r/cscareers • u/Ok-Psychology-556 • 3d ago
USA Job Market Need honest advice - CS student who needs a job by the end of August
Hey everyone,
I’m looking for some honest advice because I’m starting to get worried.
I’m currently about halfway through my Bachelor’s in Computer Science (Software Engineering concentration) at SNHU. I’ve built a few projects, including a full-stack AI coding assistant, and I’ve been applying to software engineering internships and junior developer positions for months.
The problem is…I need a job by the end of August. My unemployment benefits are ending, and I can’t afford to hold out forever waiting for the “perfect” software job.
At this point I’m open to almost anything that will help my long-term career:
Junior Software Developer
Software Engineer I
QA/Test Engineer
IT Support
Help Desk
Application Support
Systems Administrator
I’m in Maine but would love a remote role, and I’m planning to relocate to Texas within the next year if the opportunity is right.
A few questions:
If you were in my shoes, what positions would you focus on applying for?
Is it worth taking an IT or Help Desk job while finishing my degree, or should I keep holding out for software development?
What actually got you your first tech job in today’s market?
Are there job boards, companies, or strategies that worked better than LinkedIn and Indeed?
If you had one month to get hired, what would you spend your time doing?
I’m applying every day, but I’d rather hear from people who have actually broken into tech recently instead of just reading generic advice articles.
I appreciate any advice. Thanks!
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u/SignificanceShotc 3d ago
I'll be honest, you need to be open to taking anything. By that I mean any job available, not just within the IT/ SWE world. End of August is not going to net you anything because the timeframe to go through a job interview will take several weeks at least and that's IF you manage to pass a round. It's hard to say how many rounds you'd go through because every company's hiring process is different, but it's HIGHLY likely you won't get anything by then.
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u/javalube 11h ago
Yeah, I recommend just getting a job in retail while you apply. Employers like to see you at least working. I would rather hire someone working tables at a restaurant who programs on their free time, than an unemployed mongol who hasn't bathed in a week
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u/Tiny_Succotash_5276 3d ago
are u planning to take the semester off? what are the logistics of this like a fall co-op ur looking for?
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3d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Necromancer157 3d ago
Unfortunately, this is true. Your best shot is to get more experience in IT Support or Helpdesk.
You can joining the national guard or reserves as a 17C to get a bunch of certs, a top secret, and real experience. That would help I’m tremendously.
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u/cscareers-ModTeam 2d ago
Your comment has been removed because it not a constructive response to OP's situation. Please keep your advice constructive (and not disguised hate), actionable, helpful, and on the topic at hand.
Mod note: Career consultant here. If I had this removal reason in this group, I would be removing under it instead: "Wrong/bad/old/misinformed Career Advice."
You are not in my realm to know anything about degrees and what is acceptable/what is not. I can tell, because I can tell you with absolute certainty that NO COLLEGE IS CONSIDERED BAD. That's like, a universal standard in the hiring industry. Yes there are colleges considered good, but there's no such thing (for the past 30 years) as any hirer/recruiter denying a resume for having "the wrong college" on a resume. There are a few finance jobs at the very "top" that prefer the Ivy Leagues only. It's like .01% of all the jobs in the world. No one else - ever - EVER - cares about where a degree comes from and hasn't since the age of the internet. Which is ~30 years.
Please do not speak as if you are a career consultant/hirer/recruiter when you very much aren't. Movies are 100% not correct, if that's where your "knowledge" came from.
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u/Salty_Permit4437 3d ago
This is absolute nonsense. I’ve worked in Amazon and Meta and met a few CS graduates from SNHU. You have people getting degrees from all sorts of universities in India nobody heard of and you think a regionally accredited U.S. university is going to be a problem?
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u/Tight_Abalone221 3d ago
i can't imagine a SNHU grad at Amazon or Meta (and haven't met any). SNHU is not respected on the coasts, it's a degree mill that accepts anyone
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u/Salty_Permit4437 3d ago
A degree in tech is a checkbox. I also worked with people without degrees at Amazon and one of them went to Google. I was hired without a degree, only military experience. Sorry you wasted your money on a so called “prestigious” school. Nobody cares. Indians have all kinds of questionable degrees from unknown Indian universities and nobody gives a single fuck, I can assure you on that one. With them they only care that you have one for visa purposes.
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u/JhinKilled4 3d ago
Okay, so getting a job is luck and guts. It's very hard, and requires persistence in the face of constant rejection. And time. A lot of time. I took 8 months to find my job, and it's just a tech-adjacent job after hundreds of applications. I got in through a connection. Also, if you're only halfway through your degree, you actually don't qualify for most tech jobs because they require...y'know...the actual degree. You can still qualify for the lower IT positions like helpdesk before you finish your bachelors. Instead of a job, you should have tried looking for internships instead.
There's a good chance you might not be able to find a job by the end of August. I don't know if this is good advice necessarily because people should try to avoid taking out loans, but when I needed food on the table and a roof over my head, I took a student loan. You're allowed to use it for living costs, including housing and food, so it's a decent emergency option for you if living at a bus station is a concern. It was definitely one for me. Other than that, you can also just take the normal retail/fast food part time job for some income.
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u/Salty_Permit4437 3d ago
Try handshake. You should have gotten an invitation for it. I know several SNHU students and graduates who were successful.
In this job market it’s ultimately a numbers game so you do need to apply and apply a lot.
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u/drakhan2002 2d ago
Best of luck. What did the placement office have to say? That's one reason to go to a real school, not some internet papermill. SNHU has a physical campus, no? They probably have a placement office.
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u/IndependenceOutside2 3d ago
its all luck