I could apply to hundreds of corporate jobs and I'm pretty sure I'd get none of them. Whereas for small startups I have historically rejected more offers than I've taken.
In fact, I have never gotten an offer from any company bigger than 30 or so employees. And yet my inbox gets at least 1 recruiter spam per week.
But that's besides the point. If there are very many engineers out there who aren't getting jobs within, say, 1 year of actively starting to look. And if there are very many companies out there that can't hire engineers within, say, 1 year of actively starting to look. Then there's something wrong with market fluidity in one way or another.
That said, I don't think I've ever heard of a competent engineer who can't land a job within a year of actively seeking.
Then again, I've heard that if you aren't doing anything useful for over a year, your prospects start to dwindle because people wonder what's your deal and see it as a red flag.
> land a job within a year of actively seeking
A year lead time is what a negative rate looks like?
I'd say 1 year is a high upper bound though. Specifics really depend.
But here's some general stats: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-biggest-predictor-o...
That link says that with a bachelor's degree or more, 17% are unemployed for 6 months or less, and 19% for a year or more. That gives a really big percent for people between 6 months and a year.
The reason I brought up the 1 year number was more to point out that there's a big difference between "I can't get a job [at all]" and "I can't get a job I really love as quickly as I want".
I mean, it doesn't matter what the unemployment rate for software engineers is, if you want a job as an AI expert at Google and all you've ever done is building simple Wordpress sites for your buddies.
So the problem seems more of, "Hiring Mangers think I'm unqualified" rather than "There aren't enough jobs for qualified developers"
Hiring an unqualified developer is MUCH worse than not hiring a developer at all. It's wasted time and money for the company. I've been on both sides of the table so if you want some feedback on your resume/interviewing skills feel free to shoot me an email.
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