New ask Hacker News story: Ask HN: A lot of jobs, but little reputation. How to build it up?
Ask HN: A lot of jobs, but little reputation. How to build it up?
4 by dafrelencer | 6 comments on Hacker News.
I can't stay long enough in one job to be considered a "known quantity" that can be recalled upon to vouch for good work. To make matters worse, I usually lose/finish my current job before getting an offer for the next. 7 jobs, but I never get jobs through recommendations. It's always been some sort of blind job application, and I'm tired of the rat race. I'm a software engineer with a non-STEM degree but does the degree not matter much anymore(?). A lot of the problem would be due to the fact that I've only taken shorter-term jobs, all at very small companies. Here's an summary of my work history as a programmer: Held a total of 7 jobs over 11 calendar years. 90% web dev work. 5 of those are contractor (only 2 of which are 30-40 hrs/week), one short full-time job and one part-time job (those two were 8 and 10 years ago respectively). I might spend anywhere from 2 to 20 months unemployed in between. Out of all these jobs, I made connections from the 2nd job, and current job. But they usually don't know anyone that is hiring when I contact them, nor do they really contact me first about work. So I am at a standstill on how to build up my reputation after so much time spent not building it. I can see myself with two options: * Return to college and complete a CS degree as a BS or MS. Use the resources in college to network with people. Talk to professors, join career-oriented clubs, go to job fairs, hackathons and take internships, convert to full-time. * Harder route: Apply to larger companies for full-time roles, and interview prep. I don't know of any good reliable sources for reading your interview approach. I'm talking to local developers through a Slack channel to see if anyone has time to mock interview, but opening up time is hard. I am open to other options besides these two. Let me know what I should do to build that network effectively, and get better leads to jobs without cold applying so I don't have to be in the rat race forever.
4 by dafrelencer | 6 comments on Hacker News.
I can't stay long enough in one job to be considered a "known quantity" that can be recalled upon to vouch for good work. To make matters worse, I usually lose/finish my current job before getting an offer for the next. 7 jobs, but I never get jobs through recommendations. It's always been some sort of blind job application, and I'm tired of the rat race. I'm a software engineer with a non-STEM degree but does the degree not matter much anymore(?). A lot of the problem would be due to the fact that I've only taken shorter-term jobs, all at very small companies. Here's an summary of my work history as a programmer: Held a total of 7 jobs over 11 calendar years. 90% web dev work. 5 of those are contractor (only 2 of which are 30-40 hrs/week), one short full-time job and one part-time job (those two were 8 and 10 years ago respectively). I might spend anywhere from 2 to 20 months unemployed in between. Out of all these jobs, I made connections from the 2nd job, and current job. But they usually don't know anyone that is hiring when I contact them, nor do they really contact me first about work. So I am at a standstill on how to build up my reputation after so much time spent not building it. I can see myself with two options: * Return to college and complete a CS degree as a BS or MS. Use the resources in college to network with people. Talk to professors, join career-oriented clubs, go to job fairs, hackathons and take internships, convert to full-time. * Harder route: Apply to larger companies for full-time roles, and interview prep. I don't know of any good reliable sources for reading your interview approach. I'm talking to local developers through a Slack channel to see if anyone has time to mock interview, but opening up time is hard. I am open to other options besides these two. Let me know what I should do to build that network effectively, and get better leads to jobs without cold applying so I don't have to be in the rat race forever.
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