My career change in the time of a pandemic PART III
Learning that patience is a virtue
Post-bootcamp life
After successfully completing my bootcamp in October 2020, now came the biggest hurdle: finding a job.
Ironhack’s last week on the bootcamp consists essentially of a workshop to get your profile and brand on point. This starts with updating your CV, your cover letter, your LinkedIn profile and ends with mock job interviews to prepare you for the woes ahead.
It comes in quite handy to deal with all this administrative work during the bootcamp to give you a little head start on the job hunt and you get direct feedback on the quality of your profile.
Bear in mind I was kept very busy over the last 10 weeks of the bootcamp, counting approximately 400 hours or so, dedicated to the syllabus. Quite naturally, I took a few days to myself (I would say that’s fair) and then dove into the post-bootcamp ritual of:
- Applying to jobs.
- Revisiting what was maybe less obvious during the bootcamp (in my case: CSS).
- Continuing to learn new things (in my case: Vue.js & SQL).
- Perfecting my CV and online profiles.
- Networking with people in the tech industry.
Basically, for an unemployed person, I had quite a job to do!
No one knows how long it takes to find a job as a newly certified web developer. It could be instantaneous, weeks, months. In my case, it has now been 9 months since the end of my bootcamp.
As mentioned in my previous story, I have applied for many offers. I have had many rejection emails and seldom call back interviews due to not corresponding enough with the job description.
Knowing full well that I couldn’t just sit around and wait for a job to appear out of thin air, you learn to pad out your days with equal parts: job search and keeping busy learning or reviewing web developer skills on personal projects.
I’m not implying that my approach to getting my first job is the right one. It shouldn’t be considered gospel. However, my story might help other readers who are in the similar position to know that they are not alone.
My post-bootcamp phase kicked off with strengthening the pillars of the syllabus: Express.js, React.js, MongoDB and (especially for me, CSS).
After filling the gaps in my knowledge and since completing Katas on Codewars became a tad monotonous, I looked for a project to apply all these new technical skills to good use.
A month after the end of the bootcamp, an ex-classmate and I decided to design and develop a full stack application to rent potted Christmas trees instead of buying cut ones. The real purpose for the project was obviously more to pair-program, to learn together and face head-on any technical challenges we faced.
We had a whole schedule worked out for the project. As there was no deadline, we took our time to properly shape the application. We spent mornings each to our own job searches and solo work. Then, in the afternoons, we would pair-program.
The project taught us a lot about using back-end routes in an Express application, lifting the state and user authentication in React and it especially taught us how to debug together. We became well acquainted with “console.log()”.
We got as far as having a full CRUD (Creating, Reading, Updating, Deleting) experience on both a user and the Christmas trees in the back-end, and we achieved a rough look of the front-end using frameworks like Material UI and Semantic UI. Our collaboration lasted about a month, when my pair-programmer found an internship meaning we had to put the project on the back-burner.
Getting my bearings around the routine
Readers will notice that my opening sentence to this story ends with “finding a job”, and yet I have only mentioned one project I did after the bootcamp. Well, in all honesty, my time since the bootcamp has made me feel like an Olympic-level plate spinner.
If you haven’t grasped the metaphor, imagine a person dealing with the following scenario:
“I need to find a job. LinkedIn! However, I need experience to find a job. For that to happen, I’ll start working on solo projects and learn new languages. I can’t get too muddled in this because I still need to hunt for jobs. LinkedIn! Oh, I also need to update my CV! Oh! Finally, a job interview! (Put everything on hold). No luck. Let’s continue the side-project then. I now need to update my cover letter. LinkedIn! Oh, I have 15 new connection requests from headhunters I don’t know (SINCE LAST NIGHT?). Done? Let’s do a few Katas then! (END OF DAY ONE) “
I know what you are thinking: “Breathe. Breathe or… you might not see the end of Day Two.”
All joking aside, in a nutshell, this could be what your day looks like. If you don’t take control that is.
Obviously, there is a bit of organisational savvy that is needed. Your day MUST be structured. In my case, all my job applications start in the morning. Why? Because it allows me to wake up softly with my coffee in hand and browse through LinkedIn, Welcome To The Jungle, Landing.jobs, Angellist and Indeed, on 20 different tabs, on 2 different screens, slowly turning my eyes into the ones of Pennywise from “It”.
I then take the afternoon to work on discovering a new skill (like TypeScript or Golang), on Katas, or even on solo projects.
I actually follow this routine from Monday to Friday: coffee, job hunt, 2 or 3 Medium articles on frameworks or tutorials, a few Katas, lunch, and then personal projects.
Having my partner work remotely for her company makes my routine even easier to uphold as we live together, so while she works, I have the same “9 to 5” shift to work on my side of the flat, on my tiny table.
If you have a routine, you should be fine. I have felt overwhelmed many times by the “virtual” workload, thinking: “There is so much to do!”. However, it’s all in your head. This is all personal pressure you put on yourself to get things done. No one is expecting your CV to be ready. Nobody is impatiently waiting for you to submit your next kata.
That being said, it is good to set goals, objectives to meet. Giving oneself a kick up the backside is precisely the push you need in this situation.
I have always found the hardest part to be the complete autonomy one must have during this period. You decide what gets done and what doesn’t get done (yes, procrastination is your worst enemy). You are the captain of your schedule, the master of your own 1 meter by 1.5 meter table that you call a desk.
The most important thing for me is to never give up. Trust me, there were times I wanted to throw in the towel. There are only so many rejection letters a junior web developer can take before it destroys your level of confidence.
The way I manage to keep my hopes up is to be surrounded by positive influences, such as my partner, and people who are going through the same experience, like some ex-classmates of mine. Constantly being able to express frustration and doubt is incredibly liberating for me.
Being able to bounce back from bad moments by throwing myself into my solo work has also been a helpful way to look past my negativity and never forget the overall objective: improving my technical skills and preparing myself so that when that job comes, I’ll be ready.
If you run out inspiration for projects and applications, like I did at some point, ask around. Ask friends or family if someone you know needs a website developed. I might even suggest applying for junior freelancing jobs with companies like Comet. Developing an application for someone has been one of the most rewarding experiences of this year. It motivated me enormously that my freelancing projects would help others with their businesses. Furthermore, it is also incredibly gratifying to know there are websites that I designed that are indexed on the internet for the world to see, for potential recruiters to see.(More on that in the next story)
If there is one thing I have learnt with absolute certainty over the past year of coding, learning, interviewing, freelancing, networking and waiting, it’s that patience is definitely a virtue.
