> you’re not guaranteed a better one

Jobs were never guaranteed in the US. If you were worth more, you still needed the salesmanship to convince an employer that you were worth it.

Spending effort learning how to write resumes, present yourself, and sell yourself in an interview is extremely worthwhile.

> Jobs were never guaranteed in the US. If you were worth more, you still needed the salesmanship to convince an employer that you were worth it.

Right, but from the thread for this post it seems like it’s much harder to even get to the point where you can talk to an employer, and instead you won’t even be able to pass the set of hard requirements that seemingly didn’t exist a couple decades ago. And that just makes it hard for people to really show what they’re good at. (Personal anecdote: I think every job I’ve had has little to do with what I’m actually good at, because I’ve found it hard to sell that sort of thing convincingly on a resume. So I never meet the people who’d be able to judge me appropriately in those topics.)

On the other hand, I go to nwcpp.org meetings, and there's always an outfit there stoning every tern looking for C++ programmers. I've been contacted by Symmetry Investments with 20 D programming positions to fill. Tech companies sponsor and attend tech conferences for the purpose of finding engineers to hire.

Giving an hour presentation is a fantastic way to sell your abilities. Tech conferences are often desperately looking for someone, anyone, to give a talk. Meetups, and nwcpp.org, are always looking for presenters. I often fill in at nwcpp and give a D talk because they couldn't find a C++ speaker. I often get contacted by conference organizers looking for speakers.

Employers will troll through github accounts looking for recruits. Want to get noticed? Contribute to a significant open source project. There is no gate there. Anyone can contribute.

Shotgunning out resumes is generally the most useless way to get hooked up.

> I often get contacted by conference organizers looking for speakers.

I can't help but think that the fact that you're Walter Bright may have something to do with that ;)

> Contribute to a significant open source project.

Operative word being "significant". I work on far too many smaller ones…

> Shotgunning out resumes is generally the most useless way to get hooked up.

Agreed.

I assume you mean “worthwhile” from the selfish perspective of a worker competing in the labour market. Overall, writing résumés and “selling yourself” is a waste of time that is necessary to deter bad actors. People who believe in the “signalling theory” of education think this extends to the whole education system.

Then why is everyone insistent on importing cheaper labor from India and China? They're more willing to do the work for less.

I will say, to get your foot in the door you need to be strategic and realistic with your salary expectations. You're not going to get a great an amount on your first entry level job.

Thinking you're going to be making >100k as a junior engineer outside of SF is optimistic and entitled. Having been in this field for a while at this point it's not unsurprising a lot of engineers are complaining about the skillset required to get the job done. The issue is startups can't afford to hire interns and juniors as they need to actually get work done and not have supervise them.

> And even if you get an offer, you’re not guaranteed a better one even if you think you’re “worth more”.

This isn't an issue, if you "think" you're worth more then you decline that offer and continue looking. If you're struggling for money you take it and keep looking.

> If you're struggling for money you take it and keep looking.

Exactly, which is why I brought it up as a response to why you wouldn’t just reject any offers that are below what you’d like.