If you're looking for the short version, this is just me ranting about how the job search process is never about how good you are on paper. It's about who you know.
I've been in the job market for roughly 1 month. You may read that and say "hold up you can't honestly be complaining after only applying for a month" and to that I say good day sir. I've applied to 23-25 jobs, I've heard back from many of them with the standard "thank you for your time but no" and I've gotten into 5 different interview processes as of today 12/11. Before you jump to an opinion about that too let me tell you a small detail about each of those companies. I know someone who works at 4 of the 5. I have one interview process ongoing that is at a company that I don't have a contact at and it's because I bothered the recruiter on Linkedin.
Every other company that contacted me back after I applied said "nah we're good".
I updated my resume. I wrote some cover letters to express my interest in greater detail. I personally don't think I have a bad resume, I've had it reviewed by plenty of family and friends in the industry.
So here's what I'm doing about it:
- Adding to my github contributions. My git profile was pretty sparse for the last year, especially since I didn't have much time outside work.
- Writing more regularly on this page.
- Actively reaching out to recruiters at companies where I want to work
- Continuing to leverage my network because apparently that works.
- Building yet another thing to talk about and maybe find ways to contribute to Open Source.