meds from the department of health and human services. Google something like “[your location] sliding scale behavioral health” + if you’re still in school they might have a health department thing too. Good luck, stay on your meds as best you can and the rest will fall into place I promise.
Thank you for sharing with us! Life is interesting to say the least. You are doing the right things and you are on a great path. If you ever want to chat feel free to pm me. Your doing what needs to be done from what you are saying and even though you may be struggling I’m happy and proud of you as a human for reaching out and telling us. Ebbs and flow friend… ebbs and flows
Interviewer: What are you expecting to get out of this job?
Me: to be paid money so I can eat.
Interviewer: So what exciting things have you been doing since you graduated?
Me a couple interviews ago, deadpan: Applying for work.
Yeah it seems like my filter is rotting away…
Let me give you some very good advice for getting a development job. This was given to me when I left the boot camp where I learned to code. I studied philosophy then bartended for a decade, so I had no experience. Yet I got a job within a week of leaving the bootcamp by following this advice.
Don’t keep applying. Apply to a few places, maybe 10. If that goes nowhere, then why would you expect anything different from the next 200?
Instead of just applying, work on projects. Deploy some cool impressive applications of your own. If you can’t do that, then you aren’t ready for a job and this is why your applications are going nowhere. If you can do that, do it. Keep doing it. Learn new technologies. If you don’t want to learn new stuff, then you aren’t up for a development job, because that’s half of it.
Basically, act like you’re already hired. Act like you have a job. Spend 35 hours a week learning, building, contributing to open source. Then spend 5 hours applying. That’s a far better use of your time. You’ll have stuff to talk about in your interviews. You’ll have stuff to show off. And you’ll be getting better and staying on top of new tech instead of stagnating while you apply. That’s what gets you a job. Not blindly applying. If you’re only applying to jobs, then your aren’t learning, aren’t doing, you’re dead in the water and that actually makes you unhireable.
When you become impressive enough, through the merit of the work you can show off, that 5 hours a week will be more than enough for someone to see your value and hire you.
Marginally useful advice: if you are in the USA, try the US federal government. Right out of college I got a GS-7 to 12 track over 2.5yr with your exact GPA. That was in 2010 but I know we still have trouble hiring enough.
Downsides: this is a 3mo+ process. Hiring in the Fed is slow. So it isn’t a stick fix but might be a long-term one.i graduated in an area with 3 great engineering universities so I know how that is
You may have to move closer to DC, a field office or a military base. Depends what you apply for.Upsides: competitive pay, easy to change jobs within gov, very good benefits, extremely stable job.
Usajobs site can suck sometimes but you can apply for ALL gov jobs at one site. And reuse your resumes.
I actually did apply to a government [1] agency that had a booth at my university’s career fair last month. They had a special representative just for my major. It sounded like they were having trouble hiring, and they warned me it would be 100% travel, which I would 1000% sign up for. I applied the next day. Haven’t heard anything back from them or the other government positions I applied to, but hearing that it could take forever gives me some hope that they haven’t lost interest.
[1] Not defense, defense-adjacent, or any agency generally useless for mankind. Don’t want to dox myself, but I would be designing equipment that keeps people safe.
Yeah, gov hiring takes months. 3mo from application to tentative offer for an outside hire would be fast. I got my first job a similar way: handing our resumes at my uni’s huge engineering career fair. I got a call in October for an interview (so 1mo since resume) and my start date was February. So about ~5mo.
I’d go onto Usajobs and apply to anything that you would accept. Most people need to apply to dozens of jobs (this is the same unfortunately as commercial, but only 1 portal) until they get more specialized experience. A big problem with gov hiring is that this long lead time means a lot of potential hires find commercial gigs before the gov finishes the process.
You are right about government hiring taking forever. It took me about 5-6 months from the time I applied to my first government job to actually starting.
So it’s not a perfect solution but if you’re looking for advise, try looking for a factory job. Electronics manufacturing is a good bet if there’s any in your area. Those places typically pay much better than most other entry level jobs (like food service) and they will still hire basically anyone that can pass a drug test. A lot of those places also like to hire their engineers internally because then they’re already familiar with the product and their process. Just getting a job on the production floor should get you a livable (if not comfortable) income and from there it should be easy for you to get into an engineering position when one opens up. I know it’s probably not what you’re looking for but from the sound of it right now you just need anything that pays and provides insurance.
Life sucks, dude. Some are fortunate, some are not. I assume you are the latter. I can only sympathize with you as a stranger on the internet. I’m sorry you have to face such situations.
Being unemployed after school was a dark time. There aren’t enough high quality jobs to go around. It’s competitive, especially at the start of your career.
That GPA is tough. Mine isn’t much better. One option I’m looking at is going back to increase my cGPA so I can get into a grad program. I wish I could go way back in time. But if I could only go back to where you are right now I’d do what I needed to do to get into grad school. Caveat: something employable.
My experience after finally getting the damn job is that I still feel trapped, years later. I took the first one that was offered to me, and it’s not the one I wanted. I’m part way through a career I don’t like and shifting gears in your 30s is another challenge I wish I could have side stepped.
The bullshit doesn’t stop. The business environment is a political environment. You can be the best engineer, but if you aren’t constantly pushing your own agenda or you don’t have an excellent manager then you won’t advance in your career, not compared to one who does those things.
One other thing: you might not need to lie. I’m a truthful person as well, and if you have autism you might default even more strongly to honesty. I think it’s possible to work around this if you start thinking about yourself as being a better person than you are, and then trying to become that person one small step at a time. If you can learn to recognize your potential instead of counting your failures then you might find it easier to talk and think about yourself in a more positive way. It will feel true because it is true, (even if you’re still working on it).
It’s a very hard time.
But if I could only go back to where you are right now I’d do what I needed to do to get into grad school. Caveat: something employable.
So I actually did get unconditionally admitted to a graduate program, i.e. I do have the GPA for that at my alma mater. Actually, I got admitted to an online program, e.g. no fucking commute, so I can do a lot better than before. Actually, if money was not an issue, I would immediately go do a master’s degree. I’m strongly considering it, but (1) it’s going to double my current student debt and (2) I have no reason to suggest that I won’t be in a similar trap when I graduate with a master’s degree. Additionally, my parents have indicated that they will continue charging $600/month for rent, so I basically need to get paid work of any kind ASAP even if I do go for a graduate degree. (Financial aid never fully covered rent even when I lived on campus; I relied on help from my parents. My alma mater is a state school, one of the “affordable” options.)
My bachelor’s degree is in electrical engineering, and my master’s degree would be the same. Now if you asked me four years ago how employable my degree was, I would have told you that I could get a job anywhere, anytime, just as everyone had assured me. And that’s what people keep telling me… But I somehow don’t believe them… I could use a couple more years to get some internship/co-op/project experience and drop 100 pounds, but I don’t have the money and I probably won’t have the support of my parents.
My experience after finally getting the damn job is that I still feel trapped, years later. I took the first one that was offered to me, and it’s not the one I wanted. I’m part way through a career I don’t like
I’ve reached the “apply for anything” phase and the crazy thing is that they won’t even let me interview for positions that aren’t my dream job. Literally just lost an interview after I was tricked into admitting that the nature of jobs the company had to offer weren’t a good fit, even though the industry and my coursework otherwise matched with the job. This isn’t even the first or second opportunity I’ve lost because the interviewer sussed out the fact that it wasn’t my literal dream job. Last time it was after two video calls, a phone call, and a technical exam. Like it seems like you are required to pre-love your job.
shifting gears in your 30s
That’s rough. I’m in my late 20s though, so I’m not spring chicken either!
Turns out the only employable degree was CS!
Student loans would put a damper on my plans as well. I’m thinking of vocational programs. Nurse, police officer, pilot, therapist, cybersecurity engineer. I was an Emergency Medical Responder briefly after undergrad when I felt so lost. From zero to card carrying level 1 medic took about 2-3 months and maybe $2-3k. I worked in industry making about $250 a day, contract work. Boring AF. That kind of thing is on the table, but obviously a big departure from what you are headed right now.
Suggestion from an engineering-adjacent person: look into a drafting job. Either making drawings or checking drawings. Stay with that a year or two, while applying for an engineering job.
So, I know this is a rant. I completely understand your frustration. When I started my career in software I was either overqualified (weirdly), or just not interesting enough. Getting in is rough.
I had to face this again recently when I changed countries. Despite tech companies hiring everyone and their mother, no one accepted my application. This was most likely due to the sponsorship requirement. Then one day a head hunter called me up, asked about my qualifications, then sent me a packet of job postings. Within days I was jumping through interview after interview.
My takeaway from that experience: work with (not for) a talent agency. The people posting those jobs are like you and me. Sifting through hundreds of resumes, reading every detail, perfectly recalling those details during the interview… it’s exhausting. It’s far easier to trust the recommendations of a company that specializes in putting people in front of you.
Do that, and I’m certain you’ll find a job offer in no time. This is coming from someone who has ADHD, and suffered from a crippling case of imposter syndrome.
You can do it.
My takeaway from that experience: work with (not for) a talent agency.
If you don’t mind me asking, what talent agency? Besides them asking me directly for money or free labor, how can I differentiate legitimate talent agencies from scams? I was under the impression that talent agencies (or really anyone claiming to want to help me; God that’s not healthy) were scams.
The one I worked with was TEKSystems. They were super helpful, and found me a replacement job when I got laid off shortly after starting.
From my limited understanding, a legitimate agency will be looking to satisfy their contract with the businesses they recruit for. They won’t ask you for money, and they will work with you to find an employer that fits you. After all, if you’re not happy with the position and decide to leave, it’ll be bad for both the agency and the employer. They also shouldn’t be expecting a cut of your pay or anything from you once the employer hires you.
Totally agree, there.
My dream is to build businesses and hire the hell out of America…when thinking about it I really don’t care if you champion my brand or not…at the end of the day I’d just want you to get the job done. And if you can’t then I’d expect you to reach out for help (I’m talking hypothetically).
So I guess I’m expecting the same from employers. I’ll still serve you to the best of my ability. I want your business to succeed because I want you to succeed. It doesn’t matter if you sell vacuum cleaners or financial advice.
The past 2-3 years have been rough for me, too. It’s only the past week or so that I’ve been getting additional request for work from existing and new clients. It always feels so odd to be chatting with a founder about my Python experience, then walk to the local food bank to stand in line to get food.
FWIW, keep it up, dude. You’re doing alright. I love your vulnerability. I’ve found it’s really hard to find people to help, but I push for it anyway. And I often have to ignore “is this ethical or not?” and allow myself to take full advantage of their help.
