The Bias of No Work Experience
On the Hatchways platform, the majority of our candidates fall into one of four categories: New Grads, Underemployed, Career Shifters and Newcomers/Immigrants. One thing they all have in common is they are undergoing a work transition. Some feel they face multiple barriers that prevent them from finding their dream role in the tech field.
Most believe that it is primarily a lack of relevant work experience holding them back.
A majority of our candidates have little to no work experience in tech. We find this situation creates a vicious cycle, where the candidates believe a factor they cannot change is holding them back, often weakening their confidence and making it even harder to get a foot in the door.
From statistics gathered on our platform, we have found that getting entry level, high paying web development jobs with no experience is not as rare as we imagined.
Among our last three interview cycles 69% of candidates that received a work placement through our platform had no relevant work experience walking into the interview.
We’ve dug deeper into finding what differentiates between those getting a job with zero work experience, and those who didn’t get a job at all. Incredibly, we found that many candidates with no work experience were able to get placements, whereas candidates that had experience could not. Why did this happen?
We found that a lack of work experience can be supplemented by excelling in at least two of the four of the following factors:
1. Communication Skills
Strong communication skills are important — even in a field not generally associated with it. Employers will look for both technical and social/behavioural communication skills. This is generally evaluated through behavioural interviews, to see if you have the right values and can fit in with the company culture, and through technical interviews, to see how well you communicate your thought processes and solutions.
TIP: Practice explaining your technical solutions to someone non-technical. Have that person ask clarifying questions until they understand. Using technical jargon is great, but it’s important to be able to communicate your ideas to all audiences, not just those with technical know-how. It shows you have a deeper understanding of the components of your solution, and really know what you’re talking about.
Practice the STAR method of communication. When answering a behavioural question be sure not to ramble, but keep in mind you must provide enough information to explain the solution, the task at hand, the actions/decisions you made, and the end result. Think clearly and concisely. Take a few moments before answering to think it over; you’ll sound more confident and collected when you do.
2. Robust Projects
Employers will often ask to see examples of your work, and having a portfolio of projects is an excellent way of doing so. Your projects show off your skills and creativity, and the more technically challenging these projects are, the more impressed your interviewer will be.
TIP: Challenge yourself. Build a project that you will learn from. Go beyond a basic website. It’s also a good idea to work on a project with a partner. This shows your ability to work as a team and collaborate ideas, something you will often have to do in a tech job.
A challenging project you can try is to make a game. Checkers, chess, card games — whatever you can think of. It’s a great way of challenging yourself to learn new skills, and it looks impressive to bring a working game to an interview.
If you want something original, try making a program that solves a problem you face everyday. This ensures that solutions can’t be looked up online, and shows off your creative thinking and problem solving skills.
3. Breadth of Languages
A majority of those who had zero work experience and still got hired were full stack developers, as opposed to those only specializing in frontend or backend development.
Some employers are picky with ‘stack matching’ and look to find someone with experience in their company stack. The more languages you know, the more opportunities to match your skills to an employer stack.
TIP: Amongst the startups we work with, the most popular languages are JavaScript, Python and Ruby on Rails. If you work exclusively in front or back-end, try branching into the other. A full-stack developer has more opportunities for getting hired. If you only know one language, try branching out into a second or third. It shows you are versatile, can learn quickly and are willing to put in the effort.
4. The Technical Interview
Performing well on the technical interview will put you ahead when it comes to hiring. This means practicing algorithms and data structure questions.
In the past, we had a candidate go through 200 Leetcode questions in preparation. They were one of the best we’ve ever seen at the technical interview, having only started with coding four months previously. He excelled and received multiple offers from our platform.
TIP: Practice, practice, practice!
Learn computer science fundamentals (data structures and algorithms). Push yourself to learn about data structures such as linked lists, hash tables, trees, graphs, and others. Learn algorithms about sorting, searching, recursion, and dynamic programming. Although these concepts may show up rarely in interviews or on the job, knowledge of them are very helpful and definitely pushes you to become a better programming. To find practice questions, we recommend resources like leetcode.com.
In conclusion
Getting a job in the tech industry with no work experience is competitive, but not impossible. Far from it. If you are eager for work and willing to put in the effort, pick two of the four factors above to drill down on. You will see results.
If you’re ready for your first job in the field, sign up on hatchways.io to participate in our next interview cycle!
