MY ANDELA APPLICATION (part One)
Andela is a software development firm, seeking Top 1 talent developers in Africa. They say they will pay you to learn to code. I am a self-taught developer who never even finished his High school and I came across these Andela guys when I was surfing the web, I was like “yeah, people should learn to code.”. Not including myself because I have been coding for three years, ok not intensively, but look, I know three programming languages and took tutorials of about four other programming languages. Why go to be taught to code?
Now three years is quite something, you can imagine I had started to look for ways of making a living out of something I really love and the post about Andela had the “pay” magic word in it. I thought things through and decided to learn more about them and it turned out that they are not an institution as I had thought at first, they are a business looking for employees. I was excited because I had just found a coding /dream job. I looked through the requirements and there was nothing stopping me from applying, and so I did.
It was the ninth round or Cohort 9 as they call it, I started undergoing through the unusual application process that involves taking the Saberr survey. This is a personality assessment survey that helps Andela know what kind of a person you are and it was quick and simple. Simple I mean general questions, not the kind that puts your head in crossroads.
The second step of the process is the home study test. Oh, I had not mentioned the Home Study Curriculum that you can access any time. Just search for ‘Andela Home Study’, google is your friend. Now back to the test, I mean the first one. It is also quick and simple if you gave time to the Curriculum as expected. “Is there a second one ?”, you ask. Yes, there is a second test and it’s not what I would call “quick”.
4:55 hours, round it up if whole numbers look good to you. That is the time they set for the second test. It seems like a lifetime but the truth is, it’s not enough, at least it wasn’t for me. The good thing is you are allowed to take as long as you want. But that is the time you are expected to have it completed. It has an ocean of objectives and a few puzzling Labs where you write codes that fail the tests that are pre-defined. It is like you are marked there and then with the Labs. Did I go through?
Well.., I didn’t. This is the time of the movie where the group leaders disagree ahead of the competitions. So sad, hmm? The good thing is I saw my labs results on the test preview before I submitted and it was not all good. I knew I was not the only one in the line and there are guys who did better so I applied for the next Cohort as soon as I submitted my work. What happened next?
