#devbootcampblog

HYeah so I’m late with the blog post, I know. I’ll do the pushups and situps..soon. But I will, cause exercising lately has been super refreshing lately despite the smell of sweat. Seriously though, sunshine is great, especially when you’re able to get a full dose of it on Karl’s days off. I have a lot to write about, but I’m just going to talk a little bit about my interview experience and process for cold calling /emailing companies. I would talk about the hiring mixer, but I’m still working with some people from the event in a way so I’ll write about it in due time. I wrote a quick post about 2 weeks ago about keeping your head up. Moving forward with the job hunt adventure, it’s super important to give yourself advice that you can really take to heart, because the job hunt can really be emotionally, mentally, and physically draining. I won’t deny that I’ve been a little bit bummed, but for me, I find myself being able to treat each experience as a learning experience. So what happened? Well, I interviewed with Playstation Network a few weeks ago, that’s what stemmed my other blog post. It was crazy how it all happened, and the fact that it even happened still blows my mind. It turns out that my resume was found through a recruiting site. How did my resume make it to that recruiting site?  I met up with a recruiter, who I owe a lot to and whose name I will not mention for his privacy, who I essentially cold called. His energy was amazing, and he wore a hawaiian shirt to boot. You kind of know you’re in for a good experience when you’re with someone who is wear a hawaiian shirt. Long story short, he gave me a tour of his company and kindly let me know that they weren’t hiring at the time. Let me just pause real quick. In a lot of cases, from what I’ve seen and heard at least, people basically drop the ball here.  NO. That’s not what you should do, ever! As long as you’re still on the court that is the job hunt, you have to keep on dribbling. Go for rebounds, follow up, and see things through to the end. That’s an analogy/metaphor that I literally just came up with on the spot.  Is it hard to maintain interest? Sometimes, but you really ought to make the MOST out of every opportunity. Because who knows what’ll happen down the road. Don’t be the kind of person who says “Hey are you hiring?” and leaves upon hearing “Sorry, we’re not hiring juniors right now.” The key phrase in that response that you just got is NOT “not hiring,” it’s “not right now.” That basically means, maybe later.  So what do you do? Keep on shooting and be the person who shows that you’re still interested, because you’ll end up being the person to leave a lasting impression. Now do I think that I’ve left lasting impressions? I don’t know to be honest, but I’ve been generously connected with other recruiters from VC’s and companies by the people that I put the effort into maintaining a relationship with (not sure if relationship is the best word to use in this case). The thing about networking, is that the whole idea of it can be very distasteful to some people. I’ll admit, I sometimes think it is. But something that’s been driving me forward lately is the mentality I have when I go about it. What’s really worked to my advantage is the fact that I’m not actually from the Bay, I’m from the East Coast. That, and I’m REALLY trying to stay out here or get a job that I’ll enjoy, not a job that simply helps me pay off my loans.  I treat each person I meet here as a potential friend really, and that’s really all there is to it. I don’t agree with asking people for introductions if I don’t really know the person I’m even asking the favor from (grammar check please). Seriously though, in a lot of cases, people treat other people as tools when it comes to networking, and that’s just not the way to do it. Why? Cause there’s this thing called karma and it can really come back to kick ya in the butt later. Anyways, I digressed. A lot. Playstation Network. So, I basically made it to the second round after having a great initial phone call and technical phone screen, and received the coding challenge. It was extremely fun and rewarding for me, because I got to practice my Vanilla JS. I won’t go into details about the challenge, but I basically learned about making XHR requests using Vanilla JS which was awesome. That, and I also flexed a bit of my creative sense which they really liked.  Come judgment day, I found out that I didn’t make it to the next round. But for me, the response I received wasn’t informative enough, and by that, I mean that I didn’t know where I fell short.  So I asked for feedback, and that’s where things really turned around for me. I was told that they were looking for candidates with a bit more experience and a stronger sense of code. I took that well, because I know darn well that I’m new to all of this and well, I was simply glad that I completed their challenge. But they also noted that they liked my design sense! That honestly was enough for me, although I would have liked a bit more feedback so I could know how to improve my code. At the end of it, I was still able to make a new LinkedIn connection, and hopefully manage to keep my resume in their system for potential candidates. Actually, they posted more jobs recently and I’m trying to get back in touch to reapply. That’s just one of the experiences I’ve had so far, and to write about every other one will honestly take forever. So in short, based off of my experience, I encourage all junior devs, especially bootcamp grads, to keep looking for opportunities, and when you can’t find them, make them. Perseverance seriously goes along way, but even more so, being genuine has its benefits. Make sure you stay true to yourself as you carry on with the job hunt, because it really can be a dog eat dog world out here. Just keep your head up and carry on, and walk along confidently with a clear head and pure heart. I felt like I just threw up a bunch of the cheese from that poutine I just had from dinner (which was for celebrating one of my best and first friends from DBC accepting his job offer), because that last line was suuuuper corny. I also don’t even feel like I really got around to writing about what I meant to write about, but hey, I wrote a lot. Anyways, here’s a song that my friend from the NYC Bees cohort just shared with me, check it. By Surprise by Allure https://soundcloud.com/allureproduction/allure-by-surprise