How to ACTUALLY Get a Software Development Job

getting a job as a software developer this is obviously a hot topic because people who go to school or get a certification or take a course online there won't have been gold 99% of the time is to get a job as a software developer I'm going to take you through how to actually get a software development job off the top first things first learn software development think that's fairly obvious given one y'all are actively doing that right now if not already done it and then what do you want to do next well you want to build up your own personal brand if you will not necessarily posting videos online or even blogging but something on github make sure you have your code on github a portfolio of sorts speaking of a portfolio if you can create a website and put all of your projects whether they be terminal applications or websites or iOS applications what-have-you throw those on your portfolio website and then you can show that you created your portfolio website and everything on school well a lot of employers want to see they want to see that you have a degree it's not always the case it's not always necessary more often than not what I would personally like to see is that you can actually do the job at hand I know plenty of people who graduated with a computer science degree who didn't even know how to cook and I'm not making stuff up here there are literally people who I was in a group project with my senior year first semester senior year second semester I knew they were also in their senior years they didn't even know how to code like the basics maybe maybe the basics but if you said hey build a hangman application or build something to spin out in terminal console they won't even know where to start because maybe they built upon previous applications or they just skidded by they paid someone to do their work they copied someone else's work what have you that's what it seemed like they did because somehow they made it through their senior year but they did know how to code so while a degree sure that can get your foot in the door gets you through a filter at many different companies I think Google just recently said we don't care if you have a computer science degree or not just show that you can do the work pass our interview process like apply you're not going to get thrown in the trashcan your resume if you say hey I don't have a computer science degree and if it wasn't obvious this is coming from somebody who went to computer science cause I like I have a computer science degree so I'm not just one of those people who don't have a computer science degree or don't have a college degree so I bashed the college degrees I have a college degree I think it was very helpful is very helpful for to get to where I am today in many aspects of life but I don't think it's necessary the overall idea here is that you want to have enough information to put on your resume your portfolio your github links your projects that you've worked on in the past if you don't have any internships or or work history maybe this is what you're watching this video for is in order to get yourself a development internship well then at least you have maybe college to put on there or boot camp to put on their portfolios to put on there like I mentioned before github that's what you want to have gonna have something to show on your resume that way you have something to show a potential employer so you have your personal brand whether it's famous brand or personal github what-have-you that you can show off to a potential employer you put on your resume you apply but only do you apply if you're wanting to work in a particular company you suit that resume for the particular job at hand maybe you're applying for a Java developer position obviously I'm gonna highlight all of the programs I wrote in Java or even C++ or the like but from applying for an iOS development position obviously I want to highlight my iOS applications things I wrote in objective-c or Swift notice I'm using the word highlight you want to highlight those those are if you if you want to put it in your mind those are the what's going to be in bold that's what you want the potential employer to see to show that you can actually do the job that they're wanting you to do and then you can throw in the for the iOS development position some of your terminal applications that you wrote in Java or C sharp and then for the job position you can put in some of your iOS developments iOS apps rather that way you can show what you've actually done you also want to do the same thing with skills maybe you have skills in Java C++ C sharp Iowa's development Android development this that sketch Adobe design whatever it is you don't want to just throw all of that on your resume and see what sticks you want to read the job listing in which you're applying for you can be applying for five different jobs you want to make sure you have five different resumes one for each of those jobs and word of your skills similar to what they have and mind you I'm not telling you to lie on your resume I'm telling you to specify your skills for the job listing if the job listing has eight bullet points that are along the lines of ability to work in Microsoft Office or are proficient in Microsoft Office proficient with Java or drawing a blank on what else would be listed there but you know the eight points I'm talking about I haven't looked at a job listing in a very long time but you know what I'm talking about they have eight bullet points of things that they would have liked for you to know but you don't know all eight maybe you know four so what you want to do you don't want to say well you know I I'm okay with this I'm okay with that you know four then list the four as your skills somewhere on your resume for them to see and word it in the same manner that they were to theirs you're not putting down all eight because you don't know all eight you only know four so you're putting four you're not saying anything about the others okay great so now you understand what you do for your resume you apply you apply you apply you apply different resumes of course now hopefully that'll lead to them emailing you back and inviting you for a phone interview every single one I've gone through interviews that is this is kind of how it's gone I did talk about in a recent video about how it was very untraditional and conventional how I got my first offer engineering job but something I didn't highlight is the fact that I had two other offers I've gone through two other interview processes at the time of going through this unique experience and getting my first offer engineering job I had two offers I turned them down because I wanted to work at this company so I've been through those two and then I've had two or three different internships computer science internships so I've went through those interviews I had two other ones that I one didn't get an offer other one did get an offer but the other offer was better so I've gone through the wringer a couple times so email back hopefully phone interview this phone interview every time I've gotten it is with an HR person Human Resources what they're going to do nine times out of ten I'll say because I don't wanna say always people are always like well my experience was a little different my experience was always they talk about you general questions and what you put on your resume I remember I would list projects on my resume C++ projects Java projects something related to the job listing as we spoke about earlier and they would ask me about different aspects of that application that I built the project that I worked on they asked me about some of my computer science classes or the internships that is they talked about my internships for the job interviews I'll go through and they would just talk about the information that I gave them which brings us full circle to don't lie on your job resume because one that's unethical and just wrong to your you're gonna get exposed to just say the least now after the phone interview what would be ideal is if you don't hear back in two or three days send a follow-up email to the HR person you just spoke with say hey you could do this a day after even the day up say hey it was wonderful talking to you you know just a generic follow-up email expressing you know how interested you are in the job a little bit just say we had a great conversation I'm glad to learn more about the company which reminds me in that phone interview you want to ask about the company express a little bit of a knowledge that you've done make sure you show that you've researched the company if they don't ask about it already because they probably will and then ask a little bit more about the company so it shows that you're interested in learning now I shouldn't have to tell you this because if I tell you this and you're only doing this because I told you to then you aren't generally interested in learning about the company but chances are that you're applying to this company not just to get a job but because you like that company and you want to get a job so express what you like Express that why you like this company why you applied to this company and ask questions to learn a little bit more because you're genuinely interested in the company and after the phone interview after the follow-up email there's a few different ways that this can go trying to remember here more often than not I would get some sort of email back saying let's move forward with this or you don't get an email back or you get an email back saying we decided to go with someone else whatever just hope for an email back if you don't get an email back within a week me the way I am I'm going to send them another email a week after say hey you know just want to make sure my last email got to you make sure it's a thread off of your previously sent email and just kind of touch base with them see where it stands but then hopefully you'll get an email back and they will want to set up a web conference interview or an in-person interview hopefully that is the next step is an in-person interview and this will typically be the the coding interview you're going to be sitting in a room with more than likely three people in fact every single time I've done an interview like this it has been three people there's all been a part of the team in which I would work as well as the HR person so it'd be two people from the team and the HR person that I spoke to previously this you get a little bit of a repeat what you did on the phone interview because you're talking to two people who've never met you never talk to you so you're kind of summarizing what you talked about in the phone interview with the two new people and the HR person will jump in and ask a little bit of what they've already asked so you can explain that to the two people who in which you'd be working with the two other developers on the team the tech leads senior software engineer junior developer and who you'd be equal with maybe the person you're taking their job regardless this in-person interview like I said basic questions and then you go into the technicals this is where you're really gonna have to know the knowledge of what you've put on your resume because while you can maybe get over on the HR person the dev team the people actually do this for a living they're gonna know if you're biessing them or not or whether you've actually used that framework actually use that tool actually know what you're talking about when you say I've built this terminal console using Java or terminal application using Java they're gonna know because this is what they do for a living now to prepare for this in-person interview the coding portion of it there are many different ways to go about it number one recommendation hop on the Internet gonna refrain from saying Google because a lot of people are like you should use DuckDuckGo just use a search engine that you like your preferred search engine just search on the internet about this company especially if it's a bigger company Google one of the fame companies maybe it's a bigger company in your local area and you can actually get a better more specific understanding of the technical questions the coding questions that they're going to ask in the interview so before you go to the interview you know what questions they're gonna ask so you should probably study it one way to study it and this isn't a planned integration just kind of came to mind because like I said this is a spin off the top is you can go on algo expert they have 77 and Counting interview questions from popular companies at Google and uber and Amazon and Facebook the two people who created this our software engineers at Google at uber so they know what they're talking about you can go in there use code forest for a discount link will be in the in the description maybe not in the top of the description it'll be in the description I'll go expert io / forest remember promo code forest you get a discount whether you use them or not you want to make sure that you are studying for that specific coding interview if they don't have the specifics online maybe they're a smaller company maybe you'll get lucky and they don't ask you any coding questions if they don't ask you any coding questions well then that will be a seemingly easy interview you're just gonna talk about what you've done about yourself about your fit with the company if so on and so forth however it is highly recommended by me at the very least to prepare regardless of whether or not you think they're gonna ask you any coding questions go do popular coding questions whether it be a algo expert or somewhere else do it and when you do it make sure you learn you understand it because when you're in that coding portion of the interview the technical questions you want to make sure you're able to explain you don't want to just sit down especially if this is you know in-house whiteboard whatever you don't want to just sit down and no you don't want to do that what you want to do is explain what you're doing and why you're doing it a lot of times they're looking at how you go about solving the questions more so than the actual solution to the question it may be explaining what you're doing while you're doing it isn't the best way to go about it what you can do is say alright I'm gonna I'm gonna sit down here I'm gonna try to figure all this out and then you go ahead and explain what you did and why you did it to them after you did it so you have you know you have a little presentation you could say well I did this because of that did that because of this they'll ask you questions well the reason I didn't go that route is because I went with this route obviously I'm talking to very vague terms but that's the idea what I'm trying to say is with the coding portion of the interview don't just do it and say here's the solution explain why you did this solution why you did it how you did it they'll ask you some questions about it and then go from there something almost forgot but it's very important when you go into the in-person interview make sure you bring a few things a notebook and a pen or pencil whatever you want along with a manila folder with five to ten copies of your resume that you created specific for that company that way when you walk in you can pass your resume to each person in the room maybe they said they all right there's gonna be three people in the room interviewing you if that's the case bring five maybe there's gonna be five people in the room interviewing you if that's the case bring eight make sure you always bring more one so you can have one for yourself and see exactly what they're talking about if they reference your resume as well as in case the the tech late maybe it wasn't going to be here today or maybe he was too busy and he decided to sit in on the interview with you if they said well there's only going to be three and then there ends up being four and you only bring three within you're in a bind it shows a little bit more initiative that you brought your own resumes even though every single time I've experienced this I didn't have to pass out my resumes because they had already printed out enough for everyone in the room but regardless if they don't print out the resumes well one you're prepared for them or two if they have already printed out your resumes you're showing that you're a prepared person someone that takes initiative by bringing the resumes to the interview yourself okay cool there may be some variables within the in-person interview that you may not know about but that is the overall gist of it hopefully it went well even if it didn't go well what you want to do within the next day or two is send a follow-up email just like you did for the phone interview this time while you have the HR person's email hopefully maybe you have the other people who are in the interviews email as well that would be ideal and send all of them grouped together cc'd an email expressing you know thank you for thank you for meeting with me the interview I believe it went very well I had a great time learning more about the company meeting y'all I feel like I would be a great fit you can sell yourself a little bit if you want in this email but the over idea of this email is to just you know follow up touch base say how appreciative you are and kind of kiss-ass but also just you know express to the actual feelings about how you had about the interview maybe you have a question or two about for them and that's when you want to ask that so follow up email and after the in-person interview touch base it shows initiative again you'll be good to go now hopefully best-case scenarios that you get a job offer now the job offer may not come right now maybe you have to do another series of interview and person interview phone interview whatever I've never gone beyond a single in-person interview to get a job or a job offer but the different companies do different ways so for the second be being accurate and talking about things that have actually experienced job offer comes at this time so let's assume that you get an email and you get a job offer or instead of an email they may even call you with this job offer now this is where things will get a little bit more how do I say involved involves specific don't I'm looking for but you're gonna be talking about salaries you're gonna be talking about benefits you gonna make sure that you're happy and that they're happy they're not gonna agree to anything now make them unhappy so as as much as you can possibly get obviously that'll benefit you the most and notice that I mentioned benefits because a lot of people especially when they're yelling they don't realize you benefits how important they are how expensive they are so when it comes to salary and benefits the job offer at hand you want to make sure that you understand this salary you want to agree upon a price negotiate with them maybe they asked you for a range sixty to seventy thousand as a junior developer that's what I'm expecting it'll vary depending on what company you're applying for you may have information online on what you can check and may depend on where you live what type of company what industry banking military or government maybe it's tech space Silicon Valley it's all going to be variable this is where you're gonna be really getting into the research of your area and what you actually want what you need to live and thrive and what you think is fair that's in terms of salary now in terms of benefits you wanna make sure that they have all the benefits retirement see if they match your retirement fund up to three percent or whatever it may be vacation time how does vacation time work do they give you unlimited vacation do they actually want you to take as much vacation as unlimited obviously obviously not but you understand a lot of the limited thing that's a whole psychology thing well if you want to climb up the ladder then you won't be taking any vacation or if you want a good quality of life then and you want to do well at your job because breaks are good for your job that's why we have weekends then you will take vacation or maybe they say okay well you have five weeks but that's 25 days for six days vacation days and holidays all of those you can split those up however you want take them whenever you want they don't roll over to the next year and that is how it sits you have a sick day here okay that's fine you want to take a five week vacation here okay that's fine you want to work on Thanksgiving hey that's what you want to do then you have that day to spend of course there's the health benefits how much do they pay for you do they pay for anything of your spouse or kids or how does that work this will be help this be dental just talk to someone you know an adult your parents brother sibling talk to someone who has a job benefits see what they have how they have it if that's pretty good then maybe that's what you want for yourself for your company for your family whatever just make sure that you're negotiating the salary for what you think is fair and if they don't have very good benefits they don't have any benefits and maybe that salary needs to bump up 10k a year or 15k a year what-have-you you make sure that it's fair for you and that you're not well hey this company they're gonna they're offering me 80k to work a year but the benefits come suck but this company over here they're paying me $65,000 a year but the benefits are absolutely amazing their work-life balance is amaze reminds me when it comes to you have salary and benefits everything we just talked about you also have the the amount of work that you do because all of these companies are gonna operate differently maybe you have to be there 8:00 to 5:00 because they don't give you a paid lunch or maybe you their 9:00 to 5:00 maybe you get to choose your hours you're an early bird you want to get in seven o'clock leave three o'clock you get a paid lunch that may be your cup of tea or maybe they have set hours where you have to work eight to five unpaid lunch they're offering you 70k same benefits as the other company that you can pick your hours flexible hours and you're gonna pay lunch so there's all those different variables that come into play maybe some companies they say well you know kind of gotta get you know forty hours that's that's our average forty hours per week that's typically what we work if you work 12 hour ten hours one day then we only work six hours and X typically doesn't work that way but you get what I'm trying to say there's going to be other companies who they consistently work 55 60 hour weeks all of this needs to be taken into consideration when it comes to salary and then really salaries specific that's the main thing because if you have a poor work-life balance you better be getting paid a lot more if you don't have very good benefit you better get paid a lot more can take those vacation days well you better get paid a lot more there are different tactics to negotiations just know that whatever you agree upon you agreed upon you can't be upset with the amount that they offer you or that they are paying you because if you agree upon it and that's you telling them that you're happy with this or maybe there are some questions that you can ask hey when do you normally do like do you do a one-year evaluation of my work then we can discuss a potential raise do you give raises after like how does that work talk about their process and how you can grow throughout the company and word it that way don't say can I can I get paid well money say how can i how can i progress in the company because you know got a family you want to provide for them as much as possible do we do a one-year evaluation and maybe you know if you see that I'm doing a great job a phenomenal job you give me a really good pay raise if I'm doing just okay then a little bit of a pay rate what tasks on the process hopefully after watching this video you go you do all of these practices you go use out go expert week week and and you have three or maybe even five job offers for you to choose from or maybe you don't then you have to go back and reevaluate what went wrong along the way send a follow-up email asking why you didn't get an offer for the job see what you can improve that'll show initiative maybe you can apply to that job next year you have a little bit better skills they remember you because you said hey how can i improve it's always a good sign or maybe you just take that information that they give you hopefully they do respond and give you some information well maybe you could have done a little bit better there we found someone more experienced or your social skills were lacking that be weird thing to say an email but you get the idea and then you can use that to to apply to five other jobs go through this process five more times and hopefully you'll get a job fit if you enjoyed this video and you'd like to see more like it be sure to hit the subscribe button because I post weekly twice a week sometimes even three times a week if I'm feeling froggy maybe you found this video informative you like this specific video please be sure to give it a big thumbs up because this software developers we know how the YouTube algorithm loves engagement on YouTube videos views engagement in terms of likes even dislikes don't hit the dislike button please and comments that helps push it to people like you more people who are interested in software development that'll help the channel grow and I'd really appreciate it now good luck with getting yourself some jobs I'll see you on the next one [Music] you

Channel: ForrestKnight

Views: 86,982

Rating: 4.9678411 out of 5

Keywords: software, developer, how to get a job, how to get a software developer job, how to get a software development job, how to get a software engineering job, how to get a job as a software developer, how to get a dev job, dev job, how to get a job as a programmer, how to get a job as a coder, how to get a web development job, web dev job, coding job, computer science, software engineer, coding, programming, software development, the process of getting a software development job

Id: vkfGFTAMp28

Length: 21min 36sec (1296 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 24 2019