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Showing posts from May, 2023

Self-Appreciation

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A few years back my daughter gifted me a little book called "Things I Love About Dad," with pages of prompts that she's been filling out over time. The other night she told me she filled out a new page: "I love that you taught me to appreciate me." This one may just be my favorite page to date. It's so easy to confuse appreciating oneself with being confident, having an ego, or being arrogant. But those others show themselves externally. Appreciating yourself is being friends with your inner monologue, it's knowing you may not always get things right and may make mistakes, but it's acknowledging the intention that's behind them. It's writing a post about a personal note from your daughter, worrying if you're conveying the right message, debating whether to hit post, and thinking 'if it helps someone pat themselves on the back instead of beating themselves up... it's worth it.'
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Cover Letters & ROI

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  Someone recently asked for my take on cover letters - and while in the past I'd say they're largely pointless unless they provide details your resume cannot (a personal link to the company, an employee, the product - or best of all, some specific experience that would be invaluable to the organization) this current job market has me re-evaluating. I still believe (based on data) that many cover letters will get ignored - when volume of applicants go up, hiring managers don't have the time to read them all. They'll prioritize the resume first, then - if the candidate looks appealing - they may gloss over the cover letter. They may then read the cover letter in more depth in advance of the interview - but at that point, the ball's already in motion. Below 1,000 employees and your cover letter will have greater impact than above 1,000 employees. The smaller the company, the more they'll want to have information about their candidates, rely a lot more on trust, an...
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Dear Old Me / Dear Young Me - On Comparisons

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Dear Old Me, Whether it's in classes, talking to friends, or in interviews - I'm really feeling like I'm never good enough. When I see what others can do, the solutions they create, it looks so easy for them. I really want to be a programmer - so hopefully you've gotten better? ~Alishah   -- Dear Young Me, Let's start simple: Output is a terrible way of measuring difficulty. You never know how hard something is for someone - even if they explain their thought process. That's why we say  "they make it look easy."   Have you ever looked at one of those images that has a hidden image inside it? The first time, it can be tricky to find - but once you see it, it's always there. A lot of problem solving boils down to how many things you've already seen. The fewer things you see for the first time, the better equipped you become at solving them. Part of the trick is taking those problems and simplifying it down to basic parts. Then, whenever you encou...
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Mistakes on Stage

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My daughter was telling me how she's nervous of her upcoming recital. Asking why, she said how was worried about messing up in front of others and getting embarrassed. Being the supportive parent I am, I said "Well, I can promise you this: you will absolutely mess up. It will happen, and there's no avoiding it." Seeing this was doing nothing to build her confidence, I elaborated: " Perfection is impossible. There are no perfect performances. Everyone messes up - and really, a perfect performance isn't always that interesting. It's robotic. The thing that gives music its 'soul' is imperfection." What wows people is how you handle the mess up when it happens. Do you shut down and walk off stage? Are you so scared of messing up you never get on the stage? Do you laugh at the mess up and forge ahead, continuing to make more mistakes? Do you pause, reset, and continue on without further mistakes? Or do you take that mistake and make something out ...
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Dear Old Me / Dear Young Me - On Novelty

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  Dear Old Me, So - you wrote recently about how "all the answers become distractions." What did you mean by that? It sounded good, and I wonder if it's what I'm dealing with? As I get better with coding, I'm constantly getting new ideas. Ideas come faster than I can build them - and I just can't keep up. Are you still dealing with that challenge?  ~Alishah P.S.  Did you ever finish Zinglok-725? -- Dear Young Me, The problem never goes away. Someone I/you (we?) admire called us creatively erratic - and while it stung to hear, it was only partially accurate. The thing is, you'll eventually learn to manage it in a few different ways: You'll get better at identifying what intrigues you about the idea. Ideas will come to you as massive projects - but if you spend the time to dissect it down to the trivial bit you'll usually come to the conclusion that: the problem you're interested in has already been resolved, and the rest is just an interesting i...
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SkatGPT

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  Everyone's talking about ChatGPT. Today, I'd like to introduce SkatGPT . ...Jazz singers, be afraid...
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Hearing What You (Don't) Want To Hear

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  Insecurities can really mess with our senses. You hear things differently. You hear the things you don't want to hear. Compliments become invisible while you see criticism everywhere - explicit, implied, subtly hinted at. Feedback becomes the evidence that validates your worst fears about yourself. Praise only comes from those you've duped. Take time to impress yourself. It'll help you see things as they are.
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Dear Old Me / Dear Young Me - On Perl

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Dear Old Me, HI! Did you ever become a coder? Should I learn Perl?  What about ColdFusion? I'm worried I won't ever get a coding job unless I learn them all. ~Alishah -- Dear Young Me, Don't bother learning Perl. I don't know a single coder who knows Perl. In fact, you'll come across dozens of languages over the next 20 years. Every one of them will do the same thing but in slightly different ways. Instead learn how to break problems down into simple steps. That's the important skill. Ask yourself how you'd solve a problem manually  (like how would you find the word "tiger" in any book?) . If the problem is too hard on its own, or too hard to then translate into computer instructions - then ask yourself what tools or tricks could make it easier  (what if the book had an index or table of contents?!) In fact, you'll often find a lot of problems either: Lack a structure; If so, introduce what you need. Have the wrong structure; If so, break and r...
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Popular

Work Experience vs Professional Experience

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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 ...
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Let's Clear Up The Ambiguity!

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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...
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FAQs for a Software Engineering Hiring Manager

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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...
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7 Steps to Writing an Amazing Resume

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  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, hig...
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7 Steps to Building your Portfolio MVP

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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...
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