Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattmanser | Hacker News Reader

I think you're looking at the wrong thing. You're getting interviews so you're doing something right and looking in the right place. Obviously you can find jobs to interview for and sounds like your CV is fine.

So keep at it?

You just haven't clicked with someone yet. Perhaps the questions you need to be asking is, 'how do I blow people away at interview?'.

But to answer your question, if you didn't know there's a monthly 'Ask HN: who's hiring' thread:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9812245

That's a list of a thousand companies that hire software developers. Plus loads more on the older threads, there's one every month.

If you're having trouble finding more jobs to apply for, you could email all the ones near you with a brief covering letter (as the body of the email) and your CV and ask whether they have any entry level positions. Bonus points for including something in the covering letter that shows you've read a bit of what they do. If you're having trouble figuring out who to email, you can phone the company and ask the secretary 'that you're looking for an entry level position and you were wondering who you would send your CV to'. They get questions like this all the time. Depending on who you are, that might be scary, but the quicker you get used to doing scary things, the more successful in life you will be.

The worst they can say is no.

In all seriousness, so many companies are constantly looking for developers but not constantly advertising. Like I went to a meetup last Thursday and a no-experience guy there got an interview from another one of the attendees, even though that's not what he came for.

Also, to follow up on that, network, go to technical meetups, talk to everyone and introduce yourself. Drop in that you're looking for your first job without sounding too needy, making it the focus of the conversation or doing the whole 'I haven't got a degree' thing. Also some meetups have job announcements at the end, you can ask to be included in them, if you do ask keep it positive and short.

Finally, though it sounds like your CV is fine, get a couple of articulate people to look over your CV, especially anyone you or your parents know who works in marketing (for the presentation), recruitment (because they know what works) or IT (for the relevant experience).

I really appreciate this reply, I hadn't thought about essentially cold-calling companies that need devs but aren't advertising.

My problem is I live in a small town that's really only residential and fast food - no real industry or large companies here. While I love public transit my transportation beyond that is limited (no car) -- which is why I wish I could get hired in SF, I can easily make it to that tech center. I have looked at the Who's Hiring post, but I wish I could find more companies interested in Coffeescript/JS or Lua that are willing to help with relocation - even remote work.

I have had friends look over my CV, and that was amusing - I had a section that essentially read like "He enjoys long walks on the beach and talking about American Idol". I was trying to sound more like a human than a machine. A friend rightly informed me that this sort of personality information would be best disclosed at an interview. After that I added a bit to my 'Experience' section - work that I had done for friends while acting as a system administrator. I get a little upset when I have friends who are more qualified in security fields and they get hired very easy - it seems like their resumes aren't formatted as nicely. Qualifications really do speak for themselves.

I think I'm just upset when listening to grandparents talk about how 'back in their day' they could easily go find an apprenticeship. I wish I could find the same for webdev, frontend work. I usually go to DEFCON each year if I can save for it, but I haven't had as much luck networking at that. I think most people show up to DEFCON to drink, really.. (not a bad thing)

Anyway, thank you for your kind advice, sir - I will adjust my search <3

By meetup I meant smaller ones like on meetup.com.

The meetup I was talking about only 7 of us were there. Sometimes it's 20, sometimes it's 5. Of which 2 mentioned their companies had open positions and the third gave another person at the meetup an interview (this is what I went to: http://www.meetup.com/NottinghamProgrammers/).

In Nottingham, a fairly small city, there's a different meetup every week aimed towards programmers/designers/web centric people, almost twice a week now. In SF there will be a different technical meetup twice or 3 times a day. They're social things as well as technical talks.

Also, I can practically 100% guarantee there will be a bunch of companies near you, right now, that need a junior programmer, within 30 miles of your town. They'll just be mainly Java or PHP jobs. If you want to be cutting edge, you know what you've got to do, move to SF.

Oh cool! -- I had seen meetup.com before but I hadn't used it myself. Thanks for giving me another space to look through :-))

Brilliant response. Another idea - offer a trial period. A lot of times the burden a company has is that once they offer you a job, they feel they have to keep you, or give you so many chances before ending it. Tell them you'll work for minimum wage for 30 days to prove how good you are, and you'll do it under a temporary contract - if they like you and can use you - convert to employee, if not, everybody's still friends.

I do like this idea - have you done this before? I am no contract lawyer, but it'd be good to know what specific terms you should outline for the probation period so that the company feels safe and you aren't being taken advantage of.

Side-thought: Is there a limit to how long someone can be a temporary employee? You hear crazy stories like people only being made permanent after a couple years of layoff-rehire.

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