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

12 points by crypticlizard 8 years ago | 23 comments

I've graduated college (Philosophy, 3.2 GPA), done some various projects on Github (Using Go, JS, & Python), networked with friends, but the problem I keep finding is my resume. People express interest in hiring me, check out my Github, but then give me the fade once they see my resume. I feel like it's a catch-22: I can't get experience until I've gotten experience. I thought my Github would close the gap, but alas it hasn't! I've read lots of posts on HN discussing this, and all opinions are welcome in response to this query, but specifically let me ask, should I really just lie and claim more experience? (I've had friends wanting to hire me suggest this subtly)

_ah 8 years ago |

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.

askafriend 8 years ago |

There is missing information here. What makes you think you are slam-dunk qualified for a 6 figure Software Engineering position when you only have a couple of seemingly random (from what you've told us) projects up on GitHub? Why should any team take a chance on you?

These are important questions to answer because you have to be able to crisply articulate them otherwise there are much more qualified candidates to choose from (depending on the hiring market).

Also what gives you the impression that lying is normal? There is a difference between lying and casting your past experience in the most favorable light possible (take this too far and you can cross over into the realm of lies). Lying is a great way to start off in this industry on the wrong foot - it's a smaller world than you think and the cost of lying is higher than you think.

imauld 8 years ago |

> 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?

SoggyMike 8 years ago |

Write a software product whose binary will have some popular appeal.

It's doesn't have to be a Killer App - it's OK if that appeal is popular only among a certain demographic.

I got my break as a coder by applying for a QA job that expected me only to execute scripts that someone else wrote.

But one day my manager walked into my cube to find it completely wallpapered with what looked like flowcharts.

"Those are actually dataflow diagrams," I explained. "I can't quality MacTCP 1.0.1 because the test tool always crashes."

"I know how to code on the Macintosh. Any chance you could get approval to have me fix all the bugs in strm_echo?"

I knew and he knew and my manager's manager all knew that I was offering to do software engineering for the pay I received as a script monkey.

I fixed strm_echo, qualified 1.0.1, 1.1 and wrote a new tool and a test plan for 1.2. In the process I got really good at debugging with the MacsBug machine debugger.

My next job I was the Product Development Manager for a company whose flagship product was incompetently written by a con artists. I stayed at Working Software for 3 1/2 years, during which I learned everything else - other than MacsBug - that I needed to know to be a commercial Mac developer.

If you want a mobile app development job you have to have at least one app in either Apple's App Store or in Google Play.

If you want to be a web developer you need to create a useful website - not for other coders to look at your source, but for end-users to find useful and appealing.

hluska 8 years ago |

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!

simonpure 8 years ago |

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.

jones1618 8 years ago |

Of course, don't lie. Does your resume include software project work or just non-tech jobs?

First, you should structure your resume as a "skills resume" that includes as many languages, environments and major libraries as you know how to use.

Then, include your strongest, most relevant school/personal projects and list them with action verbs, "Built XXX using YYY with these features...", "Designed ZZZ with algorithm QQQ..."

Most employers are looking for entry-level developers that have built complete solutions and not toy problems. They want to know that you can collaborate with others and contribute. Underscore any and all school/volunteer projects that show that.

BTW: I gave that same advice to my nephew who was self-taught without any college degree to get his first development job. What helped him the most, I think, was that he essentially created his own first job, so to speak, by building a basic scheduling web app for a friend's bike messenger service (for free). It filled a gap in his resume and proved that he could turn requirements into working code. That's all he needed to get a "real" job.

tripletao 8 years ago |

Everyone describes their experience in the light most favorable to them. That's different from inventing a past job entirely. If you get caught in the latter, then many (most?) companies will reject or fire you.

If you can't get a full-time job, do some contract work. Worst case, go on Upwork or whatever. If you charge low enough, then someone will take the bait. You can then describe that work in whatever misleadingly favorable terms you prefer.

SoggyMike 8 years ago | |

"charge low enough"

For a while I had the idea that I would only charge the rate that I actually required to cover my modest expenses.

I got no offers for any kind of work. Not perm, not contract.

Now that I charge obscene hourly rates I'm getting lots of work.

If you don't charge enough for contract coding potential clients will assume that you are so inexperienced that you are completely unaware of what other contractors are charging.

Use http://salary.com to guide your bid. If you _do_ choose to pursue contract programming, add one-half of your IRS 1040 Schedule SE Self Employment Tax to salary.com's salary then convert it to hourly rates.

But you will also want to pay for your own vacations, medical insurance and the like. Do some research on what kind of benefits your kind of coder receives than add at least that much to salary.com's salary and one-half of your self-employment tax.

(The self employment tax is equal to the sum of the employer and employee contributes to FICA - the social security tax.)

Also take into account the cost of providing your own software and equipment, your advertising and other legitimate business expenses.

All this has the result that contractors appear to be far better paid than are perm employees. If you only charge what I advise above then your take-home pay will be no more than that of the perms.

tripletao 8 years ago | | |

Agreed in general. If you're literally looking to get paid money to do something for the very first time in your life, then I'm not sure the amount matters much--just code a landing page for $100 or whatever, and then use that experience to get a real job.

Aside: Not a great sign that the answer that most strongly advises honesty is the lowest-rated...

badpun 8 years ago |

Try getting some PRs into an estabilished open source projects, such as for example Apache Spark, Mozilla Firefox etc. These projects follow standard, modern practices of software companies, so getting your PRs (maybe a couple of bugfixes or a minor feature/extension) approved means you should be qualified for a junior developer position.

PeOe 8 years ago |

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.

muzani 8 years ago |

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.

CodeKommissar 8 years ago | |

What method did you use to get your first job?

muzani 8 years ago | | |

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.

itamarst 8 years ago |

Happy to do resume review, if you're interested - itamar@codewithoutrules.com

meric 8 years ago |

Tell truth at all times. Start at $25 an hour doing freelancing and work your way up. After a couple of years your rate would be > $75 then transition into full time tech job.

rhapsodic 8 years ago |

I would say work with a recruiter. That's how I got my first programming job, with only two semesters of CS education but a lot of time invested in teaching myself how to program. Recruiters should have a good idea for what their clients are looking for, and how flexible they are WRT unorthodox educational backgrounds, no professional experience, etc. They won't waste your time with clients with which you wouldn't stand a chance. (Not that they care about your time, necessarily. They wouldn't want to alienate their client by sending someone who is in their not-a-chance-in-hell bracket.)

Also, if you're trying to work for a big tech name or some hip startup, go for the enterprise IT shop instead. A bank, insurance company, hospital system, grocery store chain, etc. Because working in those places is considered unsexy, and they know it, they have to be more flexible than the places that are flooded with resumes from hotshot coders. Again, that's how I got my foot in the door. Work there for a year or two, do well, learn as much as you possibly can, and you'll be firmly established on the career ladder.

angersock 8 years ago |

Lying is unacceptable--it's better to be honest with your employer and if they still hire you then both sides have better-calibrated expectations.

If you're not getting the sort of work you want, maybe adjust your expectations.

prachisara 8 years ago |

Amazon Web Services is an extensively evolving cloud computing platform which is provided by Amazon. Web services are also called as remote computing services and cloud services.

https://www.besanttechnologies.com/training-courses/amazon-w...

bigiain 8 years ago |

Everybody else does. Not doing so just puts you behind the rest of the pack. Work out what your own personal line-in-the-sand between "exaggeration" and "outright lying" is, work out what you can plausibly exaggerate - and whether your references will support those exaggerations. You (probably) need to make at least _some_ of your Github or side project work sound on your resume like "commercial experience", and ideally have someone as a reference for that bit of work who'll back that claim up.

Everybody exaggerates on their resume - the line between that and lying is up to you and your own personal ethics.

You 100% wouldn't be the first person to land your job (first or not) based on a lie. Make sure you can back the lie up though, and try to make it a small enough lie that the next resume doesn't need to perpetuate it (you don't want to be the CTO trying to explain away why the company about us page lists you as graduating from Harvard...).