zboox

I have under 1 year total lifetime experience with full-time work, which was in 2010. That doesn't just include software engineering work (which is what I have done for the past several years)- that includes every type of job I've done since I started taking jobs while in high school.

I've went back and counted my jobs- at department stores, B2B clients, campus work etc. and I only found one year where I was actually a full-time employee of any kind.

In the meantime I fell into a holding pattern of freelance/temp work with little to show in building my network. Many failed attempts to get hired full-time as a SWE are a cause for concern.

Also, I am about 2 years away from reaching 40.

I'm not quite the same as a spoiled kid who didn't need to work for most of their life. I simply am a guy who has held lot of temporary jobs, but displays little "career intelligence".

What advice would you give to an adult that is a late bloomer in professional stability and growth and wants to build a career? How do people build a network from almost zero in a post-COVID world? I might want to glean experiences of class of 2020 students too, to get an idea of network building in difficult times, since I find myself to have more in common with students than the average 30-something professional.

I graduated a few years ago and I have a few years of professional experience already. But it's not in a really good place and I self-taught my way in.

Schools that historically sent a lot of students to internship and new grad seats at great companies to work for will continue to do so because there's an element of "institutional knowledge" built up over the years and a reciprocal relationship with these companies through the representation of alumni.

Not a huge problem in itself but it sort of implicitly makes the lives of people who exist out of this feedback loop harder in terms of getting a "top job" straight out of college. Many of which didn't even know that any of this interplay existed and just chose to go to a decent school nearby or couldn't afford to move out. Reasons that would be innocuous, but result in sub-optimal treatment for those that don't clue themselves in well enough.

It is for this reason that I've made a personal goal for myself go to a better college to get internships on my resume and become as privileged as possible.

I know I can get into a better job without needing to go back to school, but I still won't have had the more "privileged" college experience. Is that ridiculous to think about retroactively changing parts of your life? After all, we have only one life to live (that we know of) so I believe it's everyone's right to go nuts and craft the best damn narrative you can for your life and be whoever you want, not just professionally but academically and privilege-wise too.