Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

I have some questions for you fine folks, now that I'm starting to get phone interviews. Quick background: I've had 2 phone interviews so far, one with Energy Enterprise Solutions and another with Aerotek Engineering; I have 2 more scheduled within a week for Intuit and Cerner. Intuit is the one I'm the most excited for, by far, but I'm still curious about the others.

So Aerotek Engineering is apparently a staffing agency of some sort - they pulled my resume from careerbuilder and called me themselves. I'm a bit wary of this kind of position [and confident enough in my other pursuits to be willing to drop it], but I'm still happy to humor the opportunity. Have any of you been accepted for this sort of position and gotten success out of it? I'm under the impression that this would be temp work, but some people get job offers from their placements when their contracts end; is that at all common?

So far my phone interviews have been mostly casual - and it seemed to me that the HR staff were mostly concerned about specific technologies. Going into these should I just be ready to basically list off what I've worked with [and what's already on my resume]? Are there any specific questions I should be asking, either about the work or the company? While this is probably all common-sense stuff I should already know, I'm still quite new to it, and really want to put my best foot forward for the Intuit interview.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 21:03

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# ¿ May 18, 2024 05:23

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

evensevenone posted:

My first job out of college actually went through Aerotek. They're a pretty typical, large, nationwide recruiting firm. Basically everything depends on the client company and the specifics of the position. Generally, Aerotek works for some client company--they find and screen you, and then send you on an interview at the client company. If you get hired, you get paid by Aerotek and Aerotek gets paid by the company. Usually they get a margin of 20-40% of your salary (but they're also on the hook for benefits/etc).

There will usually be some term of contract (usually a couple months to a year). After that it kind of depends on the position, the contract might just be over, or you might have the opportunity to get hired permanently on at the client. Usually you know--it'll be described as temp, perm, or temp-to-perm. Don't discount temp positions though--projects often get extended or renewed. The only thing that sucks is when that turns into a multi-year thing. Temp-to-perm is pretty common though, and is benefits the client because it makes it easy for them to get rid of who don't work out--they just don't renew the contract.

The one thing you want to avoid (and I don't know if Aerotek does this) is shady recruiters who aren't working for a client, but are just trying to combine job listings they find on Monster/craigslist/wherever with job seekers they find in the same places. In that case nobody wants to pay them some huge fee for doing nothing and they just end up being a giant problem.

Anyway if you get a decent recruiter they can be a pretty good asset, since it's in their interest to get that position filled, and they usually have an ongoing relationship with their clients and know a little bit about what they are looking for. On the other hand, they're usually HR types and can be a little clueless about technology, so most of their screening process is seeing how many keywords in the job description that you have in your resume.

This is quite informative, thank you! With regard to the salary: do you know if you still get a competitive wage after their margin or would you expect to see roughly 70% of the median salary?

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 22:38

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Strong Sauce posted:

20% seems a bit ridiculous, why is it that AeroTek is doing the actual hiring vs the "client company?" Aren't you essentially consulting at a lower rate?

I can see the appeal of it, from a business sense. Aerotek is adding value to their 'employees' by effectively networking for them, and to "clients" by making hiring less tedious.

With regard to the rate, I imagine they can negotiate a higher base salary because they effectively take payroll taxes and benefits off the table; those combined could easily save more money than is lost by the 20-40% margin.
If they're not capitalizing on that and only asking the median 65k salary or what have you, then it's a pretty horrible deal for everyone but the client business.

# ¿ Feb 19, 2013 23:30

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Is it common for companies to require college transcripts during the application?

Specifically, I'm talking about Cerner in Kansas City, MO. I don't particularly mind - their GPA requirements were relatively low at 2.8, but it still caught me by surprise.
They apparently want unofficial transcripts [which are in plain-text online and easy to edit in the first place..], and an official one after hiring.

Seemed a bit odd to me. Would they be upset if I didn't bother to pay to send an official transcript after I've been hired?

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 01:42

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

tk posted:

I would operate under the assumption that they will fire you you if you don't provide them with an official transcript. It's probably part of a standard background check, and they will assume you lied about your qualifications if you don't provide one.

To my knowledge they don't do any sort of background check beyond the transcript and generic, 'have you ever committed a felony?' questions. It just seemed odd to me that this was the first non-government position I've seen ask for it - and it wasn't until I got to the phone interview that I found out. I already have a technical interview scheduled, so this was more to satisfy my curiosity than anything.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 02:05

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

tk posted:

I can't speak generally, but in my experience it's not unusual.

Not immediately, no, but I've seen it happen before. I can only assume the person in question really was lying about something, because it's not like they just surprise you on the 7th day and walk you out of the building if you haven't done it yet.

Well thanks, I guess if I get an offer and decide to work for them I'll just eat the 60 dollars or whatever my Uni's fee is. If it was something they'd gloss over I probably would've skipped it.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 02:23

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Progressive JPEG posted:

This may be an odd contribution in your context, but if you're not currently living in KCMO and considering living there, I personally consider it a pre-Austin in many respects; it has a disproportionate amount of interesting things for its size, while remaining extremely cheap to live in.

Disclaimer: I grew up there and now live in the SF Bay Area, but genuinely miss it.

While I don't particularly care for Cerner, I did like what I saw about KCMO. I'm primarily considering CA, Kansas City and Washington D.C. for my relocation, in that order of preference. Though it's a bit hard for me to make a decision since I've not spent any appreciable amounts of time in those places. Washington DC only because it seems like the easiest place to find a job, and CA because I want to escape sub-freezing Winters. Kansas City seems moderately temperate, but I've liked just about everything I've read about it.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 03:53

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

greatZebu posted:

And if you're bilingual, it's worth saying so explicitly.

Really? I never bothered listing it anywhere because it didn't seem important to the jobs I was applying to.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2013 05:09

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

2banks1swap.avi posted:

See, I wore a tailored suit and tie, and figured being more "businessey" would help me stand apart from the goony nerds. That and courtesy emails.

Does that ever make you look like less of a programmer?

It makes you look more professional, which can be a plus or minus depending on where you've applied. If it's a hip, new start-up, then the suit and tie could be overkill, but it probably wouldn't look out of place at say, IBM.

# ¿ Mar 7, 2013 00:26

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Sab669 posted:

Hey goons, haven't posted here in a while... Just scoping out other jobs for the first time in months, came across for a post for an entry-level position.

How common is that?

Instead of saying, "3+ years of Perl experience", they've put, "It's fine if you don't know Perl, but you'd need it here so make an effort, guy."
Consider it a blessing?

# ¿ Mar 14, 2013 21:49

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Good Will Hrunting posted:

So I have two offers on the table right now:

Offer A: A full-time offer around market value for my area with a nice bonus at a stable company. My biggest issue is that I'm not sure how much responsibility or work they're going to give me and how this would influence my progress.

Offer B: An internship offer at another company that doesn't pay great according to Glassdoor, but seems to hire their interns full-time after the internship period (pay also just okay). I think it's a great opportunity for me. I'm confident that I'd learn a ton and positive that it's interesting to me, but I'm a little scared to let a full-time offer for a position that could be a good fit slip away.

Any advice on things to ask Company A to help me get a better idea? They're a big company, with lots of projects that come and go, and they seem to have a "we'll give you a few assignments and see where you fit" attitude which might be cool, but it's making me uneasy.

(This might be ambiguous but I'm somewhat paranoid and any more information makes me feel like I'd be tipping my hand.)

There is no situation in which I'd take an internship over a full-time offer. Even if I ended up hating the company I worked for, having full-time experience to show on your resume looks better than an internship.

# ¿ Apr 11, 2013 05:08

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Rurutia posted:

Gaz, don't take it so personally. I only posted because I didn't want people to get the idea that they need to be local to be competitive for Bay Area companies. To be frank, Bay Area companies have stellar devs throwing themselves at them because the potential for return on equity is so high.

I'm sure it's a boon if you don't have to relocate, but in the grand scheme of things relocation costs are going to be less than a tenth of what they pay you in a year - and usually equity means you'll be staying for at least a few years.

Having just been turned down from two interviews because 'they were only interested in local applicants', I can say that distance is certainly a factor in an application.

And why wouldn't it be? Most places already get hundreds of local applicants; why spend extra money to bring someone to interview and later move them to your location?
I'm 100% positive that most companies hire beyond their area all the time, but being local absolutely helps. I have gotten a roughly 75-90% response rate from companies within 50 miles of me, and probably 20-30% from those across the country.

# ¿ Apr 30, 2013 00:05

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Sab669 posted:

^^Yikes, I know he said tear into him, but wow haha.

While we're tearing apart resumes;

I really don't like my Skills section, I think it looks too long and empty, but if I condense it then the there's a decent chunk of white space at the bottom. I also don't like just saying "Current" for my employment periods but I find that if I change the formatting at all, Office fucks poo poo up.

Scribbled out bits are obviously name / phone / email (which is just my name), then I scribbled out the company names.

Also, I was an intern for 5 months before I was a full time developer at the top-most Experience entry. Should I include that in my time there?

ie. "05/12 - Present" or "10/12 - Present". My duties were exactly the same as an intern as they are now.

Put your skills in a 2 column table, so they're side-by-side.

Your formatting throughout kind of irks me, you could stand to benefit with a better template.
Also use past tense everywhere, especially don't mix tenses, as you have, and use bullet points where you're clearly bulleting your experiences.

# ¿ May 21, 2013 20:33

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Sab669 posted:

As far as mixing tenses goes, I'm no English major but I think I used present tense throughout my 'Present job', then past tense through all my past experiences. Seems logical to me?

Always past tense on a resume, present job or not. When I said mixing tenses I meant using both present and past under one heading.

# ¿ May 21, 2013 20:59

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

boho posted:

The Programmer/Software Engineer job market is sparse around here, and my resume leans way heavier on IT and successfully dealing with human beings than it does on programming. I'm trying to decide if it be unwise to take a job in IT/Support with the intent of using internal connections (which I have) to move over to the software end of things after the requisite six months.

Circumstances are that I'm a fresh unemployed graduate and a job is a job, I want to live in this region, and the pay is perfectly reasonable for a single dude. That said, the pay is substantially less than what I think Software Engineers apparently make around here, and while there'll be people on my side, there's no guarantee that I'll be able to successfully do an internal position shift within a year.

Assuming these are people you can speak freely with (it seems that way), you should really double check whether you'll be able to move into software development from IT. Bear in mind that if your resume is already IT-heavy and you want to get into development, adding more IT experience to your resume will do the opposite of what you want.

With regard to pay - if you're in a metro area that's not SF, NYC, or Seattle, and you're working directly for a company instead of doing contract-to-hire or other such work you should be making close to the median around 60-65k out of college. If you are in SF, NYC, or Seattle, that number will go up pretty significantly if you're working for a Microsoft/Apple/Google level company. If you're not in a metro area you'll probably be closer to 40k per year, and the same goes for the shady recruitment agencies just about anywhere.

# ¿ Jul 15, 2013 22:42

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

boho posted:

Well I got turned down for that IT thing anyway, so no need to worry about making a decision there!

I'm starting to feel like it's time to pack my bags. Somewhat OT, but for those who are single and relocated to a whole new town with no existing connections, how long did it take for you to rebuild a social life (assuming you managed to)?

Moved to Columbus, OH almost a month ago; I still don't know anyone.

Bright side, I got an offer yesterday so I'm pretty excited regardless.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2013 01:10

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

HondaCivet posted:

Are cons that helpful for employment? OSCON is here next week. I was considering getting a ticket to the exhibition hall and walking around with resumes or something. I wish I had a GitHub to show off, maybe someday.

Get business cards if you want to pass stuff out to people you meet and want them to remember you, most people you meet won't be in a position to receive resumes anyway.

But yes, networking is incredibly helpful to employment.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2013 16:45

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

qntm posted:

I thought in the US you could be fired without notice for no reason?

That depends on the state. It's an At-will employment thing and you'll find that many states offer exceptions that make employment more rigid.

Sarcophallus fucked around with this message at 15:17 on Jul 27, 2013

# ¿ Jul 27, 2013 15:14

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

JawnV6 posted:

lol

What concerns me is you're only hitting "oh poo poo i know people better than me in every dimension!!" in your junior year. Should've hit you freshman year, sophomore at the latest. Too much time hanging around EBF? Regardless, it's high time you learned how to market yourself as a package instead of on solitary aspects.

The leg up you've got on 90% of that crowd ought to be people skills. Most jobs require rudimentary coding skills and a shitload more talking to relevant professionals.

I don't have a github. This has not affected my career trajectory in the slightest.

On the other hand of that, I have a github with literally only my capstone project in it, and it was a big part of this first job I got out of college. Having some kind of code sample can really make a huge difference, especially if it's substantial enough to earn some questions in an interview. Questions which should hopefully be incredibly easy to answer confidently since you spent X amount of time writing this thing they're asking you about.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2013 00:10

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Zero The Hero posted:

Very little, but I also have a degree.

And so does nearly every other person who will be applying for the jobs you want.

Even if you're fresh out of school, it sounds like you've made a pretty huge mistake. Surely you have a semi-cool capstone project to list on your resume or something, right?

# ¿ Aug 18, 2013 02:26

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Sitting Bull posted:

http://www.dice.com/job/results/tn/us?caller=advanced&src=19&x=all&p=sw

Search results: 1 - 30 of 786

http://www.dice.com/job/results/ca/us?caller=searchagain&src=19&x=all&p=sw

Search results: 1 - 30 of 15051

Where do you suppose the guy with absolutely no relevant experience is going to have better luck?

# ¿ Aug 18, 2013 23:10

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

ThrowawayAccount posted:

I last asked about my resume here: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3376083&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=138#post417656335

I listened to the feedback I got:
Old resume: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3duurus7n9bNkFlZi14aWpDems/edit?usp=sharing
New resume: https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3duurus7n9beEtwUmh1X3VFVzA/edit?usp=sharing

Are there any obvious fixes, other than the date alignment/formatting, that need to be made before I start to send it out?

Also, someone mentioned adding my "test scores". The last test score I got was for the ACT. I got a 31, but I don't see why an employer would care about what I did in high school.

There doesn't seem to be much consistency in your document - you're using bullet points up until your research assistant position and then you forsake them for paragraphs. Bullet points are preferred because it makes it easier to scan your resume and get an overview of what you've done. To pick nits, I don't really like that your header is right-justified, but that could just be me.

With regard to bullet points, the cleaner you can make something sound the better. It's ok to lose a little bit of detail if it makes your resume read better, so long as it's still accurate. You'll have plenty of chances to go further into detail during an interview - and it's preferable in any case. The first thing any phone interviewer will ask you is something along the lines of, "So how about you walk me through your resume?", and if you've already put full detail into your bullet points then you'll just end up reading the words right off the page to him and that's less than great, in my opinion.

Nobody cares about your ACT or SAT scores except undergrad admissions, if that answers your question.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2013 21:30

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

ThrowawayAccount posted:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B3duurus7n9bYkp4MFFqZDU1QW8/edit?usp=sharing

Changes:
1. Changed last two project descriptions to give a clearer explanation of how they differ, without explaining what a ray tracer is.
2. For consistency, changed to bullet-points on everything but education, which I moved to the bottom, also for consistency.
3. Bigger heading for my name.
4. Changed header font to Times New Roman to be consistent with rest of document.

I considered moving my header back to being center-justified, but so far there's been one person who said to right-justify it, and one person who doesn't really like it, so I'm not really sure what to do about it - other than leave it alone.

Well, with the basic formatting stuff out of the way (and this is an improvement already!), let's get to the meat of it.

Layout: Since you're fresh out of school, you don't want to put Education last. Even if you consider the section completely insubstantial, the order of your resume elements represents a ranking of importance, so putting it on the bottom sends a really confusing message in my opinion. Skills is a category that can usually afford to go last - it's a section that tends to be more important to computers than to hiring managers.

Last consistency measure: You have the locations of your GPA and your graduation date swapped around. In all of your other sections the date is on the same row as the heading for it, and that makes sense.

Content: It's mostly solid, and I think you have a pretty good skill set, but I would spend some time rewriting bits and pieces. To give you an idea, but also spare myself from doing it all for you, take this bullet:

quote:

Created a suite of tests for new product that could be run automatically on builds, as opposed to the previous, manual�-only initiation, and in a number of minutes, compared to hours for the main product�s test suite.

Could be said with, "Created an automated test suite that reduced our build testing time from hours to minutes". Giving accurate metrics is a big plus too - so if you know exactly how long it took before, and how long it takes now, you could just say, "improved our build tests time by X%" and it looks more authoritative. So I would take a look at some of your wording, and really just try to focus on the essence of what you're trying to say. If it turns out that doing so condenses your resume too much and you have blank spaces, then I'm sure you can think of more bullet points for some of your projects.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2013 00:23

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

CatsPajamas posted:

3) If you're not satisfied with the quality of work on a project is it better to still provide it and discuss the flaws when they arise, or omit it entirely? For example, during my internship I was one of the students who developed https://www.punchersmark.com (I'm the one with the worst picture!); knowing that the site has issues if asked about my internship do I willingly direct potential employers to it, or talk about the experience without giving anything concrete?

If by 'discuss flaws' you mean, 'tell your interviewers how you would do X differently and why', then yeah, it would be hugely beneficial for you. If, on the other hand you meant, "Haha, this page is kind of buggy, I just hacked it together", then maybe you shouldn't do that.

# ¿ Aug 23, 2013 14:22

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Rello posted:

I go to a top 10 CS school and they make a conscious effort to bell curve to a C average (2.0 GPA). So most my courses have a D+ (57%, 1.7 GPA) to a C+ (69%, 2.7 GPA) class average. Since the kids with the lowest GPAs will probably drop out I guess that bumps the GPA average up a bit.

So a 3.0 GPA is pretty good, but you would obviously want a 3.3+ to get into graduate school.

This was the case where I went too, and it was a lovely state school.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2013 02:55

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

CPFinnit posted:

I'm currently working on a Post-Bac Software Engineering program and I'm a little less than halfway through. I have a completely unrelated undergraduate degree in History and Secondary Education and I'm wondering when would be a time to start looking for an entry level development job.

I had a to take a handful of prereq classes so I'm comfortable with different control and data structures. I've taken my Software Engineering Design classes so I'm comfortable with Agile and n-tier concepts and I did well in Java and Advanced Java. I've had some experience with JDBC, Hibernate and Spring and I've got a good grasp of SQL. I'm currently taking Enterprise Java and Advanced EJ this semester and C#/Enterprise C# in the Spring before I have to take a couple of non-coding classes and my capstone next Fall.

I feel like I'm in a weird spot right now experience wise and I'm not sure it would be worth trying to get in somewhere and do some QA or something to get some experience or keep my head down and keep plowing through school.

You should start looking for internships yesterday.

# ¿ Aug 28, 2013 18:03

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Tunga posted:

It's hard to actually figure out what that value is because most people don't go around advertising their salary, no?

Is it so hard to use Glassdoor?

# ¿ Aug 30, 2013 02:29

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Gazpacho posted:

Regarding the whole "create a demo web site" thing, how does one come up with a bunch of content to build it around?

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Just to clarify: A 'demo' website can have mock content. If you're building a website with real content then it's less of a demo website and more of an actual website.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2013 18:52

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

gucci void main posted:

Group interviews are still loving dumb and shows that the company doesn't care enough to dedicate 1:1 time.

This makes absolutely no sense. A 1 hour interview with 3 devs and a manager costs significantly more than a 1 hour interview with just 1 other guy. 1:1 time is significantly easier to schedule than a group interview, as groups will have conflicting availability. In what world does more effort and more expenditure equal less care?

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 03:14

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Steve French posted:

You seem to be thinking of an interview with 1 candidate and multiple employees. In this case, we're talking about a "group interview" with a group of candidates.

3 1 hour interviews with individual candidates costs less than a 1 hour interview with 3 candidates all together.

I was - this makes much more sense, thanks.

# ¿ Sep 19, 2013 15:07

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

JawnV6 posted:

I hope everyone posting here can empathize with Jsor

Needless to say, I didn't call them up and disqualify myself, but a healthy dose of Impostor Syndrome never hurt anyone.

Not really; his issues go much farther than impostor syndrome, even if his case is the most extreme I've ever heard of.

This is a guy who applied to 10-15 jobs in a year, and is only now seeking help.

Jsor: You're a competent enough guy to get an entry-level position somewhere, even with the locality requirement. A bunch of forum posters telling you that isn't going to fix your issues though - you really need a good therapist. Shop around, you don't have to settle for the first dude you find.

# ¿ Sep 25, 2013 22:08

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Pollyanna posted:

2banks' experiences just confirm the reasons why I ran the gently caress away from Jacksonville. Unfortunately now I'm back

I do want to move back up to Massachusetts. How is the job market up there? I know that there's a lot of biology and medicine around Boston, and the software dev market seems to be decently well developed. Does anyone have familiarity with the Greater Boston Area re: getting a job? How would I, as a relative novice, break into the market there?

Apply for jobs. When you get one, move there - preferably with your relocation expenses paid. Boston has plenty of Software Dev jobs.

# ¿ Oct 3, 2013 00:13

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

2banks1swap.avi posted:

Biting the bullet and making an (admittedly crappy) bunch of data structures in good ole C did more to teach me how it all actually works than any amount of lecturing or doing class assignments in Java ever did.

If you can make a toy program that utilizes various common data structures in C and just do some some basic sad rear end console input-output you're ahead of most grads, especially if you don't have memory leaks.

If your school never branched outside of Java it probably sucked. I'd like to see how your curriculum handled OS-related courses - a big part of which should include memory management.

# ¿ Oct 25, 2013 16:54

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

shrughes posted:

... and gently caress drug screens, don't do one. Work elsewhere.

This is stupid; virtually any company worth working for these days drug screens their employees. It's not a big deal.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2013 15:36

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Steve French posted:

Do any of you know if space x drug screens? It would not surprise me at all if they don't, and I'd much rather work there than somewhere like Lockheed Martin (and not for any reasons related to drugs)

Then why does it make any difference?

# ¿ Oct 29, 2013 15:07

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

EN Bullshit posted:

So if I've got a job now in a crappy area, when should I start applying for jobs in an area I want to live in? I figure there are so many job postings in and around SF, and to a lesser extent, NYC, that just by numbers I should find places that move quickly. For both my internship and my current job, I got a same-day response to my initial application and received an offer letter in seven days or less from my application. Is that really so uncommon?

I want to live in one of SF or NYC in February, so I figured I'd give my two-weeks' notice on like, January 1st. By then, I'll have $5-6k saved up from my current job, so if the job search takes longer, that's okay. I'll only have three days of time off accumulated by then, though, so I'm thinking I'll have to quit before I can consider interviewing in-person at places in SF or NYC? Though I'm guessing that they wouldn't fly me out unless they already had a good idea that they were interested in hiring me? Assuming they're not gigantic like Google and fine with throwing away money on interviewing tons of candidates who they end up not hiring.

Well at least you're taking the E/N advice to heart.

Good luck.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2013 03:00

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Pie Colony posted:

this is definitely not true, and it's kind of a pet peeve of mine when people say stuff like you need a $100k salary to live in nyc. you can get a 1BR in a place like crown heights or bed stuy, which is about a 30-35 minute commute door-to-door to my office in union sq, for $1400, and I was able to save 10-20% of my paycheck when i was living by myself on 60k. your mileage may vary depending on how terrifying you find black people though.

You are only validating his point, as far as I can tell.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2013 16:10

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

HondaCivet posted:

I don't mean to whine but is anyone else having trouble getting in anywhere? Applying cold to listings isn't working for me at all. I've been doing C# for just over 2 years so I have a little experience at least, and I'm still working. I'm trying to network more and it's kind of helping but it's pretty limiting. Does applying to random places where you don't have connections only work if you have a lot of experience?

It might be that your resume sucks, given that it's the common denominator between your applications and the lack of responses. Feel free to post it here and/or in the Resume thread in BFC.

# ¿ Nov 7, 2013 01:50

Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

Hyperman1992 posted:

Do people mind if submit mine here for the verbal lashings? or should I just go to the resume thread? (can't remember what its called atm...)

Either or both is fine - you will not be the first or the last. Just bear in mind that apparently if you post it in this thread you might have shrughes turn into a sperg-lord about it.

Not that (most of) your comments are incorrect, shrughes, I just would never want to work with you; especially given your first comment is about the dude not using LaTeX of all things. Christ that's dumb.

# ¿ Nov 8, 2013 21:22

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Sarcophallus: Jun 12, 2011; by Lowtax

unixbeard posted:

How many points does being an insufferable sperg lose/win you?

shrughes posted:

The main thing employers want to know is: CAN YOU loving CODE? (and not be a spergacious buttlord).

It seems pretty important, since it's one of the two criteria employers care about.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2013 01:45

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > The Cavern of COBOL > Newbie Programming Interviews/Get a Job Megathread: Fake it 'til you make it

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