After graduating I couldn’t even get an interview for a relevant position. I took whatever random jobs for a while until I got sick of it. Getting a good job in the city was impossible so, I started looking for jobs anywhere and everywhere. Before long I found one 600 km away from where I lived at the time. Turns out, it’s very difficult to find competent people willing to work in the middle of nowhere, so even fresh graduates will do.

I needed money, they needed people. The job was also a pretty good match to my degree, so it was a win-win for everyone.

Pro tip: if you want to compete with all the PhDs with 10 years of experience, stay in the city. If not, be open to relocating. Don’t be afraid of small towns, they are actually pretty nice. Oh and the rent! I’m paying peanuts for a very nice flat, because it’s so far away from all the big cities.

I’m a programmer, which is in a pretty bad spot if you’re looking for work right now.

I was laid off in January and had to start looking again. While it’s important to be able to demonstrate your skills, the only way I got an interview for my new job was by being referred by an old colleague. Turns out maintaining relationships with people who can vouch for your work is a very big part of the process.

This was a while ago. My college didn’t have a CS major (small liberal arts college) so they brought in an adjunct professor who was a Director of IT of a small market research firm. After 4 semesters as his student, he offered me a job my senior year. Longest interview ever.

That was over 20 years ago.

My current job (big tech) was from my friend who I worked with coming up to me and saying “A recruiter from [company] is calling you tomorrow. I gave them your name.” Never in a million years did I think I was at that caliber, but I went through it anyway because the worst they could say is “no”.

They said “yes”.

I know what RAM looks like. That’s literally what got me hired over the other candidate at my current MSP job. Other candidate didn’t know that RAM doesn’t have screws and removed the SSD of the laptop in the practical interview. I’d never seen an SSD before, but knew RAM didn’t have screws. I took out the RAM and put it back in and was offered the position an hour later.

I had been fired from a tech support job 4 days before that very suddenly got absolute bullshit reasons and I was having a terrible time psychologically. This job is a million times better than my old one, so getting fired was actually the best thing to happen to my career.

I’m a level one helpdesk tech rn, but will probably become level two in a year or two. My company is really pushing me to grow and advance my career and it’s so great.

I still struggle with the emotional damage getting fired in such a devastating way caused, but I’m going to be getting therapy so I can finally get over it.

Applied for a job. Imagine that