It can't really be called "graduation and job hunting" — in your final semester of college, you're basically free to move around as you please. Teachers are also chasing high employment rates, practically wishing you'd get out of school as soon as possible.

In the previous post, I talked about writing the graduation thesis. Actually, I submitted my thesis in the first half of the first semester of senior year, and it only took about one or two months. I also recommend that you don't take the thesis too seriously — passing is good enough, since you basically can't produce anything too profound anyway.

At that time, some classmates were busy preparing for the postgraduate entrance exam, some for the civil service exam, and some were busy looking for jobs (I was one of them).

Those looking for jobs went to various double-selection job fairs and campus information sessions to drop off resumes. Before going, we would all make our resumes look beautiful — fonts, layout, colors. Thinking about it now is quite ridiculous. Many classmates (including me) had no real substance, but our resumes were done up in a flashy way. At the job fairs there were many companies, including private enterprises and state-owned enterprises. What left a deep impression on me was seeing China Mobile. I felt that if you could get in, you'd be amazing. But I saw their two recruiters sitting on chairs cracking sunflower seeds and chatting. When people handed in resumes, they didn't even lift their heads, acting as if they were several ranks above everyone else. Of course, there was also a thick stack of resumes on their table — everyone wanted to go to big companies like that.

Later, I learned from the side that these companies basically came just to go through the motions. If you didn't have an internal referral for their recruitment, you could forget about it.

Back to me — I submitted resumes to some software companies, such as Yonyou, Kingdee, NetDragon, etc. The result was predictable: absolutely no response. I applied to about a dozen companies, and not one invited me for an interview (maybe that's the fate of a non-computer-science major).

At that point, I started to get a bit anxious. Thinking about how I had earned so many certificates and studied programming for so long (even though I was still quite poor at it), I couldn't just go do some other low-barrier job, right? That would mean it was all a waste. The more I thought about it, the more depressed I got, so I went out for a walk to clear my mind. As I was walking, I suddenly noticed a company near the school gate (about 200–300 meters from the gate) that was hiring PHP programmers. The required skills were PHP, MySQL, Ajax, etc. But thinking that I had studied Java, didn't know PHP, and didn't understand the required technologies, I figured even if I went for the interview, they wouldn't want me (pessimistic mindset).

After a while, I thought: I can't find a job right now anyway. If I really went into another industry, wouldn't I be laughed at by my classmates? (The whole class knew I was studying computers.) After studying for so long, it would still be useless. That would be too embarrassing. The more I thought about it, the more unwilling I became. No way — I had to at least go try.

Later, without thinking much more, I grabbed a resume and went to that company hiring PHP. After entering, the company had no front desk, so I knocked on the glass door. A young guy wearing glasses came out and asked me what I needed. I said I was here for a programmer interview. He then invited me to sit down in the office and asked me some questions — roughly what my major was, what technologies I knew, and what projects I had done. I answered truthfully: "I don't know PHP. I self-studied computer science at school. I know a bit of Java and built a laboratory management system." After that, he had me write JavaScript code on the computer. Although I had some exposure, I still couldn't do it. At that time, I could see he was speechless. Afterwards, he told me to go back and wait for notification. I figured it was a lost cause...

But life is always full of surprises. Back at school, the company boss called me, saying the young guy who interviewed me at noon said I could be developed/trained. He told me to come to the company next Monday to start work, with a monthly salary of 1,000 (I would have gone even without pay — I wanted project experience). Once there, I should study PHP hard with them. At that moment, I was truly shocked. I never expected it — how was it possible? After finishing the call, I noticed my palms were sweating. I guess I was too excited. Afterwards, I went straight to the library and borrowed an introductory PHP book and devoured it — various installation environments, syntax learning. There were still three or four days before next Monday, so I crammed hard...

On the first day at the company, the young guy who interviewed me arranged a seat for me. This guy later became my supervisor. He told me to install the PHP development environment. At that time, I used the PHP integrated environment phpnow with one-click installation — click next, next... and it was done. After that, my supervisor threw a URL at me. When I opened it, it was the DedeCMS official website (there are tons of domestic companies doing website development). He told me to download the site's code and study the source code and template development. After downloading, I started reading from the system's index.php (entry page), and then saw all kinds of PHP functions that I didn't understand at all. At that time, I had only been learning PHP for 3 days, and I was too embarrassed to ask. So I gritted my teeth, downloaded the PHP reference manual as a CHM, and then read through the system logic structure while looking up function explanations in the CHM manual. After studying for about a month, I gradually started helping the company make templates and develop plugins. And just like that, I began my career as a PHP programmer...

Summary

When you don't know anything, take the initiative to fight for opportunities. Even if you end up getting nothing in the end — trying might not work, but not trying definitely won't. Sometimes there's only one chance like that.

This includes those of us who are already working at companies now. Companies have plenty of opportunities. Rather than waiting for your leader to tell you how to do things, it's better to take the initiative and do these things yourself. Three to five years down the road, the gap between people lies in these two words — "take the initiative."