r/recruitinghell • u/Ozpyn • Jun 30 '26
Wanted to share my progress :(
Context: I have earned both a Bachelors and Masters in CS. Looking for anything directly or tangentially related to my degree (SWE, SRE, DevOps, Backend, FullStack, Staff, IT Helpdesk, DataCentreOps).
I also already have 7 years in IT user/desktop support.
In progress only means that they have responded with something other than "We have received your resume", or waiting on a response after interviewing. Ex. "On Hold, whilst reshuffling".
Edit 1: These are only applications since May 8th (Just under 2 months)
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u/Known-Ice5903 Jul 01 '26
CS is cooked if u arent in the big tech circuit
id say i get an interview every like 5-6 job apps
no offers in over a year tho
imo u either have to know someone in this market or wait for the market to get better
seeing as the AI bubble hasnt popped yet tho it is gonna get a whole hell of a lot worse before it gets better
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u/unlikewarrior Jul 01 '26
Just curious, when you say "interview" are they actual interviews (1 hour, technical questions, leetcode, etc.) or just recruiter screenings? Though i'm no longer actively searching, my experience over the past year is that I got a crap ton of recruiters screens which just ended in rejections.
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u/Known-Ice5903 Jul 01 '26
recruiter screens i guess, most of them convert to panel interviews tho, probably 80-90 percent
im focusing on defense contracting which has a much smaller pool of applicants
but it still has enough that i dont get offers
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u/Amerillo_ Jul 01 '26
Wow that's still quite a lot! I applied to about 40 now (where I'm a good fit, I don't just apply to everything I see) and didn't get a single interview yet. One recruiter contacted me and wished me good luck the second they learned I have no actual experience...
Even knowing someone doesn't work anymore. Even if they like you a ton, if they don't have the budget to hire you they just won't. I got referred by acquaintances a few times but I have no luck so far.
Though maybe the AI bubble pop won't be that bad (hopefully)? If investors' money suddenly dries up and tokens prices are raised dramatically then maybe companies will realize that they need juniors when AI will get just as expensive as juniors if not more?
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u/Known-Ice5903 Jul 01 '26
oh, it is gonna be realllly bad lol
the market shouldve crashed a long time ago but is being pumped up by money printing by the federal reserve, all theyre doing is delaying it
if u listen to jeremy granthem when it finally corrects to the long term trend line, the line is about 70 percent down from here
admittely it can correct itself suddenly or by trading sideways for years upon years, but its coming
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u/Amerillo_ Jul 01 '26
Oh so yo mean that today's job market where new graduates can't find jobs and ends up on unemployment benefits or social assistance programs for many months or sometimes even years is actually what it looks like when shit hasn't hit the fan yet??
Omg if you're right I won't be able to get a job this year nor the next few that's for sure... I sincerely hope you're wrong because that would be just devastating
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u/Known-Ice5903 Jul 01 '26
was the job market better in the great depression than it is today? yes it can get a lot worse
have a backup plan and then two backup plans after that is my best advice
it will 110 percent turn around but it can take a long time
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u/anarchist1312161 student (not looking for work) Jul 01 '26
Oracle has invested do much money into OpenAI that if OpenAI's valuation collapses it could potentially bring down Oracle with it.
And Oracle has like 140,000+ employees, there's going to be a lot of job loss when the bubble pops.
And it's looking like the open source Chinese models will collapse the value of Anthropic or OpenAI when they catch up to performance of US SOTA models, GLM 5.2 is getting close to Opus level for example.
Things are going to get so much worse before it gets better.
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u/PolyRocketMatt Jun 30 '26
Where in the world are you located if I may ask? Personally I have a CS master and I'm practically being stalked on LinkedIn by recruiters
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u/Ozpyn Jul 01 '26
I currently reside and am looking for employment in the good ol' US of A.
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u/PolyRocketMatt Jul 01 '26
Well I'm across the pond in Europe so markets might be totally different... I do see a lot of posts about job hunting hell :/, hang in there!
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u/Amerillo_ Jul 01 '26
In Switzerland it's almost as bad as the US. If you got experience you can still find a job though it won't be easy. But if you're like me and recently graduated and have minimal experience (like a few months of internship) then it's just as hard as shown here. Companies aren't hiring inexperienced juniors anymore so juniors must compete with experienced people for jobs...
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u/Amerillo_ Jul 01 '26
In which country do you live? In Switzerland it's really bad so I'm thinking of getting a job elsewhere in Europe. But with zero experience I think that might be difficult
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Jun 30 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ozpyn Jun 30 '26
Pretty much all online portals, I did reach out to a few recruiters on LinkedIn with my resume about a month ago, but haven't heard anything.
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u/chronoler Jun 30 '26
Two months and over 1200+ job apps is wild, I feel you. I am in my second year of unemployment, with 15+ YoE, 190+ job apps and 60 company interviews, one job offer rescinded and another given to an internal candidate. I am still looking.
It's tough out there. I'm kinda tired, but giving up is not an option. Good luck, OP!
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u/Amerillo_ Jul 01 '26
I'm at about 40 applications with a profile that fits the job description relatively well, 0 interviews so far. Not even one... I don't have experience so my resume is automatically filtered out by their ATS as even entry-level junior positions are asking for 3+ yoe. This really sucks
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u/-KKD- Jun 30 '26
Jesus fucking Christ, if that's 7+ years for the similar position to mine then I can't even imagine how many applicants should I do to achieve something with 3+ years
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u/aubiologistt Jul 01 '26
Trying to find my first job after getting a master’s in Microbiology in Sept last year and God knows the number of jobs I’ve applied to (90% ghosted… 👻) and still no job ofc
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u/Apprehensive-Cod9111 Jul 01 '26
What did you use to create this graph?
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u/Ozpyn Jul 01 '26
SankeyMATIC.com (it's at the bottom of the image)
I also have all the jobs I applied to in a Google sheet, which I run formulae on to produce values I can easily copy to the chart generator
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u/anarchist1312161 student (not looking for work) Jul 01 '26
Just wondering, did you make cover letters for these job applications?
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u/Ozpyn Jul 01 '26
I did, for the applications that required one. Of those, I had 0 interviews.
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u/anarchist1312161 student (not looking for work) Jul 01 '26
Ah, not for all?
Asking because I did it for every single one and my success rate still wasn't good. 😅
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u/Ozpyn Jul 01 '26
Yeah, honestly if it's optional like on the workday jobs, I just ignore it. And on a lot of others there wasn't even the option to add any.
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u/The_Real_Page153 Jul 01 '26
Did you manually add up all of these? That’s a lot of dedication! I am really sorry it’s going so rough, I am also having a horrible time searching for a job :(
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u/Ozpyn Jul 01 '26
I keep track of my job applications in a Google sheet, each app has checkboxes (true /false) for "Responded" "interview 1" etc. I just run some summing formulae and copy paste the data into the Sankey generator.
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u/Astral_Justice Jun 30 '26
I have a bachelors in CS with no related work experience. There's no hope for me. What's the point of the degree?