Discussion on: What are the challenges to getting a job in tech? If possible, share advice to overcome that challenge!

Staff SE here, I haven't been in the job market because my college internship turned into a full time job that I've been at for 8 years, but I've done tons of interviews for our team so I figured I'd give some thoughts from the other side of the table...

• be careful with portfolios (live code). If they work they're a great way to showcase your skills but if they're buggy or don't work at all then it can hurt you
• have 1 language your strong in and a few you're reasonably comfortable with. This is a general idea not a hard rule obviously but as an interviewer if I know you're solid with JS but can only read basic java and SQL, then I know I can get value out of your JS skills while you grow in have and SQL. where as if you have 15 languages that you wrote hello world in but list yourself as comfortable in all of them, I'm going to be very skeptical and put you to the test.
• if you don't have dev experience, sell problem solving. Sudoku, cross words, logic puzzles, whatever you enjoy, showing you can pull complicated concepts apart goes a long way.
• don't be afraid to sell your continued learning. Too many devs I know shrug off real learning after they get a solid job. If I know you invest in yourself, whether it's this site, podcasts, books, challenge websites, whatever, then I'm more likely to invest in you.
• don't panic during coding interviews. I give a particular problem that has a tricky edge case in it that 90% of people miss. And I expect them to. 1) can you ask questions effectively to communicate your problem to gather information 2) can you debug 3) can you google (sometimes I let them google answers... I do it daily, why can't they) 4) if I help you solve it, can you follow my reasoning.
• admit what you don't know during Q&A, try during the coding portion. If I ask you on a scale of 1 to 10 how your java is and you say 9 when you're really a 2 then I will ask you the hardest java questions I know... cause I'm not a 9. If you tell me you're a 2 I'll throw you some softballs to make sure you've done more than a hello world. But when we sit down to pair program a challenge and I tell you to use java (knowing you just said you're a 2... or even a 0!) "I can't" is the wrong answer... we work with stuff we've never seen before all the time. "I can do it in JS if you can help me translate it" awesome answer. "If I psuedo code it can you help me with syntax" perfectly fine answer. "If I pseudo code it, can I google some syntax as i go" even better... show me your google-fu.

Sorry for the long reply. Probably should have just make this a post and then linked to it.