9 tips on searching for that first job in tech

I want to share advice on searching for that first job in tech. I hope that these gems of knowledge, that’s been discussed in my tech community, helps you in your tech career.

1. Don’t do it alone. Find yourself a support group to talk about the journey, hold each other accountable, and to help one another.

   This can include fellow students in a tech boot camp, virtual friends from a Slack/Discord community, or a social media group like 100DaysOfCode/100Devs.

2. Develop different iterations of your resumes for different types of jobs and opportunities.

3. Seek and work with multiple recruiters of different types (agency and in-house).

4. Don’t be afraid of using your past non-tech history or talking about your transferable skills.

   A personal example is using my previous law enforcement background to talk about working in a team, communicating with people, or developing personal projects to help me with challenges I faced.

5. Use your entire network (friends, family, church, neighborhood, etc.) in your search for a job.

1. Every “NO” that you receive is a learning opportunity. Use it to shape your resume, the story or pitch you use in an interview, and the way you search for jobs.

2. Learn your local job market by asking questions to the tech community, reviewing job listing, and Googling.

3. Make networking with others a priority (coffee chats, tech meetups, social media, Slack/Discord, LinkedIn, etc.).

   Pro tip: Danny Thompson has a great FREE YouTube channel dedicated to optimizing your LinkedIn profile. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuL_JoDeBDM

4. Finally and most important, this new career search may take a while. The worst thing you can do is to give up and become demotivated. Keep knocking on doors until the one God created for you is opened.

Before you go:

Please share more tips in the comments or additional thoughts on what has been discussed. Thanks in advance.

Code Connector is a non-profit that organized tech meetups to help people start their journey into tech. You can join our daily conversations by clicking this link: Code Connector slack channel.