> If you get a check just by sending a invoice, consider it an anomaly, and yourself lucky.

So very, very true.

"Oh you want to get paid for this consulting project huh? Well we can't just wire the money to you, no, please fill out this form so we can put you in our SAP system. Oh, you haven't been paid? well well, you're not in our system.

We've finally put you our system, here's a record of our payment to you.

no money in my bank account

argh!"

Direct experience with my country's 3rd largest bank. Once outside regular salaried work, liquidity is more of an issue than solvency. You might have billed 5 months of rent, but your real estate agent doesn't accept unpaid invoices as legal tender....

I disagree about your second point. I'm a CS Major at a top 10 program, with a pretty good GPA (~3.7). This is a throwaway account btw.

During this fall recruiting season, I sent out my resumes to all the top companies, and was offered interviews at every single one. With the exception of two companies, I received offers from everywhere I interviewed, including Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft. I think the market is so hot right now that you CAN get showered with job offers just by sending out a lot of resumes.

I suppose that's sometimes true. However, some people in certain situations might receive unsolicited job offers, without ever even creating a resume or submitting an application, right?

The point I was trying to make is that, I'd encourage young people to follow-up after sending out a resume. It will help you gain 'chops' for future calling/prospecting that may be required. Also, it's professional to follow-up with a phone call after sending an email to someone you've never met or spoken to before.

I get a lot of unsolicited resumes sent my way. Hardly anyone ever calls to follow-up. My thought is, I'm a busy person, and if the person really truly wants to work with me, they won't give up. I want to see persistence.

I bet that Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft all have very well-thought-out recruiting programs. I'd imagine that young college grad's could be hired for a lower salary than older, more seasoned software engineers. Those large companies are probably more flexible with young recruits. Everything in life is a trade-off. Why would those companies "shower" kids fresh out of college with job offers? I'd venture to guess that they are interested in hiring them because it's cheaper than hiring someone else with more experience. Or maybe that's how it is in the software job market. But as I see so many Americans out of work, expecting someone to 'create jobs' for them, I think it's important to highlight what it takes to get a job that you want. I'd consider your example of software engineers being "showered with job offers" as an exception to the rule. Most people have to actively pursue what they want in life. Plus, in 25 years you don't want to be one of those people on TV begging the government to 'create jobs' for you! So my advice is to learn how to get what you want by asking.

It is a common practice to hire anyone promising and see how it works out. It is a fools errand to think that you understand what a person will deliver from a job interview process. I recently put an ad on craigslist for a personal assistant for me. I was looking for a college student, times were flexible, and my office is within one mile of University of Arizona and Pima College - 60,000 students.

The ad asked for a cover letter, resume, and to come in person to the office for a typing test. I have a chronic condition that prevents me from typing much more than an hour a day. Simple, right? I received over a hundred responses of mostly low quality, people blindly firing in poorly written resumes or worse (one simply stated "I need a job and will work for money") and 5 people that actually followed instructions. I hired all five of them. One didn't like the job and left on good terms, another was great but ended up needing to work on school more, two were fired for being incompetent and the remainder is left but I promoted her and made her full time.

I know that this is not a typical hacker job, merely a personal assistant job. The point is that even in a small 10 person non-tech company like mine you can take a risk of over-hiring to try and find the good ones, the people that fit and like your business culture. Microsoft, Google, Apple et al can certainly afford to hire every reasonably competent programmer they can find that seems to fit their hiring profile. Time will tell if their potential gets realized at BigCorp. Just remember that this is a learning experience for both sides of the table.

Count yourself lucky. I graduated in 2011 and only got 2 offers from BigCo's like that, and 3 grad-school admissions out of 7 applications. Ended up being much easier to get offers from start-ups, actually.

For software engineering, the "job offers" part still holds up.