In the Absence of Opportunity, Create Your Own

 

Entry-level/Junior coders are everywhere right now. They are so easy to find that companies hiring then barely even need to advertise their openings. An entry-level opening can get 200, 300 applicants in the first week alone.

And that creates an impossible challenge for any junior coder right now: They're applying to 500+ places and often getting no response.

If this sounds familiar, keep in mind that everyone started there. Arguably, the situation has only become more challenging as the market has become more saturated - but I think the same fundamentals still hold: The beauty of working in Technology is that, in the absence of opportunity, you can easily create your own.

Looking at my old resume - I realized: when I was getting started, my resume was empty - I had no professional experience. But within 1 month, I'd had one small gig that got me the next gig which got me the next. Whenever I'd get rejected, I'd find the reason ("You don't know SQL...") and give myself a project so I could build that skill. Otherwise, I'd turn to Craigslist or my personal network and offer the same refrain: "I may not be the expert, but I'm hear to learn. I'm gaining experience not pay - and I'm driven to get this done and done well, because my career depends on it."

If I sound at all as if I'm bragging, I don't meant to be: If I've been successful at any one thing in my career, it's simply been to look for how to provide myself the opportunity others weren't giving me. I still do it to this day: In 2017 I learned about PMP, Agile PMP and formalized my understanding of Scrum and Kanban by giving myself specific projects that helped me understand the fundamentals. In 2018, I did the same with DevOps. In 2019, it was with Product Management. 2020 it was around Finance and understanding accounting and balance sheets. 2021 was more about developing Visions and Strategies - and on the story goes.

If you're struggling to land that first role right now, don't stop applying - but make sure you're equally investing time in covering gaps in knowledge, and giving yourself opportunities to build the very experience that's keeping you from getting hired.

This is my original resume - because we all got started somewhere. ❤



Popular

Let's Clear Up The Ambiguity!

Image
Job seeking is hard - especially when you factor the ambiguity around expectations, the lack of transparency and consistency around process. It's frustrating dealing with the sheer subjectivity of everyone's opinions. Just think of even the basics: How long should your resume really be? Traditional black and white, or modern? Should you include a headshot? Oh - and cover letters - are those needed? Is anyone actually reading the cover letter? What are they looking for? Is there a bias for people with a more traditional background? Worst of all: The dreaded typo  that you catch only after applying to your dream job.  Are typos really going to cost you the opportunity??? To help bring some clarity to the process, I surveyed a bunch of hiring managers. The results were really interesting, and very illuminating.     If you're on the job hunt, I hope this information helps out! One final note: My recent post,  7 Steps to Writing an Amazing Resume , factors a lot of this feedba
Read more

FAQs for a Software Engineering Hiring Manager

Image
Technical Interviews have evolved a lot since the early I transitioned from being a Software Engineer to an Engineering Manager. Particularly in the post-Covid era, there's been a greater emphasis on the person, which I think is an important and welcome change. Over the decade of interviewing hundreds of coders, I've also had the pleasure of working with various bootcamps, colleges, and hundreds of individual job seekers on LinkedIn. Across all the changes over the past years, across the various locations and mediums, something remained consistent throughout: The questions I get asked.  With that in mind, I thought - why not make a FAQ from my perspective as a hiring manager? While this is my perspective, it's based off years of observation and supporting data. But that being said, advice is not fact. You may disagree with certain points, and that's OK. Opinions we disagree with allow us to better understand our own views. At best, I hope these responses help you
Read more

7 Steps to Writing an Amazing Resume

Image
  Since sharing my resume template  I've received plenty of feedback from job seekers, HR and hiring managers - all of whom value its purpose. Two (now former!) jobseekers even shared that as soon as they used my template, they were getting calls. Something about this template works, and given the traction it's getting others, I wanted to share - in more detail - why  this approach works so well.  Before continuing, let me give an important disclaimer: This resume isn't a miracle cure that's going to land anyone their dream job. Unless they're filled with lies, resumes are only as good as the candidate themselves. But they can also be a whole lot worse. This template and approach are all about maximizing the potential candidates have by highlighting and summarizing key areas.  Last point before beginning: If you don't know me, it's worth stating this advice comes from more than a decade of having hiring a broad range of coders: straight out of college, high
Read more

7 Steps to Building your Portfolio MVP

Image
Often when I suggest to coders that they build a portfolio, I'll hear back: "I don't need one..." "With all the effort it takes to apply, where will I find the time?" Simply put, having a portfolio's never going to hurt your chances at landing a job - it can only help. That second question is where a lot of struggle - because applying to jobs can be time consuming. Especially if you're wrapping up a bootcamp, or having to manually type in your resume info after uploading your resume. That's why I made these 7 steps which, when done correctly, can really help you stand out with a hiring manager. And, the best part is, it should only take you 2 days. Being the Agile-Obsessive that I am, it's all about maximizing value while minimizing effort. Fix links to your Resume, GitHub, LinkedIn, etc. at the top where they're always accessible. Link to everything here - and then remove all other links on your Resume except your Portfolio link . It sa
Read more

Work Experience vs Professional Experience

Image
In reviewing a bunch of resumes this week, I noticed quite a lot of resumes with a  "Work Experience"  section. In each of those resumes, people had de-valuing some very valuable  experience - and I write that with no exaggeration. The problem is people were looking at their experience purely through the "Job Title/Relevancy" lens and had reduced their experience down to a list of discrete, random, disconnected jobs. No interconnectedness, no narrative thread weaving through it all. As much as you may feel some jobs have no way of being connected, the reality is  you   are always the connection . To not connect them on your resume is to lose all that growth, knowledge, skills, impact, value, and trajectory. In other words - you lose the " You " in the resume. I recommended they start with a small change. Reword "Work Experience" to "Professional Experience" because, ultimately, every single job they had was in service of building their
Read more