I finally got a job

Looking at this image, you must be pretty shocked, right? Well, imagine how it felt apllying to 200+ job offers and not getting a single response 80% of the time. And the rest 19% were rejections, of course 🤷‍♂️. I don’t envy anyone who is looking for a job right now, I know it’s tough, but you can’t give up.

What I have been doing

For the last year (I started applying seriously in July 2023) I have been constatly apllying to job offers, mostly as a frontend developer, but also considered fullstack. Simultaneously, I was working on my side projects, learning new technologies, enhancing my portfolio and CV. Hell, I even passed the CAE C1 exam in English, scoring C2 level of proficiency. Overall I was trying to make myself as attractive as possible for potential employers.

Doing all that was giving no results though, but hey, can’t give up, right? Unfortunately I don’t have any meetups in my area, so I couldn’t make any connections that way. I was trying to reach out to people on LinkedIn, but it was mostly a waste of time. I was also trying to get some freelance gigs, but it was also a dead end.

Nevertheless, I learned truth the hard way - and it’s just my opinion of what I’d experienced - that your skills are just as, if not less important than your connections and pure luck. I know it sounds harsh, but that’s how it is right now. I’ve seen people with less experience and knowledge than me getting job offers just because they knew someone in the company. And I’m not saying that they didn’t deserve it, but it’s just a fact that connections are very important in the job market.

How did that happen?

Well, nothing out of the blue, really. Just one day I got a call from a friend who knew I was looking for a job for almost a year. He told me that his company is looking for a frontend developer and asked me if I’m interested. I said yes, of course, and we scheduled an interview. I was very excited, but also very stressed, as I didn’t have any experience with interviews (a year of applying and not a single one, remember?). A few days of preparation, mock interviews and I managed to get through it. The next day I got a call that I got the job. I didn’t know what to feel at that moment, after a year of constant rejections and no responses, I finally got a chance to prove myself.

What I am doing now

It’s almost a month in my new job and it feels great to work on a real project, communicate with other developers, and of course getting paid for the stuff I love to do. If you’re curious, it’s a Next.js project on a frontend and a scraper in Node.js + Puppeteer on a backend. I’m learning a lot of new stuff, and I’m very happy that I finally got a chance to work in a professional environment.

I’m not saying that you should give up on your dreams, but sometimes it’s good to take a step back and think about what you’re doing wrong. Maybe you’re not applying to the right companies, maybe you’re not lucky enough or don’t know right people. But please, don’t give up, I hope everyone will get a chance to prove themselves, just like I did.