How do I land software engineer jobs as a boot camp graduate, self-taught developer, or new graduate?
These are some of the questions I have been through and wish that someone has told me earlier.
I guarantee you that implementing a few of the below points certainly increases the opportunity of you getting software developers’ jobs by at least higher.
Ideally, I provide this advice on my mentorship program to help my students land their software engineer jobs. But, I will share this information for FREEwith you.
Without further due, these are the advices that I would follow before even applying to my first software engineer job
Advice #1: Build your own side project
The side project is an excellent opportunity to substitute the lack of software engineer experience. By creating a working project, you also show that you are capable of building high-quality software. Although the more complex projects will catch the hiring manager’s attention more, you also need to ensure that the side projects should not take years to finish it.
Another significant aspect of your project is to understand the code that you wrote rather than just copy-paste it from somewhere else. Many of my students have told me that the interviewer pulls their GitHub link and ask them to explain the code as part of the first stage of interviews.
Some questions on the software engineer interview for your projects will cover: what challenges have you faced while building your software, what is your favorite part of the projects, and how will you improve the current version of the side projects
If you do not have an idea on what side projects to work on, here are THREE examples that I highly recommend to help you get that software engineer interviews
- Portfolio
- Clone of well known website (Netflix, Twitter, Instagram, etc)
- Get some ideas from product hunt
Advice #2: Contribute to open source projects
If you still do not want to create your own side projects, then this advice will be applied to you.
Contributing to source project means that you can produce high quality of code to be used by public. Not only it is useful, you can also have your code reviewed by many other expert software engineers that can help you improve to land your dream jobs.
Another benefits of working for open source project will help you increase your job prospects. Many of the software engineers that work on open source project might work in a big company that can help refer you to their hiring manager. Even better, sometimes the hiring manager themselves found your code and is interested to talk with you.
These are some of the open source projects that is interesting
- Cerberus — a data validation for Python
- Falcon — high performance Python framework for cloud
- Ginkgo — a BDD Testing Framework for Go
Advice #3: Craft Software Engineer Resume
I made the same mistake as many others do in my early career. I always had the impression that there will be one size fits all resume. Guess what? Such resume does not exist.
Similar to every jobs, software engineer requires you to highlight and prioritize few elements of your resume to portray you as a unique software engineer.
Software engineer resume is typically looked by the recruiter and the hiring manager. However, both of these individuals are analyzing resume from different perspective. But, it is possible to satisfy both requirements. If you are interested in learning more how to craft a good resume, then you should check out “software engineer resume checklist”
Advice #4: Use a different strategy of job hunting
If you are still using the old way strategy to apply for jobs, then your competition to get software engineer jobs will be high.
In addition of applying jobs through websites like Indeed or Linkedin, you should use different sources of jobs that others have not yet leverage it.
The most underrated one is Meetup. You can literally attend hundreds of meetups and meet thousands of other people that potentially can refer or hire you directly. The good strategy to attend meetup is to attend the one that you are interested in, hence you know more and feel comfortable to hand with other developers.
The other underrated strategy is through Stackoverflow. If you never use stack overflow, then you should check them right now. Stack overflow has released a new job board features where you can apply jobs through it. Tips to differentiate yourself on stack overflow is helping to answer people’s question genuinely. The more answer you give, the more likelihood you will get the software engineer interviews
Lastly, I like to use the sites similar to Hired. The difference between hired and other job portals is that hired only required you to fill out your information once. Afterward, they will distribute your profiles to many of the companies they work with. This means that you only need to craft your resume once, and you will get to apply to hundreds of companies in a span of short time.
Advice #5: Establish web presence as a software engineer
If you do know have any software communities yet, then you can establish one by creating your own brands.
There are few techniques that you can employ to establish web presence as a software engineer.
Sharing your thoughts or learning through linkedin and twitter. Recruiter, developers and other hiring managers will have the opportunity to glance over your tweets and understand you more rather than looking at your resume.
Build your own portofolio site. Unlike resume, you can design your portfolio to be more dynamic and fun. Hence, it will reveal not only your coding skills but also your personality as a software engineer.
Advice #6: Prepare for the technical interview jobs
Once you get your interviews scheduled, the next important steps is to prepare for your technical interviews.
I always stress how important is this step. If you fail to pass the technical interviews, many companies will not interview you for the next year. This means if you are interested in working in particular company, then you will have to wait for at least one year before you can apply again. So, rather than waiting for the full year, I always advise my students to prepare the technical interviews in advance.
Technical interview arguably is one of the hardest interviews among all jobs. If you do not have the right plan to tackle the technical interview, you probably destine to fail your interview. As a good candidate of software engineer, you need to lay out the right plan to prepare in advance. Check out my other article on how to prepare your technical interview in 4 weeks
Advice #7: Prepare for the soft skills interview jobs
If you only prepare for technical interviews, then you are preparing yourself to fail for the software engineer interview. The soft skills aspect of it play a vital role as well.
There are few ways to help you prepare for soft skills interviews
- Google the common behavior questions
- Have your friends to interview you
- Have real software engineers to run mock interview for you and provide real time feedback
Some of the common behavior questions include
- What is your strength and weakness
- Tell me a time when you are not able to finish your project
- Tell me a time when you have conflicts with your coworker
- Tell me a time when you work a team player
- What is your ideal type of coworker
Advice #8: Specialized in one specific skillsets for software engineer
This probably goes without saying. However, there are still many people try to market themselves as the jack of trade, meaning they know many of the skills but not really expertise in any of them.
To differentiate yourself, you can differentiate yourself in many aspects. Rather than market yourself as a full stack, maybe highlight how good you are as a front end developer. Be more specific in all the knowledge you have about front end. Not only it sounds more realistic, it also exhibit your expertise and can bring that expertise to the table for the company.
Advice #9: Do not let rejections to stop getting your dream software engineer jobs
It is quite common to get rejected especially if you are applying for the entry level of software engineer. However, there are many reasons for the rejection itself. Sometimes the hiring manager is looking for someone that has some experiences. Another times, they probably seeking someone with expertise in some skills but unfortunately you are not the expertise of those skills.
Nevertheless, you probably need to take those rejections as the feedback on what to work to prepare for your next interviews. Although not all companies are willing to provide those rejections feedback to the candidates, you still can email them nicely to ask if you can get the feedback.
Conclusion
Congratulations if you have read all the above advises. If you are lost and frustrated of getting your first job, then you are definitely not alone. Many software engineers I know have been there. I have compiled many advises from hiring managers to those advises above.
If you follow the above advises, I guarantee you that you will land your software engineer jobs in no time.
What other advises that you think is helpful? Leave a comment below for your advise to help others as well