Tech-wise in the US it was tough. I went to work in factory for a bit. I had recruiters hitting me up but they were 6 month contracts so I kept turning those down but eventually I just accepted one and I'm almost a year in now.

I will note I at the time had 5 YOE but no degree so that is a factor (many I don't qualify since no degree).

Reading r/cscareerquestions is depressing not that I go on there much now. People talking about applying to thousands of jobs.

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OsrsNeedsf2P 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

So apply to thousands of jobs then? That's only a couple applications a day for 2 years.

And I'm not saying this from an ivory tower, my first job took 700 applications in 2021. But until you have a job, your job is to apply 8 hours a day

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fellowniusmonk 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

2021 and 2025 are different.

I have a friend who is a SSE. Mid 30s. Been fully employed his entire life. No degree. Has been writing production code since 15.

His entire local professional network got nuked and people stopped hiring because of that stupid software engineering R&D amortization budget deception of Section 174. And I assume the double whammy of ai.

He had his resume reviewed, ran it by friends it looked good and solid.

Applied to about 300 roles before realizing it was a non starter and he was getting automated rejections for everything.

He had to automate his application process around a full career CV and Ai.

He would spend all day copying in role descriptions and urls and had cursor spit out custom .MD resumes and then run a pdf generator on them.

It was kinda ok and also kinda like each resume was a hyper specific lie. It definitely hallucinated.

He still hit 3k resumes before getting hired and he still only had like 4 companies give interviews.

And that was only after that stupid tax law was revoked.

One persons past suffering and struggle cannot be so naively extrapolated to anothers current suffering.

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HocusLocus 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I'm trying to understand Section 174 impact especially because your friend's persistence seems like a good litmus test that positive changes are afoot. Also I have a daughter who will be looking for R&D/R&E EE position when she graduates in 2026.

Needing to amortize expenses over 15 years puts a big damper on anything corps may be excited about today but with less than 100% assurance of in the long run? Restoring the pre-2022 regime for domestic expenses only is for the most part supporting domestic workers? So your friend is back in a more familiar job market... maybe college grads too? Thanks.

	▲	trenchpilgrim 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Here's an explanation of how the Section 174 change contributed to SWE layoffs during 2023-2025: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44226571 It's been reversed now, but the inertia is still being felt. The backlog of highly qualified engineers ares still competing for positions, and other factors such as the interest rate and the effect of AI on positions for younger engineers are still in effect.

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b_e_n_t_o_n 5 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Did he try any other approaches? If the approach I took gave me a 0.1% interview rate I'd probably do something different.

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yogorenapan 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

What are people doing to need 700 applications? If you went to university, usually you'd be able to get an internship after 4-5 applications & a return offer. Then afterwards just stay put when the economy isn't doing well and hop around when it is.

	▲	tennisflyi 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Categorically wrong. Graduates exceed jobs/internships (if you pass the ATS gods)
	▲	lazyasciiart 5 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Big vibes of “just walk into all the offices and hand them a paper copy of your resume, people love that kind of initiative!”
	▲	4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		[deleted]

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zwnow 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People also just shotgun applications, why would a company look at a unpersoanlized lazy shotgunned job application?

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fvgvkujdfbllo 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Based on anecdotal data, companies don’t look at any personalized resume. Much better use of your time to send your standard cover letter and resume. Just apply to positions where you are, at least, 80% match. And yes you will never find 100% match, most employers make up requirements anyways.

	▲	johnh-hn 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		This is my experience too. It didn't used to be this way. I always used to research a company, tailor my CV and add a cover letter. I'd be hired within 1-3 applications. Now? It seems a waste of time because no one responds anyway. I'm incentivised to apply to as many as possible in the hope of having a conversation with someone.
	▲	zwnow 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Good thing I never had to write more than 10 to land a job...

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convolvatron 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

for a while I actually studied the target company, and wrote a half-page cover letter detailing why I thought what they were doing was really interesting, and how it dovetailed with my background.

those didn't come back with any more frequency than the auto-apply