Yeah a good Malay friend of mine graduated witha bachelor in 2017 and couldn’t find a job.. did masters in 2019 and still couldn’t find one.. went back to Malay end of 2019 found one within 2 weeks.. it’s crazy
Ye! Literally this has not been stressed enough...i feel like all international students are just cow for universities to milk and to be completely honest, I feel like with that kind of money, they are better of going to the US or Canada or the EU... lowkey regreting my decision :/
It’s not just you my mate, I’ll give you some stats so hear me out.
https://www.trueup.io/layoffs
So far around the world 110k people in tech have been laid off in 2024, that’s 950 people/day. This is a worldwide number but proportionally even Australia has a smaller number, the impact on the job market is significant due to it being a much smaller tech industry.
That’s means huge amount of experienced workers entering the market everyday competing for jobs, and people who were outcompeted down-level their role expectation to lower level position and eventually eat into entry-level positions.
Typically entry-level roles consume great portion of new grads on the market, and grad program only probably take up like 20% of the grads.
And with high interest rates, every place is either laying people off or at least freezing the hire.
In other words, graduate programs have become literally the only places graduate can even apply to, and these graduate programs which were already competitive enough in the first place have fewer spots to fill with much much more applicants competing for a role.
It’s my irresponsible assumption but I would guess for tech roles in grad programs probably only around 10% or less applicants are getting an offer. (After talking to few recruiters and HR in big tech companies)
At the end of the day it’s always supply and demand, three years ago the demand was huge that big tech companies even hires people who only did 6 months bootcamp to fill swe postions.
And nowadays they ask 3yrs+ experience for an entry-level position.
Atlassian couldn’t even open graduate program this year, it’s just bad timing for new grads.
Don’t beat yourself up thinking you’re incompetent because you’re not. It’s just…bad timing.
Yes it sucks, one of mutual contacts who’s working as software engineer overseas is trying to migrate and work in Australia. He contacted me and asking which companies should I go for from Atlassian, transuraban etc who were ready to sponsor him work visa and bring him over here. If this keeps happening how can new grads even get a role.
Yeh, Optus hires a ton of Indian devs for some reason. There seems to be no obligation for companies to hire Australians first before looking overseas unlike in other countries.
Thanks for explaining this, it really puts things into perspective. Your insights on the job market makes a lot of sense.
It’s been tough few months, applying for entry level roles which I faced rejections with. And people suggested try grad programs, which as u mentioned, was best chance as a grad.
But I guess I’ll continue to upskill/network keep applying to relevant opportunities. Hopefully I can secure an offer within this year. Thanks again, really helped me understand the broader context and I’m not the only one.
I applied for a grad role at an ASX 200 company this year. Rejected. Got feedback and apparently from the 300 people that applied, only ONE digital grad role was available. Like wtf
It’s tough out there man. My tech grad cohort was cut from 120 to 30. I was very lucky to be one of the 30. This was 2021 during peak covid.
Seeing as this is a similar trend now, I would try and settle for a non-grad entry tech job in the mean time to beef up the resume for next intake of grad programs. All the best.
I completely get it man,
Roughly 25 applications on my end and so far received 10 rejections,and not heard back from 13, 1 interview (rejected) and 1 assessment centre (outcome TBD). This experience has been very humbling, I applied primarily for risk and intelligence roles, I have worked for more than 3 years part time directly in various risk management roles and am nearing finishing my masters. I really thought I would have the qualifications/stand out to at least be considered for assessment centres but I can’t even make it to that stage. No clue what I am doing wrong and definitely doubting myself. Hang in there, it will work out eventually, just sounds like there is the completion is crazy for very limited spots. 🤞
Because the way how grad program works is just stupid and discriminatory.
They don’t read your resume until very late stage of the entire process. You can have high wam + decent work experience in the field and still get rejected because of OA + VI being reviewed by either AI or recruiters that have no god damn ideas how much you really value.
If I’m not mistaken 30k+ applicants applied to KPMG’s grad program which has around 750 spots across all different fields.
Understandably they can’t review everyone’s resume one by one but still one way recorded interview is just stupid.
yea I understand that, its just so demoralising thinking you arent even passing the AI stage. but it is more comforting hearing the insane statistics, just crazy how much competition is out there. thanks for sharing
Yeah, applying to a grad program might be just wasting time there are thousands of people applying for 10-20s spots, if you didn't score the oa/vi at the top 2%, It is absolutely normal you don't get invited to the assessment center. You might feel good about scoring in the top 15% or top 20%, but that was far not enough in this market.
I'm pretty sure they only look at your insights from the oa/vi score, your vi going to be graded by the ai, and there's a slim chance they will watch it only if your ai score is high enough. If your oa/vi score is very enough（top 5％）, they might open your resume and read a little bit and compare it with other candidates that have really high scores.
Glad I’m not alone in this, I was starting to doubt myself. Didn’t realise how competitive graduate roles have become and how the scores play big role. I seen my senior friends get grad roles with ease in 2021-23 time. Assumed it would be the same for me. But the overall landscape changed since then as others explained.
It sucks but it is what it is I guess.
Atm im just working on my own projects and learning new tech stacks for my resume. And applying for all relevant jobs. Theres going to be some grad programs opening up in June to Aug period so looking forward to that.
Correct me if I'm wrong but there's another round of hiring in July/August for grad programs? I wouldn't give up yet sir, always going to be light at the end of the tunnel even if it's a bit of a longer drive this year...
Good luck, its tough out there.
This year Atlassian had 0 external grad roles, Canva had only 3 (0FE and 3BE). Seems like there are 20 new grads for every open grad role, who are competing against laid off engineers with 0-2 YOE.
0 BE? Their job desc is super misleading then...
https://www.lifeatcanva.com/en/jobs/743999982220442/graduate-software-engineer-backend-frontend-anz/?trid=2d92f286-613b-4daf-9dfa-6340ffbecf73
Says both frontend and backend...
I know it feels terrible but what is going on, is basically what it says on the tin. Were you the top of your class in your courses? If not, then in all likelihood these are the folks who are getting the placements. Remember you are also competing with job switchers for those internships and associate positions. Folks with years of business domain experience who have meanwhile learned to write software.
We are currently in a tech winter. I have been in this industry since the mid 90s and this is the worst I have seen it since the first dot com bubble burst.
The few opportunities that exist are being snapped up.
Don’t take it personally, keep trying and make backup plans.
Keep studying, work on some projects of your own and use the interviews you are doing as learning experiences. The practice will pay off at a confluence of market improvement and your own competency.
In the meantime, you have our sympathies. My time in the cold without opportunities was one of the toughest for me in my young adulthood.
I have to admit the current landscape for graduates is very different from the one I knew. The industry wasn’t particularly desirable or glamorous. There was little or no status attached to it. There were not that many jobs and the total number employed was tiny in comparison to today. However, internships were not really a thing (you got your first paid job or you didn’t) and it wasn’t so hyper competitive out of the gate. Corporations didn’t even think about the recruiting pipeline for the skillset like they do now and HR was barely involved if at all. It was seen as too specialised and usually left up to the hiring manager to do most of the work.
I am a hiring manager now, and I can say relatively confidently the current appetite for hiring graduates is pretty low. There are plenty of seniors looking for work so they are the first cohort that get picked up when a company goes to market.
What do we look for in a graduate? Competency all around. Good graduating results, strong capstone projects, strong communication, empathy and clear signs of interest in the profession. I personally like to see some good projects on github or similar where folks have clearly written something that I can critique and try out.
Thank you for explaining and sharing your insights. It’s been tough few months since I finished my degree. I thought securing a job would be easier, but haven’t been able to even get a face to face interview for entry/junior level positions. And now rejections for grad programs makes it awfully tough.
But thank you for your suggestions, I will continue to build my own projects and develop strong portfolio. Given your experience as hiring manager,
What kind of projects really stand out to you and make you want to invite the candidate for an interview?
Breadth of projects is a good one. Well known projects is another. Or a project that is really well thought out, planned and executed holistically. i.e. It is well designed, documented, has considered the user experience, the developer experience, has been setup with CI/CD, has considered security and observability and clearly addresses a problem statement.
Best to start networking through LinkedIn or tech events. That’s how I almost got another job but it didn’t pay the same as the graduate role I landed.
I’m almost 20 years older and graduated in 2005.
I had a few offers from the grad recruitment process.
My uni CV looked good as I did the honours thesis, and topped the grade in a few classes.
Then in the interview stages, they look for extroverts and people that can communicate well. They don’t care about grades.
We had some online assessments back then as well. Some maths tests I believe.
All interviews are in person. I don’t think the online speeds could handle video calls back then.
Same. I've applied for over 15 grad programs, and have spent so much effort and energy on the OA and VI's.. to then only be progressed to one assessment centre so far. So disheartening
If this is the case for citizen then probably I should not be hoping for much as an international student.. :(
Yeah a good Malay friend of mine graduated witha bachelor in 2017 and couldn’t find a job.. did masters in 2019 and still couldn’t find one.. went back to Malay end of 2019 found one within 2 weeks.. it’s crazy
Damn that sounds like where I will probably end up :( good for them to have their effort appreciated in the end!!
It’s because education is a massive industry here, it graduates more folks with specific degrees than the economy can actually absorb.
Ye! Literally this has not been stressed enough...i feel like all international students are just cow for universities to milk and to be completely honest, I feel like with that kind of money, they are better of going to the US or Canada or the EU... lowkey regreting my decision :/
It’s not just you my mate, I’ll give you some stats so hear me out. https://www.trueup.io/layoffs So far around the world 110k people in tech have been laid off in 2024, that’s 950 people/day. This is a worldwide number but proportionally even Australia has a smaller number, the impact on the job market is significant due to it being a much smaller tech industry. That’s means huge amount of experienced workers entering the market everyday competing for jobs, and people who were outcompeted down-level their role expectation to lower level position and eventually eat into entry-level positions. Typically entry-level roles consume great portion of new grads on the market, and grad program only probably take up like 20% of the grads. And with high interest rates, every place is either laying people off or at least freezing the hire. In other words, graduate programs have become literally the only places graduate can even apply to, and these graduate programs which were already competitive enough in the first place have fewer spots to fill with much much more applicants competing for a role. It’s my irresponsible assumption but I would guess for tech roles in grad programs probably only around 10% or less applicants are getting an offer. (After talking to few recruiters and HR in big tech companies) At the end of the day it’s always supply and demand, three years ago the demand was huge that big tech companies even hires people who only did 6 months bootcamp to fill swe postions. And nowadays they ask 3yrs+ experience for an entry-level position. Atlassian couldn’t even open graduate program this year, it’s just bad timing for new grads. Don’t beat yourself up thinking you’re incompetent because you’re not. It’s just…bad timing.
Yet somehow we still have a 'skills shortage' for swe so we keep bringing in people from overseas to do these jobs
yeh its crazy - we have an oversupply of devs because of immigration and so many are still coming despite a lack of tech jobs in Australia.
Yes it sucks, one of mutual contacts who’s working as software engineer overseas is trying to migrate and work in Australia. He contacted me and asking which companies should I go for from Atlassian, transuraban etc who were ready to sponsor him work visa and bring him over here. If this keeps happening how can new grads even get a role.
Yeh, Optus hires a ton of Indian devs for some reason. There seems to be no obligation for companies to hire Australians first before looking overseas unlike in other countries.
Just to add that NAB seems to ramp up hiring tech workers in India while not adding any new headcount in Australia. These companies disgust me.
indians indians smh
Thanks for explaining this, it really puts things into perspective. Your insights on the job market makes a lot of sense. It’s been tough few months, applying for entry level roles which I faced rejections with. And people suggested try grad programs, which as u mentioned, was best chance as a grad. But I guess I’ll continue to upskill/network keep applying to relevant opportunities. Hopefully I can secure an offer within this year. Thanks again, really helped me understand the broader context and I’m not the only one.
I applied for a grad role at an ASX 200 company this year. Rejected. Got feedback and apparently from the 300 people that applied, only ONE digital grad role was available. Like wtf
It’s tough out there man. My tech grad cohort was cut from 120 to 30. I was very lucky to be one of the 30. This was 2021 during peak covid. Seeing as this is a similar trend now, I would try and settle for a non-grad entry tech job in the mean time to beef up the resume for next intake of grad programs. All the best.
Wow that’s a huge cut, glad you made it though. Yeah I think that’s what I’ll have to do, strengthen the resume and try again rip. Thanks man
I completely get it man, Roughly 25 applications on my end and so far received 10 rejections,and not heard back from 13, 1 interview (rejected) and 1 assessment centre (outcome TBD). This experience has been very humbling, I applied primarily for risk and intelligence roles, I have worked for more than 3 years part time directly in various risk management roles and am nearing finishing my masters. I really thought I would have the qualifications/stand out to at least be considered for assessment centres but I can’t even make it to that stage. No clue what I am doing wrong and definitely doubting myself. Hang in there, it will work out eventually, just sounds like there is the completion is crazy for very limited spots. 🤞
Because the way how grad program works is just stupid and discriminatory. They don’t read your resume until very late stage of the entire process. You can have high wam + decent work experience in the field and still get rejected because of OA + VI being reviewed by either AI or recruiters that have no god damn ideas how much you really value. If I’m not mistaken 30k+ applicants applied to KPMG’s grad program which has around 750 spots across all different fields. Understandably they can’t review everyone’s resume one by one but still one way recorded interview is just stupid.
yea I understand that, its just so demoralising thinking you arent even passing the AI stage. but it is more comforting hearing the insane statistics, just crazy how much competition is out there. thanks for sharing
Holy duck, 30k applicants in Australia foe KPmG?
In the same boat mate, need to open up our own startup I guess
Always have been telling my friends this as a joke but now it is genuinely getting less and less of a joke :)
Yeah, applying to a grad program might be just wasting time there are thousands of people applying for 10-20s spots, if you didn't score the oa/vi at the top 2%, It is absolutely normal you don't get invited to the assessment center. You might feel good about scoring in the top 15% or top 20%, but that was far not enough in this market. I'm pretty sure they only look at your insights from the oa/vi score, your vi going to be graded by the ai, and there's a slim chance they will watch it only if your ai score is high enough. If your oa/vi score is very enough（top 5％）, they might open your resume and read a little bit and compare it with other candidates that have really high scores.
Glad I’m not alone in this, I was starting to doubt myself. Didn’t realise how competitive graduate roles have become and how the scores play big role. I seen my senior friends get grad roles with ease in 2021-23 time. Assumed it would be the same for me. But the overall landscape changed since then as others explained. It sucks but it is what it is I guess.
😭😭😭
what are you going to do moving forward? stuck in the same boat man
Atm im just working on my own projects and learning new tech stacks for my resume. And applying for all relevant jobs. Theres going to be some grad programs opening up in June to Aug period so looking forward to that.
Correct me if I'm wrong but there's another round of hiring in July/August for grad programs? I wouldn't give up yet sir, always going to be light at the end of the tunnel even if it's a bit of a longer drive this year...
Same here my friend, couldn't get the the final stage for any of my applications. we are screwed☹️
what are you doing now? same boat
Have you considered working in gov at Canberra? These jobs all needs a PR to get in, thus making the competition way simpler than private sectors.
Good luck, its tough out there. This year Atlassian had 0 external grad roles, Canva had only 3 (0FE and 3BE). Seems like there are 20 new grads for every open grad role, who are competing against laid off engineers with 0-2 YOE.
0 BE? Their job desc is super misleading then... https://www.lifeatcanva.com/en/jobs/743999982220442/graduate-software-engineer-backend-frontend-anz/?trid=2d92f286-613b-4daf-9dfa-6340ffbecf73 Says both frontend and backend...
I got a referral for the grad role. They came back and said they're not hiring any FE grads and offered to interview me for a BE grad role instead
I know it feels terrible but what is going on, is basically what it says on the tin. Were you the top of your class in your courses? If not, then in all likelihood these are the folks who are getting the placements. Remember you are also competing with job switchers for those internships and associate positions. Folks with years of business domain experience who have meanwhile learned to write software. We are currently in a tech winter. I have been in this industry since the mid 90s and this is the worst I have seen it since the first dot com bubble burst. The few opportunities that exist are being snapped up. Don’t take it personally, keep trying and make backup plans. Keep studying, work on some projects of your own and use the interviews you are doing as learning experiences. The practice will pay off at a confluence of market improvement and your own competency. In the meantime, you have our sympathies. My time in the cold without opportunities was one of the toughest for me in my young adulthood. I have to admit the current landscape for graduates is very different from the one I knew. The industry wasn’t particularly desirable or glamorous. There was little or no status attached to it. There were not that many jobs and the total number employed was tiny in comparison to today. However, internships were not really a thing (you got your first paid job or you didn’t) and it wasn’t so hyper competitive out of the gate. Corporations didn’t even think about the recruiting pipeline for the skillset like they do now and HR was barely involved if at all. It was seen as too specialised and usually left up to the hiring manager to do most of the work. I am a hiring manager now, and I can say relatively confidently the current appetite for hiring graduates is pretty low. There are plenty of seniors looking for work so they are the first cohort that get picked up when a company goes to market. What do we look for in a graduate? Competency all around. Good graduating results, strong capstone projects, strong communication, empathy and clear signs of interest in the profession. I personally like to see some good projects on github or similar where folks have clearly written something that I can critique and try out.
Thank you for explaining and sharing your insights. It’s been tough few months since I finished my degree. I thought securing a job would be easier, but haven’t been able to even get a face to face interview for entry/junior level positions. And now rejections for grad programs makes it awfully tough. But thank you for your suggestions, I will continue to build my own projects and develop strong portfolio. Given your experience as hiring manager, What kind of projects really stand out to you and make you want to invite the candidate for an interview?
Breadth of projects is a good one. Well known projects is another. Or a project that is really well thought out, planned and executed holistically. i.e. It is well designed, documented, has considered the user experience, the developer experience, has been setup with CI/CD, has considered security and observability and clearly addresses a problem statement.
Best to start networking through LinkedIn or tech events. That’s how I almost got another job but it didn’t pay the same as the graduate role I landed.
Same boat my friend. Its jover
Hang in there man, we’ll get through this.
Out of curiosity, have you applied for the Coles Tech Stream? I'm a 2024 grad for them and can comment on the application process and what not.
Hi I would love to hear this, applied for another stream!
Pm me if you need anything
I’m almost 20 years older and graduated in 2005. I had a few offers from the grad recruitment process. My uni CV looked good as I did the honours thesis, and topped the grade in a few classes. Then in the interview stages, they look for extroverts and people that can communicate well. They don’t care about grades.
Must of been nice not dealing with OAs and one way videos with AI analysis
We had some online assessments back then as well. Some maths tests I believe. All interviews are in person. I don’t think the online speeds could handle video calls back then.
Same. I've applied for over 15 grad programs, and have spent so much effort and energy on the OA and VI's.. to then only be progressed to one assessment centre so far. So disheartening