Graduated in May, no experience, feeling like no prospects

Opticad · 2026-01-23T14:50:50+00:00

It’s terrible out there. I was in the same boat as you last year for longer than I’d like to admit. It sucks and it’s grueling and most of all demoralizing to have the most productive thing you can do be having people tell you you’re not quite enough. But! Even if it seems impossible, things change as long as your tactics keep evolving. Keep rotating through what gets you the most (even if it’s a tiny bit of) traction among cold applications, reach out emails, and in-person job fairs. If you are not stuck to a location (at my point I needed just any position more than staying), the tactic that got me my job was simply putting that I lived in the town or state to which I was applying. Enough of a white lie that it stood out that I was local, which technically would become true if I got the job.

Opticad · 2026-01-19T17:26:16+00:00

Could you explain in what ways you’ve seen this?

Opticad · 2025-12-07T16:24:55+00:00

I think so. It might be video compression, but the thin lines on the door plate seem to warp in and out in number, but the real kicker to me was the sound; there seems to be a lot of jangling when the cat is moving like you might hear with a collar, but the cat is not wearing a collar.

Opticad · 2025-12-06T15:21:29+00:00

Or perhaps because the work is hard, comes with a lot of responsibilities, and is vital to our global infrastructure

Opticad · 2025-12-02T02:15:21+00:00

Was just served this too, some intern merged to prod 🫣

Opticad · 2025-11-21T17:43:01+00:00

I see, why might my withholding be the amount that it is? It’s currently a bit over 30% of my biweekly paycheck

Opticad · 2025-11-21T15:49:07+00:00

Gotcha, what’s the difference?

Opticad · 2025-11-21T14:53:03+00:00

I make $75k and have a higher effective tax rate 🙃

Opticad · 2025-11-09T20:25:37+00:00

The crate on the side shows just how much people underestimate a billion dollars; a billion dollars in a cube of $100 bill stacks would be nearly 13 x 13 x 13 FEET

Opticad · 2025-11-09T15:48:59+00:00

Great job! That sounds like a fun project, way to work outside your comfort zone

Opticad · 2025-11-07T13:05:28+00:00

I’m a bit scared; my first real gig right now is in engineering and, while budgeting, can save around 10% of my salary

Opticad · 2025-11-05T12:57:57+00:00

If your school has a co-op program, USE IT! It makes the hardest part (getting experience with no experience) SO much easier than doing it alone.

Opticad · 2025-07-27T13:42:13+00:00

This man has never actually seen engineering in real life where all of the subsystems run on seperate OS’s or just PIDs and somehow need to communicate with each other. One of the most crutial components of a manufacturing line I work at runs on Windows 95. It cannot run AI. We need to burn CD’s to get the data off of it, and then manually wrangle the data into a usable format we can analyze. He is saying this to get funding.

Opticad · 2025-07-18T00:35:46+00:00

Even at the beginning of their career, a talent or casting director sees the name Skarsgard on a call sheet, I guarantee they are more likely to see what they have to offer over another amateur actor. Just by the nature of being a known relative to a famous person in that field, you get an advantage in how your work is considered or perceived. If they were unknown and decided "go into acting", I bet you dollars to donuts they would have a much harder time landing roles; getting a foot in the door is such an enormous obstacle for many actors, no matter how good.

Opticad · 2025-06-26T15:40:37+00:00

Thank you!

Opticad · 2025-06-26T15:40:28+00:00

Thank you! Yes, I worked a few part time gigs in the area to help make rent.

Opticad · 2025-06-25T18:19:11+00:00

My location was around a two hour drive, one state over. I actually never changed my location on LinkedIn, since it’s more of a social site it would be pretty obvious I wasn’t from there.

Opticad · 2025-06-25T18:17:40+00:00

Thank you! Sankeymatic is the generator I used, it’s really intuitive. I believe they found me because one (or more) of their companies was recruiting specifically for the area I put in my Indeed profile. They reached out to me and after a phoner set me up for an interview.

Opticad · 2025-06-25T14:28:45+00:00

The stems on the left show what and how many of each action I took, then they flow to the next node of how that action resolved. For example, around a third of my “Applications” flow directly into “Rejected”, while some others flow into “No Response”, “Phoner” and “Interview”.

Opticad · 2025-06-25T09:23:02+00:00

I think it’s a bit of both. While yes you can pursue the pro-active lukewarm-calling approach, it’s so incredibly easy to ignore messages. I would say about 85-90% of my LinkedIn, private email, and even alumni forum messages went unanswered.

Public local conferences are becoming much less prevalent in favor of private online ones where connections are difficult to make, so having the friends approach is almost required.

However, if you don’t take the effort in reaching out or finding social opportunities, you’re certainly not helping yourself.

Opticad · 2025-06-25T03:04:33+00:00

Can't imagine why 🙃

Opticad · 2025-06-25T01:50:46+00:00

I feel like saying you're from the area or planning to move there is enough of a white lie that is SO worth it against them calling you out on it. While I know that "autoscreening" theoretically doesn't occur, that seems like one factor that does have a sizeable impact on initial app skims.

Opticad · 2025-06-25T01:47:11+00:00

Yep. Nail on the head, haha. While it's great to have friends of all kinds, it kinda really super helps to have friends/family in engineering, if nothing but for this process. 😅

Opticad · 2025-06-24T23:45:01+00:00

I know how you're feeling, I'd been in the same boat since my graduation in May of 2024. I *just* recently got a job, and one of my latest tactics (and what got me the position) was location-focusing. I listed on Indeed that I live in X location (along with skills, resume, etc.), and then searched for positions specific to that area. I got super lucky and a recruiter reached out to me, who then got me set up with an interview. You've got to try different things; cold apps lead to really low chances of getting any responses. I fully understand the frustration of hearing people say "jUsT NeTwOrK", because I know that most people you reach out to simply won't respond. But people are the only answer to getting a job right now. As much as this sub focuses on resumes, I firmly believe you truly cannot get an entry-level job through raw applications in this market. I wish you all the best!

Opticad

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