spearingthehead

Over the years I have myself a set of software development skills and usually don't face much difficulty in learning new skills on the job.

But,

My ability to get new SWE jobs has drastically tapered off over the past few years and I have a serious learning problem with interviews. I lack the ability to read people at interviews nor can I learn from my mistakes in them. I'm unemployed so I lack leverage.

So, I need to get myself involved in something that can pay me in the interim, without that interviewing requirement. Something that is as open as volunteering, but the legal status of a job that provides compensation.

My first job working remote was in 2013- that's 9 years ago and 7 before COVID- and all my further jobs have been 100% remote since. Outside from the occasional few-times-a-year meeting with one or two people, or on-site job interviews, I never had physical face to face contact with professionals again.

I'm also a homebody and rarely go out with friends, and perhaps this is contributing to my inability with reading social cues at interviews as well.

Could all this remote work from the past be making a lot of people like myself rough around the edges in personality fit and why I'm failing interviews since 2020? Because, when the pandemic started (and the number of remote jobs went up) I have not been employed at all. It feels like I have been "pushed out" as a flood of new remote workers rushed in and no longer do I stand out as much.

I'd especially like to hear from people who were working remote before the pandemic. Because I'm starting to suspect that I'm focusing on the wrong things to improve my chances of getting an offer.

About 2 years ago I joined a fairly well-known prep program for software engineers on job interviews. At the time I had been one year without a job and with some 8 years of experience, and this program was recommended to me so I gave it a shot. I did the several weeks-long course and the longer follow-up portion which mainly involves applying to jobs, attending one weekly meeting and checking in with my progress.

A year later, still no job offers. Therefore, I ceased doing my follow-up at the end of last year, and this year I really decreased my output for job applications, mainly limiting myself to recruiters. To meet a weekly quota with the interview prep program, I had sent nearly a thousand applications last year. My ratio of applications to interviews was still pretty low with the interview program, so I stopped mass-sending applications.

But I also decided to stop doing things towards helping my career on unpaid time, even as I'm still unemployed. Taking that prep course didn't do anything to net me a job offer and I feel I've put in too much of my free time already for not getting any jobs out of it, so why would I want to keep going when it all feels like a gamble? I want to avoid unpaid career building from here on out. Could this still be a viable path? I'm not going to sign up to anything or do any career-related practice unless a company is paying for it, or otherwise doing it on salaried time. I only make an exception for meetup groups since I count that as socializing and not strictly career-related matters.

A job can hire me and pay me to learn, I have no problem with that. On-the-job training is a real thing. But I don't consider job searching to be a job, because I'm not getting paid for it.

I'm unemployed and having trouble getting a full-time developer job. My job history is dominated by freelance work. My time as a freelancer and working on personal projects is more isolating. It hasn't allowed me to grow the "office" skills such as working on teams, collaborating, advocating for yourself and others, etc. I'm pretty sure that in many places I interview with, they reject me because I'm seen too much as a lone wolf and won't fit in for that reason.

Every single prep website or course I can find regarding tech jobs, is only focused on tech questions. That's obvious you might say, but I feel that's only half the picture of winning the interview. Especially since I feel I would benefit more for improving my soft skills and navigating a workplace with many people.

I took a course before, it was paid and mostly focused on tech skills. I learned a couple of things on solving certain tech problems, but after a year of follow-through I still haven't found a job because of them. (which I now owe lots of money anyways, even though it was supposed to be deferred payment and still have no job)

What I would like to find are either prep guides focused on the soft skills needed to navigate work politics. Especially since I don't know if my future job will stick with 100% remote. Or perhaps workplace-oriented team-building setting that exists outside of work, as I'm currently out of a job.

Or perhaps something like a co-working space that's very casual and does workshops? Know of any places that provide this kind of practice that can help unemployed developers looking to boost their soft skills? I'm having trouble finding local ones tbh, they're all still recovering from the past lockdowns.

I am a software engineer who is self-taught, and after graduation I took local jobs for small web shops for dev work.

Here's a brief description of my timeline from beginning to present:

- 1.5 years contract-to-hire SWE (W2 never actually happened)

- 3 months full-time W2 work, followed by 6 months unemployed

- 10 years independent contract work (freelancing)

- 2.5 years of no work, and a lot of job searching

The last 5 years of independent contract work have been very sporadic. During this time I typically made under $10k every year. I don't really know how to "put myself out there" as a freelancer, and after 10 years of doing it, I just want to go back to W2 as a FT employee.

My tech job skills include, PHP, MySQL, vanilla JS and jQuery. I don't know testing, cloud, or CI/CD practices. Jobs involve building small scale websites- at first only WordPress and eCommerce sites but around year 5 become more much web app SaaS-focused.

I have spent a very long time without work because I don't really know how to fit myself into other places with such a skill set. I get interviews and then get rejected for not being good enough. But these are the skills I have the most experience in by far. I don't have any other job skills that come close. I don't have close friends and relatives who have a good pulse on the tech industry. I do have a Github portfolio- it's not very "hot" or "trendy" tech but just things I do them because I enjoy doing them.

What other good options do I have? It doesn't have to be highly relevant to work I've done in the past. Anyone have any ideas of what I can or should do?

A side note: I've been working remote since 2013 (may explain a lot about my how my career has went) and am pretty good with maintaining a schedule and discipline around WFH.