I spoke to a Dojo friend who found a job in the last month of the previous year about my approach and he admitted that job boards like Dice and Indeed charge recruiters to post jobs on their site, meaning recruiters will want to get their money's worth and find a candidate who is at least mid-level. His advice was to keep my resume on those sites and perhaps I'll get a couple of responses but in the meantime look for jobs through other means. He recommended Angel List, since there is no middleman agency and most resumes and inquiries go straight to the hiring managers and company founders. He also suggested that I subscribe to Coding Dojo's job boards for their Seattle and Bay Area branches.
So I changed my strategy. The number of applications I submit each day went down significantly but I was getting a few more responses for interviews. Since then I've had maybe half a dozen phone interviews. They seemed to go well but I'd end up getting rejections in the end. The market is competitive and it may not seem like it at the moment but the recruiter is also speaking to other people who are way more qualified than me.
Most of my classmates are in the same predicament as I am. At least two got jobs straight out of the Dojo; one went back to his old job; one is working remotely; one has moved away to escape the expensive cost of living; I heard another one has given up entirely and will be taking a sales position; another one is doing a startup; and two went back to college with one of them getting an internship not related to development. The rest are still on the search.
I speak to VT every now and then. Before he left he said that he was going to work on projects and algorithms until January before starting the job hunt. Since January whenever we do talk he's usually vague on his end. I don't know if he's going through the same struggles as all of us are.
One of my instructors left the Dojo in January to become a freelancer and asked me if I wanted to help him out as a volunteer for a startup he's working for. I agreed to; good experience opportunity and it was a chance to learn more about Rails, which I neglected to back in that stack.
I got a few calls from recruiters and they managed to set me up with a couple of interviews. Most of them didn't pan out either but one of them did offer me a position as a developer in the east coast. My initial reaction was to say no but after speaking with my family I realized that I shouldn't be picky. They cite my desire to travel and the harshness of the currently job market that requires me to have experience. I admit that this position is tempting for all those reasons they said but I am uncomfortable of leaving the Bay Area for a couple of years. I haven't spent too much time in the east coast and am not sure what might happen over there. But then again I have spent most of twenties in the west coast and not much as happened since I finished college. So I won't say no but I won't say yes just yet, fortunately I have a small window to consider this further.
It's tough and trying. There are a lot of jobs here but way more qualified people competing for it. A nice college degree and a coding bootcamp can give you a leg up in this market but you also have to be a little creative, whatever that might mean to you.
