He was jobless and living at a park bench in Mountain View, California but when web developer David Casarez decided to take control of his situation by giving out resumes instead of begging for money last Friday, he didn’t expect that this could be the big break he had always dreamed of.
A web developer who earned his Bachelor’s Degree in Management Information Systems from Texas A&M University, Casarez already had a good-paying job as developer job at General Motors in Austin.
But like many young IT graduates before him, the lure of Silicon Valley was too big to resist.
So, he cashed in on his 401(k), quit his job, and drove to Silicon Valley in his 2015 Ford Transit Connect utility van.
But opportunities in Silicon Valley were far fewer than he had anticipated. While he had a long list of skills and experiences, including freelance jobs, the companies he had applied to just didn’t need new workers.
“No one was hiring. I had an interview with Apple in January, but the job was filled internally,” Casarez revealed.
He also revealed that he had been living in his car for over a year; but things got worse when the van was repossessed last month after he ran out of money. With no job and no van, he ended up sleeping on the park bench.
Food was getting scarce for sure but Casarez didn’t beg for money; instead, he made a sign that asked people to take a resume, in hopes of finally finding a job. Then, he put his best corporate attire before going to the median at El Camino Real and San Antonio Road, holding up the sign and handing out resumes.
He’d been standing there for several hours when Jasmine Scofield passed by. The netizen noticed the sign and knew Casarez badly needed help. So, she snapped a photo of him and his sign, then posted these on Twitter along with his resume.
“Today I saw this young homeless man asking for people to take a resume rather than asking for money,” Scofield wrote.
“Please RT so we can help David out!”
Just less than a day later, the tweet was liked nearly 70k times and retweeted over 50k times! Amazing.
The homeless web developer has since received hundreds of job offers, including interview invitations from Google, Pandora, Bitcoin.com, and various start-up companies. Casarez was overwhelmed by it all but Scofield was just as surprised that this has gone so viral.
With the many job offers he received in the mail, we’re quite sure he won’t be homeless soon!
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