Hey, what's up?
John Sonmez here from simpleprogrammer.com.
I got a question about how do I get a job as a programmer when I have zero connections.
This is from Brent and Brent says, "Hi, John.
I was wondering what your advice is to people who want a job as a programmer but lack connections
(as well as experience).
Let me try to briefly explain.
I just graduated with an associate degree in computer programming and I have no idea
what to do next besides spend hours and hours at home studying more code.
Basically, I am non-existent in the programming world."
Brent, you've come to the right place.
I have a lot of suggestions for you.
Not everyone has connections.
We call this a network, but you need to build one because the best time to start planting
a tree was 20 years ago.
You know, the second best time to start planting a tree is now, so you need to build a network
now.
You need to build connections now.
Just because you don’t have them is not an excuse.
Yeah, you got your degree, good, awesome, that's great, but the most valuable thing
for you—I got something in my hair—is not going to be to be at home studying coding
as much as possible.
I'm not saying there's no value in that, but what I'm saying is that you've got to build
a network and you've got to get out there and start—if you want to build a reputation
in the industry, start doing that.
I'm going to recommend a couple things for you.
I'm trying to make this as much pragmatic and practical as possible.
The first thing is I want you to go and I want you to look for meetup or networking
groups in your area for whatever you're interested in.
There's always like some meetup group for different programming languages or technologies.
Pick the one that you like and maybe you even pick multiple ones of them and show up and
show up every week.
Okay?
I want you to do that for four weeks to show up every week to the meeting.
Maybe five and then after four, five weeks, I want you to talk to the—not only that,
I'll give you some more even specific advice.
I want you to come in early and see if you can help out and volunteer to set up, and
I want you to stay late and see if you can help clean up.
Then you do that for five weeks or six weeks.
Maybe five and then I want you to go to the event organizer, the person in charge of the
meetup, and I want you to say, "Hey, I want to give a talk.
I want to give a presentation at one of the upcoming meetings.
What can I do it on?" or suggest some things that you're interested in.
In fact, that's better and that's going to go a long way to building your network and
your connections.
Keep on going to those meetups.
We're going to think long term here.
Again, planting the tree analogy.
Maybe this this takes you a year, but I would say it's better that you spend a year building
up a network and building up these connections than it is to just spend a year banging your
head against the wall trying to learn more coding stuff that's not necessarily going
to help you as much as building the connections.
Trying to frantically get a job and being frustrated.
It will be much easier when you have connections because that's step one.
Step two: I want you to pick out companies in your area that you'd like to get a job
at that have programming jobs and I want you to go to LinkedIn and I want you to find the
employees that work for that company, and I want you to start messaging some of the
developers there and saying, "Hey, can I buy you dinner?"
Don’t even say meet up for coffee.
Say, "Can I buy you a dinner at a nice restaurant?"
Save your money, buy some dinner.
Maybe you can meet up for coffee or look and see if they have some blogs and stuff, coment
on their blogs.
I want you to be like a sleuth.
I want you to figure out—you got to think outside of the box, how are you going to figure
out this?
How are you going to build the connections, build the network?
How are you going to give people some kind of value?
Look and see.
"Ah, this person is interested in this.
Well, maybe I can do something to help them in some way" or give them some information,
or share with them this article.
Look for how you can create some real value and connection start messaging these people
and start doing it, and don’t ask them for anything.
Don’t tell them you're looking for jobs.
Don't tell them any of that stuff because when you do that way, if you ask someone and
if you say, "Hey, I'm looking for a job," they know you're trying to get something from
them.
Then they're like, "Anything you say is suspect."
What you've got to do is you got to have—you can't have any of that.
You've got to come out and just—"I just want to be friends.
I just want to find out about the industry.
I just want to offer you some value."
When you do that, people will be more open to what you're saying and you'll be able to
actually build connections, like you have to invest in the network before you get something
out.
You have to invest.
Now is your investing time so that's the first thing.
The next thing I'm going to say is—well, I'll plug my book, but I think it will help
you.
That's why.
The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide.
If you haven't got a copy of this, get a copy of this and read through the first sections
on becoming a programmer, on how to become a programmer, essentially how to become a
software developer, and how to get a job as a software developer.
There's a ton of stuff about this, about thinking outside the box and how to set up—do interviews
and how to construct your resume and all that stuff.
Get that knowledge.
I'm not going to repeat all that here because you could just read it in the book, okay?
The third thing I'm going to tell you here is that not only do you need to build a network,
but you need to actually be going out there and picking a specific type of job that you
want to get and developing those skills because it's great that you have a degree now, but
what does that degree going to—is that going to get you a specific job?
No.
You can kind of code.
You've got the basics but you need to have specific set of skills.
You always need to specialize in today's society in order to be valuable.
Generalists are not very valuable today.
I don’t have a problem with being a renaissance man.
I consider myself to be somewhat of a renaissance man.
I like to learn a lot of things, but damn it I specialize in shit as well.
I have really deep knowledge in areas like philosophy, in fitness, in computer programming
and software development and soft skills, and a lot of different areas because I go
real deep in those areas.
I've got a playlist for you which you can check out on specialization.
I highly recommend that again.
It's also in my book on The Complete Software Developer's Career Guide, but that’s just
how you're going to do it.
You have to build up the network and you have to just invest in time.
If you go to meetup groups and you show up continually and if you think for yourself,
if you think from the perspective of how can I meet people, and if you think a year, don’t
think of your target as I need to get a job right now.
This is where you become needy and you're asking people for stuff instead of giving
people stuff.
Think about how you could invest and grow a network, so that you could get a job a year
from now.
Maybe it will take less time and maybe opportunities will come your way, but you need to be thinking
that way.
For any of you that are having trouble and you don't have a network, there's no excuse.
Don’t say, "I'm not connected.
My parents are not well connected or I didn’t make connections."
I don’t care about any of that.
You can do it.
In one year, you can build a fabulous awesome network to be out there teaching and getting
your name out there, so that people know who you are, especially when you people Google
your name.
They find a blog or they find a YouTube channel and they say, "Man, this guy not only is he
like hardworking and confident and knows what he's talking about, but he's sharing his knowledge
with other people," which is really important.
All right.
I hope that helps you.
Make sure you show up to those meetup groups.
All right.
I 'll talk to you next time.
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