How I Landed My First Developer Job In 8 Months

If you’re looking for your first job or making a career change, you might feel intimidated by the sheer number of things that you have to face to get that gig. I’ve encountered similar challenges that resulted in rejections and, finally, low confidence. However, there are a few things that can help you overcome them.

After multiple Interviews, Rejections and reading several “How to get the job” books. I landed my first developer job in 8 months.

In this post, I have written down a small brain dump of the things that helped me and will help you to improve your application, raise your confidence and land your first developer Job.

First the context

• I am currently working as a Software Developer
• Before that, I worked as a Quality Analyst, which was not a really exciting position for me.
• I began learning to code while working a full-time job and eventually landed my first development position.

Onto the good stuff

The 4 things (mentioned below) helped me add credibility to my job application.

• Social Proof
• Resume
• Self Introductions
• Technical Questions

Let’s go over them one by one

Social Proof

By far the most effective technique to build credibility to your application is through social proof. Because it demonstrates to the recruiter your real interest and effort in the field.
This can be accomplished in a variety of ways.

Portfolio

It is mostly regarded as a modern-day resume. Create a Portfolio site using either code or no-code tools; the choice is yours.

You can have an about section where you mention a brief about your story, skillset, and your interests. A project section that includes at least three of your best projects or open-source contributions that demonstrate your technical skills.

Write three blogs and list them in the blog area of your page. This demonstrates that you are genuinely interested in what you are doing.
If you have any testimonials about your work, please include them.
However, the project and blog sections can suffice.

GitHub

Github is a great way to add credibility to your application because it demonstrates your understanding of versioning systems, code maintainability, and so on.
GitHub has a profile feature where you can create your profile by creating a repository with the name same as your username.
You can get ideas from numerous GitHub profiles. Just google GitHub Profile Templates and you will get a list of them.
Also pinned you best of the projects on the profile section

LinkedIn

Linkedin is where your future employers are hanging out.

So make sure you optimise your linked profile page, Fill out all necessary sections.

Heading- Please Do not include the phrase “Aspiring [_______] Developer” in the title. Mention the title you want to work on, Ex. Frontend Developer.
You can even list down the main technologies in the title below

Software Developer | React JS| Node JS

In the About Section, provide information on yourself in bullet form, as well as information about the technology you worked with, some highlights of your project work, and other related interests in your industry.

Include a link to your Github profile, portfolio, and top blogs in the Featured Section. Then you can fill up the Education section, Also add License and Certifications if you have any.
Fill out the Skill section and prioritise them.

Finally complete out the Projects section with Title, Short Description and time you worked on it

Resume

Yes, Resumes are still relevant today. It will determine whether you receive the first nod and advance to the next round.
Having said that, the purpose of a resume should be to get you an interview, not an offer.

Keep the structure simple and save the file as a PDF with the filename “Firstname_Lastname_resume”.

It should contain your name and contact information (Only email would be fine),
Provide a brief description of yourself, followed by the Technologies and Languages section where you should list down the languages and framework you are proficient with. Do not provide a percentage or a rating to your level of knowledge in those areas.

If this is your first job as a developer, the project section should be the most important part of your CV. It should include a brief explanation of the project, the technology used, and a link to the project. (If your project has a user interface, you can host it on Netlify or Vercel and provide a link, if not then you can provide the link to your GitHub repository and include an appropriate ReadMe file.)

Then you can talk about your relevant work experience, followed by your interests and hobbies.

Highly recommend checkout The Tech Resume Inside-Out by Gergely Orosz.

Self Introduction

Self Introduction is very crucial; Making a positive impression will boost your chances of success.

You have limited time, so keep it concise, to the point and appealing to the interviewer.

Mention projects, work exp, which directly signifies how interested you are in this job. In the project section, specify the challenges you faced and how you solved them. Have ready with detail about the at least two challenges you faced while working, what solutions you implemented. This will set you out from the crowd.

Refer to techinterviewhandbook.org

Technical Questions

Preparing for technical questions will give you a lot more confidence when you go into the interviews.
Write down the explanations for all of the concepts/questions that are frequently asked about your technology.
For example, if you are applying for React Developer Position, list down details of concepts such as Elements, Fragments, Props, State, Prop drilling, etc. You get the gist.
Google mostly asked questions related to the respective technology. Note down all of them.
Revised them a day before the interview

Although other things are very important, such as algorithms and data structures. I would suggest going through the Basic Algorithms such as Reversing String, integer, array chunking, Anagram, etc and understanding Time and Space Complexity. These will give you a pretty good start to Data Structure and Algorithms.
However, the four factors listed above will assist you in developing confidence to face interviews.

The goal of this article was just to share what I learned during the process and hopefully, it will help you.

I am writing more on my journey as a software developer on Twitter, you can follow me there.