I graduated last year with my bachelor’s in computer science, summa cum laude, with honors college recognition. Ever since, I’ve applied to thousands of jobs all across my field. I’ve had one interview. Obviously I’m doing something wrong, but I have no clue what it is.

So how is anyone doing it? How are new grads landing interviews, getting offers?

Where and how do you apply? Im desperately looking for some advice.

I know faang companies hire a good number of new grads always especially Amazon and Meta. But any other companies that have good HC or hire a good amount? Cus I notice that a lot of good companies mainly get new grads through their interns and hire less otherwise.

Want to know so I can target these companies more specifically.

I’m 22 years old, just graduated and I’ve been applying to jobs for almost 3 months now. Honestly, it’s been super discouraging. A lot of the jobs I’m interested in want fresh grad with years of experience, which obviously I don’t have. Why do companies do this?

I also sent out a lot of applications, had a few interviews but I either didn't hear back or get rejected. The job market feels so competitive right now. Any tips on what worked for you to land that first job?

Edit: I came across an article that explains why this is happening and how it affects the job market: https://peoplemanagingpeople.com/articles/entry-level-requirements/#h-the-truth-about-job-descriptions. Thoughts??

I am kind of depressed at the moment. I recently graduated and I've been applying as much as I can, but to be honest I'm starting to become gloomy. The first problem is that I can't find sufficient roles that are suitable to me, while the second is that I just get rejections.

I'm just so lost. I wasn't the best student - hell, my GPA was a 3.24. I didn't do THE hardest courses, but I did the ones that I thought were interesting. I got an internship and I TA'd students. I don't want to believe that I'm truly useless or skilless, but it's difficult to see past the n'th rejection email.

I hate Indeed. I hate LinkedIn. From dawn till dusk, I open my email, check through spam, doomscroll on Indeed, look at the job posted an hour ago that already has 1000 applicants, ad infinitum. Fuck me man, at the very least it's nice to know we're all in a shitshow.

So, really, I just wanted to vent. The month has gone by and it's hard to shake the feeling that things aren't going to get better. Any advice or recommendations would be ok. Or if you want to vent too that's fine.

If there are any industry vets, I could use a honest answer to the following; do you think the market will recover and provide opportunities for us no-low experience devs? That'll be all.

Sorry if this was annoying, just had to get it out of my system. I wrote this post and deleted it 100 times before finally pressing post.

Entry-level roles are asking for 1–3 years of experience, expectations for undergrads keep going up, and AI is starting to replace or shrink a lot of junior work. 1-3 years of experience ppl fighting for entry positions. It honestly feels like the barrier to entry for a new undergrad is impossible.

Is this how things are going to be from now on, or is there a real chance the market improves? If it does improve, what actually changes? And most importantly—how are people realistically supposed to get their foot in the door anymore?

Would love to hear perspectives from people who’ve made it in recently or anyone on the hiring side.

I'm due to graduate this spring, and I've been getting told variations of "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" by even Millennials. I just think some perspective would help immensely, because I have no idea what to even believe anymore.

Need experience to get job, need job to get experience

Sure you could do many personal projects, grind leetcode, apply to a minimum of 800+ cause anything below that is rookie numbers, reach out to your network, get referrals, still do projects on the side, and then what

Firstly the doom and gloom really gets to me and I'm sure a lot of other people, the "you only need 1 job" mindset kinda helps but not for long.

I need advice from seniors in the field, how do I make myself a better candidate without having enough experience, mostly internships, and where do I go from here?

Edit: I think I got some really good advice on making myself a better candidate but also I think I'm struggling with having my resume seen by actual people. I feel like I'm getting screened out for jobs I have the skills for and even ones I'm overqualified for real quick.

What I've tried so far:

• applying to jobs immediately (filtering for past 24 hours postings everyday)

• got multiple mentors to review and modified my resume maybe 3-4 times

• tried career fairs where I could talk to actual people and had better luck there, was told I was a good candidate and got some interviews but didn't make it through after a couple of rounds.

Edit 2: I did not expect the amount of responses I got for this post.

Thank you for all the advice! There were still some classic doom and gloom comments about just leaving the industry, finding something else to do etc and I have to ignore those for my own mental health. I've put in a lot of effort into this degree and love what I do and this is the career I pick, getting a new grad job has always been hard and I appreciate the seniors perspectives on this. I've started applying for more diverse roles and looking for anything even tangentially related and I'm already having some luck with that, let's hope it goes somewhere - especially cause I feel a little overqualified for those because of my past research and internship experiences. I know the first job isn't always that important and that I'll continue working on my skills to be able to pivot later in my career.

The biggest actionable advice a lot of people gave here was contributing to open source repos so will work on that more soon.

To the other new grads out there, good luck to y'all too! Guess we'll be traumatized for life with this market but software is so fun and there's nothing else I'd rather do lol

This country is in a rough state at the moment, and is directly reflected by the job market.

I am supposed to graduate right now but I delayed it by 1 semester since I did an internship. Most of my friends didn't get a job and are going to grad school. I genuinely don't know anyone who graduated in 4 years that has a job right now.

I have almost 3 YOE and not getting interviews. I used to have no problem getting interviews when I had 1 YOE. Not sure if it's the format of my new resume, or if I'm somehow a worse candidate than before. Most of the posts I see I don't qualify fully for but I still apply. I work primarily in full stack react frontend, various backends including node.js and some ruby. I've done a java project hoping to apply to some java roles but the YOE requirement usually weeds me out of those.

I've talked to several people with multiple YOE in the same boat as me. So how am I seeing new grads and bootcampers landing roles? I truly mean no offense. It's just that the job market is that brutal. What are you guys doing to land a job with no experience? Any tips for getting into .NET or java full stack? those seem to be in demand but the companies don't give anyone outside the YOE requirement a chance

• also worth noting... I am literally applying for any job that I might qualify for. Even if the pay sucks (like under 50k usd) or it's a junior role. Hell those are so rare now

I am graduating in May 2024, and for the past month I have been applying to new grad roles. Or at least trying to. At this point, I have under 50 jobs. Now I know that is very little, but I have trouble finding new grad roles that have less than 2 years of experience required. I have been only getting rejections, no less in part because I have been applying to roles that wants 3+ years of experience. Is the economy and job market that bad?

I don’t want to lose hope so early on, because I have about 6 months left to find a job, but there’s just no companies that have open new grad or junior roles right now. Please give me places to find more jobs (I have been using LinkedIn as my main job board).

And here is my resume: https://i.imgur.com/YH2z8BG.png

Any critiques are appreciated.

I graduated with a CS degree a year ago and still haven’t landed a full-time job. I’ve done a couple of unpaid internships, so I’m not totally empty on experience, but I’m still unemployed. What keeps me going is knowing someone from my class who cheated through literally every course and somehow landed a great job. So I keep pushing, because I know I’m waaay more capable than him.

I’ve been doing everything you’re supposed to do:

• Check LinkedIn, Indeed, Wellfound, Otta, Simplify, Handshake..etc daily

• Send cold emails and connection requests every day

• Post regularly on LinkedIn about projects, LeetCode questions, courses (WebDev, ML, etc.)

• Apply only to jobs I’m 90% qualified for (mostly in my area or remote U.S.-based roles)

• Follow up by contacting recruiters and engineers at the company

Still little to no traction.

I used to spam hundreds of applications, but now I’m more targeted and strategic. Problem is: most “entry-level” jobs require 2+ years of experience, and the search filters are terrible. I can’t find many roles that are truly entry-level or meant for recent grads. Even job boards with “new grad” tags often link to dead posts, generic forms, or ghosted GitHub repos that are already picked clean.

At this point, I think I just need more volume of real opportunities. So:

Where are people finding legitimate new grad / early career SWE jobs?
Not “intern-to-hire” jobs from a year ago, not FAANG ghost listings, not GitHub repo scraps, just actual, recent postings with a shot.

I’m not giving up. I just need to change how I’m searching. Any insight would help.

This question is directed to any recent college grads or those who recruit for entry level positions. Where are you sourcing your new hires who are just out of college? And if you are a recent college graduate, what job sites/online job boards are you using to find new opportunities for work?

I’ve been applying like crazy to 2026 new grad positions but haven’t even gotten a single OA so far. I’ve changed my application strategies so many times from tailoring my resume to applying early and even reaching out to recruiters. Nothing seems to be working. It’s honestly getting super frustrating. I know the market is really tough right now, but is it actually impossible to get a job? Or are people still somehow landing interviews? If anyone has heard back, gotten an OA, or even just landed an interview recently, could you please share what worked for you? Any tips or advice would really help. I’m trying not to lose hope, but it’s been rough.

I honestly don’t know how some people are finding jobs right now. I can barely find any entry-level postings in or outside of the Bay Area.

I’m currently interning at a semiconductor startup in the bay area, and I’m fortunate that my internship doesn’t have a fixed end date. But I’ve been trying to transition into a full-time role, and I’m struggling because there just aren’t many listings to apply to.

I’ve tried strategies like applying only to jobs posted within the last 5 days, but the available roles dry up almost immediately. I’m open to opportunities both in the Bay Area and elsewhere, yet I still can’t find much that’s actually hiring.

What are the best resources for finding real job postings from companies that are genuinely looking to hire? Any advice would help.

Hey folks,
I’m graduating in 2026 (Canada) and starting to stress a little about the job hunt. I've been scrolling LinkedIn pretty religiously, but almost every "entry-level" job I see wants 3+ years of experience?? Like… what’s the point of calling it entry-level then??

Are there any websites or platforms that actually cater to fresh grads / people with no full-time experience yet? I have some internships under my belt, but nothing that counts for “3 years.”

Would love any advice — where should I be looking? Or is this just part of the game and I gotta keep applying anyway?

Thanks in advance 🙏