Whether you just graduated college, or finished a Software Developer bootcamp to facilitate a career transition, there are a few tried and true ways to showcase your expertise and land a job as a Software Developer.
4 Ways To Get Hired As A Software Developer
1. Create a portfolio
You may not have extensive, on-the-job experience, but every project you completed in your training or as a side hobby can be added to your portfolio. As a rule of thumb, if you say you are skilled in a particular language or type of software development you should have a project to back that up. Even more importantly, you should bring your portfolio or easily reference it while you are on your software developer interview. This not only shows your skills but the time you took to properly prepare for the interview; both big wins for you.
If you are contemplating a class to help you on your journey to the software development field, ask if the class is project based. We develop our career transition programs, including Software Developer Foundations, as project-based classes because we recognize the value a diverse portfolio provides you on your job hunt.
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2. Prepare for the technical interview
We outline a full list of potential interview questions on our blog post, How To Prepare For a Software Developer Interview. The quick take though is that you will be asked technical questions during your interview. These may be prompts to provide technical definitions, whiteboard a solution or complete basic technical functions. No matter the specific question, you need to showcase your technical expertise; charm alone will not get you far.
3. Don’t oversell yourself
This relates to the first two bits of advice, if you cannot showcase your work in an area and you are not confident you can answer technical questions about it, then don’t include it on your resume. You can’t realistically talk your way through the technical know-how you actually need to know how to do the things you claim. So take a brutal, honest look at your abilities and only include the ones you are confident you can back-up on the spot. Trust us, it is way worse to over-sell and under-deliver than the opposite.
4. People skills still matter
While you 100% need to have the technical skills to showcase in the interview, your people skills will also play a vital role. In many instances, your first interview will be a phone interview with HR or someone in a non-technical role. You will still be asked some technical questions, but you also need to translate your personality and enthusiasm for the company over the phone, video conference and in emails between interviews. Try to tap into your extroverted side, this will be definite a bonus and help you stand out among your competition.
Do You Have The Right Technical Skills For A Career In Software Development?
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