It's been hard to find a job in 2025

It seems 13 years of experience doesn't add much

...and yeah, maybe I'm getting outdated compared to other people using IA for everything, maybe not, or maybe during these 13 years I have been working as a software developer I don't have the value I thought I should have. During my career, which started when I was 19 years old, I have worked with MANY (and I mean it) different people. When I was only 20, and had barely 2 years of experience, I and 3 other friends started a company. It was an outsourcing company, very small, but we had different projects to work on roughly every 3 weeks, and that was INCREDIBLE to improve my skills as both an entrepreneur and a developer. I believe it was the only time of my life that I didn't think about waking up early, as I was having such fun and good experiences, that nothing else mattered at the time.

After a few years, I left the company, sold my shares, and tried to move on, working with other companies as a "mature" developer at that time. Over time, I had the opportunity to work at different companies (roughly every 2 years), and gained a lot of experience leading projects, helping to architect solutions, and learning from very experienced people. Over time, I also started to realize that not having finished my College Degree was bad, and the difference was clearly visible between someone with a deep knowledge about computers and me, learning on the go. But that didn't scare me, and every day I tried to learn something, even if it's only a different way to write a method in Ruby (yes, I'm a Rubist since I started my career).

In 2018, I had a very bad family loss, and my perspective of life changed quite dramatically after that, making me rethink how I was living my life, the way I was making decisions, and especially the things I wanted to accomplish for this next chapter of my life. So, after much planning (and many anxiety crises), finally, in 2022, my wife and I moved to Canada to start a new chapter. 3+ years passed, and this whole crisis in the Software Development started, and with that, I was again unemployed and looking for a new job (after the company I was working for got sold). At first, I thought this could be a nice opportunity to try new things, work in a different segment, or even maybe try a job in a higher position like Staff developer, or maybe working as a software manager (something I have done many times in the past, but in small companies only).

But the reality kicked in...

I wasn't going to get a new job anytime soon. In fact, at the time I'm writing this post (August 15th, 2025), I'm still interviewing for companies, so far 60+ applications in nice companies, for nice positions, but still no offers, only disappointment. The saddest part of looking for a new job is not the rejection at the end of the process, or not receiving an offer because someone else got it, but the rejection when people don't even WANT to interview you. Everyone goes through that; it's always the same bullshit. You see a job position open for 2...3... sometimes 4 months straight, the requirements say 5+ years of experience, all the same skills and/or techonologies you have been using your whole career, but you, as someone with more than a decade of experience, can't even get a simple introduction chat with the company.

When that happens, the only thing you can think about is: "What's wrong with my experience?". The answer? Nothing. It's just corporate and HR bullshit. Resumes don't tell the whole story, but at the same time, companies are not interested in hearing from you either. They have quotas to fulfill, and they hire and fire people every quarter (nowadays more than ever). I also have tried different versions of resumes, some more technical, some more focused on storytelling, and neither had any impact or got me more interviews. Most of the time, it feels more like luck than anything else, but I could be wrong, and these are just tough times.

Getting recommended to a position helps, but it's not a silver bullet. I had rejections in those scenarios too; it doesn't get any easier just because someone recommended you to a position. But again, not saying that this is my (or yours fault), it's just how things work nowadays.

But still, why doesn't my experience get me more interviews?

The answer? I don't know, maybe in 2025 people wanna hear more buzzwords in the interviews, or maybe I should say the magic "I know AI" sentence in any of the interviews, or in my Resume. Do I have a way to prove that? Absolutely not. At this point, considering that no company gives any feedback about a candidate (this gets me furious, to be honest, and I'm a very calm and patient person), there is no way to actually know the answer; those live only inside the mind of the people interviewing you. In the past, I had to help hire a bunch of people (and fire too, during my time at CODELAND). It's not an easy task. I'm not proud of all the people I have selected, and I made many mistakes hiring people. It happens, I was learning, and that's why I understand how all these processes go, and why I don't like the way companies do them.

What I think really is bullshit...

is rejecting someone whose skills align with the position (and the required experience) without any interview, or after the first 15-30 minutes screening. That's complete bullshit. If you evaluate your company (or the company you're working for), you should AT LEAST give people a chance to demonstrate that experience in practice. Have you imagined buying a car, but instead of going to the dealership, you only read the specs on a sheet and think "oh yeah, maybe this is good", and then, when you receive it, you realize "fuck, this car is trash as hell in real life". Yeah, that happens with people too. In 13 years, I have worked with many people, different segments, different technologies, but mostly, I have 13 years of experience dealing with people, perspectives, expectations, and results, and actually transforming that into software.

Are those results useful or impressive for every company? Absolutely not, but that's exactly why you, as HR/Hiring Manager, need to investigate and get deeper into it. Maybe the experience I had in the past was small compared to the position I'm applying for, but if they are similar, that's maybe good enough. Nobody can ever be solely responsible for something gigantic; that's why we work in teams, complementing each other's skills and experiences.

Thinking about the rejections...

maybe I should create a bunch of product copies of the companies that rejected me, after all, I REALLY do have ALL THE SKILLS to create a company from the ground up 😂.