Tech Job Hunting Tips, and Why Following Popular Advice Held Me Back

Learn more about the premise of this series here

The Advice You Hear Doesn’t Apply To Everyone

Popular advice isn’t always true. Take every single piece of advice you hear with a grain of salt. I don’t care how credible the person delivering the advice – they could be a CS bootcamp grad or a Principal Engineer at Google. In fact, this credibility might go against them.

Yes, it is true that anyone can give good advice. Joseph Stalin famously said, “I believe in one thing only, the power of human will.” Would it be so bad for you to agree with that quote in a vacuum? Perhaps not, but context does exist and matters.

Let me apply this idea more specifically to tech.

I will focus on advice pertaining to job hunting, since that’s what I’m currently focusing on. Then, I’ll debunk some common advice for new grads that makes me roll my eyes.

Let’s say that you’re someone who is early in your career (either a college student or someone who hasn’t been working in the industry for too long) and you are looking to find a brand new job.

If you go to a non-target school, like say, Oregon State University, then much of the advice you get from a student who goes to a target school will not apply to you. For someone who goes to a target school like MIT, Stanford, UIUC, Georgia Tech, UC Berkley, etc., they will have far more opportunities with career fairs, networking, and recruiting than you will. For a simple example, I’ve seen job postings that are only targeted for certain colleges, like this job listing for Uber:

Of course, there are other unsaid advantages. If you go to a target school, your resume is far more likely to pass through ATS systems and be seen by an actual human (but I digress – I will talk more about pedigree in another post in this series later).

The people at these target schools might literally not be aware of your circumstances. It’s not exactly their fault for giving “incorrect” advice, it’s just advice that doesn’t apply to you.

The same thing holds true for engineers in industry. Just because they’ve have experience and you don’t, it doesn’t mean their advice will work for you. In fact, the more experienced someone is, the more likely it is that their advice won’t apply to you.

I’ll use a story to explain this, but it’s pretty much the same principle as before.

Last year, I had an interview with Broadcom for an embedded software engineer. This was the worst interview experience of my life (it’s not even close), but perhaps I’ll talk about that another day. Anyway, one thing that was unique about this was the way it was conducted. After the initial screening, I had to fly to Colorado and do a grueling 8-hours long onsite process.

When I got there, I was greeted by the same engineer who initially screened me. He actually drove me from my hotel to the office (again, long story) for the onsite. We were making some small talk, and he asked me if I had interviewed at any other places.

“Yeah, I interviewed for a role at Apple a few months back,” I responded.

“Oh, that’s good” he said. “Did you also go there for the onsite interview process? It’s in Cupertino, right?”

“No, I didn’t have to go in for an onsite,” I replied, a bit confused. “I just applied online and the interview was entirely online.”

“Oh,” he said, “that’s unusual. People usually have to go in for an onsite.”

I remembered that I had looked at this guy’s LinkedIn before at some point. I remembered that he had been working at the same company for nearly 25 years straight.

Even though he had a library’s worth of knowledge on me and quite literally an entire lifetime (his YOE exceeds my entire lifespan), he was completely out of touch with the current state of the tech industry. He probably hadn’t interviewed in years. Why would he? He was making a fortune with Broadcom’s stock appreciation. He probably couldn’t get the same level of pay anywhere else, even if he wanted to.

Thus, almost all of his advice was irrelevant for me. Some of it applied. But the vast majority was useless.

By the same token, trusting too much in someone’s ethos can be harmful by making you go down the wrong path.

Take a look at this viral tweet. Notice the view count. Now, look at the poster’s qualifications. Principal Engineer at Google.

Rhetoric like this can alarm inexperienced and upcoming engineers who might not know any better.

At first glance, you’d likely think one of two things:

1. This Google engineer’s team must be incompetent OR
2. AI is going to replace all software engineers now, we’re screwed.

I actually felt worried about this myself when I saw the view count along with who the tweet was coming from. Thankfully, this video by Primeagen helped relieve my worries, wherein it’s revealed that only a day later, the original poster came out and added context to the tweet that confirmed that AI wasn’t going to replace all software engineers (at least yet).

In short, be skeptical of everything regardless (or maybe because of) who is saying it.

Now, let’s debunk some common advice I always hear from recruiters, qualified engineers, and other junior engineers who got into good companies.

Debunking Common Advice for New Grad Software Engineers

1. “Just build projects!”

This is probably the most common piece of advice you’ll hear, and while it’s not entirely wrong, it’s often misleading. Most of the time, hiring managers or recruiters will not go into detail in looking at your projects. They either don’t care to, or simply do not have the time. This is especially true for big companies, considering the volume of applicants they get. Yes, they will read what you wrote on your resume about your projects, but more often than not, they will NOT go and look at your Github code or watch your demo video.

Occasionally, very much “once in a while,” a hiring manager or engineer brings up my project in an interview and asks me about it in depth, wherein I CAN TELL that they looked into it more than just reading about it on my resume. But again, this is rare, especially at big companies.

The caveat to this idea is startups or smaller companies - they WILL look at your projects. But:

1. small companies hire less
2. they have to be selective about who they hire
3. they will expect MORE out of your projects: something like genuine technical excellence (did you do some insane GPU kernel optimizations, or a generic CRUD fullstack app that anyone can code with AI in 2 hours?), a large number of users, or revenue metrics

Most people early in their career do not have projects that have any of the above, and that’s okay.

So yes, it is very essential to have projects. But these aren’t a golden ticket into getting a job. Treat them as mostly a learning experience (and hopefully a fun little hobby too).

And the fact that everyone gives this advice is almost pointless - every early career or junior engineer needs projects TO EVEN PASS THE RESUME SCREEN these days. This is like saying “go get your bachelors degree.” It adds nothing for most people in the job hunt.

Sidenote, part of the reason I’m writing this blog in a professional channel IS BECAUSE big companies don’t care to look at projects 99% of the time (some of the stuff I’m going to add in the future will poke holes in how bigger companies operate) And, if I do go to work for a startup, I would prefer if they actually vibe with my personality and working style, so I’m fine with them seeing this kind of thing..

2. “Cold applications don’t work. Networking is everything. Go get referrals.”

This is something everyone parrots. It’s NOT TRUE 99% OF THE TIME, and I’ll explain why with both anecdote and logic.

The first part of this is, cold applications overwhelmingly DO work in my experience.

Once you have a decent enough resume to get through ATS (resume screening) of “selective companies,” it’s all but guaranteed your resume is good enough (I’ll go over this more in the next point as well). For example, in September of 2025, I got an interview from COLD APPLYING to the Snapchat new grad role. Snapchat is a company that is known to be very selective, perhaps even more selective than more “famous” companies like Google in the software industry. The fact that I got the interview and passed the initial screen, advancing to the final round, affirmed my resume was good enough to keep on cold applying. I later got even more confirmation as I got interviews (at least the screening stage or higher) from prestigious firms like Apple, Sofi, a top tier quant firm, and Microsoft ALL COLD APPLYING. Unfortunately, it is a bit of a black box how good your resume is until you get confirmation from one of these selective places, but if you keep on applying while keeping your resume up to date, you will eventually hit your mark.

The second part of this is, referrals and networking are useless 99% of the time.

Most of the time, the people referring you will be referring you to a generic req or to anywhere in their company. Referrals do not add much value unless the person referring you has a SPECIFIC OPENING IN THEIR TEAM or an adjacent team that they can pass your resume to. Otherwise, it just goes to a “referral bin,” which genuinely does not do much in this competitive market. I have had BETTER SUCCESS getting interviews from cold applying than with referrals to companies like Microsoft, AMD, Intel, NVIDIA, and Qualcomm - again, because they were generic roles. Unless you know a VP at Microsoft who has an opening in some team under them, or a manager/engineer who actually has a role OPEN ON THEIR SPECIFIC TEAM, you will not get much out of putting your hopes into a referral. Just apply cold and hope for the best.

Additionally, the vast majority referrals I discussed earlier are from “warmer” connections. These are people who are family friends or people I’ve met before in real life. They have a non-zero reason to care about my succeeding.

Trying to reach out to random people online when you have little to offer them does not work or do much for you 99% of the time. I have only gotten 2 or 3 interviews out of doing this in around 3 years of applying to jobs (internships, new grad, etc.) - random people don’t know you and have 0 reason to be invested in your success (other than perhaps the $$ of the referral bonus).

This also applies to meeting a random person at a career fair or anywhere in real life. If you meet some Google engineer randomly in a career fair, what reason will that person have to help you? Either find one, make one materalize, or abandon this “networking” idea entirely and just go cold apply.

3. “You should have X, Y, and Z on your resume. You NEED metrics that show impact.”

X = accomplishment (“improved system performance”)
Y = metric (“by 30%”)
Z = how (“using caching algorithms”)

This is something recruiters specifically often say. X and Z are necessary, but Y is very much optional. Recruiters act like it’s required.

Anecdotally, as I just said, I have gotten interviews that have affirmed my resume is strong enough without many metrics, so I know this is BS.

Logically, metrics only matter if you’re measuring them properly.

1. Did you reduce an API’s response time from 600 to 60ms?

2. Did you just make a personal project (say, just like this portfolio website!) where you didn’t really measure speed or performance?

If 1) is true, Then write down the % reduction, it’s empirical and undisputable.

If 2) is true, skip the X, Y, Z stuff. It’s useless and you don’t need it anyway. Most students and new grads only have 2) rather than 1), so this advice usually doesn’t apply to them unless they’re making projects where performance can be empirically measured. Notably, it’s not a crime that students often only have 2) rather than 1). You can still make cool stuff without measuring anything.

For me, 2) was true for most of the time I was job hunting. I still got interviews.

If you’re going to add in metrics that make as much sense as those shown in this Apple chart, don’t bother: (The primary issue is that the y-axis has no unit, but also they don’t even mention what CPUs they’re comparing to…)

4. “If you can’t get into big tech, go to a startup instead.”

“I’m YC founder Bob and I will give you $120k base in SF, 0.1% equity, and a ping pong table. What’s not to like? The only thing I need from you is that you need to work 80 hours a week and we might go out of business in 6 months. Also, your stock options are paper, but they could make you a millionaire if and only if we IPO at a $10billion valuation. Any concerns?”

^ This is true for many startups. Many, but not all. Some are wonderful, but you probably won’t get in early in your career. This advice comes from a place of ignorance or optimism. As I said before, startups have to be selective. They won’t hire someone who is average or above average, they need excellence. They will hire out of schools like Stanford or Berkley. Most people can’t get in easily.

5. “If you can’t get into big tech, look at fortune 500 companies like Target or CVS. Worst case scenario, go into IT or something similar first.”

This advice makes sense at first, right? It seemingly counters what I said before in advice #4 above where “most people can’t get into startups easily.” But there are hidden costs to consider.

Technical debt accumulates everywhere. Not just in codebases, but in your life. I’m going to make an entire post on this later, but the jist is that the worse you do in something earlier in life, the harder it will be to catch up later. As a simple example, look at the many millenials who graduated into the 2008 crash and had their lifetime earnings set back. If you graduate an engineer and spend 3 years working as a dishwasher, that is 3 years of earnings you could’ve had gone. That is 3 years of resume experience working as an engineer in your field gone. That is time and money you will never get back.

Same idea here.

If you go into something like IT computer repair, you will have a harder time breaking into a relevant role later on. Yes, it’s better than being homeless, but it is not optimal as people make it out to be. People who say this advice often don’t point out that you’re making any kind of sacrifice, even if it is a necessary one. So just be aware of this.

The other aspect of this I want to address is the work environment of companies.

There are 3 tiers of companies for software engineers:

1. Big-tech (or adjacent mega-startups like Stripe or Databricks)
2. Actual startups (below say, $30B valuation)
3. Slower, normal companies (Fortune 500s)

Early in your career, you absolutely want 1) or 2). 3) is not good for people who want to advance their career.

At slower, normal companies, you will often face:

• much more buruecracy than startups OR EVEN BIG TECH
• far slower learning than startups OR EVEN BIG TECH
• likely more boring work or less relevant tech work than startups OR EVEN BIG TECH
• a non-zero layoff risk (far less than big tech and startups, yes, but still not 0)
• less lifetime earnings
• downlevel risk if you try to swap companies

Most of these are self explanatory, but the downlevel risk is something I’ll briefly touch on. Let’s use a simple example. Say you work at Verizon as a software engineer for 8 years. If you go to interview at Google, you will likely be interviewing for something like L4 (mid level engineer) even if you’re “senior” at Verizon. At a certain point, especially past mid-level, seniority at a “slower, normal company” doesn’t proportionally scale with seniority at a more sought-after firm. If you started at Google, you will almost certainly make L4 in just 2 or 3 years, rather than the 8 you needed at Verizon to just “hop” later. If you try to hop from Verizon into Google just 2 or 3 years in, you will interview for L3 or L4 and be able to get a more fair market rate value for your labor. Be aware of this downlevel risk and don’t get stuck.

Is it worth it to you to be an engineer at one of these slower companies? Are you ok learning things at a slow rate? Nothing wrong with that, go ahead and freely follow the advice in #5.

If none of those things apply to you, follow the advice in #5 cautiously and keep all the caveats in mind. Try to get out when you can.

6. “This specific thing (on my resume or that I did) worked for me”

Survivorship bias is a real thing. Just because something worked for someone else doesn’t mean it will work for you. This is true for literally everything, but I think it’s still worth mentioning.

7. “If you can’t get a job, start a company”

More uncommon, but I’ve seen it around. Crazy tone deaf, especially because I’ve seen this advice given to NEW GRAD JOB SEEKERS…

You need a job to live and make money. Not everyone has the option to live with their parents.

If the person giving the advice is implying you should “start a company” just for the learning experience, that’s fine. But 90%+ of startups fail and many do not ever make a single dollar. Most inexperienced students or newgrads trying to do this will feel overwhelmed by this notion.

It’s better to give the “do more side projects” kind of advice than this “start a company” advice, because that’s more digestible and doesn’t come with a connotation that invokes a looming sense of infinite work to be done and a massive sense of doubt.

Conclusion

I think I’ve provided a logical analysis of the claims brought up here, but obviously, I have my own biases and I’m early in my career. As such, YMMV. My friends pointed out particularly that I might’ve been over the top with my debunking of advice point #5, and that’s probably because I’m facing that scenario myself right now. Take my claims with a grain of salt as I suggested earlier. I would love to hear any of your opinions on this topic, whether that be agreement or disagreement, so feel free to reach out. Thanks for reading!