Resume Livestream Today, How I Entered The Industry, Iterative Job Hunting
Schusterian Logic Weekly Newsletter - 11/6/21
LiveStream Today! 10 AM EST
Come join me as I do my first LiveStream! I’m hoping to have a blast. See the link below:
How I Entered The Software Industry - Part 1
I realize that over the last few months with you folks I haven’t actually spent a ton of time on how, exactly, I got into the industry. I’m making an effort to change that by spending some time telling my story in podcast form.
This week, I tackle one of the origins of my technical journey, working for my parent’s sleepy insurance company. I think you’ll find it interesting. Enjoy.
What Is Most Important In Job Hunting?
I have some of the best discussions in my private messages (seriously, reach on Twitter or LinkedIn). This one with Phil Brown was quite good and actually sparked a new podcast idea. Here’s our conversation:
Phil
Definitely going to have to improve my process as far as interview prep but I am sure that comes with more experience and practice!
What do you see being the most important thing for new developers to focus on in the job search?
Schuster
That's a good question. Overall, I see a few things as being critical:
1. Finding a good role fit for your background. You should be applying to jobs with a range of experience expectations (not just entry-level, but mid-level as well), but you should be applying to roles where your resume clearly indicates you have a background. So tweaking your resume to fit a particular role category (front end vs backend, etc.) and then finding a TON of jobs to apply to is key.
2. Persistance in applying. ONce you have a strategy, your goal should be to apply to as many jobs as you can with that role. The best strategy I've heard of required applying to five roles a day, every day until he got a job. That sort of persistence will help in the long-term when informed with a good role fit.
3. Continue to iterate. Your resume should change as you learn new things about yourself. You should be experimenting. If you apply to 50 jobs and get 0 interviews, that's a sign you need to be trying something else. So you should be continuing to experiment, updating your resume, applying to different roles, etc. until you find something that works.
4. Do not neglect networking and other experiences. You should have time outside of your job hunt to continue networking and finding experiences to bolster your resume. It should be things that strategically improve your resume and open up new resume possibilities. If you haven't already, read through the Micro-experience framework to get an idea of how to structure this: https://schusterian.substack.com/p/how-to-get-the-experience-before
And another good question from Phil on resume summaries and having ‘minimal’ experience:
Phil
Yes, it helps a ton! What's your personal take on a brief summary at the beginning of a resume? I'm not sure how to effectively implement it with zero "years" experience as a dev, other than referencing my prior background.
Schuster
Well, you don't have 0 years, you have your Bootcamp education, project work and side projects. So don't take that away from yourself.
I am a fan of summaries: they are a good compromise between a cover letter and nothing. Really, it should be telling a story about your interest in the industry, as well as what you've done to show you are in a particular role. Doesn't have to be long, but the personality in it helps get people's attention.
Building Schusterian Careers Out In The Open
I usually like to feature educators and industry professionals to help my audience. But this week I’ve invested my time in developing my idea for Schusterian Careers out on the Minimalist Entrepreneur Twitter community.
I’ve started out by splitting my personal brand from Schusterian Careers. They’re both going to be effectively me for the short-term, but in my personal brand I can focus on the industry and my people, and the brand can focus on the content and promotion.
You can join the Minimalist Entrepreneur community to see all the threads (I can’t share them here for some reason), but here’s a few highlights:
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