First-Gens In Tech

 

Share everything you write (and code) on a public forum

Today’s tech industry places a lot of weight on real skills and experience. So much so that the internet, in particular coding, has almost created a meritocracy in which tangible skills can equate to a four-year degree in an employer’s eyes.

However, as tech recruiters often say, “If it’s not public, then it doesn’t exist.” If you are  trying to break into the tech industry, it’s crucial that you push everything you ever write/create, no matter how big or small, to the public.

Sharing your work will give you something to talk about in interviews, regardless of your formal education, previous internships, or professional experience in the field. For example, if a potential employer asks “What’s the toughest coding problem you’ve worked on,” or “What’s the top performing piece of content you’ve ever written,” you’ll have real examples you can point to. It’s almost more impressive if you, as a candidate, can talk about something you did just because you were passionate about it, not because it was required for a course or because it was an assigned project.

• If you want to be a designer, share everything to Behance or Dribbble
• If you want to be a developer, push everything to either GitHub or CodePen
• If you want to do content creation, publish a LinkedIn Pulse post or create your own Medium account

 

Start building your skills

• Looking to get your feet wet with some basic coding (CSS, HTML, JavaScript, etc)? Check out Treehouse, which has 1,000s of hours of content that will teach you the skills you need to be a programmer.
• Once you’ve mastered the basics, get even more in-depth tech training through Udacity, the online university, “by Silicon valley,” that will teach you the tech industry skills you need at a fraction of the cost of traditional schools.
• General Assembly also has great online and in-person classes for those looking to explore design, marketing, technology, and data.

 

Once you've found an interesting field or industry, target the companies you'd like to work for

• Some great places to start looking for jobs include: LinkedIn, Glassdoor, Indeed.com, The Muse.
• If you are looking specifically for tech jobs (especially as a developer or designer), also check out Hired, Dribbble, Authentic Jobs, and Stack Overflow.
• Once you’ve begun your search, keep track of the companies you want to apply to in a Google doc like this.

 

Do your research

• Thoroughly research the companies and the positions you are interested in applying for. Read through these 8 ways to make your job search easier.
• Scour a company’s Glassdoor reviews to get an insider’s view on what it’s like to be an employee there.
• Follow the company’s blog and all of its social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Snapchat) for the most up-to-date news on the company, its performance, and its people.