In this episode we'll talk about 3 big mistakes that aspiring coders make when trying to land their very first job.

Getting your first job as a coder will be the most difficult challenge when trying to launch your professional career, make sure you avoid these three mistakes:

1. Setting up your portfolio and NOT doing this…


2. Incorrectly utilizing certifications on your resume…


3. Getting a college degree and then…

Transcript

Trevor Page

Okay ladies and gentlemen fellow coders Welcome to now this is my third attempt, trying to record this episode, upgrading my, my hardware and my software to try to record these, these podcasts while I'm up for my walk, it's actually the afternoon now, instead of the morning. In any case, let's get into the content, so

Trevor Page

I've been doing this for a while now it's been, what, nine years over nine years that I've been teaching people how to code and I've myself professionally been coding for about 14 as of this point so in my, I guess almost decade of experience helping people learn how to code. There are similar stories that I hear, day in and day out time and time again. And that, that relates to essentially the struggles right so the topic I want to, you know, hone in on today is essentially the three most common mistakes that I see sort of beginner level programmers make when trying to get a job as a coder. So yeah, if you're in the position where you've got a little bit of code under your belt you feeling like you are more or less ready to hit the job scene, but are not receiving any callbacks for interviews, you might be falling into one of these three or maybe all these three categories. So listen up. The first sort of mistake I see is around people who, you know, this is in the best with best of intentions they get their portfolio set up, and with their portfolio set up they're feeling confident in that they are able to demonstrate their skills right they can show off their code and proudly display it to potential employers and say hey, look what I can do, and that's great, that is actually something you should be doing if you don't have a portfolio, and also have no experience as a coder, no professional experience. You need to be, you need to be creating a portfolio, this is mandatory. Otherwise, for sure you're not gonna get any callbacks, but I'm gonna assume that you have some sort of portfolio and by that I mean you have at least one big project that really demonstrates, more or less all the aspects of your skill set, right and more or less demonstrates, all of your strengths as a coder. Now here's the mistake people fall into. They have these, these portfolios, and they proudly display their portfolio. And the problem is that what they're displaying is horrible, Horrible code, and they have no idea that's horrible code because they just literally don't know any better. You know, this is a problem of you don't know what you don't know. Yeah, you probably don't realize that your code is awful and actually it's probably expected that your code is going to be awful if you haven't worked in the real world professionally right. If all you have is a college degree or you've been more or less self taught, you might not have learned everything you need to know to write good code. But there is a solution, no worries, I'm getting to it, but the symptoms of this problem are a little bit deceiving because essentially the symptom of the problem is you're applying to lots of jobs, and you're hearing nothing back about interview potential right you're not getting any calls for any interviews. All right. Now if you aren't getting calls and you are being invited for interviews and then still not getting a job well that's a different problem right. Your portfolio is most likely not the problem. Your resume is most likely not the problem, it's probably your interviewing skills. So these are the people are for the people who can't get the interview. So the symptom is you're not getting any any callbacks, right you applied to 100 jobs, 200 jobs, 300 jobs, and your phone is just not ringing. So, it's deceiving here because it's like, Well what's wrong, it might not qualify and am I applying to the wrong jobs. What's, what is wrong with this situation. Why is no one calling me back, right, and, and this is often the case, you have no experience, and therefore since you have no experience, the employers have to fall back on. Looking at your portfolio or some other means of trying to, to determine without seeing you in person. If you're any good as a coder. Okay. So, in lieu of real world experience they're going to look at things like your portfolio. And if your portfolio, they, you know, flip through it. It's very easy as a senior level programmer to flip through someone's code quickly and make a quick decision within 60 seconds. You make a decision as to whether or not this person is a decent coder or not decent for, you know, respective for the level that you're applying for. So you know, a decent junior level coder is going to have a different criteria than a decent senior level coder. But in any case, that decision can be made very quickly, and if you haven't taken the steps to put your best foot forward here. You can easily get disqualified and thrown thrown into the no pile and then you never hear from any employer ever again. Right. So,

Trevor Page

yeah, this is a doozy. So, how, how do you know if you've fallen victim to this. Well, there's no way to know for sure until you hire someone to look at your code for you hire someone who is a senior level programmer with more than five or 10 years of experience, have them look at your code. Okay, now you had to hire someone who is you know, whatever language you wrote the code in they'd obviously have to have experience in that language. That would be the best fit. But you'd hire someone to do it now if you don't know how to hire someone to do that. You, there's places you can go right there's like, There's a website called up work up as in the arrow up and work as in working. So, up, work.com will allow you to sort of post a job opening or a temporary job or whatever like a one time job and say hey, looking to pay a senior level programmer to review my code, right, a senior level coder, can probably take you know if it's a decently, you know, large size project for a portfolio project, you know, it might take a few hours of senior level programmers time, so like maybe a couple 100 bucks, but this is a couple $100 That is very, very well spent because you are going to return on that it's gonna be great if you just get one job, right, the ROI the return on investment for $200. You know, just for the peace of mind of knowing that this is not the problem like my code has been reviewed by a professional. I can feel good about this right. Another opportunity, again, shameless self promotion here. This is something that we just do inside of the boot camp. So for every assignment you do in the in the boot camp and for every Final Project, this the final project is what you would display in your portfolio for every final project, you will get a code review as well. So that's just built into the boot camp, you're going to get a professional with, you know, X number of years least whatever four or five years of experience, looking at your code, and making sure that it's good writing and making sure that you're putting your best foot forward. So yeah, if you're looking to not only just get a job but also you know, improve your skills in general, feel more confident as a coder, fill in any gaps you might have in your knowledge that kind of thing yeah boot camp might be a good fit for

Trevor Page

you. Again coderscampus.com/bootcamp to check that out, shameless self promotion over. Okay, so next most common thing, or problem that I see, sort of, you know, junior level programmers make when they're trying to get their first job is with respect to the resume. So again these things are done with the best of intentions, and we don't realize again we don't know what we don't know we don't realize that they are harming our chances of getting a job which is really unfortunate. Which is why I'm here and talking about it right now. So, if you are someone who again has no experience in the real world as a coder,

Trevor Page

then you might fall victim to something that again feels right, you know in your gut, this might feel like a really good decision. But in actuality it's a, it's a bad decision and that is one of certifications, so pursuing certifications, and putting them on your resume is not, is for whatever reason, not a good thing. So if a recruiter or a hiring manager looks at your resume, and they see a list of certifications, you know, at the bottom or wherever you know in your Awards and achievements section or whatever, they see a bunch of certifications listed. They actually throw out your resume, that's a red flag for, you know, hiring managers in general. They don't like to see that, and it is a disqualifying factor when it comes to people's resumes. Again, this came as a surprise to me, I didn't find this out until I was actually interviewing hiring managers, myself and just sort of asking the questions to help my students out in terms of getting jobs. So it was a complete it, you know, came out of left field for me, because again you would think that going and doing the work and paying money and putting in effort to get a certification in the language that you know whatever company is hiring for. You would think that would be a good thing. But I guess what what's happened is that having a bunch of cert