Job search blues
I’m a software engineer with 4 years of experience in a contract position that ends in a few months, with no renewal or conversion. Previously I was laid off in December 2022 and didn’t find work until March 2023, so I’m trying to stay ahead of unemployment by applying for jobs before my contract ends.
Since January I’ve been applying to all sorts of SWE jobs, either tailored to my experience or generalist roles I can fill. I’ve had two interviews, and they were for small on-site companies in my town. One I had to turn down an offer because their company was a nightmare, and the other went with a candidate who had more experience.
I feel demoralized, frustrated, and anxious. Only two interviews in nearly 6 months? I thought the job search in 2023 was rough, but this is ridiculous. I’m confident in my ability to perform above expectations and I think if I could at least get more interviews I wouldn’t be searching for so long.
I assume my resume must be the issue so I’ve rewritten it several times, getting feedback from managers and senior employees while also feeding it through ATS scanners. It’s come a long way but as of recently they all tell me it’s a great resume. They say it should at least get me an interview. And ATS scanners aren’t telling me anything is missing.
Recently I even got an internal referral for a position through a friend of a friend, and my experience lined up nicely with the job description too. I thought this would be a sure thing, most hires come from networking rather than cold applications. Their engineering manager viewed my LinkedIn profile and I’ve since been ghosted. This experience hurt the most, because what else could they want? I feel like I’ve got a sticky note on my back that says do not hire instead of kick me!
I can’t be alone in this experience. Is anyone else on here struggling in this job market? How long can this go on for and how bad is it going to get?
Your feelings are totally valid and it is such a competitive market. I work in a highly niche field and even when we post an incredibly specific position - like maybe 5-10 folks nationally can fill - we still get bombarded with applications. We recently hired a postdoc looking at computer vision applied to disease ecology and ended up with over 400 applicants, of those ~320 had PhDs and of those ~ 60 actually had a resonable enough background for our engineering team to look at projects on their Git and of those ~20 would have been fine hires. We ended up with a candidate with way more experience than we expected, and this is only looking at folks coming out of academia. All that to say, the job market is fucked at the moment.
And it sounds like you are doing everything right. Your work on your resume with co-workers sounds perfect as does running it through ATS scanners. My only thought there is if you can tailor it to the position (I know that is a ton of work for each application) you might have a better chance of getting that first response. If I see someone has curated their resume to the specific job post I'm much more likely to give them an interview as it means they read the post, aren't blindly firing off resumes, and have put some work into the process.
Job hunting is such a frustrating process and I know it feels like it'll never end but you will get there! It may just take a metric fuck ton of applications. If you can, try to be easy on yourself. This isn't a reflection of you or your capabilities; it's a symptom of a truly fucked job market.
I'm surprised how far reaching the struggle is-- I never thought PhD's would be fighting each other for niche positions like you described.
Back in January 2023 when I talked to my fellow laid off coworkers, they would tell me "It's supposed to get better by <insert not too far off date>." It seems we've moved the goal posts on this to the nearest quarter for 18 months. I don't think anyone can reliably predict when things will get better but it feels like it's going to get worse before it gets better.
7 years of plenty, 7 years of famine or something like that...
If the business cycle really is cyclical then it will probably be another 5 to 10 years of this before the market "corrects". A good number of employers and adjacent stakeholders still seem to think that LLMs already have, or will very soon have, the capability to replace technical workers like software engineers.
I've also been in the market for a new role for some time. If you can't join 'em, beat 'em. It's a good time to start a business.
10 years ago they said AI was supposed to be driving all our trucks, so people stopped learning how to drive trucks. Now the truck drivers that stuck with it make bank. There's a lesson in there for software engineers somewhere...
It does go in cycles:
You're not even a real developer until you've been through at least one of these cycles. It is absolutely a critical skill to recognize which stage in the cycle you are in and act accordingly.
I don't agree with the gatekeeping here, but I also think there's some truth to it. There is a certain point when the easy jobs are not required anymore. For example, our content team can now do things with ChatGPT that used to be work for interns or juniors. Automation tools have also become really good. For example, I've seen Zapier being used as infra for a whole company unit. No dev required.
Fair... On the record, this is somewhat tongue-in-cheek: Some of the best developers I know (and best / most interesting people) came through bootcamps and they love software engineering... and you could substitute "BS in Computer Science" for that, as well.
Ah, okay, sorry for not catching that :)
I work in this field, and it's not just you. We're in a hiring freeze now, and I had over a 100 well-qualified applicants to a SWE job posting on my team earlier this year. There have been a ton of layoffs in the tech industry from over-hiring during COVID, and there are a lot of good developers whose current full-time job is looking for employment. Hopefully we'll see things lighten up a bit as the year progresses, but it seems that most companies are tightening their belts. In 15 years of working in this field, I've never seen the tech job market this bad.
You're definitely not alone. I've been searching for almost a year, and the competition is just that fierce. Companies are casting wide nets and then splitting hairs due to the flood of qualified candidates. A recruiter once told me that the company went with another candidate, and the only explanation she could think of was that I lived too far from the office. 🤷♂️ Like you, I also haven't had success with employee referrals. It was shocking to be complimented on my expertise during the interview, only to be rejected the next day. The common thread was that I didn't have experience in the exact industry or specialized role. What happened to having transferrable skills and being vouched for by current employees??? Anyways, I wouldn't be too concerned about your LinkedIn unless you notice a pattern of rejections after companies view your profile.
I'm actually doing okay with getting interviews, I'm just weak at the interview part. 😅 If you're tailoring your application materials, which have been reviewed by managers and made ATS-friendly, then something else is happening that is excluding you from the beginning. Perhaps it is the sheer number of senior SWE's to compete with? I'm not a SWE, but I have seen sooo many job postings that require "2+" years of experience. While the minimum pay correlates with junior level, the maximum correlates with senior level, so the company might not actually be considering what it says on paper.
One thing that helps me get more responses is cold emailing the hiring manager after submitting the job app. I just make sure not to click on shady websites in the search results. Is this something you've tried?
I also track my job apps and application methods in a spreadsheet to figure out my interview conversion rates, where most opportunities are coming from, and what job titles I have a better chance at pursuing.
Super off topic so please flag as noise, I just wanted to share this thought...
For a moment there when I saw your link was to a video, I thought it might have been this video about a VR earthbending fighting game, and the advice (in combat) was to “follow up” — but then to reinforce the point, they mention it’s the same in real life, and use the example of following up after a job interview.
I sympathize with your post here. I have been on the other side of the market mostly in the last 7 years or so (hiring or helping hire developers for my company) and when we put up a job posting we're talking hundred and hundreds of applicants within 24 hours. We have a very small development team, and an even smaller budget. Trying to find qualified developers who'll work for what we offer and live close enough to our offices is a really tough ask. Pair that hand in hand with what you're seeing in the market and its not a good combination.
One thing I have experienced and really appreciated is when an applicant reached out to me directly. Either on Slack, LinkedIn, direct emails. I'm not the hiring manager at the company, just the manager of the software team. But I can cherry pick applicants in the hiring process and have them screened faster. Most people who reach out to me directly and want to chat usually get the bump up. I'm not saying this will happen with every applicant or job but its always good to try and network around the recruitment/hiring folks.
Also, if you can, go to local tech meetups and just meet people. Like you said in your post - networking creates a huge advantage.