Finding the First Job
Everything was complicated; keeping your faith high, and not giving up. The 4-month-long interview process was challenging. It was December, and 2023 was about to end. Unfortunately, I thought I hadn’t achieved my goal.
One morning, I woke up, sat at my computer, and then saw that email in my inbox… I read it a few times because I couldn’t believe it. The idea of working with professors from one of the world’s most prestigious universities, something I couldn’t even dare to dream of in high school… it was truly unbelievable.
I finally got my first job, and yes, I would start working as a Junior Full Stack Developer in a migration research program conducted across Europe. This is how my entry into the industry began. The end was great, but now I want to rewind the film and talk about what happened behind the scenes of this beautiful story.
You are facing a title that sounds the most difficult: Finding the first job. If you are a new graduate or have switched careers to software development, you can guess how challenging this title can be. If you are a new graduate, you have worked hard, and everyone thinks you will find a job easily. Everyone has expectations, and people around you constantly ask, “Haven’t you found a job yet?”
If you have changed your career, it gets even harder. Almost every day, you hear discouraging sentences like, “Are you sure?”, “You can always quit”, “Your education is not in this field”, “You already have a career background”, “Even new graduates can’t find jobs in this sector, how will you?” When starting this journey, almost all of us have gone through the same processes: online courses, bootcamps, countless learning videos, and projects… (I summarised my process in another blog post; you can read it here.) Don’t listen to anyone, please.
When you have completed everything and are ready to apply for job postings, you see that an even more challenging process awaits you. It is a process where you have to manage everything: your self-belief, motivation, stress…
First, you prepare your CV and cover letter, which you will change countless times later :) Then you wait for responses from companies. This process is so exhausting that you can lose hope sometimes. Then you receive an interview offer and prepare with excitement. It’s your first experience in the industry, and when the result is negative, you get disappointed.
Expecting a sign from the universe or luck to be on your side will probably not happen unless you do something. In other words, this cycle will continue unless you create your luck.
So how do we reverse this? We must sit down and think honestly. Why am I not getting responses to my applications, or why am I not receiving positive feedback after interviews? Here is the key question: What are my unique selling points that differentiate me from other applicants? Maybe the answer lies in this question.
Let’s solve this mystery together.
A Content-Rich CV Instead of a Rule-Based CV
A content-rich CV is about what you have done. It includes different and notable projects you worked on during your learning process, coding challenges, hackathons, contributions to open-source projects, and the communities you supported and received support from.
Additionally, a well-organized and active LinkedIn profile is crucial. We can’t expect the whole world to discover us while we sit at home. But we have a door to the world: LinkedIn! You can prepare a LinkedIn strategy plan. By sharing projects and events you participated in, you can make HR professionals aware of your work. Receiving offers directly through LinkedIn means securing an interview opportunity and being selected among many candidates. This was very beneficial for me, and I highly recommend you take advantage of it.
All of these give the impression that during this process, you didn’t just try to learn but also actively contributed to yourself and the industry. When you get responses to your CV, you will feel more confident during the interview process because you will have a lot to share with the interviewer.
A Planned and Sincere Interview Process
There are two important aspects of this process: being planned and being sincere. You can start by systematically explaining everything you did and how it developed you. Gathering information about the company, knowing its mission and projects, and mentioning these during the interview can be very effective. In one of my interviews, I tried a product of the company and shared my thoughts about it.
Not every interview process is the same. Some situations change according to the dynamics of the company. For example, in one interview, they asked me about debugging. I explained it, but I had forgotten some parts. In such questions, it might be expected to explain every step. Therefore, planning and explaining the whole process in these types of questions can be beneficial.
Above all, smiling and explaining with positive energy. In other words, conveying to the interviewer, “Yes, I am the right person you are looking for, and I can do this job.” One HR told me during our interview: “For entry-level roles, we look at whether the candidate can fit in with the team. So your soft skills are more important to us than your coding skills.”
In another interview, while explaining my project on the whiteboard, the whole team watching me made me very excited. I said with a slight smile, “Actually, I’m very excited, but I’m trying to hide it a little.” The interviewer eased the situation by saying, “This is very normal; I would be very excited too if I were in your place right now.”
Asking for Feedback
This is a long journey; I know very well how difficult it is. It is very upsetting and exhausting to receive a negative response at the end of an interview process you prepared so well for and thought went well. At this very moment, the best thing we can do for ourselves is to ask for feedback.
I remember the first time I asked for feedback. I was hesitant about whether to ask or not. Feedback helps us prepare better for other job interviews. It’s like a mirror. We think it went very well, but how did the other side see us? What aspects did they think we should improve? Don’t worry, they give very polite feedback. For instance, “Yes, you are very good at this subject, but we expected you to present it this way.”
Never Stop!
If you are saying, “I’m doing all of these, even more, but it still hasn’t happened,” don’t worry, it will. It happened in my story. While I had even arranged my entire education life according to my career, I stepped into a new adventure by stepping out of my comfort zone. Deciding, achieving, and finding a job in a sector where only 5% of the employees are women was quite difficult. But despite all the difficulties, it happened. (Stat: Statista)
If you have found your first job, please congratulate yourself a lot. Because now you are a superhero!
In conclusion, if you think I never lost my motivation during the process while reading this, you are wrong. There were many times I felt down, but I never thought, “Why did I change my career?” I never looked back. I think the best thing I did was that. I tried to do more, always more. Because this is not just about getting a job; it’s about self-development and self-realization.
Good luck to everyone who wants to achieve self-realization.
You can follow me on these platforms: Medium ✨ LinkedIn ✨ X ✨ GitHub Thank you!
