Mistakes That Prevent Self-taught Developers From Landing A Job

if you are an aspiring developer and you're about to embark on the journey of becoming a web developer or you're just flat out stuck right you're really discouraged with a self-taught path you don't have a lot of confidence you don't feel like you're making progress you can't find a job this podcast episode is for you in this episode i'm going to talk about some of the main mistakes i see aspiring developers make i've mentored thousands of aspiring developers and helped hundreds get jobs and it's a very very tricky path to go down it's a very affordable path right and i want to make sure that i give you as much advice as possible to make it work so let's go ahead and dive into it um a lot of aspiring developers start out with false expectations they watched a tick-tock video telling them that they're going to get a developer position within three months right no problem and what happens when they don't get it within three months okay maybe it's taking me a little bit longer uh-oh we're at the six-month mark right is it me am i not smart enough to become a developer why is it taking me so long well now i'm running out of money i financially planned i might have quit my job or i financially planned or play my family around getting a job within six months is not happening now i'm getting pressure from other people right now i'm getting financial pressure in my own situation um and you know at least if i saw progress and i felt like i was trying to get a job i could finally get that position like i i would have that motivation right i could explain to my family my friends what's going on um but i don't even feel like i'm making progress because no employers are calling me back right i'm telling you this experience it's really common and it might vary based on your situation but a lot of people start out with really false expectations with really really bad advice that you're going to get a job and 100k job um as a developer in three months like that's ridiculous you talk to any experienced software engineer they're going to say that's right obviously there are going to be exceptions to the rule but 99.9 percent of people are not going to land it that quickly with that much money it's not going to happen right so a lot of people start out with that unrealistic expectation it's going to take a while i know you're not going to want to hear this but i tell people if you're going to self-taught path and you're doing it full-time give yourself at least two years of a financial backing to be able to do that that's huge right two years is a long time we have to realize a self-taught path isn't very linear it's just not right that's what a coding bootcamp or even traditional education will help make that a little bit more linear and those aren't perfect either and they cost a lot of money and maybe they're not worth that money to you but you have to expect you're going to be all over the place and you're going to doubt yourself and you're going to all of a sudden have to refresh on fundamentals because you forgot these fundamentals and you haven't used them in a while and then it makes you feel frustrated because you're not reinforcing these so i want to talk about some things to really help reinforce this knowledge and try to make that path more linear but number one key thing a lot of self-taught developers make or the mistake that they make is having those false expectations from the beginning and that just might mean you had those false expectations now let's build some more realistic expectations and a lot of people self-taught right um maybe you just kind of do self-taught because you want it self-paced you're willing to pay a little bit of money but like you got work right you have family responsibilities so um it might take a little bit longer that's okay and in fact when you can go at this path and give yourself a little bit of time and patience you give your brain more room to let things sink in and get reinforced um you know one flaw of a coding bootcamp it's it's pro and it's con is the intensity of it of a full-time program like you're learning so much knowledge it's like drinking from a fire hose and if you can give yourself a little bit of leeway to learn things at a slower pace you can take the con out of that and essentially learn all that information and just spread it out over time and that can definitely help you reinforce a lot of the concepts you can't cram this stuff in you can't i had someone that wanted to study for 14 hours a day from the military right he's military he has a self-discipline to do it but i'm like you know dude you gotta you gotta take a little bit of a break um it's not gonna it's you can't cram this information in software engineering is weird it's not like our traditional education where we just cram before tests we take the test and we pass or we don't right or we get an a b c like software engineering isn't like that you have to build you have to get your hands dirty it's not a linear path all the time and like you're going to go back to the material then go back to building projects send the material then building projects and you have to give yourself time for these concepts to solidify and implement them in more complex projects that's how a lot of this is going to get reinforced again be patient with yourself give yourself time that false expectation a lot of developers give up because of that so you watch any tick tocks youtube videos that say yeah three months 100k stop watching that creator i promise you stop watching that creator so a lot of people when they do dive into the curriculum a big complaint is um i don't feel like i can build anything right so you go through a course but they're like i don't feel like i can build anything like what does that mean have you tried building something what happened right and so but what it usually comes down to is they go through the course of course makes them feel like they're progressing and they're learning things and remembering things because they're getting you know they're passing the challenges on the course etc and so that's why they keep going forward with the course but then when they try to build something their mind goes blank and how do i do this and oh maybe i do have an idea maybe i want to build a calculator i have all these concepts on my mind but i don't know how to bring them all together a lot of times people spend way too much time in the courses even in the beginning this is a really weird concept to understand but even as a beginner as a beginner aspiring developer you have to get your hands dirty you got to build almost right away when you take your mind and yourself and you put it into a different context and let's say you try to build something slightly different you tweak what that challenge was in your course that's going to help reinforce the concept just using that concept implementing it in a slightly different way outside of the course is something that is crucial and so many aspiring self-taught developers do not do this they get stuck in what's called tutorial hell because they're just they go through a course it's rated high and it makes them feel like they're learning stuff and then all of a sudden they don't know how to build anything they don't know how to apply that apply it early you get them with a little module you code on the side i'm going to say is like as many times as i need to say this but this is crucial get your hands dirty as often as possible get out of the course build something small something slightly different change it in a little bit of a different way or even think about a project you want to build maybe you take that course and you think about like okay maybe at the end of this course i could build this kind of or this is the kind of project that i want to build how can i use these concepts to start building pieces of this project and as you learn how to code as you learn more complex concepts and how everything integrates together you start getting that you start forming this knowledge of how you start you're able to piece together this project and your mind you're able to conceptualize it more as you learn a lot more fundamentals too right so maybe you don't have to jump into that big project right away and build pieces but keep it in the back of your mind because like start trying to figure out how you can build little components little parts of that project because if you can take what you're learning those fundamentals and you can apply it to an actual practical project that's huge that's really going to help you reinforce a lot of what you're learning so don't get stuck in tutorial hell i don't know how many self-taught developers are stuck here i it's a huge number it's a huge number it's super common and it's so easy not to get stuck and so if you are someone that's been going through courses and then you can't apply it to projects try it you can start at any point in your learning journey and sometimes that might mean going back to some of the fundamental stuff and then building some fundamental features right or identifying you can even go to websites that you use on a daily basis and identifying how they're making certain elements appear in that way on that page based on what you learn right the trick is get out of your courses put it into the real world put it into practical projects that's going to help you escape tutorial hell it's so so crucial now another thing that holds up self taught developers is motivation motivation to stay consistent it's a long journey i get it your motivation is going to die you are not going to be consistent with that motivation you are going to wake up one day feeling like you're just spinning your wheels not making any progress you set your schedule i'm gonna code a little bit this morning or i'm gonna you know take do this module in my course this morning then i'm gonna go ahead and code in a project um and i'm gonna try to build it reinforce it and things just aren't clicking you just you're like this day i don't i really don't wanna do this and guess what you do you do it your motivation there is no way any developer becomes a professional developer and takes that long journey and stays motivated the whole time that's complete that motivation will waver it don't believe anyone that tells you otherwise that motivation will waver it'll go high it'll go low do not depend on that motivation what you do depend on is consistency when you set your schedule try to be a little bit i always recommend like first of all a lot of people don't like schedules they don't like putting things on their calendar i didn't either until it started giving me results i i there is no way i can even see myself navigating through life without a calendar and a schedule and a to-do list it's it has changed my life entirely i'm telling you it is it can really make the difference between someone that is uh going to build like consistent habits and a structure to actually get that job and someone that's just all over the place scattered i don't know what the to do focus on a schedule focus on your to-do list plan something and then try to do it even if you fail at it if you feel like if you don't feel like coding that morning wake up and do it anyways and maybe that means like i had a horrible day you get to your schedule then the next day what you plan is okay you know what maybe i'm feeling like i don't really have a lot of direction how do i fix that how do i talk to someone that can help provide that direction and that structure right we can get into that a little bit later um but it's it's incredibly important that you just set a schedule like if it's monday wednesday friday two hours right um my my wife's willing to take the kids when i get home from work or something like that and just get them out of my hair so i can code um if talk to your family members to be able to have that set schedule to to code and do what you need to do do that for as long as possible and then try to get more efficient with how you use your time during those two hours and you can change your schedule but the point is don't just go in wake up i'm gonna code a bunch i'm super motivated today eight hours ten hours i'm blowing through this course first of all like when you go through a course course should be like maybe two hours of your time and then project work is like eight hours if you had to do like an eight-hour day or something like that you're just learning to code i'm telling you don't spend a lot of time at courses learning you spend a lot of time practicing getting your hands dirty reinforcing the implementation but that motivation will wane it's okay it doesn't mean this position this type of career isn't meant for you i promise you that's not what it means it might mean maybe you're low on energy like people don't think about this maybe you don't work out enough working out especially cardio will give you energy good diet water um not loading yourself with caffeine and then just crashing at the end of the day like or the middle of the day often uh getting a good night's sleep making sure things are in order like i said talking with family and making sure that you can have some sort of quiet time and try to get that quiet time to be able to focus it's tough it's a really tough path a self-taught path it's okay a lot of people struggle with that and a lot of people get jobs with it as well the reason like i said the reason self-taught developers most of them don't get jobs is because they give up that's it it's not like they're not smart enough but i really think i really think it'll help to try to improve your self-discipline get on a schedule get on a pattern even if it's not a schedule just focus on self-discipline even if it's just today this is what i'm gonna do do that thing that day don't let yourself get distracted by netflix don't let your put your phone down right only allow emergency calls through or whatever and just focus on the material and get it done that is going to build a phenomenal habit of self-taught developer the amazing thing i'm telling you the amazing thing about self-taught developers people go to coding okay first of all people go to coding bootcamps because they want structure they don't have that self-discipline or they don't have that sense of direction they need someone on top of them they need that guidance right you are a self-taught developer figuring out all of this on your own you are highly desired by employers if you can get to that finish line highly desired don't ever forget that one foot in front of the other and keep moving forward and then seek out that external direct or seek out external support as you need it but that's another thing a lot of aspiring developers um they get lost because they don't really have the right support system they don't join any online communities you could look for discord communities with your favorite content creators um you can look at meetups you can look at eventbrite you can look at tons of like online hackathons in-person hackathons whatever you want to do a lot of those are out there and if you're in a area where you don't really have that in your local space you could there are a lot of online opportunities get involved in online discord communities but don't just go in there and ask a question go in there and engage with people i keep bumping my mic i'm sorry um go in there engage with people you're going to build relationships you're going to build people that also want to respond to you when you do have a question that's one thing a lot of aspiring developers fail with is they go into a community just ask a bunch of questions they essentially ask for a bunch without giving any value back don't do that don't be that developer you never want to be that developer so try to find that support system i think it's going to be really helpful even if it's just other aspiring developers they can give you that little boost of motivation right or you can ping something like hey you know i was thinking about doing this um picking up this library i hear it's pretty marketable right a lot of companies are asking for what do you think about this oh yeah i actually saw a lot of job postings with us i'm also trying to learn this right like even that little bit of feedback can help but you also want to get a breadth of feedback and experiences because you know you're all aspiring developers at the end of the day and you got to take each other's advice with a grain of salt it really helps to talk to professional software engineers but you talk with enough enough aspiring developers that can actually build a pretty good support system and usually there are professional software engineers lingering in those communities that can't help when people truly get stuck but yeah um a big thing i think one more big thing with the motivation is a lot of people don't know how to self-assess their progress as an aspiring developer like what um how do i actually know that i'm actually getting better and what i want you to do a little exercise really simple look at your code two months ago is actually i'm just gonna say like how bad is your code compared to what it is now would you do something differently would you build this function differently would you even just word the variable names differently would you even build this feature with different types of functions and a different type of implementation would you do any of that if you would and you would change something you're making progress and it's okay to laugh at your old code software engineers experienced software engineers constantly go back into their own code and they're like did i write this ugh okay this is only like three months ago wasn't it i can't believe i wrote this like software engineers constantly grow a lot of aspiring developers they just fail to assess their own growth and it's a tough thing sometimes again it helps you know building relationships with experienced software engineers you could do that within communities you'd even get paid mentorship that could be a great thing so a lot of self-taught developers can save a lot of money they don't have to pay you know 15 20 000 even 10 000 for a coding bootcamp they could just pay a software engineer a fraction of that cost to just check their code do a little bit of a code review am i heading in the right direction um what would you recommend you know like if you were considering me for that position what would you recommend what would i need to learn so you want to also try to seek out advice from software engineers that also help and mentor junior developers because some senior software engineers can kind of get caught in their own patterns and rhythms and they don't really sometimes it's hard to essentially i'm not trying to be offensive but like dumb things down for people that haven't uh haven't don't quite understand a lot of these advanced concepts sometimes software engineers need to work on how they talk to people that aren't technically proficient as much as them right so you gotta find the right mentor and that can take a little bit of time as well whether it's paid or free i think that's still super valuable try to get that support system try to evaluate your progress that's huge right and again i'm going to emphasize this your motivation your motivation will not get you through yourself discipline and resourcefulness will um another thing have fun everyone i the number of times i'm like okay well what projects do i need to build for employers to uh want to hire me what do you want to build what do you mean okay well you're you're a person that is becoming a software engineer you're not just some code monkey you're not just going to build some random thing you are you so you can do that but those kind of software engineers they're not super marketable believe it or not what you are is a human being that had a past a previous profession where you probably would have loved the software that you could build if you could build something for your old self and your old profession what would it be don't like don't even tell me that you haven't worked with shitty software at a previous job right how could you improve that software and if like if you're really gonna tell me that okay i i hear you you're really gonna tell me that you haven't worked with any tech right all of your jobs are archaic no tech whatsoever sure i believe you if that's the case what even got you excited about coding what did you you probably thought about like it would be really cool if i could build this what would that thing be what are some of the applications that you have built that or not that you use on a daily basis could you build smaller versions of that do you wish they had a feature that you could build right and so those are some ways to come up with project ideas but more importantly you got to have fun and build some quirky stuff like especially your first few projects who gives a if employers are going to hire you for it because the beauty of it is it's like i know you want to get hired as soon as possible but you're actually delaying that by not having fun with coding and exploring and building what you want to build and tackling the challenges you want to tackle right it kind of goes back to motivation too people are just going to the motions and learning what they have to to finally get that job and that sounds like the most boring long path ever most people aren't going to be successful most people are going to give up on that path have fun if you want to explore a little library maybe it's not the most marketable library like this is kind of cool i want to play around with this take a day to play around with it take a couple days to play around with it have fun as a software engineer i think one of the most healthy things software engineers can do even in their current profession is work on a personal project that they want to build right they're like it would be cool if i built this thing or i always want to pick up this library i always want to pick up this framework do it you're going to learn and grow from it but more importantly you're going to start this is actually a big boost in motivation if you're seriously lacking it like you're going to start figuring out first of all the things that you do like working with because you're expanding your variety of frameworks and libraries that you're working with but you know it it's sometimes it's just fun to break things and build things even if no one's going to use it to me like the when i always lacked motivation i would always think about the projects i always had like a list of projects that i wish i could build or i wanted to build so or even technologies i wanted to explore it's okay not to learn every marketable language we'll give you a front end okay html css javascript get pretty good with all three build some landing pages build some front end apps and then expanded uh react and we're gonna build some apps with react cool okay yeah that's that's kind of the path to go right like there's no nothing exciting about that that sounds like a chore that sounds like the most boring path ever and like is this what being a software engineer is like no it's not software engineers explore all the time and they have fun with it you can't always do that at a full-time job but a lot of software engineers will do a personal project on the side or they'll pick up another library on the side that's having fun as a software engineer that's going to help it's definitely going to help boost that motivation and push you towards that finish line so once in a while explore even if it's a portfolio project let that be your portfolio project the interesting thing is those types of projects that you have fun with can intrigue certain employers if you build this weird um like if you're just obsessed with fitness obsessed with diet right you just want to build this little um health tracker app if there are two candidates one that has never worked on a fitness app in their entire life and one that said it i'm gonna try to build this thing this would be cool if i could even just log some of my stuff like who do you think they're gonna boost who do you think is gonna gain that advantage in who they select it's gonna be you companies want to hire especially junior developers that sync with what they're trying to do and the types of solutions they're trying to build and you can showcase that unique side of you through these little quirky projects that you explore and you can you can put those on the portfolio right now some of these projects are going to be pretty basic and eventually you want to build more complex applications but those projects are still valuable on your portfolio so a challenge of being a self-taught developer is trying to piece all these courses together and one thing you'll realize is you don't have to take these giant courses and try to piece them together to come up with this uh all the knowledge that you need to become a software engineer you know even going through a course that focuses on really good fundamentals right you're going to find that a lot of free courses you can take that and then try to build your application and then when you come to a feature where you can't quite figure it out you can supplement with just a single page article maybe it's you kind of understand authentication but you haven't really implemented it yet maybe it's an article talking about session based authentication with node you use that article you try to implement it on your own and maybe you look up another article that can help uh understand or maybe look up the api documentation which is a really healthy thing to do but you know being a self-taught developer it's about piecing all this information together and you can make it work as long as you're building on the site as long as you're reinforcing what you're learning build and then supplement that knowledge that you still lack even if it's a small article and course but i'm telling you your priority should be building and reinforcing everything that you're learning try not to spend too much time with tutorials you can eventually piece all this together and it gets easier you start you're able to figure out which courses are actually better for you the further you get into it if you're building right because you're going to be constantly testing what you're learning too from those courses when you build like am i able to remember this stuff can i at least look up api documentation then like i look up as you know a method on an array and i'm like oh yeah i learned that in the course and then it like then it starts getting reinforced or are you just always lost with this set of courses with the specific author maybe that means move to another course that's gonna resonate with you where you're gonna understand it more thoroughly so that's the juggling game that you're going to play as a self-taught developer everyone plays it it's really tough it's one of the toughest things about being a self-taught developer but as long as you're building and supplementing and building and supplementing and building that's eventually going to push you towards the finish line keep pushing forward with that last thing is how do i get a job there are tons of questions so um i'll touch on this briefly because i have so many videos career advice videos that you could check on but you know make sure that i i would highly recommend that you have a portfolio portfolio projects your portfolio itself isn't that valuable like as far as the problem you're solving with the portfolio um you're just displaying projects it's just a gallery for the most part maybe some contact information if you really want to put it on there it's not that interesting of a problem to solve what's interesting is your specific projects that you chose to build and display right so really focus on your code conventions your code quality um even just documentation putting up a readme for your your project and on your portfolio just displaying relevant information having a live link having a link to your source code i highly recommend github for that um and then you could you know a little about me with it with the technologies used it's like the bare minimum that you could do but um get that portfolio up at the very least have your resume full of the projects that you did work on and send that out you're going to do a lot of cold applications a lot of people here's here's a big thing that self-taught developers get stuck on they don't hear anything back right a lot of coding bootcamps are going to share you're going to get tons of rejections tons of rejections and this is how you analyze your resume and change it um i notice there's a lot of bad advice for self-taught developers on um having just one standard template of a resume which that's not terrible advice but if you have like a dream company you're gonna tailor that resume towards that dream company for most of the other jobs you're gonna have a templated resume but you should be submitting a cover letter with every single application really bad advice for developers like if you're gonna be doing cold applications is don't submit a cover letter that's horrible advice i hear it all the time i know it's a controversial thing submit that cover letter i'm telling you it goes a long way usually it's hr and the recruiters that are going to see that cover letter and again it should make sure make sure in that cover letter you are showing that you understand the values and the mission of the company and also how a lot of your technical skills and your own values are going to contribute towards that mission and build up the company right you are a software engineer that's going to integrate uh kind of sounds like a creep you're going to integrate essentially into the culture of the company and your values align so you're going to help build up that ultimate mission that ultimate destination of the company right and that can help align a lot of your like if you can align a lot of your cultural values with people on the team especially that's going to be pretty huge but usually that cover letter gets viewed by the recruiter not so often by software engineers and ctos and people that are going to potentially hire you on that team so that's just something to keep in mind i highly recommend you submit it but you should be on linkedin we talk about networking a lot i have videos i i believe i should have videos on that i've like pieces of it but a lot of developers get discouraged because they're just not finding jobs i went through uh probably close to 200 applications before i got a job seven years ago how long has it been five years ago seven years ago i think maybe it's five i'm uh six we're going to say six years it's been a long time right we're in a recession right now it's going to take a little bit longer and so i would highly recommend you put a system in place i'm going to apply for maybe 15 jobs per week if i'm doing this full-time 15 jobs per week i'm telling you that's a lot of jobs you're going to be doing a little company research you're going to be getting rejected a lot a lot of people get stuck here when they're applying they get a lot of aspiring developers that are self-taught they get stuck they give up because they're not getting any calls back have your resume scanned by a software engineer hiring manager have um have someone even just analyze your linkedin profile have someone analyze your your portfolio etc and these probably should be people with experience in the industry don't just like get a recruiter that has no experience as a software engineer to look at some of this stuff but get someone that does help aspiring developers to help software engineers with this with these career related things and has experience as a software engineer i'm telling you there's a huge difference between the advice of both individuals so this is where people get stuck this is where you're probably going to fail i'm just going to be blunt with you this is where you're probably going to give up it's a job search you have a few projects you are so close i am telling you most aspiring developers are closer to getting that job than they thought a huge mistake of me almost wanting to quit and i went to cody bootcamp and the only reason i didn't quit is because i did just take one final chance at a coding bootcamp didn't think it was going to be worth the money and i did finally get that job you don't need to do that but i'm telling you most aspiring developers are closer to getting that job than they think and it you almost here's kind of advice everyone handle handles this differently but you almost have to take take your emotions out of the job search dealing with the rejection is one of the hardest things to deal with you're going to be rejected more with this job search with becoming a software engineer probably more often than you've ever had experience in your entire life it is a very grueling and defeating challenge to go through i am telling you be prepared for it don't take it personally that's why most people give up they think they're not hireable or they went the wrong direction wasted all that time and money and like they're so close and they take that rejection way too seriously it's there are always things that you can improve always things that you can improve but ultimately it just it's kind of a numbers game at that level it's going to take time and you can use the other feedback to that i shared in this video to help push you a little bit forward and provide that motivation it's just going to take time and this is where when you come in with unrealistic expectations and you don't give yourself that year or two to be able to achieve this this is where most people drop off right so i'm telling you be patient with yourself you're probably closer and we're in a recession right now um i i don't care what other people say some people actually deny that we are we're in a recession right now it's going to be a little bit tougher you are hireable you are smart enough you are someone that you know plenty of teams are going to want to work with it just takes time to find that right connection and you just have to treat it be systematic about it and do it week after week after week after week until it happens i know that sounds robotic you have to be able to handle that emotion of that rejection continue doing it building your projects and alongside of that applying for jobs networking et cetera so that's it um i have tons of specific advice in my other videos i do i have a lot of other advice looking um if you go to my home page on youtube and look at the career advice section that's the current playlist just scroll through those even go through the self-taught videos you're gonna hear people share their story as a self-taught developer it's grueling it's really grueling it's it's heartbreaking and the only people that eventually become developers are ones that don't give up that's it that's the only difference between people that don't become developers and people that become developers the ones that actually got that job they just think of up it sounds stupid it sounds silly it sounds like i'm just bullshitting you but that's i'm telling you like i said i'm i'm not bullshitting you when i say this i've mentored thousands thousands of aspiring developers for the last seven years it's been a very long time even i was mentoring people even when i was trying to get that position myself it's so crucial it's so crucial that you recognize that you are fully capable of getting this position and you are close please don't give up on yourself hopefully this advice was helpful um there are definitely more bullet points i could cover there's a lot of advice i can give for self-taught developers so if you want to see more of that you want to hear it if you're listening to the audio podcast let me know i'm happy to dive into this my heart goes out to people that are struggling low motivation down on yourself i get it i've been there i almost gave up myself trust me i do get it just keep pushing forward [Music] just

Channel: DonTheDeveloper

Views: 133,368

Keywords: self-taught programmer, self-taught web developer, self-taught software engineer, self-taught software developer, self taught programmer, self taught software engineer, self taught web developer, web development, web development podcast, donthedeveloper podcast, donthedeveloper, don the developer

Id: W1QdaeuOsx8

Length: 33min 52sec (2032 seconds)

Published: Mon Aug 15 2022