So much this. Networking(where you went to school and work) and luck(your country, your nationality, your ethnicity, your skin color, your looks, your accent, being at the right place and the right time) are worth more than your CV and side projects but this is rarely mentioned in this field as it's always touted that tech is a pure meritocracy.

One can often read sour vents on reddit on devs who lose hope, get depressed and burn out after being unemployed or stuck in dead end jobs for so long while they keep grinding leetcode and churning projects on github because the internet told them that SW development is a meritocracy and the key to success is putting enough hard work in your free time even though there's devs coasting on six figure jobs who haven't written a line on github in their life on their free time.

Nope, it's definitely no meritocracy, the tech world is just as unfair as the rest but has much better PR about it: watch Silicon Valley TV series made by the satire comedy genius Mike Judge(Office Space, Idiocracy) where billionaire tech magnate Gavin Belson would always sugarcoat his hostile business decisions with talks of buddhist spirituality, endangered animals and making the world a better place while his true motivation was only the accumulation of more fame, wealth and power.

In my most recent job hunt, I interviewed three times. In the first two loops I tried my best, but I could feel I wasn't really connecting. In my third, they asked questions about the kind of thing I had just spent six years building and I connected perfectly. It was like the sensation of hitting a homerun in the third loop, compared to foul balls (or strikes) in the first two.

In a way, this is luck. How lucky for me that the third job fit what I knew about and was comfortable talking about. It was lucky that they asked the kinds of questions that were things I was very experienced in. I was the same candidate in all three interview loops, just unlucky in the first two that what they were looking for wasn't a good fit for what I knew, and lucky in the third that it was a good fit.

That said, there's also a way in which this isn't luck. That is, I had to have some area of knowledge and skill or else I would have been flailing around forever without connecting.

Any individual interview is luck, but hard work and experience can increase the size of the target you're hoping to hit.

There are ways to stand out even with a bland CV.

Some ideas I've used in the past:

1. Reach out directly to key managers (found on LinkedIn), referring to the job listing. The key here is showing both initiative and an interest in working for the company beyond HR's rapidly growing pile of resumes

2. Read as much about the job and the company as possible, then use that context as a starting point to write a cover letter explaining how your skills will help them

This is patently false. The following are all ways you can stand out for a junior position:

- Attending a university that is hard to get into and has a strong CS program

- Having an impressive GPA

- Winning academic or software-related awards

- Having commendable accomplishments in software-related "extracurriculars", such as hackathons etc

- Whiteboard coding ability

I've done numerous junior interviews for FANG companies. They are extremely liberal in handing out interviews, and doing well in these interviews will guarantee a job offer. "Connections" has almost zero correlation to how you're graded in these interviews. Being unlucky can trip you up every now and then. But if you get rejected from every single FANG company, I guarantee you it's not because of luck.

Now you’re taking about FANG as if those are the only companies in existence. There are many many other places to make a living. I’ve personally never inverted a binary tree on a whiteboard and my career is doing fine.

You might want to read https://wesdesilvestro.com/the-prestige-trap from earlier on HN.

Now you're assuming that what I said applies only to FANG companies. I've also worked and gotten job offers from many non-FANG companies, across multiple industries, and they were all using the above data points to make entry-level hires. I only brought up FANG because they are the biggest and most well-known employers.

I've already read that article and I don't see the relevance, unless you're trying to imply that I'm a prestige-chaser just because I've worked at FANG companies

In technical subjects? Cooperative Engineering is a big deal. This puts you way ahead of the pack.

Sure, a 1st term coop is useless--just like junior engineers. Most of the 3rd term coops, however, are almost on par with the first promotion from junior.

I'd say coachability does get you hired, networking is what gets you interviewed.