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daviddoes profile image
David Clark

Been running into an issue lately myself. I've been experimenting with my free premium trial of LinkedIn, and one of the cooler features is seeing how you compare to other applicants. In many cases, I'm in the top 25%, and in all cases I'm in the top 50% (of the relevant positions being looked at).

I'm a developer with no work history, but a few solid projects. I've had no interviews except for those where I've reached out to people on LinkedIn (cold touch). My most successful one was a couple of days ago where the person indicated they were looking for someone with more experience (posting said 1-2 years, and was my exact stack of experience). Because I am coming from a coding boot camp, people are discrediting my projects and saying I should focus on doing more projects on my own.

What they don't realize, is that these projects are 100% my own. They're not to-do lists, or Facebook/Twitter/Instagram/trello clones. These are full-stack, user database, built from the ground-up, my own ideas, wire-framing, MVP, user testing/feedback, unit testing, TravisCI implementation, etc. Not even Bootstrap is used.

How can one convey this depth of ownership of these projects in the six seconds someone looks at their resume?

P.S. The most recent person I spoke with did say that my resume was great, easy to read, easy to get to everything, and that all my projects answered questions without them having to ask them.

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thadevelyouknow profile image
Funda

Spend a lot of time filling out your profiles on LinkedIn and Glassdoor. Make your profiles as robust as your resume, if not more so. Add links, photos, whatever. Have a nice headshot. Have writing samples about your work to show your soft skills. Tell your story in your profiles.

Make sure your resume is ATS (machine) readable. Find templates for that online.

Then apply daily through LinkedIn and Glassdoor. That’s what I did - I came out of a Boot Camp and landed a software engineering job. Lean on your social network (I must admit a friend pointed me in the direction of this job.) Keep up the faith. Start with a “hybrid” job if you must. Target startups. You will get there!