I was let go from my last job. Also no CS degree. Had no LinkedIn either (deleted years ago). Had to create a resume from scratch. The only thing I had was about a decade of experience.
I started by creating a resume and LinkedIn and aggressively optimized both as much as possible. Using a ATS checker I found online, I got a score of 96 for my resume after numerous changes (29 changes after a few weeks).
I started applying aggressively (and tracking) immediately after being let go. I’m pretty sure early rejections were because my resume was awful.
After nearly 2 months, 588 applications, with an average 10% response rate within an average of 10 days per response, I had 16 move to interview stages and 2 final offers. I accepted one of them (it checked all my boxes for what I wanted so didn’t have to compromise). I had 3 referrals but none of those materialized to interviews or offers. I did not work with any recruiters.
Market is bad, no doubt about that. I can’t speak to the experience of others but I’m convinced my response rate is good enough and it’s a numbers game.
This happened earlier this year.
Some stats for those who think it may influence my results:
40s Asian male. US Citizen. So no VISA needed and not white and don’t check any DEI boxes.
+1 love to see a comment written by an actual human programmer
It's always been a numbers game. The people writing this posts you don't want to work with. Think about it, would you write this post (you the reader, not you throwaway guy I'm replying to)? Top commenter entitled guy with "Ivy League" degree who probably did everything right in school but cannot code.
I have to second the general notion that this is a numbers game. My own statistics right now show that for every 100 applications, I get 12 applications with at least one interview, and 3.5 applications with an offer. Those numbers are not great but statistically, if you apply to enough jobs, you can see that you have a good shot of getting at least one offer. Of course, that may require hundreds of hours of work. But if you calculate the odds yourself, you can see there is an end in sight, even if it is quite far away.
Those were basically my exact application/interview/offer ratios when I last went through a job hunt. I can confirm it is basically a numbers game unless you have specific networked connections that can give referrals (and even then if the hiring manager doesn't like the look of your resume it doesn't really matter).
I started by creating a resume and LinkedIn and aggressively optimized both as much as possible. Using a ATS checker I found online, I got a score of 96 for my resume after numerous changes (29 changes after a few weeks).
I started applying aggressively (and tracking) immediately after being let go. I’m pretty sure early rejections were because my resume was awful.
After nearly 2 months, 588 applications, with an average 10% response rate within an average of 10 days per response, I had 16 move to interview stages and 2 final offers. I accepted one of them (it checked all my boxes for what I wanted so didn’t have to compromise). I had 3 referrals but none of those materialized to interviews or offers. I did not work with any recruiters.
Market is bad, no doubt about that. I can’t speak to the experience of others but I’m convinced my response rate is good enough and it’s a numbers game.
This happened earlier this year.
Some stats for those who think it may influence my results:
40s Asian male. US Citizen. So no VISA needed and not white and don’t check any DEI boxes.
This is for Senior SWE IC role.