Like the title says I am graduating with a CS degree soon. As I am in my final year, I am getting a bit worried that my resume is kind of uninteresting.
I've applied at probably 3-4 dozen places through my school's job board over the past month and have received zero responses. These are applications for entry level and internship positions. I'm worried my resume just doesn't standout. I only have a couple projects under my belt and no other professional experience.
How can I stand out to recruiters and employers? What can I do to improve my resume? I've worked with many different technologies but I'm afraid because I haven't bothered to work on mastering any of them that an employer wouldn't wanna take the risk on me being able to learn their stack.
Try applying to smaller companies. Smaller companies aren't going to land the candidate from a top 10 school who already interned at multiple Fortune 500 companies. But small shops need to hire talent too. They're digging deeper and they have to read the resumes more closely. There isn't much of an HR department, and the hiring manager might be sifting through the raw resumes themselves.
If you still want to land a big company job, you're going to need to bypass the HR filter by finding a direct line to the hiring managers. Maybe you have some friends or alumni you've met who are at the company and can refer you directly to a team. You can meet these people at networking events, recruiting fairs, or other social activities. Creativity, determination, and luck play a big factor.
This describes my situation when I'm hiring entry-level developers: I, the hiring manager, am reading each application that comes in. However, I think this is probably more true for smaller companies that are not venture-backed; venture-backed companies probably have enough funding to hire senior developers (and are probably more rushed to do so).
For the OP: I'm not hiring developers at the moment, but if you'd like to send me your resume (you can reach me through my profile), I can offer some feedback.
This would indicate that there is a severe oversupply of candidates eager to work in this industry.
Which may well be true, but conflicts with the narrative that there is a severe shortage of people.
Keep in mind those large companies can be very desirable to work for - many people don't want to work for these smaller companies, including myself at a younger age, but in truth I think smaller companies can be better to work for depending on what kind of person you are.
It might seem this way, because the narrative is almost intentionally simplified to the point of being vague enough to support almost any narrative.
Shortage is real, but what often is omitted is the fact that it is the shortage at the senior level. At the entry level, shortage isn't really a thing. It isn't an insane oversupply either, unless we are talking the few popular FAANGs, but it isn't a shortage at the entry level.
Not the industry as a whole, but certainly there is an overabundance of people trying to land a job at very specific companies (FAANG, and a handful of others).
There would be an industry oversupply if this situation were widespread, but it isn't. The industry has a shortage, certain famous companies are the exception rather than the rule.
A shit ton of people apply to FAANG companies because of the money on the table despite having no professional experience as a software engineer nor writing any code.
Tufte compared PowerPoint presentations to having the information density of Soviet-era propaganda posters (i.e. nearly zero).
You can validly claim similar comparisons with resumes!!
One thing I have worried about though is they might require someone who is more experienced. I have noticed there are not many small companies on my school's job board. Would you know of a place where I could find these?
Another commenter mentioned checking the website of VC firms for start-ups. I think I will give that a shot.
I appreciate all the help from everyone in the thread, I am reading all the comments.
The few small to medium sized companies on your school's job board are actually great opportunities. Those companies don't have the resources to recruit many places so they might not even be looking at any other schools or programs. There is probably a very strong alumni connection to your school or program. They likely know exactly what they're getting with those new grads and wouldn't be recruiting there if they weren't comfortable with that.
> Would you know of a place where I could find these?
One problem with small companies is that they tend to not advertise their job openings everywhere. You can usually find different ones everywhere you look. The worse they are at advertising the job, the less competition you have and the more likely you resume will be considered. So it does pay to look beyond any one job board.
> One thing I have worried about though is they might require someone who is more experienced.
This varies company by company. Some companies founded by new grads or college drop outs exclusively hire new grads. Some big companies exclusively hire experienced engineers. And there's everything in between. If they have a job posting for entry level or new grads, go for it.
I was given this advice and thought it was brazen and aggressive and that nobody would do it. I didn't after graduation. I was wrong and when I tried it later, it worked. And I ended up doing it for others who messaged me.
Apply though the back door for VIPs. Plenty of people are happy to put you in. Random people on Hacker News have referred me. Random people from whoishiring threads have been willing to ensure I got an interview.
When candidates do this to me I am happy to refer them after I personally screen their resume and I converse with them a little (written or verbal).
I don't refer someone unless I think it's worth my company spending money evaluating them.
I dislike the pushy candidates who believe this approach is a no-effort side door.
Related... Mayuko is a software engineer who has worked at Intuit, Patreon, and Netflix. She now makes YouTube videos full time, many of them focused on bootstrapping a career in tech. Her latest video is about increasing the likelihood of getting engagement when doing exactly the kind of thing the parent suggests. https://youtu.be/SJ3cXmRX7mM
How does this help with asking alumni of your school for referrals? Can't you do that with a regular account?
Without it, I think you need at least to have a mutual connection. (Which wouldn't be that hard to achieve with fellow alumni.)
So dont worry about that.
Worry about location. If you AND all your friends in town arent getting responses - move. If you are sitting in the boondocks move closer to larger cities. Best case would be to move to the most buzzing active cities where you have friends who have access to school job boards and/or have landed jobs/know the process enough to help.
I spent 6 months in a smaller town getting no calls. Moved to NYC and the whole story changed. This ofcourse was because I had friends going to multiple schools there. Thanks to which I would keep getting info on which company was on campus, which team within the company, what they were looking for, what type ot questions etc. So even if I missed them on campus I would apply via the site knowing which positions to target.
Also keep brushing up every single day on a list of fundamentals, known interview questions etc. Dont let the activity over time rot the brain away. So when a call does come certains basics are on your finger tips.
If you live in the middle of nowhere it is very hard to get a job.
Per a (now very old) HN thread there also seems to be a bias against rural candidates.
Move to a big city or apply for a bunch of jobs in a big city. Jobs to target would be marketing/creative agencies companies that don't have a core competency in software. In New York for instance, there are lots of these, and many get hired to do websites or one-off apps for well known clients and have trouble finding and keeping talent. It's not glamorous, but do this for 6 months to a year, study some stuff on the side, and it shouldn't be hard to land a job at a company that has more of a focus on engineering, can teach you more, and pay better.
When I was graduating, basically all of my leads came from job fairs. Does your school host those? Does a nearby school host them?
Other ideas:
- Alumni networks
- Professors with industry connections
- Friends from school who interned with companies during previous summers
- Friends from school who graduated last year and have found jobs at companies
- Even extended family members might have a useful connection
To reiterate: automated application portals are notorious for rejecting large swaths of qualified candidates. The only way to get past them is a human being, even one you don't know all that well is fine. I've gotten my foot in doors via friends-of-friends that I've only met once.
Best of luck. I'm sure you'll find a job eventually, there are lots of them out there!
Venture capital firms do tons of due diligence, and if you join early enough, when an exit happens it could be a big payday.
Write to them about why they resonate with you. Use LinkedIn to find out the right person to message. Your goal is to get into the interview pipeline.
Be eager. Enthusiasm counts for a lot. If you’re thoughtful and personable, foot in the door is all you need.
Are any of your projects visible on the web? The best projects are ones where I as a reviewer can click a link and start instantly interacting with your software. Projects like this are directly responsible for at least 3 people I know who graduated last year getting their jobs (based on feedback from interviewers who reviewed their resumes, they did not have referrals).
It's hard to critique your resume without seeing it but in general:
- Your resume should be submitted as a .pdf file, nothing else is acceptable
- Your resume should contain your name and contact info as well as links to github/linked in at the top
- Your resume should contain a skills section with a list of technologies you know, this will get you past keyword filters
- Your experience section should be broken up by project, and each project should have bullet points outlining the task you accomplished and any technologies you used to to accomplish it.
Given how I have seen that pdf-to-text ATS systems sometimes generate a completely blank set of text out of a text-rich pdf, no. A docx is perfectly acceptable.
Even 100-1000 monthly active users is impressive.
If your site/app is free, this is highly achievable.
Job fairs are usually the best way to be recruited through your school. Companies have to commit resources to attending job fairs, so they have an incentive to actually hire some of the people they talk to.
New grad resumes are basically all the same with few exceptions. Companies have little ability to screen new grads without actually interacting with them (e.g. interviews, phone screens, take-home tests). Your best bets are referrals, which will fast-track you into the hiring process. Referrals can be through distant connections, so don't be afraid to ask acquaintances.
Otherwise, you can try applying to companies directly. There are more opportunities than your school's job board, and even if they are the same companies, they probably pay more attention to their own application channels than the various crappy school job boards they forgot they posted to.
The network consists of the actual alumni of the school, not the career counselor who probably didn't go there. Get a LinkedIn premium subscription and go ask people who attended your school to put your resume in the referrals pile. Just random alumni.
Many will do it. I have done it for people. Many have done it for me. Random people, because you share a school, will refer you.