How to Market Yourself for Job Hunting

I was invited to Langara College as a guest speaker for Web and Mobile App Design and Development course. I talked about "How to Market Yourself for Job Hunting" in front of approximately 30 people in their classroom. I'm working on editing video of this talk, so I'll share it here once I finished :)

Transcript

1. HOW TO MARKET YOURSELF FOR JOB HUNTING ELLE KASAI
2. ABOUT ME • UI/UX Developer & Designer • Working @ Yongle Technologies • First career was a sales person • Tokyo ✈ Vancouver 3 years ago • Worked on open source projects a lot • Preparing to teach at Skillshare
3. TODAY’S TOPIC
4. HOW TO MARKET YOURSELF FOR JOB HUNTING
5. HOW HAVE I WORKED IN TECH INDUSTRY
6. HOW DID I DO
 JOB HUNTING
7. HOW HAVE I WORKED IN TECH INDUSTRY
8. I WORKED FOR 3 COMPANIES IN VANCOUVER
9. ISTUARY INNOVATION GROUP
10. WHAT DID I DO? • Web Developer • Mainly HTML/CSS, sometimes UI Design • HR Systems (Reimbursement, Appraisal) • UI Framework • HTML/CSS Interviewer
11. GLASS CANVAS 1IPUP
    $SFEJU
    IUUQHMBTTDBOWBTJP
12. WHAT DID I DO? • Worked with a bunch of clients • I did more than 10 projects (even five of them were from scratch) • Mainly HTML/CSS, and used Bootstrap 4 a lot 1IPUP
    $SFEJU
    IUUQHMBTTDBOWBTJP
13. YONGLE TECHNOLOGIES
14. WHAT AM I DOING? • UI/UX Developer • Started from this October • Design and Development (HTML/CSS) • Sales management software for Real Estate (Pre-Sale) 1IPUP
    $SFEJU
    IUUQZPOHMFUFDIOPMPHJFTDPN
15. TOOLS & FRAMEWORKS
16. MUST LEARN/HAVE FOR DESIGNERS • Illustrator, Photoshop, Sketch App, Adobe XD (New!) • Human Interface Guidelines, Material Design • Portfolio Website (better than Dribbble or Behance) • Prototyping Tools (Invision, Atomic, etc.) • Keywords: Diversity, Sympathy
17. MUST LEARN/HAVE FOR FRONTEND DEVELOPERS • Text editors are usually up to you! • Haml/Slim, Sass/Less • Bootstrap (3 & 4) • OOCSS, BEM, SMACSS, FLOCSS • React, Vue.js, AngularJS • GitHub
18. HOW’S MY LIFE AT WORK?
19. PRETTY GOOD! • Salary: 50k~70k (even more!) • Work Hour: 9 am to 5 pm (“Work Hard, Play Hard” spirit) • Easy to control your work • Cool offices • Vancouver’s tech job market is
 getting bigger and bigger
21. BUT!
22. THE FIRST TIME IS ALWAYS THE HARDEST • Companies need to support visa problem if you are an international student • You haven’t worked as a designer or developer in local companies • You haven’t worked as a designer
 or developer before
23. I WAS SAME AS YOU! • I came here with visitor visa first so I couldn’t do job hunting • I didn’t go to school after I came to Vancouver • My English is not very fluent • I have worked in tech industry in Japan,
 but never worked in Vancouver
24. HOW DID I DO JOB HUNTING
25. DO BRANDING YOURSELF
26. MAKE STUNNING PORTFOLIO
27. DO NETWORKING
28. SHOW YOUR PROCESS
29. BASIC JOB HUNTING PROCESS 1. Job Search & Apply 2. Phone Interview 3. Onsite Interview (Coding Test/Design Project) 4. Get Offer!
30. MY JOB HUNTING PROCESS 1. Self-Analysis & Branding 2. Make Portfolio 3. Networking 4. Job Search & Apply 5. Phone Interview 6. Onsite Interview (Coding Test/Design Project) 7. Get Offer!
31. SELF-ANALYSIS & BRANDING
32. WHAT DO YOU NEED TO THINK 1. What is your skillset? 2. What is your strength? 3. Describe yourself with only one phrase 4. Do you have something portfolio
 to prove your strength?
33. e.g. ELLE KASAI What is my skillset? • Designing Information Architecture • Western Style UI Design • Rapid Prototyping with Sketch or HTML/CSS • Writing Scalable and Modular CSS • Coworkers UX (Design-Oriented, Detail-Oriented) • Giving Back to the Tech Community
34. What is my strength? • Rapid Prototyping with Sketch or HTML/CSS • Writing Scalable and Modular CSS • Coworkers UX (Design-Oriented, Detail-Oriented) • Giving Back to the Tech Community e.g. ELLE KASAI
35. Describe myself with only one phrase • I’m a UI/UX Developer who have strength for bridging the designer-developer gap and willing to contribute to the tech community e.g. ELLE KASAI
36. Do you have something portfolio to prove your strength? e.g. ELLE KASAI
37. MAKE PORTFOLIO
38. • Companies check LinkedIn, Portfolio Website, and GitHub • Try to make them say “Awesome!” with your design or code, but don’t forget what your strength and logic is • Portfolio will be different depends on your strength and what do you want to show SHOW YOUR STRENGTH
39. LET’S GO TO MY WEBSITE! ellekasai.com
40. PORTFOLIO EXAMPLE 1 juliesun.com
41. PORTFOLIO EXAMPLE 2 charlimarie.com
42. PORTFOLIO EXAMPLE 3 adhamdannaway.com
43. PORTFOLIO EXAMPLE 4 hellomichael.com
44. NETWORKING
45. I KNOW IT’S HARD TO BREAK THE HR WALLS DOWN
46. BUT DON’T APPLY FOR
 THE COMPANIES LIKE A SPAMMER
47. • HR get tons of emails and hard to check everything • Students, especially international students are disadvantaged • That’s why make networks with the people who work for the company and ask them to connect to HR directly • It’s not a winning strategy but makes more chances COOL COMPANIES ARE BUSY
48. • Meetups, Conferences, Hackathons, etc. • I went more than 100 times until I joined the first company in Vancouver • Just participating is not enough • Make friends and share your info • Give & Take GO EVENTS AND MAKE YOUR NETWORKS
49. ONSITE INTERVIEW
50. • Cool companies and bigger startups will ask you to do this • Developers do whiteboard coding, Codepen coding, make a small app, etc. • Designers do wireframing on a whiteboard, design mockups, create prototypes, etc. CODING TEST/DESIGN PROJECTS
51. • They want to know how much you understand about coding/designing • They want to know how did you think about your code/ design • Show multiple ways is better • Don’t forget to show your strength • Try to enjoy the test SHOW YOUR PROCESS AS MUCH AS YOU CAN
52. I’M GOING TO TEACH HTML/CSS CODING TEST ON SKILLSHARE
54. THE FIRST HALF • What is the “Coding Test”? • Share Some Junior Level Question Patterns • Learn How to Answer Them
55. THE SECOND HALF • Create Your Profile Website Together! • Learn How to Combine Your Basic Knowledge
56. THIS CLASS IS FOR YOU! • Junior Developers/Designers • HTML/CSS Learners Who Know Basics
57. THANK YOU :) Website: ellekasai.com SNS: @ellekasai