Ask HN: Has anyone ever been a “shadow employee”?

It could be one of several issues...

1) Your terrible at the recruitment process and do not give a good and fair account of yourself, making it hard to get past the recruitment and into the actual job.

2) You suffer from the Dunning-Kruger effect. You think you are great but everyone else realizes you are way below average.

3) You are applying for jobs that are not a good fit for you and so not getting anymore. Are you a tech lead that is applying for routine programmer jobs or vice versa.

4) You did not mention your age and so it could be you are coming up against age discrimination. If you are 40 then people expect you to be applying for team leader or higher level jobs and not standard programmer jobs.

I would say that if you are not currently working then your full time job is getting a job. You can do an awful lot in 38 hours of time when looking for work. Customize the covering letter for each position you apply for. Have several different versions of your CV, each one targeting a type of position you want to apply for. Research a list of software companies in your city and then find out the software development manager at each company (not the HR person!). Then reach out to them. Spend time working on a project that would show off your skills and put it up on GitHub. Try putting an ad in your local newspaper offering to work on custom software projects for small businesses.

I have a similar problem, so you're not alone. I've been in the game professionally since late 2007. But those 10 years to now are only calendar years. In reality, my experience is closer to 7 years, because I have unemployment gaps in between, and every job hunt is longer than the last.

I am also STILL carpet bombing resumes, but I also know this doesn't feel right. It may be okay for looking for your first job but I know that it's bad to rely mainly on this brute-force job application strategy if you've already worked at past jobs. You are expected to have built a professional network that will enable you to find jobs more easily.

My network exists, but it's rather disappointing. With a stronger network you would not need to blindly apply to so many companies.

So with that said, how is your network? I have been starting to build a new one from scratch, by going to local meetups. Progress would feel slow at first, but eventually I started seeing some of the same people from past meetups, talk to them, and exchange contact info. They could give you an "in" for getting priority in the hiring process.

> Each time I get hired, I do everything in my power to keep the job.

> Once I'm hired, I have no problems. 100% of the technical challenges I've been tasked with solving I've been able to solve. I have never been stumped by a technical challenge.

> Yet no one will hire me.

OK, it feels like something is missing here... What was your last job and the one before that? How long did you last on those positions? Why did you leave?

Also:

> I try to make friends with everyone at the company, even the people that I would loathe otherwise.

This sentence raises a red flag for me. It's hard to come off as genuinely friendly if your actual feelings are opposite.

Assuming you are a good coder then you must lack skills in the job hunting game.

I am the same, my solution to this was to seek out people who will write my resume (with my assistance) and give me advice on the "recruitment game" (this is paid of course). I think quite often for a technical person our mindset is so far removed from people involved in recruiting and hiring.

If you aren't good at that bit, I think its best sometimes to admit defeat and get some outside help.

May I suggest you are asking the wrong question. Shaddow employment will not solve your problem.

Instead ask "How to sell yourself for a job"-- incidentally, this yeilds tons of results on Google. Grant Cardone comes up, while his delivery can be a bit huckstery, still good food-for-thought > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PFYZde5SPk

What languages do you know?

what kind of salary would you be happy with?