@Matthew I'm also out of work but I get interviews every two weeks or so. And most recruiters contact me over LinkedIn (instead of me contacting them), why? Potentially it's because I'm younger, but here are my tricks in case they help you:

- I have a GitHub portfolio of my open-source work
- Companies hate junior devs, you gotta somehow make it to the "senior" level (3 - 4 years)
- I put my WORK front and center instead of my DEGREES (some companies still insist on degrees but w/e).
- I specialize in a niche and am good at what I do. Companies do not search for jack-of-all-trades
- I have a backup experience in government administration in case everything fails
- I think in "projects" instead of "hours" at my "day job". I can't stand clocking in and out. In interviews I show people what I've built.
- ALWAYS try to build your own thing. Your job is just a jumping board into creating profitable software so you get passive income.

You have to realize that the old boomer system of "go to school, get a degree, marry, buy a house" is DEAD because you have billions of Indians knocking at your door, besides surviving the wokeist mob. Your only option to survival (besides prayer) is to stand out and also to network with people you know.

In the end, you gotta be creative. Also, pray the rosary so that God gives you ideas on what to build. I always get ideas during prayer, for example I wanted to write a website to organize Resistance Masses around the world, an iOS app to digitize old Church books to reprint them so they don't get lost, PDF booklets for my church for the Gregorian chants or a personal Brevier web app: lots and lots of software ideas that can help the church and also serve as an example coding project.

Also, lots of people are out of work right now or are barely surviving. Don't be too hard on yourself.

Any update? 

Continued prayers. 

Still looking for work.

I just looked at my "Job hunt" folder to see how many "Your Application Has Been Sent to [Company]" job application submission email receipts I saved off there -- I wanted to be able to keep track of the number, just for curiosity if nothing else.

I've applied to 688 jobs since Jan 8th, 2025. Wow.

A lot of those were "remote" jobs so the competition is insane, but it's not like I'm ignoring any local jobs in San Antonio either.

See if Mike Adams (Brighteon & NaturalNews) might be hiring. He's undertaking huge AI and software projects right now and indifinitely. He lives in your state. I'm sure he'd be happy to hire a smart Christian with a high aptitude in programming/software development like yourself.

I just spoke with a guy from Bay Area who lost his 3 months ago. He looked extremely over-stressed and it took a bit of time for him to open up.

Out 688, how many actual negative responses did you get? Or they just ignored the application ...

I'm up to 1,010 now BTW.

A lot of them send a canned digital "Dear John" letter. I skim the e-mail for the word "Unfortunately" and that's when I hit delete.

Most companies filter all resumes and job applications through AI and other software bots -- you could be qualified or mostly qualified, but if you used the wrong phrase, or failed to mention a specific library or term (which you might have rightly used), they assume it doesn't apply to you; you must know nothing about it and would take years to learn it.

Apparently, no one can learn ANYTHING on the job anymore -- I don't know where people even get experience from. hahaha
So for these reasons, a lot of resumes get filtered and disposed of, right out of the gate.

I'm up to 1,010 now BTW.

A lot of them send a canned digital "Dear John" letter. I skim the e-mail for the word "Unfortunately" and that's when I hit delete.

Wow...  That is a LOT of applications to make without even getting one offer... 😣

Will be praying for you and your family.  

And a clear sign that he does something wrong.

Yeah. Don't get old. You have to add 15 years to your actual age, to get to your "perceived age" in the Software Development industry.

A 65 year old accountant, and a 50 year old software developer, have equal difficulty getting hired.

And a clear sign that he does something wrong.

It's my understanding that they're filtering through IT applications with "AI", and for all we know they're also looking you up online and in various database.

You'd have to hit a smaller company that manually looks at resumes.

And, as Matthew realizes, because there's a high volume of resumes coming in, they're bouncing you if you are missing one or two key words they're looking for because it helps narrow the field, as no one can manually go through 1,000 resumes.  So they make various relatively-arbitrary decisions to weed them down.

One thing to try is to look at the job posting and at least put a mention of the stuff in the posting on your resume, even if it's something like "acquainted with" or "heard of" [this particular tech].  I see one out there asking for SOME / LITTLE Angular.  Well, I have a tiny bit of exposure to it, so I'd go on my resume and put something like "exposure to Angular" just so I don't get auto-bounced by the AI.

I did not mean to be critical or sarcastic. My resume probably is good enough, I made to the level that I was interviewed for two high level engineering positions actually. But I guess, I am too much of a straight shooter and it did not work out for both sides.

I know for the fact one company where they hire new grads from top schools. Last year, they had 1000+ application in the queue. Insane.

My dream is to have a little consulting company, taking care of maintenance of existing systems, perhaps refactoring, migrations, etc.