How I got my first job: Self taught. Started to go to dev meetups. One day spoke with a guy I met and his company sent him to find someone like me. Worked for 4 years with this guy as my lead dev. Then switched jobs with a big jump in income
Summary of this video: 1) Apply to less jobs. Research company and tech they use. Tailor your resume. Custom cover letter 2) Portfolio projects: unique projects that are interesting. Show that you enjoy learning 3) Be confident. You are not only good you are the best candidate 4) Put yourself out there. Write blog articles, etc. Go to meetups and conferences. Networking.
The last tip, "be confident', is the reason I think one should actually try as many interviews as they can. Doing interviews is a great way to become better at them.
Kyle, with all my respect for you and your channel, the tips you talked about won't work in today's job market (at least in Canada). I myself am a self-taught dev, and looked for my first full-time job for over 6 months before i figured out what exactly to do (not without help of some frank coffee meetings with recruiters), and in the end got 3 offers to choose from.. if you have a Comp Sci degree, the situation might be different, but here is the reality for self-taughts and bootcamp grads: 1. recruiters first look at years of experience. even for starting positions. no matter how long you coded and/or freelanced for, they'd only call people who have at least a year of experience in a COMPANY. so instead of saying "freelance" for 1.5 years, say you worked at a small agency and put it on your resume. no one will check if you're the only dev in that agency, and you can be honest about it on your interview if you get asked about it. also, if you have dev friends - great, you can put them as references if needed, and they'll confirm you worked with them on commercial projects in your "joint agency". some say it's lying and cheating, but no - you're just calling your experience differently 2. if you finished a bootcamp, TAKE IT OFF your linkedin and resume. i heard first-hand from recruiters that they filter out bootcamp grads on purpose 3. no one reads cover letters these days, no one cares about your level of enthusiasm. even on junior positions, companies want a performer, not someone who "is ready to learn". not a single company to which i sent a cover letter ever replied to me 4. the tip about a portfolio is good, making a pretty website to showcase non-typical projects is a plus. i got asked about my pet projects a lot on interviews 5. expand your linkedin DAILY. linkedin has a limit of 100 people you can add per day, so use it to your maximum. put a lot of relevant keywords on your profile and just start adding 100 recruiters per day. they will start messaging you themselves, without you even applying to any jobs 6. make your linkedin profile look like you're the real deal. don't put any "open to network" stickers on your avatar, don't advertise that you're looking for a job. this makes recruiters pay more attention to details of your profile, instead of just briefly looking at your skills and giving you a call/sending a message anyway, i hope this helps someone. definitely helped me 3 years ago :)
About point 1, do you mean to just straight up lie about past experiences and if they dig any deeper you just tell them you lied? Wouldn't be a great look unless I'm misunderstanding you here. (Also self-taught and have been learning for about 26~ months)
@@xRichhhx Not lie about experience, but the context of the experience. Not saying you know or did something that you don't or didn't, but saying a project that you actually did was for an agency, perhaps, when it really wasn't, and the agency is just a name you wrote down. That sort of thing. 🤷♂️
@@joeknowles6880 yup exactly. lots of people freelance before actually getting employed full-time, but "freelance" for recruiters pretty much means "unemployed", whereas really you've been working on real projects for real people. so why not list it as agency experience?
This is well thought out and well researched. I feel like this guy really understands the industry and his audience. As a front-end engineer who has worked for big tech, and also self-taught, I feel like he hits every base when talking about these topics and how increase your skills in relevant topics. Keep doing these videos man, keeping helping people. Looking forward to what you come up with next!
My biggest issue with dev job interviews is the endless number of white boarding exercises. The HM was clueless to the fact that a great developer does NOT need to be great at whiteboarding exercises. We passed up on so many good devs and ironically settled on one who passed at LC, but couldn't lead a project end-to-end.
I think it's worth mentioning that these tips mainly apply in first world countries (especially for self taught devs ) because in most countries it's really hard for self taught devs they mainly look at CS degrees
True. Sometimes I wonder if I am wasting my time self learning. I'm pretty sure I won't find physical meetups where i am and they definitely will pick CS degrees (first) because they paid for education. But I'll just have to put in extra effort
This is excellent advice, plus you are experienced speaking in front of a camera (which is a skill that not many possess), you are an excellent coder, and famous among the community... so i doubt there are many recruiters out there that wouldn't crap their pants when they see your application.
Hi, Kyle! Could you please expand more on how you researched the companies for whose job offers you were going to apply before sending your application? How did you get informed about the companies' cultures, what to pay the most attention to and how did you know they would be a good fit?
How would one quantify ability to learn? or how to showcase you can be taught and grow under their dev team. Especially if your from a non traditional background with no prior tech experience? Thank you for your channel! It is a go to reference for web dev topics!
thats something I am currently building right now while teaching myself html, javascript, and css. Im in works on making the about me and contact page!
Thank you brother.. This video is extremely helpful and rich in information..I had just started applying for jobs and saw this video.. So much thanks to you..😍
What are your thoughts on resume style? Should it be clean, or put as much info as I can? Should it be 2 pages max (1 page cover and 1 page resume)? Or is it okay to have multiple resume pages?
I love your videos and how you elaborate your tutorials, you've helped me out so much, can you please make javascript tutorials for beginners from the start covering every topic like you did with css. Thank you
I'm resenlty mover to Germany from Russia, and just started to looking a job, so I will give a try theese tips, and maybe write here again about my results :)
I came here to learn how to invest after listening to a guy on radio talk about the importance of investing and how he made $960,000 in 4 months from $160k, somehow this video has helped shed light on some things, but I'm still confused, I'm a newbie and I'm open to ideas.
Interesting. I have a lump sum doing absolutely nothing at all in my bank account, I wanna get something started with it. You seem to be doing excellent for yourself, how do you achieve this?
@Robin Vanessa That's impressive. Are you giving her your money or the money stays in your trading account? What's really the idea behind copying trades.
The hardest part when looking for work, as a self taught dev; is that they’ll ask for references. Specifically, coding work related references. Even after you nailed their test and interviews. Unfortunately, if you don’t have those specific coding references that are coding related; that’s when they give you boot, and pass on ya.
not even true. im self-taught from NYC and have never been asked for references 😂 i interviewed at JP morgan recently and even they didn't ask me for references
@@kevinc4736 No, as in they want references from those whom I have directly coded with at a company. So as a self-taught dev, I do not have those type of references. It is just something to note as you apply. I have many great references that vouch for me but unfortunately, they are nothing related to coding.
@@magic_fruit_bat5003 yeah its not true. dont know where you're applying but you're most likely applying for roles that you're not qualified for. truth hurts buddy.
After more than 6 months of learning, next week I will start to search practice in some companies in my city... I think that I still dont know nothing xD
hey i have a question, how did you narrow it down to the best companies out of the ones you like? i look in my state and see 4k python jobs and 3k JS jobs but they all just seem like generic companies ive never heard of and i dont know what would make one stand out from another. What is a good way to find good companies to work for?
I’m in Denver I’m just now starting this journey ! I definitely want help with how to link up with other devs in my area . Are any sites apps or anything anyone can help me with 🤞🏾
Hi Kyle, thanks for all you do for us here. Please I have an unrelated question that I need your help with. Do you think it's worth it for a junior developer with about a year experience to take on 2 FT jobs. one with a large team and senior devs that pays very low, and another with a brand new startup, very small team (2 devs none is a senior) and no chance of mentorship, but pays 1.5 the first one. Please share your thought about this. Thanks again!
5:35 you said that projects should be hosted but, how can one host a project for free if i have 10 project how can i buy 10 different domain names. Thats would probably cost a 100 bucks.
Hello Every one who see this this comment, Hear my concern, I am Sreekanth completed B.E CSE in 2022 and got placed in MNC companies like INFOSYS & CAPGEMINI, due to recession still they didn't give me date of joining , I am still searching and applying for jobs. but in current situation no one hiring fresher. what do I do now, give me any tips that i hope i land in a IT Company as a fresher.
Hi everybody, I'm mexican so idk where can I find a job in USA as web developer that allows me to work remotely. Can you recommend me some page or platform to find remote jobs? Instead of Linkdln haha.
It depends honestly from where you are. But it’s really unlikely. Since most companies look for people who have 5-7 years+ experience. If we are talking about free lancing, you can easily get jobs in that part imo.
Can we discuss how stupid many of those interview questions are? "What are you passionate about? What gives you the best feeling? Why should we choose you? What are you REALLY passionate about?"
Those aren't stupid questions. Most (good) companies aren't just looking for someone who can press keys on a keyboard in the correct order and make working code. They're looking for people who can be good team members. People who can communicate well with teammates, and maybe clients, and maybe even the general public. If a candidate is not able to show passion and excitement about some other thing, if they are unable to show that they're perhaps a little bit human, if they are unable to humbly express what makes them stand out, then maybe that person is not the best fit for the position. Perhaps another candidate -- the one actually able to demonstrate that they're human to some degree -- is the better choice for the company.
While I haven’t actually been in the field yet (at university atm), the first 3 minutes of this sounds like terrible advice. I’ve always heard the opposite advice with STEM jobs. I’m not saying that you should apply regardless of qualifications though. Know your strengths and play to them, but don’t let a weakness in your resume/background keep you from applying. Instead, find another strength you can mention to balance out that weakness. Maybe I’m crazy tho who knows
The first part about applying to less jobs is so true...I did the same and got a 33% pass interview rate. If everyone followed that, it would make the recruiting game so much simpler and predictable.
For the first time ever I'm actually mad at you. This feels like a "If they have no bread let them eat cake" moment. It's great you sent out five resumes and got four offers, but you're an incredibly talented outlier who's both good at doing AND an excellent teacher to boot, which is a fantastic gift. But for us mortal folks it doesn't work like that. It can't! The hiring system is also broken. My resume is chalked full of keywords since it's the only way to get past the ATS to finally get in front of human eyes. And you can never tell if the job requirements in a posting are real and written for a unicorn candidate, or just merely suggestions. Hence we apply to jobs that require 2-3 years experience since maybe they would be willing to bring on a much more junior candidate, so you have to apply, just in case. (Instead of generalities and years of experience, it would be great if job postings described in detail the top three things the role requires the person to accomplish. THAT would be a great way to for us job seekers to know if we have a chance at that role or not.) Our churning of applications is the only way of ever hoping to get our resume in front of the right person at the right time, since only sending out five applications will inevitably lead to five rejections (or more probably, five ghostings). We work on side projects that never get finished because we hit walls which we don't have the support and mentorship to overcome the hurdles. We live a Catch-22 of literally needing a job in order to get the experience and mentorship to get a developer job. It would be awesome if you could show us how to tailor our resume to job postings instead of just talking in generalities, because while it obviously works for a talented individual such as yourself, the rest of us could really use a leg up in this departments.
Nah man. The problem is we’ve become lazy people. We expect to get a job in a world of 7billion people of witch probably more than a hundred million do the exact same thing you are doing, by just sending an email. And if I’ve learn anything in my life is that it doesn’t matter how much you know, it only matters how good you are at selling yourself.
