Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 180 Why Can't I Get A Job As A Software Developer?

Transcript

180 Why Can't I Get A Job As A Software Developer? · 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.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_02: Why can't I get a job as a software developer?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_02: I keep applying to places and they keep just rejecting me, maybe even ghosting me and not even responding as to why they rejected me.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_02: This is a question that comes up a lot, especially now as there's a lot of churn in the job market.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about it in today's episode of Dev Questions.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: Now, there's going to be a balancing act you have to understand here.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, there are thousands of people who are applying to jobs that claim to be great developers.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_02: And some people look at that and say, that means the job market's flooded, there's no more room for developers, and you know, developers are going to go away, we're going to have to be paid a whole lot less and all the rest.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: No, that's not what that means.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it doesn't mean there are too many developers.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: It means that you're not doing enough to stand out from the crowd.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_02: Because what does it take to claim to be a developer?
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_02: Just saying so.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: And in fact, you can create a resume with nothing to back it up.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: You can put a lot of stuff in there and say, hey, I'm a developer.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_02: You can even start building applications, go through some tutorials, maybe from, I don't know, Tim Corey, and then say, well, now I'm a developer.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: You are a developer, but are you ready to be an entry-level developer?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not yet.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I tell people you kind of have to go through the entire C Sharp master course and practice it a lot before you're ready.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because it's not just about, okay, I can write some small applications.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: It's about being a well-rounded developer who can prove that they have what it takes to do the job.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_02: So let's talk about the eight reasons why you're getting rejected as a developer, and then the seven things you can do to improve your odds of getting a job.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so total of 15 things, that's a lot.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna go into it.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna first start with the reasons you're getting rejected.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: Now, not all of these apply to every person, but we're gonna talk about the things that generally apply.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: I have posted for jobs.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: I have posted for developer jobs, and I always kind of cringe when I hit that go button because as soon as I do, the flood comes in.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: For my web developer job that I posted a couple of years ago, I was looking for an entry-level person.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I had over 300 applicants within 24 hours.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I want to be very clear here.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the people who applied, the vast majority of those people, didn't really qualify.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because, and we'll get into the reasons why, and I talked to them about it, but some of them didn't read the posting, some of them didn't qualify for other reasons.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_02: We'll talk about those.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_02: So, number one reason, and these are not in order of most important to least important, these are just seven, I'm sorry, eight reasons why you're getting rejected.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_02: So, number one, your resume has too much information on it.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: When you are enthusiastic and you say, you know what, here's all the stuff I know.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_02: Things, something certain things happen.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, you either write a multi-page resume, you know, you have three, four, five pages of what you can do.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: Don't do that.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Because quite frankly, I'm not reading it.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm standing in here for people who are reviewing resumes.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_02: Now, yes, that sounds harsh.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds like, well, Tim, you're it's your responsibility to read it.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's not.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: My responsibility is to get the right person for the job, and I have to weed those down somehow.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_02: If I have 300 in one day apply for this role and more keep coming, well, what do I do?
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_02: I have to have some way to skim through and figure out yes, no, yes, no, very, very quickly.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_02: And when you have multiple pages on your resume, that indicates that you don't really have a good focus on what you've done or really understand what you need to do for this job.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, you haven't in any way customized for this job.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_02: You've just said, here's all this stuff, blah, and I want to explain everything.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: No, too much.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're doing too much, stop.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: Also, paragraphs.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: When you have multiple paragraphs on a page, it's just not getting read.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_02: But what I'm looking for in the first round is not the nuance of what you are as a developer.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: What I'm looking for is I asked for a C sharp developer with two years' experience in ASP.NET Core who has an understanding of Blazor.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, go.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_02: I look for those things in your resume, and you've listed SQL Server and.NET Framework, and you've listed Java and JavaScript and React.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm going, no, it doesn't match.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_02: And out it goes.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't matter if you have a whole paragraph that talks about how, yes, you worked in.NET Framework, but those skills we apply, that's gonna get rejected because I don't have time to figure out for this specific person, yes, they worked in this other area, but does it apply or not?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: You have to draw as dots for me.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not gonna do it for you.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_02: So, number one, your resume has too much information on it.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_02: Boil it down to the important bits.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, your resume does not have the right information on it.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_02: And this kind of applies here as well from the previous point.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: Is okay, you know, if you looked at my resume and I just put generically what I have done for the past 20 years as applying for a job that was a database administrator for a SQL Server.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I have all of those skills and more.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: But if you look at my generic resume, I'd get passed over right away.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_02: Because my generic resume talks about my C sharp development, my JavaScript development, my front-end development, my back-end development, my development in a number of different programming areas, as well as SQL Server and MongoDB and Cosmos DB and Azure and all this other stuff.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_02: Well, that's great, but how does that apply to the job I'm applying for?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: If it doesn't have the right information on it, then I'll get passed over.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I would focus in on I've been a SQL DBA for multiple companies.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have worked on SQL Server for the past 20 plus years.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_02: I have I go down through the list of SQL specific things because that's what you're looking for.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_02: So if my inform if my resume does not have the right information on it, I'm gonna get rejected.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: Number three, you haven't demonstrated your skills.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: There's no proof that what you say is what you can do.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_02: This comes from the fact that there's a lot of people out there claiming to have skills.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_02: And often they they believe it.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_02: It's not a lie, they believe it.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's just that what they believe isn't actually true.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: So one way this belief can happen is you've watched a lot of tutorials on C sharp.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so now you say, I'm a C sharp developer.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_02: Well, have you actually built anything?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Can you prove that?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_02: Have you done anything?
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, no, but I've watched a lot of videos, so I understand.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_02: It's not the same thing.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: You have to be able to say, yes, I built this or I did that.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: I've seen a lot of developers who have resumes that are full of technologies they don't really even understand.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: But they came across it once.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_02: I had one person, he had a three-page resume, and on there was jQuery, JavaScript, and a whole bunch of other libraries related to JavaScript.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I gave him a task in jQuery and he had no clue how to do it.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_02: Because while he had seen jQuery, while he had watched tutorials on it, while he had maybe even used it in a project or two or modified something in a project or two, he didn't actually understand how jQuery worked.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_02: And so when it came time to use jQuery, he didn't understand it.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why when a person looks at a resume, when a person's reviewing a resume looks at it and sees no proof of what you can do, then they go, No, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna take that risk of even trying to figure out if you can do it or not.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_02: So, what does proof look like?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, proof looks like work experience in that specific area.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's a big one.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_02: But also portfolio items that show off doing that specific thing.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_02: Or projects that you have built that might be, you know, actual giveaway projects or sellable projects or things of that nature, things you can put in your hand and say, I built that.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_02: Or, you know, that site, I built that.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Those kind of things are proof that you can back up what you say you can do.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_02: And so seeing that in some way is really helpful because when you don't have any proof, then I have to get on faith.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_02: And that's not a great place to be when you're a hiring developer or hiring developers.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, number four, your resume has bad typos.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_02: Now, people often get on me and say, well, Tim, you know, typos happen.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: They happen to everybody, and absolutely they do, but you need to put your best foot forward.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_02: And that includes making sure your resume has no typos.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm not just saying typos, because a typo here or there, not a big deal.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_02: But there are typos that can make me start to wonder do you really understand?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, Java Space Script.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_02: That's a typo I have seen on resumes.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_02: So that that typo right there might mean that you just put a space in there accidentally.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_02: Or maybe it was an autocorrected, but that shouldn't happen because almost every editor on the planet understands JavaScript.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_02: So why is that space there?
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: Is it a misunderstanding of what JavaScript is?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_02: Because JavaScript is not the scripting language for Java.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: So by putting that space there, you make me question do you actually even understand the thing you put on your resume?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: It makes me really concerned.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: So type it correctly.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_02: The same with casing, the same with spelling out.net as D-O-T-N-E-T instead of putting the period and then all caps N-E-T in all caps.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_02: Because following the actual name, understanding what the real name looks like, it's important because you should have seen it hundreds of times as you're working with that product.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_02: And if you haven't, then you make me concerned that you haven't actually worked with the product.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: So get your typos corrected.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_02: Now, number five, it comes close, you demonstrate a lack of understanding of the technologies you claim to know.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_02: For instance, if when you put under um skills, maybe you have a column that says skills, and you're saying, okay, I have skills in C sharp and then SQL, and then in one line, you put Java slash JavaScript.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_02: That to me is a huge red flag.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_02: Because you just put two technologies together that have no relationship at all.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_02: So why are they in the same line?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_02: Are you just saving space?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe, but that seems a little weird.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Will you put C sharp slash JavaScript?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: Would you put Java slash C sharp or Java slash Python?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_02: Probably not.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_02: So why do you put Java slash JavaScript together?
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_02: Because those two topics aren't the same thing.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's like car versus carpet.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: The two are not related.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: So if you were to put those two next to each other, that makes me question do you even understand Java or JavaScript?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_02: Because now again, I'm I'm trying to think, are they just putting things in the resume to say they understand something they actually don't?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_02: Because I know this will shock you, but people lie on their resumes.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: It seems to happen quite a bit.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so as a hiring manager, you have to look at resumes from that perspective, from the perspective of, is this person lying?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you're not always gonna get it right, but you need to look at and say, this doesn't smell right.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's something that's concerning me here.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe I just won't deal with this one.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that's where, again, your resume can get thrown out, even if it's a good resume.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, number six, you didn't read the job posting.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_02: This one is super frustrating as a hiring manager.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: So I posted that web developer job and I said, it's a work-from-home job, but you have to be in the Dallas area.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: The number one thing that I rejected people for were people that were not in the Dallas area.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: It's right there in the job description.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: I understand, you know, some people say, well, I could move there.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm not even counting those people.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_02: I'm counting the people who are like, no, I'm gonna work from California, I'm gonna work from Europe, I'm gonna work from somewhere else, but I'm gonna apply to your job because work from home, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_02: That's not what the job description said.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so when you don't read the job description, you get rejected right away.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: And while I try to respond to every single person, again, hundreds of people, not everyone has the time to do that.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_02: So that's one of the ways you can get ghosted very quickly, is you just don't even match up with the job description.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if the job posting was SQL DBA, I post my resume is full of C sharp developer, I don't really match.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't I don't match the posting.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_02: So why would they keep my resume around?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: They're not, they're gonna reject it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: So if your resume doesn't match the job posting, then you're gonna get rejected.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_02: Number seven, you aren't actually qualified for the role.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this one I encourage people to apply before they feel they're fully qualified for a role.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: Because oftentimes hiring managers put on the perfect person.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: The ideal person will have all of these skills and they list all the skills they could possibly have.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: But they know that they're gonna be happy with 80% or 70% of the perfect person.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_02: But you know, they're kind of throwing out there because you know, it would be great if this person could also do accounting and they could also be a vice president of operations, and they could also, like, of course, that person might not exist.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_02: But if they found somebody, they'd be super pumped.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_02: And then just putting it out there allows people to go, hey, you know what?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm all of those things, or I'm most of those things, let me apply.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: So even though you're not fully qualified for a job, apply for it.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because you might be the 70% that they're they're okay to hire.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_02: And they, you know, you're not the perfect candidate, but you're you're close enough and you're in the right area.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: However, if you apply for a senior developer role and you have never been a junior developer, even, no, you're not qualified.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: If you apply for a role that includes team leadership and you've never even been on a team, that's a stretch at least.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so when you're applying, try to keep it within the ballpark.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_02: So if you are, if you would rate your developer skills on a one to ten, honestly, if you had somebody else rate them for you, maybe you're a three.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's okay.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: You're an entry-level developer, not a problem.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, but then you shouldn't apply for a job that's looking for a nine, okay, which would be a senior developer or a senior developer with some leadership skills or something like that.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you need to get closer in your band where maybe you apply a jobs that are up to a six.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, maybe a mid-level developer with some skills you don't have, but you can apply for it because you've been an entry-level developer for a couple years now.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so you can you can you know apply above where you currently are, apply above your weight class.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: But you can't just shoot for the moon and not expect to get rejected a lot.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so when you're applying for a job, if you're not qualified for it at all, don't apply.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_02: And if you you're really on the lower end, apply, but realize it's okay to get rejected out of hand for those.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_02: And don't be surprised if you are.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_02: And if you apply to something, yes, apply above where you're at, but try to keep it reasonable.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, number eight, the final reason why you're not getting calls back, you're not getting a job.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_02: Your resume doesn't match the job posting.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so we've got the idea of maybe your resume doesn't really match up with the job posting specifically.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: So you have the skills, okay?
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that your skills don't match up with the job posting, but your resume doesn't show that off.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: So if your resume isn't tailored to the specific job, well, then you might not get called back.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: And I have people that complain all the time, they say, Tim, I'm trying to apply to hundreds of jobs, and I don't have time to quali to tailor my resume for every single job.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: Well, guess what?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: Then hiring managers don't have time to tell you why they're rejecting you.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's kind of like, you know, it makes sense, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_02: If if you don't have time to put concerted effort into that specific job, they definitely don't have time to put concerted effort into you.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_02: Now, if you put concerted effort in, are they going to?
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_02: But if you put concerned effort into applying carefully to a job, tailoring your resume, not lying, but figuring out what applies and what doesn't apply, and you put that on your resume, and then you apply to that job, and let's just say 20 other jobs instead of 100.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, you have a much higher chance with those 20 jobs than you did with 100 non-matches.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, tailoring your resume is going to be a big deal.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_02: So we've talked about what's, you know, how you're not gonna get the job, you know, why you're not getting a job and what the reasons are you might not be getting a job.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about the seven things you can do to improve your chances of getting a job.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_02: And number one is simplify your resume.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_02: So simplification has a number of different ideas.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: One, bullet points are awesome.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_02: When you are very, very clear on something and you you shrink it down from a paragraph to four or five words, that gets read.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_02: So shrinking it down to the essence of things.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_02: But then also dropping the intangible words.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, I um helped bring synergy to the team.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's not measurable.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: That's not in any way something that can be looked for on a resume.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: It's not something where people are looking for, hey, I'm looking for a person who mentions the word synergy.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_02: That's what you really want from a software developer.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_02: No, they want you to be able to do certain technologies.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: They want you to be able to do certain tasks.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_02: And yes, your ability to work on a team, your ability to integrate with others, your ability to communicate with higher-ups, these are all important, but they're not something you can clearly communicate through generic phrases on a resume.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_02: This is what you do when you tell stories in your interview, or maybe even work in one small anecdote on a cover letter or something like that, where you could tell a story that illustrates some of your abilities that might not be just tech related.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_02: But get rid of all the stuff that, you know, I'm looking for a job that pushes me forward.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: No one cares.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: Honestly, I'm trying to be clear with you.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm trying not to be harsh, but no one cares.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: No one looks at a resume and goes, oh, that's a person I want to hire because they're looking for a job that pushes them forward.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_02: These words mean nothing.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: So don't include them because the more words you include, the less words that are seen.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: I know it sounds backwards, but the more words you put in your resume, the less people actually read.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_02: So the clearer your resume is, the better.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: Now, of course, there's a bottom end of that.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: If you have five words in your resume, that's not gonna be a great resume.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_02: But there is a point at which you're just putting words in is filler.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_02: Get rid of it.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: The filler.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Number two, customize your resume to the position.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_02: Now, this has a number of different ways you can go about it.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: People say, well, Tim, isn't that lying?
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely not.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_02: Do not lie ever on your resume.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_02: But there are a number of skills that you have that probably aren't making into your resume or shouldn't.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so you get to choose which ones do.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_02: Again, back to my SQL example, I can highlight all the times I've worked with SQL Server and built SQL databases and architected database solutions and all the rest instead of highlighting all the C applications I've built and all the Azure stuff I've done, all the rest of stuff that doesn't really apply directly to that role.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_02: So customize by maybe moving in bullet points and taking out bullet points.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_02: They all apply to you.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_02: And maybe you have one resume that's two or three pages long that has all the stuff that you've done.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_02: And then you just create a high a cut-down version of that for a particular job by taking out the bullet points that don't apply.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_02: And that way you can focus in on the ones that do better.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_02: But another thing you could do is maybe your resume is just your resume.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like you don't have other skills you can put in the resume.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_02: But what you can do is you can highlight the words that apply to the job posting.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: Put in bold so that when you scan over that resume as a human, now, yes, they use uh applicant tracking systems sometimes that will read through on an automated basis.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: But when a human reads your resume, their eyes be drawn to those spots.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: And those spots will say things like ASP.NET Core and Blazor and C sharp.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_02: And if the job is for a Blazor developer, you're seeing all of a sudden, oh, they did that here and they did that here, and it's over here too.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: There's a lot of work they've done in Blazor and in ASP.net Core and an API in C sharp.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: And all of a sudden your resume really pops out at them because it looks overwhelming.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like they can see all the different places where you have done this work.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_02: And even though the same content is there, the way you presented it allows for them to go, oh, I want to talk to that person some more.
• 24:24
  SPEAKER_02: Number three, create a portfolio of your work.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_02: This goes back to proving what you can do.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Being able to say, here, that's what I can do, is really helpful.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_02: I have looked at resumes where I've seen a person's resume and I said, you know what, that looks pretty good.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_02: They don't have a lot of work experience, but they say they can do all these things and it kind of lines up and I can see how these be helpful.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_02: And if this person could actually do these things, that'd be really helpful even if they don't have experience.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: But how do I prove that?
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_02: How do I know that?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: Well, a portfolio is a great thing.
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_02: So I can look at that portfolio and go, yeah, exactly.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I have done this where I've looked at a person's portfolio and went, yep, that's the kind of person I want.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_02: And I've also looked at portfolios and went, nope, not me.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: Not for me.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: They can move on because that's not the kind of person I'm looking to hire.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_02: So your portfolio can be what shows off what you can do.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_02: Now, that is scary because they can say no based upon your skills, but then they're doing an honest evaluation of you as a developer and what they're looking for from a developer.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas if you don't give them a portfolio, then they're gonna guess.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_02: And they often will not guess in your favor.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: So a portfolio can be really helpful.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: But here's a key here.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: I have seen portfolios that are just projects I did in school.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it looks like a school project, first of all.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_02: Second of all, I often see people put that in your port in their portfolio, and I look at that and realize wait a minute, five different people worked on this project.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, great.
• 26:06
  SPEAKER_02: You worked on a team that did that, and that's great.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: But what did you do?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so now I have a concern is how much of your portfolio is actually your work versus somebody else's work.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_02: Do I want to hire you or your classmate?
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because maybe your classmate did all the hard work or did the work in the area I'm looking for.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_02: So try to make your portfolio items applicable for the industry you're applying to and hopefully your own.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_02: That means practice what you've learned and then show that off.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: And when I say industry you're applying to, you know what?
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_02: It's very cool that you have built a game.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: That might be a great way to show off some of your skills and it can be a great portfolio piece.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: But I kind of need to see something that that's in the maybe the business field.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_02: Or you know, if if I'm a, let's just say I'm a dentist's office and I'm looking to hire somebody to be my full-time employee to set up a website for me.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: And they're gonna work full-time with us because I've got a series of offices and I've got you know other dental agencies gonna connect with us as well, whatever.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if you had something that said, hey, here I built this portfolio piece, it's a maybe for realtors, or it's for you know somebody else that's that's kind of close.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_02: The closer it is, the closer I can go, I would like something like that.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_02: I want something like that.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas a game, I can see that you've built some cool stuff, but none of it can I go, I want one of those in my application.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: So the closer it is to what you're applying for, the better.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_02: Now, obviously you cannot create a portfolio item for every company you're applying for, but you kind of know what fields you're applying to, right?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: Usually it's business fields, and usually it's businesses that create some kind of line of business type application.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_02: So create a line of business application.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_02: Maybe you're applying to a bunch of retail organizations to work in their retail stores on a web application or website.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, then build a retail web application as well.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_02: That's two applications, a line of business one and a retail one.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: There's two demonstrations that first of all it can highlight what you can do, and second of all, can allow the interviewer to look at that and see themselves in your work and say, I want that person working for me.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_02: So create a portfolio that works well for you.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: Number four, proofread your resume.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_02: Hand it to somebody else, have them read it as well.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_02: Take the time, read it out loud.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: Reading out loud sometimes will help you spot the errors more easily than reading in your mind.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: So read it out loud, give it to somebody else, have them read it, make sure that it's clean, clear, and does not have any errors.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Number five, focus on outcomes.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_02: When you talk about what you have done for previous companies or organizations or what you have done when building applications, even talk about the outcomes.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, mention the technology that you built, but what did you do with that?
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_02: How did you leverage those skills to produce a good outcome for your employer?
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_02: Focus on the outcomes.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_02: Number six, build deeper skills rather than broader skills.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_02: This is a mistake a lot of new developers make.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_02: Is they say, okay, I just started learning C sharp.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_02: Should I learn React now?
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_02: No, absolutely not.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_02: Learn C sharp very well.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_02: And then from there, learn web development very well.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_02: And then add ASP.NET Core onto that, and then add Blazor.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then from there, figure out if you need, well, first of all, then learn JavaScript, and then figure out if you need to add React or Angular or Vue or something else.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_02: But learn all these other things first very deeply.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: Now that's just one example of a web developer.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_02: But the depth of your skill is much, much more important than the breadth of your skill.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: We can all say we've watched tutorials and done the hella world for 18, 20 different languages, probably.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's super easy to do.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_02: I can do three more in a weekend.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: Not a problem.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_02: That doesn't mean I'm good at any of those languages.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: And if you want to stand out from the crowd, you need to have depth to your skill, not just breadth.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: And then number seven, build relationships in the community.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_02: Software developers often think that they want to be isolated from everybody else.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: But you know what?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: It's really important who you know.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_02: If I want a job right now, I can list for you a dozen people I could talk to and say, hey, I'm looking for a job.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_02: Do you have something?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: And they would recommend me.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_02: Now, I have been in this industry a long time.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_02: I have been much more out in the industry than some people.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_02: But even back when I was a developer that nobody knew, I had a list of two or three or four people that I could talk to.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't always get a job out of that.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I never had those relationships because I needed a job.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_02: I built those relationships because they were other software developers.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_02: And you know what?
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: Talking to other developers can really help build your skills.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_02: You kind of have that idea of you rubbing up against each other and sharpening each other to be better developers, to introduce new topics into each other's skill sets, to really kind of push each other forward, get a community group, some group that's like made.NET focused.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_02: So there's a dot, there's actually two different.NET groups in Dallas.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_02: Well, go to one of those if you're in the Dallas area.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_02: Well, find where one of those is online or in your area if you're in a.NET community.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_02: So build relationships with other developers because that will be a big deal when it comes time for you finding a job.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_02: Not just trying to blindly cold call companies and say, hey, hire me.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_02: Having a relationship will be a big push forward.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_02: I have got a number of jobs because of relationships.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_02: So yes, I'm a good developer, and yes, I could get hired on my merits alone.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_02: But it's a whole lot easier when I can talk to a person and say, hey, I need a job.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if they have something, they say, yeah, I got one for you.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_02: Or if they don't, maybe they have a friend who can say, Hey, I've got someone I recommend for this job.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_02: Can you talk to them?
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: So build relationships in the community.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_02: So those are the seven things.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: Again, not all of the eight things, those bad things, not all of them are things you're doing necessarily, but try and correct those and then try to implement these seven things to stand out from the crowd.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: Because, yes, there's always going to be a crowd of developers, but the more you can do to stand out from the crowd, the better you will be.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_02: It will launch your career forward.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_02: It will increase your chance of getting a job by a lot.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: So I encourage you, figure out how to make yourself stand out.
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_02: All right, thanks for listening.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_02: And as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_01: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_01: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.