Post graduation job search
Well, I have a lot of stuff going on.
In May, I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in Computer Science. That was good, and I was glad to do so. After that I took a short well deserved break. It feels so good not to have to go to class and listen to a lecture from a lecturer who doesn't want to be there.
Now that I have my degree, I need to find a job that uses that degree. (or any thing remotely related) That may sound simple enough, but it is tough.
I don't know what I want to do with my degree. That's hard for me to say, but it's true. Like I have always been looked at as someone who was "smart" and "had it together" or "had a straight path". Very much not. Anyway, I don't know what all that degree qualifies me for. I know it opens me up to the development field. I did a lot of programming through college and between, but it's not something I really enjoy. I am not particularly bad at it. It just not something I really want to be doing 100% of the time all the time. Then there is the IT field. I am not so sure where I really would like to go in IT though. Support is not really an ideal place for me. I am terrified of the idea of having to talk on a phone. I can do in person support better. Then there is infrastructure. I am kinda interested in infrastructure, but it is huge. I don't even know what to look for in that area. I am just a kid with a CS degree, I don't have this figured out.
I live in the middle of nowhere. or at least it feels like it (rural central Arkansas) You have to really look at the next city over for anything. Even then most things I see are out of the capital. There is nothing bad about any of this. I got my degree in the next city over, drove there every day. The capital is only 40 - 50 minutes away.
It feels like everyone wants to see experience. Either directly or indirectly. This is hard for me. I don't have any professional experience at all. I have some personal projects I have worked on. I do have those listed in my resume. I don't feel that helps that much. I spent my time getting that degree, not working.
Family is troublesome. In many many ways. They are always like "you need to get a job", "have you found anything yet", "are you filling out a job application". Like please leave me alone about this. I am doing what I am doing. You don't have to know every single thing about me. I am me, not you. Troublesome and frustrating. Another thing is they are stuck in the past. Two of them are going deaf. One of them is nuts, and does not know how to respect privacy at all. Its a lot. It leaves me with an annoying bootstrapping problem I have to solve. I still live with my parents, with my grandparents next house over. I have to get a place that is away from family. To do that I need to get a job. To really look hard, and even want to do so and not just do some and get frustrated, I need to get away from family. There are solutions. Just go elsewhere and look for stuff. Not easy when they always want to know where you are all the damn time. Always wanting you to keep them updated and know where you are. I have a few tricks, location services is very inaccurate when wifi is turned off. I also can just say "I am going somewhere", and when they ask more I just say "I am 23 blooming years old". Not the kind of trouble I want to go through all time. Family is frustrating. Even more so, when you are an introvert and just want to be alone for a while. When you get into actually doing something, they come to you to ask about something. "do you know where this [item] is?", "I need you to do this [task]". It's like they can sense when you are actually focus or are just vibing or actually happy. They go on and complain that you snap at them. When they were the ones that were interrupting a rare moment of focus, or appear out of nowhere. Annoying to say the least. Never the one to actually win. By default, "I am older and know more then you", "I gave birth to you". Saying I am in trouble when I do nothing wrong. Like when I got in trouble for going to my grandparents house early in the morning during the summer. Lost all trust that summer. Or when I shared some cinnamon rolls that I bought with my grandparents. Got into trouble for not bringing my parents any. It was just a kind gesture and I am made to feel like I don't care about anybody over it. Troublesome and difficult.
If you just read all that, thanks. I promise I am decently put together in real life. That is rawer then I would usually like to put out.
So far I still don't have a good title for this post so I guess I'll just add some more.
I have not found anything yet. I have not applied to many places yet. I did apply to a regional ISP and got an interview, but was rejected for lack of work history to show I can deal with phone support, and for potential lack of clarity. I applied to a local audio cable manufacturer, but was caught by ats or lack of checking. Actually applied to their website for that one. I have asked some of the local Facebook groups "who was hiring locally in CS / IT fields". I got a few responses from it. A pyramid scheme. Someone who would look at their employer. They didn't have anything open, but at least they have my information now. Someone who is likely looking more so for a general laborer then an IT person. I still kinda want to hear them out, but they still haven't said anything else to me. I have brushed up my LinkedIn. I have also signed up for more accounts then I would have liked. I have talked with a local employment agency, but I don't think they will find anything like what I am looking for.
Well, its a process, and I am just at the beginning. If you do have any advice for my job search I would be glad to read it.
TLDR: Dotz graduated and is looking for a job, then rants about family.
To be frank, programming (more often called "software engineering" rather than "programming", in terms of job titles) is the main occupation that a computer science degrees unlocks. IT is really somewhat tangential.
It would be like asking if a physics major can work as a car technician. For IT, what they'd really look for is specific knowledge about specific technologies, like internet networking. IT has its own degrees, as well as a myriad of certificates, for accreditation.
If you don't like programming, well, is what it is, you can either go back to school to retool in another area or just deal with it and program. For what it's worth, you do less and less actual coding as you move up the career ladder and more software architecturing.
I don't think you have much more you can do other than go search for entry level software engineering positions and apply apply apply. I would anticipate at least applying to a few hundred spots.
You will likely have to move out of where you live. You can do so after you get the offer, but just anticipate it being a condition.
This, to be frank, is non advice. A college degree in general opens up a variety of jobs that wouldn't be available without one. They don't need to retool, certainly not go back to college, to enter a slightly different field.
Also, if I take a close look at the wide variety of companies I have been active in over the past couple of years. Programmers generally speaking are the minority in IT departments. A computer science degree specifically provides a strong foundation in logic, systems architecture and complex problem-solving. Skills that are the basis for many high-level IT roles that aren't just about writing code all day, like a Cloud Engineer, DevOps specialist, QA, etc.
Then there are a lot of other IT related job titles that are far less technical and more people oriented. Things like scrum master roles to give an obvious example. If these are roles OP is going to be happy in is something I don't quite know.
I get where you are coming from, but it isn't as black and white as you make it out to be.
This is correct OP. Software development is only a small part of the CS world. I started as a software dev and after a year and a half decided I was bored out of my mind.
The field of CS is massive and there I was developing in the same couple of programming languages everyday. So I decided to do more with my degree and now I move myself to an adjacent field every x years.
I have moved from development into aplication security testing, then into DevOps, then into system security and compliance, then into cloud engineering and now I manage the cloud security governance for a massive org. I also did a short bit of end-user device management in between somewhere.
I leverage my technical background everyday. Currently I do security governance by automating all our policies. I write custom code leveraging what I learned in my software dev days and deploy that code with best practices I learned in my DevOps years. I challenge requests for security exemptions because I have developed similar software and know that it can be done properly. I understand the risks that these controls try to protect against because I used to exploit them in my appsec time.
Every transition made me a more complete CS engineer and now I have so much background in these different sub-fields that I generally solve problems much more efficiently than colleagues who specialize in one.
There is a lot of opportunity out there. Be confident, sell yourself and go find a job that you like. Don't be afraid to try something and change if you get bored!
It depends on how you're measuring whether or not OP is "using" his degree. I'm sure they could get, say, a phone support role with a BS in CS degree. But that's because anyone with a bachelors in anything could get a IT phone support role. The CS degree isn't helping there.
You packed a lot of high density information in one post. I am not going to be able to unpack all the different threads I am seeing and a few things I think I am reading between the lines. I have some overall thoughts though.
For starters your first job doesn't have to be the perfect job. I mean it is nice, but it is also fairly common for people to start in a job title that isn't a great fit straight away.
It's also really common to not know exactly what to do with a CS degree right out of school. Because it is a really broad field. Since you are not sold on 100% programming, you might want to look into roles that use your technical knowledge in different ways. Infrastructure for example is something you mentioned. When you are looking in this direction you might be looking at a Junior DevOps Engineer title, network ops. Plenty of technical problem-solving positions in the IT field where you don't need to code all the time.
Having said that, nobody likes their job every single minute. Of course if programming is something that you completely dislike that is something different, but even the most passionate programmer will have plenty of moments where they dislike programming with a passion.
If I may be frank, from your post I am gathering that you are just struggling in general with motivation. So, my advice here would be to not put too much weight in your feelings about how you might like something as part of a job considering the overall mood I am sensing here. Again, you can't really tell until you experience it anyway. To be clear, I am not saying it is unreasonable that you are having trouble with overall motivation. It's completely understandable to struggle with motivation right now. It's tough to see the forest for the trees straight out of school.
Also make sure to look for remote jobs. For someone in a junior position fully remote can be tough, as it makes learning somewhat more difficult. But, it gives you access to a wider variety of jobs since you are effectively in the middle of nowhere. It also gives you more flexible options when you are ready to move out as the job doesn't fix you in a location.
One other thing as well. You will learn most of the things you actually need on the job. Your degree has given you a basis to learn from, but it is a starting point, not an end point. So if something you might find interesting seems daunting that is perfectly okay.
Hiring is often a numbers game, so far you haven't applied to all that many positions yet all things considered. Once you start applying to more positions, treat each rejection as a normal statistic, not a verdict on competence.
As far as your family goes. Seems like you are in a tough spot mentally, there is a whole can of worms there I feel like I am not really qualified to dig into.
I can't say anything about their motivation, but this did stand out to me
They could be asking because they are worried, potentially it is just a bit of financial motivated questions. Either way some of the friction seems predictable to me. You are living under their roof, as an adult, so while I see your annoyance it also isn't quite that unreasonable that they inquire towards the progress of you finding a job. Both from a parental perspective and a financial one. Of course, a lot of that also depends on how they ask this sort of thing.
I do understand it being difficult, but until you find the means to move out it also is something you likely have to deal with.
It certainly is an annoyingly and tough cycle where you need space to find a job, but you need a job to get space.
A few closing points. While they are at the end of my comment, they are still important. But, they also help and therefore apply to multiple things you mention in your post.
You hit a nail on the head. You can't build a house with a single nail Motivation is hard. I very much struggle to see the forest for the trees. I miss the big picture for the details. I also assign too much weight to some details over others, often the less important ones. This does tie back into motivation as well.
I can see some of where they are coming from. Though the way they ask certainly does not help. It also doesn't help that when I do try to give them some sort of answer it doesn't really stick.
Thanks, I will try to make some mental space, and some goals to work towards.
I don't know how to convey urgency without scaring the shit out of you, but you need to put your head down and focus hard on applying for jobs. If you haven't applied for hundreds of jobs, you need to be. If you haven't looked over your resume a few times from different perspectives, you need to be. If you haven't built anything substantial, well you're not employed, so you need to be. Your waking hours are not a vacation right now. Your waking hours are your work hours except that your job is to find a job ASAP.
In a year, a new class will graduate and you'll have more competition, so you need to move faster.
You should contact your university's career support services. They will have better leads than that based on the people who have graduated before you. Hunting on Facebook is selling yourself short.
I don't work in tech at all, but I've been looking for work while employed and the job market is really rough right now. My sister is in tech and she's had an absolutely miserable time, and has for awhile. So - this can be hard to translate to family members (and I go through this myself), but it might be difficult, even with great experience and credentials, to get a job. Don't take it too personally!
I would recommend that 1) you apply to a lot of things, 2) don't get discouraged if you get rejected, 3) be open to moving a bit further afield than you might have been initially open to, and 4) don't be afraid to get a job in something only tangentially related to where you want to end up. I have been rejected from over 60 positions over the past 18 months after searching for a pretty narrow window of jobs in my field, and I've been lucky to meet a lot of different people, practice interviewing, and think about my career, my goals, and what is really important in my next step. Getting an in-between job gives you some independence, experience, and additional references, and it can allow you to have a better self-conception. You are so young and have so much ahead of you - I really recommend just trying stuff out and homing in on what you like (and identifying what you don't). Hang in there! It's tough out there.
Others have given really great advice about work. I second the fantastic family advice from @nic, plus an additional thought:
The perception of time greatly accelerates as one ages. To your parents, it might seem like only last year when you were a highschool freshman, and your grandparents probably think it was only a couple summers ago when you were a baby. They're going to continue to behave as if you were a child forever until they have accumulated enough time to feel like "it's been a while since I interacted with Dotz0cat as a child".
You dont have to lose your temper, but you can just laugh and say no I'm an adult now I'm turning location off. If you want, you can wean them off by offering to check in a few times a day or just once at noon. But I think it isn't necessary: the anxiety is inside their own hearts, and your checking in only soothe for a few minutes. ("Sure they were alive 5 minutes ago, but maybe they fell into a ditch just now! Or bandits popped out behind rocks after they hung up!") Sometimes it helps if you reassure them what great grandparents and parents they are, but no one is really ready for when we grow up, and so it is that no one is really ready for being old and no long needed in a previous role either.
Good luck :) congratulations, great job, you sound like you have your stuff together
You hit a nail on the head. That describes parts of it very well. Also annoyingly parts of my thinking as well from being around them for so long.
The perception thing is true and is hard to deal with. They very much do still view me as a child. It doesn't always click that I know how to do something. Or that the way I know to do something is an equally valid way. It also doesn't click that I am capable of doing things, I may just need a pointer to do it.
Yup, I grew up in the kind of household where "helicopter" doesn't even being to describe it. Helicopters keep more space in between. The ditch and rock bandits are literal things they have said. Mine would call all my friends one by one when I didn't check in or turned my phone off.
Hang it there, it gets better slowly, the more relaxed and happy and in command of the world you seem to them. It does require you to also slowly pull away: do all your own laundry, stop asking for rides, clean up after yourself, cook most of the meals, chip in for rent and electricity and water and property tax etc. It'll take time. Sometimes many years.
I laughed out loud at @doors_cannot_stop_me 's comment about them being like this the day before they got married. I remember complaining to my (at the time) fiance that my family is driving me crazy please come get me asap in the morning, the morning of my wedding.
Moving away will help :) even if the work doesn't sound super exciting, use your degree, try to get a job even 20 minutes away like you said.
It’s OK not to know what you want to do with your degree.
It is important to do something. A dead end job so you can move out. A startup. A gap year in another country. Have you applied to YCombinator? The worst mistake would be to do nothing.
In terms of your family, you can’t influence their behavior, you can only control your reaction.
You are an adult now. Pick some boundaries. “I am focused now, I will do that thing in 30 minutes.” “I am not going to share where I am going or what I am doing. “
Reflect their emotions back. You don’t need to own responsibility for how they feel. “I hear you say you are angry I got your parents cinebuns and didn’t get you cinebuns. They were delicious. I can see how that would upset you.”
Just understand boundaries are a two way street, and it sounds like they will react badly when you start setting boundaries. Especially if you are the first kid and this is the first time you have set boundaries.
Boundaries are important. They are hard to set. A million "No"s means nothing when they see a chance for a "yes".
It is very much non-nuclear. I am my mother's only child and grandparent's only grandchild. So that does play into it quite a bit.
Reflection is something that I will have to keep in mind.
The most important boundary you can set is "I already said no, I feel like you are trying to pester and badger me into a yes, please respect my no." The third time you can simply rely on a look, you are under no obligation to respond.
Its going to be hard for that to work when OP is 23 years old, has no job, and is living with his parents for free.
Yes, they can kick him out or demand he pay rent. Like I said, boundaries go both ways.
To be honest, it's a difficult time to be a programmer right now. I also live in a rural area and apply to at least 5 jobs per day. Sometimes 10 or 20. Sometimes those applications take less than a minute. Other times those applications take over an hour to respond to the questions asked and provide a cover letter. I've only had a handful of interviews over the last couple years. It sucks.
I have over six years of experience and I'm a pretty solid programmer, but I'm not good at self-introductions or talking about myself in high-stress situations (when you only get a called every couple months... the stakes of even the recruiter screening becomes increasingly terrifying).
The modern business cycle is largely meme-driven (or at least pretends to be as an excuse for certain actions like hiring or layoffs). Right now a lot of administrative and managerial positions believe in the promise of GenAI. Before GenAI it was Web3, Blockchain, and Crypto. It will take a good five or ten years more until their strategy either pays off or not. It's a good time to start your own business doing things that people need/want. It's a good time to get a loan to build a GenAI startup...
For employment, I think it makes a lot of sense to target smaller and local businesses. I live in a small rural area too. It's tough out here... but our environments have strengths as well. My advice is to not join the gig economy but instead try to develop relationships with local businesses. Get to know who the decision-makers are. Find out who the hiring managers are. Ask them what kind of jobs they'd like to see as prior experience or if there are any opportunities for low-commitment contract work or internships to prove yourself.
If I had to get a job immediately right now, HVAC seems safe and pretty easy(?) once you understand the basics (compared to something like being an Electrician or Plumber where there is a lot more counterintuitive stuff to learn or welding/carpentry where the expectation is generally longer hours and more physical dexterity). Sure, you're occasionally moving heavy stuff and occasionally in small dirty spaces. But you can make good money for a few hours of work. As an introvert I'd rather do this type of work than to do a user-facing IT support role (which I've done before).
I'm not a developer but from my experience the degree usually isn't enough these days unless you have prior experience as well, it's far too competitive now and the barrier to entry-level roles has risen dramatically. If you're looking to get your foot in the door your degree is the first and biggest step in the right direction, but if you lack relevant experience you really need to have a portfolio of project work to demonstrate capability.
As for IT work - your CS degree will absolutely land you a service desk role and you can work your way up from there but you won't jump straight into something like networking or sysadmin, those require a certain level of expertise. If you're looking to get into IT you'll want to start working toward some entry-level certs from Microsoft or CompTIA.
Many large corps have trainee programs. You might have an easier time getting attention there. Generally you will do some sort of rotation with the idea being that you'll mesh with some team and be able to move into a role with them. It's a system really designed for someone in your position.
Also look to see if there are tech meet up events in your area/Little Rock. Continue working on independent projects so that you have something to talk about or seek advice on. It isn't natural for us introverts but it works.
Did you connect with any profs? They might be able to put you in contact with someone they know in industry along with a reference.
I'm sorry to hear the home situation is fraught. It sounds like you need your own space. Perhaps you can find an hourly gig in the capital that would enable you to relocate while you search?
You might have thought of this already but consider applying to state government jobs. These don't have to be computer related. You have a degree.
I second this. State jobs can be pretty great. But not the fastest process to get started... In IL if you get a call after 4 months of waiting you are speeding through the system. And many government job postings would also like to see 1yr+ relevant work experience even for entry-level postings.
I agree with this, in addition to local gov (city level) jobs.
And this can be IT support with less phone calls, because they will need you in person to do a lot, assuming we're talking a help desk role that maintains on-site client computers.
There is a lot to unpack, but I am a junior software engineer myself, so I just want to focus on that:
A lot of people in software engineering do not want to program all of the time. Ironically, those that do often complain they don't get to. Software engineering is about making a software solution for a customer. This includes getting requirements (overlooked a lot), understanding the problem domain, modelling a solution that works for the customer and has good UX, architecting the solution on a technical level and, yes, programming. Software Engineering as a job is hence very different than programming at school, because a way larger part is spent on going from problem to a solution and also making sure the software keeps running correctly. What I am saying is: you don't have to program a 100% of the time, so it might not be bad idea to try a Junior Software Engineer role and see what you like about the process.
Also, can you elaborate on what you do like about CS? You presumably chose to study it for a reason and you mentioned something about infrastructure?
You mentioned that you don't have experience, just a few projects. Those projects can really help prove you can actually program, because that is bot a given, even for CS grads. If you haven't already, I would advise putting them on a public Github repo.
Edit: I looked through your posts a bit and you do seem like you have a passion for programming looking at your Fortran comments. That is not easy stuff
Wow, I'm in a similar situation as you lol. Graduated in May, CS degree, still looking for a job.
From what I can tell, the CS degree gives you some background information but really nothing for a development job whatsoever. A job in software engineering feels more like 80% social and organizational and 20% actual technical problems to me.
While I cannot offer advice on the family side of your problem, I would say that your priority now is to put your head down and focus on getting yourself out and independent as fast as you can. The mental burden of some family members are a lot when you pause and think about it.
Applying for jobs would include a few things: Update your resume, build something from start to finish (tutorial or whatever, just make it 1k+ lines of code, deployed and displayable), and maybe posting on local social media for one-off jobs if you need something that can pad your experience portion. I am making landing pages for local businesses, to earn a little money and also put "freelancer" into my resume while I'm on the hunt.
Finally, I would like to say that we have to accept that this is a hard time, but it is the only real scenario that is happening. We can't compare this to the easy employment of 2021 tech boom, because now is not 2021. The times are different, and nobody knows how to navigate it at all. Some people are lucky that they were taught how to showcase themselves early. Some people are fortunate to be mentored early and gained networks. You don't compare yourself to those people, but you do have to act towards what you need. May not be an ideal job, but the ideal is being able to live first :)
This is actually part of the criteria I use to separate Junior vs Senior Software Engineers. The technical side for a lot of categories of software is surprisingly easy and usually a solved or semi-solved problem. Understanding what to build, what questions to ask, and how to communicate it is often way harder than the code. This probably isn’t true for all software though.
I've been a software engineer for quite a while. For me, it's a lot of programming. I like it. Some people don't. I know some people who started work as a programmer, and hated it. So they went into QA (quality assurance). That was back when QA was more manual than today. Today QA is a lot of programming too because you are usually creating automation scripts.
The thing you should know about programming is that it's a little like being on a big school project all the time. You have to get tasks done that take weeks or months. You have to work with other people and your success is partly based on them. Unless you work on a little team or a little company, then maybe you'll be more responsible for your own success.
Anyway, I just think you should apply for a few jobs in software development, and if you get more than one offer, pick one of them and work there for a while. In the meantime, this gives you an income so you can move out on your own.
If it's not a tiny company, you may have the ability to move to different positions. Maybe you want to get into management. Most developers don't want to do that, so sometimes it's easier to move up quickly. Maybe QA. Maybe something else. Most companies have an opportunity to move around a bit. Also, it's very common to change jobs every few years when you are starting out.
OMG, you are so right. The irony.
My background is not in CS, but your description of your family and their effects on your ability to focus sound very familiar. I also found myself having a very difficult time focusing when living with my family, which for many reasons could be very needy when I most needed alone time to build momentum and do things. Heck, I had a curfew the night before my wedding. Their roof, their rules.
Once I'd moved a few hours away (close enough for a weekend visit, but too far to be "available" for lots of little stuff) I found a lot of freedom I'd been wanting, though I moved straight from their house to my honeymoon as a 19-year-old. So I still ended up with codependency issues, as the apple didn't fall as far from the tree as it first supposed.
I think getting a job is way more important than getting the job. Work somewhere you don't care too much about that leaves you with enough brain power at the end of the day to work towards finding something better, while paying enough to allow you to move out and get the breathing room you need to do that work (a tall order, I know). Start practicing that independence. Boundaries are so much easier to enforce when they're accompanied by a 3 hour drive.
Last thing: be aware of the downsides of your new boundaries. I was so anxious to be free of my family trouble that I swung too far the other way. I lost contact with people in ways that I later regretted. I wish I could be around my family more, but I don't want to be the person I am when I'm around them too much, so I miss out on a lot of fun, fulfilling stuff. Not saying to stay, just saying I wish I'd had more nuance about it when I was your age.
Good luck with the searches. You're entering a time of much searching and precious little finding. It's hard, but good.
That feels very true. Even just 20 minutes is plenty. Its enough to discourage frequent or totally unexpected visits.
I also agree with your downsides too. They are ok to be around in very small doses.
Embedded/Systems software engineer chiming in. I will also suggest giving software engineering a try. As far as career paths go, it's pretty good all around. There are plenty of people who don't love it, but can tolerate it and do a good job.
Most importantly, it is always easier to get into the deep technical work during your early career. You can move to a less technical role later if you don't want to stick with programming all day. It is much harder to go the other direction. People with technical backgrounds can become some of the best Sales Engineers and Project Managers.
What coursework during your CS program:
That info can help us suggest sub-industries worth applying to.
Some unsolicited career advice as a software engineer. Learn to use the new AI tools, but for the love of god, get and stay comfortable without them. Never trust the computers. dons tinfoil hat
I can only really comment on software engineering, so I will limit myself to that.
The field is very competitive right now - especially with remote positions. If you can land a Junior / Intern / Trainee position of some sort with a focus on getting at least 6 months experience it will make you far more attractive. A lot of colleges have programs to get you job experience while in the degree program for this reason. If you land one of those positions be prepared to learn a lot and not be paid very well for that first position. If it’s a good company they will raise your salary, if not plan to leave in less than two years. Plan to apply to a lot of jobs and get very few interviews. Don’t be discouraged. If you can get an in person job it’ll probably be better for your initial career growth.
Experience with LLMs / AI / prompt engineering is almost a necessity if you want to land in a medium or large business these days in software engineering. Having zero experience in these tools would be like not knowing how to use an IDE for some of these larger businesses.
What languages or frameworks did your degree focus on?
Some areas I’ve seen people with a CS degree that aren’t traditional software engineering: QA Automation, Technical Project Manager, Product Owner, IT, infrastructure, DevOps, Security.