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Startup School for Coders

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One of the biggest obstacles to getting your first coding job I keep seeing new coders who spend 6 months submitting a resume and getting very few or no interviews. Invariably, I mean, really, every single time, their resume is bad, often horrible. There's two parts to your resume: 1. Form: the layout, the sentence structure, etc. -- the medium 2. Content: whether you have a CS degree or not -- the message The message is transmitted through the medium. If the medium is poor, the hiring manager can't understand the message and doesn't give you an interview. If the medium is great, the hiring manager may not like the message but you've given him a very good reason to: 1. See it your way 2. Put a positive spin on it 3. Turn weaknesses into strengths 4. Explain or excuse the weaknesses 5. Let your resume beat out resumes with better content but in a worse form In a good job market, it doesn't really matter. Hiring managers give interviews to all of the few resumes that are submitted. In a bad job market, it really does matter. Hiring managers give interviews only to a few resumes out of the many resumes that are submitted. In a bad job market, your resume is your conduit to interviews. The form/medium matters. A lot. I see people who go to a lot of trouble to learn to code and then they sabotage and sink their job search with a poorly written resume. They waste 3 - 6 months, living with no interviews, no job and no income, submitting their bad resume everywhere and then take a non-coding job. They think that it's because they don't have a 4-year CS degree or they don't have experience in Java or this or that but, really, focusing their attention on creating their content in a fantastic form would have been the difference between success and failure. If you ask me, you should spend as much time on your resume as you did learning to code. It's easier to get a coding job being a bad coder than it is with a bad resume (in a bad job market). * * * * * I'm focused on writing code so I skipped posting last Thursday and may post less than my usual schedule for the next week or less. Thank you. #Careers #Programming #Fresher

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