Society didn't lie to you, society never struck a bargain with you.
Your parents may have lied to you, maybe your teachers too. Whoever it was that lied, it wasn't us. It probably wasn't malicious, some people are/were genuinely extremely misguided about how the world operates (protip: not as differently as before).
Here's what happened: you abdicated your responsibility in one of the most important aspects of your life - your career. You placed in someone's hands other than your own, and now you got bit by it.
Is it your fault? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps you were too trusting in believing every bullshit thing that came out of your career counselor's mouth. Either way, one thing's for sure: it isn't the fault of society either. If you had ever bothered to go talk to software companies (assuming that's your field) in high school, or shit, during college, you would've realized that it takes more than a fancy shiny piece of paper from a prestigious school to get a job. You failed to own this responsibility.
So, it's either your fault for entrusting your career to the incompetence of others, or it's nobody's fault that you're unemployed. In either case, sitting around complaining about how society has failed you will get nothing done - your own action will.
I'm a year out of college, FWIW, and I hate this aspect of my generation (which IMHO is one of the few notably different things about us) - when we encounter unfairness and injustice, we shut down and complain, expecting that the exposing of this unfair injustice will somehow fix everything. It won't.
I was rather fortunate in the sense that I was forced to find jobs during college (degree requirement), and was exposed to how the infernal machinations of employment worked. I was 3 months out of high school, weeks into my very first semester of university when I had to find my first paid internship.
It sucked. But here's are some lessons I learned from that:
- don't just send resumes. Sending resumes is what every Tom, Dick, and Harry does. In this economy, being Tom, Dick, and Harry doesn't work. Besides, do you believe yourself to be strictly mediocre? If not, why are you doing only what strictly mediocre people do?
- find a list of software companies in your area (and within, say, an hour's drive of your local area). Hell, expand this beyond software companies - anybody who can employ a person of your skills. It doesn't matter if they're hiring.
- polish your resume, learn how to introduce yourself. Find a friend, practice if you must.
- hit the road. Seriously, just walk into these places and ask to speak to a hiring manager. Don't ask if they have open positions - it doesn't actually matter. Make sure you get someone in charge out to shake your hand. Introduce yourself, explain that you are looking for a job, know something about what they do, and give them a paper copy of your resume. Learn about what they do.
You do this right, your phone will start ringing. I've known several practitioners of this strategy, and not a single one is ever looking for a job for very long.
I'm also a tad surprised that people are finding it this difficult to find a job in software. I haven't even finished my degree, and I get at least two requests for proposals through a freelancing site per week (even though my listed rate is fairly high, compared to my competitors, and I'm listed as unavailable). When I went looking for a new job, I applied to two companies. I got a callback from one and an offer (which I accepted) from the other.
I'm not saying this as a way to gloat. I've met plenty of students who are as good, if not better, developers than I am in my department. I've met plenty of them who have better GPAs, more letters of rec, do more extra-curricular activities, have won more awards, etc., yet I basically landed a job because it's the job I wanted, and they're sending resumes to basically anyone that could potentially offer them a job and are getting no where. There has to be a disconnect here. They have to be "doing it wrong."
Build something, freelance, work on a few open source projects (or start your own), found a non-profit, start a club. The barrier to entry for all of those is shockingly low. Hell, if you're living at home, start a company. Chances are it will fail, but it will be something that makes you stand out from the crowd. I would imagine that most startups would be much more willing to hire a fellow entrepreneur, even if that business didn't pan out. And if you get really lucky, you'll never have to find another job again because you'll be your own boss.
I've suggested this to several of my peers that are having trouble even getting someone to call them back, and hardly anyone ever takes the advice. I think the simple reason people don't actually go out there and do something, even if it's just physically walking into somewhere they want to work, is that's a lot harder. It's easy to write a cover letter, stick it on your resume, and send it jobs@somecompany.com. You never face outright rejection or failure; you simply never get contacted. By the time you realize that company isn't going to respond, you've already sent off another 20 resumes.
From your mom to Mr. T to the President of the United States, the school-is-cool, just stay in school and you'll get a job meme has been pretty prevalent since I was a child, and I'm old.
There's this continuous drumbeating that we need to produce more scientists and engineers. So I went and got a PhD in Physics.
By the time I got my PhD, the American Physical Society announces that they estimate that 3% of my graduating class would get permanent jobs in their field.
So, the physics PhD mill encourages a few thousand of our brightest young people every year to spend 5-9 years of their youth getting a credential that's worth less than a roll of toilet paper. (At least you can wipe your ass w/ a roll of toilet paper)
At least I got an all-expenses-paid vacation in Europe for a year (a postdoc,) but I drifted for another three or four years afterwards before settling on a somewhat remunerative and satisfying career.
This sort of experience, where you're set up to fail, but made to feel like it was your own fault, can have a devastating effect on a person. I've mostly healed from it now, but so often I have to answer questions like "Why aren't you teaching?" and "Aren't you too smart to be a computer programmer".
The older generation does owe the younger generation realistic guidance and training to start careers and keep society running. When it sets up machines to chew up young people and spit them out, it wrongs them.
> By the time I got my PhD, the American Physical Society announces that they estimate that 3% of my graduating class would get permanent jobs in their field.
What was that percentage at the time you started your PhD?
My brother has 2 degrees in Physics and can't even get a job at Trader Joe's. Apparently the anthropology majors are more savvy in identifying backup jobs and have already filled all those positions.
I know a few that suck up physics and math PhD's dissuaded by dwindling academia/research. Perhaps it's a soul-draining job, but the pay is good. Most likely you will have to program, but since you're here I don't think that will be a problem.
I end up talking to recruiters from D.E. Shaw just about every six months. One time I showed up at a conference Sun put on in the city and asked a question about using the hardware for main memory databases and that got the attention of one of them.
Hedge funds are pretty cool and pretty lucrative, but the only thing I really want to do now is information extraction, semantic databases, stuff like that. Finish the job that Doug Lenat started. And if you think that's crazy, you're one less competitor that I have.
I think you, and a lot of other people in our generation, have misinterpreted the generalization ‘You need to go to college to get a good job’ as ‘You will get a good job if you go to college.’ These two are not the same thing.
College may generally be a requirement for a good job, but college alone does not entail a good job.
I don't have a degree, I only went to one college class on psychology before dropping out. Currently I'm the IT Security Officer for a half billion dollar health network.
I'm not the normal person without a degree, but the time I didn't spend in college/university was spent learning about computer security. I didn't blame anyone for things not turning out how I wanted, I did something about it.
Someone once told me that there are only two ways to change a situation: you can change the conversation you are having with people or you can change the people you are having the conversation with. You have to be in the conversation though.
I think he's referring to when you join the workforce at the same time your peers are going off to college. Sure you might come out ahead of them in 4 or 5 years if you are driven but your likely to be in line from some fairly menial work to start off.
That's retarded thinking. School is cool, are you telling me that you would have been better off without any schooling? Think of all the habitual class cutters, and delinquents in your class in high school, (I'm sure there were plenty in all schools.) Sure, they may have jobs, but working at fast-food or cleaning places when you are 30yrs, 40yrs or 50yrs old isn't very attractive. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with working at these places if you have no choice. My parents worked at these places, because they were new to this country, and their options were truly limited. I know for a fact they would be hurt/disappointed if I didn't learn from their situations.
Sending you to school was not bad advice. Are you saying that you wouldn't tell that to your kids? What would you say to your kids? How do you want to approach this? At some point, you need to take responsibility for your actions. I'm not happy where I am now, but I don't blame anyone else for it. I made choices, and I will continue to improve myself, because after all what is the alternative? Give up?
- polish your resume, learn how to introduce yourself. Find a friend, practice if you must.
To be honest, this is huge - looking at his resume, the only thing that makes it look like he did something significant is his sweet dreams/soundscapes project. Everything else under "experience" - which stands for "work experience," which is what he's applying for - discusses learnings.
What did he do during that time? He spent 6 months working in his university's computer vision lab, which sounds awesome - and he "learned how to take several ideas and combine them into a single result that highlights their strengths while nullifying their weaknesses."
That's incredibly vague - I'm glad he learned, but it's a cliche by now that you should be using "action verbs" in your resume ("built," "designed," "debugged," etc.)
Launch and iterate, right? That works for this process as well - send out your resume, and if you don't get the responses you want, tweak your resume and send out another wave.
Join Toast Masters. It is a public speaking and leadership organization; which looks great on resumes. Besides looking good on resumes it will help you learn how to think quickly on your feet in a conversation and be more comfortable with random conversations.
I was never in Toast Masters, but I'll definitely second the value of good speaking abilities. The problem, of course, is that you have to make it past the HR barrier, and land an interview to show those skills. But the HR barrier is less of an issue if you look at smaller companies, where they may not even have HR people getting in the way.
This is what I don't get about Americans - they have no toasting tradition. I grew up in Ukraine, and I remember being required to give toasts at dinners ever since I was a little kid. They didn't have to be long or complex, but original and from the heart. This taught you to speak in public in front of groups.
I also sat at the table with the adults (there never really was a separate kiddie table) and I learned to behave myself and talk like an adult.
Seriously, just walk into these places and ask to speak to a hiring manager.
That is how I got my very first job in the industry. It was a small ISP, do you need anyone who knows Unix? My "interview" with the IT manager was in front of a terminal (no spare chairs, so I sat on a DEC server), showing each other stuff on the command line. Started the next morning.
I'd add to that networking, if you have a solid network of friends, peers and acquaintances that all know your great at what you do, all it really takes is a "hey guys, looking for some work in x, let me know if anythings going" on Twitter ect to make things happen.
Add to that don't stop building things and perfecting your craft, much more valuable than just sending out resumes and you might just find a way to produce a bit of income in the process making your situation less dire.
Your parents may have lied to you, maybe your teachers too. Whoever it was that lied, it wasn't us. It probably wasn't malicious, some people are/were genuinely extremely misguided about how the world operates (protip: not as differently as before).
Here's what happened: you abdicated your responsibility in one of the most important aspects of your life - your career. You placed in someone's hands other than your own, and now you got bit by it.
Is it your fault? Maybe, maybe not. Perhaps you were too trusting in believing every bullshit thing that came out of your career counselor's mouth. Either way, one thing's for sure: it isn't the fault of society either. If you had ever bothered to go talk to software companies (assuming that's your field) in high school, or shit, during college, you would've realized that it takes more than a fancy shiny piece of paper from a prestigious school to get a job. You failed to own this responsibility.
So, it's either your fault for entrusting your career to the incompetence of others, or it's nobody's fault that you're unemployed. In either case, sitting around complaining about how society has failed you will get nothing done - your own action will.
I'm a year out of college, FWIW, and I hate this aspect of my generation (which IMHO is one of the few notably different things about us) - when we encounter unfairness and injustice, we shut down and complain, expecting that the exposing of this unfair injustice will somehow fix everything. It won't.
I was rather fortunate in the sense that I was forced to find jobs during college (degree requirement), and was exposed to how the infernal machinations of employment worked. I was 3 months out of high school, weeks into my very first semester of university when I had to find my first paid internship.
It sucked. But here's are some lessons I learned from that:
- don't just send resumes. Sending resumes is what every Tom, Dick, and Harry does. In this economy, being Tom, Dick, and Harry doesn't work. Besides, do you believe yourself to be strictly mediocre? If not, why are you doing only what strictly mediocre people do?
- find a list of software companies in your area (and within, say, an hour's drive of your local area). Hell, expand this beyond software companies - anybody who can employ a person of your skills. It doesn't matter if they're hiring.
- polish your resume, learn how to introduce yourself. Find a friend, practice if you must.
- hit the road. Seriously, just walk into these places and ask to speak to a hiring manager. Don't ask if they have open positions - it doesn't actually matter. Make sure you get someone in charge out to shake your hand. Introduce yourself, explain that you are looking for a job, know something about what they do, and give them a paper copy of your resume. Learn about what they do.
You do this right, your phone will start ringing. I've known several practitioners of this strategy, and not a single one is ever looking for a job for very long.