How do you actually get a first job? I haven’t completed my degree, am struggling to live on my government provided student allowance, and don’t have any experience to put on my CV.
Maybe too obvious but: Ask around. Ask your friends, family, acquaintances… Your personal network is a key factor to finding a job (especially if you’re not picky about what job you want).
As for rounding out your CV, create a category called: skills. Skills your probably have: Fluent in MS Office, research (you’re at university right now, no?), out-of-the-box thinking (you’re on LW, after all, you’ll be better than average at this), works well in team (if you did any sort of team sport or online game)...
If you can’t come up with anything for the “skills” category, ask your friends and family. They should be able to help you out.
I got my first real job by summing up all the volunteer work and major personal projects I’d ever done and putting them on my resume. It turns out that at least at the entry level, people don’t actually much care if you’ve gotten paid for doing something before—they just want to be able to verify that you know enough not to flail around wasting money for months or years while you learn the basics of process.
You never sacked groceries in a supermarket during your teen years, as I did?
I can see why you might want to avoid having to do that in today’s economy, however, where you have to invest your time in the most efficient work experiences you can get to position yourself for higher wages quickly.
I have been accepted to App Academy and have been considering it as a faster option to getting high-paying work, but as a younger, international candidate I’d have to pay for flights as well as a US$5000 deposit. It’s something I’d even be willing to borrow money for, given my waning motivation for university, but without an income or much current earning potential I don’t know if I could get a loan for it. And I couldn’t earn enough to go to the round I’ve been accepted to in time.
Anecdotally someone close to me did one of those and it was a quick way to burn thousands of dollars.
I tried to dissuade them, but end the end they came back with less knowledge than I did of the subject, and all I did was follow some youtube tutorials and look at stack overflow to create a couple learning apps for android.
That assumes the goal of App Academy is building knowledge. I don’t think it is. The goal is getting a well paying job. Somnicule is likely smart and has knowledge of programming but he still doesn’t know how to get a job despite not having formal credentials.
Paying thousands of dollar for going to a state without a job to a state with a 50000k job is okay.
Anecdotally two people close to me did similar crash camps on coding and ended up with high-paying coding jobs despite having no experience in software development and degrees in unrelated fields. They seemed to do well, but since this isn’t a controlled experiment I can’t say whether the jobs they got are jobs they’d have not been able to get if they just studied on their own for a while.
The general incentives for this one seem better than average, (they generally take a cut of your first year’s income rather than an upfront fee, high average income aster etc.) but I get a different, fixed payment contract since I’m from NZ. It’s tempting, but higher risk than if I were from the US, especially since without a completed bachelors it’d be much harder to get a visa, and work here or in Australia won’t pay nearly as well.
I’m really losing motivation at university and have my own mental health issues, so the prospect of something like that has been somewhat comforting as an escape route.
This has turned into “somnicule’s personal problems” rather than the actual point of the thread, so I’ll leave it there.
Your school might have useful resources. If there is a career center, go there and see what kind of resources and help are available. There could be a student internship program, student job boards, career fairs, etc. Professors sometimes have work opportunities as well (they might announce these, or you may have to ask).
Informational interviews let you get an insider perspective and some connections and pointers. I’ve known people who got offers this way. People love giving advice. Also consider volunteering in your area of expertise to both gain experience and build your networks.
Were you involved in any activities in high school? (Sports, clubs, volunteering, etc.) Are there any interesting projects you’ve completed on your own? (E.g. do you have a blog?) Do you have any hobbies? Personal qualities to highlight? How do you spend your time?
Rowing for one season, competed in a mathematical modeling competition and didn’t win but got a special mention from the judges, traveled to Ecuador for a month as a volunteer project, did some maths and physics tutoring.
Personal projects are pretty limited, but I’ve got a Django play money prediction market site that I could get running again in a weekend.
Those all sound pretty good to me. You might even come across as overqualified for menial work. If you want to reach a little bit, have you thought about trying to get freelance software development work? Getting paid to improve skills is always nice right? If you can’t find anyone in real life ODesk.com is an option… if you build up a reputation on that site, you’ll be able to work remotely from anywhere in the world. A degreeless friend of mine was making over $50 an hour after over-delivering for ODesk clients for 6-12 months.
I found my first job using this tool http://mappedinny.com/. It’s specific to tech jobs in New York City. I have no idea how anyone ever gets a job in other places/sectors.
You said you did some programming.
Having your Django play money prediction market on github for people to see that you can program is likely valuable.
You can go to meetup.com and search for for local meetups where programmers go. Then you go there and tell everyone that you speak with that you are searching for a job as a programmer.
I’m not sure if it’s the same where you live, but I found using the phone much more effective than sending applications all over the place. I first sent the application, then called. A good personal first impression, if you manage to squeeze it in, seems to beat a well written application any time.
Few of the people were absolute dicks when I called them and told me just send the application, but then I figured I probably didn’t want to work for them anyway. So don’t give up if that happens.
How do you actually get a first job? I haven’t completed my degree, am struggling to live on my government provided student allowance, and don’t have any experience to put on my CV.
Maybe too obvious but: Ask around. Ask your friends, family, acquaintances… Your personal network is a key factor to finding a job (especially if you’re not picky about what job you want).
As for rounding out your CV, create a category called: skills. Skills your probably have: Fluent in MS Office, research (you’re at university right now, no?), out-of-the-box thinking (you’re on LW, after all, you’ll be better than average at this), works well in team (if you did any sort of team sport or online game)...
If you can’t come up with anything for the “skills” category, ask your friends and family. They should be able to help you out.
Thanks, this is helpful. I’ve been hesitant about contacting family and friends for this, but on reflection there’s no real reason for that.
I got my first real job by summing up all the volunteer work and major personal projects I’d ever done and putting them on my resume. It turns out that at least at the entry level, people don’t actually much care if you’ve gotten paid for doing something before—they just want to be able to verify that you know enough not to flail around wasting money for months or years while you learn the basics of process.
(I’m in tech.)
You never sacked groceries in a supermarket during your teen years, as I did?
I can see why you might want to avoid having to do that in today’s economy, however, where you have to invest your time in the most efficient work experiences you can get to position yourself for higher wages quickly.
I have been accepted to App Academy and have been considering it as a faster option to getting high-paying work, but as a younger, international candidate I’d have to pay for flights as well as a US$5000 deposit. It’s something I’d even be willing to borrow money for, given my waning motivation for university, but without an income or much current earning potential I don’t know if I could get a loan for it. And I couldn’t earn enough to go to the round I’ve been accepted to in time.
Anecdotally someone close to me did one of those and it was a quick way to burn thousands of dollars.
I tried to dissuade them, but end the end they came back with less knowledge than I did of the subject, and all I did was follow some youtube tutorials and look at stack overflow to create a couple learning apps for android.
That assumes the goal of App Academy is building knowledge. I don’t think it is. The goal is getting a well paying job. Somnicule is likely smart and has knowledge of programming but he still doesn’t know how to get a job despite not having formal credentials.
Paying thousands of dollar for going to a state without a job to a state with a 50000k job is okay.
Anecdotally two people close to me did similar crash camps on coding and ended up with high-paying coding jobs despite having no experience in software development and degrees in unrelated fields. They seemed to do well, but since this isn’t a controlled experiment I can’t say whether the jobs they got are jobs they’d have not been able to get if they just studied on their own for a while.
The general incentives for this one seem better than average, (they generally take a cut of your first year’s income rather than an upfront fee, high average income aster etc.) but I get a different, fixed payment contract since I’m from NZ. It’s tempting, but higher risk than if I were from the US, especially since without a completed bachelors it’d be much harder to get a visa, and work here or in Australia won’t pay nearly as well.
I’m really losing motivation at university and have my own mental health issues, so the prospect of something like that has been somewhat comforting as an escape route.
This has turned into “somnicule’s personal problems” rather than the actual point of the thread, so I’ll leave it there.
Your school might have useful resources. If there is a career center, go there and see what kind of resources and help are available. There could be a student internship program, student job boards, career fairs, etc. Professors sometimes have work opportunities as well (they might announce these, or you may have to ask).
Informational interviews let you get an insider perspective and some connections and pointers. I’ve known people who got offers this way. People love giving advice. Also consider volunteering in your area of expertise to both gain experience and build your networks.
Were you involved in any activities in high school? (Sports, clubs, volunteering, etc.) Are there any interesting projects you’ve completed on your own? (E.g. do you have a blog?) Do you have any hobbies? Personal qualities to highlight? How do you spend your time?
Rowing for one season, competed in a mathematical modeling competition and didn’t win but got a special mention from the judges, traveled to Ecuador for a month as a volunteer project, did some maths and physics tutoring.
Personal projects are pretty limited, but I’ve got a Django play money prediction market site that I could get running again in a weekend.
Beyond that, there’s nothing that leaps to mind.
Those all sound pretty good to me. You might even come across as overqualified for menial work. If you want to reach a little bit, have you thought about trying to get freelance software development work? Getting paid to improve skills is always nice right? If you can’t find anyone in real life ODesk.com is an option… if you build up a reputation on that site, you’ll be able to work remotely from anywhere in the world. A degreeless friend of mine was making over $50 an hour after over-delivering for ODesk clients for 6-12 months.
I found my first job using this tool http://mappedinny.com/. It’s specific to tech jobs in New York City. I have no idea how anyone ever gets a job in other places/sectors.
You said you did some programming. Having your Django play money prediction market on github for people to see that you can program is likely valuable.
You can go to meetup.com and search for for local meetups where programmers go. Then you go there and tell everyone that you speak with that you are searching for a job as a programmer.
I’m not sure if it’s the same where you live, but I found using the phone much more effective than sending applications all over the place. I first sent the application, then called. A good personal first impression, if you manage to squeeze it in, seems to beat a well written application any time.
I probably need to do some exposure therapy with phone calls, but it’s definitely worthwhile doing that.
Few of the people were absolute dicks when I called them and told me just send the application, but then I figured I probably didn’t want to work for them anyway. So don’t give up if that happens.
What skills do you have?