Forem: Carlene Cannon-Conner

Advice on Landing Your First Job in Tech 💼

Carlene Cannon-Conner — Tue, 11 Oct 2022 12:30:13 +0000

Introduction
Portfolio of work
The importance of online presence
Where to look for jobs
CV and cover letter
Interviews

Introduction

I have been approached on the subject of "how to land your first tech role" several times. Each time I have given specific advice to the individual's circumstances. I have decided to share some of my more general advice here in hopes it can help you.

Portfolio of work

A lot of junior roles ask for at least a year's professional experience in specific languages or frameworks. You may have experience in all or just some of them but have no 'professional' experience. Don't let this put you off. This is where your portfolio of work comes into play.

I assume that you have learned to program via self-study or by completing one or more courses such as a degree. In doing so you have likely worked on various group or personal projects. Consider these projects as your portfolio of work. This is your evidence that you are capable of doing what you claim to have learned and that your are capable of learning the rest on the job.

You can present your portfolio of work in a variety of ways. For instance, when I first created my portfolio, as a Web Application Developer, I created a personal portfolio website that linked to my various web-based projects. I created videos of my mobile apps and animations and included them in my portfolio as well.

Although a lot of people do create a personal portfolio and host it themselves, not everyone's work is related to web development. So what are your other options? Likely your code is version-controlled and it is hosted somewhere like GitHub. If it isn't I recommend you do so. Hosting services such as this provide you with several additional benefits. Recruiters can look at any of your public source code and any of your documentation and judge its quality. You are also able to publicly share how often you are contributing to repositories, this includes other people's, not just your own. This will demonstrate how active you are within the coding community this is often seen as a positive thing by recruiters.

The importance of online presence

When you apply for a role it is likely one or more members involved in the recruitment process will have a look at your online presence. What I mean by this is they may look at any online portfolios or bodies of work you have put online. They may also look at your social media. Usually, this will only include your professional ones such as LinkedIn however, be aware that they may look at your social ones too. It is important to proofread it all, and ensure you are giving the right first impression.

Where to look for jobs

So you are ready to apply for a role, but where to find them? Here are some of my recommendations:

LinkedIn often allows you to apply with your LinkedIn profile, therefore you don't need to upload a CV. They provide more details for paying members, for instance, they may show how many people have applied for a particular role already.
Hired, does a bit of role reversal, companies approach you, not the other way round. This is based on details and expectations you provide them.
Glass Door, has the benefit of company ratings provided by current and previous employees. Some even let you know what to expect in terms of benefits and compensation.

CV and cover letter

Much like your online presence, pay attention to your CV and cover letter, first impressions count. Is your CV well laid out? Do you put important things like skill and experience on the first page? Most advice out there seems to suggest CVs should be no longer than 2 sides of A4 and the font size no smaller than 11.

Unlike the CV which talks about your previous experience and skill set, the cover letter is your opportunity to explain why you are applying to this company/role in particular. If this is your first tech role, you can talk about any transferable skills you have gained elsewhere, and what efforts you have made to prepare for this role, for instance, a particular course.

Interviews

So they seemed to like what they've seen of your online presence, your CV and or cover letter and you have secured an interview. What should you expect? This will very much depend on the size of the company and the urgency to fill a position. But most companies have interview processes that involve more than one interview.

There is usually an initial call, which may be with the company's recruiter to explain the role in more detail they will also want to get a general idea of what you are looking for, your background and if it matches their needs.

This is often followed by a technical interview with someone on the team they expect you to work with, should you get the job. They would like to get a feel for your technical understanding, this could be a bunch of theoretical coding questions or they may set you a coding challenge. This is either a take-home exercise or a live coding test. Now, this can be intimidating, but they aren't trying to catch you out, they want to see your thought process. You can ask clarifying questions, and look things up. This isn't a closed book test!

Further interviews may be used to determine things such as cultural fit, within the company. Remember with all these interviews, you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. Do you like the company, the role, and the people you are likely to work with? Don't be afraid to ask questions throughout as well as at the end so prepare some in advance.

There are plenty of online resources out there with interview advice if you need it for instance https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/coding-interview-preparation/

I hope you found this post useful. If you have any questions to ask me or advice to add, please feel free to comment.

How to add Dev posts to the subdomain of a personal website with Stackbit

Carlene Cannon-Conner — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 13:08:30 +0000

Introduction

One of the advantages of having a blog (or in this case dev.to posts) as part of your existing website is that it will help you to gain organic traffic via search engines.

If you have a personal site (mysite.com) you can create a subdomain (dev-blog.mysite.com) and have that subdomain display any posts you have already created on dev.to. Additionally, it will automatically update with any new posts you create through dev.to.

In this post, I will discuss one way of how you can achieve this.

Generating a blog site with Stackbit

This post will take you through how to generate a blog site with Stackbit.

With it, you can customise the name of your stack (this will become the name of the repository added to your Github account). If you wish to customise this new site, you can do so by checking out the newly generated repository locally and via code changes, make styling and functional adjustments as appropriate.

You will be able to view the live site, hosted on Netflify, e.g. dev-blog-0a000.netlify.app

Hosting

Your personal site can be hosted on various platforms. You will need to set up a subdomain. I will instruct you using Netlify as an example.

Navigate to your team overview's page, where you will find a new site's entry for your new repository. Click on it, then set up a custom domain. Here you can add the custom domain e.g. dev-blog.mysite.com to match your DNS records. You may need to navigate to your DNS settings to achieve this.

If you were to now look at your DNS settings, you should have a record that looks something like this:

Name: dev-blog.mysite.com
TTL: 3600 seconds
Type: CNAME
Value: dev-blog-0a000.netlify.app

Time to try out your new subdomain!

But I wasn't meant to be a coder ...

Carlene Cannon-Conner — Tue, 02 Mar 2021 19:01:30 +0000

I did fairly well at school, right up to my GCSE's * . My A-levels ** however, were another story. I have always had to work hard to get good grades, very little comes naturally to me. While taking my A-Levels, I dropped the ball. So I had no one to blame but myself when I wasn't able to get into university to study psychology 🧠.

But I had to get into university! Everyone in my life; my parents, my teachers, my friends told me university was the only way I was going to get anywhere in life. Now, in retrospect, I am very aware that university is not the be-all and end-all. But at the time, I was certain it was. I was a failure 😞.

Pity party ...

I was no longer part of my school. My dad was working overseas and my mum hadn't attended university herself. I didn't know who to turn to. After quite a bit of self-pity. I picked myself up and thought, what am I good at and what did I enjoy as a child? Computers, I'd always had a fascination with tech. Nobody taught me how to use a video player, I just worked it out, and I was the one to ask my dad to get our first computer. Ok, general subject area sorted! Next, I thought about where I'd like to study. Brighton was my favourite UK getaway destination growing up and it was gay 🏳️‍🌈 friendly, bonus!

Now what?...

I worked out which course seemed the most appealing to me and called up clearing***. I found out that if I was successful in a foundation degree at Hastings (a sister college of the University of Brighton). I'd be eligible to take a Bachelor's degree 📚 in Brighton.

Is it just me? ...

It became very clear, very quickly, I was the only one on the course that had no prior coding experience. Granted I had taken I.T. at school and got an A grade. But actual code? Nothing, zilch, nada! All the men and they were men, I was the only woman on the course, it seems had taken some form of coding course before starting this degree. So it was a struggle but, I was determined to keep up. I wouldn't drop the ball this time. It was difficult, I had to keep asking for help and going over and over things, breaking and fixing them until something clicked. Sticking with it is the best advice I can give, because I did finally get my Foundation Degree and moved on to my Bachelor's, where I was finally joined by a few other women, yay! I've since worked on various parts of the web stack, primarily with JavaScript. Turn's out I'm a pretty good coder 😉!

Be your own cheerleader...

Impostor syndrome is a term that many of us will be familiar with. Even now, nearly a decade into this gig. When I find myself struggling I have to remind myself that, all our journeys are different, we don't all start at the same point. I should only compare myself, to myself, and not to others. Also to remind myself of everything I have achieved 🎉.

But enough about me. How did you get into coding? 💬

* Exams that are taken in the UK usually at age 16.
** Exams that are taken in the UK usually at ages 17 & 18.
*** In the UK when you don't get into the university of choice, this is a service you can call that can aid you with getting into backup choices, etc.

Forem: Carlene Cannon-Conner

Advice on Landing Your First Job in Tech 💼

Contents

Introduction

Portfolio of work

The importance of online presence

Where to look for jobs

CV and cover letter

Interviews

How to add Dev posts to the subdomain of a personal website with Stackbit

Introduction

Generating a blog site with Stackbit

Hosting

But I wasn't meant to be a coder ...

Pity party ...

Now what?...

Is it just me? ...

Be your own cheerleader...