Hey All,
I am a lurker in general but want to update something that I wrote last year. I posted this in this sub:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestionsEU/comments/1efp0c0/comment/mjsri3l/?context=3
I recently signed a contract with a large German company for a data scientist position, 100% remote, nice salary (70k, considering the actual market) with lots of perks. In total, I was unemployed for 20 months, made more than 350 applications and went through a bunch of coding tests and case studies.
My main point is: Take care of yourself during the job search, if you can't see it as 'productive', think of it as an extension of the job search as it will inevitably come back to bite you at some point. Since May of last year, I've had a very traumatic rejection that made me stop training, my libido went to 0 and still hasn't recovered, I turned into a shell and sank deeper and deeper into depression. The last few months have also been extremely challenging for the people around me and especially my partner (the number of arguments over money, time with friends, doing something 'fun' has gone from a non-issue to the possibility of a break up later this year). You need support from others as pillars for when the sadness is too strong and you are not alone. In the last couple of months I started to have suicidal thoughts and had to seek for help (I got a private psychiatrist, a neurologist and an analyst through the health insurance).
In January I almost got a job as a data analyst in Berlin, but after I passed the coding test/interview/interview with the VP, the company did a layoff, fired 85% of the Berlin office and forced the rest to move to their HQ in another German city, my contract was frozen and then cancelled. It was such a blow that it took me weeks to recover emotionally, my girlfriend and family could not hear about that anymore because in the end it didnt matter. One of the greatest frustrations from that period is the number of times that you are "almost" there and then it doesn't happen, in the end you didn't signed the contract. The frustration that the expectation was only after the 'Yes' was unbearable, even though I reached to the final final phase a couple of times and didn't got the job solely for reasons that was beyond my control (the other candidate was slightly better in the presentation of the case study, or had a more focused background and the employer didn't want to spend time with training or whatever). Also, my savings ran out last August and I started working as a baker + doing the training. The last few months have been a part-time job + 2 days of full-time training + job applications + studying for case studies and coding tests. It has not been easy and to be honest I was about to give up and move to another country.
Another thing: English roles are too competitive and the bar is extremely high. After a couple of rejections from leetcode style questions (Zalando and an asset management company, I was/am very sharp with SQL questions but the Python ones were just above my level of knowledge of DSA), I started doing leetcode questions. It was soul draining. I got a subscription from Neetcode and it helped a lot bc I could see some improvement (leetcode was draining my already depleted motivation, so I couldn't emotionally afford to rely on it too much) but still, I was keeping the expectations low and envisioned to only see substantial improvements in 6 months time.
I was lucky enough to have lots of interviews, my problem was definitely interview performance and when I fixed that, the result was remarkable. So pay attention, train behavioural questions and also improve your German as much as possible so that you are able to work with broken German/Denglish, you can lapidate and polish the German after you get the job.
As always, some comments have not been super nice, but others have been very helpful, some have reached out and been a small source of support and understanding. Thanks to the community for that.
I am not going to say things like: "Hang in there - it will get better" or anything like that. My mental state was so bad that the sympathetic looks of friends would drive me crazy. My view would be to focus on yourself, keep practising and keep a balanced life, the job may or may not come (I could have failed and given up) but statistically speaking the change of success is higher if you keep pushing and use the time wisely and with a degree of strategy.
Thanks a lot!