Time to address one of the most common questions I get from my clients, βWhat if I donβt have development experience?β
We All Start There
We all got jobs without prior development experience, which means you can too. The trick is knowing how to leverage your past.
Sadly, job postings scare people away from applying since they want two years of experience and 85 required skills.
While this article isnβt about reading job postings, knowing that everyone starts without experience means you can too.
Your Non-Dev Experience Is Valuable!
Take a step back for a minute and think about if you were a leader in a company. What qualities youβd like in your employees?
More than likely, youβd come up with a list with some things like:
- Dependable
- Detail-oriented
- Good communicator
- Team player
- Focused
- Takes initiative
- Finishes things
- Results-oriented
So if youβd want someone like that on your team, what do you think the chances are that someone else wants that too? Pretty high!
What you want to do is look at your previous experience and focus on highlighting these qualities. Letβs say you worked at a fast-food place.
Instead of writing, βPrepped meals according to the standards.β
You might write, βWorked on a team that served 2000 customers daily in a high-paced environment.β
Hopefully, itβs pretty clear which one would get the attention of a manager.
Surprise Them With Cool Experiences
Iβve worked with lawyers, healthcare folks, and all other kinds who have transitioned to tech. While all of them were terrified of their lack of development experience, they had amazing stories and value to bring to the table.
For years I kept my job doing ocean rescue as a teenager on my resume because it guaranteed that someone would ask about it. Bonding over fun stories is a big part of successful interviewing, and non-development experience excels at this.
Weβre naturally curious about what other people have been through, and when you have a varied history, that is a superpower compared to folks who have done only one thing.
The trick is to tell your stories and make it clear how what you learned prepared you for today.
I used to close my stories about ocean rescue with something like, βSo Iβm comfortable with high-stress situations.β That line would show up because, at some point, weβd talk about projects and deadlines and stressful or difficult situations. Well, a story about life-and-death pretty much puts an end to the concern about that.
Bring The Attributes and Stories Together
To make the most of your non-development experience, identify those attributes like above and focus your experience to emphasize them and any other result a business would care about.
Then, reflect back on those jobs and see what stories come to the surface. If you can relate any of those stories to those attributes, youβre ready.
Now, when a manager reads your resume and sees that you deliver results and have all the qualities theyβd love in an employee, youβll be ready to interview with great effect.
If you liked this post there're two more things I'd like to tell you about. First, I'd love to have you join my newsletter that everyone from first-time devs to CTOs read weekly.
Second, I launched an online class that guarantees to get more interviews, offers, and negotiate higher pay.
You can find out about both here.
image courtesy of Unsplash
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