I recently got laid off and have been unemployed for over two months now. I've gone through more than 10 interviews but haven't received a single offer, which has been really disheartening. I have over 8 years of software development experience, primarily at small to mid-sized companies. This is my third time job hunting, and the current market feels incredibly tough compared to my previous experiences. The first time I looked for a job was right after graduating, before COVID hit. I went onsite at three companies, failed two, and managed to get one offer. The second time was during the money-printing era, where I again went onsite at three companies, failed two, but secured one offer. Back then, I had only three years of experience, yet I was bombarded with messages from recruiters on LinkedIn, especially from companies like Amazon. That kind of outreach has completely dried up now. Currently, I've made it to onsite interviews at five companies but have not received any offers. I still find LinkedIn somewhat useful; I have a premium account and receive over five recruiter messages daily. However, most of these recruiters are for positions that do not offer sponsorship. I might get one or two messages from companies that do sponsor per week. My interview pipeline consists of about 10% from cold applications, 40% from referrals, and 50% from LinkedIn InMail. I've noticed a significant drop in the quality of InMail messages. Full-time software development positions seem to be scarce. The interview formats vary by company, but they generally follow the classic trio of coding, system design, and behavioral questions. I haven't encountered any AI-specific coding interviews yet. In terms of coding questions, I've handled about 80% of them well, mostly medium-level and standard problems. I highly recommend practicing coding problems by category to build confidence. However, a few companies threw some curveballs my way, and I had to adapt quickly. Interviews feel noticeably harder than they did in the past. I believe my system design skills have improved, yet I've received feedback from several companies indicating that I failed the system design round. One major change I've observed is that previously, companies like Google and Meta had multiple openings; you'd interview first and then get matched with a hiring manager. Now, there are very few openings, and backfill roles often already have a 'better candidate' lined up, making it an uphill battle.
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