I have been applying everywhere for software developer jobs. I have been mostly either rejected or been ghosted by 95% of the companies and it's honestly a "feelsbadman" situation for me right now. I would love some feedback on some of my stuff.
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/siddhant-misra/
Portfolio: https://siddhant-misra.github.io/Portfolio/
Github: https://github.com/Siddhant-Misra
Top comments (22)
Overall, I wouldn't sweat it too much. There's some fun data visualizations on /r/dataisbeautiful lately on how most people are ghosted or rejected immediately from positions. It's easy to say that as someone not job hunting, but it is true :/ You kind of just have to keep on keeping on.
The most concrete thing I saw on LinkedIn is that while it's nice to know what you were responsible for, I came away from reading that without knowing what you did. What is it you did in that role that no one else could? What did you accomplish? Just looking down the lefthand side of your Linkedin shows a lot of "* Responsible for" which doesn't make for exciting reading or make me want to know more about what else you've done. Your site handles that far better, but most recruiters aren't going to be clicking through to find that.
I spent a solid 2-3 hours on that Reddit thread. Thank you for that.
I am having some difficulty in formulating the "what did I do" part. Considering how the internship ended on a bitter note, I feel sort of uncomfortable adding what I did there. So I just add the "responsible for" sections there.
Thank you for the feedback though.
My Linkedin is mostly emojis at this point, but that's mainly because I'm not job hunting and don't need to be a super professional that HR would love :) Trying to come up with what to write for each job is certainly the hardest part about marketing yourself, especially when you get into a funk of thinking anyone would have done the same thing in your shoes as it was the job. My workplace at least gives interns projects so they can "own" a piece of the app to brag about when job hunting.
I can relate to the part giving "interns" a small code so they can own it when they're job hunting.
In my case, I had to carve this path out because my company was not clear as to what they wanted and was so inconsistent in what they wanted off of me that I decided to do something myself so when I quit I can say I contributed somehow.
Hi, first of all I love the design of your portfolio site, I find the colour scheme and font very aesthetically pleasing. I did however notice a small bug in which it appears the css animation that is supposed to trigger when the menu is opened also triggers briefly when the page is first loaded. Also, I notice that your phone number is listed in the "about me" section, might be best to only give that to people when they ask specifically to avoid spam/misuse. On a different note, I gave your typing game a go, it's fun 😁, might want to up the amount of possible words though as I got the same in a row multiple times and it was a bit confusing.
Thanks for the feedback, Henry. I don't get the bug you've described. But maybe look at it again, I've tried fixing most of the stuff.
And about the phone number, I usually get a lot of weird calls, but it's just a temporary number only for jobs.
And I have to add words to that game. It just keeps running away from my head.
Don't worry about the companies rejections/ghosting. It is really common. If someone tells you that they get offers from every single application they send, they are either geniuses, or liars... or both. Be patient, practice, and persevere. I checked the links and they look good in general. I don't see anything that would automatically disqualify you for a job interview.
About your portfolio website. It is clean and simple, the colors and fonts combination looks professional, the animations are catchy, and content-wise it is very complete (although I'd remove/rephrase the thing about being free all the time). I like it. But there are some things that look strange:
And looking at the code (you are at dev.to after all :P) there are some things that you may want to consider:
Your Linkedin profile looks really complete, but after reading it a bit deeper (probably more than what a regular recruiter would do anyway), there are a couple of things that put me off, to the point of me considering that your profile (and this post) was some kind of joke:
Apart from that, my recommendation would be: interact more. You liked some posts, left some comments (remember to keep it professional), but there is no Siddhant Misra's content. Finding a job is more about networking, and you have 500+ connections. Share posts, write articles. Take into account that each like and share broadens the reach of your content... and of your professional brand.
Wow, thank you so much for all that feedback.
I hadn't given more thought to the mobile responsiveness of the portfolio and shame on me for that. I have fixed those things.
Good catch on the John Doe.
I agree with the juvenile stuff I have written on there. I thought it would be a sort of "lighten the mood" of sorts. But the harsh reality is that is not the place if a stranger thinks it a joke. Thank you for that.
I'll try adding more details as to what I did rather than the things I have written there. I can understand that there is something off about it, but I assumed people would rather be curious about it and ask, but now in hindsight, it seems too big of an assumption.
I do have a few articles that I have been procrastinating on. I can assure you that there will be more in the week or more.
I can't honestly thank you enough for taking the time out to type this. It may not seem much, but it does make a difference.
Linkedin
I've noticed a few grammar issues on your LinkedIn; for example, in your summary/bio:
This sentence doesn't make sense and I'm not sure what you're trying to say.
I'd like to echo what a few others have said, in that rather than saying just what you were "responsible for," say what you did. It doesn't have to be to excruciating detail, but give some idea of what your role was in the projects you worked on.
Under "Volunteer experience" it would be a good idea to say what ROTRACT is aside from just "children."
Portfolio
It isn't immediately obvious that you have projects on your page. The "hamburger menu" hides all of the actual content that you probably want people to see! I'd recommend just putting those links into the header. Also cut down on the animations/transitions - they feel gimmicky rather than professional.
I'd also get rid of the highlight animation for the individual project thumbnails; it makes them seem like links, but clicking on them doesn't do anything. Either that or make it so that clicking on them takes you to a default link associated with the project.
Github
You should curate the "popular repositories" links at the top. Right now the topmost one takes you to an empty repository, and the others feel like throwaway gists as well. Use the featured repositories feature to your advantage - highlight the specific things that you want people to look at. Or, if you don't have anything you want people to look at, don't link to your Github so prominently. Employers only really want to see your Github to see what projects you're working on and how well you work with others.
Thank you for the Github feedback. I never realized I could curate those. I Have fixed them best to my knowledge, but I guess this is a never-ending learning experience.
I also realized that even though the hamburger menu is good and shows different aspects of my JS and CSS, it is a bit complex for a recruiter. They don't have as much time and everything needs to be straight forward. So I created a new one that is just a single page but will still keep the old one if in case anyone still wants to see it.
I tried fixing most of the stuff on the description. Some of it seemed misleading or just straight up weird. I tried making them more as to what I did and how I did them without messing it up too much.
Thank you for the feedback. If it doesn't take up too much of your time, would you mind going through it again and letting me know how well I've fixed some stuff?
Your portfolio looks way better now! Although the images in the project section are broken.
GitHub looks greatly improved too, although it looks like your biography/summary is cut off. GitHub isn't really a place for that sort of expansive text anyway.
The improvements on your LinkedIn are less obvious but it does seem a lot better now. I'd still avoid saying things like "spearheaded [foo]" since that sounds like you just suggested that things happen but had no actual involvement in it; if you actually did work on that project, say what you did (like, "Implemented initial integration with MailChimp and various CRM platforms" or whatever).
Yeah, something is wrong with that section.
Thank you for the Github response. I never did realize. I think it's time I incognito and check out my profile over and over again.
I like the input on the spearheaded part. I did implement it along with a few other API's and I thought "spearheaded" sounds like I took charge with it and implemented it. But I like the idea of using the "initial" line, makes it seem I took action.
Hey man - I used this tip to basically get 80% response on my applications.
I used to build a landing page for every single company I applied to and hosted my cover letter on it. Not a lot of people do this and for some reason or another it really made me stand out (even though there were probably better candidates). Remember it's all about marketing yourself.
For example if I was applying for a job at Dropbox, I would create a Dropbox page on my website and put my cover letter in plain text on the page with relevant links. siddhant-misra.github.io/portfolio... and send that link in where the application asks for a personal website or something.
I would also look at potentially buying siddhant-misra.com to do this. For some reason again, makes you seem more viable when you have your own website over hosting on Github static pages.
Hope this helps!
This is a dilemma I am having over the past two-three months. I have had various people tell me to have "quality" in your applications rather than concentrating on "quantity" of applications.
Your way does seem sure to be concentrating a lot on a specific application. But I have been contemplating on buying a domain that is specifically tailored.
For sure quality. It takes up a lot of time but it increases your chances a lot in my opinion. Are you looking for positions in San Francisco? Regardless, good luck and keep on going - you got this!
Yeah. I am right now in NYC and moving out to SF in a month so I am applying there also.
Maybe I will alternate the quality and quantity of applications every week. That way I won't go crazy.
Thank you.
Wow. The burn on this reply was real. I worked out the three points I could work out on, but I skipped on the necktie.
I do feel there is a difference after the photo. Seemed dead before that.
Thanks for the feedback. The small differences do add up.
I value feedback a lot and am grateful for it. If you have some feedback I welcome it.
But this not the place for such an argument. Please refrain from this namecalling.
Thank you.