DEV Community: Must-Have Skill

How to communicate as an Introvert

Must-Have Skill — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 19:04:22 +0000

I suck at public interactions. Meeting new people, blah. Presentations for the team, dreadful. Questions? No thank you! Even when I have something I'm proud of and need to show it at work for consideration, I'd rather keep the feeling of accomplishment to myself.
If you are reading this, but are thinking, "what a loser", so am I. I have had this trait since a kid. Nobody ever noticed, or made me feel awkward, until I started applying for jobs.
Feelings stronger than any relationship I've been in sabatoged my interactions, making me seem unqualified, unprepared, uninterested and plain stupid.
Overcoming this was not easy. Because this made me feel like I was "defective", the time I wasted trying to understand and overcome my own insecurities wax long, and something I still work on today. But hopefully some of the following advice can make someone else take steps to overcome anything similar without doing it alone.

Daily interactions! I hope I'm the only person with this problem, but staying home all the time used to be my routine. But in order to pass interviews, and communicate to teams or clients for work, my habits needed to change. I needed practice. I couldn't count on going to a million interviews and practice, and family/friend practice was fake. Here's what I did. Every day I added time to go to a super market, coffee shop, corner store for a drink. I started asking the cashier how their day was. That's it. This small interaction felt so uplifting. I soon started asking people waiting in line to checkout if they would like to go ahead of me. Now I ask the person behind me if I can pay for their order when I'm at Starbucks. This type of situation usually happens before I went to work, and not only forced me to start the day with having a small conversation, but filled me with a sense of pride and happiness for doing a good deed! (In case you're wondering, YES I have overpaid for some Starbucks orders after asking and finding out it wasn't "just a coffee"... Still did it just to not break the habit...). You don't need to do these exact scenarios, but forcing yourself to leave and interact with one person daily can have awesome results!
1. Sign up for "Meet-ups" and PRESENT. Meet-ups have groups. But the groups are all there with the same interests. This can make it easier to start conversations because of the chances of everyone enjoying the same topics. If your area doesn't have the type of group you would attend (my area used to have ONE tech-related group...), be brave and pick something else. A big trend I've seen is "MasterMind"/Public Speaking groups. They help people build their skills for talking to audiences. Even if you aren't ready to speak, show up and watch others present. Let the organizer know you aren't ready, but are working on it. If you find a group you like, force yourself to sign up to present or speak. Do it without having any idea of what to talk about. The "act" of signing up will cause a desire to come up with something. When I would tell myself that I would sign up after creating my topic to speak on, I ALWAYS neglected it. Sometimes commitment to the engagement can cause your fear of failure to outweigh your fear of speaking.

It will be tough, or maybe it will make you realize that it was all that was needed to become the badass you always knew you were!

Hope this help!

How to turn your idea into more than just a thought.

Must-Have Skill — Sun, 17 May 2020 03:46:32 +0000

Blog-O-Matic is the app that removes all excuses that prevent you from creating your "personal brand" online!

So many people with great ideas and dreams, small and large, never even begin their journey to see if it could become a reality!

WHY?

I think nobody wants that "fantasy" lifestyle of being self-employed and making money while doing something they actually love to fail. So much of our history has restricted the current generation of young people from believing in themselves.

I teach my kids what I wish people in my life should have preached to me:

"Fail soon, and don't worry. "

I force my kids to build their silliest ideas, and even serious ones. I want them to truly know if they would even enjoy whatever it is they want to do. And if they create a product or service, I encourage them to go shoe the internet world.

Nobody would have ever thought you would be able to play video games and have people PAY go watch it.

But where do you start? It's simple.

Publish content about whatever you think showcases your "idea"

This is why Blog-O-Matic is being created.

You don't know how to build a website to publish your stuff?
You don't know how to buy or use a domain name?
What's a CMS?
You don't want to use "another app".

The best feature takes care of:

"But I don't want to type, or find images, or even make it look nice... I just want to write like it's an SMS TEXT, and hit send!"

Guess who has you covered. No more excuses.

Send a message to find out more.
Email

If I could bring one thing back to the internet....

Must-Have Skill — Sun, 17 May 2020 03:00:36 +0000

This article is trending at #1 on hacker news right now:
Read post here...

I find it to be a sad truth that blogging is no longer about publishing content that reaches a specific audience.

It is monetized by companies now and diminishes quality content if not cross-pulishdx or copied over to that platform .

I love Blog-O-Matic, because it creates custom articles to try and allow the viewers to relate to the bloggers style. And the app doesn't force users to publish on a singular platform, but creates a custom website and URL BY DEFAULT!

Maybe I'm on to something here... I started this journey to give my kids a way to start creating a public profile to learn about "personal branding" (my 16 year old had turned his DJ/music producer hobby into something more "professional"), and now I can see the value in my approach.

If you can leave a comment, could you tell me if you have started creating your own "public online profile"? Why did you start? If not, are you not for a reason? Maybe you see value in having content published while looking a job. Maybe you have a service you want to provide and you want to create articles promoting that. Let me know please?

Why my side project might become more than that... Recruiters

Must-Have Skill — Fri, 15 May 2020 21:31:06 +0000

This was my response to another message I opened today:

".C'mon ... you made me download and read some document with nothing to explain even the company you are working for? Please consider my years of experience along with my current position before thinking it's okay to ask if I would send all my details and resume blindly. If this is some general template you spam to random people, that's just wrong. But so many call themselves "recruiters" but treat experienced professional developers the same as some junior who needs any job for the experience. I would never make you guess my skill set or value , please show the same kindness "

I'm having a hard time understanding why it seems like the title of "recruiter" has any weight in our field (software engineering).

Before the pandemic, I was launching the beta for my app, "Blog-O-Matic", which I became obsessed with creating when my kids made it clear that the way anyone creates content today is "dated"....

But even before that project, I have been producing chapters for an e-book based on my interviewing experiences since my first attempt at working as a professional developer (so many years ago...). These blog articles told a story of how the process goes, what had changed over the years, and most importantly, understanding the value of the company contacting me via "talent acquisitionists" as opposed to emails from unknown recruitment agencies.

This "book" was more of a personal journey to understanding how to publish s professional book and piece together chapters that make sense. I now have been on the other side of an interview, and also have helped others obtain positions because of my experience. The outline from all of this has morphed into a utility I now use for a check list and guidance for the circles I'm involved with.

When I make a decision to set time aside (time is anyone's most valuable commodity and should be handled like money), I announce it on a public forum. Not to gain a following or hope for masses to be interested. It's a move to mark the occasion, but also so if someone who knows me reads these articles... I get reenforce my work ethic and dedication, or have no effort to back up these ideas and feel like a fool with s big mouth.

So this article will begin documenting a couple projects starting this weekend. If you are still reading this, and like the idea of a platform/service that focuses on recruiting for the DEVELOPER's needs instead the companies, shoot me a message.

Thanks.