I definitely regret not interviewing for jobs right away when I graduated a few months ago. At the moment I was thinking that in a few months the job market would still be hot.
A few months ago, recruiters were reaching out to me. I started applying last week and a single job posting would have more than 1k applicants which was not the case months ago.
On top of that, as a new grad, finding early career positions is difficult. Most of the opening are SR level.
Don’t be afraid to apply for jobs that are (slightly) outside your experience range. Often, these posts are “pie in the sky” wants, not hard requirements.
Good to know! Now I just got to keep grinding to be competitive against more experienced devs applying for the same position. Seems like its gonna be really difficult when theres gonna be at least a few hundreds of them applying for the same position.
Not sure what would motivate an employer to hire early career vs someone with 5 years of experience. Maybe paying new hires less than experienced ones?
How can I get hired when I am now tired of being competitive? The mass layoffs weren't even the tipping point for me. I've been applying to jobs non-stop since 2021 and interviewed at many places, and getting no offers. I faced the burnout sometime early last year.
Even in the more "chill" jobs you are expected to pass multiple rounds, be among the best among the candidates.
I just want to be average in the candidate standings, for an average dev job.
This is a real difficulty of being competitive in SWE. The general industry moves so fast that one must often hustle so much to remain competitive as to risk burnout. This is particularly bad for those with competing life priorities (e.g., families, health, etc.)
My suggestion would be to find some niche that allows to you not face that constant hustle. Look for the Venn diagram where you can add a lot of value, but the competition isn't as fierce. For example, if you are both good at coding and understand, say, physical systems like HVAC, you can focus on an industry like building automation that doesn't iterate as fast. Or maybe you really like aviation and can develop CFD models. Point being, it's much less competitive when your field requires two complementary, but distinct, knowledge bases.
I was offered some jobs and a few internship. But a few months ago I was considering going to get my masters, mba, or law school. My parents algo got sick during that time and i had to take care of them. So it wasn't really a priority for me at that time to get a job vs other urgent matters.
Recent college grad w/ 2 years of full-stack internship/co-op experience looking for early career roles involving frontend web, full-stack, or any adjacent roles involving product development.
Willing to relocate: Depending on location.
Technologies: Mostly React, and Javascript. Have knowledge about AWS, Docker, Kubernetes, Python, Assembly, Sql, NodeJS, Java, React Native
Experience: Early career, recently graduated, with 1 year of co-op/internship
Resume available on request: rdeasis@ualberta.ca