Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 226. Why You Aren't Landing Your Dream Development Job

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226. Why You Aren't Landing Your Dream Development Job · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If you've tried to get a job in software development recently, you probably ask yourself the question, why am I not getting the jobs I'm applying for?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: In this episode of Dev Questions, we're going to talk about why you're having a hard time when applying for jobs.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the DevQuestiPodcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: Software development is more than just writing code.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the rest of it.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Specifically, let's talk about why you're not landing your dream job.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now, there are a number of reasons why you might be struggling to get a job in today's market.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start with a few of the reasons I hear that are not typically the problem.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And these may even turn into excuses.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, there are too many people applying.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to an extent, this is true.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of people apply for one position.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: However, someone is going to get that job.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to talk about why that might not be you.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, companies aren't actually hiring.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Lots of companies are hiring.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: The reason they didn't hire you isn't some crazy conspiracy.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Very few companies post jobs just to mess with you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, I would say no, none of them do, but there may be an example.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Even less are going to pay to list a job for no reason.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the issue.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, reasonslash excuse.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: Companies are replacing developers with AI.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just no, this is not happening.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, you may find a company or two that try it.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: They may even make grand announcements about how they're going to do it.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: You may see all this scare tactics about development jobs going away.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there are companies that are out there that will try anything to pay less for developers.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean they succeed or that they stick with that plan.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, outsourcing took away all the jobs.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the US, software development is one of the fastest growing fields for employment.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: Companies in general are not finding success in simply outsourcing their development.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, Google, Microsoft, or Amazon just laid off people, so the developer jobs are drying up.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: First, big companies have overhired during COVID, and now they're shedding their excess employees.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is normal.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Now it is a poor way to trade people, but it's normal for those larger companies.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Second, the majority of development jobs in the US are not at those big companies.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: They represent the minority.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: So if those five reasons aren't the reasons why you're not getting a job, what is the reason?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: After reviewing thousands of resumes at various levels of software development jobs, I've come up with four main categories for why people don't get the job they applied for.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, these might hurt a little, but you need to listen.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, you aren't clear about your job skills.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so your resume is hard to read.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_00: There's paragraphs of information, there's tons of skills, there's you know no clear coherence.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's pages and pages long.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you're not clear about your skills, it's gonna be very hard to hire you.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: So when I see 30 skills on a resume, I almost immediately throw it away.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you say 30 skills, then you're not saying what you're best at.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: You're saying, I've seen that once.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I've actually talked to people who say, oh yeah, I saw that once, so I put my resume.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's not going to work.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, that's gonna get your resume thrown away.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So you're not being clear about your skills.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Or your portfolio might be missing, or it might be poorly done.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've seen portfolios where people say, well, the only thing I can put in my portfolio is the group project I did in college.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, what did you do on that group project?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, which means I can't use that.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so I don't really have anything to base your supposed skills on.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're not showing me what you can do.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: You're not standing out in the crowd.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: If there's a hundred people applying for a job and you decide not to be clear about what you can do, not to show off what you can do, and not to be in some way spectacular, well, what do you expect?
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: You're not going to get picked.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: So you need to figure out how you can be clear about your skills.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's the first thing to think about when evaluating why you're not getting a job.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're not being clear about your skills.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Number two, here's a pet peeve of mine: you lie about your skills.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: If I catch you lying, you're done.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're done.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can't trust anything.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: If I see something I say I know that's a lie, resume goes away.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: You're done.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get blacklisted.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if you say you're an expert in too many categories, I've seen people who have listed 15, 20 things that they're expert in.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, I can't trust that.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I'm not saying you're maliciously lying there.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You may just be overestimating yourself, but that's still a lie.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: So don't overestimate what you can do.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or you may say you have skill levels that don't match up with what you show.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you say, I've been working with C sharp for 20 years.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: But if your your portfolio item shows a very basic junior level understanding of C sharp, those things don't match.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: So now I have to question every other thing in the resume to say, yeah, but if they say that's expert and that's what they gave me, then I can't trust anything else, which means the resume goes away.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: I seen this happen too, claiming the work of others as your own.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: I had a job listening just recently for a senior C sharp developer that I posted.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the people cloned a fairly popular repository and then deleted all the information.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't really clone it, they downloaded the repository, they re-uploaded it as their own, they changed all the names in all the commits to be their name, and they reworked everything.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: They spent a lot of time trying to erase the actual author's information.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: I found out because it was pretty obvious.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so when I saw that, I got really upset.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, that person is blackballed, they will never work for me.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: But also, I reached out and talked to some people about that because that's not okay.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do not claim the work of others as your own, accidentally or otherwise.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: If you clone a repository to make changes, make sure you're up front about that.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, that's fine.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: You absolutely find your clone a repository.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Clone it and then make changes and say, these changes, this is what I did.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Don't erase the original author's work.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: I've also seen people who say that they have more years of experience in a language than the language has been around for.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's an obvious mistake, and I know that people now are trying to think around those things, but that's a lie.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you say I've got 10 years' experience and the language has been out for five years, again, everything else about your resume is suspect, which means the resume goes away.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: So don't lie about your skills and experience.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: Number three, this is gonna hurt a little bit, but you're not as good a developer as you think you are.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Someone has to be honest, and it really needs to be you with yourself.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: When you overestimate your skills, then you apply for jobs that aren't in your ability to get done.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that will shine through.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And when it does, you will have pretty much no shot to get those jobs.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you did get that job, it's going to be obvious and you're going to have a hard time or get fired.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: So don't apply for jobs that are way above what you've done.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I encourage you to apply for jobs that you're not fully qualified for.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: Almost every job posting is above and beyond what that person really should be.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is always going to be some flexibility about, well, we asked for five years' experience, but if you have four, but you have three over here or something else, that's okay.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: These things happen.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's okay to apply to positions that may be a little beyond you or that are that you don't meet all the requirements for.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: But don't assume that you are better than you actually are.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: For example, again, I had a job opening for a senior C sharp developer.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Senior C sharp developer.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: I had people apply who have never worked as a C sharp developer.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's not senior.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I might have even considered them if they had a portfolio that would prove they had high levels of skill.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: But they didn't.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: So don't overestimate your experience.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Your skills are important, but be careful that your skills aren't basically that you watched a bunch of videos on a topic.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: As a person who creates videos, I know that some people will watch my videos one after the other after the other.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: And that's great.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to do that, if if it works for you, great.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: But I'm telling you, you're not gaining those skills by just watching my videos.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: You may remember a few things, you may pick a few things up, but you're not gaining those skills.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: You gain those skills with experience by building something with that.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So build something with it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Prove that you know what you can do.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: I have people tell me, oh, I'm really struggling to get a job.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: I know how to be a junior developer, but I just don't know how to build applications.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, then no, you don't.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: You're not a junior developer yet.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't know how to build applications, you're not ready yet.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: Start building applications.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: Try it out.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Fail.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Do it again and again and again until you start having success.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Not large applications, tiny ones.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but start somewhere and build up.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So make sure that you don't overthink about who you are or think about yourself in too large of a light.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: You might not be as good as you think you are, and that overestimation is going to cause you problems when you're trying to get a job.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: Number four, someone else is better.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is the fourth reason why you might not get the job.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: Someone is always better than you.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you may be the best in the pool, but there's someone out there better than you.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: So it's okay.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you're going to apply for a job that you're perfect for and you know you could do it great, and someone else gets the job.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that may just be the case that other person was better than you.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, they had more.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: But make sure you go through steps one through three first because more often it's that you didn't represent your skills well, that you didn't show off what you could do, that you maybe had some things in your resume that are questionable, or maybe you overestimate who you are.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so start with those things first, but someone might be better than you.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now don't use this as an excuse.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Use it as motivation.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: So this is why you need to continually improve.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because you want to be the person that's better than somebody else.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: You want to be the person that beats out others for that job.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So use it as motivation.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I didn't get that job.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's because that other person is better than me.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna make sure that I continue to improve my skills and continue to improve my experience, continue to polish my resume, continue to add to my portfolio so that I can be better for next time.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so those are the four reasons.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: So the job market can be tough, but you can stand out.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that employers can't read your mind, and they aren't impressed by your hello world projects in 15 different languages.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, add to your skills, but go deeper, not just wider.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's a number of people that their resume is React and Angular and Vue and C sharp and ASP.net and Blazor and MVC and slow down.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Which of those things have you worked in with any depth?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, none.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, let's move on.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: You're not standing up, okay?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: So don't skip around.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Go deeper into one area and then practice what you've learned.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Push yourself to get better, and then show off what you can do to potential employers via your resume and your portfolio.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: Stand out from the crowd.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: You've got this.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: As always, I am Tim Corey.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to IamtimCorey.com and enroll in a course.