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How to Land Your Dream Job: William Vasquez

58:17 with Ryan Carson

Welcome to the first installment of the "Treehouse Guest Speaker Series: How to Land Your Dream Job." Treehouse Founder and CEO Ryan Carson will facilitate a conversation with Software Engineer and Bootcamp Instructor, Will Vasquez. In this live conversation, they will discuss Will’s experience successfully transitioning to tech as a career, and what advice he has for folx who want to land their dream job in tech. This interview will end with a live Q&A portion from the audience followed by a networking hour for attendees. The event is free for Treehouse students to attend.

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[MUSIC] 0:00

Welcome, everybody. 0:04

So excited to have you all here today. 0:06

I am Ryan Carson, the founder of Treehouse and I would like to welcome you to this 0:09

new, guest speaker series How To Land Your Dream Job. 0:14

In this series, we will talk with seasoned tech professionals about 0:20

their journey that got them to where they are today. 0:24

Through our conversations we will explore the idea of a dream job. 0:28

So you're able to set expectations, goals and aspirations to succeed. 0:32

We hope this series helps you realize how important 0:38

all professional experience is towards your goals. 0:41

Stay tuned for after the interview, as there will be a networking hour for 0:44

all attendees where you will get the chance to meet other folks in real time. 0:49

I'm very happy to introduce Will Vasquez as this sessions guest speaker. 0:55

Will's a software developer at Task It and an instructor at UCLA coding bootcamp. 1:02

He made the shift from management to software development after graduating 1:08

from a coding bootcamp in 2015. 1:11

He was inspired to make that change after founding a startup in Peru. 1:13

Currently holds a Master of Business Administration 1:21

from Universidad del Pacifico in Peru and 1:24

a Bachelors of Science in Economics from Ramapo College of New Jersey. 1:28

Will is a messy like soccer player, I want verification of that by the way, and 1:33

the father of a two year old and has surprising cooking abilities. 1:38

Welcome, Will. 1:42

>> Thanks, Ryan, thank you very much for having me on your on your series. 1:45

>> Yeah, it's good to have you here. 1:48

Really appreciate your time. 1:50

So let's get started and get right into the questions. 1:52

We know that a computer science degree isn't the only route 1:57

to a meaningful tech career. 2:01

I'd like to invite you to expand about your background and experience that 2:04

led you to your role as a software developer, and bootcamp instructor. 2:08

When did you first consider software engineering as a viable option? 2:12

>> Sure, so I always had a love for 2:17

technology, that there was definitely a passion there. 2:20

I did do my career in economics because my parents gave me that choice between 2:24

studying economics they'll pay for it, or doing computer science at the time and 2:29

then I would have to fend for myself on that one. 2:33

So I did go with the safe choice, did economics, then I did a master's degree. 2:36

I founded a startup and at the startup I kind of had to wear a lot of hats and 2:43

one of them was trying to figure out how to launch the product. 2:46

So I learned a little bit self taught, 2:48

some self taught was a couple of courses here and there. 2:51

And that's where I saw that, that's what I really liked. 2:55

Starting to work out, sold it 2014 came back to the States, and 2:58

that's where I went into a bootcamp. 3:01

I took a bootcamp in, it was a Roberts coding bootcamp at the time, I believe. 3:05

And from there, yeah, I did a 360 degree pivot into software development. 3:10

One of the important things is trying to use kind of my previous skills 3:19

through the startup at the time I was working for, 3:23

but as I was taking the bootcamp was part time. 3:26

I was also working full time, right? 3:29

And I was using my management skills there as I was working there as a supply chain 3:34

management manager. 3:38

So I used all those skills to be able to help me pivot towards development. 3:40

>> So that bootcamp, was it online or in person? 3:45

>> That one was in person. 3:48

>> Got it. So how did you balance, 3:50

that sounds like a lot of work, kind of balancing that job being 3:52

a family person and during the bootcamp. 3:57

What was the typical day for you when you were going through the bootcamp? 4:00

>> So the bootcamp was three times a week. 4:04

But of course you had homeworks for the other days that you didn't have classes. 4:06

One of the things was actually scheduling. 4:09

One of the things I've gotten a little bit better was trying to schedule your time. 4:12

Just to focus on what's being, what you wanna concentrate, 4:16

what you wanna get done during the day. 4:20

So mostly your nine to five, and then from there, I would probably set a fixed 4:22

amount of time to be able to dedicate just do my homework or head class. 4:29

>> Got it, okay. 4:32

So why don't you talk about, what advice you could give for 4:34

aspiring developers who are specifically, transitioning sectors like you did. 4:39

>> So the first thing is, if you're doing a career change, 4:46

everything that you've done up to that point has some value, right? 4:50

You can't just turn away, I know you're starting a new career, but 4:55

that doesn't mean that you start on a blank canvas. 4:58

So you're a teacher, you leverage that knowledge that you have from teaching. 5:02

Because if you want to do there's a lot of companies that are trying 5:06

in the education sector. 5:10

Or, for example, I had somebody that says I'm now teaching at UCLA, 5:13

I had a student that, for example, he was a cook. 5:18

He was a chef. 5:21

So using that and 5:22

then he ended up working in a startup that had to do with one of those kitchens. 5:23

But again, leveraging the knowledge that you had before to be able to help you 5:28

kinda transition into development. 5:32

>> Got it, okay. 5:34

So what suggestions do you have for 5:36

formatting a resume as a new developer for someone who has no tech experience? 5:39

>> So all right, so depends how you're going. 5:46

So the resume is gonna be tailored of how you're gonna apply. 5:48

So if you are gonna try that kinda like a shotgun approach or 5:52

just try to shoot to one of these LinkedIns or Monsters or whatnot. 5:56

There, you probably want you're gonna look at any job description that you have. 6:02

You're gonna want to try to load your application which is many of the keywords 6:06

as possible. 6:10

So if you're looking at a entry level position for a junior front end developer, 6:10

you're probably gonna wanna load your resume with JavaScript. 6:14

So your project has JavaScript and you use JavaScript here, right. 6:18

So you wanna load it because most of the time, these systems LinkedIn Monsters, 6:21

they go through kind of a AI system I'll just read your resume and just kind of 6:25

rank you depending how you score, on the keywords that they're ranking for. 6:29

So that's one one way of looking at your resume. 6:35

Now if you're looking at your resume view, and 6:38

this is probably the best way you're kind of your best shot is networking and if you 6:40

are able to reach out actual person, then you probably want to tailor your resume. 6:44

If you're making this transition, you wanna highlight your projects. 6:49

You wanna highlight that, yeah, you might not have the working experience 6:52

because you just came out of, learning and self taught or bootcamp, right. 6:57

So you don't have the experience in the workforce. 7:00

But in the case of development, 7:04

you can show that you have experienced by doing, right? 7:07

I think this is one of the the big advantage compared to other careers, 7:10

right?. 7:13

Because an accountant can say that he's done some accounting but 7:14

there's really harder way to prove that, right? 7:17

But in case of our careers, in case of development, you can be a great developer 7:20

if you show that you've been able to work on projects, right? 7:25

So links to your repositories, links to your work to your projects. 7:28

One of the biggest things that I've seen is you don't have to have 20 projects. 7:34

You can have two or three projects but you gotta finish projects. 7:39

I've seen a lot of resumes where they'll put a couple of projects on there, but 7:41

they're not complete, right? 7:46

They're not complete and they're halfway done. 7:47

And that unluckily says a lot, right? 7:50

That unluckily says kind of, that it says a lot more than they needed. 7:52

>> So how if you've got two or three great projects, 7:57

and this is one of the reasons we focus on projects in the tech degree and 8:00

why you focus on projects, I'm sure you're coding boot camp. 8:04

Once you've built that and and shipped it, how important is it for 8:08

it to live live on the web, on a real URL and to be working? 8:12

Is that super important or is it more about the the link to the repo or 8:19

is it both? 8:23

>> Well, so I think it's more about, if you're sharing your resume, like a printed 8:26

resume, it's gonna be really hard for somebody to type a really long, right. 8:31

If you go to one of the, if you deploy this to Heroku or 8:34

some free service, it's gonna be really hard to, a 200 long URL, 8:37

it's gonna be really hard for the presenter. 8:41

So I would recommend, I do like a Bitly, which will kind of shorten your URL. 8:44

Ideally, if you can, you can deploy it to an actual domain, 8:49

again, it's always those little things that add up, right? 8:55

Cuz they keep saying this person is, you don't say that you are detail oriented, 8:58

you are actually showing with these little things, 9:03

that you actually are detailed oriented, right? 9:06

>> Yep, that's a really good point. 9:08

That's almost like a filter that person that does the first pass 9:11

in your resume is gonna be checking and 9:17

I would say I agree with that, that's the first thing to do. 9:22

You're gonna either click it or type it. 9:25

It has to be short. 9:27

Ideally, it's a professional looking URL. 9:28

You can purchase a low cost domain name for 9:30

very little money as long as it's a word or a group of words that makes sense. 9:35

It can be a .IO, it can be a dot, whatever. 9:40

And putting your project there says it does say a lot. 9:43

And that it works and that so 9:46

if folks are developers, they're not gonna be necessarily UX designers. 9:49

So how do you deal with making the app 9:54

look great part of this Yeah, yeah, I do agree. 9:58

So I'm really bad at design, my stuff looks horrendous, right. 10:03

>> [LAUGH] >> You gotta accept it, first place. 10:07

You gotta look at your thing and be like yeah, this, [INAUDIBLE]. 10:09

>> [LAUGH] >> One way that I try to circumvent that, 10:12

one way that I try to find the difference, is sometimes finding themes. 10:15

There's nothing wrong with with finding themes. 10:18

If you're doing something that's a form or something like that, 10:21

off the top of my head I don't remember any of these websites. 10:25

But you can find one of these theme websites, a guy that will do it for free, 10:29

sometimes they cost a little bit of money 10 bucks, 12 bucks. 10:33

Buy theme cuz that's what I do, cuz again, I am not good at design, right. 10:36

But it is important, especially when you're kind of on the job hunt. 10:41

Kind of like food, right, food can taste amazing, but 10:46

if it doesn't look presentable, you kind of have that hesitation to try. 10:49

>> Yeah, it's no good. 10:53

>> Right. 10:55

>> Yep. >> Yeah. 10:55

>> I hear ya. 10:56

>> So yeah, I would definitely think about making it look, at least presentable. 10:57

Or again, you can also use some of these other tools, like Bootstrap. 11:01

>> Any of [INAUDIBLE], right. 11:05

>> Yeah, and then the CSS frameworks. 11:09

>> Yeah, I think what Will is saying, and I would echo to all of you 11:10

joining us is that, just imagine you're walking in the door to an interview. 11:14

You would care about how you looked, you would brush your teeth, 11:19

you would kind of do these things. 11:23

And it's very similar, 11:25

the first impression that someone's gonna have of your work. 11:26

You just need to make it look like you thought about that, right. 11:30

And so, Will, do you think, we'll go a little off script here. 11:35

Walk us through, just step by step, how does someone get a job? 11:41

So you've completed your tech degree or 11:46

you've completed your boot camp, but you don't have any paid experience. 11:49

Just walk someone through, tactically, step by step, 11:53

how they're gonna get those interviews and then land that first job. 11:55

>> Yeah, so the first thing, I'm a big data guy, so 11:59

the first thing is you wanna kind of have some type of structure. 12:03

So think of how you're gonna apply that to the process. 12:05

Describing a simple Google sheets or Excel spreadsheet and kind of being like, 12:08

where you've applied, what happened, and then just keeping track of the results. 12:12

Because one of the things is you wanna learn through the process, right, 12:16

especially If you get interviews. 12:20

If you don't get anything, well, 12:21

you can keep trying to tweak it until you get interviews. 12:22

But if you get interviews and you want to learn from the things that you didn't 12:24

answer, right, so you want to keep some some way of trackable information. 12:27

So the first thing is working on your resume, right, I think. 12:31

I guess I would have two resumes, one that you're gonna kind of shoot out to 12:35

some of these sites, like the Monster and those. 12:40

And then one that you'll be able to send to your network, right, 12:43

so that's the first thing. 12:47

You have to have that, have projects. 12:48

Of course, these things can be done in parallel, right, 12:49

you want to have your projects, like we talked about, 12:50

we want to have them working, deployed. 12:53

One thing that a lot of people forget is go to the GitHub repositories. 12:56

We are developers, so some people will check and know about GitHub. 13:00

So yes, your page can look really nice, but 13:03

some people will go to the repo to see the code. 13:05

So adding comments to your code, making the Read Me, 13:08

adding some information, not everybody's gonna sign up to your account. 13:12

So just put a dummy account there so people just when they look at your site, 13:15

they can try it out and they have a dummy login. 13:18

So this is more maintenance right there's the first thing before you jump into 13:21

the actually looking for a job. 13:24

The next process would be the search. 13:29

I would apply to any jobs that, if you're a junior developer right, 13:32

going to try to get your first job, anything below two years is pretty good. 13:35

>> Right. >> A lot of companies have an idea of what 13:40

they want, but they put two years, and two years is a good cut off to apply to a job. 13:42

>> It it says two years do you go less than two? 13:47

>> Yes, two years and below. 13:50

>> Yeah, yeah, less than equal to two years. 13:53

Yeah, definitely, you have a really good shot there, 13:56

above two years it's gonna be a little bit harder. 14:00

Keyword search, right, when you're looking through, if you're looking at LinkedIn, 14:05

they have like this keyword option that you can kind of pick out keywords. 14:09

So you want to look for front end developer, separate, together, cuz again, 14:12

a lot of people load these sites and they will write front end separate, 14:16

they'll write it together, they'll write it with a dash. 14:20

So try a lot of combinations of these cuz you'll probably get different results. 14:23

So now you have your pregame, 14:29

kind of have your searches, so you have the shotgun style, 14:31

which is just applying to all of them, which is kind of spraying and praying. 14:35

>> So how many do you need to have on your list to start the process, 14:39

how many companies? 14:43

>> Well, so if you're doing spraying and 14:46

praying, that's kind of like just praying for the best. 14:47

But the next would be, what are your ideal companies, 14:50

right, or ideal type of companies? 14:54

And there are the ones where you're goNNA probably put your most effort. 14:56

And there you want to research the company, research who did it, 15:00

if you can find the developers, If you can find leads. 15:04

And I I've done this, it does work, not with everybody, 15:07

but it does work, cold emailing them, right. 15:12

But just not cold emailing them, here's my job, 15:16

you've got to kind of sketch out a good email. 15:19

Why do you like the company, why you think you're a good fit, right? 15:24

And if you have some similar product or 15:29

some similar projects to that company, that's a great place to show it there and 15:32

be like, listen, this is what I did, right. 15:35

That a great way of kind of getting your foot in the door. 15:37

>> Got it. >> And the last one is network. 15:41

>> Okay, >> There is, 15:44

the way that I've been able to kind of go through the process has been networking. 15:48

>> Got it, how do you network then, during COVID? 15:52

>> Yeah, so these events are great, right, 15:55

I mean, so I always try to look at the bright side of things, right. 16:00

A lot of events now have gone online, right. 16:03

Before, you would have to travel to these events and book a hotel, 16:05

book a flight, plus the cost of the event itself. 16:08

Now with COVID, I think all of them have gone online. 16:12

So it's a great opportunity to kind of join a lot of these 16:16

chats, there's a lot of Slack channels, open. 16:20

And try to participate, try to put as much information out there as you can. 16:25

One of the good things about the development community, 16:31

is that it's very open and that it's always looking for help, 16:33

it's always looking for a lot of people to contribute. 16:37

So, contribute, and it can be small things, it can be very small things, 16:40

but just trying to put yourself out there as much as possible. 16:45

>> Got it, so find something you're passionate about and 16:48

try to contribute to it, a project or a movement or anything. 16:51

>> Yeah, and one last thing is, so again, going back to that experience. 16:56

Which it's always hard to get that first job, once you get that first job. 17:01

There's a lot of friends right now, 17:06

I have a couple of friends who had a restaurant, right. 17:07

With everything going on, they had to close, 17:10

they didn't have any presence online. 17:11

So there were psyched for, 17:13

we had a couple of students from the bootcamp do a couple of their sites. 17:14

Very simple just a menu online that looks presentable, but that's a lot for 17:17

them, because from nothing to that, that is a huge step forward. 17:21

So that right there you have an actual product that you can actually show. 17:26

>> Right. >> So trying to get 17:29

as much experience as you can under the wings is gonna make you. 17:30

>> Gonna make you successful. 17:34

So how long do people need to mentally prepare to go through this job search? 17:35

Help set expectations here, so 17:43

people don't quit too early. 17:48

>> [COUGH] So first thing is, well, all right, let's go preCOVID, cuz I had 17:51

a couple good numbers preCOVID, I'm still in code during this whole pandemic. 17:56

So preCOVID, I said you can't expect, anything below 90 days is usually scammy, 18:01

not real interviews, or really bad things that they'll just pick anybody up and 18:07

pay them at a really low wage. 18:12

I mean, I've seen that, I've gone through that. 18:13

So anything below 90 days doesn't seem real. 18:15

You'll start getting a couple, if you follow the process, apply and 18:18

go through this whole process of application. 18:22

I think you'll start seeing some results after about 90 days. 18:25

Now it also does depend sometimes, timing right. 18:28

December is a very dead month, so we're already October, so 18:31

if we're thinking 90 days from now, we're looking to be in end of December. 18:34

That's a dead month, right, the end of December, the first couple of weeks of 18:40

January, is a dead month, so you gotta account for that as well. 18:43

>> After you've completed your tech degree or bootcamp, 18:48

full time, 90 days of applying for jobs, or is this just a couple hours a day? 18:52

Help set expectations about the amount of work during that 90 days. 18:58

>> Well, so looking for a job is a job, right. 19:02

>> That's a good way to put it. 19:07

>> I mean, because that's what you want, right, is you want a job out of it. 19:10

It's gonna take effort because you're probably working on your portfolio, you're 19:13

probably working on your resume, you're probably working on crafting emails. 19:16

I personally am not a big fan of cover letters, they work for some people. 19:20

For me if it's never worked, maybe I'm just not good at writing cover letters. 19:23

But making a good email has worked for me, networking has worked for me. 19:26

And these things that we talked about have worked for me. 19:32

So I would set yourself, again, time. 19:36

Again, I'm really big in trying to schedule, so I would schedule myself 19:39

a good chunk of your day if your objective is to get a job. 19:41

Set yourself a nine to five, literally, like I said, getting a job is a job, so 19:44

set yourself a nine to five. 19:49

And in that time you try to push the truck forward, 19:51

try to push everything forward to get that job. 19:54

>> I love it, gosh, that's great advice. 19:57

So I've got a couple more questions to get through, and 20:00

then we're already getting some great questions. 20:04

Just so you know, the audience, we are monitoring your questions, 20:06

and I'll be asking Will those in about 20 minutes. 20:09

So keep those questions coming, and my team will write those down and 20:13

send them to me. 20:18

All right, so, next question I have for you is, 20:20

you have a lot of experience among various companies as an engineer or instructor. 20:25

Have you leveraged networking to land these roles? 20:30

You talked about networking, but what specific tips can you give? 20:33

So you're at an online conference, great, what do you do, 20:39

how do you actually network? 20:43

>> Yeah, so it depends on the events, so, there's been a movement, 20:45

right now all events are doing this. 20:49

But I think some events have this kind of speed dating opportunity. 20:50

That's really good, cuz it kinda helps, 20:55

give the opportunity to at least talk to somebody for X amount of time, right? 20:57

So, I think, the best way of networking is how do you make yourself available, 21:00

and how you make yourself useful to the other person. 21:05

I think that's the rule of networking, right, it's not so 21:08

much what you could get out, but it's usually what you can give. 21:10

And in that process of giving, you end up meeting, like I said, right? 21:13

Somebody or you made a small restaurant, or 21:15

an owner of a small restaurant that needs somebody help them out with their website. 21:17

And the fact that you can give, may lead to a referral and more more jobs. 21:20

So, I would approach any networking opportunity as, 21:26

what can I give to the person that I'm talking to, what is that person doing? 21:29

How can I help in that whatever field they're doing, and that just helps. 21:33

So just going with that mindset and, because we go with the mindset of, 21:38

what am I gonna get, right, is it normal, is it okay? 21:42

But we tend to go with that mindset, so 21:45

switching our mindset can take us a long way. 21:47

>> Got it, so can you give [LAUGH] anybody some specific tactics? 21:48

So, say you're in one of these speed dating scenarios, and 21:55

everybody here is gonna have an opportunity to do this. 21:58

So hopping allows networking where you get these, 22:00

I think the three minute networking sessions, whether it's a video call. 22:03

Give folks some kinda opening lines, or 22:10

some ways that they can make those networking sessions more successful? 22:12

>> So, craft out a 30 second elevator pitch of yourself, right? 22:20

So, in 30 seconds and then, close it at 30 seconds, like I said, 22:26

this is three minutes. 22:29

So, 30 seconds gives you enough time to present yourself, say where you are, 22:30

what you do, what you're looking for, 30 seconds. 22:35

Try to, especially these events, if you can have again, a Bitly, 22:41

or any way of you know sharing your information quickly. 22:44

I know that people say, yeah, add me on LinkedIn, but that sometimes works, but 22:46

tends to get lost. 22:50

So, keeping your things as smart as possible, 22:51

if you can find yourself a URL that's really smart. 22:53

And you could share with the other person, will@x.com, boom, you probably know that. 22:55

You can probably write that down, and we can keep talking 23:00

if the conversation is positive to listen, right? 23:05

So, ask questions that you wanna listen to the other person, 23:10

give the other persons also. 23:14

And I know that some people tend to be shy, right, 23:16

I'm also shy sometimes in networking events. 23:19

So just trying to tell me a little bit about yourself, 23:23

and actually listening is pretty good. 23:27

>> I love that, those are great tips, Will, pointed out something I think that's 23:30

important, a lot of us are introverts or feel intimidated by networking. 23:34

I'm actually an introvert, the thought of a room of people that I don't know, 23:39

terrifies me. 23:45

And the secret is that, actually good networkers don't do most of the talking, 23:47

right, so it's mostly listening. 23:52

So, if everyone listening, you can do something really simple, 23:55

like start with Will's. 23:59

Super fast, 30 second, hey, just a little bit about me. 24:01

And then immediately, you can launch into, what's something that you're really 24:04

passionate about right now, or you're really excited about, right? 24:08

Just kinda let that person, and it could be, garbage collection, right, 24:11

it doesn't really matter. 24:16

But then you just say, wow, garbage collection, tell me more, right? 24:18

So you'll just get the other person talking, and that'll be a successful 24:22

conversation, and they'll wanna keep connecting with you, right? 24:27

So I would encourage everybody to not view 24:31

that initial networking chat as you needing 24:36

to get them to offer you a job or anything. 24:41

You're basically selling another meeting, right, another chat, like hey, 24:46

do you mind if I email you some time? 24:50

Sure, yeah, okay, what's your email? 24:52

So you kind of approach it as, just getting them to kinda smile and 24:55

like you at step one, and then after that you can go further. 24:59

So, I'm actually gonna post, there's something called mirroring, 25:02

and I've talked about this a lot, mirroring is a very effective way. 25:06

To increase someone's liking of you, and 25:10

the effectiveness of that conversation, and it sounds creepy, but it's not. 25:13

It's just kind of- >> [LAUGH] 25:19

>> Fun to put that in the chat. 25:21

Okay, so got some more questions for you. 25:23

All right, We talked about formatting the resume a little bit. 25:27

Why don't you share a little bit more specifics on, what are the sections you 25:35

think are important in that resume for first time developers? 25:39

>> So, I think the first part of your resume is your contact information, 25:45

do not put your picture. 25:50

In South America it's really common for people to put their picture, 25:52

I do not know why. 25:54

But [LAUGH] just put your own contact information, don't put where you're from, 25:55

specifically now that a lot of jobs are remote. 26:00

If they need to know they'll ask you, I think just your basic contact information. 26:03

Your portfolio link at the top, 26:06

really easy to get to small summary about yourself. 26:08

Small summary is what we're looking for, I guess one or two sentence. 26:12

I do like a section for skills. 26:16

>> Okay. 26:19

>> Usually, I tend to have it at the top, again, so you can really quickly see. 26:20

Because, either I would load it up with the skills, 26:25

that again we talked about earlier, right? 26:28

If it's trying to load them or highlight them or figure out a way to kinda show 26:31

them a little bit brighter the skills that have to do with that. 26:33

React, if you're talking about job Node, TypeScript, right, 26:35

you've got to be more specific >> Is it a list of skills or, 26:38

be more specific around that? 26:41

>> I'll do bullet points about them, all right? 26:44

>> Okay. 26:48

>> Wow, so, and again, if I'm trying to just apply to one of these systems 26:49

that I'm just doing it online. 26:53

I'll try to load a couple more keywords in there, 26:55

that's probably the section that I'm gonna try to load. 26:57

>> Okay. >> Then I would do, your work experience, 27:01

if you have work experience, if you don't have work experience your projects. 27:03

>> Okay. 27:07

>> Right? 27:08

And then your project, and then a little description of what your project is, 27:09

what it does, keeping it very. 27:12

I like to keep resumes to one page, 27:14

I'm gonna try to keep everything very simple there. 27:16

And then, in your projects, if they're hosted the link, 27:19

also the technology that you use. 27:23

So if you did a project with jQuery and some CSS and some framework. 27:26

Put all that information there, again, 27:31

you wanna load it with as much technical details as you can. 27:33

>> Okay. >> And 27:37

then so- >> And you can choose at least two to 27:38

three good projects, right, that are finished and polished? 27:41

>> Yeah, finished. 27:43

>> Okay. >> And then the key 27:45

word there would be finished. 27:45

>> Yeah. >> Yeah, and polished ideally,- 27:47

>> Okay. 27:50

>> Just looking decent. 27:50

>> Okay. 27:52

>> And then at the end, any additional information that you think. 27:52

Maybe something fun to talk about, at the talking point, like a hobby or 27:57

something like that. 28:01

Usually, I add that to the resumes that I'm gonna hand or send to people. 28:02

So that when they see it, that sometimes opens a talking point, 28:06

it can be like soccer. 28:08

And you can kinda have an easier conversation from there with 28:09

the interview. 28:12

>> Got it, okay, perfect, and one page, right? 28:13

>> I keep it at one page, yeah. 28:17

>> One page, and PDF, Google Doc, one page, what is it? 28:18

>> So, I think keep it in PDF format, it's just easier to share, doesn't move around. 28:24

I think at this point everybody has a PDF reader, 28:31

so- >> Yeah. 28:34

>> And I think PDF is also smaller when you share it as well. 28:34

>> Got it, so Will mentioned something, 28:37

and everyone that's attending I want you to hear this, that is a great idea. 28:39

He talked about, doing a website for a local restaurant or something like that. 28:43

We talked about this in our trails festival session, and 28:50

my team, can you link to that video? 28:55

Where we specifically talked about job search tactics, so 28:57

all the students can go watch that after this. 29:01

But, what we talked about is, essentially creating your experience. 29:03

And the way to do that is, Will, what you said, 29:08

you basically find an organization or 29:13

a small business in your area, that needs a website. 29:16

And you go to them and say, hey, I'm getting into the industry, 29:21

can I build you that site for free, at first, right? 29:26

I'm just building my experience, and most people say yes, and then you do that. 29:31

And then you've got a real live project, right? 29:35

And then, what you can do is find something you're passionate about, 29:39

like a church, a synagogue, a mosque, or a movement. 29:42

A nonprofit, anything you're passionate about, they probably need help, 29:47

they probably need a better website. 29:52

Go to them, and say, hey, how can I help? 29:54

And then that second project, could be something you're truly passionate about, 29:57

which shows Proactivity, it shows integrity, 30:01

it shows all those other traits that employers gonna look for. 30:05

So you could say I built the site for this nonprofit I'm passionate about, 30:08

the skills I used to do that, it kind of goes that next level. 30:12

And it essentially hides your lack of paid experience, right? 30:19

We're trying to show you're doing real things, 30:23

like Will said, doing is what matters, but you don't have to have that. 30:26

You don't have to have that, I've been paid for 30:31

two years as a frontend developer experience, you can do that without that. 30:33

So I just want to kinda drop that in there. 30:38

Do you wanna kinda build on it that, 30:41

Will, or- >> Yeah, yeah, so I'll give you a couple 30:43

of examples when the Muslim ban happened a couple years ago. 30:46

I remember a couple of my students went to JFK, they made a very simple site, jQuery, 30:49

very basic. 30:53

And all it was doing is allowing people to know if somebody, I think, was stopped or 30:54

not in the airport, couldn't get out. 30:58

And then pretty much a simple list, very simple, 31:00

but again, it's that idea of proactivity. 31:03

Take a second also, it's good to do the reverse experience, right? 31:08

So you look at it from the developer point of view, I'm looking for a job. 31:13

Take a minute also and go to the business perspective and 31:15

look at it from the business side. 31:17

Who would I wanna hire? 31:18

Ask yourself that question what I wanna hire myself. 31:20

What do I need to do or what does that person needs to do for 31:22

that person to become hireable, right? 31:24

So not only skills, right, which you can pick up, and 31:26

a lot of places are okay with you not knowing. 31:29

Because most likely you're gonna have to pick up some new technology. 31:31

So they wanna see that you have the capability of picking things up. 31:33

So if you have two or three projects with different things on them or 31:36

using different libraries, shows you that capability of picking things up. 31:39

But also, I'd rather have a person that's like you said, proactive, right? 31:42

Now we'll go ahead and try to, I don't have the experience for, hey, 31:46

look, I did a website for XYZ, I did this, I did that. 31:49

That person shows that they wanna keep moving forward. 31:51

And sometimes when you kind of have a toss up between two people, 31:55

I would rather always take somebody that shows this proactivity. 31:58

>> Absoluely. >> So yeah. 32:02

>> Absolutely, okay, great. 32:02

We're gonna get to questions in about eight minutes, so 32:04

let's go jump to the first actual interview, right? 32:09

So we've said, okay, you finish your curriculum, build your two, 32:12

three real projects, make sure that they look good and they're finished. 32:17

Get your resume built out and start applying and 32:23

treat it as a job, it's gonna be hard work for 90 days. 32:27

Okay, so they've done that, they finally got their first interview. 32:29

Give us some tips for that first interview, which is terrifying. 32:33

>> Yeah, so 32:39

the first, all right, so I'd like to talk to people, how people approach things. 32:39

So, first thing that you're gonna fail. 32:43

And sounds completely counterintuitive, but think that you're going to fail, 32:46

because the first couple of interviews you are nervous, right? 32:50

I don't think there's anything I can say to stop you from being nervous, 32:53

cuz it's your first interview. 32:56

You don't know what you're getting into, right, so 32:56

you don't know what you're gonna get asked. 32:59

So you just have that nervousness, and I'm not gonna lie to you and 33:02

be like, I'm gonna tell you something that's magically gonna go away. 33:05

No, you're not, you're mostly gonna still be nervous on that first spot. 33:07

So think that you're gonna fail because it makes it all easier when you think, 33:11

all right, I'm not gonna pass this interview, but 33:15

I'm gonna use this interview as a learning opportunity, right? 33:17

So, I mean, a lot of my students specifically, 33:19

I know the first two or three interviews, it's not gonna go that well for them. 33:22

So if they approach it with another idea with the idea of I'm gonna learn from 33:28

this, any question I can't answer, I'm gonna write it down. 33:31

I'm gonna go back and research it, I'm gonna try different things. 33:35

And actually, 33:39

it's been better, it's been given better results now than the other way around. 33:40

So the first thing is you kinda wanna go with that mentality. 33:44

During the interview itself, asking questions is really important. 33:48

I know this comes from a place that, you have a job so it's easier to say this, 33:55

but you are gonna work there. 33:59

So you do wanna ask questions because the worst thing that can happen is you end up 34:01

working for a company, you're there for three months. 34:05

You don't like it, you have a bad boss or 34:08

the company doesn't meet your expectations. 34:10

So then you're gonna go back into the job. 34:13

So you really put 90 days of work, you don't really wanna throw it away, right? 34:14

And so they're interviewing you, yes, but 34:19

you're also kind of interviewing them as well. 34:22

So asking questions, where have you guys kept your developers, 34:26

your developers still working here or does everybody leave in three months? 34:32

Well, that's probably a red flag, right? 34:35

What's your process for junior developers, you guys pair them with a senior developer 34:39

or some type of mentoring program so they can kind of learn and pick up new skills? 34:45

Things like that where you wanna ask questions cuz you wanna keep growing as 34:49

a development, all right? 34:53

That first job, I've 34:54

had a lot of students that had a first remote job before COVID, right? 34:57

This was a little bit before COVID so remote wasn't, and they've worked, 35:02

they've improved a lot in remote work. 35:04

But they had a really bad experiences, so 35:07

bad experiences that they think the development is not for me and 35:09

they probably completely went back to whatever they were doing. 35:12

And that has to do a lot with their first job. 35:13

So, asking questions. 35:16

The first couple of ones, try to learn from your first couple of interviews as 35:20

much as you can >> Okay, 35:24

what are they gonna ask you technically? 35:25

I mean, what do you imagine the scariest part is? 35:29

Are they gonna ask me to code live or they gonna ask me to do some whiteboarding, 35:32

what should people be preparing for? 35:36

>> So it depends kind of what type of company you apply to. 35:40

I think if you're going to like the big or your Facebook's and all that, 35:43

those tend to be heavy on whiteboarding. 35:47

If you're going to a medium-sized company, 35:49

those tend to be more towards assigning you projects. 35:52

Here, pick a and React from scratch. 35:55

And if you go to smaller companies, startups, they just tend to be more kind 35:58

of interview process question, maybe technical questions. 36:03

They range from really complicated to very simple, but 36:08

the more classic ones are usually applying to a React position. 36:12

What is the virtual DOM, for example, what's an API, 36:16

what are the lifecycle methods, right? 36:19

Usually when you are applying for like a React position, 36:22

these are the more common questions that you'll see me. 36:24

>> Okay. 36:26

>> How can you make or can you write a simple button click, 36:29

can you do a simple button click with using React hooks? 36:34

Because those are very simple 30-minute questions. 36:40

>> Got it, is it appropriate to ask for the agenda of the interview? 36:43

What are we gonna cover? 36:47

>> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, 36:49

I think that's again, yeah, that's a really good point, yeah. 36:50

What's gonna be the process, what are we gonna cover, who am I gonna talk to? 36:54

That's also good, ask who you're gonna talk to, 36:57

because then you can go turn around and do a quick research on that person. 36:58

And see, yeah, is this guy more of the HR, is this guy more of the developer, 37:01

more like what is he more leaning? 37:05

>> Right. >> So then you can kind of also prepare 37:07

a couple talking points- >> Right. 37:08

>> Then you speak. 37:10

>> And then next level is you connect to him on LinkedIn and say, hey, I'm really 37:10

excited to meet you in the interview coming up, would love to connect here. 37:15

And they're gonna go, whoa, this person's proactive, 37:20

their emotional intelligence a little higher. 37:22

Whatever you can do to affect that potential outcome would be great. 37:27

So all right, great, so we talked about the real interview. 37:33

Some real life is going on right here, my dog just came in. 37:37

Hey Jackson, can you please? 37:40

She will bark. 37:43

And can you close the door, please? 37:45

Thank you. It's my 12-year old, everybody. 37:46

>> [LAUGH] >> COVID, here we go. 37:51

Okay, so thank you so much for covering this process. 37:52

So before we take questions in two minutes, can you reiterate, 37:56

at a high level, the playbook that we've been discussing here. 38:00

From, okay, you've completed your credential or your coding boot camp, 38:05

d walk us through it real quick, the high level. 38:09

>> Yeah, so you wanna have two resumes, right? 38:13

You wanna have at least two projects finished and looking decent. 38:18

You want to have some type of spreadsheet where you can keep track of all 38:23

your interviews and everywhere you apply to. 38:26

I wouldn't talk a lot about that, but really quickly, 38:29

what you wanna do is every application, 38:31

you should put it into your Excel spreadsheet or Google Sheets or whatever. 38:33

And keep track of where you are and what status, that helps out a lot. 38:36

Because sometimes, some jobs won't work out, but 38:41

then they'll probably call you back or they'll tell you, 38:45

hey, you're almost there, come back in maybe six months. 38:47

So you wanna log that, so you can come back three months, six months, whatever. 38:50

And come back and apply again with a little bit more knowledge and experience. 38:54

When applying online, if you're applying on one of these sites, 38:56

try to load your resume with as many keywords applied to places that are your 39:01

two years, about two years. 39:05

Or any any job description has a requirement of two years or 39:07

less, that's a great opportunity for a junior developer. 39:12

Cold emailing is, in my opinion, not bad as long as you do it, again, 39:19

professionally, keep a good email, share your projects. 39:23

So reaching out always shows proactivity, the worse case scenario is 39:26

that they don't answer back, okay, that's the end of the story there. 39:30

But the places that do answer back, 39:34

you have a higher chance of being able to find that job, so it's a great shot. 39:36

And then yeah, then you have your interview process. 39:43

The first couple of ones are gonna be hard ones, so 39:44

try to take them as learning opportunities. 39:46

So give it your best, but try to keep that in the back of your head that if 39:48

you don't get the job in the first couple of months, that's okay. 39:52

It does happen, but use it as opportunities of learning. 39:55

Ask questions, try to find out the agenda. 40:00

[COUGH] >> Great. 40:02

>> And it's always good. 40:04

Like to get to the end, always send a thank you email. 40:05

Thanks for your time, it was pretty good. 40:09

Yeah, sometimes that again puts you in the back of their heads. 40:12

If that interview that they decided does not work out, 40:16

because a candidate can also back out. 40:18

>> Yeah. 40:20

>> You could be the second choice and that's totally fine. 40:21

>> Yeah, Gosh, those are great tips, thanks for sharing them. 40:23

[COUGH] >> [COUGH] 40:27

>> The other thing you mentioned was, hey, 40:30

this is 90 days of work, right? 40:31

It's gonna be a lot of work to get those interviews. 40:32

And is it 90 days to get the job, or just to get the interviews? 40:38

>> To get the interviews. 40:41

Then you still got whatever, they're different processes, 40:45

they take different times. 40:47

But to start getting, in my opinion, good interviews is that these 90 days. 40:49

>> Okay, got it. 40:52

All right, we got a lot of great questions. 40:53

We have probably 10 to 12 questions. 40:55

So we've got about 15, 16 minutes left. 41:00

So about a minute per answer is probably about right. 41:05

Let's do this, all right, from Alyssa. 41:09

They said, do you recommend applying for 41:12

junior developer positions after completing a tech degree or a boot camp? 41:14

It seems every place requires years of experience before one can become 41:21

a developer. 41:24

>> So definitely finishing those things, some of them give you a certificate, 41:28

which is always good as a referencing back as a point of knowledge. 41:33

Yeah, I would say, yeah, finish them, it's good. 41:38

It shows, again, completion, right, there we go. 41:41

>> Family, it's real. 41:44

>> Yeah, so do complete them again, this idea of finishing things is important. 41:47

So you always want to show that you finished. 41:51

And then everything else we talked about. 41:53

>> I agree with that. 41:57

And Alyssa, 41:58

you're not gonna have the skills you need to apply until you finish, right? 41:59

So whatever curriculum or credential you've chosen is designed 42:02

to give you a complete set of skills to apply. 42:06

And the projects are gonna be important. 42:08

So yeah, I think Will and I are both saying, complete it, and 42:12

then do that 90 day job search. 42:15

From Leann, for your resume, do you recommend putting in all of your 42:16

social media pages on there, since they'll want to know more about you? 42:21

For instance, what if you have a YouTube channel or 42:26

Instagram account dedicated to your developer journey? 42:29

>> Yeah, so social media, again, in context, right? 42:31

If your social media is you and your family, that's really nice. 42:37

Doesn't really add too much, to be honest. 42:41

But like he said, if you do have a YouTube channel where you're logging your whole 42:43

experience, yeah, that's definitely a highlight. 42:46

It lets the other person take a quick look at who you are in an even better way. 42:48

So yeah, I'd say of course. 42:53

>> Okay. 42:55

>> So social media in context, that's what I'm saying. 42:55

>> In context, yeah, it's good. 42:57

I would say there's a mix, there's a mixed message or a little bit. 42:58

You wanna be yourself but at the same time, 43:04

if you've got a lot of personal stuff on your 43:08

social media that could throw anybody off, 43:13

you wanna think about that. 43:19

And we're saying, be who you are, 43:22

you shouldn't have to be a certain way to get hired. 43:23

But there is a fine line around what's the right thing to put on social media or not. 43:25

I think if you're in doubt, don't include it, which I hate. 43:30

All right, from Liz E, as a new entry level web developer, 43:36

is it possible to find fully remote work? 43:41

>> So it was a lot harder in January before COVID. 43:47

Nowadays, it's getting a lot easier, it's definitely getting a lot easier. 43:50

There's definitely a lot more demand. 43:55

One of the questions, at least if you're in an interview process for 43:56

a remote development, is ask them what their process is for onboarding. 44:00

One of the things that I've seen as well, a lot of companies have gone remote. 44:05

Their onboarding process is still a little bit flaky, right? 44:08

And that could just create some difficulties when you're kind of 44:14

onboarding and start working. 44:17

So, I do think that it's becoming a lot easier now than it was eight months ago, 44:18

nine months ago, >> Okay, 44:23

we have Treehouse students around the world, not just in the US. 44:24

When people are doing their job search, 44:29

what they need to think about as far as their country of residence. 44:31

Do you have any guidelines of that? 44:34

>> Would you mean when applying for a remote position? 44:38

>> Yeah, so 44:41

where is it just not worth applying based on your country of residence? 44:42

>> So, most of the time, you're gonna wanna apply around the same give or 44:48

take a couple of hours of your time zone, all right? 44:51

And even the places that do hire, 44:54

try to also hire people around the same time zone. 44:56

So I'd keep that in mind, unless there's a company that works around the clock. 45:00

And then in that case it doesn't really matter. 45:05

But most of the time it's the time zone consideration. 45:06

Cuz they need you to be online to be able to interact with you. 45:09

So if you're on a completely 12 hour different time zone, 45:13

it's just gonna make it a lot harder for you and for them as well. 45:15

Cuz you also need to reach out and have questions and things like that. 45:18

I'd also keep it in mind for myself as well, not only for 45:23

where I'm working, but for myself. 45:25

>> Got it, and I would say that with all of the uncertainty around H1B visas and 45:26

all sorts of things going on in the US, I think if you're a US citizen, 45:31

stick to US companies. 45:36

If you're not a US citizen, try to find work in your own country. 45:37

It's gonna be hard for a lot of US companies to say yes to foreign 45:42

folks right now, just be aware of that. 45:47

>> And just to add to that, the whole tax situation is always a thing. 45:50

We kinda forget about that, but taxes can also be a headache. 45:55

So let's keep that in mind as well. 45:59

If we work outside or even if we work as sometimes contractors or things like that. 46:01

>> Yeah, that's a good point to make. 46:05

All right, from Brigitta, should we look for internships before a junior role? 46:06

>> I have seen more internships, though this summer was kind of crazy. 46:14

Even at the company where I work we didn't have internships this summer with 46:20

everything going on. 46:24

I think they were kind of slow because it of the situation. 46:25

But I would definitely look for internships. 46:29

That's a great opportunity to be able to get to try to learn, 46:32

to add more to your portfolio, yeah. 46:35

>> Got it. 46:37

>> And they are out there, by the way, there are good internships out there. 46:37

>> I guess what's the big question around, is it paid internship or not? 46:40

Do you have any thoughts on whether you should do it if it's paid or not paid? 46:45

>> [COUGH] That depends on the person, to be honest, right? 46:47

If you can manage to take an unpaid internship, right, 46:52

and that's not gonna hurt you financially, then I'd consider it. 46:55

But if you can't, I really wouldn't go through that. 47:00

And I'd probably try to maybe push a little bit more and 47:05

try to find a paid job. 47:08

>> Got it, okay, from Adrian. 47:09

Do you think that the ten projects on the tech degree on Team Treehouse is 47:11

enough to have a portfolio to get a junior position developer? 47:16

Well, I don't know if you know enough about our projects to answer that. 47:21

But they're pretty typical projects similar to what you do at a boot camp. 47:24

>> So I would grab, I mean ten is a lot of projects, right? 47:31

So I would pick out maybe two or three. 47:34

Give them your own style, maybe give them some more functionality. 47:36

A little bit more, give it your flavor and then put them on your resume. 47:41

Polish them a little bit more, you're just focused on two, three, ten is a lot. 47:47

You could share them, you can probably put them on if you have a personal portfolio, 47:50

it's a great place to share them. 47:53

But on your resume, you just wanna share maybe two or three, 47:54

that's more than enough. 47:56

>> Good call, and Adrian, just so you know, 47:57

we've designed those projects to start off very simple. 47:59

So the first chunk of those projects aren't gonna be advanced enough for 48:03

you to showcase on your resume, it's really gonna be the later ones anyway. 48:07

So I would echo Will saying, choose the last two or three, customize them, 48:11

really polish them and use those. 48:15

And even better, use them for, like we said, 48:17

a local organization that you're passionate for, right? 48:21

So it's super real. 48:25

So from Patricia, hello, Will and Ryan, hello. 48:27

What advice would you give someone who's 40 plus entering this field for 48:31

the first time? 48:34

>> So leverage any previous experience that you have, right? 48:39

So you come into 40 plus, you have some experience in some field, 48:43

use that at your advantage. 48:47

And it's kind of, the good thing is development doesn't really discriminate. 48:50

They talk a lot about ageism, but I really haven't seen it. 48:55

Might just been that I haven't seen it, it does exist, 48:59

I'm not gonna say it's not out there. 49:02

But I think now with remote work, kind of moving business to remote work, 49:04

it kind of opens the possibility. 49:08

So I would try to leverage, to use this experience, and 49:10

just kind of keep following the process that we just talked about. 49:13

>> Love it, I would echo that, and also say, a good employer 49:16

will actually realize you have life experience and that's really valuable. 49:19

So actually that you have tremendous valuable experience you should pull on, 49:24

right? 49:29

Like Will is saying, figure out how to talk about that experience and 49:30

actually use as an advantage. 49:33

>> And one more comment. 49:34

Just one more comment to that, when you're applying for a job, there's no need for 49:36

you to tell them your age anyway. 49:40

>> Yep, good call, great answer, thank you. 49:42

From Mel, this might be more question for me. 49:47

Spin off of the internship question, most of the ones I've seen and 49:50

applied for asking what university I'm attending. 49:54

Is it enough just to type in Treehouse, or has anyone gotten an internship with 49:58

just a Treehouse and In the education field. 50:02

I would say if they're asking what university you're attending, 50:07

it's not gonna work to say that you're a Treehouse student. 50:11

They're probably looking for university students specifically, and 50:15

they probably will filter you out. 50:20

So I know that's an answer you don't wanna hear, but 50:22

that's probably what's gonna happen. 50:24

I feel a little differently than Will does on internships. 50:26

I think they're generally not a good path. 50:33

I would just go straight to your first paid job, but I'm just being blunt. 50:37

The projects you build are gonna be great, 50:44

but you need to use it in the framework that Will's talking about. 50:46

Relying upon the word Treehouse as your education is not 50:49

gonna get you the job, right? 50:53

It's the projects that matter. 50:55

And if the internship is looking for a university student, unfortunately, 50:57

that's probably what they want. 51:00

And so I would just skip it and go to the next one. 51:02

So from Aaron, what about freelancing as experience? 51:06

>> Yeah, I mean, that's [COUGH] kind of these free projects that we're talking 51:12

about, could eventually become freelance opportunities. 51:15

So you make that website for 51:18

the restaurant we're talking about, they get new stuff on their menu. 51:19

Well now, you got a job or whatnot, you have a little bit more experience, so 51:22

that you can go back and be like hey, we're gonna charge you for this, and 51:26

there's nothing wrong. 51:29

This is always a thing with a lot of people, 51:30

there's nothing wrong with charging for your work. 51:33

Also, do a little bit of research on what kind of the hourly rate is, 51:35

because we get excited, and it's normal, right? 51:39

We get excited, we want that first paycheck. 51:42

We'll lowball ourselves to whatever number, and 51:44

then what happens is our client will just get accustomed to that number. 51:47

It's gonna be really hard for you to raise your price. 51:49

So for the first time, you can do for free. 51:51

If they come back, they need some work, go ahead, do a little bit of research, and 51:53

come back with a more market. 51:57

You can come a little lower, but with a market number. 51:58

I see that happen a lot. 52:01

>> Thank you. 52:02

From Armin, when making a portfolio, do we strictly need to invent our own code? 52:03

Or can we use pieces of code from other people and 52:08

make a portfolio using all these pieces together? 52:11

>> Yeah, I mean, in development, we're not reinventing the wheel. 52:15

So it's not so much as you're copying code is how you're using this code together, 52:18

same thing with music. 52:25

There's no new notes. 52:27

It's a combination of notes. 52:28

And we get new music, right? 52:30

So same idea, same concept. 52:32

>> Appreciate that. 52:34

I think just- >> Jeff, just to add to that, 52:36

just make sure you understand the code that you are doing. 52:39

>> Yes. >> Because if somebody comes back and 52:42

asks you about something about a piece of code, why did you use this? 52:44

Why did you use that? 52:46

You wanna be able to provide an answer. 52:47

>> Amen, yeah, that's vital to be able to do that. 52:51

From Raphael, as someone changing careers and learning by Treehouse, 52:54

what should I be prepared for 52:58

in a technical style interview if I'm applying for junior deposition? 52:59

We talked a little bit about that. 53:03

But why don't you reiterate that real quick? 53:04

>> So you can expect other whiteboarding, right? 53:06

And most of whiteboadings are gonna probably be some type of algorithm. 53:08

So I would study up. 53:11

I would go through the process of learning, reading a couple of books. 53:14

The Cracking the Coding Interview is a pretty good one off the top of my head, 53:18

Reading Clean Code. 53:23

I think one is called JavaScript Samurai, I believe, 53:25

just researching, you would expect probably that. 53:29

I would use some of these platforms that kinda give you a couple of problems, and 53:33

try to do it yourself. 53:36

Code I think, or leak code are some of these things. 53:39

Try to practice. 53:42

So building projects is gonna give you practice. 53:43

Try to actually go through practicing products. 53:45

All these things are the things that will add you up, and 53:47

will make it a lot easier when you go to these interviews. 53:49

>> Great, thank you. 53:52

We'll try to blaze through the rest of these. 53:53

We're getting low on time. 53:55

From Melissa, could we hear more about cold emailing? 53:57

How do you recommend approaching this tactic? 54:00

>> Yeah, so you wanna research the company that you wanna apply to. 54:04

You wanna research the people that make decisions. 54:07

Or you probably wanna find the people that make decisions on the development team, 54:10

cuz that's probably where you're applying. 54:14

I would try to tailor the email to again, to what they do, present yourself. 54:16

And try to find a project, or try to find some type of code, or something that you 54:21

can share with them, and not only show your interest as to why you wanna apply. 54:25

But also, have a little bit more of that effort that we talked about. 54:30

And that would be great. 54:33

And sometimes, it's very easy. 54:34

You could just do a simple inspect on their page, and they have a little error. 54:35

And you can just highlight that, right? 54:38

Just, again, bringing some points of conversation. 54:39

So they can see that you're not only invested in them, but 54:42

you really wanna be a part of that company. 54:45

>> I love it, thank you. 54:47

From Adam, has anyone devalued the way you gained your knowledge of programming? 54:50

Are there companies that don't believe in boot camps and online learning? 54:56

>> Yeah, yeah, there are. 55:00

But I mean, there's all type of people in the world, so it doesn't really matter. 55:01

>> Got it. 55:06

How can you tell? 55:07

I mean, how can you avoid those companies? 55:08

I mean, you can look at the people that work there, that would be a great way. 55:10

See if you can see people that do have boot camp experience, or not. 55:18

That would be a great tell. 55:22

Or maybe if they all come from a CS background, 55:23

then they're most likely only want people with CS. 55:25

And again, it does happen, but 55:27

there's a bunch of companies out there that wouldn't really work. 55:28

It wouldn't [INAUDIBLE]. 55:31

>> Okay, great. 55:32

I'm a beginner, but I'm really enjoying and appreciating Team Treehouse. 55:35

Thanks, Lisa. 55:39

Thank you so much for this informative session. 55:39

Does age matter when applying for employment? 55:43

If so, how can a [INAUDIBLE] thank you. 55:45

>> It shouldn't, it really shouldn't. 55:49

Again, there's no need for them to ask your age, so. 55:50

>> Yep, and I think and they can see how old you are. 55:54

Use that to your advantage, whether it's young or old. 55:59

Pull on that tech strength versus a weakness. 56:02

Let's tackle two more. 56:07

From Adam, how do you manage the workload while still working a nine to five and 56:09

learning new technologies? 56:13

>> For me, it was scheduling. 56:16

Of course, you have to find a process, right, that works. 56:18

And for me, it was just scheduling, scheduling my time as best as possible. 56:23

So I was able and kinda focusing on that time, right? 56:26

If you said you're gonna work for two hours or whatever at night, 56:30

turn off your phone, turn off your social media, and just dedicate yourself for 56:33

that amount of time. 56:37

>> How did they interview? 56:39

So Leanne said, how did they do interviews for remote work? 56:40

Is it on Zoom? 56:43

I've only heard about interviews in person, 56:44

and they literally watch you build whatever they want you to build for them. 56:46

>> Very similar. 56:50

I've actually gone through that process recently. 56:51

So a lot of it is online. 56:54

There's a couple of code editors online where the other person can 56:56

look at what you type. 56:58

And then you got your classic Zoom call, and you're both on a Zoom call, 56:59

and kinda going over this code editor, building something got it, yeah. 57:02

>> Okay, cool. 57:07

Well, that's all we have time for. 57:08

Thank you so much for spending your valuable time with us. 57:10

Any parting message you wanna give anybody? 57:14

>> Imposter syndrome exists, just wanna let everybody know. 57:18

So I just went through an overview right now, just, again, 57:22

to keep conversations and things. 57:26

And you always feel in position. 57:28

You're always gonna feel like you're not there yet. 57:31

Even with the amount of experience I have, I still get that feeling. 57:36

You just learned to kinda control that monster. 57:39

I know that it's gonna come, 57:41

it's gonna rear its head every time you wanna try something new. 57:42

It doesn't go away, but you learn to know that it exists. 57:45

So if I wanna leave anybody with some advice, it's just, it's not gonna go away. 57:48

You're gonna learn to tame it, and coding is about grinding. 57:52

It's not so much about memory. 57:59

It's not so much about being smart. 58:00

It is about effort. 58:02

It is about you gotta keep going. 58:03

You're gonna hit a couple of walls. 58:04

You're gonna get frustrating. 58:05

That's not gonna change. 58:06

But just keep going, there is light at the end of the tunnel, 58:08

and everybody can do it, yeah. 58:10

>> Thank you, Will. 58:12

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