So, I finally landed an offer with a product company as an SDE after months of struggle as a fresher.
I hail from a circuital branch of the old IITs. Campus placements were difficult this year, so while I did interview at some good product companies (Microsoft, Amex, etc.), luck didn't favour me and I had tsettle up with a trading role with a low pay. (Other story why I decided to apply here in the first place)
Most of the news articles floating around fucked up placements at IITs are in fact true and I decided to try my hands at off-campus placements only to realise how difficult it is to get even your profile noticed (yes, even with a tier-1 college).
So this is what I did which I believe can help freshers land a job in this difficult market:
1) Simply applying on LinkedIn esp. via easy apply won't work. There's literally thousands of applicants within a day for a job posting. So try to stand out among the crowd.
2) Draft an excellent resume. Add things that you believe you can explain to the interviewer (doesn't matter if you've worked a lot on it, the interview is just an hour of you trying to make the interviewer believe the guy knows his stuff).
3) Know your strengths- are you good at DSA or are you good at dev. Startups would demand dev skills majorly, product companies would require DSA knowledge.
4) Start reaching out to people - very senior level people, HRs, Hiring Managers, people directly in touch with Hiring Managers, etc. Dm them on LinkedIn, cold email, and keep following up. In the case of early stage startups, directly reach out to the CTO/CEO. Sometimes, the jobs just don't get posted publicly.
5) Don't lose hope. I've had days when I used to get a headache thinking of the future and days when I had multiple interviews on the same day. The market is just tough, you're good enough and things might take time, but you'll definitely make it through.
I got interviews at a couple of HFTs, and a few good product companies and got an offer.
