One thing that I should say is that I have depression: I take medication and see a doctor, and I was first diagnosed after my first full-time job.
Apart from one company that genuinely laid off many people in quick succession including myself, the other companies where I worked all fired me many months after I had been working there.
On three of the occasions, the manager who originally hired me had moved onto a different team/got promoted/was reorganized into having less input (matrix management). In each of these cases, my new manager was promoted from within my team and it was always their first time managing a team: they always had very good technical knowledge and skills, and I would always feel like I am getting on well with them and making progress on my goals. However, I feel as though they effectively under-communicated what they really wanted from me, and I simply took them at literally at their word.
In any case, I am only giving my side of the story (I don’t know their side). I read posts about résumés and how having too many short stints in too short of a timeframe is problematic. I am such a person. What do I do?
I do genuinely enjoy writing code when I know what is being asked of me and when I know that it will help the end-user(s). However, it has been over a year since my last job once again, and I feel as if this time is possibly a death knell of sorts.
I really thought about posting this message on my normal HN account and linking my personal résumé, but I was too afraid of appearing to disparage any of my previous employers.
What should I do?
They are hiring the current you, not the past you. If you yourself are utterly convinced of this, you stand more of a chance of convincing others.
I’m in the same situation. It’s rough. Doing this job hunt constantly with no support and no money can wear you down to the point where you can’t even look at applications without feeling sick unless you are careful to make sure that it doesn’t block your mental rebound. I’ve got nothing but sympathy for you. If you ever want support, let me know. Practical help, can’t promise anything given my own desperate situation, but I can try to get you on some old recruiters radars or potentially an employer or two.
That said, it is possible to get a job. I struggle with ADHD and have had many short stints in my career (6 months to 1 year).
Your resume likely looks terrible (mine does). I drop the months of my resume to try to hide the short positions. I miss off really short jobs (2-3 months). Try to find ways to get work without needing a resume. Warm introductions from friends and former colleagues. Meeting other engineers at events. Giving talks at events and getting your name out there. Make a really impressive portfolio site (you can't change what you were doing 4 years ago on your resume, but you can add to your portfolio site today and give an appearance of longevity without lying).
Look into jobs where you can use your tech skills without them directly being "tech jobs". They might not have the same tech gatekeepers that are keeping you out at the moment.
Do you have someone you can trust to give you feedback on your work style and communication style? Getting fired again and again is obviously not ideal and you may have blind spots. If you can improve upon them you increase your chances of doing better in the next job.
Also short stints isn't as bad as other people make it out to be. Yes, some people will filter you out, but not everyone. While I was in the game industry, I worked for three companies in a row that failed to release a hit game and I was laid off with the rest of the team after just over a year. Then I worked as a contractor at a another company in the marketing department that had the lead dev suddenly quit and they decided to outsource the rest of the project, killing my contract after only 8 months. And then I have another job right before all that where I worked in a student job at a faculty department at my college for a year, but then graduated, so I was no longer eligible to keep working.
That's five jobs in a row with just over a year's worth of experience, some of which I had several months of unemployment between (especially when I switched from game industry into enterprise web development). Hasn't stopped me from getting interviews and job offers.
I was worried about my short stints as well though, and I do have a job I stayed with for over three years (when I should have left earlier) to get another longer job on my resume again, but yeah.
You don't have to quit software development. You just might have some people skip over you, but that's okay.
I'm surprised you don't know their side. Getting fired (not laid off) from multiple companies is unusual. They typically try to cover themselves by establishing a months long paper trail to justify the termination, e.g. bad performance reviews, performance conversations, PIP, etc.
People aren't really any good at understanding what other people are up to, especially if they are first time managers. It is also pretty much impossible to compare two programmers given two different tasks since we regularly are off on our estimates of everything.
AFA, continuing, I would say yes, if you can handle it emotionally. It's actually quite good in many unemployment systems to have these kinds of phases and pretty hard to make as much in a lot of other roles that are easy to transition to. The stress of unemployment is substantial though. Jobs that involve programming but aren't directly programming may provide a more average level of stress, I.e. support and software maintenance roles that are more focused on customers than code.
How many jobs are you applying to each week? I would think 1 or 2 each week would be a minimum.
Do you have a portfolio? Some code you can point to online, any open source projects you work on?
How many interviews do you average each month? If you are applying to tons of jobs and not getting any interviews, this is a reflection that your resumes might need work. Resumes, plural, in that you should probably have several depending on what type of job you are applying for and what skills you need to emphasize. Maybe you need to drop some jobs off of it or rework it to look more like you have been courting contract or short term work and now you are ready to "settle down". Have you filled gaps with additional university courses? Pursued a Masters degree? Certifications? Traveled the world? Volunteer work? Freelance/Started your own business?
If you are getting interviews, but not job offers then this indicates it might be a problem with your interview style. You mentioned depression, could this play a factor? Hopefully you don't bring up medical conditions during interviews. It could be some of the things you say during the interview process, not saying enough, questions you ask, what you wear... any number of things. I almost didn't hire someone because of the socks they wore but my team defended their choice of footwear and we hired them in the end... though the guy in the Christmas sweater wasn't as lucky :)
Have you tried teaming up with a recruiter? A good one would help you with your resumes and interviewing skills. Are you keeping in touch with former classmates, colleagues and managers? Not just email, set up lunch dates with them to stay in touch. Set up a small lunch reunion from a company you worked at where several people were all laid off or have since quit. They may have leads from time to time. Looking for a job can be a full time job in itself!
Good luck!
Look for the individual who you can actually help, NOT the job.
That is to say, try to connect with the Hiring Executive versus getting blocked by the HR filter.
Small & Early stage companies are your best bet.
The gaps in your resume are not a good thing IMHO, could you try to explain them by saying you were on hiatus, you have family issues or even better you were learning/working on your own projects?
If you don't like/stand the pressure, you could search for a less-demanding job. Maybe something in the public service?
Besides that, maybe working from home could help you? Maybe that way you feel less stressed because of the commute?
Good luck brother/sister and keep fighting!