What are the challenges to getting a job in tech? If possible, share advice to overcome that challenge!

1. My biggest challenge is me. Mentality, focus, motivation, consistency, belief factor, etc.
   Advice: Do not give up.

2. Standing out among other beginners because you all have similar technical skills.
   Advice: Be able to tell your story and make friends in the tech community who can vouch for your technical skills.

3. You can overcome the barrier of getting into tech by being okay with "programming adjacent" jobs such as a researcher, data entry, or analyst.

4. The huge challenge is the experience barrier along with transitioning from a non-tech field.

5. The platform(s) used to apply for jobs are different.
   Advice: Keep a copy of your resume in different formats.

6. Tracking the progress of all your applications.
   Advice: Create a spreadsheet that shows the company, job id, and what stage of the interview you're in.

7. Do not get discouraged in the process.
   Advice: You don't just want any job, you want the right job for you. It's okay for the company and yourself to be picky.

Contributors: Corey McCarty, Azhya Knox, Dennis Kennetz, Lawrence Lockhart, Demetria Farewell, Brad Garropy

Code Connector is a non-profit that's organized tech meetups to help people start their journey into tech. You can join our daily conversations by clicking this link: Code Connector slack channel.

Comments

[Erhan Çetin]

Even if we have or improve the strategy to get it , without having the skill , they will not work.
I think before getting a new job, we should take into consideration taking responsibility in our current job. This gives us a bunch of skills and makes us get ready for the challenge in the technical perspective. Then we can improve the strategies to achieve our goal in parallel.

[jrogers8835]

Staff SE here, I haven't been in the job market because my college internship turned into a full time job that I've been at for 8 years, but I've done tons of interviews for our team so I figured I'd give some thoughts from the other side of the table...

• be careful with portfolios (live code). If they work they're a great way to showcase your skills but if they're buggy or don't work at all then it can hurt you
• have 1 language your strong in and a few you're reasonably comfortable with. This is a general idea not a hard rule obviously but as an interviewer if I know you're solid with JS but can only read basic java and SQL, then I know I can get value out of your JS skills while you grow in have and SQL. where as if you have 15 languages that you wrote hello world in but list yourself as comfortable in all of them, I'm going to be very skeptical and put you to the test.
• if you don't have dev experience, sell problem solving. Sudoku, cross words, logic puzzles, whatever you enjoy, showing you can pull complicated concepts apart goes a long way.
• don't be afraid to sell your continued learning. Too many devs I know shrug off real learning after they get a solid job. If I know you invest in yourself, whether it's this site, podcasts, books, challenge websites, whatever, then I'm more likely to invest in you.
• don't panic during coding interviews. I give a particular problem that has a tricky edge case in it that 90% of people miss. And I expect them to. 1) can you ask questions effectively to communicate your problem to gather information 2) can you debug 3) can you google (sometimes I let them google answers... I do it daily, why can't they) 4) if I help you solve it, can you follow my reasoning.
• admit what you don't know during Q&A, try during the coding portion. If I ask you on a scale of 1 to 10 how your java is and you say 9 when you're really a 2 then I will ask you the hardest java questions I know... cause I'm not a 9. If you tell me you're a 2 I'll throw you some softballs to make sure you've done more than a hello world. But when we sit down to pair program a challenge and I tell you to use java (knowing you just said you're a 2... or even a 0!) "I can't" is the wrong answer... we work with stuff we've never seen before all the time. "I can do it in JS if you can help me translate it" awesome answer. "If I psuedo code it can you help me with syntax" perfectly fine answer. "If I pseudo code it, can I google some syntax as i go" even better... show me your google-fu.

Sorry for the long reply. Probably should have just make this a post and then linked to it.

[JC Smiley]

Wow, great answer. Thank you first the helpful tips from the other side of the interview table. There is so much you learn from your comment.