The Cold Application Approach Is DEAD For Developers
Jun 03, 2024Season 1Episode 159
Don Hansen
I answered an aspiring developer's question:
"In late 2022, I decided to get into SE to become a front end dev and decided to join an in-person bootcamp in 2023 to accelerate my learning. Choosing the bootcamp route over traditional schooling seemed like a quicker path into the field, especially since I'd already been self-studying beforehand. While the bootcamp experience was great, it left me feeling underprepared in key areas like Javascript, with the curriculum heavily focused on React. I earned a certificate and made my portfolio site to host my projects, but landing my first job has proven to be an uphill battle. I've been applying weekly for about 8 months now, even to listings I wasn’t ‘qualified’ for due to needing “”x amount of years of experience”” for entry level positions. I’ve spent the past half year studying Javascript to make up for the lack of JS in my bootcamp, and am still submitting applications almost daily. The 8 months and counting pursuit of an entry-level position across various job titles—front end dev, graphic design, UI engineer etc—has resulted in less than a dozen rejections, which at this point, I'm looking forward to since it’s better than hearing nothing at all. Soon, I won't be able to hold out financially, and I’ll have to find a full time job and inevitably run out of time in my personal life to code at all which is frustrating and heartbreaking, since I’ve grown to love coding, especially designing and building components and sites. TLDR; I’m just trying to get into my first position. I don't care if it’s writing HTML or CSS, hell at this point, I’ll do coffee runs for developers if it means I can actually get into a company. It has probably never been a worse time to get into software engineering, and I find myself actively telling younger family members who ask about it to go for something ‘more stable’ when ironically, was the sentiment I received when inquiring about software engineering.. This WAS the ‘stable’ career, until it wasn’t. I’m desperate for any advice on what to do at this point, maybe even going back to school if it betters my chances!"
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"In late 2022, I decided to get into SE to become a front end dev and decided to join an in-person bootcamp in 2023 to accelerate my learning. Choosing the bootcamp route over traditional schooling seemed like a quicker path into the field, especially since I'd already been self-studying beforehand. While the bootcamp experience was great, it left me feeling underprepared in key areas like Javascript, with the curriculum heavily focused on React. I earned a certificate and made my portfolio site to host my projects, but landing my first job has proven to be an uphill battle. I've been applying weekly for about 8 months now, even to listings I wasn’t ‘qualified’ for due to needing “”x amount of years of experience”” for entry level positions. I’ve spent the past half year studying Javascript to make up for the lack of JS in my bootcamp, and am still submitting applications almost daily. The 8 months and counting pursuit of an entry-level position across various job titles—front end dev, graphic design, UI engineer etc—has resulted in less than a dozen rejections, which at this point, I'm looking forward to since it’s better than hearing nothing at all. Soon, I won't be able to hold out financially, and I’ll have to find a full time job and inevitably run out of time in my personal life to code at all which is frustrating and heartbreaking, since I’ve grown to love coding, especially designing and building components and sites. TLDR; I’m just trying to get into my first position. I don't care if it’s writing HTML or CSS, hell at this point, I’ll do coffee runs for developers if it means I can actually get into a company. It has probably never been a worse time to get into software engineering, and I find myself actively telling younger family members who ask about it to go for something ‘more stable’ when ironically, was the sentiment I received when inquiring about software engineering.. This WAS the ‘stable’ career, until it wasn’t. I’m desperate for any advice on what to do at this point, maybe even going back to school if it betters my chances!"
Disclaimer: The following may contain product affiliate links. I may receive a commission if you make a purchase after clicking on one of these links. I will only ever provide affiliate links for apps that I've used and highly recommend.
All right, we're back at it again, helping aspiring developers get jobs and grow. And so today we have a question from Unseasoned Chicken. In late 2022, I decided to get into software engineering to become a front-end dev and decided to join an in-person bootcamp in 2023 to accelerate my learning. Choosing the bootcamp route over traditional schooling seemed like a quicker path into the field, especially since I've already been self-studying beforehand. While the bootcamp experience was great, it left me feeling unprepared in key areas like JavaScript, with a curriculum heavily focused on React. I earned a certificate and made my portfolio site to host my projects, but landing my first job has proven to be an uphill battle. I've been applying weekly for about eight months now, even to listings I wasn't qualified for due to needing X amount of years of experience for entry-level positions. I've spent the past half year studying JavaScript to make up for the lack of JavaScript in my boot camp, and I'm still submitting applications almost daily. The eight months and counting pursuit of an entry-level position across various job titles front-end dev, graphic design, ui engineer has resulted in less than a dozen rejections, which, at this point, I'm looking forward to, since it's better than hearing nothing at all. Soon, I won't be able to hold out financially, and I'll have to find a full-time job and inevitably run out of time in my personal life to code at all, which is frustrating and heartbreaking since I've grown to love coding, especially designing and building components and sites. Tldr I'm just trying to get into my first position. I don't care if it's writing HTML or CSS. Hell, at this point I'll do coffee runs for developers if it means I can actually get into a company. It has probably never been a worse time to get into software engineering, and I find myself actively telling younger family members who ask about it to go for something more stable, when, ironically, was a sentiment I received when inquiring about software engineering. This was the stable career until it wasn't.
Don Hansen:
I'm desperate for any advice on what to do at this point, maybe even going back to school. If it betters my chances, all right. So I'm probably going to address some of these things sequentially and there are a couple things to note. The market is rough, right, that's obvious. We can just acknowledge that, and we could also acknowledge that developers, like professional developers, are keeping their jobs in the market. There are professional developers doing very well and there are people or there are aspiring developers getting jobs every day at entry level positions, right. So both can be true, and so you ask for advice like what can you do? And that's what we're going to focus on, because I like focusing on actionable things that we can do that are in our control, because you have a lot more in your control than you think you do.
Don Hansen:
So let's start from the beginning. So you started in late 2022, which is where things start getting rough right. 2021 into early 2022 is kind of the golden age, where you didn't need to know much to become a developer. It was kind of sad, honestly. I mean, great for aspiring developers, but it brought in a lot of really crappy developers into the industry who just were kind of they didn't really dig deep, they weren't curious developers, they just learned the bare minimum and they managed to get a job. And yeah, like you know, if you wanted a job as a developer, that was 2021 was a year to try to get it, but we are still in a rough market and that's something to be aware of.
Don Hansen:
Um, but your goal was to join a coding bootcamp to accelerate your learning, which is true. That's what coding bootcamps do. They do that well. Um, and often, if you get a coding boot camp that doesn't do that that well and jumps into abstractions too early, you go back and supplement with foundational learning and you continue building projects to reinforce that learning. But they still achieve that task. They accelerate your learning, but then you go on to say it seemed like a quicker path into the field. Now that's a completely different thing and that used to be true Not in this market necessarily.
Don Hansen:
So there are a lot of other variables to account for in terms of like. If it's going to make it a quick path to get into the field and you mentioned that you've been self-studying beforehand, which is great I highly recommend, if you're considering a coding bootcamp and you have the money for that and you're just trying to accelerate that learning like, really spend some time with a self-taught path, like three months, six months if needed, to like just get a feel. If you really love coding Cause a lot of people that join coding bootcamps. It's crazy to me the number of people excuse me that join coding bootcamps that just they don't really enjoy coding Like. Why are you spending that much money or something like that, when you could just figure that out with a self-taught path? At least use the self-taught path to figure that out.
Don Hansen:
So the experience was great, but it left you feeling unprepared and you basically said that you dove into React too quickly. So it is one of those coding boot camps. Unfortunately, that sped you through too quickly and you felt underprepared. So then you afterwards worked on that foundational knowledge and hopefully, because it sounds like you were just supplementing JS but if you're going for a front-end position, you should be diving deep into HTML and CSS as well, into html and css as well. Um, I don't know if your cutting boot camp was trying to prepare you to become a front-end or back-end developer, but if it is front-end, a lot of people do not dive into css. A lot of people do not dive into html, they don't dive into accessibility, they don't dive into things that matter outside of javascript, even though you're going to be using javascript in front-end positions. Um, companies appreciate a good foundational knowledge of html and css and a lot of people lack that and coding boot camps skip over that. So hopefully you've been brushing up on that as well.
Don Hansen:
So you've been applying for eight months. Um, yeah, so at this point I'm basically saying, like you, you should expect to apply for at least a year after coding bootcamp. I know that's a very long time, but I would say, on average with coding bootcamps the percentage that people are actually landing jobs within six months is well below 50%. Um, and it Hmm, I probably have to refresh or just kind of look at recent data. I probably have to refresh or just kind of look at recent data, but I feel like it definitely bumps up over 50% within that year and you got to keep in mind that's just the average. There are a lot of people coming out of coding bootcamps that just let off the gas and don't do what they need to do to get that job. So that's the average. You don't have to be average. Always keep that in mind.
Don Hansen:
So you know, eight months feels like a long time, especially when you have responsibilities, but on average it's not that long and you should be expecting at least a year. And if your coding boot camp did not prepare you for that, I am sorry. That is unfortunate. Um, so I've been applying weekly for about eight months. Even the listings I wasn't qualified for and that's.
Don Hansen:
So I would be curious about what those requirements are. Right if it requires like one to two years of experience, less than three. Um, I think those jobs are completely safe to apply for Now. Are they going to be junior friendly? It just depends. You know, we we've done live streams where, like, we kind of look at the wording and you can review some of my live past broadcasts where we review a bunch of job postings. But as an aspiring developer, it's really hard to figure out. Like, is this job posting? Is this position junior friendly? How do I determine that from the job posting? Um, sorry, notifications. So I, like you, should be applying for positions that are, uh, that have less than three years required and that match your stack right.
Don Hansen:
A lot of companies want to hire people that know the stack that they're working with and they want people that can just onboard extremely quickly. That's the reality of the market and you can get there. But it's more targeted applications because you got to. You know, even in your question it's obvious that there is frustration and burnout and you know, even applying for positions you don't think you're qualified for just taxes your mental state. It saps that mental energy and it can maybe, like in that moment, make you feel like you're accomplishing something when in reality, like you could be spending it towards project work or you could be spending it towards actually finding positions that you are more qualified for, which does take time. So you have to really consider, like how many positions am I applying for that I'm completely unqualified for. Like three plus years of experience required. I don't think it's worth applying to those. I just don't. I don't think it's worth. Even like if you're doing a quick apply, I just don't think it's worth it. A lot of people are just getting too burned out on all of the rejection and the non responses because companies are just getting so many applications. But I think a targeted approach is way more appropriate and I'll think about if I even want to go into detail, like what that targeted approach looks like, because I went into that in my last episode. But yeah, like I think you need to consider the that you only have a certain amount of mental energy each day to try to make progress on this and you have to spend your time and energy wisely. I'm looking forward to it, since.
Don Hansen:
So that could be another frustrating thing not receiving any sort of feedback, any sort of rejection, and you know you got to get over it. There's no other, better way to put it. You got to get over it. It's nothing personal from the companies, but I think what you're alluding to is you don't have any. So, like you actually appreciate the rejection because it's something um, it's feedback. And you can actually gain feedback in two ways. Um, well, a few ways, but one, like look at your old code, are you getting better? Go back a month or two, would you refactor things? Right, if you would refactor things, if you would do things differently, that's a signal that you are growing as a software engineer and you are making forward momentum which is going to increase the chances that you will be hireable. And you have to remember that right, because a lot of people just attach their growth, their um, are they achieving their goals? Are they making forward momentum based on our companies hiring me? Or even, am I getting an interview, which getting an interview doesn't necessarily mean you're making forward momentum.
Don Hansen:
It's actually fairly easy to get an interview with kind of just bullshitting on your resume, but then you just get rejected and then you just show that you have a lack of integrity and, like you just wasted your time and their time. So even getting an interview I wouldn't say is a step in the right direction and I think you this is tough, but I think you really have to analyze your growth as a software engineer, because you say you really enjoy coding and that needs to come first. You talk about projects that you've you made a portfolio site to host your projects, but I don't see anything about like, what is your most impressive project you are working on right now or that you just completed? Like, are you still doing project work, as most of your day should be spent doing project work, heavy project work, always, always, always, until you get that job. That's also going to reignite some of that excitement for coding because, again, if you're just focusing on oh, did I get an interview today? Oh, did I get a job today? And that is your only signal for success, you will burn out, you will quit. So the fact that you didn't even mention a project that you know like maybe you gained a user base behind you know like you can build a really minor SaaS product, you can build a developer tool, you can build useful things that gain a user base, that are incredibly impressive, and you make it sound like you just have a portfolio of projects that came from your coding bootcamp. Those are low value projects. Employers don't trust coding bootcamp projects because they don't know if you've had a lot of help, they don't know how much effort you put into it on your own. They don't really like it doesn't give them a good signal of what you can actually do, like you should be building and building and building. After that coding bootcamp.
Don Hansen:
Um, as an aspiring developer, I really want to stress this you can build a project that serves a real purpose in the world, that actually solves real problems. What have you built? Like? It's kind of just like you know sharing your frustration, but nothing you're not really sharing what you think really makes you unique and makes you stand out. I'm seeing none of that here, which makes me think that maybe you've kind of let off the gas a bit. You know, maybe you haven't pushed out a project that you're really impressed with and that you're pushing out to LinkedIn and there are other, like product websites that you could push it out to. It just depends on, like, what the industry is of the problem that you're solving in your project. So build a real project that's useful to people, get a user base, and if you get a user base, you could potentially charge for it. That's a very impressive project. Where is that here, going back into coursework, because you're saying like you're trying to, um, you know, get the foundation with javascript. I'm hoping you're not diving deep into coursework again. Um, you know, it's just, if your foundation is really that shaky you're gonna have to do some coursework, but you should be building to reinforce that coursework. So I'm just kind of curious what projects you've been working on recently.
Don Hansen:
I'll have to find a full-time job and inevitably run out of time in my personal life to code, and that's a reality that you might have to face and I would argue maybe you should face that reality sooner than later. You might not want to hear that the market's rough. It's probably going to take longer than you thought it was. The fact that you even expected a job eight months in and are completely surprised by this. Yeah, I think you're going to have a rough time if you wait till last minute and then try to find a full-time job to then start catching up with your bills. To last minute and then try to find a full-time job to then start catching up with your bills. Um, can you do a part-time job to slow the bleed financially and continue doing coding on the side? Because you mentioned that you feel like you're not going to have any time. Well, first of all, you should have time with a full-time job, right, um, it's gonna be rough if you're working 60 hours but 40 hours. Can you find a job just paying the bills with that?
Don Hansen:
There are people aspiring developers, parents with I wouldn't say newborns, but parents with children, who have a full-time job, like single parents, that are managing to code in their spare time, and I think the reality that you need to face is, maybe to stop the bleed, I need to get a full-time job and I need to, and I'm going to have other responsibilities, but I might have to give up some things, um, that I enjoy doing to continue coding on the side and make this work. I don't know your financial situation. I don't know if that is the right path. That's why I also mentioned the idea of, like, getting a part-time job to slow down the bleed and then still coding on the side and building projects and networking. I don't see anything about going to meetups, participating in hackathons. Are you meeting any developers? You could be tons of developers at meetups.
Don Hansen:
Get involved in the dev community. Who have you met? It sounds like you're just going with a rough, cold application and when you're just spitting you spamming your resume out. This is the reality. Like this is just a lesson to everyone just doing the rough, cold application approach, where you're just spamming your resume even a positions you think you're not qualified for. I don't know why I just clapped, I don't know if you heard that, but this is. This is the reality. This is what happens. I don't know how many times I need to show this example, but you can do so much more with your time. You can be so much more effective with your time. You've got to realize networking is still king. Who are you meeting? What are you participating in in the dev community? It sounds like you don't have a job.
Don Hansen:
I would have loved to see all the hackathon projects that you produce at larger companies that want you to solve real problems. Where are those projects? Do you have a really fun developer tool that you'd love to contribute back to, or a useful tool that you just use daily and you're like, hey, I really want to contribute to this open source project? That's a good reason to get open source to give back to the dev community. Who have you met? What group projects have you worked on? Have you gone to discords and just met people and engaged in the dev community. I'm seeing none of that Now.
Don Hansen:
I know you can't just include all of that context, but I want you to think about some of this stuff. You're going through one of the hardest paths to become a developer, with a cold application process where you are just spamming, and this is the result. This is the result for almost everyone that does this. You have to shift your strategy. This is the result for almost everyone that does this. You have to shift your strategy. Focus on networking, focus on engaging with developers, focus on building meaningful connections.
Don Hansen:
Build your presence on LinkedIn, and that means sharing your process of like if you're learning something new, you're excited about something, make a post on LinkedIn. Engage with other people's content on LinkedIn. Linkedin is a slept on platform for developers and again I got to mention this because every time I say this, you're like ah, I know what you're thinking Like, linkedin is so cringe. I don't want to be on the platform. Like curate your feed, unfollow people that are just posting cringy posts and just follow people that are posting posts that you want to engage with. You can curate your feed, do that, but you I you really need to build a presence on LinkedIn. And if you're going to meetups, you're participating in hackathon stuff like that, and there are online opportunities as well for that, if you are in a rural area, um, there are opportunities, but get them to connect with you on LinkedIn, right? Um, yeah, you gotta.
Don Hansen:
I think you have to switch your approach and go more towards kind of like a networking style approach and a more targeted approach with your applications, because you're you should be applying for positions that are in the same industry as the problems you solve in your personal projects. You should be applying for positions where, like, it lines up your personal projects, speak to the problems you solve in your personal projects. You should be applying for positions where it lines up your personal projects. Speak to the problems that you want to solve. It speaks to the stack that you want to work with and that just lines up, even if it's a basic version. It lines up with the application, the professional application of the company that you're applying to. You need to pair this networking side of things with a more targeted approach, with a cold application side of things, and that's where people start seeing results and you say, like I've grown to love coding, which is awesome.
Don Hansen:
Don't let off that gas. I don't care if writing HTML, css hell, this point I'll do coffee runs for developers if it means I can get into an actual company, cool, so that's you know. If you're willing to do that, then you're willing to go to local businesses, look up their website beforehand, see if you could really modify that and turn it into a better website and charge them a cheap rate to be able to produce. You know something better, and then you know what you can do as a deal to give them a cheap rate. I want to go ahead and get some analytics for conversions. Right, I want to see that I'm going to get some analytics, like for the first couple of weeks of conversions. And you know, especially if it's a company where it's like, yeah, our website doesn't really do anything for us, yeah, that's close to 0%, and then when you complete that website, you know, putting analytics on that website to be able to track conversions of people making phone calls or, you know, filling out a contact form would probably be a more practical way. That is like to be able to increase the leads by three, four or 500%, like when you have a business that just isn't getting any traffic from their crappy original website. You could change that.
Don Hansen:
So it sounds like you have that initiative. Are you taking it? Are you going to local businesses? That's impressive. That initiative is impressive. The fact that you could build something that gives a business real value, real revenue that's impressive. You do this with personal projects by gaining a user base and building something useful, but you can do this in other ways as well. So if you're willing to do that, hopefully you're not just sitting on your ass doing nothing, but I have a feeling you got to just get off your ass, connect with people and actually build meaningful connections in the industry. I think that's really going to help you out a lot.
Don Hansen:
Let's see. Is there anything else? I find myself actively telling younger family members who ask about it to go for something more stable, when, ironically, it was a sentiment I received when inquiring about a software engineer. There is stability in the industry. There are plenty of software engineers that are keeping their jobs and if they lose their jobs, they find another one. There is stability, but you've got to realize there's a lot of noise on the internet.
Don Hansen:
You get a lot of people who, instead of wanting to take ownership over what they can control. They want to just complain about the industry. You hear a lot of complaints. People that are just digging deep, they're learning and they're connecting with people and they're doing all the right things. They're busy. They're not busy complaining on the internet, they're busy growing and making connections right. But all you hear are the complaints of all the people that just want to blame external circumstances. They just want to blame the market and the thing is there's a little truth to that. The market is rough, but yet they don't want to acknowledge that there are very successful software engineers that are just fine. They're very successful aspiring developers that are getting jobs every single day.
Don Hansen:
What is the difference between that person that continues to complain about the market and the person that's actually overcoming the market? I think a lot of people really need to critically think about that. Or you know, just shit on me in the comments, but we'll continue bringing it up, um, because a lot of people it just it blows my. I guess it just blows my mind that so many people spend so much energy and time just being miserable and complaining and blaming people and blaming external circumstances, when all that energy could be funneled into something constructive and positive. It blows my mind that people will do this for years like years. They'll spend their entire life doing this sometimes and it's a shame, but you don't have to be that person.
Don Hansen:
So the career stability is still there. It's not as great, but a lot of industries are hurting right now, but it is there. Job security is an illusion. If someone told you that there was job security in a dev job, that is a complete lie. There is no job security in any job. You want to aim for industry security and if you want to get, you want to aim for industry security. And if you want to get, if you want to ensure that industry security, you need to study people who have achieved that for themselves, not the people complaining on the internet.
Don Hansen:
So, yeah, I think we covered everything pretty extensively and you know, of course, there could be so many variables holding you back. I haven't seen your resume. I haven't seen the cover letters you're submitting. I haven't seen your follow up messages to recruiters. I haven't seen, like, how you actually connected people in the industry, the events you've gone to, the hackathons you participated in, your impressive projects that you continue working on and flushing out and putting out there on social media and gaining users. I haven't seen any of that. So you know I'm making a lot of assumptions, but I do appreciate you providing this much context so we could hopefully some of this sticks, hopefully some of this resonates and I think we can at least get some actionable things that we could do out of the advice. But yeah, hey, keep pushing forward.
Don Hansen:
You say you love coding. You know, if you just were trying to get this position to make more money, honestly I wouldn't give a fuck. It's like plenty of those people are going to get flushed out of the industry. I just don't care anymore. But you say you truly enjoy coding and you are exactly the type of person I want to help. You are exactly the type of person that will eventually land that job. You just got to figure out those finances and maybe pivot a little bit, but I really am hoping you do get that job. So good luck.
