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Don't sell yourself short

Rémi Mercier on March 05, 2020

Imagine yourself back to the interview table. You've just graduated from university. Or you've just done a coding bootcamp. Maybe you're in your fi...
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adrienpoly profile image
Adrien Poly

I fully agree that soft skills are very important

If you haven't seen it already, I highly recommend DHH keynote at rails 2018 youtube.com/watch?v=zKyv-IGvgGE
love the "conceptual compression"

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mercier_remi profile image
Rémi Mercier • Edited

Will check it out! Thanks Adrien :)

Would also like to add that most skills I listed above are not soft skills. These are hard skills. Hard in the sense they're difficult to cultivate.

I think the soft/hard skills is another rhetorical trap where you impose an oppressive framework on people. But that's for another rant I guess. :D

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Yaser Al-Najjar

An amazing video, thanks Adrien!

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🎧Cirphrank👣

Thank you for this.

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Dimitrios Desyllas • Edited

Sometimes soft skills are more important than technical ones. I find myself struggling for not having them but being able to write testable code because I cannot show the value of my testable code. So need to be developer, use the soft skills and try hard to obtain the tech ones.

My 2 cents atop of this consult is that try to understand what the employer wants and what might be tasked for. Focus on employer's stack and try to learn it, sometimes spending some money to having someone teach you is a good thing, it saves you money and having a certification on employer's stack may actually counterbalance the lack of experience. Try to show that you try to understand what he wants and you try to give to him.

You are a business man and you try to sell. The employer is the customer try to find what he wants and sell it to him.

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Rémi Mercier

Ah yes, this is something a lot of programmers/developers struggle with I've noticed.

Highly technical, but complete noobs when it comes to show the value they create.

You are a business man and you try to sell. The employer is the customer try to find what he wants and sell it to him.

I agree with this up to a point. It's a good starting point and can lead you to make more money, gain more liberty, etc. Then, this commoditization of yourself also has its side effects. It reinforces the already despicable zeitgeist that people are spare parts that need to be squeezed out their last drop.

Another super interesting topic to write about!

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Dimitrios Desyllas

Also, sadly, sometimes many successfully products that require software are not the best engineered ones as well! (And kinda drives me mad, I've felt the pain)

Also in startups soft values are the ones that makes it successful and the code becomes the last priority. Therefore, you have crappy code that you are unable to maintain because you rush for feature.

In my case this issue make me having second thoughts for being software engineer and seriously thinking for an academic career (so I can code till I drop for myself and have the good parts of coding).

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Ben Sinclair

you know there's this strong belief [...] It's on everyone's lips [...] everybody's droning on about it.

I never hear anyone say this, unless they're recruiting for a specifically senior role.

Yes, some juniors can be a burden, but so can opinionated, set-in-their-ways seniors, and that lot are harder to get rid of anyway.

Most places I know welcome juniors!

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Rémi Mercier

Man, you are one lucky person!

I've heard it a lot. And people around me too. May be this has to do with my being a bootcamper? Or the type of companies I was interviewing with?

Yes, some juniors can be a burden, but so can opinionated, set-in-their-ways seniors, and that lot are harder to get rid of anyway.

Hahaha, true that!

Wouldn't it be great if we had an open-sourced list of companies vetted by devs that ARE - and not marketing themselves as - truly great places to work with?

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Nikita Sobolev

It should be renamed to "Don't sell yourself"

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Rémi Mercier

That is a great suggestion!

This should be a completely new post about the value you're creating outside of the money-making-cost-cutting scheme. Will think about it.

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Nikita Sobolev

👍

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cirphrank profile image
🎧Cirphrank👣

Nice post, a splendid read it was.

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Rémi Mercier

Many thanks to you're reading it and for the kind words! 💓