Get Your First Dev Job in 6-12 Months (Even if you have Struggled)

  • This is a system to land a job. Not just advice.

(Insert personal or hypothetical story to help engage people)

Who is this for?

  • You have, or will have 500-1000 hrs of deliberate practice programming by the time you interview
  • You have struggled to get a dev job and need some direction
  • You are going to graduate from College or Bootcamp
  • You are trying to land an internship
  • Not looking to get into a highly competitive company
  • You know you want to code for your career

Questions to ask yourself during the process (some of these may be fore helping create the system)

  • What part of the process are you stuck on?
  • What things work or don't work for your personality? What are you more motivated to do?
  • How serious are you? What will you sacrifice to land a job?
  • Are you looking in the wrong place for jobs?
  • Can you change a constraint to get more interviews? (location, salary, etc)
    • What are your limitation criteria.
    • Are you going to be remote or in person?
  • What time are you willing to put in?
  • What strengths do you bring to the company? Will they value it?
    • this is culturally related as well to the company and how your strengths align with the companies culture
  • Do you value learning or getting into a job ASAP so you get paid to code and are coding way more than now if you can only code part time? (need to put brians blog in here as reference relate to this)
  • Adjusting the Dials Analogy - What do you have to change to land a role as you go - show picture
  • Get lots of advice as you go - (Put in Derek sivers quote here)
  • You are your best advocate

How long will this take?

  • Probably 3-12 months depending on your commitment, luck, and desire.

Sometimes you just need a little direction and some resources to head you in the right direction.

Motivation

  • Realize that you only need to be better than those applying to the role. You don't have to be (insert famous developer here).
  • If you get discouraged use what I call the PRL method,
    • Perspective (this takes time, programming is hard, there is space for you in the field, this is just a localized and temporary setback)
    • Remember something that is now easy but use to be hard. One of the reasons expert developers can't teach well is because they forget the very difficult beginning steps of learning. Remember the first time you did HTML or CSS. Remember how hard it was? What does that feel like now? Can you do that again with APIs, Java, JavaScript, Algorithms, Etc?
    • Look to the future. Put in the work. Build a system for success and grind every day.
  • Iterate on your projects, don't worry about being perfect first, but get yourself there with rewrites
  • You only need 1 job - (Put in the mining analogy/meme here)
    • Are you mining with the right shovel?
    • Are you mining in the right location?
    • Do you know what you are even mining for?
    • Your first dig or 100 dig might land the job (have you gone long enough?)

Common Traps that you have or may fall into on your Journey:

  • Jump from one tutorial to the next without completing any of them or without having anything unique to shoe
  • Always looking for the next perfect piece of information which is the silver bullet to landing a job
  • Imposters Syndrome (thinking you are worse than you are)
  • The Dunning-Kruger Effect (thinking you are much better than you are)
  • Not sticking to a systemized process that will nearly guarantee results
  • Being too afraid to start the actual job search
  • Showing up unprepared for technical interviews, half the battle is getting to an interview (it may be less if you network), the other half is being competent enough to get the job
  • Constantly switching from language to language and framework to framework as you try to catch jobs - you need to be ahead of them and focus on 1 set of skills
  • Delaying too long to interview can hurt you

Here is a daily schedule you can use as a sort of blueprint for the next 3-6 months as you plan to land a job

Skills Needed to Land The Job

Landing a Role will consist of at least these factors and probably more

  • Soft Skills
  • Networking (Who you know)
  • Marketing Yourself / Personal Branding (Knowing yourself and how to highlight your strengths)
  • Time Management
  • Algorithm Problem Solving
  • Practical Software Development
  • Interview Prep (can break this into several factors)

The daily schedule will touch on the most important parts of this, but it is modifiable according to your needs.

Learning Resources for Book/Video/Etc Learning

  • Put limits on resources/learning otherwise a trap
  • Put a bunch of suggested resource types here

Multiple Strategies

Personal Branding

  • LinkedIn
  • Portfolio Site
  • Github Site
  • Resume
  • Other Social Media
  • Only spend a small amount of time on branding each week
  • Expand - How can you incorporate new info here for personal branding

Support Pillars needed to land a job

  • Goals and plans
  • Execution (where systems come in)
    • Sustainable plan/system - burn out will kill you
    • Durable System for Success
  • Mentorship
  • Mental Clarity
  • Focus
  • Goal Beyond Yourself (See Peak Performance Book)
  • Personal Maintenance
  • Accountability Partner
  • Knowing Yourself
  • Motivation and Drive
  • Minimum Proficiency of Technical skill

Sample Activities to Help You Up Your Skills

Activity Duration Goal Category Notes
Code Challenge 15 min 1 x day Algorithm Problem Solving
Meetup 2 hrs 1 x week
Network Connections 2 hrs 5 x week Utilize LinkedIn Cold Messaging, Meetups, and Informational Interviews
Project 2 hrs 5 x week Practical Software Development Find one you love

Example Full-Time Daily Schedule

Note: Knowing yourself is key. Your main concern is avoiding burnout while keeping going. Make sure to adjust to what is reasonable for you

Hour Activity
8 AM Wake up, Work Out, Shower, Meditate/Pray/Ponder (your preference)
9 AM Work on Coding Project You Love
10 AM Work on Coding Project You Love
11 AM Work on Coding Project You Love
12 PM Work on Coding Project You Love
1 PM Lunch
2 PM 1Hr Code Challenges
3 PM Grow Network, Find Meetup
4 PM Read Code Book (Take Notes in Ankiweb.net)
5 PM Work On Presentation for Meetup (Practicing delivery, Contacting Groups, Creating)
6 PM Attend Meetups / Complete Pramp.com Interview
7 PM Attend Meetups - Sneak in Dinner
8 PM Work On Resume, Apply to Jobs
9 PM Down Time
10 PM Down Time
11 PM Down Time

Example Part-Time Schedule

Hour Activity
5:30 AM Wake up, Work Out, Shower, Meditate/Pray/Ponder (your preference)
6:00 AM Code Challenge
6:30 AM Read Coding Book/Youtube Learning/Pluralsight (Take Notes in Ankiweb.net)
7 AM Work on Coding Project You Love
8 AM - 12 PM Work (includes travel)
12 PM Find Meetups, Network On Linkedin, Do Lunch Informational Interview
1 pm - 6 PM Work (includes travel)
6 PM Attend Meetups / Complete Pramp Interview
7 PM Attend Meetups - Sneak in Dinner

Available Resources

Code Challenge Sites Notes
www.codewars.com Great if you want to write your own unit tests
https://exercism.io/ Get Mentorship and Master a language
CodeSignal Move to harder and harder problems in one language
HackerRank Focus on Different Difficutly and Problem Type Areas

To Organize:

Number of standard jobs to apply to in order to land a role

The different approaches to landing a job:

  • Networking
  • Code Challenge Expert
  • Open Source Contributor
  • Personal Branding and Social Media
  • So Good They Can't Ignore You
  • Put in different charts here to show what these different strategies mean, give them names

More resources:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOgZ20R2atk https://www.getscriptordietryin.com/Preparing-For-a-FrontEnd-Developer-Interview/ https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1GvXaYXM7O8dCRUWqTBqyVDlboZDwy6RnLPpCLnWez0M/edit#gid=1946609602