Credit: The original version of this article was first published on the Jobjo Start-now blog.
Introduction.
The “tech streets” are still “cold” as the job market is yet to fully recover from the painful results of the layoffs that occurred in different companies, and other recent developments in the global tech space.
Finding a job seems to be a source of frustration for many tech workers because of how competitive the tech market is currently.
Continuing to send out those countless applications and having to drink from the painful cup of frustration that is being served to tech professionals(especially juniors) will only leave you more miserable.
Why don’t you take a break and pick some great ideas from this article that you can implement to help you become better and also increase your chances of getting hired when next you return to job hunt.
These suggestions will not be perfect for everyone since it’s hard to really tell if pausing your job search is the correct decision. You might need to get the help of a career coach who can offer you a listening ear and give you a personalized prescription on how to advance your career.
The good news is that you can try out these ideas while spending less time continuing with your job hunt. But it’s best to seek the help of a career coach either way.
You can seek the service of a career coach on Jobjo Start-now and get personalized advice for your career so you don’t continue wasting precious time sending out applications that just won’t work.
You might also want to check this article to find some extra help with your job search: 3 possible reasons why your job applications keep getting rejected.
4 Important Endeavors To Help You Become A More Valuable Tech Professional Before Returning to Job Hunt.
1. Contribute to opensource.
Anyone in tech should know about opensource. Just in case you don’t, opensource is simply a way of building products and services by using a system that grants public access so that anyone can contribute in any relevant way they can to the project but without requesting payment.
Even though opensource can involve certain contributors getting paid/compensated, the main foundation of opensource is the “free will” of the project contributors.
The most popular opensource collaboration platform is Github. And beyond words, there are more than enough opensource projects to contribute to as long as you’re willing. Whether you’re a programmer, designer, copywriter, or anything else - as long as you can play any role in the selected opensource project, then there's nothing stopping you.
Below are some awesome benefits of contributing to opensource.
- You get to gain valuable experience.
While the current situation in the global tech space has led to companies keeping their doors closed “a lot”, you can still find your way into similar companies(which might be even better and bigger) that depend on opensource contributions. The only trade-off is that you wouldn’t be getting any payments in return.
Are we still talking trade-off here??? - all you need is to gain experience right?
With this, you can get to work on real-life projects and contribute just like(probably even more than) you would on a project in a company where you’ll get paid for the work you do.
As long as you have a present source of sustenance/income, contributing to opensource will be a great and very rewarding journey towards helping you gain valuable work experience.
- You get to make valuable friends and connections.
Opensource is a universe of its own. A world full of passionate enthusiasts of different calibre. Some seniors, some executives, some juniors, and so much more. When contributing to opensource, you get to meet a lot of new people, make a lot of friends, and build a very strong circle of connections that can help you land “dream” opportunities now and/or in the future.
- You might get the opportunity to land a full-time role on the opensource project/company that you’re contributing to.
This is one of the best things about opensource. Once you’ve selected a perfect project(one that fits your skills, and interests) to contribute to, and you go in aggressively by making back-to-back contributions, you’ll easily get noticed by the project maintainer(s) and/or company executives.
Once you’ve proven your skills(a chance you never got after countless number of applications), the folks in charge can choose to hire you as a maintainer, or as a full-time staff if it’s a company project.
2. Diversify: Learn and master a different “in-demand” or “rising-demand” skill.
This is a very important point that can be easily overlooked when you continue to (insanely) pursue opportunities in your current tech domain.
Despite the fact that jobs are scarce. It’s still true that other domains like DevOps, blockchain/web3, Machine Learning, and Artificial intelligence are still very much less competitive - especially if you master them to pro-level.
Why don’t you switch from your current domain and set a month or some months of deep learning/hard work apart, then learn and master one of these technologies? That way, you’ll be increasing your chances of getting hired more easily.
If you choose not to switch over completely to another domain, you can decide to learn other less popular or difficult-to-learn(hence less competitive) programming languages or frameworks/libraries like Elixir, NET(“dotnet”) or Rust.
You can sign up for career coaching on Jobjo Start-now. Where you’ll receive personalized coaching directions on the technology or skill that will best help you advance your career. Simply get started here.
3. Start a YouTube channel and create top-notch content.
One thing you fail to get because of application/job rejections is the chance to prove yourself/skills - while learning on the job. I am convinced that this is one of the reasons why landing a junior role is even harder at this point, because It can be easily predicted that the job market still has a lot of unemployed seniors who were laid off from their jobs. Hence you'll hardly find opportunities that have room for learning on the job.
Starting a YouTube channel gives you the absolute opportunity to prove your skills while learning on the job and still remaining your own boss.
Simply start a YouTube channel and begin posting quality/top-notch tutorials. There is truly no better portfolio than a YouTube channel especially if you’re a coding-based techie.
One very interesting side of starting a YouTube channel is the thrills that come with increasing views and subscriber counts. Finally, if you’re really good and consistent at it, you’ll get monetized quickly - this point is one of the "coolest" Youtuber “high-points”.
You can seek the service of a career coach on Jobjo Start-now, and get personalized advice on how to get started with a career in YouTube content creation.
With YouTube, you actually don't need to show your face and go through the harder grind of creating tutorials/courses. You can simply build a faceless YouTube channel where you'll hire talents to help you build, run and manage the YouTube channel(s). The only caveat with this method is that it'll be more cost-intensive. This won't continue to be a problem once you begin earning profitable returns as a result of monetization.
One great thing to note is that, before you get monetized by becoming a YouTube partner, you can begin making very impressive incomes by applying different sales and marketing strategies to the tutorials/courses/videos you post on the channel.
4. Start a blog and build a career in technical writing.
While the technical writing space is currently pretty competitive, a blog can still provide a good number of advantages as does a YouTube channel(as described in the previous point).
Starting a blog will give you a platform to share your progress by “building in public”. And best of all, it’ll give you the opportunity to “Learn on the job”. A blog can also help you generate good income in a number of ways.
It’s very easy to start a blog nowadays. You can literally have a complete blog up within minutes (if you don’t want to build a custom one) - all thanks to platforms like Hashnode, Medium, and right here on Dev.
Conclusion.
With all these points that I’ve shared here, I believe you can agree that quitting job-hunting will be very beneficial for a good number of folks out there who are still struggling with sending out countless applications only to get back frustrating rejections in return.
It's also very important to note that beyond these 4 endeavours listed in this article, there are other very rewarding activities that tech folks can engage in to help them forget about the current downturn that is being experienced in the global tech space. Some of those include participating in hackathons, building and selling/monetizing APIs, and the one which I love most - building your own SaaS software either to sell it or to create your own startup.
You can actually make a living(one better than you ever dreamed of) by focusing on building and selling SaaS software.
Jobjo Start-now is also offering a special startup bonus to aspiring tech founders/Entrepreneurs. You can take advantage of this bonus to bring your startup dream to reality. With only $1000, you can hire the design, software, and marketing team at Jobjo to build you a SaaS application/startup of any magnitude, and also give you free promotions until you hit your "first 100 sign-ups milestone". Proceed to the Start-now startup bonus page to learn more including the attached terms and conditions.
The possibilities that come with being a tech professional are endless. You just need to believe this fact and embrace the many other opportunities that are available at your disposal.
Stop frustrating yourself with endless applications that will only return rejections and discouragement.
I hope you found value in reading this article. Thanks for reading.
Cheers!!!
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