This post is part of the #4Articles4Weeks challenge
Introduction
The first job is a crucial moment in most cases because it breaks the ice, and walls of fear and pave our way to a better understanding of the industry.
In this post, I want to talk about my process and experience to get my first job and share some resources and takeaways that could help you to get yours.
I will break down the process in three stages:
- Curiosity-driven learning
- Getting ready for jobs
- Impostor syndrome and job offer.
Curiosity-driven learning
The first stage of my process started the year after learning English in an English Immersion Program of In my last year at the university, I started to research more content in English and was like the world opened after me. I got into sololearn in the play store and started taking the courses. They were gamified curses with examples and that feeling of game, XP, and challenge because we could compete with other users kept me engaged.
I took many of them (PHP, Python, Java, HTML, CSS, SQL, javascript, jquery) and did many code bits to practice My Presentation, JBook
After finishing I got more serious downloaded Atom and started using github, by the time Atom was another chakra opener in my journey because out of curiosity to know how it was built using web technologies and fall into Electron and started coding my own note taking app using Electron (they had a very good guide in their site) taking ideas from their apps show case I learned and improved a lot while doing that app and searching for ways to do things I wanted to do with the app.
Atom the editor that paved the way for VS Code.
Getting ready for jobs
I was feeling happy with programming and web technologies that year, so I read Job posts from my country, Identified the things they mentioned that I felt I didn't have, and took courses to add certifications to my CV.
- freeCodeCamp
- Udacity's JavaScript Design Patterns, taught me how to refactor and avoid spaghetti code
Those courses complemented well each other because with Udacity projects I picked up Vue in the framework section, and for FreeCodeCamp I learned to react to do some projects by reading the docs and searching the topics I need to complete the projects.
Impostor syndrome and job offer
"Am I ready for the real world?"
This was a question I constantly asked myself In my Job search period, the companies in my local city received my CV but did not answer me (fun fact, both of the companies I applied for answered once I got a job)
I had built a decent portfolio with practical showcases of my abilities, maybe it was a matter of thinking out of the box I thought.
I participated in a community called chingu (it was free at the time) to acquire experience working in a team.
I gained momentum and my confidence at the top, and started applying for jobs in the capital city of my country even though I didn't have everything listed in the requirements I was sure if I got the chance I would perform at a high level.
And here I am 4+ years later.
Takeaways & closing
Try to be a practical learner, if you are learning from a tutorial take the concepts and build something different because that will increase your problem-solving skills.
Learn how to sell yourself you don't need to know everything but you need to show confidence when talking about the things you know and the capacity/curiosity to research the things you don't know yet.
Don't wait to have everything listed in a job post, start applying and take the risk because the worst-case scenario won't affect change current state but the best one will give you the job.
Opportunities will always be there but we have to be prepared.
Thanks for reading, good luck if you are searching for your first job, I hope you find this post useful and have a great day.