Hi Everyone!
This is my first post! I hope some people find it helpful in landing their first job as a developer. I'm sure the following tips will help you get a job, even if you have a job as a developer already. If you have more tips, add them in comments and I will add them to the list!
Nobody cares if you went to Yale, to the technical school down the road, or you if learned how to code by watching YouTube. As long as you know your stuff, you are good to go. If a company cares about where you went to school, rather than focusing on your skills, you probably don't want to work there.
Contribute to Open Source. How? Github (https://github.com/) is a good place to start or go to NPM and find projects there.
Have your resume updated and complete at all times. FYI: I review resumes for FREE. Send me a DM on Twitter @devpato.
Complete your profile on LinkedIn. Seriously, this is how tech recruiters can find you!
Be active on LinkedIn. Share what you read, your thoughts, and what you are learning, etcetera. I get contacted by recruiters a few times a week because of all the things previously mentioned. Always keep your LinkedIn professional.
Contact recruiters. The candidates from recruiting agencies have a higher chance to get an interview than people who apply directly to the company.
Have a personal website.
Have a least 3 projects on your portfolio and talk about them in your resume.
Make sure every single line of code you write is on Github. Github is the portfolio of the developers and recruiters can find you on Github too! ;)
Answer and post questions on Stackoverflow.
Create a developer story on Stackoverflow. How do you do this? Go to your profile -> click on Developer Story Tab. Once completed, you will see something like mine https://stackoverflow.com/users/story/5262452. This helps recruiters find you and helps you find the job you want.
Show your passion about programming while interviewing.
Show your desire to learn new technologies.
Be active on Twitter. Twitter? Wait, What??? Yes, Twitter! Twitter is an informal way to meet developers. You never know who you'll interact with and the potential doors that can be opened.
Data-structures and Algorithms are the most important things! LIES! The majority of the developers will never use a crazy algorithm or a crazy DS. You also need to focus on learning best practices, how to integrate different tools like NPM packages to your code, APIs, etcetera.
DO NOT get discouraged if you don't hear back from any of the 200 companies you QUICK APPLIED to on Indeed or LinkedIn.
DO NOT CLICK ON "quick apply" to jobs. Most of the jobs posted with "quick apply" are fake. Take a few extra minutes to apply and answer the questions properly on their forms, etcetera.
DO NOT LIE on your resume. Everything you put on your resume is valid for the interviewer to ask questions about.
Go to meetups! Meetups are an awesome way to network and get your name out there. Also, recruiters go to meetups :)
Participate in Hackathons. If your school or someone in your town is hosting a hackathon, participate! Even if you don't think you are good enough to compete. Hackathons are not always about competing, it's about learning, networking, and having a good time! Plus, they usually give free food.
Look for jobs on Stackoverflow, LinkedIn, and Indeed. Stackoverflow is very good for remote jobs :)
Set the preferences on Stackoverflow and LinkedIn specifying that you are looking for a new opportunity.
Post on twitter when you are looking for a job. More than one of us will retweet it!
Worried about your GPA? Dang, sorry COLLEGE wasn't for you. Luckily, that doesn't mean that you don't know how to code. In fact, I know a lot of very talented programmers who had a very low GPAs.
Find a mentor. Having a mentor is always good even if you are a senior developer. A mentor can help you make decisions and take the correct path in you career.
Do something that make you accountable for your learnings and goals.
You don't have do every single one of these tips. They are tips, not rules or formulas, on how to land a job as a developer.
Good luck on your job search!
Top comments (18)
Congrats for your first post! I'm in the same situation :D
About your post. I totally agree with your tips. Especially with 2, 7 and 8. It's super important to have an active presence on github and make contributions for the community.
Amigo Mauro! What's is your post going to be about? and yes exactly! we have to give back to the community!
I already published it. It's about tailwindcss and Angular (how to integrate tailwindcss into Angular project without pain :D
Setup your Angular project to work with tailwindcss
Mauro Garcia ・ Sep 11 ・ 3 min read
Niceeeeeeee def will read it
Accept my congratulations for the first post! And it's really useful and cool :)
Just want to add that it's important to make an excellent resume. This 1resumewritingservice.com/ service often helped me. For all the time of the passages of interviews, I realized that a good resume is really important. Especially if you don't have much experience.
Hey Pato, you made great points here and I wanted to reiterate a few of them.
1) I started at a private college here in the US, but ended up leaving and finishing my degree at a technical institute. In no way has that influenced my career in any way.
8-9) Yes. I have done plenty of interviews and I feel like I know the person across from me during the conversation when I have already read through their code examples and sample projects. Get your code out there. I don't care if it's just the step by step example from a udemy course or a simple start.spring.io/ shell that you strapped a few lombok controllers on top of. Let me see it all.
12-13) Totally agree. If during the interview process I can't tell that you're into learning and developing, you're not getting a call back. I don't care if you know the exact stack we use, because if you're clever and willing to dig in, you'll figure it out.
Keep up the good writing!
Thank you much for th feedback. Specially coming from someone with the level of experience that you have!!
Thanks for share your experience . almost near to 3 month i'm serious about get Job As junior developer but still i could not get one job. while i have resume website and portfolio on github .
really i got discourage, seems its very difficult
this is the link from my resume Website aminabolfathi.ir.
really i dont know what i should do ,i say thanks for any help
i love programmin
I noticed you are a CTO. I have spoken to several CTO's in the past 3 years. None of them care about where you went to school.
Thanks nice information
Thank you sir!
Congrats on your first post, it impressive Thanks for the article am also searching for job i think this tips are going to help me, Thanks
Hi!
Excellent first post. In point 3 you missed an 's' at your @.
Gracias Hugo! Un saludo. Yo soy de León, Guanajuato
I wish I could just hit retweet to this comment. You are 100% right
On April 01, 2022, Stack Overflow will no longer support Developer Story. You can download a copy of your existing Developer Story as a PDF if you wish to retain this information.