Ever since I've graduated on September 2022, I've not had a job. Maybe a crappy internship, but I wasn't provided with a 'certificate', or letter that proves if I've worked for them. That was around October 2022, and I quit voluntarily at the end of January 2023. Since then, I've not worked anywhere as a software dev, be it internship or full-time, because the job market is so fucked up in India.
Now, how do I explain this to avail scholarship? I have yet to read other scholarship docs from other countries in Europe, and I'm already shitting solidified blood-clots reading this from the DAAD Helmut-Schmidt announcement document:
a curriculum vitae in reverse chronological order including the date of issue (format: europass, please note: the europass template does not include a date, please add it yourself) with exact information about your studies and practical experience; gaps of three months or more must be explained
(Update: And I just realized that I am an idiot for not reading that this is only for non-STEM folks. Well, it looks to me that DAAD for STEM is also almost the same, with more stringent requirements.)
In my college, there was no research programs - I mean, you know the typical 'Indian colleges encouraging academic plagiarism', so I didn't learn or do shit. And obviously, I have no job experience. I did contribute to open-source from GitLab, a few Ruby gems, a new unknown front-end framework for JS, then Nixpkgs and now Guix, but that's it. Honestly, I wouldn't even call it contribution, because only a few patches were merged - most of it was just me interacting with those folks. After that, I've done nothing since September 2023, because my laptop broke and there were no spare parts. Maybe a little bit of playing around with Nix and Guix, writing package expressions and that's it.
How do I explain this? CVs are supposed to be at least 2-3 pages, but this? I can't even write half a page with this.
That's not how employment NDAs work. They never forbid a candidate from disclosing that they worked for a company and the general nature of their work. They just forbid the candidate from talking about specific knowledge gained at the company.
Do not use this excuse because it's an instant red flag for anyone who knows even a little about the hiring process.
Ok how about ' I was in Langley West Virginia working for the company and I can say nothing more'
I'm sure that the admission staff will take your application very seriously if you claim you were James Bonding it up for a few years.