Helpful Job Seeking Tips for Entry Level Developers
This evening I attended the Prepare for / Master the Tech Interview at TurnToTech in Manhattan, which provided important advice for entry level job seekers in the tech world. A frequent theme of the night was the need to have at least a basic level of computer science knowledge, but this was far from the only thing entry-level software engineering job seekers and Learn Co students could take away from the meetup.
Michael Batal, IBM — Managing Consultant — Senior iOS Software Engineer, talked about the hiring process at IBM. He said attending Meetups is very important and that IBM even once hired two people who attended a Meetup that he frequented based on his recommendation. As for whether or not you need to truly have all the skills on a job description — he said that wasn’t necessary and to apply even if you are short in a few.
Michael Prenez-Isbell, Former Director of Mobile Technology at Univision Communications Inc., said when he gets on the phone with a potential hire he can tell immediately whether or not this person is fit for the position. “A software engineer is familiar with bubble sorts,” he stated. He also said a new software engineer should be familiar with a linked list and how to write a recursive function.
I particularly appreciated his point that job-seekers should find ways to express their passion for the field, as when this passion shines through it will appeal to the hiring manager.
John Bogil, iOS Developer at Viacom, was recently a bootcamp student himself and he discussed his experience in the job hunt process. He said on interviews, he frequently encountered computer science questions and said that job seekers should make sure to know their bubble sorts.
Bogil also recommended that job seekers seek out Facebook and Reddit groups to improve their connection with the software development community. Particularly, he recommended the subreddit r/ cs career questions.
Teddy Angelus, a former tech recruiter for 15 years, discussed the importance of blogging and how a bootcamp grad recently got hired at XOGroup because of her outstanding blog. Angelus discussed the importance of portfolio projects and said that some clever students have even made resume apps for their portfolio.
In conjunction with another recent bootcamp grad who had been hired, Angelus also mentioned that oftentimes the human resource tech people aren’t the only ones checking your github profile, so a good trick is to include a readme with pictures in your portfolio projects so non-tech savvy HR people can understand what the project is about.
The meetup also featured a presentation by Aditya Narayan, CEO at TurnToTech. He said usually the interview process involves a phone interview that’s followed by an-person interview, with the later being mainly to make sure your qualifications are what you claimed.
He said the extent of the CS questions job seekers will encounter will frequently depend on whether or not the hiring manager is him or herself a computer science graduate. He also included a list (featured below) and stated that bootcamp grads should know up until №6, with the rest of the topics generally being reserved for computer science majors.
While he said that portfolio projects were important, he also cautioned that hiring managers want to check and make sure that you were not simply a passive member of the group.
He concluded his discussion by stating that there are four main areas that software developer job-seekers should concentrate on:
- Programming
- Be an expert in at least one language (Ruby)
2. Computer Science
- Once again…
3. Technology Essentials
- If you’re applying at Amazon at least have some background knowledge of the technology this company implements
4. Domain Knowledge
- Understand a framework thoroughly (such as Ruby on Rails or Node.js)
