Throughout my job search, I’ve had conversations with several Flatiron Alumni as well as employees of companies that are hiring software engineers. One of the questions that I always ask them is “What advice would you give about how to stand out from other candidates?” I wanted to share some of the best tips that I’ve learned from these meetings and discuss how I can apply them to improve my communication and development skills.
1. Deploy Your Portfolio Projects and Update Demos
I would consider this to be the most important part of a software developer’s showcase. Deploying your projects gives employers the ability to review your work in a live setting. It also opens the door for more feedback on the functionality and structure of your projects. Having continued to revitalize my portfolio site, one of my goals was to not only update the demos for each project but also deploy all of them successfully to a platform such as Heroku. I tried deploying Renecades Gameroom back in October, but because it doesn’t host code of the newest commits, it needs to be fixed.
2. Practice Writing Tests for Your Applications
Writing tests hasn’t been something that I’ve done much in my applications because I’ve mainly focused on debugging when encountering errors and problems within my code. Since tests are a crucial component of a software engineer’s role, it would be incredibly beneficial to start learning and practicing with various testing libraries. I also mentioned the importance of writing tests while I was reading “The Complete Software Developer’s Career Guide.” It will save you time if the tests are already written and offer you a perspective on what requirements need to be fulfilled before you move on to the next component.
3. Narrow Your Software Development Focus
Besides updating my portfolio projects, I have also been doing mini-projects that are inspired by tutorials and walkthroughs. There are many different avenues that a software developer can go so it’s good to discover what type of work you would want to do for a company. More recently I’ve been doing more front-end work as I’ve focused my time on Javascript libraries and frameworks such as React and Angular. While it would a great learning experience to explore more server-side languages, I think having a stronger focus in client-side applications and projects would help me in pursuit of front end developer positions.
4. Enhance development skills using other Coding Challenge Platforms
Throughout the Flatiron curriculum and after graduating, I’ve mainly used CodeWars and HackerRank as platforms to improve my development skills, but alumni have also discussed LeetCode and Edabit as incredible tools for solving coding challenges. This comes down to personal preference, but I think changing strategies and taking advantage of other resources can often spark more progression as a software developer. I agree that narrowing your focus to specific tech stacks based on the positions that you’re applying for makes sense, but utilizing other platforms for coding challenges can offer a different perspective on how to approach problems.
5. Consistently Prepare for Interviews
I recently had another mock interview with a career coach and it gave me a lot of insight on how I could improve for interviews. I’ve noticed that I struggle the most with crafting my story, which is interesting because I had a decent amount of practice while I was studying Journalism. This could be because of anxiety as presenting myself is sometimes a daunting experience rather than submitting something that’s already written.
When I’m asked a behavioral question, I tend to think so much about trying to reach the destination instead of staying relaxed and having cohesive transitions. One of the strategies that I’ve have been using to deal with this issue is the STAR Technique. You want the employer to follow along with your story and not become lost or uninterested. If the answers are kept focused and informative, it will help decrease nerves in the interviews.