... and now I'm job-hunting in earnest and jfcsstrrssfgchujbgfryhgftyhgerswww. I hope this is the right place to vent about this sort of thing, but I'm feeling so incredibly stressed and frustrated because I really want to change careers (TEFL teaching is a dead end, and the conditions have got so much worse in recent years) and I know I could do a junior frontend job perfectly well — I've put so much with into getting good at it in my own time — but it's beginning to dawn on me that there's basically no way in to the industry unless you know someone who can help you get a foot in the door.
I don't know where I'm going with this tbh — I just needed to vent somewhere — but it would be nice to hear any advice anyone can offer, or even just the lamentations of anyone with similar experiences...
I remember aboot 10 years ago one popular idea was register your own company create some .io domain and website for yourself and add it to linkedin or CV. Idk how well it worked tho I just opted for lying my ass off approach in my CV and interviews.
"Why yes mr capitalist sir I have 10 years of experience in C# at 18" (haven't even looked at the language) hired specifically cos boss man liked my bullshitting prowess.
I got pretty lucky and got a job when programming apprenticeships were popular so my position was basically government subsidised and i took off from there. Any grad schemes or intern style placement positions available for you? Also my approach was to just claim I know everything and figure it out on the job if ur confident enough you can learn quick.
when so many jobs are bullshit jobs, bullshitting prowess is a highly valuable skill. best possible economic system btw
Death to America
It really is (a valuable skill). I moved from a high-bullshit job to a low-bullshit job and actually have had to explain to a manager: "look, like 99% of my job description over the past decade has been 'come up with pleasant BS to distract other teams'; you're totally wasting me by having me actually do work"
My favorite CS professor confessed that was how he'd gotten into the field. Just straight up lied about knowing how to program for some niche system. He got the job and then taught himself as he went along.
Later went to school for it, got his PhD, and became one of the leading researchers in his field.