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Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

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11–20 of 24 posts

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

#11
I don't want to hurt your feelings, but I would like to share some experience. If you're applying for a job at the right level, you've been upfront about your experience throughout the process and your Github is impressive, your resume should only be a formality, unless it has some massive red flags.

Have you ever had a brutal editor (preferably someone you barely know) read over your resume and give you some feedback? You might be surprised by the results!

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

#12
Don´t lie about your qualifications because they will know after hiring you. That´s not a good impression for the business. Maybe you want to get a good job but you should start small and learn, learn and learn until you get to the better positions. An internship would be a great start, eventually in another country.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

#13
> done some various projects on Github (Using Go, JS, & Python)

What exactly does this mean? Do you have a bunch of repos that are tutorial projects or did you create something yourself? Are they deployed? What state is the code in, does it look prod ready? Are there tests?

When an artist applies for a position they bring a prepared portfolio not a bunch of sketchbooks. Is your Github a portfolio or a sketchbook?

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

#14
If you have friends who are able to hire you, work with them to proove you are capable to perform the job and are a good fit.

Offer to implement a feature for free or meaningfully contribute to one of their open source projects to demonstrate you have the technical chops to be a productive member of their team.

Also, besides technical skills, you have to be a good cultural fit. Make sure you do your homework what they are looking for in candidates more generally.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

#15
post #10

If you're relying on a resume for work, you're probably being inefficient in the first place. All the jobs I got were not through a resume. The resume is just there to justify to the boss's boss why they're hiring me.

What method did you use to get your first job?

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

#18
post #10

If you're relying on a resume for work, you're probably being inefficient in the first place. All the jobs I got were not through a resume. The resume is just there to justify to the boss's boss why they're hiring me.

What method did you use to get your first job?

Joined a programming agency run by a friend of my father. I did poorly on the technical interview, had bad grades, but the boss knew that I made games and went to a really good school so they took a chance on me.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

#19
Code More. Your analysis reveals a common mistake, and more (complex) projects is the answer. This mistake is not obvious from the outside!

Once you actually work in the industry for a while, you realize that most newbie side projects are incredibly small and distressingly unimpressive. Since you've never worked in a production codebase, your internal metric of difficulty and value is WAY off. You might think you have a really great Github, but I suspect that you need samples at least 4x as complex as what you've already done.

Remember that "CS Degree" is simply a indicator that you are solid hire. Hiring managers are looking to maximize the chance that you're worth the effort, so without the CS degree you'll need to work much much harder to prove your worth. Definitely possible! But not easy.

Oh, and don't lie. If you claim experience and interview with me, I'll drill you in detail about your claimed experience and what you learned. I'll figure out you were lying, and that's not a good hiring signal.

Re: Ask HN: Do I have to lie to get first tech job?

#20
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What method did you use to get your first job?

Joined a programming agency run by a friend of my father. I did poorly on the technical interview, had bad grades, but the boss knew that I made games and went to a really good school so they took a chance on me.

Just for the sake of more complete information: what year did you get your first job?
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