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Since my last post several months ago, I have been searching for job actively. I have been sending CVs to companies, and learning a new technology for work, which I would prefer to use (Direct3D). Even though I am sending about 2-3 CV a week and monitoring every day, no company has responded! I got only one result which was a rejection from a dream job at a great company.

I have no experience in applying for jobs, because I have never been accepted to any kind of job. This might be because of I have no degree. But I have 7 years of non-commercial experience, participating in small open source projects.

I have a problem with understanding people due to my autism, so I would really appreciate an explanation of why no one is responding to me CV. And is there some person that could help me with this type of situation?

Additional information:

1) I live in the Czech Republic, that has one of the lowest unemployment rates, in fact specialists in programming are required here, but I'm an foreigner.

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    "Who can I ask for help if no one replies my CV?" - talk to a 3rd party recruiter and ask for help with your CV, or go to a career fair and participate in some mock training interviews, and ask for feedback. – dwizum May 20 at 17:52
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    Hi Ilya - sometimes it's good to wait a bit before accepting an answer. There may be others that are better or more useful to you that show up. I usually give it at least a day - see what others vote up and what shows up. – thursdaysgeek May 20 at 18:14
  • Do you have any friend or family member, or friend of a family member, or family member of a friend, with at least a few years of professional experience (in just about any field, in any country)? That would be a good place to start. Also, the internet has a ton of advice on every aspect of the job search (although it's still easy to mess up writing a CV by only following that advice, so I'd recommend having a human review it if at all possible). – Dukeling May 20 at 19:47
  • @Dukeling if I had some friends, as I pointed out I'm very bad, when it comes to contact some people in person, and I don't have a family (on paper I have, but no real help from them I can wait) – Ilya Pakhmutov May 20 at 20:06
  • You can probably find a site where people are willing to review your CV, but I wouldn't have any suggestion for that (nor is this the place to find one), the quality of feedback may be questionable (especially if it's free, but even if it's not) and some may be scammy (especially if it seems free, and it's not community-supported like this site or Reddit). – Dukeling May 20 at 20:52
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If I understand you correctly, you have zero actual paid experience in doing the work which you're applying for? You have no degree, either?

If that's the case, I say this honestly and mean no disrespect whatsoever, but there really is no incentive for an employer to take a chance on you. Again, no disrespect intended at all.

What you need to do is somehow get an education, or some experience, saying you worked at such and such company. Simply saying "I did some side projects" really isn't enough. I got into programming by taking a job as a Network Ops Engineer (meaning if a process failed I rebooted the computer, then called someone who knew how to fix it), and then I got promoted to QA, then to Web Developer. Perhaps you need to "get your foot in the door" the same way. Take a job in IT at a company you want to be in and work your way up. If you get a chance to apply internally for a job, they often prefer to hire from within than to go outside the company.

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  • Unpaid project experience can still count. It really depends on the nature of the side projects. Voluntary work for a well-known charity would look good, as would contributing to an open source project prospective employers can check out online. – Llewellyn May 21 at 17:49
  • Absolutely agree. But then one can say that they worked FOR that charity. The point is, like it or not, hiring companies just don't give as much credit to side work. He will always look inexperienced until someone hires him. – Keith May 21 at 18:09
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If you're not getting any responses at all to your applications, then there are two likely problems.

1) You may be applying to jobs for which you are not qualified. If they require a degree and you have personal experience only, they may be choosing applicants who have degrees and or work experience. That is hard to overcome - especially the work experience, because in many cases, you need experience to get hired, but you need to get hired to get experience. It's very frustrating. In some cases, getting an education will help with that, especially if you can get an internship while attending school. At then end of that, you will have both education and experience, and employers are more likely to take a chance, are more likely to at least interview you.

2) Your resume/CV is lacking. For US-centric advice, I recommend AskAManager. Since you are not in the US, while that might still be useful, it will be less useful. It would be good to find some Czech-specific advice on how to make a CV that will lead to an interview. Most employers spend only a bit of time scanning the documents, before deciding who to interview. You're competing with many others, and if your CV has errors or is unclear, or if they simply get others with better experience - in both cases, you don't get a response.

Sometimes, it's not that you're doing anything wrong, but others simply are better.

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