Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 004 How Do I Get a C# Developer Job? How Do I Prepare? Do I Need a Portfolio?

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004 How Do I Get a C# Developer Job? How Do I Prepare? Do I Need a Portfolio? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: How do you get a job as a C Sharp developer?
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: Whether you are a new developer looking for your very first job in development, or you're a seasoned developer looking for something new, figuring out how to get a job can be very difficult.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk through that in today's dev questions.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: My name is Tim Corey, and my goal is to make learning C Sharp easier.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: One of the ways I do that is by talking through these difficult questions to help move you forward faster and get you to the next step in your journey more easily.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: So today's question is all about getting a job.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: How do you go about that?
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things I hear over and over is the discouragement that comes through the job hunting process.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're not sure if you're ever good enough.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, you may feel like you've got lots of experience and lots of skills, and it just doesn't come across in the interview.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you're not even getting an interview.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's that you're just not getting even a call to talk to somebody.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_01: You're just getting nothing.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk through the process and what you can do to kind of help yourself out and move forward faster.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: And the very first thing I want to say is the job hunting process is very difficult for developers.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something that's an easy process that just kind of works, okay?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: And part of the reason for that is because it's hard on the other side, too.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: I've been on both sides.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've I've looked for jobs as a developer, and I have tried to hire people as a developer.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And both sides are difficult.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what makes it so difficult and discouraging, is because good developers fall through the cracks sometimes in certain jobs, and bad developers don't.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And so it makes it discouraging from the hiring standpoint, too, because people are hiring bad developers and getting frustrated thinking there's no good talent out there, which there is.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of talented people out there.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, you're one of them.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if you're not, I'll help you get there.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_01: But the the difficult process is this.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: How do you test to see if a person is a good developer?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_01: And the answer, I will tell you what the answer is not.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: The answer is not a whiteboard test, the answer is not an algorithm test.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: The answer is not these silly little questions that they might ask you.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: They can be a part of the process and they can lead to some good results, but that's not really the answer.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is the answer?
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: How do you get to be a developer that someone is is looking to hire and then gets discovers you and hires you?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that the first place I always start is if you're gonna be a C sharp developer, the first thing you need to do is learn C sharp.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I know that sounds weird.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds like it's a it's a duh thing, but it really isn't.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because oftentimes I'll get developers who will submit the resume to me and say, I know MVC and I know WPF and I know, and they list off user interfaces.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the user interface is about 10% of your application.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: I know it feels like 100% of your application because that's what people see, but that's 10%.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_01: The the real place where your application lives is in your code, in how you build your code, in your business logic, and your data access and all that stuff under the surface, okay?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you have your user interface up here, but then underneath here and all the way down is all this code that you have to write.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you come into me and you show some pretty user interfaces that don't really work, that's a problem.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're gonna be a designer, cool, that's that's great.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're gonna be a developer, you need to show me how your code works.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: And so don't neglect your C sharp development because you're chasing after the latest user interface.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the first part.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: I always recommend people learning C sharp first.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the next thing is that I know there's its latest fad thing.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so right now,.NET Core 3.1 is out and it's stable, it's solid, it's it's good to go.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: And everyone's saying, okay,.NET 5, 1T5,.NET 5.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_01: It's not out yet.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I don't really care if you have development skills in.NET 5.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, I might care more that you have development skills in.NET framework.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's that's years ago.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_01: But yet that's what I might care more about because that's where a lot of business code is.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: Should it stay there?
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely not.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: It should move to.NET Core, it should get more modern, but it takes time.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you have those foundational skills, you can help us move to.NET Core.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_01: But if if you don't know anything but the very latest and grayest stuff, you're gonna get kind of left behind.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: So don't neglect some a little bit older technologies.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: I know the latest and grayest stuff is the coolest, but for business purposes, you have to kind of know a larger range that goes back further, not just forward.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so so that's something to think through.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, so you you've learned C sharp code, you um you've got this breadth of knowledge.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: The next thing I want to see is how do you practice it?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because that's something that often people gloss over.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_01: So I I teach on YouTube.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: You know this.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: You've seen my YouTube videos probably on C sharp and teaching C sharp.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: When you watch a video of mine, what do you do next?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: Is it you go to the next video online, or do you practice what you've learned?
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_01: I always encourage people, practice right away what you've learned because that's where the real learning kicks in.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: I know it feels like you understand it when you watch my videos, hopefully, but that's not the same thing as experience.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_01: And that brings me to the next thing that a lot of employers ask for is work experience.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason why is because that experience, that's what is the best teacher.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_01: So you having worked in a business for two to five years will be more valuable than getting a college degree.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_01: I know it sounds weird, but a college degree doesn't get you a whole lot as far as a developer experience goes.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that just gives you a piece of paper, which you usually need, but it doesn't give you the ability to be a C sharp developer.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: That comes from experience.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so practice everything you learn.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, one of the questions that comes up is well, how do I get work experience without getting a job?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: And it starts with that practice.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's not the end of it, but that's the beginning.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: Start there, get your feet wet, try it out.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Once you have that base level experience of just trying out what you've learned, then you start putting it together.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_01: Now, another question I often get is well, Tim, I don't know what kind of sample program to build to try and test out what I've learned.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: And my answer is don't build a sample program that does anything.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: All right, build a sample program that all it does is it's an excuse to test out whatever you've learned.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_01: So if you've learned a for each statement, build just enough of a console application to put a for each in it.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_01: Hard code as much as possible to get to that for each.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about asking for inputs and validating inputs and forget that.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: Just do the fore each.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's what you want to practice.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Now, once you've practiced those little things that you've learned multiple times, and then moved on to the next video and do the same thing.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_01: Build little applications, really little applications that put a few of those things together and start getting experience and start building up.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's a mistake to just say, I'm going to I want to build this application.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, this massive application.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Don't start there.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: That's like saying, I don't run yet, but when I do start running, I want to run a marathon.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's just not a good place to start.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: Technically, you can do it.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean you can do it in anywhere near a valid time or a good time, and it doesn't mean it won't be super painful to do that.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you need to build up to it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: So build up to your your ability to do those marathon applications by doing small little programs, okay?
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: Tiny little things.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: They don't have to be anything that does anything important.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe, for example, a to-do app.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can build a to-do app about 18,000 times in different configurations.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you can do a ton with just a to-do list.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So maybe at first it's a little console application, then build a winform application with it, or a WPF application, or an ASPNet Core application.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_01: You can rebuild that thing over and over and over again.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can add more features to it, have dependency injection, have unit testing.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of stuff you can do with that really simple little program.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to find a new program each time.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just think through how that program is built and build it a little bit differently with the new things you've learned.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you've started in a learning process.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: You've you've learned C sharp.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: You have um you've walked through and made sure that you've expanded your knowledge beyond just the cutting edge.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: You have tested what you've learned, and you've started to build these small sample applications and even a little bit larger, still small, but a little bit larger, you know, with multiple things in them applications.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: The the next thing to think through is now that you've got this experience going, maybe it's time to build a real application.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_01: This is where I first start thinking about my portfolio.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this is where I might want to build something I can show off to an employer, and that's where I might create a um a GitHub repository for an application that I would then make open source and show off to an employer.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_01: These should still be very tiny, not very large, okay, and focused on doing one thing well, not two things, not five things, one thing.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_01: And that one thing should solve a problem.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: Pick some problem to solve.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, one problem to solve, for example, I use notepad all the time.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_01: I use it all the time.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_01: Notepad, not Word, not similar complicated editor, notepad.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Because I want to just write down a quick little note and remember it.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I leave it, I don't save it, I just leave it up there.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_01: I only save up half to shut my computer down, usually for Windows updates.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and then I open it right back up, and that stays open until I do that task.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like a task pad or a scratch pad, but I just get rid of them and they're kind of you know short-lived things.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what if I create something to auto-save that for me so that even Windows updates wouldn't destroy them in the event that it forced a shutdown?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I could do one thing better than Notepad.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: A very simple text editor.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: The only thing it does is it auto-saves to a cache.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that could be something useful that could show off either WinForm or WPF or even UWP development skills with not a lot of effort.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_01: It's it focuses on one thing.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: But what that does is first of all, you can show an employer the source code for that.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so they can see the source code and see how you write C sharp code, not just user interface.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: They can also see how you address a problem with a coded solution.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so you can say, here's the problem I had, and here's the solution I came up with.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and that also means that you don't have to be using the exact technology that they are wanting to hire you for.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's helpful if you are close, but let's just say that they want a person who has uh WPF experience and I don't know, SQL Server Experience.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that gets you WPF experience or shows off that, but it might not show off SQL Server Experience, and that's okay.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: It it shows that you have an application that does something.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: This is not the same thing as following along with what I teach you on a video and just recreating it and putting that in your resume or your portfolio.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's not the same thing.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: As an employer, I kind of gloss over those because you're just filling in the dots, you know, following the dots uh from one to the next.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's not really the same thing as true, you know, on your own development, which is what I'm hiring you to do.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: So with this sample app, you have something to show an employer and say, This is what I did, this is why I did it, here's the code for it, here's how it operates.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then this is a bonus, but if you can have this in the hands of users that actually use it and actually give you feedback and actually say, I use this, that's even better.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: Because now this is work experience.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: You can say, I have been doing this on the side.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's not the same thing as a full-time job, but I've been doing this, and these are the results.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I found a problem, I solved the problem with code, and here is a solution.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that shows initiative, that shows uh that you can identify a problem and solve it with solution, that you uh can come up with a coded solution for something in a way that seems logical, and that you have work experience, that you've done something.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that something is better than nothing.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_01: So a portfolio really helps.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_01: All right, having an app or two in there you can show employers can be really helpful.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I remember one job I sat down in.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um the my future boss said, you know, well, we're working on this.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_01: Do you have any coding solutions for that?
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or do you have any samples for that?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I said, No, I don't, but I have this over here, and it was a WPF application.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: They were looking for web applications.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: I had a desktop application.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not the greatest of fits, you'd think, but again, user interface is just the very top layer.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Everything below that, C sharp code-wise, is C sharp code.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: It should be similar.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so he looked at it, we reviewed it, we talked through the code, we talked through the decisions I made and why I made them, and I landed a job.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that portfolio piece helped me, even though it didn't quite align with what I was being hired to do.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: So portfolios can be helpful.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: Now, and this is not an in-depth training, there's a lot more you can go into, but I'm just kind of trying to hit the highlights here to help you maybe think through how to dive a little deeper in any one area.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: So you've got your your C sharp knowledge kind of locked down.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: You have or you've been working on it, you've been training on it, you've been building sample applications, and maybe you've even built a portfolio piece or two to show off.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing huge, just something.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now if you have something huge, cool, but don't feel like you have to.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right, it can be a few classes in a in one class library.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_01: That could be all you have, and that's okay.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's something to show an employer.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, resume.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk resume real quick.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: A resume it has a few different roles.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Often people look at it from their own perspective.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: You can't look at your own resume from your perspective and say, oh wow, this is you know, the colors look great.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_01: Stop.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_01: Think about what the employer is going to see.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so an employer is gonna look at your resume and they're going to evaluate it in a few different ways.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, they may run it through an automated uh scanner system that's gonna pull out relevant details, so it has to be keyword rich, meaning the fluff words you have don't matter.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_01: So when you say things like um strategic and you know uh diligent and on time and proactive, they don't matter.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, those words don't matter.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes to that scanner, it's gonna look for things like C sharp, ASP.net, um.NET Core, and so on.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: So if you're applying for a C sharp job, those are the kind of things it's gonna pull out and search for.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's that's what happens if an automated scanner reads your resume.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: If a real person reads your resume, most likely they're gonna have a stack of a hundred resumes to look through.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: Anytime that I have hired for a job, I have had dozens, if not hundreds, of resumes, even when I didn't promote it.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, when I just let's say I had one job recently I put out to Twitter and I said, Hey, I'm looking to hire someone part-time.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: I had well over 50 people, I think it was closer to a hundred people, that contacted me and said, We're looking, you know, I'm looking for this.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_01: I love this job, I think I fit this job.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_01: That's a lot.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: So here's what an employer is not going to do.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna look at your resume and read paragraphs, they're not gonna look at your header paragraph and read through it where you talk about how diligent you are and how persistent you are, and how conscientious you are.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_01: They're not gonna read any of that.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, they're not gonna read the two paragraphs about what you did at your last job.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's just not gonna happen.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Here's what happens when you have a hundred resumes to look through, you scan, and you're gonna look for a few things.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, just like the mechanical scanners, you're gonna look for keywords that pop out at you C sharp.net.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then around those, you're gonna look for is there a sentence, a phrase, or here's a here's a really big tip a bullet point that explains a little bit more about that.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's all we're gonna have to time to look for.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: And then you flip to the next resume.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: And that sort is gonna happen at that level.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna pull out the ones that seem to be the best fit, meaning you have the most experience, or you have experience in certain areas, or it just seems like you've got a good track record.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I'm gonna pull those out first, the rest go to a different pile.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: That the rest get dumped.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's a harsh way of saying it, but just don't have time for them.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so we're gonna have to not look at those any further, those get a no.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're looking at your resume and you have, let's just say, two pages of content, that's almost a guaranteed no.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: It sounds counterintuitive.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_01: If you have that much experience, why would you ever reject a resume like that?
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_01: Because I'm not gonna read it.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: I don't have time to read it.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: So, most likely what happened is you filled it full of stuff.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need stuff.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_01: I don't need a thousand different technologies you've used.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: That's also a red flag to me.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: If you have listed 40 technologies, 30 technologies, if you've listed 20 technologies and said you're an expert in all of them, or if you've kind of indicated that way, or you have lots of experience in all of them, you don't.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Either you have a little bit of experience, a lot, or you have kind of overinflated your skills in those areas.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: I personally have developed in well over 30 languages professionally.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_01: I don't put 30 resume 30 languages on my resume.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_01: I usually try and keep it to four or five.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_01: And they all kind of revolve around that C sharp area.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm looking for a C sharp job in web development, I'll put JavaScript, C sharp, SQL, maybe HTL and CSS, but really those are kind of prerequisites that we already know.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_01: I'll probably list them somewhere just to have them picked up by that scanner.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: But that's probably about it.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: Those are the ones I'll list.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: I probably won't even list a front-end framework.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: But if I do, I'm okay.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: It's like Angular.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I'll put Angular on there if that's what you're looking for.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: But if it's a view job, I might not put Angular on there.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_01: I might just put JavaScript.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not going to put everything I'm good at on the resume.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_01: Which comes down to the resume meet needs to be tuned for the job you want and where you're applying.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_01: That means you have to redo your resume.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just take the same resume and send it to a hundred different places.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: Your resume should be one page.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: It should have lots of white space.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_01: It should have just bullet points if at all possible.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_01: And usually no more than three to four bullet points.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_01: So if we're talking the past work experience, I'll have where I worked, the dates, you know, month and year is all I need.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_01: So February of 04 to you know March of 15.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'll put that, that where I worked, the URL for the company, and then I'll put three to four bullet points about what I did.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: And those bullet points are not going to be about how I made the company happy or I got lots of work done.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going to focus in on built a C sharp mobile application that did this.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_01: Saved the company$500,000 by building a C sharp service.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: Real little bullet points that just communicate just enough to show that I did something with the technology that you're hiring me for.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: Because then the other thing is, when it comes to the interview, which we'll talk about in just a minute, when it comes to the interview, then I want the interviewer to look at that and go, tell me more about that.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about how you save the company half a million dollars.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I can I can expound, I can give you those paragraphs that I really want to put in my resume, but I'm not going to.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: I can give you those paragraphs at that point.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_01: So your resume should be one page, it should have bullet points, not many of them, and it should be have lots of white space.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: Try to give just enough information to communicate where you've worked in the past, what your educational experience is, and what your skills are.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, those are the things you need to communicate.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_01: Alright, so once you've got through the the resume portion and you've submitted the resume and maybe you get the the call to actually talk to somebody, then then what?
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: How do you go to that interview?
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: That interview can be a big deal scary.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um the interview's hard, okay?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: And not saying just from the the person being interviewed, the person interviewing, it's hard for them too.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: Interviewers often get it wrong.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: This is the discouraging part about being hired for a job.
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna get passed over for jobs that you're qualified for and you're probably a great fit for.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: So when you get the rejection, don't just look at what you did wrong or feel discouraged.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's always time to, or there's always a place for evaluating how you can be better.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want you to stop doing that, but don't get down yourself.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: Don't feel like you're never gonna do this because it's not always you.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_01: It can be you, but it's not always you.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it may be that it is the um the interviewer didn't do a good job.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: They didn't have great questions, they asked stupid questions.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, now I'm a a senior developer.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: I can get away with more in an interview if I was going to interview again.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to, hopefully.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_01: But I can get away with more than than a junior level developer.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_01: But when you get asked a question that seems kind of silly, push back.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe ask how often do we do this in this job?
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the questions that often gets asked is, okay, let's let's do a uh a bubble sort manually.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: Is this job about doing those kind of things that often?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_01: Because here's how I would do it.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_01: I would go to Google, find the best algorithm based upon users' feedback, and just use it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I'd do it.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_01: Alright?
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: And if they say, well, no, you have to do it yourself, say I can't.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Uh because that's not something that you really have to do in your day-to-day job.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, but it's hard to interview for what your day-to-day job will be.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: So you can push back a little bit.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, there is a place for those questions.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_01: So don't just reject them on a hand and say, Tim Corey said, I don't need to answer that.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: Won't get you very far.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um, instead, talk through what the job really is about and try and figure out why they're asking the question.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes they're just trying to think they're trying to hear your logic process.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is just an excuse.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the one of the um the questions that gets has gotten asked a lot in the past that isn't asked as much anymore, um, but is the fizzbuzz question.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, you're going to send numbers through, and if the number is divisible by three evenly, you say fizz.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_01: If it's divisible by five evenly, then you say buzz.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_01: If it's divisible by both three and five, you say fizz buzz.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's what you print out of the console, always you don't print nothing.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so you run different numbers through it.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: So, how do you develop that application?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the point isn't that you get the application to work necessarily.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_01: The point is they want to see your logic process.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_01: How do you process what's going on?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think through how to lay this out in a logical fashion?
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_01: And so when they ask you to do that at a whiteboard, that can be super intimidating.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_01: But don't think of it as I have to get every semicolon right.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: If the interviewer is grading you on your semicolons on a whiteboard, you probably don't want to work there anyway.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I know that sounds flippant from a person who already has a job.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I get it.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: You have to put food in a table.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_01: That means you have to take some bad jobs sometimes.
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can avoid it, if you have that luxury, that's not a great place to work.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because a whiteboard is not the same thing as Visual Studio.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: Visual Studio will tell you, hey, you're missing a semicolon up there.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you go ahead and add one?
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_01: It takes care of it for you.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_01: So that's not something you need to worry about.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: What you need to worry about is can you get the logic in place?
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so I wouldn't even write real code on a whiteboard.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: I would write just kind of the logic steps.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I would check for this first, I would check for this next, and oh you know what?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna circle that right there and move that up because I think that's gotta go first in my checks.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, those kind of things, that's how I would do the logic.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: I would just make general comments.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: I would not try and write real code.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_01: I want to share how I think about things, not how I write code.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_01: If they give you a Visual Studio and say, do this, ask for internet access as well, because you'll have internet access at work, right?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't, okay, that that's a valid test.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: But if you do, then you should be able to access Google and go to Stack Overflow.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so just kind of push back a little bit.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: The interview process, the biggest thing you can do is relax.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_01: I know it's hard.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: I I fully understand that.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the more you relax, the more you just take it as, you know what, we're just gonna talk.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna interview them as much as they interview me.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_01: That helps you come across as more relaxed, more confident, and more capable.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_01: So that's really a great way, if you can, to kind of increase your standing with someone without doing any coding.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's about how relaxed you are.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_01: So you learn C sharp, you have put together a great portfolio, a great resume, you've interviewed well, you still don't get hired.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's gonna happen.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_01: Like I said, interviewing is hard, hiring people is hard.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: Keep at it.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_01: Persistence will get you far.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: Now, one bonus tip here is if you can get into a development community where maybe you go to um, you know, for example, SQL developers have what's called a SQL Saturday once a year in their area, usually.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_01: And it's a it's a gathering of SQL developers that it's a kind of a conference, but it costs, I think, 10 bucks usually in the US for and that's just for food for lunch.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_01: Great option.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_01: Then there's the the the monthly user groups they have.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_01: Developers, it seems like they're not quite as um organized as SQL developers.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but there are similar things.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Whereas user groups where you can go to once a month, twice a month, something like that.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um show up.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_01: If there's a user group in your area, show up.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you don't want to learn about the topic, show up.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_01: All right, because you're gonna you're gonna talk to people, hopefully, encourage your force yourself to talk to people, get to know people, and get to be known.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and the the reason for this is a couple reasons.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: First reason is because it's good for you, it's good to to stretch your your knowledge, it's good to stretch your relationships and grow both of those.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: But then it's also good because when it does come time to either get your first job or to get your next job, you have a network of people who work in development jobs who can help you, okay.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I have a lot of developer friends right now because of my position.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, being a Microsoft MVP is a lot of perks, and that's a big one.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Is I get to go to events and talk to other MVPs and become friends with them.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if I needed a job, that's the first place I would look.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: I would talk to my friends and say, hey, does anybody know of a job opening?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_01: And even if they didn't know of a job opening, I know for a fact that they would share my information with their network of friends and try and figure out a place I could I can land.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: So that right there is a big deal.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's not exclusive to MVPs, it's just about having those relationships.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: So if you go to the user group all the time and people know you there and you say, hey, you know what?
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_01: I just lost my job, or I'm looking for my first job, right?
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_01: I'm looking for a better job.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: They'll help you out.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that network will be a bypass on a lot of the stuff we talked about, a lot of those difficulties.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_01: The interview difficulty, the resume difficulty, the portfolio difficulty.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_01: You can bypass a lot of that, not all of it, but a lot of it by knowing who to talk to and getting that first good impression out there.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's kind of a bonus tip.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not everybody can do it, not every situation is the same, but it can be really helpful.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: So these are some of the things you can do to get a job as a C sharp developer.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: It takes work.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that we can work from home means that you're in a larger pool.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: But even if you don't have a lot of experience, don't get discouraged.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_01: You can do this.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_01: Work on your knowledge of C sharp.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: The better you know C sharp, the better you'll be in the interview.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: The better you'll be for employer someday.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Then work on your portfolio if you can.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you can use that portfolio because that can also get you in the door places.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: Imagine for a minute that you had built, let's just say, some utility that was really useful.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: It did one thing well, and you open sourced it, provide it, put a NuGet package out there, and let people use it in their own C sharp applications.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now imagine you're looking for a job and you go to an interview and you say, Okay, I built you know, Utility X, and they say, We use Utility X.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: We love Utility X.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think you will fare against the rest of the candidates being interviewed?
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: Pretty well, because you got yourself in the door because of something they already use, you've already provided them help, and now you're sitting here looking for a job.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_01: I would probably want to hire you.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that's one way of doing it.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: Another way is by again creating a network.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_01: So let's say you create a utility X and a thousand people use it.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what if you put on your your page or you send out an email to your subscribers and said, Hey, um, just so you know, I'm looking for a job.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if I use your utility in our company and we have a job opening, I'm recommending you because you're already helping me.
• 38:38
  SPEAKER_01: This would probably a great fit because you can help us even better.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another way of helping out, okay?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_01: So you can kind of leverage that portfolio.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of ways of going about this.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to, you know, go the traditional route.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_01: You can go alternate ways.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_01: The focus, though, is learn C sharp well.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: Don't just spread yourself out and say, okay, now that I've barely grasped C sharp, I need to learn JavaScript.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_01: And now that I barely grasped JavaScript, I need to learn Angular and React and View.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_01: And now I learned those three things kind of barely, I need to learn Python.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_01: Go deep.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_01: Focus on C sharp in depth before you even start thinking about how do I add things to this.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_01: And when you add things to it, don't just add randomly.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_01: Add things that complement.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_01: If you have a job or want a job as a C sharp developer, if you have SQL skills, that's gonna be a big bonus when it comes time to get hired.
• 39:45
  SPEAKER_01: Or when you have um HTML and CSS skills, those are big bonuses if you get hired to be a web developer in C sharp.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so even if you're working purely on the back end of C sharp code, if you know to that front end stuff, you can be a help to a company.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: So that's my advice about getting a job in C sharp.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what are your questions about that?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_01: What are your things that you kind of struggle with about that?
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_01: Um you know, is this helpful?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want you know more information about a specific section that I talked about today?
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I actually have a course I walk my um my consulting clients through that kind of focuses on this for about you know a few hours on how to do this well, because there's a lot you can cover here.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I'd love you to know your questions, put them down in the description or the comments below.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_01: Also, if you have other questions for this dev question series, I want to know because this dev question series is all about questions that you have.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_01: So if you have questions, put them in the comments down below.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'll add them to the list.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_01: I've got a list, a running list, and the more I see a question pop up, the more likely I am to cover it.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: So make sure that you you keep asking those questions.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: Don't repeat the same question over and over again.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: Kind of give it a thumbs up if you see it already in the list.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: I will try and add to the list and put the appropriate emphasis on it.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's it for today.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for watching.
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: As always, I am Tim Corey.
• 41:17
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Def Questions.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimCorey.com.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.