I'm in the market for an engineering job over the past two months but I'm really struggling at finding one. Basically, my story is:
- Full Stack with 12+ years of experience, good generalist/architect with a some strong points.
- Working remotely in EU timezone.
- Got a nice CV with big names and projects I significantly contributed on.
- Last full time job was 1.5 years ago but I have done plenty of one-off client and personal projects in the meantime I can show off.
I only apply to positions that are fully remote in my timezone and where the profile is at least an 80% match or more. I often tick multiple of the "nice to have" boxes. I put quite some effort in my applications, writing cover letters or filling all boxes in the form with relevant and personalized information, Despite that, most companies reject me right away.
When I make it further, I usually pass coding tests with flying colors. It does happen that I bomb the technical questions due to stress, I can't find the right words to explain how I would solve something but in code it's not an issue. The non-technical calls usually go very well, I'm a likable guy and can hold a good conversation.
So far, I got zero offers. I'm even ready to take a 50% pay cut compared to my previous position. Is the market really that bad or is my profile just undesirable? Or am I doing something wrong? I'm really starting to feel desperate. Any advice or ideas would greatly help.
Ps: This is not self promotion (thus the throwaway/anonymous account), not asking for a job just advice.
Also, if you are a decent engineer as you say, perhaps drop the match of 80% down to like 40-50% - as long as it sounds appealing to work there of course.
With your experience you can likely motivate easily that you can skill up on any new things quickly regarding the mismatches.
Other then that, the market is down for a lot of EU companies, not much good investments so a lot of layoffs at least in my country. EU is trying to work towards a bit better investments appearently if I have to beleive the news, but this will take a lot of time.
Where I'm at, a lot of the multi-tenant buildings which used to be bustling with devs and startups etc. are just empty now and rent prices through the roof (so harder to get up and running with new products/ideas etc. which is where often you can find a lot of job positions). Due to that, a lot of these devs now go to more established companies, filling all those jobs up.
I'm no expert on this, but just my observations looking around me at empty offices and jobless dev friends.
perhaps you can go for automation/integration type jobs, and skillup a bit outside of the dev domain so you can do dev-ish kind of work in another domain. cyber needs a lot of that kind of stuff (working a lot towards automating stuff / SOAR etc.) and devs often do well in analyst/engineering jobs there. not strictly dev jobs but having the skills is a big + there. it might match your profile less, but people will likely be happy with your profile anyway.