Getting Your First Job

How Hard Is It To Land Your First Job?

Well this will depend on a lot of factors but in general the short answer is hard! But it doesn't have to be. A jr developer with no profesional experience will likely have their resume tossed aside more than looked at, so how can you change that? First and foremost you must believe in yourself, you must work hard, learn new things and prove to yourself you can do this!

First Steps

Practice, and then practice some more! Find multiple tech stacks and learn at least the basics, get a few langauges, frameworks, databases, etc under your belt. find what you like best and become as proficent as you can in that one stack. So get some hands on experience in a variety of tech, but find one to focus on and get good at that. Bruce Lee had a great quote here

I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times.

Now What?

Now hopefully you have been seeking out opportunities in your tech stack of choice. Find companies that work with this and look for job postings. Once you find a company you like seek out a connection at that company, linkedIn is a great place to do this. I know it's odd to randomly send questions to people you don't know, but worst case is they ignore you, so just do it. After making the connection, talk with them about the job, ask any questions you can think of, make sure you like the people, the role and the company. If all lines up ask if what's the best way to apply and do so. Follow through within a week too.

Rinse and Repeat

This method will not guarantee you get the job, or even an interview. You can go with accuracy by volume, ie send out lots of applications, just be sure you follow the above approach with each one. An application alone wont likely be looked at, so make those connections. All this while be sure to keep learning and practcing your skills. And also be sure not to be hard on yourself if things dont go as quickly as you hoped.

Interview Time!

The hard part is actually over, getting noticed Getting the first interview is nerve racking! So just be genuine, be honest. You don't know everything, nor do they think you should. Demonstrate your strengths, show your passion, give them a reason to take a chance on you. There will likely be people with more experience applying so show why you are you, why you will fit in with the culture, why they will be lucky to have someone as awesome as yourself join the team. Research the company and position, ask questions, and where possible demonstrate abilities. Again, there isn't a silver bullet, so just be yourself and believe in yourself, the confidense shown will work wonders.

You Got an Offer!!!

Here is the tough part, do you negotiate? Salary? Benefits? Nearly all will tell you to do so... but I dont know myself what the best answer is for a jr dev. Of course you dont want to sell yourself short and just take anything, but if the offer is fair I'm not sure pushing for more is the right move either. I'm far from an expert in any of this but want to share my journey, so go with your gut here.

Once you get a job...

Don't forget about those who helped you. Return the favor if it's just offering to help them on a project or buy them a coffee. Once you get experince find some to mentor, to help get thier first step into the tech world. It can be easy to forget how hard it is to land your first job, forget about those who helped you if you consider them superficial friendships.... so don't do that. Find a way to give back, the tech community isnt that big and any one of us who makes it past jr dev title really needs to support those coming in. And with that, be sure to send me any questions and I will do what I can to help you!

Happy Coding!