Reflective between Thanksgiving plates…
Actively applying to software engineering jobs includes refining my process with self-learning and learning about the tech industry and what they are looking for is vital to staying focused and inflow towards the end-goal(s).
Happy Thanksgiving and Holiday Season. Today’s blog will take a slight reflective detour from data structures and algorithms learning, as a Flatiron School Software Engineering Bootcamp graduate. I invite y’all to read on and enjoy your sips of coffee, tea, wine, and/or water from the endless browsing tabs and windows with the job hunts and studies. Being serious and responsible about one’s professional journey is not an easy sugary satisfaction kind of feat.
Currently, experiencing a holiday food coma…
As a career changer breaking into tech is a massive transformation and a doable one. Stay focused and be easy on yourself — no burnout necessary here. Start by cultivating your responses to “why” or “tell me about yourself” to curve a concise yet compelling story. I want more articles from Bootcamp graduates about their job hunt processes in real-time. On the contrary, there are endless reflections articles with job hunt advice after getting the job and possibly a few months into the new job — totally understandable.
As a reminder: We are interviewing for a company to transition into with our new skills so we must also interview them as they interview us, to discern where and how we will spend our next 3 to 6 months to 12 months amongst our 3-to-5-year-plus marks— I hope this takes the edge off.
It is okay to take a breather, and I also need one myself — to work out these intrinsic and behavioral questions.
Chatting with tech professionals of various experience titles and academic backgrounds (i.e. CS degrees and Bootcamp certifications) to hiring managers is actually demystifying the distance I feel about imagining those next 3–5 years as a software engineer. Of course, with experience, the refinement of my career trajectory will change as we live and learn about those varied tech roles and opportunities. For instance, do you have the personality and endurance to integrate your technical skills with endless client-facing roles that could involve closing sales and deals aside from being strictly a technical writer and maintaining legacy code? Imagining our best selves in an ideal professional work environment, teams, projects, collaborations, and bosses or being your own CEOs can aid in imagining and answering the “why” and “tell about yourself”. Now, these are the possible building blocks to get there. As a Bootcamp graduate, I needed this. For some, starting one’s career as an apprentice with an established company is totally fine and dandy, as long as one is refining their roadmap to achieve those goals, with clear intentions to gain from such experiences— let’s go!
Achievement Tips for Software Engineering Bootcamp Graduates:
- Start vlogging and/or blogging to article your mind and words about code and projects.
- Start networking on LinkedIn and Twitter.
- Stay organized with your reminders so you do not feel overwhelmed. Google Calendar and Whiteboarding my tasks and responsibilities are helpful as a visual and conditional learner, myself.
- Remember your commitment to always learn and grow in the process, when things get rough — what is your “why”?
- Attend Meet Up’s.
- Be your own sounding boarding by speaking out loud your thoughts before any interview. In this digital world of Zoom’s, practice does make perfect.
Other questions to cement one’s tech journey:
- What can you gain from a mentorship(s)?
- How do you work through scenarios of handling rejections; refining interview questions and answers; tailoring specific cover letters towards unique industries in tech?
Thank you for reading. Have a wonderful holiday season.
Happy coding.
