Why You Can’t Land Your First Job
2020 has been a great year for the impostor syndrome to slowly slither in your thoughts and inhibit your ambitions to continue to grow and learn. Being stuck at home worried about your job or the state of the world can lead to negative thoughts that surround your every being. Nothing good comes from long term solidarity. For people starting out in life it can be extra hard. Say you have just finished college and are starting to apply for your first job as a Web Developer. You quickly find your inbox flooded with emails from companies thanking you for applying and 1 to 2 days later, the same company informs you that they have decided that they will be continuing the interview process without you because they have found other candidates with more suitable experience and skills. One or two emails like this in your inbox doesn’t really affect you in any way, but to be bombarded with emails saying you are not good enough even though you spent 3 to 20 mins applying for one job makes you ponder if you are really not good enough for any job, not just Web Development.
Let’s be honest, Web development jobs are being saturated with candidates that have many years of experience. Being a Junior with only the experience of school and personal projects does not make you desirable to companies looking for more Senior Developers. If I was a small company looking to grow my business, I would be looking for the applicant with the most experience. But that is just the problem. You are probably applying for jobs that are looking for candidates with 10+ years of experience. You have just finished school. So you should be expecting that denial email in your inbox and be pleasantly surprised if the company actually wants to set up an interview with you. If you are looking to land a job out right out of school, you need to be Networking.
I went to a software development boot camp school in MN. The very first day they told us it is a requirement for each student to attend a minimum of 3 networking events per week. Going to the events was not enough in its self tough. There is no point in attending an event if you are just going to stare at the wall and not talk to anyone. You need to push yourself out there and start a conversation with other attendees. I have not yet been to a networking event where someone is just plain out rude and ignores you. Everyone is there for the same reason. To meet people. In my experience, there is no doubt that Networking and meeting people in the field of your desired career field makes all the difference. If you know someone from the company you are applying to, your resume gets moved to the top of the pile instantly, or even better. They will approach you with a job posting before they decide to make the posting public to everyone else.
This realization that networking gives you better odds of landing your first job did not hit me until about 2 years after I finished the software development boot camp. I thought that If I just work pro bono and push out a lot of personal projects to my Github account, that would land me a job. That is not the case. I had no luck for two years in landing my first job because I had no connections in my network. I knew no one in a position of power that could help me obtain a job. Once I started attending networking events in my area two years after graduating with no luck, I soon found a Junior Developer role because I knew the owner. Networking makes all the difference. There is no better skill than being able to connect with people. For all Junior developers that are struggling with impostor syndrome and landing your first dream job, please don’t make the same mistake I did and think you are going to be able to land a job just by applying to job postings on Indeed. Those postings are for more experienced developers.
I know that in 2020 there are not a lot of face to face networking events due to COVID, but there are many events happening on Zoom and other video platforms. Learn to sell yourself. Don’t get me wrong, please apply to public job postings on platforms like Indeed.com and Monster.com. There is no harm in trying but always be mentally prepared to be rejected. That does not mean that you are not good enough to be a developer, It just means that someone out there on the internet had more experience than you. Some day you will be that person, but for now… network.
