Job-Hunting in The Tech-Space

Job-Hunting can be one depressing journey if you don’t know where to start from, or know what tips to follow and have no one to refer you for a job opportunity or even to hold your hand.

Well, How did it start 😃? After a Tech talk, I had some peers reaching out, asking how and where they can get tech job opportunities and what they should consider in their search. I then organized a Twitter Space and invited valuable persons, with industry experience to share the challenges they faced in their job search, including their experience, good practices, tips and tricks. And this is how it went 👇.

We had amazing speakers (Sigu Magwa, David Odari, Denise Allela, Erick Muli, and Kevin Santos) who gave nice inputs regarding their Job search experience and Talent sourcing experience from Sigu, who is a Tech firm Founder and CEO. And Okoth Kon’go who helped in co-ordinating the session. It was nice to note that most of our guests have had opportunities looking for them instead of them looking for opportunities 😄.

Key Highlights from The Guests.

Here is a compilation of the key take aways from the speakers when job-hunting:

• Be consistent.
• Be passionate about what you are doing.
• Have a mentor to guide and support you in the process.
• Update your resume/LinkedIn profiles.
• Find your specialization and build up on it.
• Make your resume bring out your areas of strength.
• Always check the company profile you are applying to.
• Don’t keep quiet with your work — show your work.
• Referrals really help in getting opportunities.
• Keep up with the latest new trends. Technology grows daily.
• Never plateau once you get up there, keep learning.
• It’s not your task to reject your CV before applying for a job.APPLY!!(David).
• Tech communities are really helpful in regards to getting opportunities, learning from others and getting feedback.
• When asked about salary range in an interview, first its advisable to do research and skim through what the company offers in Glassdoor. But always be open minded in terms of hearing what they are willing to offer.
• Be that annoying lastborn(annoying in a good way) who never stops asking questions.(From Erick)
• Don’t be a bedroom developer — To mean show your work, dont do something and sit on it ->Erick quoted this as always mentioned by Frank Tamre.
• Network with other people, you never know if they have an opportunity for you.
• Filtering candidates takes some time from a recruiter’s perspective, so outline your strength and make your skills to stand out.
• Let your Github profile be your “certificate” incase your searching for a coding job.
• Don’t limit yourself to only coding jobs if you have passion for other things like project management. There are so many roles in the Tech world.
• When given an interview chance, do rehersals and research in regards to commonly asked questions.(Kevin).
• Dont limit yourself in your application expand your job search worldwide, you can get opportunities anywhere.
• Always check the mood of the interviewer, don’t be rigid when they throw in jokes. It could be way to check what kind of person you are.(No one wants a boring colleague 😄).
• Incase you have two Job-offers, give a nice and well put response to the company whose offer you are rejecting and don’t sound rude, you never know what might unfold in future.
• You may be the best developer. You may be the best person at what you do and things like that, but if you’re not talking about your work, then nobody else is going to talk about it or even notice it(Allela).
• “ You need to balance between The imposter syndrome which pushes you to think that you don’t know anything. And the Dunning Kruger effects, which pushes you to think that you know everything.”(Sigu).

Hmm.. what next after having the key highlights and take aways. Where do you now look for Jobs?

Where to Find Jobs to APPLY.

There’s actually no specific rubric to where you can find Jobs. But below are some of the places our guests recommended.

• Stackoverflow Jobs.
• Tech Community Referrals.
• Remote Hiring companies.
• LinkedIn.
• Twitter.
• iHub — An innovation hub in Nairobi
• Another trick is to list your Dream companies and check their careers page and see if they have opportunities.
• You can as well reach out directly to a contact person from your Dream company on LinkedIn.

It was so humbling to see 100+ Listeners tuning in and giving positive feedback regarding the Twitter #space topic. Thank you everyone who tuned in and participated, I highly appreciate 😍.

This is just an highlight of the chat from the Twitter Space regarding Job-Hunting in the Tech space. The speakers also pointed out some challenges that they faced in their job-hunting journey and it’s worth learning that its worth retrying when you fail in an interview or lose a job opportunity. Thank you so much Sigu Magwa, David Odari, Denise Allela, Erick Muli, and Kevin Santos for your valuable input on the Topic.

We will have a follow up Twitter Space Chat on How to face an interview(another monster in the room), as requested from audience 😄. Stay tuned.!!

If you have other key recommendations regarding Job-hunting in the Tech Space that you would like to add that’s not highlighted here, Please free to add anything left out in the comment section🙂.

Should you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ping me on Twitter 🙂!!

Thank you 😍

Happy Job-Hunting 🙌.