Getting a Developer Job with a Non-Traditional Background

What you need to know about the system and what you should be doing right now to maximize your chances of getting hired as a developer

Transcript

1. Getting a Developer Job with a Non-Traditional Background www.vikingcodeschool.com What you need to know about the system and what you should be doing right now to maximize your chances of getting hired as a developer.
2. There Are No Easy Answers If you came looking for The Easy Way, you're barking up the wrong tree… ...but there is a Better Way.
3. Ignore Most Advice • Most "getting hired" advice is for a TRADITIONAL job hunt. • If you try to color within those lines, your resume will get the 3-second ignore. • You are NOT a "traditional" hire.
4. Who Are You? Background: "Non-Traditional" generally means not having a Computer Science degree. Stage: You're learning, whether early or midway through and are starting to think jobs. Or maybe it's late in the game and you're suddenly thinking about hiring...
5. The Viking Approach 1. Learn the system 2. Know yourself + prepare 3. Hustle your butt off
6. For Starters: Hiring is a Funnel
7. We'll Cover: BEFORE the Funnel 1. How the "hiring of developers" system works 2. How to develop and deliver your narrative 3. What you should start doing while you're still learning (...now) to help your chances ...we'll save applying, interviewing and beyond for future talks. There is a LOT to this!
8. Backing Up… Hi! Who am I..? I run the Viking Code School. I started The Odin Project. I’m a code nerd and teacher. The elusive Erik Trautman...
9. Backing Up… Hi! Odin has over 60,000 members. Viking guaranteed jobs for 2+ years. You start to see patterns after awhile… :)
10. Backing Up… a Thank-You We love coding and teaching. We want to help. So we've just released our first Getting Hired course in our free Advanced Prep work.
11. Backing Up… meet Sabrina and Johnny Sabrina Clark: Director of marketing at Brand Yourself, a specialist in personal branding. Johnny Steenbergen: Viking alum and all-around hustler. Formerly at Boeing and now coding full-time.
12. ...and YOU!
13. Our Agenda 1. The System is People 2. Know Thyself 3. Develop Your Narrative 4. Create Your Vapor Trail 5. Begin the Hustle 6. Today's Conversation
14. Our Agenda 1. The System is People 2. Know Thyself 3. Develop Your Narrative 4. Create Your Vapor Trail 5. Begin the Hustle 6. Today's Conversation
15. Understand that the System is PEOPLE • You do not apply to faceless companies, you apply to INDIVIDUALS on teams. • Change your perspective to empathize with their need and decision-making. • Our whole approach focuses on this.
16. In Their Shoes: Why Companies Need You • Overworked individuals with business problems • One person requests the role and hires you to MAKE THEIR LIVES EASIER, not because "you want it bad".
17. Company Hiring is a Mess Hiring is hard for companies and they want to get it over with and move on. You need a champion who identifies you as the solution to their problems.
18. Pattern Matching the "Ideal Dev" Now imagine what they really want in a dev: • Gets sh*t done with minimal help • Good to work with every day • Strong coding now and continued growth How can you match these patterns?
19. Our Agenda 1. The System is People 2. Know Thyself 3. Develop Your Narrative 4. Create Your Vapor Trail 5. Begin the Hustle 6. Today's Conversation
20. Know Thyself • What do you actually want in your career? • What do you bring to the table? Be honest... • What are your must-haves and nice-to-haves? • Why are you in this anyway... $$$? Curiosity? Excitement?
21. Know the Ecosystem Develop an awareness of the jobs ecosystem.
22. Companies are All Different • Consultancies, startups, big tech, side divisions and freelancing are VERY different. • Geographical markets and tech stacks • Junior-friendliness, non-traditional friendliness Target the ones most receptive to you.
23. Know Your SPECIFIC Goal "I want to be a dev" is NOT good enough. Where? What is every day like? Who will you work with? Pick a role model.
24. Our Agenda 1. The System is People 2. Know Thyself 3. Develop Your Narrative 4. Create Your Vapor Trail 5. Begin the Hustle 6. Today's Conversation
25. Develop Your Narrative Stories are EVERYTHING. How can you stitch yours together? Leverage your background.
26. General Types of Resume Narratives 1. Technical Experience 2. Competency in Anything 3. Growth Curve 4. Powerful (relevant) Passion Which are you? How interesting!
27. Remember: Put Yourself in Their Shoes The narrative should end with you inevitably as a hungry, successful developer who makes their lives easier. Cut out the rest.
28. Practice, Practice, Practice. Use every meet up and handshake as a chance to practice telling your story. Don't memorize.
29. Our Agenda 1. The System is People 2. Know Thyself 3. Develop Your Narrative 4. Create Your Vapor Trail 5. Begin the Hustle 6. Today's Conversation
30. Your narrative only matters if they see it. 1. Your resume 2. Your website 3. Your writing 4. Your projects Back up your narrative with LOTS of content. Start your Vapor Trail
31. This forces you to identify the best possible projects and narrative early. 1. Write the Resume You Want ...use creddle.io.
32. ...but don't sweat it. Use a template. 2. Build and Deploy Your Personal Site Just get it deployed! • Rawgit • Github Pages • Surge.sh • Jekyll • ...and so on...
33. Google finds you based on your words so make sure they're the words you want. • Blog [Best!] -- Even if you're "a bad writer", get some technical stuff out there. • Go social (but don't force it) 3. Write, write, write.
34. Identify the projects you want to have in your portfolio and do what it takes to build them. • 1-3 great ones are better than 12 small ones… you'll only talk about 1 in interviews. • Align them with your passion and goals Work backwards. 4. Build, build, build.
35. Google yourself in an uncached browser session. Is this consistent with your narrative? • Set up consistent profiles on good-SEO sites like Linkedin, Github, Meetup and Twitter • Kill or modify any profiles that don't fit your narrative. Oh yeah… and clean up those Google results
36. Our Agenda 1. The System is People 2. Know Thyself 3. Develop Your Narrative 4. Create Your Vapor Trail 5. Begin the Hustle 6. Today's Conversation
37. "Hustle": Working Harder and Smarter You will need to work harder than a traditional candidate but you're also more interesting. Being smart means ignoring the front door and finding the side door.
38. The Best: Inbound Always Beats Outbound 1. Have a Hacker-News-worthy project 2. Write a viral blog post 3. Win a hackathon 4. Give a meetup talk ...get in front of people! Recruiters and engineers notice.
39. Outbound is a Slow, Painful Process Relationships take time to cultivate, which is why you should start now. You will be uncomfortable.
40. Do the 3 Job Challenge. Get over it. Also: Start Hustling NOW. 1. Collect things you like (projects, companies, people) 2. Engage with them (blog comments, stars, PRs…) 3. Make your need known.
41. Tough truths: Hiring is Local • 10x easier local, 10x easier in their stack. • BUT, as we know from experience, there are ways to hustle around these limitations. ...Basically, be where the people are.
42. Finding People: In-Person It's all about where people congregate. • Meetups • Hackathons • Your friend's cousin's startup office In the end, you must be willing to do hard stuff.
43. Finding People: Online It's STILL about where people congregate. • Github code bases • Blog/podcast comments • Social (Twitter) Try the old "I'll be in your city, limited time…"
44. Non-Traditional Hustling • Leverage your unique background • Look for overlaps that will help your portfolio AND get you on the radar (eg replicating a website, OSS fixes…)
45. Our Agenda 1. The System is People 2. Know Thyself 3. Develop Your Narrative 4. Create Your Vapor Trail 5. Begin the Hustle 6. Today's Conversation
46. First… Queue your questions!
47. Sabrina Clark (Brand Yourself)
48. Johnny Steenbergen (Asynchrony Labs) <<< Johnny 5 Johnny S >>>
49. A Viking Moment Learning part-time is hard. We’ve figured it out. You bring the motivation, we’ll get you there.
50. New to Viking? Try our free Prep Work, which is seriously awesome and which begins to lay this out. It prepares you for Flex, Immersive or whatever path you choose to take elsewhere. A Viking Moment: Learn More www.vikingcodeschool.com/prep
51. Let’s hit those Questions!
52. Thanks! We’ll send you the video and a course syllabus. Send additional questions to hello@vikingcodeschool.com. Take this stuff to heart. Be human. Build cool sh*t.