For one thing, uh, unfortunately I don't think right now is a great time to be looking. Summer internship hiring is nearing the end anyway, but with recent circumstances most are either going to...
For one thing, uh, unfortunately I don't think right now is a great time to be looking. Summer internship hiring is nearing the end anyway, but with recent circumstances most are either going to be remote or just cancelled.
I'm guessing almost everywhere is freezing hiring until this clears up. You can't even onboard people in-person right now. Forget on-site interviews.
For one thing, post anonymzied resume. If you're not getting interviews, resume is why.
Secondly, apply to many more places. Tech applications are incredibly short and you can get one done in a minute or two. It's not uncommon to hear of people applying to 100-200+ places, because why not? That's like just 2-3 hours of work.
I took a quick look at the resume. For your internships, use more "action" words and numbers (pull it out of your ass if you must). Stuff like "increased blahblahblah efficiency by 30%". Spend...
I took a quick look at the resume. For your internships, use more "action" words and numbers (pull it out of your ass if you must). Stuff like "increased blahblahblah efficiency by 30%". Spend more time talking about the effects of what you did, rather than what you actually did.
What would I even do if I got an interview? I don't know webdev or full-stack anything or algos/data structures. What would I even say?
Oof. For one, I would start doing some leetcode problems. You don't need to go full /r/csc, but like at least be able to do the easy-med level questions.
Read Cracking the Coding Interview.
And be confident. Regardless of reality, walk in like an equal to the company interviewing you; they need you. You're not begging for a job, they're begging for you.
In my experience, I've done best in interviews after I've already gotten an offer, and can do other interviews with full confidence.
If your school has an internship requirement, start with your program's and your school's career offices and job boards. Even if there's nothing suitable, get it on the record that you're using...
If your school has an internship requirement, start with your program's and your school's career offices and job boards. Even if there's nothing suitable, get it on the record that you're using available resources to seek work. That can help if you have to plead exceptional circumstances to graduate.
There's actually a lot of work available for various subsets of your skills. Start by looking at careers pages for companies in the industries you'd like to work in, before diving into the pointless, unsearchable wells of hate which comprise most job aggregators.
My rule of thumb is, if you've got 2/3 of the qualifications listed, go ahead and apply.
Start looking at temporary and contract-to-hire projects, because the entry criteria are a little more relaxed.
It's a good idea to submit resumés and cover letters tailored to the specific job you're applying for. You can emphasize the degree to which you match, rather than having an HR drone try to figure it out from a pile of skills. Generally, they won't bother.
HR departments are overwhelmed right now - sick leave, remote work, layoffs, and everything else they're dealing with have higher priority than hiring. Be patient, polite, and persistent.
If I were given your resume, my first question would be, why did you get a degree in EE if you wanted to be a programmer? Wouldn't a computer science, or at least computer engineering degree have...
If I were given your resume, my first question would be, why did you get a degree in EE if you wanted to be a programmer? Wouldn't a computer science, or at least computer engineering degree have been more appropriate? My (admittedly limited) experience of dealing with code written by EEs leads me to believe that they got as good an education in programming as my CS degree gave me in designing circuits. (Which is to say, the bare minimum necessary to get the concepts and move on to the next thing.) I see you have a profile on GitHub. It would be worth adding links to specific projects you did there with descriptions of what they are so that potential interviewers can judge your code quality for themselves.
That said, it looks like you've worked on a number of really cool things! Do you have papers that came out of that work, or do you have a video or web page showing the results? If I were interviewing you, I'd want to see something like that rather than just reading a few sentences about it. And just looking at the code may make it difficult to see what the potential of your work is.
It might be worth phrasing things in a way that makes it obvious to someone how your experience would be useful to them. An HR person will know to look for keywords like "deep learning" and "inference," but they probably can't make the leap from first few sentences in the "Computer Vision Research Assistant" section to "This will help our mobile video app classify and automatically tag things in our users videos" (or whatever it could be used for). It might be worth spelling out some of those sorts of things. (And believe it or not, an HR person also might think "they wrote software to track birds, but we're mainly interested in tracking people," and pass to the next resume in the stack. I've literally had things like that happen to me.)
I graduated with a degree in ECE (minor in CS) because I realized too late what I wanted to do, and now I work as a product manager in a data/software company. My closest peer from school went to...
I graduated with a degree in ECE (minor in CS) because I realized too late what I wanted to do, and now I work as a product manager in a data/software company. My closest peer from school went to work at a defense contractor after graduation and now works as a SWE at a finance firm. My point is, neither of us do anything HW based today, so I wouldn’t feel too pigeon-holed into those roles.
That being said, it’s all about how you can spin your experience. You probably won’t get a job out of the gate as a SWE at a big tech company, but there’s many other companies that ask for “CS or related engineering degree”. An unspoken rule is that job postings almost always ask for more experience than they’re willing to accept, so don’t be afraid to apply to places you might not meet all the qualifications of. Just try to hit buzzwords when you can (as silly as that sounds), and speak in an active voice in your resume, since your first filter is HR. Once you get to a phone interview, it’s up to you to highlight your strengths (don’t bring up the fact that you’re not interested in EE unless directly asked).
I hesitate to suggest it, but the computer vision, signal/image processing, and ML projects set you on a potential course for military work, like this. I think you've mentioned previously that...
I hesitate to suggest it, but the computer vision, signal/image processing, and ML projects set you on a potential course for military work, like this. I think you've mentioned previously that you're in the Vancouver area, but there's work in your field in Ontario, e.g. this. Not an ideal time to travel, but worth thinking about.
I second the suggestion to post a resume here with personal details scrubbed. It may help to narrow in on what you could improve. I will say that it doesn't look like experience or qualification...
I second the suggestion to post a resume here with personal details scrubbed. It may help to narrow in on what you could improve. I will say that it doesn't look like experience or qualification is an issue here. In my and my friend's experience it really is a numbers game - since sites like linkedin and glassdoor make it easy to apply, you should apply to as many as you can. One of my friends submitted close to 200 applications before accepting a job (may be different for an internship). Out of those 200 I think he had a handful of interviews, and I think he turned one offer down. But those are the types of numbers at play here.
Your resume looks good! There's no major improvements I would suggest after glancing over it - we use the same LaTeX template too :) The 200 number I quoted is an extreme, and I'm based in a huge...
Your resume looks good! There's no major improvements I would suggest after glancing over it - we use the same LaTeX template too :)
The 200 number I quoted is an extreme, and I'm based in a huge metro area so there are likely more jobs floating around, depending on where you are. That being said, you should definitely be applying to more. Given that getting something is relatively important in order to graduate, I would definitely considering broadening your search parameters. Don't be scared to apply to positions that you feel either unqualified for or don't know much about - I can guarantee that pretty much everyone is clueless upon starting a new position anyway. The last thing you want to do is self-select yourself out of the candidate pool by not even applying because you think you won't get it. When in doubt, apply.
It also might be a bit helpful to mentally re-frame what you're trying to do here. The purpose of an application, cover letter, and resume isn't to get the job. It's to get the interview. Once you get an interview you have a lot of opportunities to show why you are a qualified and interesting candidate, so that should be the goal for these first steps. In that vein don't be afraid to cast a wide, wide net. The friend I mentioned before studied English and Mathematics, and his first job out of school was as a management consultant. He managed to pivot then into a data analytics role. So in my opinion going broad is better.
For one thing, uh, unfortunately I don't think right now is a great time to be looking. Summer internship hiring is nearing the end anyway, but with recent circumstances most are either going to be remote or just cancelled.
I'm guessing almost everywhere is freezing hiring until this clears up. You can't even onboard people in-person right now. Forget on-site interviews.
For one thing, post anonymzied resume. If you're not getting interviews, resume is why.
Secondly, apply to many more places. Tech applications are incredibly short and you can get one done in a minute or two. It's not uncommon to hear of people applying to 100-200+ places, because why not? That's like just 2-3 hours of work.
I took a quick look at the resume. For your internships, use more "action" words and numbers (pull it out of your ass if you must). Stuff like "increased blahblahblah efficiency by 30%". Spend more time talking about the effects of what you did, rather than what you actually did.
Oof. For one, I would start doing some leetcode problems. You don't need to go full /r/csc, but like at least be able to do the easy-med level questions.
Read Cracking the Coding Interview.
And be confident. Regardless of reality, walk in like an equal to the company interviewing you; they need you. You're not begging for a job, they're begging for you.
In my experience, I've done best in interviews after I've already gotten an offer, and can do other interviews with full confidence.
If your school has an internship requirement, start with your program's and your school's career offices and job boards. Even if there's nothing suitable, get it on the record that you're using available resources to seek work. That can help if you have to plead exceptional circumstances to graduate.
There's actually a lot of work available for various subsets of your skills. Start by looking at careers pages for companies in the industries you'd like to work in, before diving into the pointless, unsearchable wells of hate which comprise most job aggregators.
My rule of thumb is, if you've got 2/3 of the qualifications listed, go ahead and apply.
Start looking at temporary and contract-to-hire projects, because the entry criteria are a little more relaxed.
It's a good idea to submit resumés and cover letters tailored to the specific job you're applying for. You can emphasize the degree to which you match, rather than having an HR drone try to figure it out from a pile of skills. Generally, they won't bother.
HR departments are overwhelmed right now - sick leave, remote work, layoffs, and everything else they're dealing with have higher priority than hiring. Be patient, polite, and persistent.
If I were given your resume, my first question would be, why did you get a degree in EE if you wanted to be a programmer? Wouldn't a computer science, or at least computer engineering degree have been more appropriate? My (admittedly limited) experience of dealing with code written by EEs leads me to believe that they got as good an education in programming as my CS degree gave me in designing circuits. (Which is to say, the bare minimum necessary to get the concepts and move on to the next thing.) I see you have a profile on GitHub. It would be worth adding links to specific projects you did there with descriptions of what they are so that potential interviewers can judge your code quality for themselves.
That said, it looks like you've worked on a number of really cool things! Do you have papers that came out of that work, or do you have a video or web page showing the results? If I were interviewing you, I'd want to see something like that rather than just reading a few sentences about it. And just looking at the code may make it difficult to see what the potential of your work is.
It might be worth phrasing things in a way that makes it obvious to someone how your experience would be useful to them. An HR person will know to look for keywords like "deep learning" and "inference," but they probably can't make the leap from first few sentences in the "Computer Vision Research Assistant" section to "This will help our mobile video app classify and automatically tag things in our users videos" (or whatever it could be used for). It might be worth spelling out some of those sorts of things. (And believe it or not, an HR person also might think "they wrote software to track birds, but we're mainly interested in tracking people," and pass to the next resume in the stack. I've literally had things like that happen to me.)
I graduated with a degree in ECE (minor in CS) because I realized too late what I wanted to do, and now I work as a product manager in a data/software company. My closest peer from school went to work at a defense contractor after graduation and now works as a SWE at a finance firm. My point is, neither of us do anything HW based today, so I wouldn’t feel too pigeon-holed into those roles.
That being said, it’s all about how you can spin your experience. You probably won’t get a job out of the gate as a SWE at a big tech company, but there’s many other companies that ask for “CS or related engineering degree”. An unspoken rule is that job postings almost always ask for more experience than they’re willing to accept, so don’t be afraid to apply to places you might not meet all the qualifications of. Just try to hit buzzwords when you can (as silly as that sounds), and speak in an active voice in your resume, since your first filter is HR. Once you get to a phone interview, it’s up to you to highlight your strengths (don’t bring up the fact that you’re not interested in EE unless directly asked).
I hesitate to suggest it, but the computer vision, signal/image processing, and ML projects set you on a potential course for military work, like this. I think you've mentioned previously that you're in the Vancouver area, but there's work in your field in Ontario, e.g. this. Not an ideal time to travel, but worth thinking about.
I second the suggestion to post a resume here with personal details scrubbed. It may help to narrow in on what you could improve. I will say that it doesn't look like experience or qualification is an issue here. In my and my friend's experience it really is a numbers game - since sites like linkedin and glassdoor make it easy to apply, you should apply to as many as you can. One of my friends submitted close to 200 applications before accepting a job (may be different for an internship). Out of those 200 I think he had a handful of interviews, and I think he turned one offer down. But those are the types of numbers at play here.
Your resume looks good! There's no major improvements I would suggest after glancing over it - we use the same LaTeX template too :)
The 200 number I quoted is an extreme, and I'm based in a huge metro area so there are likely more jobs floating around, depending on where you are. That being said, you should definitely be applying to more. Given that getting something is relatively important in order to graduate, I would definitely considering broadening your search parameters. Don't be scared to apply to positions that you feel either unqualified for or don't know much about - I can guarantee that pretty much everyone is clueless upon starting a new position anyway. The last thing you want to do is self-select yourself out of the candidate pool by not even applying because you think you won't get it. When in doubt, apply.
It also might be a bit helpful to mentally re-frame what you're trying to do here. The purpose of an application, cover letter, and resume isn't to get the job. It's to get the interview. Once you get an interview you have a lot of opportunities to show why you are a qualified and interesting candidate, so that should be the goal for these first steps. In that vein don't be afraid to cast a wide, wide net. The friend I mentioned before studied English and Mathematics, and his first job out of school was as a management consultant. He managed to pivot then into a data analytics role. So in my opinion going broad is better.