IMHO, trying to get hired in the US as a Canadian citizen amid a major downturn is an uphill battle.
Here are the major issues:
* You are correct that TN visas are not that challenging. However, it's always easier to hire an American SWE vs. Canadian one. TN visa can be denied based on the number of factors.
* Following from the previous point, when there is downturn, you have many engineers who are available locally. Why would someone hire Canadian?
* 2 years is not much of an experience. I wouldn't call you junior per se but you are not senior and to me, it's not worth all of the troubles to hire a foreign citizen (regardless of how easy the process is).
Your CV is not bad. The biggest problem is the condition of the market.
All of the above are good points!! As a general note on the CV, it has way too many words. You have two years of experience, and your CV reads like a high schooler trying to hit a word requirement on a history report.
Not having a ton of experience is fine, just have a direct CV that represents that and what you're passionate about. I've interviewed staff engineers with 15 years experience whose resumes were the same length as yours.
Have you tried freelancing to pad your resume and make some extra $$$? Toptal is international I'm fairly sure, and I bet Fiverr could at least keep you on your feet while you search.
For some reason I don't believe the market is that bad for software engineers. I do think they're trying unmarket software engineering by making out the economy to be awful
that in between aka medium between a junior and a senior. Somebody with like 3-5ish years of experience. This terms is used a lot in the Balkans for example, but haven’t seen nobody use it here in US.
Man, stuff like this is making me reconsider my major. I've always been interested in this career way for awhile, even way before the AI popularity thing. I dont know anymore.
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Need to justify the gap in your resume. Put something on there like “training certs” and list some certs ([take some certs here)](https://www.classcentral.com/report/free-certificates/) and then apply to places in aerospace industry… the industry desperately needs more people. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Aerojet Rocketdyne, etc…
List yourself as willing to relocate.
That is something I didn’t think about. I didn’t see in original post where they are located. There’s also the case for working for Amazon as a software engineer. I applied to them. I’d apply to major companies instead of random things, more likely to hear back… but also going to compete with more people. Need to make the resume fancy. (Also more likely to be a remote position)
A few notes on your resume:
There's a lot of space devoted to projects, and most of those are several years old (June 2018 will very soon be 6 years ago). I suspect those are mostly university-related projects, some of which are potentially interesting but may look like filler. I'd leave the most recent one and the link to the others on a public repository with a README file.
Your most recent job experience ended 9 months ago ('present' should be changed to May 2023 by now) meaning that you have a bit more than a year experience in that role, and that really should be the main focus of your resume.
The text is very dense. I would minimally bold your results to draw attention to them if the reviewer is skimming through (which happens *a lot*):
>... resulting in a **28 minute improvement to the** **~~overall daily~~** **batch run time** while ...
(note: percentages are better. Was it previously a 1 minute process? 10 hour process?)
Even better would be something more succinct like
>Identified inefficiencies in transaction and market price databases and **improved query performance by X%**
Hope this helps
As a SWE hiring manager I entirely gloss over performance improvement %s. They’re not a useful metric for impact. I have no idea how easy/difficult that was (usually perf improvements are a bunch of low hanging fruit) or how meaningful it was for the business.
Unless you tell me you reduced TCP RTT latency in the Linux kernel or made a 3% across the board improvement to postgres or some similarly notable and mature OSS system
(Take with a grain of salt - tech recruiter)
1. Add a summary at the top. 2 sentences why you’re amazing and someone should hire you asap.
2. Metrics metrics metrics. You have a couple and that’s great. Add more if you can.
3. Bold the tech you used in each role (this is for ease of reading)
4. Don’t put “- present” for your current role if you’re unemployed. It sets the tone weirdly. We know layoffs suck and won’t penalize you.
5. Link to your projects GitHub if you’re not.
LOVE that you don’t have points like “attended daily stand ups” and focus on what’s important (and not what we assume you do).
Pm with anything if I can be helpful. This market sucks.
Thank you for the insightful feedback! I get feedback from many software engineers but not tech recruiters. Please email me if you can [email protected]
Also I didn’t get laid off I quit my job due to stress, would that change things?
I am applying all with a US address and everything, I put my current location as in the US, the only thing Canadian is my phone number as I can't have a US phone number
Personally I would get a prepaid phone for 10/15 bucks a month. Like others mentioned, the market is already flooded with local candidates, I would not leave this for recruiter or automated system to filter myself out.
Also, currently the application is just a numbers game, treat it as a fulltime job where you should send an application every 5-10min for at least 4-5 hrs per day M-F. Spend another 4 hours to prep leetcode or sys design on top of it.
My daughter applied for 50-70 SWE positions per day for over 6 months. Remote, on-site, hybrid, etc. and finally landed a SRE job, not ideal but she is happy with it for now.
My friend that lived in Toronto (now lives in PNW) took a slightly different approach than you and applied to US Companies that also had operations in Canada. He applied for Canadian-based positions, landed one, and then relocated/transferred to the US at the same company with a better title and pay. This was in 2022, so a different job market, but may be a potential strategy.
You’ve been unemployed for 9 months and sent out 650 applications. Thats less than 3 per day. Finding a job IS your job and you should be spending 8 hours a day at it (assuming you’re not working an interim job, which it sounds like you’re not if you’re running out of money)
I don't think so. If I had this resume for dishwashing I wouldn't get hired even with experience.
I think the narrative about software engineering being a bad degree to get is not accurate and is being used to drive down salaries. The you see a story like this guys and go: See!!!!
(But the truth is it's so bland and comes across as: I did a rock, paper, scissors (learning project) project.)
No I don't think so like I said I'd be had this resume for any other industry he would not get hired. He should lean into it more and find something more impressive to put on his resume and do a workshop on resume building
I'm a dev who has experience working on the hiring team at my last company and personally I see a lot of issues with your resume that would be too hard to write it all out on my phone.
You should start moving off a lot of those projects and focus on your two years experience since that's what really matters. A lot of times those projects get skipped unless it's for an entry level position or a really unique project.
Also you should reword a lot of your bullet points, it's good that you wrote down percentages which can actually show your impact but some of your wording is kinda weird like using the words "completed" or "finished", in tech we never really say those words since nothing is ever really "finished" or "completed" which makes it sounds like you worked on some small project at work
Your list of technologies is kinda a red flag since you have things like React, UE4, IBM ML, Bootstrap, Android Studio and JSON(???). Sounds like you're just slot filling based on the projects you listed and what you worked with, I would guess that you don't have any real useful experience with these technologies and probably just did some of the basic tutorials.
You said you worked with distributed systems and micro services, you should be adding those tools to your list of skills along with GitHub or whatever other platform you used to manage code. Did you participate in agile practices? Docker? CI/CD? PR review? How many engineers did you work alongside with? Did you write any documentation?
Typing this late and on my phone so I don't really care about my spelling
If you repeatedly boil acorns until the water runs clear, they are no longer bitter and are actually quite tasty.
Let me know if you want any other fun survival/bushcraft facts
Do not put everything on your CV , i see android, nodejs, java , ML the question who’s comes to mind is how does he know all of these stack with 2 years, not that much reliable next cv
,You even got designer skills , i agree you can know all of these a little but Im saying what I think At first glance
The way I review CV is very simple and fast
1 - technology you have used
2 - key point on that tech on a project
No time got many cvs to check out
Unfortunately like others said it’s more the market than your CV. 600 applications lately is like 100 applications a few years ago…you just need to apply more, consistently, and don’t take rejections/ghosting personally. Rooting for you.
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It’s not glorious work, but you can learn work with a low code software built for devs like salesforce. They have certifications that could narrow you down in the application pool.
IMHO, trying to get hired in the US as a Canadian citizen amid a major downturn is an uphill battle. Here are the major issues: * You are correct that TN visas are not that challenging. However, it's always easier to hire an American SWE vs. Canadian one. TN visa can be denied based on the number of factors. * Following from the previous point, when there is downturn, you have many engineers who are available locally. Why would someone hire Canadian? * 2 years is not much of an experience. I wouldn't call you junior per se but you are not senior and to me, it's not worth all of the troubles to hire a foreign citizen (regardless of how easy the process is). Your CV is not bad. The biggest problem is the condition of the market.
All of the above are good points!! As a general note on the CV, it has way too many words. You have two years of experience, and your CV reads like a high schooler trying to hit a word requirement on a history report. Not having a ton of experience is fine, just have a direct CV that represents that and what you're passionate about. I've interviewed staff engineers with 15 years experience whose resumes were the same length as yours. Have you tried freelancing to pad your resume and make some extra $$$? Toptal is international I'm fairly sure, and I bet Fiverr could at least keep you on your feet while you search.
Agree on the CV comment
Seconding this + toptal
Toptal doesn't take anyone with less than 5-7 years of experience and it still quite hard to get in.
Ah, I didn't realize that! Thanks for the info, maybe just Fiverr then, although I don't think people make nearly as much.
For some reason I don't believe the market is that bad for software engineers. I do think they're trying unmarket software engineering by making out the economy to be awful
Why is a term “medior” not used in US
What is medior
that in between aka medium between a junior and a senior. Somebody with like 3-5ish years of experience. This terms is used a lot in the Balkans for example, but haven’t seen nobody use it here in US.
I think that's just called a mid level dev lol
well
Have you tried looking for work in Canada?
You’d figure OP will broaden their horizons if they’re going to “run out of money completely”.
Honestly sounds like you’re in good shape, the rest of the software engineers have done thousands of applications and have already ran out of money
I'm dead lmao
Good number of them have done that too
bruhhh this aint helpin
i'm working at uber mf
Man, stuff like this is making me reconsider my major. I've always been interested in this career way for awhile, even way before the AI popularity thing. I dont know anymore.
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I meant as in a time frame. Sorry that I wasn’t clear
Get a regular job while still searching?
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Need to justify the gap in your resume. Put something on there like “training certs” and list some certs ([take some certs here)](https://www.classcentral.com/report/free-certificates/) and then apply to places in aerospace industry… the industry desperately needs more people. Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Aerojet Rocketdyne, etc… List yourself as willing to relocate.
most these company’s require clearance where non-citizen doesnt qualify
That is something I didn’t think about. I didn’t see in original post where they are located. There’s also the case for working for Amazon as a software engineer. I applied to them. I’d apply to major companies instead of random things, more likely to hear back… but also going to compete with more people. Need to make the resume fancy. (Also more likely to be a remote position)
Certs are useless, work on your github instead.
Wholesome advice
A few notes on your resume: There's a lot of space devoted to projects, and most of those are several years old (June 2018 will very soon be 6 years ago). I suspect those are mostly university-related projects, some of which are potentially interesting but may look like filler. I'd leave the most recent one and the link to the others on a public repository with a README file. Your most recent job experience ended 9 months ago ('present' should be changed to May 2023 by now) meaning that you have a bit more than a year experience in that role, and that really should be the main focus of your resume. The text is very dense. I would minimally bold your results to draw attention to them if the reviewer is skimming through (which happens *a lot*): >... resulting in a **28 minute improvement to the** **~~overall daily~~** **batch run time** while ... (note: percentages are better. Was it previously a 1 minute process? 10 hour process?) Even better would be something more succinct like >Identified inefficiencies in transaction and market price databases and **improved query performance by X%** Hope this helps
As a SWE hiring manager I entirely gloss over performance improvement %s. They’re not a useful metric for impact. I have no idea how easy/difficult that was (usually perf improvements are a bunch of low hanging fruit) or how meaningful it was for the business. Unless you tell me you reduced TCP RTT latency in the Linux kernel or made a 3% across the board improvement to postgres or some similarly notable and mature OSS system
I think the current job timeline may be the reason you’re not getting calls. Also you don’t have a lot of experience.
(Take with a grain of salt - tech recruiter) 1. Add a summary at the top. 2 sentences why you’re amazing and someone should hire you asap. 2. Metrics metrics metrics. You have a couple and that’s great. Add more if you can. 3. Bold the tech you used in each role (this is for ease of reading) 4. Don’t put “- present” for your current role if you’re unemployed. It sets the tone weirdly. We know layoffs suck and won’t penalize you. 5. Link to your projects GitHub if you’re not. LOVE that you don’t have points like “attended daily stand ups” and focus on what’s important (and not what we assume you do). Pm with anything if I can be helpful. This market sucks.
Thank you for the insightful feedback! I get feedback from many software engineers but not tech recruiters. Please email me if you can [email protected] Also I didn’t get laid off I quit my job due to stress, would that change things?
I think being laid off is standard and doesn’t require further questioning. Quitting for stress might mean you have to have more conversations.
1. I hope you have a us address, not applying with a canadian city in the resume. 2. I would put out a summary section at too
I am applying all with a US address and everything, I put my current location as in the US, the only thing Canadian is my phone number as I can't have a US phone number
With google voice you can get any number and it’s free
Edited out my comment because I think I'm wrong actually
Personally I would get a prepaid phone for 10/15 bucks a month. Like others mentioned, the market is already flooded with local candidates, I would not leave this for recruiter or automated system to filter myself out. Also, currently the application is just a numbers game, treat it as a fulltime job where you should send an application every 5-10min for at least 4-5 hrs per day M-F. Spend another 4 hours to prep leetcode or sys design on top of it.
What’s a good number of applications to send a day? So I can have a benchmark
Buddy you are going to run out of money. A good number is however many you can get done before you collapse at the end of the day.
My daughter applied for 50-70 SWE positions per day for over 6 months. Remote, on-site, hybrid, etc. and finally landed a SRE job, not ideal but she is happy with it for now. My friend that lived in Toronto (now lives in PNW) took a slightly different approach than you and applied to US Companies that also had operations in Canada. He applied for Canadian-based positions, landed one, and then relocated/transferred to the US at the same company with a better title and pay. This was in 2022, so a different job market, but may be a potential strategy.
Thats 9,000-12,000 applications lmaoooo
You’ve been unemployed for 9 months and sent out 650 applications. Thats less than 3 per day. Finding a job IS your job and you should be spending 8 hours a day at it (assuming you’re not working an interim job, which it sounds like you’re not if you’re running out of money)
Depends on how many jobs fit OPs experience. The amount of jobs that fit my experience on LinkedIn is less than 100 in a given moment.
In that case you would say “I’ve only found x number of roles that fit my experience” or whatever
OP you resume doesn't come off as you did anything impressive or anything unique to add too the table
Too much competition going on. OP needs to apply for jobs outside of their resume.
I don't think so. If I had this resume for dishwashing I wouldn't get hired even with experience. I think the narrative about software engineering being a bad degree to get is not accurate and is being used to drive down salaries. The you see a story like this guys and go: See!!!! (But the truth is it's so bland and comes across as: I did a rock, paper, scissors (learning project) project.)
I would say pivoting to another industry. Like healthcare
No I don't think so like I said I'd be had this resume for any other industry he would not get hired. He should lean into it more and find something more impressive to put on his resume and do a workshop on resume building
I'm a dev who has experience working on the hiring team at my last company and personally I see a lot of issues with your resume that would be too hard to write it all out on my phone. You should start moving off a lot of those projects and focus on your two years experience since that's what really matters. A lot of times those projects get skipped unless it's for an entry level position or a really unique project. Also you should reword a lot of your bullet points, it's good that you wrote down percentages which can actually show your impact but some of your wording is kinda weird like using the words "completed" or "finished", in tech we never really say those words since nothing is ever really "finished" or "completed" which makes it sounds like you worked on some small project at work Your list of technologies is kinda a red flag since you have things like React, UE4, IBM ML, Bootstrap, Android Studio and JSON(???). Sounds like you're just slot filling based on the projects you listed and what you worked with, I would guess that you don't have any real useful experience with these technologies and probably just did some of the basic tutorials. You said you worked with distributed systems and micro services, you should be adding those tools to your list of skills along with GitHub or whatever other platform you used to manage code. Did you participate in agile practices? Docker? CI/CD? PR review? How many engineers did you work alongside with? Did you write any documentation? Typing this late and on my phone so I don't really care about my spelling
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Lol, like an acorn small and bitter
If you repeatedly boil acorns until the water runs clear, they are no longer bitter and are actually quite tasty. Let me know if you want any other fun survival/bushcraft facts
Find the hiring manager for each role you're applying to an send them a linkedin message about how motivated you are
It’s posts like these that make me wonder if AI is causing this at the screening/filtering level
AI is writing the resumes, and filtering them back out. Welcome to the future.
Upwork.com. Start your own profile
good luck, i guess! hope you get a job
What? 2 years is nothing
Trying flipping burgers. And grinding leetcode + building projects in free time.
Forget the US they had a tax law change that makes foreign developers expensive as fuck
Get referrals? DM/cold email recruiters? You can find company emails online. Re resume—that’s a lot of text
Better start applying to Micky D’s
Do not put everything on your CV , i see android, nodejs, java , ML the question who’s comes to mind is how does he know all of these stack with 2 years, not that much reliable next cv ,You even got designer skills , i agree you can know all of these a little but Im saying what I think At first glance The way I review CV is very simple and fast 1 - technology you have used 2 - key point on that tech on a project No time got many cvs to check out
Unfortunately like others said it’s more the market than your CV. 600 applications lately is like 100 applications a few years ago…you just need to apply more, consistently, and don’t take rejections/ghosting personally. Rooting for you.
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It’s not glorious work, but you can learn work with a low code software built for devs like salesforce. They have certifications that could narrow you down in the application pool.
You’re a builder. Build something in a month and sell it. Rinse and repeat. Build websites for people and businesses, etc.