How to Land a New Grad SWE Job in a Recession (as a mediocre engineer)

Hey friends!

Given the current economic situation, there are a lot of questions and concerns about how 2023 CS grads are handling the recession-lite.

As for myself, I've managed to secure two offers: one from AT&T, and another from Fannie Mae. Both are based out of the Dallas area. I wanted to give my thoughts on what I think I did right to set myself up for success.

The first tip is simply to apply early. From personal experience, although I received a referral from an Amazon employee and had a high enough CodeSignal score to pass the CapitalOne bar, I did not get anything from them in part due to how "late" I applied to them. I would recommend starting to prepare as soon as school is out, and train both technical and behavioral skills to be in top interviewing shape when the season really begins.

The second tip follows the first, and that is to improve your resume in the downtime between school semesters/quarters. Preparing for technical interviews is nice, but means nothing if you can't get the interview in the first place. If you do not have prior internships, something to look into is contributing to open source, such as AnkiDroid @ https://github.com/ankidroid/Anki-And....

Finally, my third tip is to not be afraid to accept a lower offer than expected, especially if you happen to frequent subreddits like /r/csMajors or /r/CSCareerQuestions. It's easy to find yourself in a bubble and expect salaries that are not impossible, but difficult to obtain as a new graduate. The first job or internship will be the most difficult to get, and I would personally recommend getting your foot in the door in any way possible, then considering other options a bit later in your career.

Chapters:
00:00 - Start
03:06 - Tip #1: Apply (and Prepare) Early
08:39 - Tip #2: Use the Summer to Improve Your Resume
12:00 - Tip #3: Don't be Afraid to Accept a Lower Offer (for now)