joblessinnyc

Seems that like me, everyone else commenting does not agree with you. Anyway, I'll mention my particular situation: I worked my ass off for 4 years in my previous company, it had it's ups and downs but it was a great experience.

I moved here, it took me 4 months to organize my legal situation in the US. This is, getting a job permit. I knew how long it was going to take in advance, so I decided to take the most out of that time to travel, know the country better and work in "personal projects".

What does "personal projects" mean for a software engineer? In my case was learning and shipping actual products in two new programming languages, participating in a Challenge Post competition, joining every possible NYC meetup and getting to know every possible corner of New York City.

I'm very glad I did that. And I'll do it again.

To be honest, I don't want to be contacted. I want to pick a job that looks interesting to me and one in which I could add real value.

In the current job market, that's how it's supposed to be, but I just can't see it. I'll keep trying, I'm just worried that the response rate of the companies I've applied so far is close to 5% only.

Thanks for your advice.

You're very lucky. I'm starting to think that we imagine the market is better than what it actually is.

This is my story: I moved to the US on March after working on a fast growing an successful European start-up for 4 years. The one where everyone wants to work at: lots of "I want to get out of the shower and code" problems, smart colleagues and excellent compensation.

I took 5 months off to get used to this country, travel and finish some personal projects I had in my mind since long ago. Four weeks ago I started to actively look for a job and dude... I'm shitting in my pants about the idea that I may have to go back to Europe.

I'm allowed to work in the US, I have a decent Github profile and couple of LinkedIn recommendation (if they're useful or not, I don't know). I've lead teams before, I've funded a company right out of college and sold it for a profit two years later. I've applied to ~20 job offers and so far I only got two replies: for one I already dealt with HR and it's been a week since they told me they'll set up an Skype interview with one engineer (Yes, I'll follow up Today on that one). For the other one, they were looking for Java-enterprisey guy and I told them that Java is not something that I can say I'm an expert with, but that I could get up to speed in one or two months at the most. They said they'll call again... in six months.

HNers: I'm looking for your advice here. Do you see something wrong with my approach? What else should I try? Am I just too anxious? Because it seems to me that everyone take forever to answer! I'm really scared, because I left a lot of things behind on the idea that finding a job in New York City would be easy as cake and now I'm facing reality.

I don't have a network that I could leverage here in New York. I'm trying to build one, but that could take more time than the one I could resist before exploding in desperation and handling my resume to companies outside my field of expertise.

Thanks!