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I’m glad it resonated! Thanks for dropping a comment 🔥

Not a single penny. Otta/WTTJ and Jobright were both free. When I said I got people to review my resume, it was just friends who were at the same level as me and some friends/past coworkers who gave me feedback. And me just tweaking it on my own. In my opinion, those are not services worth paying for (at least for me) and I value feedback from those who know me & the industry moreso than random consulting companies. The only thing I paid for in this entire process was for Algo Expert, and that was largely because I preferred the framework and service they provided regardless of finding some algo questions on leetcode. I was leaning to pay for something from Hello Interview but ultimately looks like I didn't need to.

In effect, yes to all of the above. The low-pay was a bit of a pain but it would have been worth it since it was a short contract for a cool company. In short, the contract was disagreeable because: - Any inventions I previously started and continued working on would become theirs during my time - For any company I worked for through them, I would not be legally able to work for those companies for 2 years (this was the big one. If i wanted to work for a company after my 6mo contract, id have to wait 2 years, trapping me with that agency). - Incredibly unprofessional behavior in general; eg spoke with 7 different people throughout (interviews excluded), sometimes having the same conversation twice. Receiving the calls at very random hours. Did not want to be on a payroll if that was the kind of organization going on. They were nice, but as an org unorganized

Hell yea! Keep it up!

Totally agree it's all cyclical and not necessarily my fault, but it's still the system I'm stuck so I'm opting to play it best I can because I'd prefer to have a job haha

I've had my trouble with recruiters in the past, sure, but calling them "untalented" is a bit much. Working with technical recruiters is always better than those without technical background, but their only job is to a) make sure what is on your CV/Resume is accurate, and b) that you can have a human conversation. Everyone after that is not a recruiter, unless you check in with them. And I've had some great recruiters, but every subsequent interview is with an engineer or something. That's... the least dumb part of the process at all, in my opinion. They're not untalented, they just might not have technical background. But it's not crucial for that part of the interview anyway.

their ability to toss your cv in a bin simply because they run it through keyword matcher and it didn’t score enough points is a bit much. Even for the ones who got past that filter, they eyeball through your cv and then ask you questions like how many years of experience do you have, which technologies do you have experience with, what’s your current title, etc - read the bloody cv! maybe there’s a mismatch of understanding what untalented means for me and you: i interpret it as someone who doesn’t have special abilities or predisposition to something. One might argue that i’m wrong and their soft skills is what they’re good at, but for me it’s basics: if an engineer doesn’t posses good enough soft skills he can be rejected, but it’s an additional requirement on top of his technical abilities. Also i didn’t mean just software engineering, i was speaking for any complicated enough field, like general engineering, medicine, law, etc. Recruiters might be ok for hiring cleaning managers or staff for mcdonald’s, but i was fortunate enough to be under a management of one senior engineer who sent me some cvs of obviously (to us) excellent candidates which were rejected. He did this because he found it very suspicious our hiring pipelines were that shallow, it was circa 2019 where the market was in a very good shape. That taught a valuable lesson. Fast forward 3 years later i did what once that engineer did: same outcome, some really great candidates got rejected! I asked my manager to make that recruiter to reach out to 4 of them, resulting in 1 successful hire! You don’t need to believe me, i’m not here to convince or brag, just merely sharing my experience of course 2 examples out of thousands and thousands isn’t representative, but… is it really? Speaking to all that recruiters (and hr people in general) they are so alike when it comes to hiring, almost like they were produced on some factory i may be unjustifiably biased but i’m convinced they just suck, not all of them but 90% do

7 months for the rest of your life. Full send 🫡

Glad to hear the video resonated so well! Daily schedule definitely varied, I tried to balance a lot of things so I prioritized focuses work over longer periods of work. I shot to wake up at 7 every morning to start and start working on something by 9 (as if i had a 9-5). Algorithms was less enjoyable for me so I usually tried to get an hour/hour and a half of that out of the way early. I think I averaged one system design Q every other day from hello interview, during that last two weeks at least. Tried to squeeze in time on Infinite Game as well, but had other things going on. Probably ended up being 4-5 hours of work on these things a day. Not that much tbh, but it was focused and I was focusing time elsewhere too. As for applying, I’d shoot off anywhere from 10-30 apps at a time, every few days. Sometimes w breaks in between if i was in final panels but then my optimism started to die so I just kept on applying. Best of luck w the search! If anything, the grind helps build confidence. Keep it up 🔥

A true classic, let's gooo! I hope it goes well. Also- did you find the Cowdino Arcade or this channel first? That's a rare thing to happen! (I run both, but it feels far too coincidental for that not to be known)

​@@markbacon78 I know both from a few years ago -- I watched your The Witness series quite a while ago (which coincidentally got me into philter) A friend reminded me of this when we were talking, now I'm here haha. Glad I found this gem of a channel(s)

You are most welcome, thanks for the comment! :D

Oui! J'étudié pour une semestre a Paris et a mon lycée. Merci d'avoir écrit un commentaire! 💪

You are most welcome! I'm really glad that all resonated. I think "you're not there yet" has its pros and cons and at the end of the day it's best to toss things that don't work. Cheers, and best of luck with your search. Keep it up!

You are... welcome... 🧐

Thanks! :D

I'd hesitate to say say that 80k is really bad, but I do agree people can barely pay for rent. Where you choose to live can be a big part of it (I could be paying triple my rent for a smaller apartment in NYC). The system is pretty shot right now and I don't think it's gonna get better :(

Thanks! I appreciate you dropping a comment

I feel like "watching them feels like talking to a friend" is the vibe to shoot for, so I'm super glad it came across that way! Thanks for dropping a comment

I'm glad that you enjoyed and it resonated with you! :D Thanks for leaving a comment.

Ty ty! Ling for the win indeed 🔥

Thank you! I'm glad a lot of that comes through. I kinda failed to see it that way for a little while but I'm glad that's how it comes across. At the end of the day you gotta take agency. Thanks for dropping the comment!

You guys got notice?! Kidding- I'm really sorry to hear that. Notice or not, and whether you're ready to transition or not, having that ripped away from you is never a fun time. Jump into something fun and/or something you've had on the "some day" list. I took ~2 weeks before I sent my first application as my resume was finessing and would recommend taking that small break (though no harm in starting early) I think my decision to say no was largely based on the fact it was also a contract role + bad terms + low rate, and to be fully transparent I was rolling the dice with three other processes that were ongoing at the time (...thankfully one of them worked out). One thing I have learned, and maybe I'll follow up with this in the next video on this topic too, is that there's a different between a company that can't pay too much (e.g. startup) versus a company that won't pay what you're worth (e.g. an adtech job could probably afford way more). Don't forget to work with companies that will simply value you how they best can. It can be hard to not be desparate- and hey, at the end of the day, you can always say yes and hopefully keep interviewing to take another job. It's a heavy toll on time of course, but if the money's short it's always an option to try half assing both. Best of luck with your search, sorry again to hear about that. And happy that you resonated with the video!

Yea, graduated from NYU in December of '21 with a BA Computer Science, BA Linguistics

In my honest opinions, I think you should work on this mentality. Having a strong understanding of DSA is important to being a good engineer. Do you know the advantages of using a map over a list? Sure. But how about the disadvantages? Are you able to evaluate, in a given scenario, when implementing a graph will be crucial to features you are implementing? All of these DS and As exist for a reason, and a very good reason. From that perspective, it's incredibly important to get a good handle on them. As to /leetcoding/ and algorithmic questions, yea, idk why those are still the norm for filtering out software developers in interviews. They demonstrate when someone can apply DS&As, but it's gotten to something like the SATs (in the US) where those who perform best are simply those who have studied them. Not necessarily those who know when to use them. You may not like them, but they are important (and quite cool once you start using them in your own things). But as filters for job interviews, yea pretty nonsensical when done during leetcoding. I sure how an average software engineer knows advantages to using sets, lists, and maps though. And if you're hiring a senior for a platform with millions of users and/or requests, they better know their datastructures and distributed systems theory.

You are so welcome! I think WTTJ definitely helped me have a smaller target when applying. Best of luck!

Bros supporting bros

Homerow~ I would recommend keybr to read more about it :)

Sometimes it be like that 😭 It is nice that there were a couple interviews that are actually fun and the interviewers are sometimes a good energy. Replit may have been the best experience I had despite not making it through. Thanks for dropping by the vid!

I think the industry as a whole just... has no concept of "junior level" roles anymore. And I'm glad you got that last part. People would tell me, "Man that's ridiculous! 5 in a row? A 6 hour day-long project?" and my response was always, "yep! but thankfully I've got no job and I've got no kids" or along those lines. I have the same issue with takehome interviews- those who can spend more time on them will usually do better. The system was made for a time when going through one of these processes was a guarantee, but the times are different and thus the process needs to. Hang in there, and sending you my best 🙏

For real :\

Totally, but there is hundreds or thousands of great talents out there. Fighting each other with more or less skills, for limited positions. Is wild, but is what's happen right now.

More reasons to level up and become a cut above the rest! It's definitely rough out there.

Sometimes I just maximize the aesthetic of the resume because I figure it stands out from generic black and white ones. Idk though, resumes are a bit overhyped imo but of course important

Thanks so much for the feedback! It wasn't too scripted and I think that let the genuine thoughts really poke through a lot more clearly. I'm glad that came across!

All in all, it was a good first job but consulting wasn't for me. There was room for advancement, but as someone who wanted to code and build things, I didn't get put on an interesting project and left after 3 years. Worked with some super nice people though, and I think the org seemed pretty well structured. If you don't like your project, probably best to speak up and/or get on something you find interesting early on. If you're just looking for something to fill the 9-5 though, great work life balance and cool people!

Hi Naman, where do you work?

Glad you enjoyed it! Thanks for dropping a comment :)

Glad the video helped! Building stuff and hopefully getting visibility is the goal. Best of luck with your search and congrats on the masters!

Not really; my response rate didn't change to a noticeable degree at all. If anything, having the finalized resumes in September felt a lot better but I also picked up my pace a little bit so it's hard to tell. Something I can try to analyze later, but I doubt there will be any strong correlations. As far as explaining the gap, I think you can do two things: - Force the gap into your conversation (recruiters take notes, at least at my last position they did). I would do interview rounds in "waves" (i kept thinking my final rounds would yield something; 3x they did not). As a result, when I started interview processes in September/October, I simply said that right after we (emphasis on "we", the team) got laid off I rebuilt my website, took a small break, then got into game and web development again and started getting back into applying jobs a little later. In my opinion, it simply matter that I was doing something in the gap, but that's also my nature. I did not want to take an extended break (though if you did say you took a few months to travel the world, imo that's not a bad thing). - Start creating something now to fill that gap. I started a web project (Finite Vault) back in June. It was pretty slow, but it evolved into Infinite Game, something I'm working on still today. I plan on throwing it in my LinkedIn and even on my resume in the future (though hopefully I won't be in this situation again haha). I never did internships in college and thus emphasized my projects during semesters and the kinds of things I got myself to do over the summer (game dev, web dev). It simply mattered to me that I was doing /something/ with that empty time, and I think that confidence carries over when talking with recruiters. Whether it be your own project, open source, etc., I think you just gotta sharpen your skills by doing something practical and, more importantly, that you enjoy doing. In my case, that happened to be applicable to the jobs I ended up interviewing with. That was a pretty wordy response, but hopefully it's helpful! Thanks for dropping by the video 😄

As far as "interview should be matching the quality of projects company has to offer", I totally agree. Some interview processes were better than others. I might be misunderstanding? But a failure, in this case, is simply "not an offer" / "getting rejected". And from those I tried to learn as much as I could. Sure, interviews might be this leetcode hard questions as if the project is some big thing when in reality it isn't. But at the end of the day, you still have to do these interviews to get the job. My studying for it made me a better engineer imo, even if I don't use those skills. Just gotta play the game and make the system work for you, not hope that easier interviews are going to come along (in my experience, they won't).

As of recording this, I just hadn’t decided which to take. A great situation to be in! But a choice I made after a fair amount of deliberation

@@markbacon78 Got it! Yeah, having a choice is a great thing. Good luck!

Yea... that's exactly why I deleted my Twitter last week 😆 I'm all in on BlueSky now lol. The doomer on one side and bootstrap-pulling on the other side. I think it really did help to change my mindset of "ugh I need a job and I can code" to "well I genuinely like to build stuff so let me reconnect with that". And at the end of the day, you can build things that line up with job stuff out there. And for me, that just so happened to be incredibly helpful with my job search. Best of luck out there! Hit me up with a link here if/when you build something, would love to check it out.

Yea, I hear that. I hit a real hard stop in August/September. Did some traveling and along that some interviews "on the road" which helped a bit. I think one of the big things was getting my head out of the "leetcode grindset" mentality and just reconnecting with what I wanted to do. For me that was building up this idea I had (Infinite Game) and doing some game development. I tailored infinite game to some job postings as I mentioned, but it made it so I was leveling up, doing something I wanted to do (the reason I'm a code monkey I guess), and also felt like to helped me with job skills. I'd recommend the same. If you find you want to get back there and answer that "what if", it's time to lock in. But if you've found something else and you're happy there, I say full send there and keep doing you. Thanks for dropping by the video! If you resume, good luck! You'll go back in knowing more.

@@markbacon78 Ya I prob should go back to the painful grind since i got no other choice sadly... Hows life after getting a job? Is it less stress and you like the work your doing?

Unfortunately, that was part of my mentality at one point- no other choice, really. And unemployment from the state only lasted so long. I got lucky with the timing that I've taken a job I'm genuinely adamant about, as opposed to one that is just show up, work, collect a check (but hey- if it gives YOE then hopefully it opens up doors). School could also be an option, but of course degrees aren't much guaranteed these days. I know UW CompLing program has an internship program so it could convert into a full time thing? Just a thought. As for life after getting a job- I signed the contract last Friday and don't start until after Thanksgiving... Not sure if I should wait until I start for the next video but we'll see xP I'm looking forward to it. Good people, cool company, great incentive behind what the team works on. I think I'll enjoy it, and all the questions about WLB seemed well answered. Great questions to ask as you go through interviews.

@@markbacon78 Thats good to hear, glad you made it. Tbh i dont think i want to be a code monkey but seems these days for u to get a job you gotta be super passionate about it or the employer will sniff it out easily lol

Admittedly, I do think it helped when I didn't have to fake the "oh hey this is a cool thing!" in interviews, e.g. consumer products versus random ecommerce.

Right there with you 🫂 Taking breaks is okay, don't forget that! I like the mentality. Definitely update me (and tag so I get a notif!) on how it goes. I'm glad you resonated with the video, and best of luck with your search 🔥 Keep on keepin' on

You haven't seen nothing yet buddy...just wait until you will have to deal with unreasonable deadlines and difficult clients.

Eh that's every job at some point though. All about how you balance it.

Pretty much. Given the environment, it's almost better to take the mentality of "taking a job" from an Employer as opposed to thinking of the Employer "giving a job" to someone who matches the skill set. Weird mentality but I think it helps. Thanks for the comment! I like the way you connected to the message.

That's a familiar name! Thanks for dropping by the video, much appreciated. The reach of this video has been surprising me each day...

I appreciate the comment! More on the journey is for sure to come 🔥

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