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BekahHW for OpenSauced

Posted on • Updated on • Originally published at opensauced.pizza

Job Seekers Worksheet: Build Your Resume with Open Source

Job seeking is really challenging, but if you've talked to me in the last six months and asked me how to find a job, you know that I've mentioned using open source. I know, I know. That can be an overwhelming experience. But hear me out if you're an early career developer.

Contributing to open source allows you to grow your skills in a way that nothing else can. You work with a team, have a proven record of communication with maintainers, show off your code, and developer real and practical skills. Yes, I've built a to-do list too, but chances are you're not going to be a solo-coder building CRUD apps. Exploring existing codebases, taking notes, and contributing will get you far more experience.

Will you have to go out of your comfort zone? Probably. But that's something you're going to have to get comfortable with if you want to be a developer. I can tell you from experience that you should not wait until you land the job to get comfortable with getting out of your comfort zone. It's your new reality if you want a tech career. And if you've been comfortable for a while, it's probably time to push yourself a little harder.

It's worth mentioning that I don't recommend just YOLO-ing across open source projects. A strategic approach will help you to grow and network efficiently; and if there's anything I've learned from the last four years in tech, it's that efficiency rules.

So below you'll find a worksheet to help you identify and talk about your open source work. Because if you're looking for a job, you have to be able to explain what you've done and why in addition to showing the code.

Open Source Contribution Worksheet for Job Seekers

Section Details
Personal Information
Name [Your Name]
Contact Information [Your Contact Info]
Professional Profile (LinkedIn/GitHub/OpenSauced profile) [Links to Profiles]
Career Goals
Desired Job Role [Your Desired Role]
Key Skills to Develop [Skills to Focus On]
Industry/Area of Interest [Frontend, Backend, Fullstack, ML, AI, etc.]
Open Source Project Selection
Project Name [Project Name]
Project URL [Project URL]
Why This Project? [Reasons for Choosing This Project]
Type of Contribution [Code, Documentation, Community Support, etc.]
Learning and Development
New Skills Learned [List of New Skills]
Challenges Overcome [Challenges Faced and Resolved]
Community Interaction [Meetups, Discussions, etc.]
Contribution Tracking
Date [Date of Contribution]
Contribution Summary [Summary of Contribution with Links]
Feedback Received/Milestones Achieved [Feedback and Achievements]
Networking and Professional Development
Contacts Made [Contacts Made and Their Roles]
Insights Gained from Networking [What You Learned from Networking]
Future Networking Opportunities [Planned Networking Activities]
Reflection and Next Steps
Key Takeaways from This Project [What You Learned]
Areas for Improvement [Areas to Work On for Future Projects]
Next Project/Contribution Goal [Your Next Goal in Open Source Contribution]
Resume and Professional Profile Update
Updates Made to Resume/LinkedIn [Details of Updates]
Key Accomplishments Highlighted [Key Points Highlighted]
Future Plans for Profile Enhancement [Plans for Further Enhancing Your Profile]

Feel free to share and adapt this worksheet. We super stoked that @codergirl1991 is working on an issue for how to use OpenSauced for job seekers. So if there's more you'd like to see, let us know!

Top comments (5)

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respect17 profile image
Kudzai Murimi

Thanks for helping

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felixdev9 profile image
Felix

Ha ha this is really awesome @bekahhw. Well, here's a similar repository I've found. It's more towards resume matching.

GitHub logo srbhr / Resume-Matcher

Resume Matcher is an open source, free tool to improve your resume. It works by using language models to compare and rank resumes with job descriptions.

Resume Matcher


Stars Apache 2.0 Issues Forks

Discord Twitter Resume Matcher

Upvote us on ProductHunt πŸš€.

Resume Matcher - Free and Open-Source ATS Tool to Match Resumes to Job Desc. | Product Hunt

Don't let your resume be a roadblock from getting your next job. Use Resume Matcher!

Resume_Matcher_streamlit_demo

How does it work?

The Resume Matcher takes your resume and job descriptions as input, parses them using Python, and mimics the functionalities of an ATS, providing you with insights and suggestions to make your resume ATS-friendly.

The process is as follows:

  1. Parsing: The system uses Python to parse both your resume and the provided job description, just like an ATS would.

  2. Keyword Extraction: The tool uses advanced machine learning algorithms to extract the most relevant…

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bekahhw profile image
BekahHW

Very cool!

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ndiaga profile image
Ndiaga

I usually contribute to Open Source buy offering customized solutions of Open-Source like WordPress, PrestaShop, Symfony and Laravel.