How can you win when all those other developers have that expensive
piece of paper to fall back on?
Fewer and fewer people see value in a university education nowadays.
It's very expensive.
And does it really get you any further along in your career?
Many of the new developers in the market today are self-taught.
This is not a new thing.
Let's face it.
They've always been there, and this is really how the industry got started.
If the self-taught developer is the original trailblazer, then
why did developers of this variety struggle to secure employment?
I don't know.
Things changed.
Once the market starts to flood and the masses arrive, employers
start to gain a level of comfort or security in that piece of paper.
Like it's a measure of quality.
Is this true?
Are they missing something?
The graduates really have a better grounding?
Personally, I believe there's very little difference and it's not the
time spent in a university education that makes the difference, it's
time to spend at the keyboard.
So, in some ways, I think the self-taught developer is actually at an advantage.
But I guess a bold statement like that requires a little bit of explanation.
So let's get into it.
A CV or resume is simply a means of getting an interview.
It's like a stepping stone.
Therefore, the purpose of your CV and probably your LinkedIn profile at the
same time is just to peak the interest of the reader to go a little bit further.
So I don't believe that your CV or LinkedIn profile has
to be the best in the world.
It just has to convince the person reading it, that this profile
wants a little bit more attention, preferably during an interview.
So when you're new to programming or any field for that matter, you
can't rely on your experience.
You can't let that experience section do all the work for you.
You have no experience you're on your own.
Now, I want you to think differently.
Stop thinking about what you don't have and start thinking about what you do have.
Where is your leverage as a self-taught developer?
So, what do you have?
The first thing you have is time.
If you are not currently employed as a programmer and you're currently
sustaining yourself, then you have all the hours of the day to create something.
And the more you think about it, even if you are in employment, you have all the
hours of the evening to create something.
And I want you to dedicate that time.
You have a busy social calendar.
I get it.
No worries.
But if you're going to make this happen, you're going to have to put in effort.
By effort.
I mean, a lot of effort.
And when we really get down to it, the effort is your leverage.
Passion and productivity are what really seal the deal.
And I don't just mean for self-taught developers.
Passion trumps everything, always.
An experienced developer relies on their experiences.
A graduate developer relies on their qualification.
As a self-taught developer.
You need to rely on your passion and your proactivity.
More to the point, you have to evidence both of them.
While we're on the subject, experienced and graduate developers should pay
attention here too, because experience and qualification will only get you so far.
They're like entrance tickets to a party, but this is a pretty big party.
Getting noticed remains to be the problem, and the self-taught developer knows
that they don't have these fallbacks.
They have to rely on that thing which matters most, evidence.
We all have this as an option.
It's just those that have the experience or the qualification
have the luxury of being lazy.
But that luxury is a false sense of security.
This market is becoming ever more evidence-based so getting your strategy
right early is going to pay dividends.
So how can you demonstrate passion and proactivity?
Well, you're not going to like it, but side projects?
Starting a side project takes time, effort, and drive and then these are
the things that we want to focus on.
So, everyone starts a side project, but very few people finish one.
Ask around.
Tell me I'm lying.
Most new developers when I look at their GitHub or similar, will
have lots and lots of repos.
I call them shallow repos because they've usually got two or three
commits as they're starting to learn something, uh, learning a new feature
of a language or of a framework.
They learn nothing and then they abandon it.
So to the person looking in at this profile, they either see
someone who's in tutorial hell or someone that doesn't finish things.
Think about it.
The difference between a junior developer and the mid-level developers,
is they worked on larger projects.
Not only is the codebase larger, but they've had to work with
colleagues and teammates.
New developers work on smaller repos as individual contributors.
There's no packages to update and there's no contentious moment about
code quality from your team members.
The trick is how do you show that you've worked on a larger project?
Even better, how can you show that you worked with other team members before?
This is why open-source contributions are so valuable.
Now you might not be ready for open source and that's okay.
But you can work on a larger side project.
Something that grows with you and that's good experience.
Now to seal the deal.
Working on these projects is great, but what are we really expecting?
We're expecting a recruiter or an employer to read through our CV, or
go through our LinkedIn profile and find some information that makes them
want to delve a little bit deeper.
So then they go into your contact information or find your GitHub, click
on your GitHub, go find this project.
And there's a few repos there so they decide on the right repo, go and find
that repo, click into it and find out you're doing something that's valuable.
This is never going to happen.
You need to drag them there.
You need to put the evidence under their nose.
If you blog, can you be posted on LinkedIn where the employers and
recruiters are hanging out because while others can rely on their
experience or their qualification, the self-taught developer needs to
rely on evidence of their activity.
And when I say activity, I'm probably talking specifically about the activity
section on your LinkedIn profile.
Recruiters and employers need to see evidence of your skills,
knowledge, and proactivity, and you need to make it as easy as possible
for them to find that evidence.
Writing posts, adding screenshots or even code snippets all goes
towards building this picture that you live and breathe this.
You're not waiting for an opportunity to happen.
You're going to make this happen for yourself and that's an inspiring story.
And the good people of this world will want to support that.
Now this project should grow and grow and I would argue it's
probably never going to be finished.
It's more like an ongoing document, like a journal of your, your
journey as a developer and it should include the ups, the downs,
the successes, even the tragedies.
One thing I often say, and again, this is a little bit contentious is,
if your side project is good enough, nobody really cares about your CV.
The last thing I would advise you to do as a developer and particularly
a self-taught developers, again, to rely on that proactivity and consider
how are you applying for jobs?
Remember the power of proactivity.
And instead of just waiting for the right job to arrive on a jobs
board, consider applying direct.
Can you research the companies you want to work for?
Or, even better, can you research inspiring people, people who you can
see yourself emulating in your career.
Where do they work?
And if they've hired some one who's trotting the same path that you have
in self taught, then they're more likely to be hiring someone like you.
So perhaps try finding someone on LinkedIn or on Twitter, someone who
openly talks about being a self-taught developer and start to read about
their journey, where did they start?
Cause these are the sorts of companies that you should be interested in, and
it would stand to reason that companies that have liked and hired self-taught
developers before are probably more willing to make that investment again.
So let's think about what we've covered so far.
It's easy to think that a self-taught developer is at disadvantage.
And the reason that a lot of people tend to think that way is because the yardstick
we use to compare the two paths is very dismissive of the self-taught developer
and the qualities that they possess.
Play to your strengths.
If you're a self-taught developer, you're already displaying
the passion and proactivity.
You'll probably just not displaying them in the right manner or in the right place.
A side project.
A personal website or a portfolio is your secret weapon
so put all your efforts here.
Build something that's larger than just your standard normal website.
Showcase your development skills and use it as a place to document
your journey as a developer.
Tell a story and take people with you on that journey.
The goal is to have a public record of this evidence of your progress,
not just a finished product.
The alternative is a qualification, but it's getting harder and harder to dispute
that irrefutable evidence that is code with an accompanying journal, of course.
As always.
I hope that this video is giving you some insights and value on how to
stand out as a self-taught developer.
If you're a self-taught developer, we'd love to get your thoughts on this.
So drop us a comment below.
As always, you'd like to see more than consider subscribing
and I hope to see you next time.
Take it easy.