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Unemployed Career Development Videos, Forum, and Q&A

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For those who were laid off, taking a career break, or any another reason why they're not working right now. It's good to be unemployed every once in a while!

How do I deal with the pain of an interview that went perfectly, and the job being taken away anyway?

Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed profile pic
Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed

Hi everyone. I posted a couple of weeks ago about a job interview I had with the company that laid me off. As a follow up to that post, the interview consisted of a manager, a senior software engineer, and a mid level software engineer. The senior and mid level devs played front end cop/back end cop with me, and then proceeded to ask behavioral questions towards the end. We all had a lot of fun, we laughed together sometimes, we kept smiling at one another, it was a really good interview. And I got every question thrown at me correct. I came up with a couple answers where I admit I had a textbook-esque response, but many more that was based on my experience. It was one of those interviews where you had a feeling that you just knew you got it.

Given the interview prep course here, I knew to tone down my expectations from an "I know darn well I got that" to "I think I got it". As the week progressed, I started to get a feeling that I didn't get it. Well, that feeling was right. And it wasn't anything to do with the interview itself. Apparently, there was gonna be a new manager for the role, and from what I was told, "the new manager is repurposing the requisition".

I can't believe it. I nailed the interview on the head, and I still got screwed out of the job. I left them on a high note, but I'm still so furious. Whatever happens, I know for a fact that I have it in me to crush an interview, but I don't deserve to still have to interview, and still be jobless: I feel entitled to the role! I proved that I deserve to work, both to myself AND them. The best I can hope for is the possibility they'll remember I'm a great candidate for a mid level role in the future, but that company is only going to be the place I fall back on if I don't have anything else in the future.

I don't think I have a proper word for the sheer frustration I feel. The same company that laid me off, played me AGAIN. I know not to trust this company, but I thought this would at least end in a job offer. Not that some random manager thought the role I applied to wasn't gonna be good for business.

How do I deal with this feeling?

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Posted 2 months ago
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3 Comments

How to add depth to my career and profile?

Mid-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed profile pic
Mid-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed

TLDR: How to pick side projects

This might have been answered multiple times and a very well-known answer would be working on side projects but I want the answer to be more in-depth so it can be helpful for many engineers.

Please don't answer in a generic way but try to answer this by posing in my shoes

Let's say you have 1.6 years of experience as a Software engineer and 3 years of experience in IT but not in development now if you want to stick to the SE career. This market is very challenging for me to get a job with 1 plus year of experience. I have to convert my IT experience into developer experience and try. But when I give interviews I tend to fail the Hiring manager rounds because they can see the depth of my SE career.

So how to convert my IT experience to SE experience? I have put a lot of effort into Leetcode and now I have gotten to a decent stage the same thing applies to System design as well I have read books blogs etc and getting the depth would be my next target.

We can hear a lot of stories in the past where a person who started his/her career as a tester or a QA and got it converted to Senior software engineer etc by working on problem-solving skills but I don't think this works in the current market.

So I felt I was missing depth. How to achieve a mid-level engineer status where I can effectively tell a lot of stories and challenges I have faced in my career and show bias for action etc

The most simple answer would be to do side projects but selecting a repository and a project is very hard as there are countless repositories and projects.

All I need is a small ignition to start on the side projects then I think discipline would take care of the rest as I was at zero questions at LeetCode a few months ago and now I have solved 250 plus with discipline.

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Posted 3 months ago
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2 Comments

I need interview prep help... how can I get that on here?

Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed profile pic
Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed

Today I fumbled a technical interview.

I was told by the company I interned at previously to apply for a job posting. The person who knew the role is my manager from my internship there. That same manager I knew in there is now one position under the CTO. He told me it was a role that uses Spring Boot, Docker, and GraphQL. He said there’s a big effort to get GraphQL into the company’s architecture. It said “5+ years experience”, and didn't mention GraphQL, so I didn’t take it seriously. After I applied, the posting disappeared. My manager said the job posting I applied for was “probably just one of those ghost postings”. I had the behavioral where I spoke with the manager: I aced that. Today was the technical. The recruiter I was talking to was telling me this was an interview where I could show off projects, so I took the “prep some projects” approach. Did 3 projects. One using mern and GraphQL, one using typescript and express with rest architecture, and one using spring boot.  So I do that. I also prepped a Google doc with a list of common interview questions for all that I’m expecting. 

When I get into the interview, I get asked about my prior role. They said that showing projects wouldn’t be necessary: and that GraphQL wasn’t in the role. The first 20 minutes went well. I was asked about API stuff. I hear them say “good” sometimes, so I know something is right. Then I start getting asked simple questions I didn’t think to prep for. One was literally “what’s the difference between JDK and JRE”, and I knew what JDK was, but not JRE, and the difference between @override and @overload. I was then asked what Node is, so I tell them it’s a runtime environment (idk how I didn’t piece together what JRE was at this point), but I made a mistake because I should of delved into themes that made node.js incredible, like its event loop. Although I knew the basics of a microservice, it was only the basics. The interviewers were kind, and told me that although I articulated myself well, they’re looking for someone who knew more about microservices, and can code right now.

Luckily, the company told me prior to this that even if this doesn’t work out, they’d still want to hire me. There'll be another chance, but I realized I need mock interview help. I know I’ll need to review the Taro course on getting into and succeeding in interviews, but I also want to find people to do mock interviews with. How can I do that with Taro?

Thanks,

~Evan

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Posted 4 months ago
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6 Comments

API interview in a couple of weeks... what's the best course of action to take?

Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed profile pic
Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed

Hi everybody. Last time I posted on here, I was laid off. I'm still laid off, BUT I got an interview where I interned at! It's a medium-sized financial company, looking to expand soon. The people I know in there are pretty high up. I told the recruiter that I was interested in making an impact on the business, and he really liked that about me. They said that no matter what happens with this interview, they're still gonna try to get me a software engineer job within the company. I think it was in a Taro course I saw when I first signed up where Alex said this, but the recruiters are looking for trust that you'll be able to ship production-level code. I've already done this within the company as an intern, and given my manager there at the time is now one guy under the CTO and CIO (the CIO remembered me and approved getting that position open!), I got that company trying to get me back in. Fingers crossed it works, but I'll have a hard time typing if I keep them crossed rather than code to practice beforehand.

The team is trying to modernize APIs. In the behavioral/vibe check interview, the manager told me that he has a bunch of awesome APIs he'd like to convince other areas in the company to use, but they're stubborn because their current processes work as they are, and they don't want to put themselves at risk by implementing the new awesome APIs. I'd be expected to act as someone who can have these conversations with these groups about the code and APIs they currently work with, and get them to buy in on the said new awesome APIs. It was originally a senior software engineer role, but they're interviewing me to see if they'd like to lower that to a mid-level role, and then (hopefully) hire me.

The role itself uses Node.js, SpringBoot, GraphQL, and Docker. I want to know what plan you guys think I should implement to study this next week and a half before it's technical interview day. I've been building some Node/GraphQL projects, and just worked on a SpringBoot project yesterday, too. A project approach is what I'm doing for this. I can also ask ChatGPT for some good interview questions on these things, but is there anything you guys can lob at me that will help me achieve proficiency (if not mastery) of those technologies in a week's time? Advice, tutorials, strategy planning, etc.

I'd really appreciate whatever y'all can throw at me. Thanks so much!

Evan

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Posted 4 months ago
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2 Comments

Would an "unfinished" project(s) be worthy to present in interviews?

Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed profile pic
Entry-Level Software Engineer at Unemployed

Hi there, everybody. I was aiming to build a few applications to present in interviews. Last week, I was building a small-scale Spring Boot application with the help of a tutorial. The project I was working on was meant to retrieve data from a database using PostgreSQL to provide multiple choice DSA questions. I was creating an automated study buddy for technical interviews. Unfortunately, I've been trying to figure out some technical issues and database connectivity mishaps for some days, unfortunately to no avail. Currently, I'm working through a Node.Js tutorial to build an application geared to help me keep track of the things I'd like to do during my job search, so I can always stay on task. I don't know if I'm going to run into some more issues that plague me.

The thing is, I'm learning a LOT from both experiences. Now I feel I can have an educated conversation on the trade-offs of monolithic and microservice architectures... and I LOVE what I'm learning. I'd really like to have at least 3 small-scale projects handy that I'm using to automate my own life and make this job search easier for me.

Of course I'm going to continue to try to plow through these issues, and I'm not here to necessarily ask for help with my applications (although I won't say no if someone wants to help). It'd be great if I can explain how I solved these problems, because I know the challenging problems I've solved are what I'd want to highlight to people in an interview.

But let's say if the day comes where I have an interview and DON'T have a "finished" product, yet I still have these code samples that I can defend and show that I've gained a great deal of experience from... would it be a good idea to present these in an interview?

Thanks for the help,

Evan

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Posted 6 months ago
66 Views
3 Comments