My first job out of college in 1999 (getting my CS degree) was a startup. The other devs there laughed at me and told me my CS degree was worthless. I went home and seriously contemplated whether I did indeed waste my time in college. Fast forward 5 years, a dotcom crash and several interviews later, and I can tell you with certainty that degree was worth it every step of the way.
The Unemployable Programmer
241–250 of 464 posts
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#242Go contracting and your "employment" is safe. Always wonder how few questions I am asked as a contractor, earning thrice the money of my employed colleagues who have to go through painful hiring processes. Of course they can fire me any day, but that never happened to me and can happen to an employee as well.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#243Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, I live in Dallas. I have been fishing in Dallas and Austin over the past several months and can't get any interviews. I would like to know where all these "desperate" companies are and what domains they are in.
My experience with fishing in Austin is that they love you when you're not in Texas. If you're in Texas, you don't exist to them, so you don't get an interview.
I didn't get that experience at all, and I moved from College Station.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#244Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. What is baffling is this Valley-centric, web and mobile development-centric line being repeated c…
So I'm self taught, no degree, and I get job offers and headhunters out of the blue from all over the central US. Denver, Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Chicago, and small cities I've never heard of. The best thing I ever did was look at my friends early on who were getting found on linked in and organized my linkedin profile to look as similar as theirs as I could truthfully. The next best thing was taking 6 months…
Um, whatever key you used instead of 'u' in 'fucked' made almost your entire message italicized.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#245Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. I've had about 40-50% of places reject me due to a lack of degree. A couple even sent me hopeful…
40%-50% rejection is really amazing, I don't think you quite realise how tough the job market is right now. I have a friend with chemistry PhD who has - with no exaggeration here - applied for at least 300 jobs with varying levels of success.
I always thought normal rejection rates varied between around 75% (in a strong job market) to 95% in down markets, say 2007-2009. When I was looking for a job, a 40-50% rejection rate would have been utterly amazing.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#246It appears that the OP is in Germany, which is probably a more significant issue when trying to get work with US companies and/or with US-centric sites than not having a degree.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#247Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. What is baffling is this Valley-centric, web and mobile development-centric line being repeated c…
So I'm self taught, no degree, and I get job offers and headhunters out of the blue from all over the central US. Denver, Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines, Chicago, and small cities I've never heard of. The best thing I ever did was look at my friends early on who were getting found on linked in and organized my linkedin profile to look as similar as theirs as I could truthfully. The next best thing was taking 6 months…
Lessons from this post:
1. If you're going to swear, don't use an asterisk to try and make it look good. We can take it, honest.
2. Something in between two asterisks on HN gets shown in italics.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#248This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing…
>>And having a single development job at a big company for a decade isn't some kind of career-killing move... unless you turn it into one, by letting your skills stagnate and wither, which is on you. HN is going to hate me for saying this, but there's another problem besides your actual skillset. At least in the start-up bay area scene, working 10 years at a big company[1] absolute is a negative to a bunch of people…
Agreed. In fact, the description of the big company environment "barely any work to be done, it mostly involved sitting at a desk and writing some emails all day" is a stereotype often applied to the day to day life of boring large-company developers.
In cases where this is true, a developer who has spent the past 10 years primarily writing emails and doing minimal coding is unlikely to be a strong developer candidate - the blade is dull from lack of use.
My recommendation to OP is to find ways to demonstrate your motivation and skills in order to counteract the stereotype, perhaps through open source contributions.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#249Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This is an absolutely baffling article. The job market for developers is not glutted by over-supply, it's one where marginally-qualified people get hired for salaries well above the national average because companies need SOMEONE to do the job. And virtually nowhere cares about degrees, especially for experienced devs. I've had about 40-50% of places reject me due to a lack of degree. A couple even sent me hopeful…
How do you know that 40-50% of places are rejecting you because of your lack of degree? Do they say this outright in their rejection emails? What's your overall rejection rate? I don't even get a timely response (within a month of application) to 50% of the positions I apply for. That's why it's absolutely essential to be able to apply to places in bulk - have a cover letter and resume that are just generic enough to…
> How do you know that 40-50% of places are rejecting you because of your lack of degree? Do they say this outright in their rejection emails? What's your overall rejection rate?
1) I received several requests for an updated resume with a degree. 2) I was pulled aside in one interview and told I couldn't get what I was asking without a degree.
So, out of the people that I got a rejection reason for, basically.
Last Job Search:
61 applications -> 14 phone interviews -> 5 in person interviews
Before phone interviews:
2 requests from [one of the big 5] to interview that were unsolicited from their recruiters that I refused outright.
I received 9 emails related to the degree. 3 asked why I wasted their time without a degree. 4 asked for updated resumes with a degree. 2 stated their rejection was due to a lack of degree.
Additionally, the "failures" to reach the phone interview were heavily weighted towards places that mentioned a degree in their job ad. [e.g. I saw 150% of the failure rate for job ads with the degree than for job ads that just listed experience requirements ]
After interviews:
6 were too much money [ I was literally pulled aside at the in-office bar, told by the hiring manager that if I asked for $10k less he would give me the job ]
3 were due to other reasons that I didn't think were noteworthy.
I rejected 4 places on the basis of my interactions with them.
Re: The Unemployable Programmer
#250Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed. Sounds like there's something else at play with this guys inability to find work. Maybe he doesn't interview very well?
Some people are terrible at interviews. A few months ago I interviewed a developer in his thirties who had a great looking resume. Worked on lots of big projects in positions of both making decisions about software architecture, technology to use, etc.. and also being a programmer doing the actual work. His resume was really awesome. When we received him in our interview, we asked him to tell us a bit about his past…
It's possible he wasn't prepared for the interview, and was thrown for a loop early on and failed to recover. It happens. Although that is equally as bad.