I’m studying full-stack developer. I’ve been sending out my CV to look for a job, but I’ve been rejected by several places. Like in this email — there were 800+ applications for a junior developer position. 🤕🤕🤕
What’s going on with tech job market? I knew it would be difficult, but this honestly feels overwhelming and kind of hopeless. I’m a non-EU/EAA student, I don’t speak Finnish. Can someone tell me what direction I should take?
https://i.redd.it/p9lebtv763hg1.png
Posted by Hot_Bother_3805
24 Comments
It is country that is leading unemployment numbers in Europe. It is hopeless.
Learn finnish
> I’ve been sending out my CV to look for a job, but I’ve been rejected by several places.
If it helps, you are not alone. We have highest unemployment rate in EU.
> What’s going on with tech job market?
Depression
> Can someone tell me what direction I should take?
You need to magically get seniority and proper project and github portfolio.
it’s notoriously difficult to find a job in finland without speaking the language, tech industry or not. keep applying i suppose, but you might want to consider picking up a few books on finnish basics
“Easiest” way is just to learn Finnish, that opens up a huge number of opportunities compared to English-only. Unfortunate but that’s just how it is now since the tech boom seems to be over. And even for Finnish speakers who are junior developers it’s still pretty tough.
What experience do you have? What are your competences and capabilities as a developer? Can you work in a software development organization and take on responsibilities to work on things by yourself? Do you have skills that other people might not have? What are your strengths and weaknesses as a sw developer?
Let’s say you would have to start working by yourself on an actual software product or service. What could you accomplish just by yourself? Assuming that you have the necessary technical resources for it.
If you can work on software that meets real business needs and work throughout the phases of the entire lifecycle from planning and design to deployment and maintenance – and everything in between – you should land a job at some point. However, if you are “only” a cog in the sw development organisation and are not able to interface with no other people than other technical staff, it will be harder. SW development that is tightly coupled with business is the place to be when things change a lot.
For a good answer, I just want to know where you stand. You might know that the downturn and the recent developments in AI augmented teams are not good for juniors. And also interns. In general.
So you need to first of all find the employers that make an effort to onboard recent graduates and train them. I don’t know what such companies are at the moment because the situtation is bad for everyone.
Good luck anyways, if you answer my burst of questions or not. 🙂
Honestly your best chances of getting a job is outside Finland
Just leave. There is better opportunities outside of Finland.
Does your place of study organize or host any job fairs? My previous company hired lot of juniors through that, they had a stand there and you could talk with them. I suppose that would have a small advantage over people who only send a CV.
You might also be much closer to getting hired than that number would lead you believe – a recruiter once told me they get so many applicants who’s CV is absolute trash, no experience, no studies, no personal projects on the field, living in India and expecting the company to organize relocation.
Market is saturated with full-stack developers. Junior positions are pretty much replaced by advancements in AI.
You might want to think about switching your career.
Future is bleak for future generations unless you’re born with ~~silver~~ gold spoon in your mouth. Happy to be proven wrong in next 10 years.
Send your application to every “open search” you see and pray. Remote work is possible in most software dev companies, so search from a wider range.
I would probably look into developing some actual system that had some possibility to make money if I were a recent graduate now.
Competition is fierce and everybody is doing the same thing, so something that distinguishes applicant from others is a MUST. Something that the others are not doing.
Developing something worthwhile shows that you understand the whole process from requirements to deploying and hosting. Pref in .NET as we are in the land of vendor lock.
Be *actually good* and be able to show it. Nobody wants your average freshly graduated dev, especially in this economic situation, they take too long to train up. Unless you’re in the top 10-20% or so of your class and have prior experience from hobby projects or internships, you’re going to struggle.
This isn’t an easy field, education poorly prepares people for actual work, and now it’s oversaturated with mediocre people (after a decade of promises about easy money) when the country is in recession.
I’m applying for jobs in a field that has employment shortage and is still marketed as everyone who graduates gets a job before the school is done.
I have just gotten the sorry you were not selected among 1700 applicants to an entry level job.
Non-EU and no Finnish, you might be screwed. Sorry. Finnish students will get all the internships when there is that much competition.
There’s only one direction: leave this country pronto and go somewhere where opportunities are there.
Slim to none.
~800 applications is way more than I expected 😳
Does anyone have any idea what the average number of applicants for a senior position in IT is at the moment?
Learn Finnish
I would honestly recommend looking for smaller to medium-size tech companies and reaching out directly to them. Success is not guaranteed but at least you won’t have to compete with hundreds of other direct applicants. Most jobs are actually hidden and filled through either networking or cold outreach like this. I am planning to start applying for accounting jobs the same way
I remember 2 years ago I got an answer from Visma that they got 2000 applications, that hurt.
The game is rough man. For me it worked to just be extremely active everywhere I could: try-hard project courses, never miss a hackathon, leetcode, network, keep grades decently high (above 85% but spend that extra “15%” effort into the before mentioned things to have something to make up for the lack of experience), while working a part-time physical job.
Probably the way to go would be: applying to everything you can, improving your skills every day, getting CV tips, and not losing hope.
I swear to god these people smell desperation on you, so on top of it all, you also have to maintain composure during networking and interviews. 💔
Would it be an option to also go to your home country for summer internships? Sometimes that might be an easier route just to increase the CV length. But I understand if flights might be too expensive for it.
You can also volunteer in student organisations to do their it/website things, you can get quite nice experience there. Just email them if they need anything.
I’ve heard cold calling/emailing in Finland is also a decent strategy.
Edit: I’d also check communities such as Hive (some sort of studies, they partner with Nokia and Wolt at least) and herizon (helping internationals to find jobs). I’ve heard good things about both of the.
Speaking finnish will not help you in this field, its all about economy,
I suggested you to search for job in another EU country as Germany or Austria or even Norway, its biggest country with more opportunities and good future!
https://preview.redd.it/d7980kmxk4hg1.png?width=1828&format=png&auto=webp&s=0a60aac71fac620be72853d3bc35f785c361d106
Mine was far better 850 for all positions in that workplace👌
Not sure why they even reveal application numbers. Either you get in or someone else does. It does not matter how many is trying. You might not get in even you are only one in recruitment process (happened to me multiple times when applying e.g. directly).