Current Events > The job market is so completely and utterly fucked right now

(+) Yeah! (+)

Graduated in May in Computer Engineering, with work experience.

Applied to well over a hundred jobs since then. I can count the number of responses from employers on one hand.

I have nearly a dozen people referring and recommending me, including my former manager (who says he would hire me back but there's no openings right now). Some have referenced me to multiple companies. None have been able to pull anything for me.

One of my connections CC'ed me in the email to a recruiter. It was glowing. It was some of the nicest things anyone's ever said about me. He said I was a genius and one of the most creative thinkers he's ever met.

The recruiter's response?

"Sorry, we're not interested in recruiting new graduates at this moment."

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That's the market for the planet right now. Might as well work in service/food/warehouse/labor/blue collar for 2-3 years and then try to leverage your degree then.

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bootstraps!!!!!

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I was able to keep my job throughout this pandemic. I work from home and have health insurance.

i have no college degree.

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Sorry to hear that. I'm curious, what kinda places and jobs are you interested in
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CommunismFTW posted...

That's the market for the planet right now. Might as well work in service/food/warehouse/labor/blue collar for 2-3 years and then try to leverage your degree then.

I disagree.

Software Engineering went from "Hiring US citizens and educated on-shore white people only"

to

"Hiring based on race-to-the-bottom who will take the lowest salary possible; oh it's most likely going to be an H1 visa candidate who made it to the USA in 2017"

in a matter of a 6-month pandemic. Nobody cares irght now if you can speak good English and would please your clients much more than the H1 Visa developer who nobody can understand. He is $50,000 a year and Americans want $120,000+

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If it wasn't a bad economy it would be a competitive job market. It would be much easier for you to get hired if you have field experience.

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CE degree and no hits? Wow you must be filling out something wrong...

That sucks, man. It really does.

CommunismFTW posted...

That's the market for the planet right now. Might as well work in service/food/warehouse/labor/blue collar for 2-3 years and then try to leverage your degree then.

This is pretty much what I had to do when I graduated back in 2013.

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CommunismFTW posted...

That's the market for the planet right now. Might as well work in service/food/warehouse/labor/blue collar for 2-3 years and then try to leverage your degree then.

I want everyone to really sit and stare at this for a minute. Just seriously think on this for a minute.

We are in a topic where the guy is saying he took 4 years of his life and tens of thousands of dollars of money, and he is no better than a Bagboy at Kroger right now

And THIS is what we are all talking about when we say the American Dream is a giant laugh...

*walks off muttering*
lmao go to college for 4 years and use all the time and...not any better...grumble...janitor makes as much as diploma holders...grumble

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The fact of the matter is, there is the 99% and there is the 1%

And every 10 years when the economy crashes like this (it always will by the way. 2008. 2020. 2001. Always) and YOU and ME and all the other normal people have to pick up the pieces and start all over - and the politicians say "We're Americans, we are resilient!" what they are really saying is "All part of the system, and always meant to be. You were never meant to get ahead."

Just hope you don't get ill or cancer or something. Forgettaboutit if you do. Medical debt for the rest of your life. No chance to even get a head

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I graduated from college during the last recession, so I feel your pain. I ended up going back for my Master's degree, then it took 9 months to finally get a job in my field.

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emblem boy posted...

Sorry to hear that. I'm curious, what kinda places and jobs are you interested in

Right now, anything and everything in my area related to my field. I just need experience. Before this fucking dumpster fire I was planning on learning AWS, maybe getting in to devops or SRE. Now I'd fucking put on knee pads and suck dick on a street corner if it could be put on my resume as a marketable skill in software engineering.


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Pause
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LikeImmolation posted...

I want everyone to really sit and stare at this for a minute. Just seriously think on this for a minute.

We are in a topic where the guy is saying he took 4 years of his life and tens of thousands of dollars of money, and he is no better than a Bagboy at Kroger right now

And THIS is what we are all talking about when we say the American Dream is a giant laugh...

*walks off muttering*
lmao go to college for 4 years and use all the time and...not any better...grumble...janitor makes as much as diploma holders...grumble

That says more about college being a scam than anything. It also says a lot about you that you're so quick to demean bagboys and janitors.

In no way was I demeaning any profession But we can universally admit that the monetary compensation or janitor or bagger are under $10/hour. We can universally admit that you have to just balk at the current situation.

A college graduate with a very hot degree in technology can't find a job, meanwhile Walmart is hiring essential workers

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And that's all I was pointing out: If you're not the 1%, then you're nobody. Computer engineer, bagboy, janitor - it is honestly all the same when the economy goes under. Either you be rich so you can outlast, or you just get buried under debt and shit.

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Ive managed to keep my IT analyst position making 72k through this pandemic.

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You gotta send in your resume/job application then call or visit them introduce yourself and say you applied. Tell them something else too before leaving like your experience. Make yourself stand out of the crowd of hundreds or thousands that applied for the same job. Lotta idiots just send their resume without doing anything else and cry that no one want to hire them. Doing that is like employers picking out your needle in a haystack.

Oakland510_ posted...

You gotta send in your resume/job application then call or visit them introduce yourself and say you applied. Tell them something else too before leaving like your experience. Make yourself stand out of the crowd of hundreds or thousands that applied for the same job. Lotta idiots just send their resume without doing anything else and cry that no one want to hire them. Doing that is like employers picking out your needle in a haystack.

Maybe you're misunderstanding.

My colleague personally knew the recruiter. This is a person he considers a friend. And he gave this person my glowing recommendation. For an ENTRY LEVEL JOB.

Wasn't enough, though.

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Story of my life, never had a job because I'm deemed underqualified for anything and everything.

Can't even get hired at the local Dari Mart or Albertsons, I'm literally fucking worthless.
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Bad time to graduate

I know that a lot of branches in the Department of Defense are always looking for engineers to keep up with industry, but hiring has dropped off a ton

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Murricaaaaaa babyyyyy!!1!!1!11!!11!!!!

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God, topics like this genuinely freak me out.

Im graduating at the end of the year with only an Associates and I have no idea if Ill even be able to find a new job.

All I know is I just cant work at my job anymore. Theyre fucking me over and I make an embarrassingly low amount of money for someone who has worked there for 14 years, and its destroying me physically and mentally.

F***.

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I applied to 500 jobs exactly after college when the economy was fine. I got 1 offer, as a temp 35 miles away.
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I just quit my horrible warehouse job to be a full time GrubHub/ubereats driver. I also have an lol BA in psychology that is basically worthless.

Like I'm way better off as a gig workers than I was at a job I was at for 6 years that gave me health insurance and a pension. That is how much I hated my old job.

Honestly, gig work can pay super well at times. Some nights I make around $30/hr. Certainly not the worst thing.

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Whats what happens when you give a bunch of jobs to robots

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TommyG663513 posted...

I just quit my horrible warehouse job to be a full time GrubHub/ubereats driver. I also have an lol BA in psychology that is basically worthless.

Like I'm way better off as a gig workers than I was at a job I was at for 6 years that gave me health insurance and a pension. That is how much I hated my old job.

Honestly, gig work can pay super well at times. Some nights I make around $30/hr. Certainly not the worst thing.

you have no heath insurance and pay your own gas and car maintenance.

No offense, but no.

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It is the middle of a global pandemic where most companies are slowing down hiring or have stopped completely as they assess what is going to be normal going forward. Seems like a specialized degree like CE would be in a better spot than others but its still a shitty time to be looking for work.

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Companies these days hire some truly awful people while great candidates with education can't get an offer. I don't want to get into details but in my job I see so much fraud and theft from employees of hundreds of different companies. It's the same story everywhere. Then they complain how workers aren't skilled enough, it's hilarious.

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Oakland510_ posted...

You gotta send in your resume/job application then call or visit them introduce yourself and say you applied. Tell them something else too before leaving like your experience. Make yourself stand out of the crowd of hundreds or thousands that applied for the same job. Lotta idiots just send their resume without doing anything else and cry that no one want to hire them. Doing that is like employers picking out your needle in a haystack.

Oof no. People who call/come in to introduce themselves are the worse. 9 times out of 10 I'll throw that needle right in the trash.
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according to my partner, one place where this isn't happening is defense work, as clearances virtually only go to US citizens, and there are a ton of new defense projects operating on agile development plans (read: throw 20 years of money at a program designed to go into production in 5)

so companies like raytheon technologies, lockheed martin, and northrop grumman are hiring a lot

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Sackgurl posted...

according to my partner, one place where this isn't happening is defense work, as clearances virtually only go to US citizens, and there are a ton of new defense projects operating on agile development plans (read: throw 20 years of money at a program designed to go into production in 5)

so companies like raytheon technologies, lockheed martin, and northrop grumman are hiring a lot

Yeah! Let me go join the Defense industry and help create bombs to kill people! Or planes or missiles! Let's do iitttt!

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LikeImmolation posted...

Yeah! Let me go join the Defense industry and help create bombs to kill people! Or planes or missiles! Let's do iitttt!

would you rather be a bagboy

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LikeImmolation posted...

I was able to keep my job throughout this pandemic. I work from home and have health insurance.

i have no college degree.

@LikeImmolation what do you do for work ? How did you get into it?

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LikeImmolation posted...

I disagree.

Software Engineering went from "Hiring US citizens and educated on-shore white people only"

to

"Hiring based on race-to-the-bottom who will take the lowest salary possible; oh it's most likely going to be an H1 visa candidate who made it to the USA in 2017"

in a matter of a 6-month pandemic. Nobody cares irght now if you can speak good English and would please your clients much more than the H1 Visa developer who nobody can understand. He is $50,000 a year and Americans want $120,000+

I mean you are mostly right, but since when was CS white people only? Thats not true.


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TopKekBro posted...

@LikeImmolation what do you do for work ? How did you get into it?

I work for a Master Services Provider - corporations outsource their Temporary Labor processes to us. So my client is CBRE (Fortune 500 real estate services company) and all I do is literally manage who they interview, hire, fire, and what job orders are created and fulfilled for my segment (IT, Accounting, and Marketing)

I got the job because I quit an IT headhunter job of 4 years in 2017, best decision I ever made in my career, and went on Monster and just submitted my resume. Got called for this job and got the job.

the company is called AgileOne
https://www.agile-one.com/

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TopKekBro posted...

I mean you are mostly right, but since when was CS white people only? Thats not true.

I Recruited for IT for over 4 years, and in my current job manage IT hired/firing for a fortune 500.

One of the main things hiring managers say to me (we live in Texas, mind you - the south) "I want a John not a Krishna" and also "I want someone with GOOD COMMUNICATION"

probably the two most stringent requirements I received prior to 2020.

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Sorry, last but not least: I have no idea how I am still employed. Work has been slow since March here. I figured they would let me go awhile ago. I have no college degree lmao.

I mean I'm extremely lucky right now to not have to worry about bills and stuff - millions of Americans are - but yeah I have no degree at all. legit.

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One thing I've heard that may help though is working with someone that knows how to write resumes. It would be worth shelling out a little bit of cash to improve your resume to get a job or a higher paying job. Also tailor your resume to the company your applying for.

I will say I'm not an expert though. I havent had to apply to a job for a long time. I just have alot of friends that move on to different jobs and have done well for themselves.

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No one is interested in paying for good software developers anymore. Why do you think Windows 10 and most mobile software is trash

as others have said you picked a bad time to graduate, it does get a little easier once you have some professional experience on your resume though

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I graduated in 2008 with my undergrad chem E degree. I saw the writing on the wall and joined a direct admit PhD program. I was able to get a job much easier when I finished in 2012. The economy is in a bad place. This is one of the worst quarters in a very long time. I feel sorry for any recent grads.

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You know what, I'm just going to say it: I got hired for a job and by everything I can glean, it's going to be a 'dream' job. It doesn't start until October but I'm frankly still looking forward to the opportunity like almost no other that I've been given.

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Even before COVID-19, the US BLS was expecting a nearly double digit percentage drop for available positions in your field over the coming decade. Are you continuing to work on projects in your spare time to keep your skills sharp?

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LikeImmolation posted...

I Recruited for IT for over 4 years, and in my current job manage IT hired/firing for a fortune 500.

One of the main things hiring managers say to me (we live in Texas, mind you - the south) "I want a John not a Krishna" and also "I want someone with GOOD COMMUNICATION"

probably the two most stringent requirements I received prior to 2020.

haha this is very true, youre right.

This was also the case right before the .com bubble and right before the bush-induced recession.

things recover a little bit, be white pls comes back and once the recession hits again they go back to the outsource shit.

youre so right

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LikeImmolation posted...

Sorry, last but not least: I have no idea how I am still employed. Work has been slow since March here. I figured they would let me go awhile ago. I have no college degree lmao.

I mean I'm extremely lucky right now to not have to worry about bills and stuff - millions of Americans are - but yeah I have no degree at all. legit.

but youre a pretty cool dude - I can tell from your response to my question (what do you do?).

i asked you a simple question and you answered it, you provided even more info, s relatable story in anecdote form and made me feel in a good mood at the same time.

these are soft skills people dont learn in an overseas computer science degree program ;)




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@Nanaimo-Bar
TC, Amazon is having a massive Career Day on the 16th. Virtual job fair, on hand career counselors, resume critiquing. Whole nine yards. For corporate/programming jobs. Check it out.

https://www.amazoncareerday.com