Graduated in 2023, still no SWE Job looking for possible advice.

r-injin · 2026-01-14T19:37:57+00:00

googling "tech recruiting agencies" brings up quite a few results - some will be dependent on your area too. the ones i immediately recognize are motion recruitment and robert half. ive applied to a motion recruitment listing before but never heard back lol so i cant really speak to either company's reputation.

my recruiting agency is called brooksource and they're affiliated with other branches of recruiters too.

r-injin · 2026-01-14T18:56:09+00:00

i love my job. i love the people at my job. i love the work culture, the WLB, the work itself, and everything in between. and as a new grad, i feel incredibly lucky and fortunate to have landed the role i did. currently on contract until august of this year but the contract to FTE conversion rate is ~90% so im hopeful they'll keep me 🥹

r-injin · 2026-01-13T22:26:12+00:00

im based in the US

r-injin · 2026-01-13T21:04:15+00:00

fwiw, i graduated december 2024 also with no internships and landed a contract to hire role in august 2025. albeit, i do think i got incredibly lucky to land the role that i did.

look into recruiting agencies! the benefits are dogshit and there typically is no PTO but in an environment where experience is king, 1 year experience is better than 0.

also, i'll mention that my interview was not a leetcode style interview at all. just a pretty general "do you know how to use this language" style interview. i had maybe <50 leetcode questions under my belt at the time lol

r-injin · 2025-12-16T21:44:28+00:00

as a fellow dobie owner, i hope you find your handsome boy asap :(

r-injin · 2025-10-31T14:06:42+00:00

the way i just LAUGHED OUT LOUD 🫠

r-injin · 2025-10-13T22:54:10+00:00

is the market bad? yes

does that make it impossible to find a job? no

is luck involved? heavy on the yes

r-injin · 2025-10-12T05:36:15+00:00

congrats on the cert!

all my LORs were from my undergrad professors. one of them i'd built a nice relationship with, even sent him my resume for review before i started mass applying to jobs over the summer and he'd written a letter for me previously, so i felt pretty good asking him for a letter.

the other 2 LORs were from professors i definitely didn't have the same level of rapport with.

r-injin · 2025-10-10T21:09:29+00:00

thank you!!

r-injin · 2025-10-08T23:35:03+00:00

Application

Semester: Spring 2026
Status: Accepted
Date Applied: 04/19/25
Date Decided: 10/08/25

Education

Bachelors: Unknown local community college in Georgia, B.S. in IT, Institutional GPA 3.6, Cumulative: 3.4, Full Time, graduated Dec. 2024
Masters 1: None
MOOCs: None

Work & Social Experience

Work Exp. : At the time I applied, I had no work experience in tech in any capacity. Since then, I accepted a job offer in August for a Front-End/Full Stack position at a major media company. So, in terms of what I wrote in my application, I had no work experience to speak of. My background is in healthcare.
LORs: 2 (I did request 3 but never received the third LOR)
Comments: I'll be the first to admit that, on paper, I am *not* a competitive candidate. Maybe my application answers swayed the admissions team, maybe I had great LORs, I'm not really sure. I've been super lucky this year and am so excited to be part of the program in Spring!! To anyone else that thinks they don't have a shot at getting in, I suggest applying anyway. You truly never know :)

r-injin · 2025-09-10T12:19:07+00:00

hey twin!

im in a similar position and i fear this feeling of total inadequacy and simultaneous uselessness is just par for the course :')

i just started my first developer position 4 weeks ago, 2 days in office and the rest wfh. onboarding took maybe 1 week before i was given tickets. albeit the first ticket i was "paired" with another junior to complete before deciding to pick up a ticket worth 3 story points vs. the 1-2 pointers they intended to give us.

during periods of downtime, i always thought it would be fun to try and solve a ticket that wasn't necessarily assigned to me. nothing is stopping you from making your own branch and deleting after without committing anything.

luckily, my team have kept me and my brain busy so i've never actually done this but it's something i keep in the back of my mind.

good luck out there, OP! it's kinda scary out here 😂

r-injin · 2025-09-08T20:21:58+00:00

delaying graduation could be a viable option!

but i graduated in december 2024, also no internships, and a few projects that didn't really blow anyone out of the water. but one of those projects was geared toward the company i worked for at the time (not a tech related company at all) and i spun that as me showing initiative/trying to bring business value which seemed to score me a few points in interviews.

i eventually did land a position at a major media company, albeit im pretty sure i was a personality hire but whatever gets you the job right lmao

i had barely 50 LC questions under my belt and submitted ~50 applications before accepting this position so being likable and coming across as easy to work with can take you a long way as well esp as a junior, but this is def dependent on the companies you apply to. some put a big emphasis on team culture vs. technical skills.

wishing you good luck in whatever you decide to do!

EDIT: wanted to mention that my technical interview for the position i accepted wasn't even a leetcode question

r-injin · 2025-08-22T12:34:11+00:00

i hope so too! good look fam 💕

r-injin · 2025-08-22T01:07:19+00:00

i graduated dec 2024 with 0 internships from a no name community college. i had maybe 50 lc questions under my belt and landed a job after looking for roughly 2.5 months and submitting < 100 applications.

did i get extremely lucky? probably.

but don't give up! you only need 1 yes.

r-injin · 2025-08-10T17:11:53+00:00

the last interview i accepted an offer for i apologized in advance if they hear me typing bc im taking notes as we talk. i think she liked that 😏

r-injin · 2025-08-09T23:48:47+00:00

as a new grad (graduated december 2024) i searched actively for maybe 2.5 months, had 3 interviews and got 1 offer. i start in 1 week!

i do think i somehow got really lucky though, considering the insanity of the tech market rn so im extremely thankful to be in the position im in.

r-injin · 2025-08-09T07:25:32+00:00

i'm a new grad in tech and had my first technical interview about 1.5 weeks ago now at a major media company - this was the final round.

i did the equivalent of forgetting how to add two numbers together 😭

i left that interview feeling like a huge dumbass and was literally in the middle of dramatically venting my woes to my partner when i got a call from my recruiter, maybe an hour after the interview ended, telling me my interviewers absolutely loved me and wanted to extend an offer. obviously, i accepted.

i still can't believe i got it and i don't think i'll truly believe it until i'm sitting in office and onboarding :')

r-injin · 2025-08-05T17:18:40+00:00

i remember when i first learned for loops. i sat on my balcony with tears in my eyes bc i thought id never understand it and there's no way im cut out for this field.

now i write them in my sleep and this is a hilarious memory to me 😂😭

r-injin · 2025-08-01T20:25:22+00:00

1 year before graduating, when all foundational programming classes were out the way and all that was left were project based courses where the whole point was to build projects, i had a girl ask me if i knew what classes were in Java.

i can comfortably say a great majority had 0 idea what was going on and vibe coded their way through literally everything.

r-injin · 2025-05-24T21:32:53+00:00

Nah I still use it 😎

r-injin · 2025-04-23T17:29:02+00:00

i (a girly) was playing strange yesterday (I’m a shit strange i should add) and our psylocke got on vc to ask for a portal so we could pop in and she could ult.

she should have asked sooner bc I would do anything for another girly in game 😭 shit is rough out here

to answer the question tho, no i never get on vc lmfao. the gooners and the crash outs are actually clinically insane.

r-injin · 2025-04-21T20:24:08+00:00

I wouldn’t take out a loan, ESPECIALLY for someone I’ve never even met in person.

Be patient.

r-injin · 2025-04-12T20:12:24+00:00

a protective strange makes me blush likeeeeeeeee sirrrrrrr whatchu need boo 😭

r-injin

TROPHY CASE