Yesterday's discussion on Ben's post:
What’s the most frustrating thing about the process of looking for work or interviewing?", really intrigued me and I wanted to do a follow up.
After many rejection emails, how did you finally get your first dev job?
Was it through a job site, networking, a meetup or etc? Share below, with advice! :)
Latest comments (66)
A friend's friend recommended me to his company, without meeting me or seeing any of my code. That's nuts. They were incredibly generous, and I made sure that they wouldn't regret it. That gave me a HTML + CSS job, which allowed me to care for my mother and learn JS on the payroll. Now a few jobs later, I'm a JS developer, looking after a small team.
I'm grateful for my ex-colleague for risking his reputation to get someone new into the industry. I try to do the same for others, but so far they haven't stuck.
I went to a Job-Speed-Dating which is (as the name implies) a speed dating with recruiters and potential employees. There was an additional opportunity to present a recent project in front of all recruiters. I presented a summary of my former university project and then just got three invites to a personal interview.
After all three I decided for the one with the most appealing tasks and team. Would it again this way.
I got a job in customer service/tech support and transferred into the R&D department after a year or so. A friend who worked at the company was instrumental in both getting the job and holding someone's feet to the fire who'd promised me I could transfer. Another friend had left support, and the support management were (rightly) worried that I'd quit. So they said I could transfer if I stayed for 3 more months. I had just assumed they were lying, so had started looking for jobs elsewhere. But my friend (who was a product manager by this point) went and talked to somebody without my asking him to, and boom, I was starting in R&D earlier than the date they promised.
I had on my resume that I'd written a Pong clone in Java. At the time, they didn't have a lot of people who knew or liked Java, so their one Java desktop app was what they put me on. A few months later the other developer on that app quit, so they gave me a raise to make sure I'd stay.
You don't necessarily need to know someone with a lot of clout to follow a similar path, starting in a relatively easy-to-get position and transferring. Some companies like to hire from within. But it would probably help to have more self-confidence than I did, and advocate for yourself.
I just graduated college this past April with a bachelor's in Computer Science. I didn't start actively applying to jobs until June because I was on vacation for a month.
I applied to jobs well into July. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to do and what my dream job would be. So I tried to apply for those type of jobs. I soon realized I dont yet have the experience needed to work in that field. Instead I started applying for software development positions. I edited and reviewed my resume several times trying different layouts and keywords in an attempt to pass the prescreening software step.
In the end, my two in person interviews were with companies I never applied to. They havld found me because I posted my resume online. The first one found my resume on Craigslist and the second through a job board like dice. I was accepted to both even without doing a coding challenge. In the end I went with my current company. ❤️
Don't feel discouraged if you aren't getting good results. I noticed it takes about a month before you get any response from some places. It's also helpful to try different resume styles and layouts. Remember 😉 in a software industry why wouldn't they use software to select a handful of candidates before they even land on a hiring manager's desk.
Ive noticed that too! After getting my job I keep getting calls from companies I never applied to.
My very first programming job was given to me by one of my university professors.
I found my current job through an online job posting. The company really valued the person and their character over their technical prowess, which being self-taught and coming from a non-traditional background was very important to me. I have been here over a year and so far so good.
More interesting is the last one (the first one sucked): made a bot for the game I was interested in (Eulora) and got in time to be the CTO for the producing company!
Of course, the above sort of story won't happen anywhere or everywhere - but it can happen in TMSR.
This is pretty interesting. So, I finished my final year of engineering and was waiting for my results (it usually takes 2-3 months). I thought why to waste this time and I started learning Android Studio. I had worked on a website in my final year project so I thought to make an app of the same project for fun.
I made it and don't know why I put the screen recording of the working app in my WhatsApp story. One friend knew someone who was starting a startup company and he shared the video. They called me for an interview and I got the job lol.
By the way, I got rejected in HR rounds of Wipro and Infosys (cleared the technical rounds). Hopefully, startups prefer coding skills more than communication skills.
The first real “programming job” was organizing markup for my dad after school, back when I was a little over 10 years old. In exchange I would get to choose what we would have for dinner, or a pastry or candy, or just the feeling of playing a big people game.
But it was honestly the best thing. I was so proud of myself. While my friends were watching tv, my dad taught me how to code. So cool. Back in the day when Dreamweaver was all the rage, I went in and did all the repetitive or simple tasks by hand. I’m not even sure it was useful, but I did learn a lot and I saw that what I wrote in this tangle of tiny black, blue, and green Courier New characters actually did something in the other screen. We would make mathematical games, and I helped with small tasks in his website. This is all long gone, but I do remember it dearly.
After doing a HND in Computer Programming, about to start my degree I was visiting a pen-pal in another city and they left me with their father for a little while.
Turns out he was an electronic engineer for a very small company looking to take on a software engineer but unable to afford one. I volunteered.
I gave up my degree for a year to get some work experience getting paid very little so that I would have an edge when it came to graduation. This was shortly before software developers became such a hard to find resource.
My very first programming job happened almost by accident. I was studying psychology and looking for a summer job. I stopped by the college summer jobs board and saw an offer where they were looking for a third year student. That was back in 1989.
I decided to apply as I always did some personal programming projects at home. Just for fun, I decided to do a small demo in Turbo Pascal.
I was actually one of the only two students to apply and because of that small demo I ended up being hired. I really had no academic knowledge or experience...so I learned by myself how to code and modify their accounting system. I ended up working there for 5 years then moved on to start my own consulting firm.
You know what the best bit of all this is? After some 20 years they managed to track me again...and that good old DOS program was still running the production management part of the business using less than 4 MO of RAM.
A year later and here I am working again for that same company who gave me my first job with a new technology stack I chose and enjoy.
Talk about lucky?
Kicked butt at an extended internship and the founder of the company gave me a call when he decided to sell the company and pursue a new venture. I started off doing some SQL reporting part-time for him while I was in school, but when I ended up having to drop out for the first of many times due to a streak of poor life decisions, I was able to turn it into a full-time gig.
I got to design the controller for a LED billboard which was a lot of fun...I miss being remotely connected to embedded devices at my job (this was in C# on Windows Embedded 7 machines). It was fun being able to play with expensive gadgets all day, but it is hard to keep finding work in that profession when you have no formal EE schooling.
I was 19 years old when got my first job. It was a freelance project with a Spanish company. My first "in house" job was last year, at 24. OMG, I just realized that I've been a freelancer for almost 5 years!
A curious fact is that I didn't finished the university yet, in fact, all I've learnt was as self taught and the beautiful part: it wasn't a barrier to get hired for a great LATAM company!
I love this career. You're not limited by a diploma, you depends on your dedication and effort :)
I got my first job at a startup as a Frontend Engineer. I dropped out of college and I have friends in every field of computer science. I already knew hoe to code but I wasn't serious for it. Then I started web development and after 6 months, At a startup, they had urgent requirement for React Dev and my friend who works there as a ML engineer recommended me. They saw my work and immediatly hired me and at 12th December 2018 I will complete my first month at this startup. 🤩🤩