Landing a Job in IT

Why a Guide?

The popularity of IT jobs is growing, and every day more people are attempting a career switch or young individuals are deciding to become IT professionals. However, many do not understand what is necessary to get a job or how to find opportunities. I am writing this article to synthesize all the experiences and lessons I have had and give back some of the help I received, so others can make more informed decisions or train and look for a job more efficiently.

Why is it Hard to Get a Job?

Even though there is a high demand for IT jobs, there is also a lot of competition. More importantly, nothing demonstrates your value like your previous work experience. Therefore, if you don't have experience, it is VERY difficult for a company to want to hire you. However, this doesn't mean that people without experience (trainee, entry-level, or junior, depending on the company) are not being hired. There are companies and individuals betting on the value of inexperienced people, but given the competitive factor, it is very difficult to get hired. This makes it important to understand several key concepts:

Any IT job is a PROFESSIONAL job. No one would expect to work as a doctor, lawyer, or many other professions with only one year of study. Similarly, you have to understand that you are looking for an opportunity to prove yourself as a professional, so it is expected that you need to train diligently and dedicate a lot of time. Some people get jobs in less than a year (from when they start studying), but these are exceptions. I recommend not imposing a deadline or having expectations about when you will get a job.

What matters most are your efforts, but they have to be demonstrated. A person without experience generally has basic knowledge in a specific area; very few people manage to have excellent understanding and skills without work experience, regardless of their education. For this reason, nothing demonstrates your desire to learn and, above all, to get a job and dedicate yourself to the IT world like constantly enrolling in courses and consistently doing projects. If you don't have experience and are currently doing nothing, your past loses relevance. Someone who keeps giving 100% each day to learn more and be better will always be more valuable.

The job opportunity is not going to fall from the sky (usually). You have to learn to have a good presence on LinkedIn and GitHub and dedicate hours to job searching (explained later).

About Training

The educational offer for IT professionals is HUGE and continues to grow daily; not only in 2, 3, 5, or more year degrees but also in courses, certifications, bootcamps, etc., from universities, institutes, or companies.

People who study university/tertiary degrees usually have a broader and/or deeper education that will allow them to find jobs more easily and/or in more positions. This is a fact. Bootcamps, certifications, and courses of hundreds of hours are also a great source for people eager to become IT professionals, although in this case, they are usually not enough or, at most, they are enough for a very limited market (i.e., for a single junior-level job).

If you are studying a degree: good for you, you are on a safer path to getting a job, whether it is the role you want or maybe another one. If you study in bootcamps and similar: very good, but I advise you to continue training while also taking other actions (explained later). If you are currently not studying (and don't have a job): keep studying. Don't think of each educational instance as an obligation from start to finish, but demonstrating that you are still interested in improving and learning will make you stand out much more than people who only have a certification, course, or bootcamp (even if you have a degree but haven't found a job yet, I advise you to enroll in a cert. and put it on your CV, LinkedIn, etc., and if you finished a bootcamp or cert., I advise you to enroll in a university/faculty, it doesn't matter if you don't finish later).

About Personal Projects

Every development student (or other areas) does practical work as part of their training. These works are usually very generic and individual and are not of great value. It is advisable to show them in your portfolio or CV first, but try not to highlight them too much. It is better to be humble and aware of how much you still need to learn than to pretend to know too much (it shows). These are the best tips in this regard:

Enroll in job simulation organizations. There are many advantages you will get from this, the greatest being that you will meet people who possibly know more than you, and you can learn to be better. They can also help you find a job, and the group project will have much more value than the typical generic projects mentioned earlier (I recommend putting these projects on LinkedIn, naming your teammates so that recruiters can verify that you have experience working in a team). Soft skills are very important, and this last point shows that you are developing them. Do technical challenges. Before doing individual projects, I advise you to do Technical Challenges. If companies are not giving you challenges yet, you can search on Google and YouTube, and you will find numerous challenges. These projects are much more valuable and will give you more confidence in yourself. Do different and USEFUL projects. Companies and recruiters are not very interested in your generic project number 83 (which you may have done just by cloning a repo or following a tutorial). Think of a real project that interests you and that perhaps real users want to use. If it works well, you will have to learn to maintain a real application, and that is extremely valuable. An active GitHub demonstrates your dedication. Beyond the projects you do, having your commit history show that you are giving 100% to learn and improve will give you a better chance of getting a job.

About LinkedIn

Many things are not said about LinkedIn, and since the information is long, I will summarize it in brief points:

  • Put a profile and banner photo (as professional as possible).
  • Use a good headline: this helps recruiters find you, so think about how they would search for someone for a position ("Angular developer", "React developer", "Python developer", "Backend Java developer", "Frontend developer", etc.). Avoid putting obvious technologies that no one will search for (like HTML and CSS).
  • Highlight your Portfolio, Resume, and GitHub. Your first section should be "Featured" with these three elements.
  • Make a BRIEF description. The trend is towards shorter times, so don't expect someone to want to read 15 lines of text. Stay concise and describe yourself as a professional in 6 lines or less.
  • Complete your profile. Upload your educational, work experiences, and certifications; stay concise but add all relevant data.
  • Add your skills and validate them. People with more validations stand out more than those with fewer, so if you want recruiters to find you, get validations from colleagues.
  • Set job alerts with Boolean strings. A good idea is to follow this template: "(trainee OR entry OR junior OR jr) AND (frontend OR backend OR fullstack OR developer OR desarrollador OR software) AND (javascript OR react OR angular)" (without quotes). That is, (seniority) AND (position) AND (languages/technologies), and set job alerts in your country (don't filter by remote, on-site, etc.) and in other countries (only remote).
  • Add relevant contacts. Contacts are very important as they make you visible on the platform. If you have few contacts, you won't appear to recruiters. Try adding recruiters and/or people in your area, especially if they have many contacts. Also, try to send a note whenever you can, being friendly and thinking about establishing a good professional relationship (not just asking for a job).
  • Follow all relevant companies. This will help LinkedIn show you better job recommendations, and it is also advisable to check job openings on the companies' pages, as not all vacancies appear in regular searches.
  • If you don't have LinkedIn Premium, look for employees of the companies. When you see a job opening, you can go to the company and filter people by "recruiter", "HR", "human capital", "talent", etc., to find people who might be in charge of that particular search. At the very least, you will gain contacts, and it might even give you more visibility. Also, note that just visiting their profile will notify the other person, which increases your visibility.

About Your Resume

Following all the above explanations, the resume should follow these general guidelines:

  • Be CONCISE and READABLE. Sections should be easily locatable, and the content should be short and easy to read.
  • Highlight only what is worth highlighting. Don't try to highlight something that isn't worth it; sobriety is better.
  • Add all relevant information, no matter how small it may seem. Especially if you don't have anything remarkable, although always try to be as concise as possible.
  • Generally, it is not necessary to include a photo or complex designs. Perhaps for UX/UI or general design positions, but mostly simpler designs are recommended. You can play mostly with fonts and colors for emphasis.
  • Three levels of writing:
  • Verbose writing with too many words and adjectives: this is bad for a resume; remember to be concise and avoid subjectivity.
  • Writing with task lists and numerical facts: this is good writing that shows truths about you as a professional.
  • Writing with IMPACT: if you can turn the numbers and lists into the IMPACT of your work, into what your good performance generated, this is the winning writing (always being concise).

Remember, no one expects a person without experience to be an expert in their field, so forget about trying to demonstrate that if you don't have verifiable experience or real applications used by real users. What you want to show is constant study and work, that you've made progress and keep on doing so, ensuring companies that from day one, you will be giving your best to become a valuable team member.

About English

For none english speakers Yes, in some companies, English is an important requirement, but this is not the same for all companies. Don't think that you won't get a job because of English; it is more likely that you won't get a job because you stopped studying or doing projects, because you don't have a "good" resume or portfolio, or because you are not using LinkedIn correctly.

Important Concepts to Learn

  • Pseudocode and Flowcharts: don't spend too much time, but it is important to know these things.
  • Algorithms: whether in pseudocode, flowcharts, or code, it is important to practice your logic and algorithm implementation.
  • Design Patterns: one of the key concepts of software development.
  • Design and Production: not everything is code; it also helps to know how to design, plan, test, automate CI/CD, and deploy. This will make you stand out a lot.
  • Cloud: knowing how to handle AWS, Google Cloud, IBM Cloud, and/or Microsoft Azure will definitely be a huge plus, often requested in job searches.
  • Soft Skills: yes, it is extremely important to learn to work in a team, be respectful, adequately express your ideas and concerns, know how to ask for help, and contribute.
  • Be a generalist first, a specialist later. It is almost impossible to be a specialist without being a generalist; a deep understanding of an area involves a basic understanding of surrounding areas. Don't be afraid to briefly venture into different technologies. It will give you a broader perspective, a better understanding of development, demonstrate your adaptability, and make you stand out more (still, try to maintain a focus, both in your training and experiences and online presence).

Recap

Those who always keep studying and working hard, and also know how to use LinkedIn and prepare their resume and/or portfolio, will find a job. The basic rules for the latter are always being concise and sober, highlighting what is important, and minimizing what is not. And even then, you need a bit of luck and patience. The first job can come in 6 months as well as in a few years, but if you keep striving without giving up, the only certainty is that you will find it someday.

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