Ask HN: Graduating CS soon, how do I find a job?

Moving now probably doesn’t make that much sense. Everyone is still remote, and interviewing remotely. Just tell the recruiter you’d be willing to move anywhere they want you to.

> 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.

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.

> How can I stand out to recruiters

Make a resume filled with buzzwords. Do a job search, look for jobs you want. Then just jam in every single tech buzzword you find in the job postings you want. Specific technologies, industry jargon. Trendy new stuff is better, because there is always a shortage of people who have experience with new and popular technology.

> and employers

Try to find somebody who works for the company, or knows somebody who works at the company. Make a new resume tailored just to what that company is looking for. Get it in somebody's hand. Try to get someone to be your champion at that company. Go to local meet-ups, try to find people who work for employers you want to work for, chat them up. Big companies in big cities always have employees who go to local tech meet-ups.

> What can I do to improve my resume?

Find some free resume review sites/services, or pay for a reputable one. But the quality of your resume isn't nearly as important as just making it look like you are the candidate an employer is looking for. If they're looking for junior employees (that's you!) then a crap resume isn't unusual, but it needs to tell the story that you are the candidate they've been looking for.

> 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.

Just don't tell them that you've used many technologies, mention the ones they use. A big part of landing a job is lying or embellishing to get to the interviews. Then you have to either be totally honest in the interview and hope they don't mind your lack of experience (find out what they're looking for first) or be really good at faking experience.

Finally: SW Engineering interviews are kind of a skill all their own, so start researching how they work. Look up how companies like Amazon do interviews and start preparing for those. Smaller companies will have a much less rigorous interview and be easier to pass.

Oh - and be prepared to sit around for months with no responses. One of the biggest limitations is actually location, because companies only ever look in specific markets for candidates. If the companies in your area aren't hiring, or aren't looking for someone with your experience, you may be waiting a while for a job to open up. At some point you may need to start marking on your resume and job sites that you're open to relocation.

> A bad hire can utterly destroy a company. See the fiasco with Timnit Gebru.

As far as I can tell... Google is still around?