2y ago

Am I really gonna have to work a min wage job?

I graduated in May with my associates degree, and sadly after applying a bit nothing, not even a reply email. I am convinced I am just unprepared for this industry, I will admit I don't have a GitHub with 1 billion contributions, and a bunch of connections. but can I seriously get nothing. I can't afford the 25K needed for my bachelors. I am honestly considering put in my applications to target or whatever and giving up.

5 comments

I would say take a good look at what your resume looks like. Usually no responses back is an indicator something is wrong with your resume and causing issues.
Are you filling out the cover letter / "Say something about yourself" section on every application? I largely just throw ChatGPT at the problem and then do a second pass over it to make sure it looks good before submitting
Resume should be kept very short and sweet, with 90% of its content being focused on specifically name dropping key technologies by name you have used so automated systems pick it up. If you are a MERN dev for example, make 100% sure that "MongoDB", "Express.js", "React" "Node" and "NPM" are all verbatim somewhere on your resume.
Typically your resume should be quick and easy to scan from the top left corner to bottom left corner and convey most of the info. Id' recommend watching some videos and read some posts on how to make a solid resume.
Other than that, I strongly recommend having a github that has a fully functional simple application on it that you have made on your own time, with numerous commits and a well fleshed out readme, ideally multiple paragraphs.
Just as an example, I have numerous projects on my github and most of them have some semblance of a readme. Try and include:
What is the application
Why would you wanna use it
Installation instructions
A blurb linking to the report page for the github, that basically amounts to "Found a bug, report it here"
A simple basic roadmap of future features you are thinking of adding (doesnt need to be actually happening, but it looks really good to have)
- I made a solid resume just I have no work expereince since I never really worked in high school due to my controlling dad. Other than that I do fill out the cover letter section is a very similar manner to what you said
  
  From my experience, usually a lack of responses means the resume has some form of issue going on. Formatting, font choice, etc etc.
  Resumes are largely automatically parsed by machines nowadays, so 99% of the filtering happens by code, not a human, which means you really wanna optimize the resume for being picked up by machines properly. It can be tricky.
  Some people unironically copy paste the entire job posting into their resume in the smallest possible font, white color, to "hide" it in the resume, but it still gets picked up by automated machines and as a result floats their resumes up to the top. Something to consider researching.
If you are in the US, then you can get a BSCS for pretty cheap at Western Governors University. It's $4k per semester and self paced, so it's possible to graduate in one semester. I did it in 3 semesters with unmedicated ADHD, and FAFSA grants covered most of it.
You are unprepared for this industry because it is saturated, even moreso now that AI is considered a part of the application pool, and every employer does something that wasn't taught in your classes. The hiring process is designed to be brutal. It is what separates the engineers from the programmers, and the programmers from the script kiddies. It isn't for everyone unless you have the drive for it.
You will have to try harder if you want to get somewhere in this industry. That also means further learning, whether at university or on your own. This is a lesson I am still learning after almost 20 years. I graduated with a comp sci associates in 2008, and worked on a contract basis throughout my 20s and early 30s. I still have nothing to show for it in my late 30s, because I let every negative experience push me backwards, to the point where the career just crashed and burned, and I ended up at McDonald's. Don't make those same mistakes.
You are going to have to pay your bills in any way possible, even if that means working a "min wage job", which has absolutely no shame. You don't have to give up your dream if you work at Target. Not everything has to be an absolute. You can work at Target while working on a side project that will give you those 1 billion GitHub contributions.
Put in the work.