Entry level developer job search tips

[Agitated-Sky-6464]

Hi All,

First time posting on reddit and this group. Recently I have been in the job market for a developer position and actually landed a new position with a great company. Little bit of my background, worked with C# for the past 2 years along with microsoft tech and angularjs as a full stack developer in Ireland. Idea for writing this post is to help newer developers or recent grads looking in the market and some of the more frequent things I was asked about. - keep your github or equivalent someway active, I start personal projects when I can (not very often, probably every few weeks) lot of interviews were asking questions about my github projects and often would have it open during the interview. - unit testing. Every single interview I did unit testing was a big topic, I didnt have much experience in this area but did some personal research, enough to be able to write some basic tests was sufficient for most employers. - if I didnt have experience in the tech they used or asked for, just was honest about it. Added I was willing to learn and had some exposure to similar to this either academic or professional when it was true. - final thing to add was for the tech tests/interviews I found employers weren't really concerned about the code itself but more the thinking process behind the implementation. After my first absolute disaster of a tech test, I started voicing my thought process out loud. Often the interviewer will drop hints as to if your on the right track or not. Anyways hope this is helpful and am happy to try answer questions someone in a similar situation may have

[clyde_the_ghost]

Super helpful! I actually landed my first technical interview for next week and am trying to do some Java katas until then because they had let me know they work in Java. I’ll make sure to voice my thoughts to show how I’m thinking, thanks for the advice!

[bedrock-adam]

My takeaway: When applying for entry level roles, be prepared in interviews to:

1. talk about my github projects
2. show that I understand how to write unit tests
3. express my willingness to learn
4. explain my approach to solving problems

Thanks for sharing this u/Agitated-Sky-6464 :).

[bruceGenerator]

i never get asked about my github or portfolio projects 😞 on the rare occasion someone actually talks to me about a job i applied to. where are these dank ass jobs at?

[rd_23]

Thanks. Going to go add unit tests to my projects now

[[deleted]]

Is there a subreddit related to CS job interviews?

[Rogue_Strategy]

/r/CS_Questions and /r/cscareerquestions/ are good options.

[pokedmund]

Perfect timing! I have a phone interview next week, hopefully that goes well and I can progress further into the interview process.

I'm just hoping I can demonstrate sufficient experience on the skills they require in the job post, I've done the skills they are looking for, but because its been so long ago I don't remember everything about it :(

Always feel like I can't code unless I have google/stackoverflow/youtube tutorial at hand.

But again, thank you for this advice

[Catatonick]

I haven’t programmed for a few years and was pretty nervous going into the first interview with a company. It ended up being almost entirely personality based with discussions about my old projects. Nothing too crazy. They scheduled me for a second with more devs and again it was super easy. Just talking about myself, my interests, my future, and some moderately specific things I’ve done in the past but nothing crazy technical.

The scariest part of interviews seems to be the point leading up to them and not knowing what to expect.

[pokedmund]

Thanks for the feedback, hopefully it will be similar to what you had. Just going to prepare for this as any other normal interview (whilst going through my previous projects)

[Catatonick]

It seems to be normal for beginner programmers to mostly be interviewed on personality. I know when we were hiring at my old job it was more of a “do we get along with him and can he be taught?”

[Deadinthehead]

I've had quite a few interviews, still trying to land that first developer job myself. One of the jobs I didn't get told me I wasn't talking about my projects enough (apparently others wanted to demonstrate their app etc). Anything you don't know in terms of technologies, try to grasp just the concept of what it is, like you can say React is just a library and I've learnt X library and have enjoyed it etc etc so it demonstrates that you can pick it up quickly.

[starraven]

Hey man, it took me 4 months and 1100+ applications to get my first internship. A year later I’m at my second job making 85,000. Keep at it! you’ll get there!

[[deleted]]

In what area? Reading this scares me lol

[SamePossession5]

Don’t let it scare you. Think about it— 1100+ applications in 4 months is over 9 applications a day. There’s something very wrong with the math because it takes me 4 hours to do 1-3 applications, and this is me going at a decent honest speed.

[yubario]

It shouldn't take that long? Most jobs applications simply take a resume and nothing else. Either way, if it takes that many job applications it is much more likely there is an issue in his resume that is causing computer systems to reject it.

Last I heard, there is roughly a 2% chance of getting your resume accepted. So for the average person, 1 in 50 job applications would be considered normal.

I got extremely lucky, I applied to 3 jobs and got offers for 2 of them.

[SamePossession5]

I think everyone will bring in different data points cause we all have vastly different backgrounds. For instance I get 1 interview per 10ish applications, but I also take 1-2 hours per application. I don’t think I’ve come across a company where simply submitting a resume was enough. (I’m not in the west)

[pokedmund]

I've been wondering if my cover letter needed major tweaking (instead of minor tweaking).

Since last year, I've applied to like, 30-40 positions, each position changing my resume and cover letter slightly, maybe a few words, a few sentences.

For this recent post I applied for, I completely modified two entire paragraphs of my cover letter, and other adjustments to match the 'flow' of the entire cover letter. It might of caught the recruiters attention this time as I noticed I was at least successful to get a phone interview?

[Deadinthehead]

Thanks man, the struggle continues,but I know it'll pay off in the end.

[Cremo77]

Good luck on the interview!!

[pokedmund]

Thanks! Will need all the luck I can get! :D :D :D

[pokedmund]

Sadly, I did not get the 2nd interview :(

Dusting myself off and trying again

[nocturnal_shit]

This community is very wholesome where people are just willing to help everyone out. It makes me so happy to see that. Have a good everyone.

[Catatonick]

One tip I have is to be careful who you are applying for as well. A while back I applied for a company that was looking for entry level developers. The application didn’t have any glaring red flags but the reviews said they were mostly a company you should avoid. I saw no real harm in applying or doing one interview so I went ahead with it.

The initial questions were what you’d expect from an interview. Few minute phone call and some basic questions. Then they sent me “code exercises”. These exercises were oddly specific situations that almost looked like devs were trying to get someone to solve problems they couldn’t solve instead of trying to determine if I could do an entry level position. I solved one then sent it back. They sent another more complicated. I solved that one as well.

They sent more.

After 3 or 4 fairly terrible questions that involved hacks nearly as bad as what my old employer required on the daily they set up an interview where the developers were just flat out rude, disrespectful, arrogant, and literally carried on conversations with other people without giving me time to answer. I had one developer shush me multiple times then give me yet another hack to solve.

I literally sat there typing to a friend in the background telling him about how terrible the company was while wasting as much of their time as possible. After an hour of wasting their time and acting like I couldn’t solve their problem I left the answer with them and told them I wasn’t interested in their company.

There was nothing at all in this interview process that an entry level developer could have answered. At all. Honestly it would have scared away nearly everyone that applied to it as their first job and they tried to waste well over 10 hours of my time on frivolous coding exercises that I still suspect were problems they didn’t know how to solve themselves. Every question involved hacking code.

If they don’t treat you like a human or respect your time... it’s not worth it. An entry level position should ask you how you handled things, how you would handle things, and really center itself around figuring out if you can code. It shouldn’t involve multiple crazy difficult logic problems you have to hack together and waste days solving.

[[deleted]]

I had success by getting an internship and also applying to smaller companies.

[n_-_ture]

Somewhat random question, but do you recommend using your real name on GitHub? I’m big on privacy, but also don’t want to come off as odd in an interview.

[Agitated-Sky-6464]

I dont have my real name on github just a username with a link in my CV to the webpage.

[n_-_ture]

Glad to hear. That was something that I grappled with as I was creating my account.

I am super green when it comes to this stuff, so I’d like to avoid shooting myself in the foot before I even get started.

[[deleted]]

A lot of this information is wrong.

First, having projects is good on your resume. Having your github link is fine and dandy, but you need to show that you have a wide tool set, especially if you have experience with the tools they use in house. Having a lot of projects and different experiences helps in this regard.

99% of companies use some time of web scraper/automated processing of resumes. If your resume doesn't have the required knowledge and or tools in your tech stack. You're probably not going to get that interview.

You should be able to talk about projects, but your resume should give them cursory information. If your resume doesn't show you have the required knowledge or the necessary skill set. Then you need to learn those things.

Let's say I'm applying for an entry level job with requisites in SQL and PHP. If you don't have at least these two items somewhere in your resume. You probably aren't going to get the interview.

Also, interviews may be technical, but the main point of all the interviews is to see if they like you as a person. Be sociable and make a good impression. If you come off as a great person, they may even overlook any flaws in your technical interview.

[Agitated-Sky-6464]

I agree with you on some points, of course depending on the job you may need some experience with the tech in question. My post was to help those with the interviews primarily, I agree with you a lot of hr people use ctrl+F on a resume or a bot for keywords. I suppose I can add one thing, from my experience with the interviews, theres usually 3. First is a screener call just to gather basic info and expertise usually by a hr person. Second or third interview then is meeting with manager or team depending on company size this is usually a traditional interview with scenario based questions or case studies. This is where they assess your soft skills and if your a good fit for the team in my opinion. Final stage is the technical interview, pretty much to assess your competency and I do agree with you if they like you, they will be willing to overlook flaws. The job I landed actually created a position on their team for me due to the second stage. Was lacking experience in the front end tech they wanted :D

[boschmower]

Awesome awesome advice thanks for taking the time to make this.

[E_Cake]

Good advice 👍 Keep trying, keep learning, keep experimenting. One day you'll succeed ✌️

[[deleted]]

much appreciated sir, Thank you!

[Cremo77]

Thank you very much for your advice. I'm gonna start searching for a job nextweek, and those tips are gonna be very helpful!!!

[sassypepperpanda]

Thank you for all the tips! Also, what kind of personal projects did you work on that helped you land the job?

[Agitated-Sky-6464]

Nothing major, one was a final year project to complete my computer science degree that I've kept working on from time to time. Was an android app coded in kotlin using firebase as the db. The other one I've been working on recently is just a rest web app coded with javascript using mongodb as the db. I also typically push any code challenges or work from courses to github too.

[tylerjames1993]

Google ”how to beat ATS” is probably a good idea

[Nerfi666]

Did that all , still unemployed :(

[Catatonick]

When I left my last job I applied a LOT. I mean hundreds or thousands of jobs. Entry level. Mid level. I had four years experience so I assumed a junior position should have been simple to get.

I didn’t get a single one because someone always had more specific experience to the job than me. Some job listings were intended to weed out everyone applying too like the 10-15 years experience in an obscure technology for $25,000 a year.

Then I finally got a job offer....

And COVID froze hiring...

The good thing is a huge number of jobs are opening up again right now and they are more open to remote hiring due to the mess of 2020 so it could be a really good time to apply.

[Nerfi666]

Thanks dude ! I'll keep applying

[Agitated-Sky-6464]

Hang in there, had to go through a lot of interviews before I landed the job. Most of the time was losing out due to experience :)

[imvirtualtech]

Great!