How do I find an entry-level software position?

10 points by homie 8 years ago | 12 comments

Recent CS grad here.

Is it me or have entry level positions almost completely dried up in the software industry? Almost everything that I find requires 2+ years of experience. I apply anyway, but needless to say I'm not having any luck finding a job.

Am I approaching the job hunt the wrong way or something? I'm beginning to worry that I'll never find any sort of desirable employment simply because there are hardly any reasonable positions for me to pursue.

P.S. I'm looking for jobs in and around Chicago (this may be contributing to my lack of luck finding a job, but I don't think that's the case).

segmondy 8 years ago |

I just hired 3 PAID interns that can turn full time, and they have 0 experience in the industry. These positions are out there, go knock on as many doors as you can. I've also hired many entry level developers.

What do I look for? I look for "can you code" as an entry level developer. I don't expect you to understand design patterns and all that crap. Can you hack your way around and get the damn code running? Great, you are better than 50% of the candidates. Have you taught yourself any new tech recently? Great! Do you know more than one language? Great! Have you finished any online course? coursera, udacity, udemy, whatever, just something or a book? Awesome. Can you show me some of your shitty code for a silly side project? Awesome. Are you passionate and willing to learn? Great! Do you know other things that you need not know such as Unix, DB, RESTful API, git, etc?

You already met everything I need in tech. The only other thing is to at least pretend to be a decent person during the interview be nice, polite, respectful, punctual, clean.

Go knock on doors.

tudelo 8 years ago | |

Not to be that guy, but emphasizing that it's paid? Is that really necessary? What are the chances that it wouldn't be...

camhenlin 8 years ago | | |

Well there are lots of unpaid internships out there, and the OP is looking for a paying job, so I think it was worth mentioning that the internships were paid

sotojuan 8 years ago | | |

Outside of engineering and (maybe?) finance, the vast majority of internships are unpaid.

1ba9115454 8 years ago |

If you're applying for jobs requiring 2 years experience and you don't have that on your CV then probably you don't make it past HR. The hiring manager never sees your CV.

Also, most jobs ask for a particular programaming languages and usually an architecture. i.e. Ruby on Rails.

If your CV isn't targetting the skills asked for in the job you won't get past HR.

CV --> HR --> Hiring Manager --> Interview --> Hiring Manager --> 2nd Interview --> Offer

You might be stuck at the 1st stage.

When I was starting out I got on a free course that helped with my CV and got me an unpaid intern poisition. I worked for free for around 9 months, then I progressed rapidly after that.

protonimitate 8 years ago |

Unfortunately it's largely a numbers game.

If possible, be willing to relocate for work. Most entry level seekers are applying to everything they can, all over the place.

Work any and all connections you have. Anything you can do to get past the HR filter will help 10x your chances.

If you are pinched for money, you can always look for temp to hire work. It's unstable and the pay is usually crap, but it will get you in the door at one or multiple places and will get you to broaden your network.

Keep at it. It's discouraging and terrible, and the process is largely broken, but its entirely possible.

meric 8 years ago |

You can get some working experience doing freelance gigs. You could probably find better ones than upwork.com, but otherwise, do some jobs there, do bigger and bigger ones, until you've got a couple of 1-month long gigs and some good reviews. Then go after the 1-2 year work experience ones. The lower end you go, the less onerous the requirements are, and it's possible you can build up your work experience that way.

inertiatic 8 years ago |

I think that they're just not as advertised, but they're there. I'd consider applying for any non-senior position in your situation (and in fact I did when out of university).

Are you sure your CV is on point? Without much working experience you get to use up the space to show that you're actually "passionate" about your craft by stating anything remotely interesting you've done.

saluki 8 years ago |

Keep learning while you are looking.

I would recommend learning Rails or Laravel developing web applications. Those jobs are pretty interesting and they are out there.

Usually when you find jobs it's through someone you know or meet so go to meet ups, contribute to an open source community. Pick a side project to build so you have some samples of your work.

Landing your first job takes work, keep at it.

Good luck.

meatbundragon 8 years ago |

Highly recommend Glassdoor. Also, I work with people who attended coding bootcamps and then used the connections and new skills (front-end development) to join an established startup.

akulbe 8 years ago |

In the meantime, find projects on GitHub that are written in languages you know and fix bugs.

That may help give you cred, where you have a dearth of it, otherwise.