Succeeding in your career efforts is not easy, so make it a routine:
Don't wait until you "learn enough". There's always more to learn, and it's best to get started with any kind of a simple project right now.
Even just taking the code from a specialization and tinkering with it will do you wonders for your confidence and the speed at which you acquire new knowledge.
The more you practice, the better you'll retain what you've learned.
Plus having projects will showcase what you've learned to others!
Technical communication is important for developers, and just like anything else, you get better with practice.
Starting a coding blog will work the same as having a GitHub account, with some the[sic] additional benefits:
Even if just starting out, you can still be a valuable contributor to open-source projects.
So many open source projects are in demand for all kinds of contributors.
Even fixing typos in documentation is a great start.
This is self explanatory, you're already doing this, so keep on trucking!
Some times you get tired, start doubting yourself, some times you think you're doing the wrong thing and feel like giving up.
Just remember to stay consistent.
There are always ups and downs in life, but sometimes it's worth it to think of all the things you've achieved so far and use that as a motivations to keep at it.
This is self explanatory.
I say this as a former recruiter and someone who went through a bootcamp myself: applying to jobs is good, but networking is even better. I landed my first job through networking.
Going into it, know that you will face a LOT of rejection but you only need one “yes” to land your first job. Here is how you do it.
Start by identifying 20 companies you’d like to work for. It doesn’t matter if they have current openings for junior developers or not. Just brainstorm 20 companies you could envision working at.
Next, set a goal of sending a connection to at least 10 people from each company per month on LinkedIn. It does not matter if they are a hiring manager, recruiter, or regular employee. In fact, regular employees are your best bet here and I’ll explain why in a moment.
If you have 20 companies you’d like to work for and want to attempt to connect with 10 people from each company per month, that’s 200 connections you need to send.
Break this into small, daily goals. Personally, I’d break this down into 10 connections per day, which really isn’t even all that much work. This way you send 50 connections per week (Monday through Friday), which equates to 200 per month.
Breaking it down this way also gives you the added benefit of still having time to apply for jobs, work on your coding projects, etc. The key is to set small, reasonable goals each day so you feel a sense of progress. This is very important.
Do not overthink who you are connecting with. However, I would at least try to connect with people in the IT department.
Start with a message no longer and no shorter than this: “Hi {name}! My name is so-and-so and I’m interested in applying to {company} someday as a junior developer. I see that you work there as a {title}. I’m really curious to learn a bit more about what your experience has been like. Would you mind accepting my connection and sharing a few of your thoughts? Thanks in advance!.
If you send 200 of these per month, I’d estimate 100 will accept and 100 will reject you.
Out of the 100 who accept, I’d say only about 10-20 of them will truly take the time to respond in any meaningful way. Don’t worry, these are FANTASTIC numbers if you get such a response rate. As a former recruiter, we had to do similar outreach on LinkedIn to FIND candidates and it was considered outstanding if you had a 10% response rate.
Out of the 10-20 or so who respond, roughly half will provide any meaningful dialogue back and forth. But once you’ve had an opportunity to ask them a few questions (and hopefully they are interested in learning more about you), THAT is when you ask them to be a referral for you.
Remember earlier when I said regular employees are your best bet? The reason for that is because A) recruiters and hiring managers are very busy and get bombarded with messages like this all day. But B) most companies have referral programs that everyday employees can take advantage of.
You reaching out to them is practically like money falling in their lap if they refer you. And if you show genuine interest in them and their company, why wouldn’t they refer you?
The key is that you need to be prepared to face the 190 rejections for every 10 meaningful connections you make. If you do this over 3-6 months you’ll face 500-1,000 rejections, but you’ll end up with 30-60 people who will literally be fighting over each other to submit you as a referral.
Trust me when I say, networking is the key.