How To Find A Job With Soft Skills When Coding Skills Are Weak I

On Tuesday December 20th, 2022, I held a talk about How to get a job as a developer with soft skills when tech skills are weak.

It was for the last episode this year on The Monthly Dev event hosted by daily.dev.

I want to share all the information in written form as well, divided in 6 parts, some longer some shorter than other.

1. Introduction
2. Different kind of skills
3. Be smart using GitHub
4. Skill combination 1: Project Management combined with Time Management Skills, Problem-Solving Skills and Critical Thinking
5. Skill combination 2: Git Version Control combined with Communication Skills, Interpersonal Skills, Writing Skills
6. Other skills and Conclusion

Introduction

As a soon-to-be junior developer, we tend to focus solely on our programming skills because we believe that's what recruiters are looking for - strong programming skills.

Even though good programming skills are indeed an advantage when applying for a job, you can also score points with good soft skills and you should not ignore them.

Because what I've heard over and over again when looking for a job was that technical skills can be learned much easier, soft skills tend not to be.

I find this topic particularly important because soft skills in combination with a mix of some tech skills were the reason I got a job in the first place.

Based on my previous experiences, like, how I was in school or at university, I soon realized that I would never make it into the tech if I focus solely on programming skills. At least not within a year, a year and a half.

So instead of focusing only on programming skills that I knew I couldn't acquire in this short time, I focused more on soft skills mixed with some tech skills to show what value I could bring to the company. And that has paid off.

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Stay tuned for the next part.

Comments

[Josefine Schfr]

Really love this perspective, focussing on the positive and what we already bring to the table rather than what we might be lacking. I'm pretty sure I got my first job as a frontend engineer because of "soft" - aka human - skills and work experience from other fields.