How to enhance your chances of getting hired as a programmer.

This story is written for helping Pakistan CS students and fresh graduates on Software Development Pakistan Facebook group for making a better attempt at finding job as a programmer/software developer. These guidelines however aren’t specific to Pakistan software industry.

Students and fresh graduates who are struggling with finding a job, you can choose to blame the system like everyone else in Pakistan or continue improving using whatever resources you have and eventually find a job.

Following are some guidelines which I hope will help you do a better job at self-improvement and job application process.

• Make hobby projects. Most successful programmers I know coded not only because it paid their bills but they were personally invested in solving challenging problems through programming. Solve a problem, make a website, a game or anything else that you think will solve a problem. Bonus points if you maintain a GitHub profile, keep your projects there, and contribute to open source.
• Your CV is reflecting your profile to the recruiter. Recruiters don’t spend more than a few seconds to a CV and if they find a spelling or grammatical mistake in it, it is highly likely they aren’t going to give another look to it.
• There usually is a lot of a useless information in the CV. Remove the heading for Curriculum Vitae, the career objective, and your older qualifications (Matriculation, Intermediate O/A level etc). Include only the information which is relevant for the job.
• Include only the job-relevant information in the CV, your academic projects, languages you have worked with, and the courses/domains you have a stronger grasp on. https://www.careercup.com/resume has a lot of detail about how a good CV should be.
• Spend some time researching about the company you are applying to. Try to find what’s the company’s business model, what do they focus on and what are their core values. Modify the cv based on the job requirement.
• Always send a cover letter with a job application, don’t just copy stuff off the internet for it. Make it personal for the job application, mention things you are passionate about, and why do you think you are a good fit for the job.
• Follow up after sending the application. Send an email enquiring about your application, it shows that you are serious about applying for the position.
• Keep an updated linked in profile, their algorithms work.

If you want second opinions about how your CV/cover letter looks like, you can post it on the group and have others review your application.

Group URL: https://www.facebook.com/groups/softdevpk/