How can a unhireable person get a job?

As a hiring manager, the things that stand out to me in your post:

- You said you quit a job at EA, quit a job at IBM, dropped out of college your freshman year. You may have valid reasons for leaving each of these, but you have to see this from the manager's perspective: You had 3 different great opportunities that all came to a dead end at the beginning of your career. You need an alternate narrative.

- You talk about applying to Google, Facebook, Airbnb, Palantir, and other companies known to be very competitive, yet the only real job experience you list in your post is low level customer support. Nothing wrong with aiming high, but you need to also be applying to jobs that are a logical next step in your career. It's extraordinarily difficult to jump from customer support to FAANG engineer, so have a backup plan.

- You spoofed e-mails to manipulate executives into meetings. This kind of thing sounds clever in movies or from anecdotes in the 90s or 2000s, but in this era everyone is on high alert for phishing attacks and security breaches. Read the room, and don't commit computer fraud during your application process. Big companies have systems in place to catch these things and you'll get blocked in short order.

- No mention of your network. Do you have any contacts or friends or acquaintances anywhere in the industry? Even people you knew briefly from school? People who you worked with in the past who moved up? Reach out and ask if they have any advice for your job search. Going forward, make a point to stay on good terms with the people around you. You can help each other as your careers progress.

Have you tried asking any of the jobs that rejected you're getting rejected?

Honestly, just a guess, you're probably giving off bad interpersonal vibes/people don't really like talking to you. Half of interviewing is just being very personable/being able to talk comfortably with other people. Generally in this space (this space meaning those interested in tech/startups/etc) sometimes people struggle in this area but really shine in tech. I would encourage you to spend some time reflecting on your interpersonal skills.

Some other red-ish flags from your post - you kinda seem like you might struggle just doing exactly what you're asked to do. Bringing up how frequently you quit things for various reasons or finding issues and bringing them up with your superiors' superiors, spoofing numbers to get in touch with very very senior people. Lots of lower-tiered jobs literally just need people to show up and do what they're asked. A part of getting a "first" or "entry level" job is accepting you're there mostly to learn, not to teach/move outside of your lane. The fact that you would even bring up Bill Landreth seems like you might not necessarily see yourself how the rest of the world sees you.

I'm not trying to offend you - I really hope you can line something up soon. I apologize if this feedback seems cold - I think reflecting on things like this can be hard because you have to face things about yourself you may disagree with or not realize. Unfortunately interviewing is such a biased game, you kind of have to play your opponent (meaning, be the person they want, not the person you are).

Happy to chat through any of this stuff if you have questions. Wish you all the best.

Your writing is not strong, i can tell you did not attend college. Written communication is important in tech.

Your applying to those companies with 0 experience or college degree is unrealistic. The entry level is extremely competitive and you have nothing to make you interesting to hire. They get thousands of applications for those jobs.

You are still young, plenty of time to learn, but I recommend taking a step back and rethink your strategy. There are plenty of companies that do not get thousands of applications for jobs.

Let me put it bluntly: you are not qualified to be a software engineer. There is no reason anyone would currently hire you, unless you are personable and fun to talk to.

You show immaturity in the way you handled the flaw in the system you described. Calling your boss's boss because you think you are right is childish.

Additionally, you do not understand how to get a software job, you do not have realistic expectations for what kind of jobs you are qualified to acquire.

A few years ago my brother, who is in his thirties, was stuck in a dead end job he hated. So he took some classes in 3D modeling. He worked hard, built out his portfolio, networked, and eventually landed a job at a world famous video game studio making AAA games at an interesting role that builds his skills.

What he did not do was blindly apply to jobs he was not qualified to do with zero training

First off, your HN submission history is really weird, dude. (https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=snakedoctor)

If you get a job in customer support at Amazon there is literally no way to get a 'promotion' to a dev role. It's different parts of the org, and you're tarnished with being a CS person. Why? Because it's signaling - people who can do eng roles at Amazon don't take CS roles so they don't bother mining to check on the rare chance someone in CS can.

In your replies you say "I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation."

If your resume reflects that you've bounced around after a few months as a hiring manager I'm not even going to bother offering you an interview.

You also said your were home schooled and many people here have commented you might have social skill issues. I am not a doctor but I wonder if you have delusions of grandeur around your abilities which is creating a miss-match of expectation leading you to quit jobs you need to tough it out in. Or you have dyslexia or another learning difficulty (I have dyslexia, I quit school, never went to university, did many shit jobs to work my way up, it took years and years)

I would suggest you find someone who is an actual hiring manager to give you a mock interview and analyze their feedback. If you can't find someone closer in your circle, I'll give you mock 30 minute interview (I've hired countless engineers, designers, PMs and other roles in the last 20+ years)

If you want a career in tech you do need to get out of the wrong swim-lane, which a CS role at Amazon is the wrong lane as it will never convert to where you want it to go.

I'm a software engineer that runs a technical recruiting company. I worked at Microsoft and Netflix for a decade. Email me at robert at facet dot net. I will interview you and tell you why you're not getting hired.

So far none of the replies has mentioned this, and it may be unpopular in HN, but:

Seriously consider going back to school and finishing a degree. Although it's "known" that you don't really need a degree for a SW role, there are plenty of well established old school companies that will not consider you at all unless you have a degree. On the flip side, you'll get jobs more easily. A lot of interviewers who choose to interview someone without a degree are doing it "just in case he turns out to be a genius." You are not one (or at least have not shown you are one). Let me be brutally honest: In such companies, you will not get a job if you interview as well as the average candidate who has a degree. Managers don't want to have to justify hiring someone without a degree, and they look worse amongst their peers if a bad hire didn't have a degree than if they did.

> Reading Meyers, Knuth etc. books.

Improving technical skills is always good. However, your role in a company, and your performance, are due to lots of other factors. A person who is average in all areas is generally more desirable than a smart person in one area who is poor in others.

Have you tried talking with a recruiting agency? I notice you've mostly applied at household-name companies, many of which are very competitive. The majority of the tech jobs out there are not at companies you've ever heard of. Recruiters (third-party, not in-house) are motivated to find you something that's a good fit because they get commission (from the company) based on you getting hired. They'll coach you, help you with your resume, draw from a huge pool of companies to find something that's just the right fit. Their job is solving this exact problem.

You leave out a lot about yourself that would make you unhireable. From what you've written it sounds like you could form a decent resume for an entry level position. The biggest red flag I see is that it doesn't sound like you completed anything and you don't have any follow through / sticktuitiveness.

Life happens and reasons happen but you didn't complete college, you complain about your entry level position at amazon but I see nothing that warrants a greater position than that. Obviously this may not be everything about you so it's difficult to judge.

I have no degree, but worked hard, stuck to jobs for 2-3 years before moving and developed a track record that hiring managers like to see. That means working for $15/hr in a position that you feel is beneath you. The thing that position provides you valuable experience and showing you can stick with things. Companies that hire you put forth a significant investment that takes roughly a year to pay off. Employees don't always realize that. If you look like you won't stick around they won't hire you.

One of the most important thing, especially as a junior is to be likable and present your suggestions in a likable way. Also it's key to know when no one wants to hear your suggestions. Sometimes your perspective may be a new thing that was never thought of or it could be one sided, the business knows it and had accepted the risk but it's not within your knowledge scope to know that.

I do technical interviews for the company I work for. If you're not likable to me, you're probably not getting hired. If I get the impression that every interaction will be a dick measuring contest because you come off as a smarty pants, I'm not recommend hiring. Someone who's knowledgeable and humble is going to get my recommendation. If you're good, and know how to communicate well you'll naturally rise to lead a team because they'll look to you for answers or ideas and everyone will notice.

It really sounds like you need to "pay your dues" by showing that you can stick to something. That's either complete college and get a degree or work entry level for 2 years and move up or out to the next position.

Two patterns - you don't stick with projects for long (perhaps really like freedom) and want a safety net (medical insurance). (Plus you could be a better communicator, the post you wrote turned out into not so coherent rambling halfway in, tbh.)

Unless you are willing to relocate to a saner country than the US, you need to give up one. Most commenters here advise to give up some of your freedom and stick it out somewhere, and it's a very valid advice. I just want to add that you can also consider going the opposite way - and just get a steady stream of shorter-term gigs freelancing (e.g. Upwork).

There is a lot of upsides - it's easy to work on projects completely remotely (including written only with no voice/video) which rules out any interpersonal issues; you can work on bite-sized projects which might be your cup of tea, at the same time some of the projects will turn into long term opportunities; you can actually put the best projects on your CV.

Freelancing won't give you great medical insurance. And at the beginning (with no history on the platform) it's a grind to succeed in the competition and you need to work your hourly rates up from a low base. Longer term it can pay nicely, you'll be working on a lot of different things and learn what you enjoy, and it should teach you a lot.

Derisk this experiment, try it out while you are looking for a job.

No health insurance sucks, but you're in your 20s and you didn't mention any chronic illnesses. You need a year's worth of experience in one job--any job, so long as it's the same job--more than you need health insurance right now. I can sit here and rage about how terrible it is that you have to make that choice, but that won't help you get a job. If you manage to get hired again, hold onto that fucking job like it's the last life-vest on the Titanic because for you, it is. You're going to need to eat shit with a smile on your face for at least a year; work hard and don't rock the boat.

Almost nobody will give you a firm reason for why they rejected you for a job. If you press them, they'll offer vague shit like the examples you gave. Accept this; it sucks, but it's the way things are. You're not being "ghosted".

As others have said, it is absurd to expect a promotion within a few months of hiring in a low-level position. "Working your way up from the mailroom" still involves spending time doing actual work in the mailroom, not barging into the boss's office day 1 and demanding a raise because you found some stamps that fell behind the desk.

I'm hesitant to tell you to go back to school, because that can be expensive as hell, but maybe look into your state universities? Tuition can still be reasonable at some of them. If you're no longer a dependent of your parents, maybe you'll qualify for better financial aid. Also, some schools (including my alma mater, RIT) offer free tuition for employees--even if it's just mopping floors, you're making money and getting an education.

I believe you are a fundamentally honest person who is trying to mimick the things grifters brag about doing and jump ahead of the line. I know this path because I tried it years ago. And most likely, it won't work - you don't have it in you to go that way.

But neither can you be a washed up 20-something begging for pity. You are probably a bit too competent and proud for that.

What you should do instead is be a "forever student". Now you are never there to snag the gig or steal the credit. You are there to study an "x". The x can be broad and impressive or narrow and miniscule. Jobs, businesses, investments, products, are all vehicles for pursuing this study. You will signal this at all times, and develop contacts and portfolio work pertinent to this study. Earnest emails asking "what should I do to go further with this" - questions that are of interest to the figure you are asking as well as yourself - are often golden tickets. Choose anything to start, and see where it pulls you. When you are in the vicinity of a good conversation and money is flowing around it, the money often ends up in your hands.

However, you also have to work on yourself enough to be a great student. That means valuing your body, household, social conduct and other things, and to see "access to resources" in a broader sense than salary. Taking a shit job or sacrificing some living conditions can be the right move if it buys you time, but if it makes your health deteriorate it might be the wrong move too. People get a lot of comfort out of doing the simple stuff well, and you have decades to get the big picture things right. It's OK to be unambitious.

Do some self-talk, journal a bit, exercise, eat well. Aim to get the concerns "out of you" so that you can act in the world with focus and purpose.

Your post provides a recruiter any number of reasons not to hire you. In addition to providing a personal history of failure and excuses, you're airing the dirty laundry of the companies you did work for. Your misgivings with these may or may not be legitimate, however what recruiter wants their name attached to you the next time you feel like airing your grievances with the last company to lay you off?

> "I tried cold contacting executives at a few companies..."

I'm not an executive, however I am a team lead. If you found some way to contact me directly, unsolicited, on my work phone or email, I would blacklist you. Especially if you had circumvented some security measure in order to do so, let alone spoofing what we can only assume is the phone number of another employee? The time and attention of these professionals is valuable. Procurement process exists to prevent executives at prominent, successful companies being interrupted in such an inappropriate manner.

You sound like you need to adjust your attitude. From your perspective it may seem that you're an underappreciated talent just waiting for someone to give them a chance. From the perspective of a recruiter or hiring manager you look like a serious liability. Especially if you're looking to make a leap upwards into your career's 'next step', it's extremely imperative that you demonstrate your ability to succeed in simpler, entry-level positions.

Your writing is terrible, and unprofessional. If you can't get through this thread without discussing your mental health problems that's a serious red flag.

With compassion: you seem paranoid. Lots of talk about security and hackers and spies. Your submission history is telling. Have you thought about getting therapy?

I get the feeling from your writing that you are conflating social signalling and personal economic outcomes. You seem to want people to think you are smart more than you want to succeed? Or at least those ideas seem in conflict.

Do you want a job at a Big Name or do you want money?

Have you thought of starting a business? That way you don't need permission from other (besides customers) to succeed.

Probably better is, as many others have suggested, to get a job a smaller company that will have you. Then build something on the side.

"You're unable to find employment, which means either you're carrying yourself incorrectly or you're unable to perform the tasks required of an entry-level applicant." -VoidMint in this thread

This needs to be reiterated. It doesn't matter if you're smarter than Donald Knuth if you come across poorly or can't answer interview questions. Based on your background I suspect you answer the interview questions but you have no idea how to work with people.

Working with people that are nice is hard, working with people that are 'difficult' is damn near impossible and you sound difficult. When someone presents an idea to you that's actually stupid what do you say? How do you tell people no? Do you think about the feelings of those around you before you say something? These are things that can be taken for granted but are important for working within an organization (which you have limited experience with).

I'm awkward as all hell but was able to make it in industry by consciously improving the way I interact with other people (especially when I don't agree with them). This isn't an insurmountable challenge but you have to identify what's causing you problems before you can fix it.

The candid answer, from reading your post and especially replies, is that you come across as a bit entitled and likely get denied job opportunities because of how you communicate.

That might be good news, because you don’t have to change yourself but reframe your perspective.

Preferably I’d suggest a mental health professional who focuses on your self narrative.. but I understand that can be expensive.

Perhaps you could do something like a HealthyGamerGG coach. They are more affordable, and I think they’ll be able to give you the feedback you need to get past this.

Best of luck!

1) you sound very intelligent and capable even though you don't have much to prove it apparently

2) I get a weird vibe from the way you write/speak

3) I've been cold rejected from almost every one of those companies you listed, and I'm a senior engineer with a decade of experience making SV money and doing just fine. Look for smaller companies that people haven't heard of, there are thousands. It took me years of working at small startups before I broke into the big corps.

4) someone mentioned "tainting" your rep with non-dev jobs and sadly this is true. You need to get dev experience on your resume no matter what, the good news is that it's never been easier. Come up with an idea, build something, buy a $2 domain, and bam, you are now a fancy Founder of Tech Project and have dev experience on your resume, not manual labor. Bonus points if you actually stick to the project. Speaking of which...

5) Build projects. Like as many as you can. I aim to build a new project 1x a month just to keep in the habit. Anytime I need to interview, I have tons of live, production software examples to show off. HMs love to see someone who can ship code. It is the #1 thing I would do if I were you to get a job. Build anything. Just build stuff and put it online. This is the next best thing to having formal W2 jobs on your resume.

6) totally random and I'm not affiliated, but check out usertesting.com. I sent this to a friend the other day who is also struggling to break into tech - they will apparently pay $10 for every 20 minutes of testing. Better than being homeless and at least it's in tech and seems relatively accessible.

7) some of the best dev gigs and jobs I found early on in my career were diamonds lost in the Craigslist rough, just sayin’

Wishing you the best of luck.

You sound autistic. Many of your experiences feel similar to mine.

Here's what happens to autistic people in general:

- They get ghosted a LOT because NT people generally don't know how to deal with them (and social training only goes so far).

- They get fired / laid off / pushed out / excluded a lot with no real reason given, and nobody will care if it's just/legal or not because "something about him is just ... wrong".

- They tend to have very small networks or none at all.

- The less "crazy" you behave, the worse it is because you fall into the uncanny valley. The more "crazy" you behave, the more tolerant people are of your quirks, but the less they take you seriously.

I was even ghosted by a 7-11 store when I applied as a clerk in my late teens, and wondered why the sign remained up for another month when he didn't even get back to me.

Computer jobs were easy for autistics in the old days because nobody expected much of you other than to get the thing working. Only managers and software architects needed people skills. That's no longer the case in the modern highschool-like software house. People are a LOT judgier and intolerant. You need to do whatever you can to bridge the ever-increasing divide, even faking if you have to, or risk getting pushed out. I've had mixed results saying up front that I'm autistic. Discrimination is a huge problem here.

One piece of advice I can definitely give is: Don't do any crazy stuff like bypassing access controls. That only works if you also have the panache to wow the person within 10 seconds of the intrusion.

Your English is very good, but there are some issues in your writing that could be holding you back, especially if your resumé is written with the same level of attention that you gave to this submission. These things would stand out to me, to the point where I'd probably discount your resume.

It's the little things, like how inconsistently you're cutting up sentences with periods, how you leave off the subject of the sentence in a couple of places, and the typos (lowpay, dropout, promt as quick examples).

Honestly? Find a way to speak to a therapist. Many options available for people without insurance, some are even free. If you could land a diagnosis, you could begin to understand what's holding you back (if anything) or if there are just some things you could work on (like slowing down a bit).

Chances are you somehow act really creepy, which you do not see yourself. Ask a friend for a mock interview. Record it and watch later.

Don't have a friend? Hire someone. A friend cannot do mock interviews? Hand them a list of 10 questions that you remember from all those previous attempts and tell them to read it in solemn voice.

Nowadays the interviews are remote. Let a friend observe your interview and then ask their opinion. (I think recording these might be likely illegal? idk)

You’re young, inexperienced, and uneducated?

College and good internships will improve upon all of that. If you can’t afford college, you’ll need to join the military (I recommend the Air Force if you want to take it easy, or the Marines if you don’t) and slave for four years. But it seems to me that your biggest stumbling block may be that you are shooting for the moon without realizing it.

Need more details to give you a more accurate feedback. How long you have been working/in the industry in general ? It seems like you have done a few things over the years but don't really seem to have stuck to something that made you a specialist or someone worth hiring. Being brutal here but making assumptions. Do you quit a lot ? Do you have any criminal records that you are not aware of ? Are you too opinionated or argumentative in interviews even before understanding more about the team/product/company etc ? Are you that person who "knows everything" ? Lot of factors could be causing you to lose out.

20 percent of the programmers get 80 percent of the jobs. You don't have an Ivy League nor any degree at all. You don't have any experience working at a FAANG or a startup with name recognition. You have clearly have low self esteem, which is a red flag in interviews. There are enough people with none of these issues to fill every job in Silicon Valley.

You are losing the game you are trying to play, so try playing a different one. You could play the making enough to support yourself game. After you get good at that you can play the start your own business game, or the make websites for friends and locals game.

Your ego is getting in the way of you feeding yourself and putting a roof over your head. It's not worth it. I can't think off the top of my head anything that is.

There is no shame in not fitting into Silicon Valley. Consider moving on.

Stop bothering with Fortune 500, and SV "sexy" companies. They get hundreds of applicants every day. There are thousands of small shops out there who always need WordPress monkies and "stick this snippet into a PHP page" type roles for $20-$30/hr. Find one and stick with it for 2-3 years. Practice your interviewing and build your LinkedIn network while doing that. There are no shortcuts, especially as a self taught dev.

Any feedback from the interviews? From the recruiters?

You need a good story to explain your leaving all those other positions - nobody cares that you didn’t like the pay or how hard it is to transfer internally, you need to tell the story of all the great knowledge and experience you gained at those positions, how your looking to build on that in your next position, and why your so excited for the position your interviewing for because it’s an opportunity to grow and do something new or continue working with technologies you love. Presentation is everything. Always remember that an interview isn’t a reading of your book of reckoning, it’s an opportunity for you to advertise your best aspects.

You don’t have to be homeless either - you can flip burgers at Sonic and make $15/hr these days. Nothing wrong with that. Take an evening shift so you can interview during the day.

Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb, Palantir -- There are literally thousands of people applying for jobs to these companies and a really small percentage will be accepted. So it's not that you are unhireable, but you are applying to places where rejection is almost guaranteed. It's like betting on a number at a roulette table and wondering why you are losing money. The odds are against you.

Some ideas: 1) pick a smaller and boring software services company?

2) Travel abroad and find work there, where the health insurance is not such a big of an issue.

3) Try to make it as a freelancer(you can start at upwork and work your way up from there, start a consulting company etc)

4) Apply for a remote only positions

P.S If you can afford it(probably not), get an appointment to a psychiatrist or a therapist, they can usually spot the problems you might be missing yourself.

As others have noted you’re going to have to stick with things longer, and learn to accept your not the one in charge in most of your roles (especially in the US which has a fairly authoritarian workplace culture). Also you may want to look into the possibility of contracting through agencies.

Are you autistic? You sound like autistic people I know who have similar troubles. It’s helpful to find out if you are and learn about how this affects you earlier in your career rather than later. It can really change how you approach situations at work and with interpersonal relationships so you can stick with things longer. In addition you might find there are autistic hiring programs that can help. (It’s not something you need to advertise but it’s something that’s helpful for you to know about yourself.)

Was this post written by a machine as some weird test to see how the community would react? This seems like a mechanically contrived lack of self awareness that just seems too ridiculous to be real. This is not a sarcastic post.

Most companies don't want trouble and don't want low level employees to give advice how to improve something. By doing this, you make the people above you look bad and they don't want that even if what you say is correct and helpful. Basically if you find a new job, do only what is required from you, don't poke around, don't try to find vulnerabilities, don't spy on co-workers, don't report anyone (unless they are breaking the law and put someone else in danger).

Maybe you believe in those stories from a janitor to an executive after some magic moment, but in the real life this doesn't happen. There are no shortcuts. You should consider that you may also be on the spectrum and you simply got wrong how social interactions work - if you cannot afford a therapist, you could look around for books on the topic. Unfortunately can't think of any now, apart from maybe "Look me in the eye" by John Elder Robison

Then the ultimate way to get a job when you are unemployable is to start a company. I know this sounds stupid when you are on the brink of being homeless, but you could consider getting just any job and start a project in your spare time. If you come up with something that excites you and make it work, you'll also have a good resume material that could help with getting a job or an investor.

For junior developers, I tend to recommend looking for marketing agency / consultancy work. With any luck, you'll get to be on projects that last between a few month to a year or two at most making small sites or adding features to existing sites.

This is great as it exposes you to a ton of different technologies and problem spaces (graphics heavy, data heavy, b2b, b2c etc). Each new project is a clean slate without the mistakes you previously made, or a chance to see how other people have put things together (and possibly learn from their mistakes).

The problem with these jobs is that sticking with them long term isn't for everyone; deadlines are often out of your control, as is the budget, because you're effectively working for a third party. They also tend to not pay big bucks, but they should still do better than most of what you seem to have had so far.

Once you get to a point where you feel confident leading teams of people, start looking at working for companies that make their own product- anything from FAANGs to small startups with good funding and existing customers (or whatever tells you that they are stable enough for you to be comfortable).

You don't have to follow this path of course, but it is a relatively safe one.

Also, if you aren't close to a decently sized city with any agencies or contractors, it couldn't hurt to go on LinkedIn and make sure that you have your programming experience- professional and hobby- listed. Also, be sure to log in at least every few days; logging in seems to give you a bump in search results. For me, LinkedIn is basically a place for recruiters to cold contact people, which may be helpful.

Final note: if you do get contacted by a recruiter about a position, see if they are working for the company they are advertising or not. If they are not, then they are likely getting a commission from placing you- and if they are any good, they can help coach you (and might be willing to do a practice interview if you ask very nicely). I will admit i haven't tried that last bit, but the two jobs I got through recruiters they were both genuinely good people who wanted to help however they could.

Just based on original statement, you sound like one of those guys who thinks he's some hotshot hacker and won't play nice with everyone else. When you're like that, you have to bring lots of value. Downside protection like "I stopped us from having broken anti-fraud" is really kind of not that interesting as a story. People want upside story.

At any point of time, almost every company is teetering on some massive exploit. That's just how it is. Finding one isn't this big thing if the risk is mitigated in some other way (maximum exploit size is $10k and we'll wake up the OC eng to turn off writes and rollback). I'm not interested in this binary failure-is-worst-case nonsense.

Listen, people aren't that interested in knowing that they can be fooled because most people apply some default amount of trust to the world. "Spoofed number to bypass contact whitelist". Dude, come on. This is boring stuff. Just knocking on the door isn't enough to be interesting. This isn't a Hollywood hacker movie.

My advice: Work on being productive. No one cares about all this 'exploit hacker' shit you've got going on. It's not interesting. It's not profitable. It's boring. So go finish your degree somewhere. Write some code. Find someone who you can write some code for. For free even. Move up from there.

EDIT: Jesus Christ, reading other comments, want to be promoted for finding some random issues like this in the first two weeks? Yeah, no. Here's a hint: everyone sees these things. It's not some great secret. Other people are also able to do one more thing: multiply by probability of external exploit and amount of loss.

There's not really a lot of detail to target advice to. You don't even share what roles you're applying for at the companies you list.

From the sounds of things you don't sound unhireable as you've had several jobs. You just quit them for perhaps bad reasons? Even in a situation where I have a good social safety net I wouldn't quit a job I needed unless I had something else lined up.

> I need a job with decent health/dental insurance. Medicaid is useless. I might be homeless soon.

Pragmatically you need to deal with these material needs first. It's going to be exponentially harder to reach for the jobs you think you deserve if you aren't able to take care of your physical needs properly. I really sympathize here though, the healthcare system is the US is a joke.

Practically I think you need to make a couple of plans:

1) Short-term: How to stabilize your own life so you meet your living needs. You as you say you need a steady job and some level of health coverage. Go through the usual things of making sure your applications match the roles and so on.

2) Long-term: You sound like you want an entry level software engineering or cyber-security role in a high status company. You need to put down a realistic assessment of where you are and a realistic plan of how to get there. This probably requires swallowing a bit of pride and admitting to your current faults.

Ideally for both bits try and find someone you trust and will listen to who you can give you advice based on an unvarnished account of where you are at now. Reading between the lines it sounds like you need a bit of a reality check but that's obviously hard to do without knowing more about you.

I feel similar. I have a CS degree and what I would consider a wide range of experience. I've created social media sites, a encrypted file sharing site, a site for watching videos and chatting at the same time, a site for cooperatively solving a rubiks cube at the same time. I have developed a large number of video game mods including full game modes. I have developed both custom server software and modded server software for games along with backend systems to track players and integrating that data with a website. I have experience administrating linux servers. I have experience writing desktop applications with Qt. I have experience writing scripts to automate things. I have experience. I have a little experience writing code for embedded hardware. I have a little experience in writing velilog for CPLDs and FPGAs. I have a little experience designing PCBs.

I feel like I have plenty of knowledge that I can provide to a company, but I never hear back from anyone beyond a rejection letter template.

I'm probably just going to be a NEET until I come up with a good idea that I can monetize.

I think you fail to understand corporate culture. Going around bosses because you found a vuln is not conducive to the corporate environment. they frown on stuff like that. Id suggest you learn to play by the rules or start your own thing. The thing with corporate culture is that it isn't hacker culture. I think you fail to realize that and it has been your undoing. Cheers bud.

Maybe check your criminal record. My wife was getting denied from every application. She later found out there was an incorrect conviction on her record and had to get it expunged.

Also, you seem to be listing big name tech companies and startups. Have you tried looking at non-tech companies? Sometimes the medium to small non-tech companies are more forgiving about not having a degree.

I'm not sure where you are located, but maybe look at jobs in other regions. Sometimes you can take a lower paying job in a cheaper region (with less competition) and do well.

From your post, it sounds like you should speak to a doctor as you're suffering and you might have a mental health issue.

Sounds like you have anxiety tbh.

QA at EA is a path to some solid gigs. It just takes time.

Yeah, it's unsexy work, but it pays okay, and if you prove yourself, it can lead to some senior roles. There are lots of folks that I work with now that started in contract QA and worked their way up to 6+ figure gigs inside the company.

It is hard to figure out what the problem may be, without knowing you, so I won't try (feel free to PM if you want to do something like a mock interview).

One thing that may suck, but want to make you aware is that chances are you need to do things worse temporarily, before they become better. You may need to put extra effort now (go to community college etc), for reward later.

One program I'd suggest you explore is AWS Re/Start, https://aws.amazon.com/training/restart/ ... it may be right for you (Amazon also has a similar internal program).

I play a key role in our hiring process. Shoot me an email, your resume (in word format so I can comment if necessary) and some times that work next week for 30-45 min chat (after 4pm ET best for me). Think of it as professional networking call and at the end I’ll be as candid and constructive as I can. Email is in my profile.

Going to be an unpopular opinion:

Look into how you look visually and how you speak and your behaviour. Are there things you do that [incorrectly] raise a flag for other people? Like someone mentioned on here, get detailed feedback.

I’m an almost 50 year-old English major with a spotty career history, including about 20 years of various forms ‘self-employment’.

Getting a good job can be really, really hard. My current gig at a not-quite-but-almost FAANG took me six months to land. But it’s also entirely possible.

If, like me, you’re not automatically hireable based on your accomplishments, I suggest you approach everything up to the interview as an exercise in marketing. Then treat the interview process as an exercise in sales.

Then all you have to do is get lucky and be prepared to learn as much as you need to to perform in your role.

Took a glance around the thread. In summary, it sounds like you are still fairly young (in the good sense), have an analytical mind but haven't sticked with anything for longer than 2 months. You said you're worried about your immediate financial future.

In terms of first impressions: a lot of consecutive 2 months stints will look very bad on your resume - a lot of places have 3 months probational period. I don't know what the story is, but this could an issue of tact (i.e. navigating office politics, not antagonizing your boss, that sort of stuff), it could be an issue of confidence (either too much impostor syndrome, or being overconfident and over-entitled), it could be that you're not cut out for the field (black-and-white quitting over disagreements is generally the worst solution to problems compared to compromising, strategic teamwork or just flat out sucking it up). You're gonna need to do some introspection, and you need to prioritize figuring out how you can hold a single job for 3 years. Also, with a job history full of red flags, name dropping famous companies will probably do the opposite of what you want. Consider focusing on selling skillset etc and downplaying (or even omitting) work history.

Be realistic and specific about your actual skillset vs your target role (either you are proficient in ios/js/golang/whatever or you're not, don't "fish" around for "any role")

In terms of target companies: you mentioned FAANG class companies. A lot of these companies tend to look for senior level as a baseline. Consider applying to less competitive jobs (i.e. companies without brand recognition). One way to go about this is to reach out to recruitment agencies.

In terms of balancing target goals and immediate needs: prioritize according to Maslow[0], i.e. it'll do no good trying out your luck trying to find a prestigious 150k+ salary job who knows when if it means your cash flow will make you homeless in 2 months with high probability. Better to swallow your pride and go for something less ideal at least until you can stabilize your financial situation.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maslow%27s_hierarchy_of_needs

A quick anecdote: interviewers HATE when you criticise previous employers. You complain at length about previous employers in your post, instead of talking about what you learned/experience gained. Ensure in interviews that everything you talk about is positive outcomes, NOTHING negative.

(1) Stop applying to the "popular" companies. (2) Stop quitting something every time it becomes hard. (3) Stop thinking you've paid your dues and deserve more already.

So take a deep breath, reset your expectations some, and humbly jump in at a less glamorous company and stay there for a couple of years. Long term you can still live the dream or whatever, but it sounds like you're trying to skip over some really important learning/experience stages (a good tech career involves far more than some tech expertise).

I hope I'm not out of place in presuming to advise someone else, but you asked for "brutally candid", and it's late, so... :)

Is it fair to say that you're coming from what seems like an unusual background, and you have some demonstrated skills, and energy to learn more, but you're trying to figure out how you fit into current corporate America?

If so, I don't know whether the following simple exercise will help, but if you'd like to try for a moment... Imagine that you and a great hiring manager found each other. The manager saw potential in you, mentored you, looked out for you, was available for questions, gave you constructive guidance, and wanted you to succeed.

How do you feel about that situation? Would you trust trust the manager, and want to live up to the manager's belief and investment in you? Do you think you'd do whatever it takes to make that working relationship a great success?

If that's an inspiring dream situation for you, then I'd like to ask you to consider another scenario... Imagine that you're approaching prospective employers (maybe not the biggest, household-name ones). In that scenario, are you willing to invest like you would for our supernatural saint manager from the previous scenario (even if the reality is more human), look for the best in that relationship, and live up to your ideals, to make it a success?

I'd also like to ask a few rhetorical questions related to that... Have you been in a hacking (either meaning of the term) social environment/culture, in which cleverness and skills were valued? And where things like using a phone number allowlist to get through to a higher-up would be celebrated? Can you imagine different ways that different people might feel about you gaming their phone access controls, or going over their chain-of-command head with something? What if you were in an environment in which there were additional priorities, other than being smart and right? Would you be interested in understanding and pursuing those priorities?

Incidentally, separate from the above, it sounds like you're going through a stressful time. You're not alone, and most people go through difficult times, of various kinds. It sucks when you're in it, but it gets better, and you can help move it along towards better. One important thing to remember is that there's a huge thing of counselors (lots of people at all those organizations you mentioned have counselors). A counselor can make a big difference for the individual getting through rough situations, and also growing. I'd guess that Medicaid would cover something in that regard. You'd have to take the initiative -- ask a doctor for a referral, find an administrator who'll help you navigate the unfortunate financial side of things, ask for help with any confusing paperwork, etc.

I'm sorry I'm not in a position to hire right now, but my gut feel is that you can do great. A lot of people don't know/remember that they can ask for help, but you asking HN is a good step. And remember that you can also ask around in all kinds of other areas, until you find someone who's in a position to help, and work with them. In addition to the things you can figure out to do on your own.

Get a legal job that pays you at least minimum wage.

That should be your #1 priority. Absolutely anything. Just apply to everything until you get something. Once you have income that you control, then start applying for computer industry jobs.

Avoid homelessness at all costs, that’s a really big hole to get out of.

Here's my experience - it sounds similar to yours, but with a couple of key differences that might be useful.

When I was in college, I really REALLY wanted to be am Electrical Engineer. I applied to loads of jobs - found a list of 75 positions I applied to from 2 different career fairs (plus random others). I got 1 job offer and I was SO RESENTFUL.

Naturally, I took the job - but I kept applying. I found emails from 100-200 jobs I applied to (no interviews). I found an email to a startup - I got an interview! - but no offer.

I kept at my job. I built a reputation. I got ranked good. And bad. I networked and made friends. I got recruited by a former boss to move to a different part of the company.

I EXPANDED my network. I went to conferences and told people what I was doing - and I helped them do it, too (for free/fun).

I'm at a point now where I can move teams and people REMEMBER me. I have former co workers who want me on their team. I've worked up - slowly- and I never got the job I dreamed of in college, but I do have a good job that I love and it pays the bills.

Summary: 1) Be good at what you do 2) Make friends with the people around you: peers and boss 3) Make friends with THEIR friends 4) Help them be good at the things you are good at 5) Be good at more things 6) Make more friends 7) Repeat

Also, probably something about patience, hard work, being grateful with the life you have... idk, I'm not the Dali Lama ;)

If you're not currently working, I'd recommend a staffing agency, Uber Eats, Taskrabbit, Instacart, etc. There are ways to start making money right now that might keep you from being homeless. And being homeless is going to set you back.

Don't put any of the above on your resume.

What are you looking for? You haven't really elaborated on what your skills are except for alluding to a possible penchant for security research. If that's really what you want to do (and you think you have enough knowledge of networking technologies and security practices that it's really your best path forward), do that!

If you hunt for bug bounties, and blog about your findings (even if you don't hit any), that's going to be a really good way for potential employers to audit your capabilities.

If you're looking to get into software development, publish some work on github or get involved with an open source project. Even filing issues is a great way to showcase your ability to work within a team and contribute. QA is often a great stepping stone into the world of software engineering, and (depending on the type of QA), you really just need to be computer literate, dedicated, and capable of working with a team. Those are things you can demonstrate on github.

It's not going to be an easy path forward, but getting some income you can live off of right now, then pouring all of your energy into working in the open is going to be your best path to getting hired. You don't have the resume to get the kinds of jobs your looking for, and it sounds like you haven't even had the kinds of jobs that would look impressive to potential employers

From my impression of this post, and your comments, you have a non-traditional upbringing, a nonconformist streak, and a problem committing to things. None of these are bad, but they aren't setting you up for success in a corporation that tries to de-risk it's hiring process, and find people who will fit the culture and make contributions for years. I think it's really important for you to understand that the world doesn't owe you anything, certainly not a pay raise after 2 months, and it's best to be humble. Being homeschooled gave you a huge leg up in developing dev skills and allowed you to get an IBM internship, but now the rest of your age group has essentially caught up.

However, there is still a massive demand for software engineers, and those with technical talent, you just need to find a way in to the industry given that you essentially "have no past", or serious work history. One option might be to do a FE bootcamp on an ISA. I would also suggest making open source contributions regularly: pick a language and toolchain and start contributing. Might I recommend Haskell or Lisp? (a personal fav) This is all the standard advice, and there is no reason it couldn't work for you if you give it enough time. Also, as a Knuth check holder, don't waste too much time reading Knuth when you aren't applying it to a specific problem, or doing academic research.

I work with some non-college degree devs, so It's definitely possible, but you need to be writing a ton of code, and pretty much be all about that. Longer term, I think your mindset/experience/history would be well suited to founding a company, but I'd strongly suggest, getting technical experience for a few years at a company first. Best of luck.

Positively, you sound like a self starter and very good at figuring things out, including creative ways to break things. It does sound like there is a pattern to why your jobs have not been working out. One way to diagnose that would be to think about what it was like to manage you - how might have others seen you in a work setting? Pragmatically, I'd look for a recruiter who doesn't mind coaching a little, and in shopping for a recruiter, you may learn from your conversations with them.

I don't know about the "creep" feedback here, but it sounds like any experience learning how to be a good guy to work with would be helpful. I'd look at Joel Spolsky's writing as a guide to tech industry norms, or Laszlo Bock on trust in teams. Once you have the luxury of time, I would look for books or movies or shows that show problem solving teams in action, just to get some more insights from examples. Emphasis on "team". "Soul of a New Machine", by Tracy Kidder, wsa eye opening for me, though that's a picture of the industry from ~50 years ago. Ellen Ullman, too.

A lot of advice here already, but personally I don't understand why you're applying at all these big-name companies like Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb, Palantir. I probably wouldn't get hired at most of them, and I'm fairly experienced, got a reasonably nice CV, and have reasonably okay interview and social skills.

There are many MANY small tech companies out there, ranging from 2-3 employees to maybe 100. At one of my jobs we worked from the owner's mother's garage; we had lunch with his mother every day. It's not shiny and glamorous like Google or Apple, but it's honest work and plenty interesting. I sure wasn't bored and had a great time there.

Just go on Stack Overflow jobs, or Monster, or whatever is in your local area, find software dev jobs that seem interesting and send in your CV with a decent cover letter. You probably never heard of that particular company and that's just fine.

Because quite frankly it looks like right now you're trying to star in a big-budget Hollywood movie when all you've got is one B-movie on your credits.

Focus on what you have to offer to companies. Everything else is secondary.

- What's your role? (dev, QA)

- What's your speciality? (python, mobile, etc)

- Are you good at your role and speciality? How can you show so? (I completed this course, read this book, have this portfolio project)

Following supply/demand rules, you will be offered a job when you clearly offer a value proposition that is fits a given company's needs. It's as simple as that.

I feel really sorry for you.

If you believe you have good skills, make absolutely sure necessary people know about it. Be very public. Tell about yourself, show examples of your work - in this case it would probably benefit to work on side projects and demonstrate progress; you'll open yourself to lots of criticism, but win in the Theodore Roosevelt (man on the arena) sense. Becoming this public may be uncomfortable, but it's a necessary ingredient; you won't realistically get to a "deal" with people if those people unaware about you.

Don't allow yourself to become homeless if possible. If you don't have close friends, ask for help from less close. Be prepared - and then proceed - to spend next weeks and months concentrated on the task; again, make sure everybody knows about it, what you're doing and your progress. I wouldn't mind periodically read here about it. You have a lot of work to do, but you're not alone in the situation like this; try to make a good example to others.

Would you like to try a mock interview over Zoom or something? I need one as well. We can give one another feedback. I'm unusual in my own way. I was successful early in my career (graduate of a top program, with Research Honors; and twice won awards, each with extra stock options, during 5 years at the fastest-growing Fortune 500 of the 90s) but burned out. Since then, my experience has been spotty, though I was a Lead Software Engineer once. I'm still trying to get back onto my horse. Anyway, I am now more interested in people and our quirks than in systems and code. The son of two social scientists, I viewed reading other people's code, and trying to decipher the intentions and guess the most-likely flaws, as "an exercise in abnormal psychology." I can give you my read on how I think you're likely to be perceived.

First, please read this, it's important: you are going to be OK. Even if you are homeless. You will be OK. Take things one at a time, and try not to worry about anything except your most immediate problem/task.

Second: choose a path. Do not go all over the place, from Facebook coding to Home Depot manual labor. Pick one path and focus your energies on that. Even with a good resume and interpersonal skills, it can take a while for a job to open up if you have no networking contacts.

Third: consider your approach, to your job search, your employement, life. You mention here that you've spoofed numbers to contact high-level executives, and sent them e-mails about problems you found in systems. Other people do not do these things. Don't do things that make you stick out, buck the system, or bring attention to yourself. Focus on only fulfilling the requirements of your job. Use normal means of contact. Present yourself as a normal person with basic skills and competency in working with people. Be reliable.

Fourth: you've been looking for a year; this is not uncommon. Do you have friends or family to ask for help? Ask them. If you don't, you'll need to reach out to resources in your city for people who don't have a job or are homeless. You may need to look into daily/weekly/monthly housing if you can't afford an apartment. Look into job training programs, unemployment, shelters, private outreach programs. Keep applying to minimum wage jobs. Contact temp agencies, staffing agencies, recruiting agencies.

Fifth: If you really feel like Bill Landreth, keep reaching out for help. This is a good start. Look into local social services. Call SAMHSA (https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/national-helpline). Contact a local PATH provider (https://pathpdx.samhsa.gov/public?tab=stateandprovidercontac...). Contact a local ESMI provider (https://www.samhsa.gov/esmi-treatment-locator). Tell them that you have concerns about your mental health but that you are soon to be homeless and need help. Find someone who can help you work through how to deal with this scenario while also working on the path you chose above.

Good luck to you man. Keep at it, you will be OK.

You need to develop some significant experience "collateral". Unfortunately your pattern of quitting is a red flag and while it doesn't exclude you it means anybody in a hiring position needs to see positive evidence that you can actually contribute in a serious, long term manner.

Either an unsexy job coding (short term contract work, etc) - or - seriously beef up your open source (github, gitlab etc) portfolio with some really top notch contributions and ideally some projects of your own.

Also - I know this might be controversial, but drop the fsf email at least for your job applications. I'm a huge fan of FSF but I can tell you it's also flagging you as a potential over-zealous, opinionated person and all things being equal someone equivalent who seems pragmatic without that is going to get the job.

Have you tried making a profile on Dice?

I was looking for positions and as soon as I made my profile public, I instantly started getting calls/emails from recruiters. Some of them are shady or hiring for bad companies, but if you know what you want (sounds like you do), it makes the process a lot easier.

Here's my overall suggestions, some of which are overlaps with other people's advice:

- Find a local programming or software or security group, get some contacts. Have people mock interview you as though you are applying for a job at their organization. Have them be brutally candid. My guess is that you come across as some combination of arrogant and disjointed, just from the writing and the patchwork of roles. See if someone will tell you that (or something else!) to your face.

- You need to build a narrative. I also do not have a college degree, and in the early days of my career it was very challenging to get people to talk to me. The key is to have a very clear story about why you are the best at X and/or Y and how past work funnels into this role you are applying for.

- Companies like google, facebook, etc. have so many candidates that they are totally willing to pass on perfectly qualified people that don't fit the mold of who they want to hire. They see it as a feature, not a bug, but it is not in your favor. Look for smaller companies, maybe less senior roles, maybe contract gigs, anything to build that narrative and give you some resume items.

- You should be networking, with those people from the first bullet point. If you develop a local reputation as someone who is smart and just has a funny resume, you are a lot more likely to get hired. By the same token, if you develop a local reputation as over-opinionated and hard to work with, you will know it and that is why you are having challenges.

- Don't get discouraged about stuff like the manual labor job - they're pattern matching as much as a big company like Google does. They look at your resume and say, "Man, this guy is all over the place, he is going to be more of a hassle than he is worth" and go hire the 19 year old who just wants a paycheck

- Think about consulting, either directly with a company or freelancing on fiverr, etc. Is it exciting? No. Can it pay the bills? Yes. Can it build towards this narrative that you came up with a few steps before? Yes, potentially.

> "I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation."

After two months in my latest gig I was still learning names of people in the org, being onboarded to project and trying to piece together the codebase. Seems like you need to learn some lessons in humility.

Occam's razor is a principal that applies here. You are getting turned down because you are simply not an attractive enough applicant. If you want to improve your chances- you need to put more energy into what you've already mentioned.

I know some people who have put 150 hours of their time into leetcode problems alone before their interview for an entry-level position at Google.

What do you have to offer the companies you've applied for?

It's deeply unjust we live in a society where simply being a person isn't enough to merit having a home and medical care, but that problem isn't going to be solved in time to help you.

Or, in other words, I'm not going to say "The world doesn't owe you a job" - but the world certainly acts as if it doesn't owe you a job, and you need to deal with that.

If I were a customer support manager and wanted to hire you, what would make me hire you over someone else? From your post, it sounds like the things you have to offer are that you'd help other parts of the company with their problems, and you'd want to transfer internally in well under a year. That's maybe good for the company, but that's not good for me - I don't get any recognition (or even headcount) for things my new hires on customer support do to help other random parts of the company, I'm evaluated on whether my customer support people do customer support. And new hires need to be trained on the company's procedures, which takes a while, so if they leave after a year - even if it's better for the company in the long term - that time is largely wasted.

Sure, you're providing value to the company. But that value is measured by one specific person, your boss. What are you telling potential bosses that you'll do? When they ask you about how you've brought value in previous jobs and about what you're likely to do, do they leave that conversation with the impression that hiring you will be a good decision for them personally?

I hope you're telling them things other than how you went off solving other problems unrelated to your job, no matter how cool it was.

It sounds like you're smart. Point that smartness in the direction of making it financially worthwhile for someone to hire you. You need to offer them more benefit than they offer you, and you need to offer them more benefit than the other applicants for the role would.

(So, if you want good compensation, you need to offer then quite a lot of benefit.)

1. Stop job hopping!

Instead job level-up.

The difference is that you build something to launch yourself up higher. You had the gem of that at Amazon in your outreach efforts but left rather than pursue it.

Take it on the chin and re-contact Amazon and point out your previous extra efforts and point out that you would like to find out what path there might be for those that do such efforts. Possibly the same Vp you emailed the suggestion to perhaps.

you have the gem already to solve this in what you did at Amazon in reaching out to the VP with a useful suggestion.

You now have to own it in that you have to focus on those extra efforts with better out-reach communication. Ask that VP for assistance in that aspect.

Since you're scared ...

You can drive a semi-truck. That was my solution for pay and health care, after destroying my software career. Most large trucking companies either have their own CDL school or contract out. Driving a semi-truck is a learnable skill, and you will get hired. My company paid for my school, requiring a year of work or I'd have to pay it back.

Short term, if you're "really" scared, you can get hired anywhere as a security guard. That was also my solution, until I figured out truck driving was viable.

If you don't find any "in-career" suggestions that work for you in this thread, think out of that career box.

Candidly: 1. The kind of companies you are applying to (apart from DoE and I guess Dell) are literally the "best" places in the world to work. You are going up against people with objectively much much better qualifications and experience than you. Aim lower. Life is tough and sometimes certain paths are just shut off for you, permanently. You can point to the one person who is killing it at Google after working as a grocery bagger for 20 years. Thats not going to be you, statistically speaking.

2. You do not seem genuinely interested in any company. You come across like that college student who applies to all the top companies as....they're the top companies. Find what you want to do and apply to do that, no matter where and in what junior position. Look I do not know you but I'd bet a lot of money you took the amazon gig just to say you work at Amazon.

3. You do not seem genuinely interested in the day-to-day job you are going for. Again, if you did, I do not see why you are not applying to do that job at...a local high school, if needed

4. Intern in the role you want. Do it for free for a charity (volunteer). Blog about it. Make YT vids about it. Why do you think speaking to an SVP would even matter? The chances they will give you a shot are slim to none. What did you even say to them? Give me job. I hack?

5. Personally, I appreciate your "spoofing" antics. It shows a bit of daring and networking. I don't think its creepy IMO.

Amazon's warehouse jobs pay about the same as the customer service jobs but have decent health insurance. They hire everyone that passes a basic background check, no interview or anything.

Adding to other observations here:

You got meetings with SVPs at Dell, Cisco, etc. Those are *really high positions* that you reached out to directly. They have hundreds of people under them, possibly over a thousand. They have problems upon problems to deal with. They won't have any time for a single new hire, let alone someone who is still at the early stage of their career.

People who've worked in plum tech jobs for 20 years still think twice before reaching out to an SVP directly.

Set your sights lower.

Like others have said, having short stays at previous companies can be perceived as negative. The same applies to bypassing filters, even if your intentions aren't malicious, although as usual YMMV.

Many companies want to see that you can continue to work and transition away to other better jobs as opposed to leaving, although that's easier said that done in many cases.

In terms of healthcare, Medicaid can be incredibly frustrating. What are you looking for that isn't available through it?

At this point in time I think it's much harder than normal to get a job because of COVID/etc. My feeling is that lots of companies are waiting for the other shoe to drop in terms of the economy/COVID.

You also may have a lot more trouble going directly into Tech. It might be easier to get there by first getting hired in Finance, Health, etc... Things aren't permanent, and sometimes you'll have opportunities that aren't present in other sectors.

Last but not least, your perception of the world might be on the binary side. Does Bill Landreth think he ended up in a bad place? Sometimes having a seat at the table is better than doing your own thing because you might be able to change more at the table. Also, nothing's permanent. If stuff doesn't work out, you can leave.

Maybe I'm a bit late to the party here, but I do career coaching and I'd be happy to schedule a free 30 min chat / do a practice interview. [Email in profile]

Regarding my experience, I have passed SWE interviews at google (interned at oculus/facebook) / regularly conduct such interviews at my company. On a bit more personal note, I definitely had a phase in my life where social interactions didn't come naturally. I needed to break down social interactions and create rules to better navigate them.

Regarding baseline feedback, there is already a lot here, I'd just say that your number one focus should be to get a job and focus on keeping that job for a year or two. People will only trust you with more senior roles if you can demonstrate a track record of commitment. Of course, it may be the case that all of your previous jobs were bad situations to begin with, but people who are looking to hire you now don't know what happened and will see leaving many jobs as a red/yellow flag.

I imagine that it will take effort, but is totally within your capabilities, to work on staying committed to a job for 1-2 years even it if feels below you, etc. It may take some changes in perspective, but it is definitely possible to get help with navigating the mental hurdles that come with staying at a job even if it isn't the most exciting thing in the world.

I'd also take a lot of the armchair diagnosing with a grain of salt. Its normal for people to struggle with various types of social interactions. If getting diagnosed were important to you, you could definitely see a licensed psychologist (not me).

All that being said, let me know if I can help!

I don't always have my shit together, but that's more the nature of my business as well as my mental state at the time (ADHD).

That said: I was obese and very sedentary at 30, lots of back pain, etc. Standing jobs, not something I could really do. So, I learned to code. But then, how do you get a job when you're not a college grad?

Well, you write blog posts, you create a github portfolio, etc... and then do shitty jobs on upwork or something till you get higher paying gigs... etc.

I still have imposter syndrome but have some good clients that treat me well (I mostly freelance, and selling myself is usually where my famine months come from).

So, I can't really say how to get a decent job w/ the benefits as I freelance, but I know freelancers who make > 100/hour which is generally enough to self-pay for benefits.

I think your best bet w/ less experience is maybe going to WeWorkRemotely and looking at the customer service jobs? Some of those pay > $20 and have decent benefits, or maybe some other job you think you'd qualify on there for. Angel list is another good place for startups w/ VC funding (read: can afford benefits).

I'm fascinated that you were able to interview and in a few cases get hired by companies with a massively high bar and sophisticated screening. Someone let you in the door because they saw something in you. They wanted to give you a shot, that they DO NOT give to just anyone.

This almost certainly has to be a significant problem with mental health or social skills. You're just not fitting in, so you're getting ejected over and over.

Assuming mental health is something you've accepted may be the problem, my advice is:

1) Go to therapy and invest in it. If you're prescribed meds, take the meds. If they give you goofy homework do the homework. Double down on it. (this helped me)

2) Accept that even though you have talent, these bigger companies just may not be the right fit for you. There are many small tech businesses, including development and security consulting shops and agencies (think 100 people or less) that pay well and are staffed with talented misfits. They tend to be very nurturing places that let you carve out your role and find your place. Smaller businesses have health plans etc too. Be humble and have an open mind.

One thing that managers generally does not like is staff that does not “fall in line” and create issues for them that they have to deal with. I would therefor not mention for example having emailed VP:s about issues or highlighting bypass functionality in systems (if your previous job description did not include to highlight this).

From a managers perspective in the example, they are trying to run an operation of good support. They have to comply with different laws and have a solution “that works”. They may not appreciate that someone in the staff highlights “flaws”. If someone highlight flaws of this type anyways:

1) if highlighted by a staff member may have to be addressed. In particular from a staff member that emails VPs. Some point in time, possibly after a difficult process, legal may have ticked this off. The manager may not be happy to have to revisit this question again.

2) It may be difficult to address for the manager (request new support services software? Get an opinion from legal? - may be a large project)

3) disrupts the main goal of the manager of providing good support services.

You are not unhireable, you're just not patient and you don't understand your situation: You aren't going to get a good job without a college degree. You're going to get the lowest level job and have to work your way up. That may be true even with a degree, but a degree will make getting getting one of those low level jobs a lot easier.

Honestly I don't know how you managed to get a dev job at IBM in the first place, but low pay and little benefits are all you can expect when you're starting out with your level of education and experience. You shouldn't have quit a dev job with IBM, without another job lined up: 3 years experience there would have made getting a better job much easier.

Also not getting a response from a company isn't "ghosted". It's standard practice that many places don't contact applicants to let them know they aren't getting the job. Saying you were ghosted makes it sound like you think it was something personal about you. It wasn't.

Home Depot: The retail sector has been shit this past year. People were getting fired left & right. Your failure to get a job at a retail store like Home Depot is no surprise, and has nothing to do with you.

My advice would be to complete your degree as soon as possible. I'm looking at two identical resumes and the only difference is that one of them completed a college degree, I'm offering the job to the person with the degree.

In the meantime, register with temp agencies to try to get some work that builds your resume & experience. If you can get even a shit level job in dev, take it and stick it out.

I'm not saying that all of the above is fair, but "fair" is irrelevant here: This is how things work, and you have to deal with it on those terms.

My advice is make sure you have the programming fundamentals. Online courses are available - MIT offers great classes and free too. Taking some kind of accelerator or bootcamp might work for you too.

Supplement learning with doing projects. Create some things you want to play around with. I found implementing data structures was a good project while learning programming because it simultaneously helped familiarize me with the data structures and with learning programming. Add on some projects in the areas you're interested in. Chat app, video game, website, whatever. I also suggest reading official documentation for a language or library instead of a book on the subject. The official docs, if good, are a lot more dense and valuable. I taught myself python just by reading their official docs and it was the easiest experience I've ever had learning a language.

As you get ready for the interview I would watch YouTube videos that take you through mock interviews. Listen to questions, pause the videos, give your answers, then listen to their analysis. You don't always need to agree with these videos, but it's good stuff to think about.

I also highly recommend leetcode. I know some people look down on it but software interviews often have a component that is basically a leetcode question. I suggest solving 2-300 problems, mostly medium or hard, and making sure you can solve any medium or easy question, and explain it as you go, in under half an hour. If you get stuck YouTube is a good resource to see people explain leetcode problems.

I have also found it helpful to write a little log as you're learning or working on a side project. I take notes of major failures and ask, and then explain in writing, why that happened and how I can prevent it in the future. When you find yourself writing multiple entries in the log with the same explanation, you know you've found a costly error you need to correct!

Credentials: You have to finish a university / college degree, at least a bachelor. Spend the entire last year of the studies to also look for job leads for after graduation. Stay in uni and finish the entire degree. Try to expand your horizon as much as possible, get to know people from a broad set of backgrounds. Lift weights and run/bike/swim.

Interview prep: Then try getting good at Case jnterviews, which are good for structuring your thoughts in an interview session. I really like Victorcheng.com .

Network: Then you must network, you must be part if a social graph to make it.

Social skills: Force yourself to be outgoing. If you are not already, it is a fresh skill that needs to be maintained.

Career councelling: And you must have a narrative that does not paint you a picture as a quitter. Get a pro to redo your CV and get interview coaching.

You are not alone in struggling to get going in the market. My advice here will work if you take the long hard road. This thread also contains a lot of good advice for you.

I am in germany, so, things in the job market are a bit different here... but let me try an advice:

Why not try something completely different for a while? In the early 2000s i was in your shoes, nobody wanted to hire me despite some (from my perspective) good skills. I was totally frustrated and didn´t thought i would ever get any half decent job... so, out of a sheer "f*ck to the world" rage i joined the german army.

After spending about two years in camouflage suits following orders of total barbarians and putting my body through more pain i would ever have dreamed of i got back to the civilian market and landed within three weeks after my release from the military a good job as an system administrator with a good company.

What i want to say with this little story: Don´t focus to much on what you want now, you will get frustrated and potential employers will see this frustration... do something completely different for a while, get your head clear and start all over again.

IMO you want two incompatible things - you want the security and good pay of a corporate drone while living the hotshot maverick life that gets away with being above the things. There are few jobs that will allow you that and they require to be with the company from the start, a smaller company and quite a bit of luck to land one.

So just choose one of those paths.

If you're a rockstar coder, you should be able to crush something like Triplebyte, skip directly through to talking to founders and find some who will tolerate your scattered personality.

They might not be there in a year, and you might not be there in two months, so at least your time horizons match ;)

Also 'What Color is Your Parachute' is a must-read. As suggested there, you'll get much better feedback if you connect with tons of engineers (not hiring managers). They'll give you a straight take and in many cases suggest other places that are hiring and more of a fit.

Personalities don't change. Focus on turning your weaknesses--short time horizon, ownership mentality, all-over-the-place--into strengths. This means very early startups, consulting/contract work, or possibly launching your own projects. Forget about big companies completely and just try to talk to a few dozen very early startups whose risk profile includes making bets on SWEs.

I've never worked outside academia, so obviously take my advice with a huge grain of salt. To me it seems the common theme is that you are consistently applying to massive beurocratic organizations with rigid pre-established rules, and are then disappointed that you fit poorly into that structure. Have you tried looking at smaller places? This way even if you are entry level, your immediate boss will hold more meaningful decision making power. Your willingness to branch out independently and identify/fix problems will be more of an asset if there isn't already a person or department dedicated to every aspect of operations. Im wondering about maybe machinist type jobs at a local place, as they tend to be less picky about college education, but your technical and software skills could help you move quickly depending on what you're doing. Maybe you end up also fixing their business software backend etc

> Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb, Palantir

Maybe try some less big-name companies. Google is not the easiest place to land a job.

> Reading Meyers, Knuth etc

As in the art of programming? If you read the entirety of that, and understood it, that's a huge accomplishment. Probably not something that will get you a job (i know everyone complains about having to reverse a binary tree on a whiteboard, but its pretty rare to actually need to do that). Anyways, its something you should be proud of.

> and wrote a detailed e-mail to the VP in charge of the anti-fraud system

I don't know how it works at amazon, but usually VPs aren't the right person to contact about bugs.

> I tried cold contacting executives at a few companies. Got meeting with SVP at Dell, CISO etc. was fruitless though. Spoofed number to bypass contact whitelist etc.

Definitely don't do that. Any plan for getting a job that involves tricking people or being obnoxious, is a bad plan.

----

I think you need to work on demonstrating your value/selling yourself. Like just from this paragraph (i appreciate its not a resume), its unclear if you have very good hard skills (no degree, no work history. You don't have to have a degree or work history to get a job, but if you don't have those you need something else to demonstrate you have those skills. You need to be able to say something to make the interviewer think you can do the job). Its also sounds like you have weak soft skills (e.g. how to negotiate the politics of an office environment, what is and isn't appropriate in a professional environment, how to get along with others, etc). My understanding is that often people who go to therapy for other reasons often need help with that sort of thing, so a therapist might be able to point you in the direction of resources to help with that sort of thing.

Lots of great comments. May I point out something obvious though-- the poster has been looking for entry-level work during a horrendous 12 month labor downturn. Maybe it's been a better market for skilled technical positions, but apparently that's not the relevant market here....

I'm going to speculate that maybe the op has crossed a threshold from 'eager' to 'desperate'. That's not helpful to the job search. At this point the poster knows the industry, he probably identified a few quirky opportunities for people with similar resumes get on promising job tracks. Stay close to those, figure out how you can be useful to folks in those spaces and demonstrate it to them. And most importantly-- this is hard-- find enough peace and stability in your current situation so you don't come across as desperate, just eager.

When it comes to hiring "hacker type" people, we're always extremely cautious about them being trustworthy, because the amount of damage they can do is exponentially higher. There's no room for mistakes. You likely didn't pass the smell test.

As for Home Depot, you're clearly the wrong person for the job, even if you can do it. You'd likely have better chances with less skill, odd as that may sound.

In general, you may want to try saying less, especially when it comes to your "hacker skills".

> I need a job with decent health/dental insurance. Medicaid is useless. I might be homeless soon.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you're at risk of being homeless, maybe getting "decent" health insurance shouldn't be a requirement. I suspect you have some self-sabotaging tendencies, which is another red flag from a hiring perspective.

Have you been looking for security based roles and pen testing type roles? It sounds like you enjoy that type of work moreso than you'd enjoy a typical software dev job where you're building web forms or APIs that return JSON etc. I would also second the suggestion that you speak to recruiting agencies but even through agencies first look for jobs in security that could take advantage of your natural curiosity in that area. You sound naturally in love with technology but not necessarily a builder. And that may not be a bad thing if you can just find the right opportunity. Also maybe reach out to Hacker News user tptacek [1]?

And if you do use agencies ask for advice/coaching through interviews from day 0.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=tptacek

You don't really sound like you are cut out to work a corporate job. And that's not a bad thing.

I'd say find whatever job you can get your hands on that has basic benefits, and focus your energy on creating the next Symantec or whatever.

And maybe, someday, some oddball might contact you with spoofed credentials looking for a job.

I suggest temping.

When I needed to do that, I found only one agency out of like half a dozen in my area was any help. It was the same one that I got a job through almost 20 years ago. So it's important not to give up if some of them seem to be wasting your time.

If you need good benefits, then a government job may be the way to go. I've never known anyone who got one directly, but there can be loopholes, and temping is one route.

Extremely boring companies and organizations are more likely to promote you from a low level job in my experience, because they're not drowning in talent in the first place. Get a job doing stuff manually, figure out how to automate it.

Listening to people who have trouble explaining what they need can be far more valuable than pure technical skill. Treating nontechnical people as human beings is easier than anything people will tell you to do on HN.

Joining the military might be an option for you if you're not ideologically opposed to it. Try air force, then navy. Not marines or army.

If you're halfway intelligent with technical skills you will find something to do for four years, then you'll have better options when you get out.

Probably better than being homeless.

Maybe read this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_to_Win_Friends_and_Influen...

Everyone has said this a bunch already, but it's painfully obvious that your recruiters don't like you for some reason. Try reading that book, or some other self help book to try and game the interview (or maybe actually improve your social skills).

And also try to get honest advice from a friend or stranger. The problem might be something obvious and easy to fix that we can't possibly see over the internet. Like maybe you smell bad, or your haircut is weird, or your clothes are unprofessional. It'll probably be extremely awkward, but it will be worth it if it helps you get that job you want.

I read a bit of the responses here: some sadly very judgemental but I have also read OP’s responses.

I think seeing a therapist is a great idea given your difficult upbringing. However try to see someone who will help you improve on your professional presentation skills. Unfortunately this stuff matters a lot during interviews.

I mean someone who will candidly give you feedback on how you dress, communicate, your personal hygiene, language used etc.

Also, you have a powerful story of intellectual achievement.

I’d start reaching out to individuals on LinkedIn with a VERY SUCCINCT AND HIGHLY RELEVANT TO THEM message on why they should consider your for a position.

If you have references that can vouch for you this will go a LONG way. You mentioned IBM, anyone in there of some professional stature that could say: “yeah this is a good person to work with”?

Companies care a lot about perseverance and track record. You should stay at jobs for at least 2 years. Also, leaving college as a freshman does not look good; that is an inadequate education for tech. You are not going to get a good job with so little education (there are rare exceptions but you don't sound like one). If you need a cheap school, do that. I have a computer science degree from a cheap state school and I have worked at the best and biggest companies. You have to stop making excuses and stop focusing on being rejected. Focus on doing the work of preparation. Get busy. You can do it. IMHO you will never get a good tech job with so little education -- go back to school and get loans. Also I got a good internship from one of my professor's.

Go find and MSP where they can help you hone your skills.. You may still start out hourly but usually with benefits and you will be able to hone your skills and have people mentor you.

The QA on Apex, that's just churn and burn contract work to play a game and fill in some surveys and do this/do that...

IBM? Sounds like you were a contractor... i would have stuck that out - IBM often graduates contractors to FTE's and IBM will often pay for your school too.

If there are no managed services providers or no rackspace type companies around, find a contracting agency that does IT work - and do the same, show you can read a manual, do a job and start growing, building a rapport and getting some work under your belt.

But whatever you do, don't be a hacker, be an employee. They pay you to do what you were hired to do.

One thing that helps is to think of tech change in waves. Once the tide shifts on a technology it’s all downhill.. position where the good surfing waves are and life is easier.

You seem to have a passion for security, that’s a very specific mental framing that makes you suitable for some takes (tech security), and maybe terrible at others (holding open loving spaces for people grieving loss), but I could be wrong.

Consider the newly growing field of Cyber Securtity, with a short course right now you can be very desired by many companies.. even if you start by offering to look over their systems and help them work out a plan around their cybersecuirty.

Case in point; there are so many medium sized companies that even could just use a password manager to be setup across their network as an example.

0) Google, FB and other bigtech are extremely competitive, they get 100s of resumes per each opening. Without strong referral / top college graduation / significant exp (AND great interviewing skills) it's like lottery ticket. Even with all that it's a lottery. Bigtech hiring is foremost about avoiding wrong hires, hence ultra conservative. Try something from a bit lower league first.

1) Work on your writing skills. The post you wrote is not very clear in some places.

2) Remember to curate your CV/resume/story to each job to not appear underqualified/ overqualified/ having irrelevant skills/exp.

Show that you care about THIS particular job, not ANY job. Do a bit of research on each company and get ready to tell why X is best company for you.

I'm assuming you're in the US.

Pay attention to the news. One thing I see are articles pointing out that certain industries have a LOT of trouble hiring, yet we have high unemployment. I distinctly remember that the US manufacturing industry is having a lot of trouble hiring.

Target those industries.

Sounds like you’re firing on all fronts.

What’s your goal/objective? Pick an industry find their association and make inroads.

If you didn’t land a FAANG out of college you’re going to have the hustle at SMEs and build a resume that shows consistency in the following: - you showed up - you got things done (be wary of hanging your hat on that one thing you did back in xxxx).

But if it’s just healthcare, HomeDepot/CostCo may be a good bet. Even if you hustle at a place like that and make manager you can make enough to take care of a family.

Also I’d lose the victim and woes-is-you cuz big corporate isn’t noticing you -‘tude.

At the end of the day your job will be to make someone else’s life easier, if you figure out who and can speak to how in an interview, chances are you’ll get the job.

Network. It's never about what you know, always about who you know. Everyone likes to pretend it's a techy meritocracy, but it totally isn't. There isn't a dev shop on the planet that hires purely on technical skill and ignores all the social factors.

The valid method of bypassing the contact whitelist is to have someone who works at the company (or knows the hiring manager socially) recommend you.

Turn up to meetups, tech events, anything where the people you want to work with hang out. Make friends. Buy a few beers. Volunteer for stuff.

If you're an introvert and don't do this easily then try contributing to a FOSS project and getting invited into their comms channels. Again, make friends.

Sorry, this sucks I know. But it's how humans are.

snakedoctor, you have borderline traits and should try to work with a therapist to gain insight into the dissonance between how you see yourself and how others see you. It is not realistic for you to achieve your goals without working on your mental health first.

One more simple thing - please maintain a reasonable Linkedin profile and build some basic network there. Even if you avoid Facebook, Twitter and all other social networks - not having a Linkedin profile means taking on a big handicap while job hunting.

About security: It is NOT your responsibility to decide if things get fixed or not if you are not responsible for.

It is your responsibility to tell your manager (responsible person) what you found and what the impact is.

the responsible person will take the risk and risk assessment.

What are you like as a person? How do you present yourself in these meetings? What kind of values do you exude? Do you first listen and try to deeply understand the interviewer and what they're looking for – or do you nervously fill every void in the conversation with something? Your resumé definitely is important, but once you are face to face with someone; how do you employ charm? It might come off as a fad but https://dansilvestre.com/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-pe... (summary of the book) might be of help. Good luck!

How much actual paid work experience do you have? The pattern of quits of jobs/school isn’t attractive to most hiring entities, but if you’ve got enough experience and/or education, and you can mostly use enough of the former to substitute for the latter) to meet classification entry requirements, local or state civil service coding positions can be more tolerant of nontraditional work history than elite private and the most sensitive federal agencies, which seems to be where you've focussed.

By industry standards, pay sucks but benefits like health/dental are quite good in many cases (depends on particular state or locality.)

A lot of the jobs that you've stated you are applying for having notoriously difficult hiring processes. With your background and personality they might not be a good fit for you at least not yet.

I would recommend looking for smaller local startups or a company that has an entry level position and staying with them for a couple years to get more experience.

As a note on interviewing no one wants to hear a lot of negativity. When describing bad situations try not to throw dirt. It just makes you look dirty. Try to state everything in a positive way so that your image is not tainted by the negativity of what might have very well been a bad situation.

Good luck!

Have you tried applying to research universities as a developer or IT technician? They typically offer good benefits, health insurance, but are much lower on the pay scale than FAANGs or startups and may have a lower entry bar.

I've interviewed quite a few people at 2 FAANGs and other places. If you really don't know what went wrong with your technical interviews, we can try to have a mock coding interview over Zoom using collabedit, and I'll give you my candid feedback.

To clarify, I can't hire you for anything, this won't have anything to do with my employer, nor am I promising that this will help you in any way.

Strangely, the thing that jumped out at me was "Have to delete your emails constantly due to only having 1gb email space". What's going on there that you're having to juggle keeping stuff in a 1GB limit?

You are not unsuitable you have high negative emotions and low social skills. It would actually do you good to go learn to be an entrepreneur rather than looking for a job. Give you a hint you are looking in the wrong places. Your obviously high in iq. To be frank your best opportunity is presenting itself to you. Pick up the torch of the provider and go hunt for your meal. Go do something in sales and learn the soft skills necessary for a successful life.

Good luck and God bless I'm sorry you have found yourself in a position where you are so afraid.

To get real your mindset is the real reason you are in the position you are.

Bless

These are all huge companies, their hiring practices are optimised for scale, they are reduced to viewing you through a crude lens of metrics.

Don't play this game if it's not coming easy to you, they just don't have time for people not easily fitting their metrics. You can get a lot more job satisfaction working for small companies and from a hiring perspective they tend to be more informal, really trying to figure out if you are a reasonable person and have potential because that is what's important to them, not appeasing upper management by box ticking a due diligence form.

> Reading Meyers, Knuth etc. books.

I assume you are reading these books to get better at coding.

Reading books is a great start, but the only way to become good at writing code is to actually start writing code.

Reading is the theory, writing is the practice.

Stop worrying about a job and start worrying about skills.

The great thing about software is that you don’t need permission (a job) to make impact and to build skills.

Build something or contribute to open source.

If I were staring my career over and had trouble getting a software job I would get any job I could to sustain life -ex busing tables. Then I would spend all of my nights and weekends working on open source or building things publicly.

If you spend the next year doing open source contributions for 30+ hours a week I can pretty much guarantee that you will have a job.

It will be hard sure. But this is the way.

Develop skills and the jobs will come.

This is an easy one. You don't have a degree, and that means the types of jobs that will take you are the types of jobs that don't require one (like customer support or retail). Most tech jobs will throw your resume in the trash without a Bachelor's degree.

I would pursue at the very least a 2-year associate's degree from a community college as a starting point, and try to find a way to get a bachelor's degree. You might be able to go online, transfer credits from a community college, or find a night school at your local state university.

I'm in my early 40s. One of the best things I've done for myself over the last 20+ years is to lower my expectations for how responsive the world is and will be to my wants/desires/needs. It's a super fine tight-rope-walking line between having low expectations in some general sense vs assuming I need to be the agent in charge of my particular pursuit of happiness but this has been an exceptional way for me to approach the world. Best of luck. There's an arse for every seat. You will find something.

Your message reminds me of myself at your age. I took a long time to learn to be humble to see my flaws, which allowed others to appreciate my strengths. Keep hustling, but hustle with more empathy

As someone who hires and also coaches people into entry level positions, your story is not unique.

You asked a simple question: “how can an unhireable person get a job?”

Answer: You can’t get a job because you have given yourself the label unhireable. Period.

Everything in your post builds and reinforces the story you’ve been telling yourself for a long time. You are putting most of your energy into explaining why things aren’t working out for you.

Until you drop that story, no amount of advice will help you.

If there is a part of you that can recognize the truth in this, you have a chance to rewrite your story.

I'm assuming you're trying to get an engineering job but its a bit unclear?

I think what a lot of people miss about engineering jobs is that the first job is definitely hard, partly because people are giving you a bunch of money to do something that is difficult to quantify that may or may not make their business. Apply everywhere and be very ready to take the first job.

If you want to get a big tech engineering job, you need a couple of months of getting good at leet code so try to figure out a way to get that.

OHP is way better than medicaid if you can snag it.

There are already some excellent responses here.

I get the sense that you are still trying to figure out what role is ideally suited for you, is that correct?

If that's true, here's an out-of-the-box idea.. Why not get a job as a recruiter?

Assuming it pays insurance, it might give you a chance to stabilize your expenses, learn about what tech companies look for, and how they operate. You'll also build a network by helping others get jobs.

In your spare time you can work on a few open-source projects that demonstrate your competence as a developer, if that's what you want.

Good luck!

> I’m scared and I don’t know what to do.

I’m sorry. That really sucks.

It sounds like you could really do with some coaching.

I’m not the right person for that but perhaps if you asked for it, a better person would reach out!

heres some questions I would ask to gauge your interpersonal skills at an interview.

could you tell me about the last argument you had and how you resolved it?

where would you like to be in 5 years?

you had a strong opinion about a strategy for solving a problem and disagreed vehemently with a co-worked. it turns out, their strategy worked out great. what would you do next?

Have you tried consulting shops ? They can be hard and inhumane, but they take anyone then sell you in batches to big clients, you can then build up a bit of resellable skills.

If you like hacking or more importantly pen testing..Start with bug bounties..will take time but if you get some bounties you get money a well solid proof that you have skills.

I have a general question related to OP's situation:

How do you make a resume look better when you have many short stints on it?

I'm 30 and my average time to keep a job is less than 6 months. I always get overwhelmed and quit. When I start a new job I promise myself I will stick it out for just one year, but usually I'm white knuckling it within 3 months. I've been to doctors and therapists and have a clean bill of health. How do you develop grit and "sticktoitivness"?

Do you have anywhere you can do interview practice? Somewhere you can get honest feedback? It's possible you are sending of bad vibes. Impossible to say from just reading your post. But if you for some reason can't get a break despite an impressive track record and go-getter attitude, it's worth evaluating whether it's a personality deficit. If the person across the table feels uncomfortable with your, that can be a dealbreaker.

What immediately stands out here is that you apply for companies that are extremely competitive. Maybe try to go for non-FAANG-style companies first.

There's plenty of work in the software field. An income is better than no income. Admittedly, my perspective is European, so I'm not sure just how bad health/dental etc actually is when working for 'regular companies' but I imagine it can't be that bad for any SWE role?

Based on your cyber security background, I'd suggest you to take a look into the DeFi space and crypto related jobs. There's a big incentive at the moment for finding holes before others do, there are bounties programs, some projects are hiring, and so on.

Edit: I think that the whole "anonymous team" and "decentralized" thing could help you in your case. Can't check on someone you don't even know the name.

There are lots and lots of jobs that have health and dental. Most of them are not at FAANG or Palantir or the NSA or the CIA.... My recommendation is to find a job, any job, that serves your purposes and commit to staying for at least 2 years to start changing your narrative. As an example, getting a tech-support role at a localized IT/MSP should take you about 5 minutes if you are as technically sound as you profess.

Since you have an FSF member address, you might be interested in working on Free Software and Open Source projects, some resources:

https://www.fossjobs.net/ https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources

If you're even getting interviews with top companies that's a good sign.

Getting ghosted is common, don't worry about that, it's not personal.

Work with a recruiter to get some feedback, you seem intelligent, so this may be an issue with socialization or disagreeableness or something like that, which is a common trait people are judged for, but wherein there might be specific industries or professions that are more suited.

And don't give up.

Throwaway so this can’t be linked to my professional persona.

In this specific paragraph I would usually provide my work history to back what I’m saying I can’t however so you need to put a bit of trust that I’m a specialist at hiring people to different tech jobs. If you don’t, well, your call.

Based on those few short paragraphs I can see many flaws with your character and our interview would probably be very short even if you’d be able to _cheat_ your way in - as I don’t believe that your entry information isn’t oversweetened to the point of puke.

So from hi - Paper takes everything, deep background check is usually far after interview. You can write anything there. If it’s plausible we can talk. - Contrary to what some people here say, tech interviews aren’t reward in their own. It’s not random chance to get 1/500. Multi-staged mixed-interviewers are here for a reason. One person can make mistake. 5 people reviewing same person will find almost everything - You’re desperate. Desperate people aren’t good specialists. - When joining organization one of the most important questions is whether you can align. If you can’t, you’re out. - Even in your description you’re pulling out the big guns - you name Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA and then you’re a dropout who worked for a Amazon customer support role. Lot of smoke but no fire.

There is (obviously) not a lot in your description. Probably resume would be in place and most likely you’re presenting yourself from the best side which still has a lot of glaring issues.

Anyway, on to the road to the solution. You need to get character assessment and possibly even therapy. My guess is you’re exhibiting toxic behavior and if I’m correct it’s very possible you’re not aware about it.

I believe that your road to FAANG is burned down already, it’s not that surprising that you haven’t tried to work for smaller companies as your post screams “I’m the best and deserve the best” which is yet another sign that something is wrong with your character.

Place where I work provides detailed feedback for rejected candidates. I know that at least some of the FAANG provides detailed feedback too. If you haven’t received one it means it was decided that you’re toxic/troublemaker/straight liar and any interaction with you is not only cost but also might start a process no one wants to handle.

Fix yourself and you’ll get a job.

Contribute to a significant Open Source project. Many contributors to the D programming language project have leveraged that resume into well-paid jobs.

Seems like not finishing college is holding you back. I concur with some of the other comments about joining the military to help pay your way through college, unless there is a pre-existing condition that may disqualify you. Becoming a sensor specialist, a weapons specialist, an engineer or a doctor with the military will pay high dividends. You will remain employable most of your working life.

Everything you’ve written makes you sound slightly deluded about your chances or your life atm. I think you might need a therapist.

Try checking your local library for a career center -- I work for a career center locally and we do career coaching, mock interviews, and will review your resume and cover letter. Maybe your local library has the same, and can give you some one-on-one coaching and help with your job search, at least better than strangers on the internet can.

My 2 cents and honest opinion. Don't give up too easily. Why did you quit IBM without another offer? You had a job though with low pay. Getting you step on the door is the hardest part. Don't give up after that. Try to get any job for that matter and I can assure you persevering will pay off. I'm talking from my experience

My 2 cents and honest opinion. Don't give up too easily. Why did you quit IBM without another offer? You had a job though with low pay. Getting you step on the door is the hardest part. Don't give up after that. Try to get any job for that matter and I can assure you persevering will pay off. I'm talking from my experiance

What are your qualifications and skills?

Can you code?

What roles did you apply for?

Did you reach out to any recruiters? Some recruiters will help you with your resume.

You need a coach with an understanding of the tech world. Someone to tell you what’s wrong with you.

Maybe you come off as creepy, intense, stupid, spacey, who knows. Either way, people seem to fail you on the question “do I want to work with this person?”

Not sure if this helps, but we have a saying in Jiu Jitsu that a black belt is a white belt who never quit. Hang in there, and don’t be afraid to punch outside your weight class in tech - there are a million people out there who have problems, you just need to convince one of them that you’re the guy who can solve their problems.

You need a portfolio of whatever it is you can do. I think both long and short term someone like yourself should probably work for themselves. Try contracting, build public facing apps, a public repo, etc to show what you can do so that people are so convinced they can overlook your more challenging attitude/personality.

Yo i sympathise OP! I think most people in this thread are being dicks. The job market is ruthless at the moment. Interviewing when you don't have a perfectly linear story is the worst. I typically have to go: "yup, i'm a college dropout, i had a 2 year span were i was pretty depressed and did next to nothing, then i worked at a gas station for a while in my early twenties etc etc" It's difficult to convince anybody that you are an amazing hire after having admitted to a history of professional failure. I think it was just dumbluck I found my current job. My approach was to be fully honest and transparent, admit to being a bit of a fuckup, but i tried to frame it like it's actually a good thing, because im driven by those failures. I found when I tried to hide the interview typically went worse.

I think it sounds like you are an ace engineer, working for IBM at 18 and supplying patches to GNU projects. Thats amazing. You're probably a better engineer than most people in this thread calling you socially inept or gatekeeping the SWE roles. The job market is ruthless, so your frustration is completely justified. Here hoping you'll manage to turn your situation around!

I’ll email you in a moment, but I’ll share this here for everyone to see:

- develop marketable skills

- go where the money is

- work your ass off

- sell the absolute best version of yourself

- when you have a job, focus on how to get a better job

- don’t prioritize pleasing people, rather make people realize their success depends on yours

- “Don’t lose that cool of yours. That’s your meal ticket.” - Dominic Toretto, The Fast & The Furious

> Spoofed number to bypass contact whitelist etc

Hum, what?

I suggest for anyone, going to: https://www.latterdaysaintjobs.org/ers/ct/?lang=eng

...and learning from the site and them in person, asking them for feedback, and doing whatever they say. (There are other very good resources on various topics for life etc.)

Not only diligence, but also honesty and kindness (treating others the way one would want to be treated), and observing people to learn what works and doesn't go a long way.

And it is not always popular to say but is true: you are a child of God, with infinite potential. His commandments (the 10 are a decent start) are given for our benefit, to help us reach our potential. We might not always understand why -- but like guardrails or safety stripes on a highway, they really do matter. If you ask Him sincerely for help, intending to do what you learn is the right thing, He can help.

Don't ever, ever, give up on yourself, humanity, or those things. Life is worth it! Hard things can help us grow. You matter and are worthwhile.

I have wondered, while trying to recover from my own non-employment for health reasons, if places like upwork (and similar--search HN for discussions) are useful for ad-hoc p/t technical work while coming back. If you or anyone learns more about that, I'm curious for possible future.

Edits/additions: Avoid anything addicting -- it will cloud your judgement at important times, and when they are, you might not predict. There are also good resources for this.

I like another post here about empathy, and another on taking lower-paying (honest) jobs as better than nothing, sticking with them while looking elsewhere or working more on educational goals. Sometimes that certificate or degree means to people that you can be trusted to stick with something, and that might help you. Some you can do part-time online, or maybe in spurts for relatively very low cost are WGU (especially/maybe(?) if you study in advance and do many courses in one semester!--worked well for someone I know and others in HN discussions), at wikipedia) or at BYU Pathway Worldwide--good online school with lower tuition and a built-in support system for helping you stick to it.

And: In that URL I provided above, they will provide interview coaching, etc. Many things, all free and without obligation. The volunteers are often (usually? always?) kindly retired people.

You sound really smart although dropping out makes it harder to get hired. Perhaps, consider starting a company?

First you should remove "unhireable" from your post and mind...

I'd suggest you apply to small tech company (maybe 2 or 3 people) which doesn't have HR, then stick for years. Accept that most work are boring and doesn't need serious thinking, and spend more times on other non-tech things.

You remind me of some of my friends. I think you might benefit from a little perspective—standard life narrative scripts (like: "get a job") might not be so helpful for you, for instance. Shoot me an email rot13(baylgjbpnacynlguvftnzr) at gmail and we can jump on a call sometime.

If you're getting to the interview stage and that's where things go wrong, go through a practice interview with a friend who can be honest and I think it will be obvious to them what's going on. I can't pinpoint it from this but it sounds like it could be behavioral.

You're simply aiming way too high. Those companies are all world renowned; most companies are not. Nice to have ambition, but it has to match reality, and evidently it doesn't. Apply to companies that aren't known beyond the city; work your way up from there.

Are you the guy who tried to apply for a job for Unfortunate Spaceman?

Terrible emails at: https://twitter.com/geoffkeene/status/1337634779559129088

You don't want to climb the ladder. What made you think you had a shot at all of those companies? One had a thing going at IBM/EA, you are much more hireable having a current job.

Unless you got an idea for the equivalent of a flamin hot cheetos, my advice is go climb it.

Practice learning what people want and then trying to help them get what they want.

People who are good at this have endless opportunity.

Read the go-giver and give and take.

Then practice it and be patient. It can take a year or two to see results but they will come, and compound over time if you stay consistent.

Your local community college has a career center with someone who could give you more personalized, actionable advice than what you will get here.

You are right to ask for help, but you need it in person, and intensively until you've got a plan and got your feet back under you.

Good luck.

Most probably you're unable to sell yourself? Did you think of making your own product? How about a platform where ppl like you share rejection stories? Who knows it get exploded?

Do you maintain a GitHub or public profile? How about running a YouTube channel?

One optimisation: dont write into your resume that you had many jobs and stopped. Similar for college. Eg only mention IBM and fill the rest with “freelancer” or “educational projects”.

The details depend on your specific resume and dates, though.

You've gotten a lot of advice and there is something I'll reiterate. Don't aim so high. I eventually got to the level of being pursued by FAANGs, but it took many years of working at a "boring" software company and just gaining skills. Also, on your resume try to make it outcome focused. Don't say what you did, say what the impact was. Everybody "knows" c++, docker, , but what was the impact of what you did? Why do you know those things in the first place? That helps a lot when just sending resumes around and not having a connection. Also, you are studying all these algorithm text books, but first of all lots of companies do not go beyond simple graph theory questions. That was my experience at Apple (though Apple is very different from those other companies). If you are going for a specialized role like embedded systems or a backend software network engineer, the focus will be on things like "how does an OS scheduler work" not, "solve a dynamic memory problem". Also truly understanding the language you choose to program in is very important. It becomes immediately obvious when people don't really understand their tools, especially if they choose C++ (that's been my experience at least). You're over optimizing on the algorithms and not focusing on just software engineering. I am extrapolating this from what you said in the first paragraph.

Also, something that hasn't been really stated (and I feel weird saying this), but try to be funny (self deprecating is the safest way to go) and easy to talk to in an interview. Even though we all try to think of software as some pure meritocracy based on raw technical skill, it really isn't primarily because the technical part of the job is generally easy for the majority of positions and its communication where things break down. If you seem unapproachable or difficult to work with, then people won't want to work with you. I am noticing that at my current employer "soft skills" and ability to work with a team are becoming a bigger part of the interview process. When I do technical interviews if I can't converse with a candidate about how they got to their solution or their difficulties, its a bigger red flag than whether or not they could solve the problem or not (unless its clear that they really don't know anything).

edit: Also you mentioned something about long hair. I have long hair (a bit past shoulder length now, but its been a longer). Its something I worried about too. Nobody cares is what I learned. What people care about is if you are well kept. you can be well kept with jeans and a t-shirt and long hair.

> I've interviewed at Google, Facebook, Dell, NSA, CIA, DoE (E=Energy), Airbnb, Palantir

Those are some pretty impressive names for places you've interviewed at, but they also have the highest bars to get in. Why not try just some average, run-of-the-mill companies off job sites? There's nothing embarrassing about starting at those. I worked for a no name exercise tracking app company my first job out of college, who later threw out all the work and became a diet tracking app.

Sometimes when I've been between jobs I've even grabbed some bottom of the barrel project work off remote contracting sites. If you can write clear English and are willing to work at 3rd world country rates, you can get infinite work there. It still pays enough to get health insurance through someone like Freelancer's Union.

> I tried improving my interview skills. Reading Meyers, Knuth etc. books

I don't think reading books helps with that. I'd recommend practicing interview problems on sites like LeetCode. I have a CS Master's degree and can easily write an A* pathfinding algorithm on a white board and give you the time complexity of any algorithm, but it's not super useful for the sort of interview stuff I get asked. Typically you are just asked to hammer out a design or implementation for some specific set of requirements that complies with some set of performance criteria, so it's not really book learning being tested. More just that you can you sit down and write the right code/design - which is what you'll be doing every day on a programming job outside meetings collecting those requirements and scheduling the work.

> dropped out my freshmen year at a top 40 college. Was on the cyber security team etc. too expensive so I had to dropout.

Lack of a degree would disqualify you from 95% of programming jobs I've worked at. I don't think it's important myself, but I'm not a hiring manager. The only person I saw hired without one had an amazing project portfolio with hit apps in the app store I would have trouble writing. So it can happen, but it's like being a star baseball player. Outside the reach of most people.

If you really want to be a full time, salaried programmer and don't have a star portfolio, or large bodies of open source code to show off, I think you'd have to take out a loan and get that piece of paper from college first. Project work, or work from contacts or friends at tech meetups, generally is less strict re that. But companies that don't know you are going to just filter you out for no degree.

Best way to get a job is to get a job. Developers are in hot demand, so you must be able to find a job... somewhere. It may not be the best company, but you'll get a foot hold in the industry.

I know this, there is a certain number of applications you need to file to get a job. I can’t tell you what that number is. But I can tell you there is only one way to discover what that number is.

Sounds like you’re firing on all fronts.

What’s your goal/objective? Pick an industry find their association and make inroads.

If you didn’t land a FAANG out of college you’re going to have the hustle at SMEs and build a resume that shows consistency in the following: - you showed up - you got things done (be wary of hanging your hat on that one thing you did back in xxxx).

But if it’s just healthcare, HomeDepot/CostCo may be a good bet. Even if you hustle at a place like that and make manager you can make enough to take care of a family.

Also I’d lose the victim and woes-is-you cuz big corporate isn’t noticing you -‘tude.

At the end of the day your job will be to make someone else’s life easier, if you figure out who, and can speak to how in an interview, chances are you’ll get the job.

- Move to the EU to get health insurance (: - Start freelancing

You’re part of this new gen of folks who’s too sophisticated for their own good. See them all the time.. just try the same queue as everyone else and things might work out

There are lots of smaller less well known companies you can start at and then work your way towards your ideal. Try to stick at each company 1-2 years minimum.

Post your resume and github profile. This seems like a strange post to make without actually linking to any of the work that you've done.

This appears to be someone playing a joke on this thread. If such a person ever existed, I feel bad for you. McDonalds is always hiring.

A lot of the orgs you mentioned are top-tier and they interview A LOT of candidates and they reject almost all of them.

Get a job at a small no name company, gain experience, get a better job, repeat. That's how I got to Facebook.

I recommend building something, anything. Show your skills via attempting to build a product and shipping it.

Can a hiring manager just do an anonymous mock interview with OP over Zoom and offer actionable feedback?

Look at state, county, and municipal government. These are all soul-killers but generally come with livable pay and good benefits, and if you have any relevant skills at all, it's relatively easy to find an opening. There is also contract work for these entities, which can give you a chance to meet people, check out the landscape, and note which skills are in highest demand while you find a way to wiggle into the system.

Stay only as long as you need to or the environment will destroy you. Usually I'd say one year max, but you sound like you need more. Use your time to plan your future in detail.

Look and act happy. Defer to "authority" (i.e., the hopeless incompetent mutants who hire and fire). Smile a whole lot. Pretend that you like everyone even if you hate them all. Engage in friendly chitchat and help out with birthdays and potlucks when they come around. Fake it.

If people like you they'll give you a pass on everything as long as you don't set the place on fire or molest their children. If people don't like you then you're out of luck no matter how excellent you are, because it's government work, and government doesn't go broke, and if something doesn't get done today, or doesn't get done right, there is always tomorrow. And people just want to get through the day and go home and forget about it.

Consider creating passive revenue streams instead of employment. Embrace your position as an outsider.

Life as a ENTP. You need to start a company and stop expecting people to hire you, hire yourself.

You sound like the kind of person who should be freelancing or starting a business.

>I might be homeless soon

Where is your family? Why can't you return to your parents?

I'm a self taught dev, with only about 2 years of experience.

Personally, I do not apply to jobs. It feels like throwing my resume into a blackhole.

Instead, my strategy is: build an online presence --> I put my resume online in various job sites (see 3rd to last sentence in my post for examples), I have a web portfolio, which links to my github where I have an open source project I built (in modern frameworks: node, react, postgres) and I am on LinkedIn with over 500 connections.

I get jobs interview requests from recruiters via the strategy above.

* Do you have open source code on Github?

* Do you have a web portfolio showing personal/academic/work-skill related projects?

I worked 5 months in 2020-- mostly was on sabbatical. Yet was hired twice-- both times via recruiters who contacted me on LinkedIn.

In 2021, I've worked 2 months-- recently quit a job after realizing it wasn't the right role for me. And yet, I have spoken two recruiters (1 internal and 1 external recruiter) in the past two days. I usually get 1-3+ recruiters contacting me every week or two-- why? Because I market myself, and I decided to build trendy dev skills.

That is, I focused on learning specific skills which I saw were currently in demand: Javascript (node & react), AWS Cloud, SQL, among others.

Yet, I do not know algorithms. It's an area I need to study. So, I don't think I'd be able to land the interviews you've landed-- those top notch companies. If I did, I would surely fail.

By the way, those are difficult companies to pass interviews with. They all have tons of applicants.

* Did you send your resume to those companies/orgs you've listed on the first line of your post? Or were you contacted by their recruiters?

Recruiters contact software developers because they have a urgent need to fill a role.

Whereas, if you're applying to companies then you're throwing your resume into a stack of potentially dozens or even hundreds of very well qualified, well-studied applicants who in many cases studied for weeks or months for their interviews.

I don't do that-- Instead, I put my presence online via LinkedIn, A web portfolio, and profiles on job sites (Indeed, ZipRecruiter, DICE, etc. type sites-- the ones that let you setup a resume on their site so it can be indexed by recruiters).

It sounds like it may be a problem of your strategy.

Market yourself, if you're not marketing yourself.

___________

By the way-- Homelessness is not necessarily that bad as long as you're resourceful: asking around to find A. a property camp on B. local resources such as food banks & community centers.

I've spent a year of my life living out of a tent in my pursuit of software dev skills so I could study (and not pay bills) rather than work full time.

For example, I set up a tarp tent in woods on the outskirts of Portland, OR, and would go to a community center for showers. Every day I'd go to a cafe to apply to jobs (this was back before I worked as a professional dev-- was still working in marketing). And sure, my car was broken into while I was camping there, but hey-- all replaceable stuff.

Prior to that, I lived in a tent for 4 months on someone's property east of Austin, TX. How'd I find a person's property to camp on? I asked around in my social network & also to strangers at parties-- "Hey, I am looking for a property to camp on where I'd have access to a shower, bathroom, and kitchen, do you know of anyone?" --> repeated dozens of times until I found someone who knew someone.

In Juneau, Alaska, I spent 8 weeks living in a tarp tent while working at a fish smokehouse during the morning & early evening, and then studying programming in the late afternoon & sometimes evening at a cafe or library. Food? Breakfast &. lunch: smokehouse's employee breakroom microwave. Dinner: Camping stove. Showers? Public Pool's locker room.

Was it always comfortable and easy? Hell no. Did it make me work hard to accomplish my goal of building skills? Hell yes.

There are a lot of great comments here about what to do but wanted to add something a little different. Most of the advice here about what you should be doing is reasonable, but one critical thing that's missing is that most people that do the right, pro-social things, don't do it just to get what they want. When it comes to highly important decisions, sure, people strategize and ensure that the consequences are personally beneficial but for the most part, people act properly in social situations because they are socialized to instinctively care about other people's needs. People are programmed (through some combination of nature and nurture of course) to take into account the needs of others that they spend time with, whether bosses, coworkers, friends or family.

It appears to me that you're missing or perhaps blocked out some of this conditioning. The reason why people are throwing out terms like "sociopath" or "autism" here is that you do not seem to have any instinctive regard for others or even your future self in any of your stories - either you don't know how your actions would affect others or you don't care. I know a lot of people think being relieved of having to care about others makes it easy to become successful because they think they can then take advantage of others without any qualms, but this ignores motivational aspects. For most people, naked self-interest isn't motivating enough to get people to do the right things even for themselves. People that aren't motivated by something that's bigger than themselves - whatever the causes may be - usually find it difficult to put off instant self-gratification and control their emotions enough to do what it takes to become successful. To be motivated enough to overcome your habits, you may have to learn to care about other beings beyond your immediate self. This will also make it easier to instinctively do the right thing - you don't have to pretend to care, when you actually do.

Don't use the dad email address for job stuff. It has baggage.

Try doing a mock interview and really act on any feedback you get.

Here's some advice... stop asking the internet for advice

Freelance for a couple years, get marketable skills.

apply somewhere that will actually hire you whether they have good insurance or not

go to healthcare.gov & don't forget to thank obama

I gave up and became a lab tech.

I suspect this will never be read, but what the heck...

I sincerely wish you luck.

I reckon there’s a lot that hasn’t been said, possibly because you are personally unaware.

I can relate. I have had difficulty in personal relationships for most of my life, and learning to get past this was a long, humbling process.

Today’s hiring system is pretty messed up. I should know. I gave up looking some time ago, because the experience has become more akin to a college hazing, than a serious professional evaluation. I have no interest in proving to anyone that I’m willing to abase myself (because I’m not). If that is required, then I won’t waste anyone’s time.

But I’m extremely fortunate. I can afford to remain aloof. That’s a rare privilege.

Credit history is now something that almost every job looks at; especially at large companies. It’s pretty routine to review that. Most HR departments have contracts with vetting companies, and credit history is “low-hanging fruit.” These companies will also do things like check criminal history (even just arrest or misdemeanor convictions), follow up educational claims (I remember a guy getting fired, nearly a year into his employment, because he Photoshopped his degree), and will sometimes also trawl social media.

A criminal history or bad credit is not a showstopper, but it requires a clear, honest, humble approach; along with self-exposure. Assume they’ll find out. I knew a chap that did four felony bids upstate, and ended up working as a network admin for the DOE. Psych history is easier to hide, because HIPAA, but we need to address the issue, or it will be obvious. Even so, being honest and forthright can be helpful. If we have Tourette’s Syndrome, it will usually be immediately apparent, so it’s not a good idea to try to hide it, or get combative, when asked about it. Red flags make people nervous. Nervous people can ask awkward, ignorant questions. Being kind and understanding won’t hurt. We can decide that we don’t want to work with this person, but we don’t need to salt the earth behind us.

High-security corporations and TLAs will break out the proctoscope. There’s a form for applying to sensitive government agencies, that is over 100 pages long. They may interview your ex, so be nice to her/him/them.

I’m very honest. I don’t hide a thing. This has not always been helpful, but it’s also who I am. I have no interest in working with folks unwilling to accept me as I am.

I do know that most US states (from your post, I assume you are in the US, and that you are a US citizen) have agencies that help people to find work; often through coaching and résumé assistance. I live in New York, which is fairly good for that.

A follow-up mentioned having a portfolio. We can work on open-source projects, and build up portfolios. I have a pretty massive one.

We can also network. Develop positive relationships with anyone we can. Even low-level contacts in companies can be enormously helpful. Many corporations pay “spiffs” to employees, for recommending prospects. Be friendly, kind, open, and a team player. It pays great dividends.

Working in open-source project teams is a great way to do that. It also gives us a portfolio. Volunteer work is great. Many NPOs suffer a lack of tech talent. They would be grateful for any help, and you can establish great relationships, that way. Be careful, however, who you work with. If you work with United Way, local food banks, or housing assistance orgs, that is good. Work with more...intense organizations (I won’t list any) can be an issue, though.

There’s a lot more I could say, but I tend to prolix (obv). I suspect that stuff you did not mention is your albatross, and I’d suggest doing a fearless and searching personal inventory. Be brutally honest with yourself. Shine a klieg lamp on your personal aspect, personality, and demeanor. Ask for help. Be humble. It sounds like you have no choice.

Be prepared to address personal demons. It can be terrifying, but well worth it.

Good luck, and godspeed.

If this is essay is a representative sample of how you express yourself in general, then one recommendation is to improve your communication ability/style [1]. Stream-of-conscious may work in online chatrooms, but not in professional settings. In any team-oriented setting, clear and organized communication is non-negotiable. Your writing here signals intelligent, but manic, frantic, and maybe not a great communicator.

It sounds like you're a good technical writer when you need to be, based on your anecdote about writing up the problem with Amazon's anti-fraud system. But you need to be a good communicator in general, not just specifically to technical writing. However, if my overall impression here is inaccurate then feel free to ignore.

For example, up until the following line you were at least understandable, but this line was unclear:

>"Got referrals etc. dropped out my freshmen year at a top 40 college. Was on the cyber security team etc. too expensive so I had to dropout."

Are you saying you were on the cyber security team at your university, but it was too expensive so you had to drop out? If so, just say that in a sentence: "I was on the cyber security team at my top 40 university, but it was too expensive so I had to drop out." (also, did you apply for student loans? Most top 40 universities can put together a package of grants and loans to keep the folks they admitted). And referrals from who for what?

Also this:

>"Also was concerned about support reps being able to access any customer's data simply by pressing 'bypass' on the security question promt page. I couldn't transfer internally until a year later as well. Would ping your manager each time you apply as well. Have to delete your emails constantly due to only having 1gb email space. Assessment was similar to the one I took for CIA. Cognitive based assessment."

There are multiple concepts jumbled together here in a confusing stream of conscious. Separate each out into a sentence, simplify it as much as possible, and order the sentences according to some logical progression (chronological, causal, etc).

Busy people you're asking to employ you don't have the mental bandwidth to decipher your writing and communications, they're 150% preoccupied with more important things (to them). Make it as easy as possible for them to understand you, evaluate your request and the value in it to them, and say yes. "Don't Make Me Think" [2].

Any time you want something of value from someone, step outside of yourself, put yourself in their shoes, and think through what they need or want but don't have in their current position. Try to see the world completely from their PoV, imagine you are them. Figure out what they need, what is of most value to them right now, how to get it for them, and offer it in return for what you need. Get your clever hacker mind good at solving that kind of problem, and it will take you far.

[1]:https://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/06/the... [2]:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don't_Make_Me_Think

> I've quit a lot. I haven't lasted anywhere longer than 2 months. I contribute a lot and then quit after I feel like I'm not getting appropriate compensation. Though I certainly agree that I need to stick with a job. I think ageism, and other biases are in place though. More years of experience I get the less disdained I will be I think. [1]

As others have said, I think you're likely suffering from an accumulated lack of results as well as what feels like elevated or unrealistic expectations for the positions you're getting.

I agree with your characterization that, in a just world, your contributions would be given greater reward. But you weren't applying to work in a just world, you applied to work in the world we all live in. I think you need to face that the kind of treatment you've received is common. We work in an industry that has high pay relative to industries with similar levels of training - but considering the profit margins of the companies involved there's a case to be made that workers are under-negotiating their salaries nation wide. The lack of recognition you experienced is part of a pattern that you will continue to see - even (perhaps especially) at the companies you listed in your post.[2]

Instead of thinking about this from the point of view of the company, consider things from the point of view of the person interviewing you. One of the messages that they are going to receive from how you talk about your work history is that you accept position that you are not actually satisfied with in the hopes of trading up in the short term. When that goal doesn't come to pass, you often leave. If had an engineer with that attitude placed on my team by someone else I would be hesitant to give them responsibility. I might empathize with their perspective about wanting to be promoted or compensated at the level I felt appropriate, but that's the deal I've made with the company and I would suspect that I couldn't trust that you had made the same deal.

I think you should really think about what you are willing to accept. You should be prepared to stay while being unfairly denied rewards for...at least a year I'd think? That's not the goal, of course, but I think you want to distance yourself from that series of short stints. I would think you would maximize your chances of being hired if, when talking about previous gigs, you told a story about how you previously had unrealistic expectations but now you're world-weary like everyone else and mostly looking for more interesting work. It will be a careful balancing act because ofc people will wonder and be suspicious. Above all - the people who interview you are imagining seeing you every day for the next 1, 2, 5, 10 years. You need them to walk away feeling like, at minimum, you're not going to vanish on them.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26826805

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_L...

is there a chapter on copy & paste from stack overflow in taocp?

Go into politics?

>I welcome any and all advice that any of y'all could offer. Even if it's brutally candid.

You might need a job... but based on what I'm able to intuit from reading your message (and your other posts -- because I like to try to read everything from a poster to better understand them and their position before responding), if you need a job...

Then you need a MENTOR -- at least 10 times more than you need that job!

And maybe that need is more like 100 or 1,000 times greater...

In other words, your first priority in life, your absolute first priority, at this point in time, should be:

To get a good Mentor!!!

You can certainly apply to jobs too -- but your first priority should be:

To get a good Mentor!!!

Here, Tai Lopez makes the point much better than I do, in the following video:

Do You Need A Mentor? (Or Books)...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viMfGNJmimU

Now, Tai is not the only source of information on this subject...

Here, try this YouTube query for a list of videos:

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=power+of+mentor...

After watching some of those, the next logical question is, "How to find a Mentor?"

Well, let's again go to YouTube for some ideas!

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+to+find+a+m...

If I were you -- I'd spend the next 24 hours of your life listening to these videos and internalizing their ideas, and then (after the ideas have been internalized and the value of a good mentor is understood!) -- I'd spend the next couple of weeks actively searching for a good mentor, and subsequently trying to persuade them to accept you as someone to be mentored (note that this part of things may be challenging -- you may need to endure more than a few rejections... but "seek and ye shall find" as a certain old text that I forgot the name of -- so eloquently stated! )

Also, working with a great Mentor -- is infinitely better than having Health Insurance... (At least in my opinion!)

...But maybe if you play your cards right -- maybe you could get both! It would not be unheard of to find a Mentor who could offer you a job with Health Insurance, although, they would be a little bit harder to find than Mentors that don't...

I mean, Mr. Miyagi in "The Karate Kid" -- didn't offer Health Insurance to Daniel!

Yoda in "Star Wars" -- didn't offer Health Insurance to Luke Skywalker!

(But, who knows, maybe you can beat the averages, and find a Mentor who does in fact, offer Health Insurance... if Health Insurance is really that important!)

Anyway, wishing you well, and hoping for the best for you!

-Peter

Forget about Tech & hiring for a minute. Try to pretend you're not in dire straits financially and think where you'd like to be professionally if these things weren't the issue. What kind of job would you like to do if things were going well? No hiring manager will want to hear "I'm flexible", or "I can do anything" they want you to know for yourself exactly where you have set your mind at so there is little risk for them when they match you to what they have. Flexibility does backfire so avoid it!

There are many rants on social media right now from people who love hating on the meme that you need passion for your job. They are right ofc that this is overrated (and the point of where HR people sound like hallmark cards peddling passion as a requirement for the job also makes my stomach turn). But if it weren't for passion I'd have nothing in life and no desire to achieve anything.

It's also not enough to use passion to get out of where you are but it often is the first step in initiating needed change. Once you have it (don't be too eager to announce it but let it be your engine). Passion helped me to put up with a lot of other crap in life because it's like blinders on a horse that make you power through the shit while others say it can't be done. It allows you to be stubborn when you need to be (but others telling you "you can't afford its luxury"). It will also help keep your eyes on the ball when the road takes you on a detour. The best trips usually do, or as Mike Tyson said "everyone has a plan till they get punched". So better be great at rolling with the punches.

The problems you describe means you're the underdog that has to work 10x the normal rate and people like to hate on them because it provides them the contrast that they need to feel good themselves. They point their petty fingers and say "look how well I'm doing in comparison", and you need to assume many will do that instead of really helping you. You can sense the tone of some in this thread. Be sure many IRL will also get hung up on that you tried to spoof the number. But really nobody gives a shit as long as you don't tell them. We all fuck up, so move on, do better next time. And don't listen to anyone but yourself (and below is the reason why this is crucial).

People in your situation don't really know any more what their self* wants in the long run and are forced to take the next best opportunity (anything really because as your environment tells you: you can't afford to be picky).

You may think you're not even in a position to say no to anything. Any crap somebody offers you will need to be "evaluated" as it were "the deal of your life"! And this is what wastes your time and what may cost you dearly, there is nothing more expensive than being poor (having no options). So be careful with any and all advise and with the opportunities that you consider taking and reject them when needed. This is a mindfuck because how could you when you seem to have no choice: but you always have choice! And as others here have said: take a step back (meaning step out of your comfort zone and accept a detour). You still got the best years in front of you but it depends on the things you set in motion _today_. Many don't have that luxury anymore (even they talk a big game).

If you can't get your foot in the door try to find something that allows you to survive, but where you can also carve out just enough time on working on a side project (or whatever you decide tickles your fancy. It doesn't need to be work related - that might come anyway automatically[1]) and build a social network from there (because you are forced but more importantly because you want to and it feels right).

It might take months or it could take years. But the point is that you keep moving. Sometimes quite literally. You can optimize your luck by packing light and move to another city or country to do whatever you find. It's perhaps gonna suck very often but it also gonna be an adventure, and more important, you'll find that you're learning something new and expand your social circle. So even when the job sucks you know that it's not for nothing (you still got a hobby or social circle to maintain a healthy self*).

Be patient with yourself and don't hate people for considering you "toxic" right now. Meaningful (professional)relationships will only happen if you are 100% at peace with what you do (and are able to say NO to 9 out of 10 things without losing sleep). People (even the dumb ones) are experts at knowing when somebody is in a rut (which means only the creeps and vampires stick around so be cautious). Build a relationship with yourself again first. The rest will come from that. (it can _never_ be the other way around and if you try it might land you in a world of pain and misery)

Also forget romantic relationships for now (if there are any). Put yourself first. Don't limit yourself in this situation to the demands of a relationship and don't expect from others that they stay with you during all the changes you might have to put yourself through. Hope this doesn't come across rough, and apologies for it only being generic feedback :)

Hunter S. Thompson’s Letter on Finding Your Purpose and Living a Meaningful Life https://fs.blog/2014/05/hunter-s-thompson-to-hume-logan/

If you want drop me an email. Best of luck!

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i don't believe you

Meta commentary, part 1:

By exposing her soft belly and saying "stab me with your best shot," OP has revealed the soft underbelly darkside of HN. By lowering themself in front of HN, they've made themselves a target for everyone to dump on them. And what do people dump? What is the first thing they offload? The things which by offloading would let them feel best. The first thing people offload on another, is the things which they think are bad, and which they fear they themselves are or have been told they are. By offloading on another, the other becomes that thing more than they, and in their own mind, they no longer are. Serenity unlocked.

So by examining the accusations against the willfully vulnerable OP (who has perhaps inadvertently made themselves a target for others projections) we can understand what HN (or this sample) fears about themselves.

Let's take a look at the stats. The OP's crimes, by the numbers:

- creep: 41 occurrences

- sociopath: 13 occurrences

- NPD/narcissist: 11 occurrences

Seems there are a lot of "afraid-they're"- creeps, sociopaths, and narcissists out there, who have jumped at the chance to dump on another and show their own selves it's not them. But what surprises is that this is probably not the case. Can their really be so many lurking evildoers in a small sample of HNers?

I think it's more likely that these words are bandied around, and the HNers misunderstand their power, and take them to heart.

Meta commentary, part 2:

What if the OP is not wrong, but we are?

What if the industry is wrong? What if it's not that the OP has caused some untimely and gross violation of the moral fabric that binds us, but what if there's some sort of unspoken bias in operation here (aaand...it wouldn't be the first time), that leads people to incorrectly malign and sideline OP?

What if OP is black? Or a trans man? Or what if they have a big scar from a cancer surgery down their face? Or what if they have cerebral palsy? Or are in a wheelchair? Or what if they are "neurodivergent"? In our society of "tolerance and accommodations" is it really up to the OP to adapt themselves, when we persist in proclaiming they are already "disabled" or "marginalized", if that were true, should we not adapt ourselves? What bias lurks in the shadows of Mordor?

What if the OP is a regular person, not perfect, just imperfect, and it is simply this bias against whatever unharkened trait has led to these outcomes? On such limited information we're all ready to hang OP high for their crimes against our delicate and beautiful Technofaith Ethical Superculture Utopia, but no one's questioning the premise? No one's the jury of the 10th man? "I was allowed to," protest the critics. "OP consented." I'm only reminded of Stanford prison experiment. The guards were allowed to be guards, the prisoners consented to being prisoners, and in 10 days it all went to shit. Shame on you, HN, shame on you.

Only a half /S

Conclusion:

But really what we do to this poor, meek, and vulnerable person in this state, is what we do to ourselves, (why would we sling these arrows at them, if we were not knowing they were arrows, and how do we know they were arrows to sling, if we were not making these arrows, and holding them against our own skin, at our own throats, knowing how sharp they are) and the care we show towards this poor soul, is the care we show towards our own soul, and ourselves, isn't it?

What's the the punishment...the accusations of zero compassion levelled without compassion. Paradox blind. Does our industry have a culture of punishment problem? Did all techheads have awful parents and are now socially maladjusted, un self aware, perpetuators of an abusive cycle, even if only at a passive-aggressive and socially "acceptable" way?

1) You mentioned "ageism" so I assumed you were toward the older end of the typical range, but then you said you're in your early 20s? Yeah, no offense but you're basically a kid with no portfolio and no proven job history who dropped out of college, so you're probably not going to find a job that offers health/dental. And that's not "ageism" -- lots of the places you mentioned hire people in their late teens or early 20s -- that's just your inexperience.

2) Don't talk about how you spotted some system deficiency three levels above you and reported it. That's just going to creep people out. And that is NOT the sort of thing that makes a manager think you're Good Will Hunting and say "What's that genius doing in the call center cubicles? Get him an office and insurance right away!" Instead they are 100x more likely to say "Yes, drone, we're all well aware of that issue, get back on the phones."

3) You're cold-contacting SVPs at Dell? Spoofing contact whitelists to get through their phone systems? Yeah, this isn't "War Games," so you're about 1000x more likely to anger somebody than you are to impress them with your skillz. There are the "normal" channels of getting a job (the HR application route) and the "usual" channels (having a friend at the company get you hired)... but anything else (walking into an SVP's suite) is really, really unlikely to help.

I mean this well -- twenty years ago, I was a college freshman dropout with no portfolio, no connections, and a rural drawl -- so you CAN succeed. But I had some rough years and I had to put in my dues as an entry-level help desk grunt before rising up as a sysadmin.

* Get some sort of stable job and don't quit it until a year has gone by AND you have a signed offer letter in hand for a provably better job.

* Don't give up on Medicaid! In most states and most scenarios, you're MUCH more likely to get decent subsidized ACA healthcare than you are to find a job that gives you insurance within 90 days, let alone 30 days. But you gotta do the research and the legwork.

Brutally candid advice? You sound like a creep. Am I reading it right here, you spoofed your number to talk to executives? In the best case, they'll assume you're a pen-tester; but more likely, you're blacklisted from those companies now.

I wish there was, like, short and simple advice that I could give you to not be a creep. I just tried to google that, and I'm not finding a good clear resource. Like most social skills, there's a viciously sharp learning curve because people don't like giving feedback to creeps because that's usually an opening for even creepier behavior. Sorry.

And, maybe set your sights lower. Your intelligence will shine if you get a job at a very small company that doesn't know what it needs.

Remember this question, to ask during the "do you have any questions for us" part of your interviews:

"is there anything about my background or experiences that give you pause?"

Furthermore, do not get defensive, If you think they are wrong with how they reply, this means you didn't sell yourself well in that area. This should be taken as feedback in that vain, to improve further interviews.

Given your low level of paid experiences in software dev, i'd assume you have some level of personal projects. My suggestion? Drink the koolaid, Start converting them to serverless microservice SAAS cubes and containers. Document this journey on a blog, use this to build out articles about what you learned while doing it on a portfolio, use that to answer their questions in more interesting ways.

If you work at Amazon, apply for the Amazon Technical Academy.

You'll be hired if you've relevant skills/expertise; Ultimately it's https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareto_principle versus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

Get out of the US if you can. It's not designed to lift you up, only to coerce you into sociopathy.

I homeschooled my sons.

Public school was created to train children to be good little factory workers. A lot of the culture of public school is stuff you also see in old timey factories, like everyone responding to a ring of a bell to end their lunch.

Instead of listening to a bunch of internet strangers tell you that you are some kind of sociopath, let me suggest you try to see yourself as a stranger in a stranger land. The world of paid work is like an alien culture.

Social stuff is always partly learned. It is highly dependent on context. It doesn't matter how talented you are at the social thing or how well adjusted you are, you can't readily fit into an alien culture where you don't know the rules and implicit expectations.

Someone on HN once told me that they had seen a number of "unhireable" people do volunteer work, such as working on open source, and have that ultimately turn into a real job that worked well for them.

I think that's worth a shot.

In the mean time, you might look for gig work to help you pay your bills in the short term. It's much, much easier to avoid homelessness than to get back into housing after landing on the street. (I know this fact all too well from firsthand experience.)

I run a number of things that might be pertinent to your needs. This link is probably the best TLDR of stuff I work on that might be of some use to you:

https://www.reddit.com/r/GigWorks/comments/e81eba/welcome/

Best of luck.

"If I was you" this is what I would do:

Build awesome products or have a killer portfolio/github and work anonymously for crypto-related projects. Build a reputation around your username not your real name. Try getting paid in BTC, etc.

So far all I am seeing is that you want want a high paying job at a reputable company without actually working for it.

Your experience is lacking and jack of all trades master of none.

Start at a small company and work on a skill set. Since you drop out of everything you do. get refs and go from there.