Landing Your Dream Tech Job: Insider Tips and Strategies for Bootcamp Graduates

Starting Your Tech Career After a Coding Bootcamp

Welcome to all hopeful web developers. If you have recently graduated a front-end coding bootcamp, congratulations! You’ve completed the first step towards launching a career in tech. Now that you have your feet under you, it’s time for the real work to begin.

I graduated from my coding bootcamp around 10 months ago, and was able to land a full-time position as a Junior Front-end Dev about two months after completion. The bootcamp I completed included a number of resources and strategies to help new grads land a job. I’d love to share my experience and some of the lessons I’ve learned to help those setting down the same road. If you find yourself in this position, I hope this article can provide useful advice and tips to land a position faster, and continue to develop your newly founded web-dev skills.

Immediately Following Graduation

If you’ve recently graduated a bootcamp, congrats!! It’s no small achievement to learn a large quantity of information in such a short amount of time. While it may feel like a time to celebrate and relax, it’s important to remember you still have lots of work to do. New grads need to push past the exhausted feeling cause by taking 10 hours of class 5 days a week for the past four months. Remember your motivation for signing up for the bootcamp, use this as the fuel to keep you going!

Not to say you can’t take any time to catch your breath, just make sure it is limited and allows you to maintain focus on your goals. Like cramming for a test, you’ve loaded your brain with an immense amount of new material. If we take too much time off after learning this, we’re likely to forget a some of the skills we’ve learned, and may lose motivation to tackle the painstaking process that is the job search. Instead, new developers should take this time to create a job search plan and set goals for continued skill development. We’ll discuss both of these tasks further in detail.

Continued Learning

I want to highlight continued learning as it plays a crucial role in your job search. Employers will highly value a candidate who is actively demonstrating their desire and ability to improve. This proves to them you are an individual they should want to invest in. Sure you’re a new bootcamp grad now, but in 5 years with your strong desire to learn, imagine what you could grow into!

First take some time to review your own experience during your bootcamp. Were there any topics you struggled with? Any topics you absolutely loved and can’t wait to jump into again? These are ideal places to start! Once we have an idea in mind, we can start looking for how we want to learn or practice with it. I advise to focus on coursework, or personal projects to develop these skills.

💡 Don’t spread yourself too thin. It’s important to narrow your focus on the key areas that interest you. Trying to learn more than one topic at a time will only slow you down.

Before beginning a new course or project set learning goals and guidelines to keep yourself on track. First, set a timeline for when you will finish by. This will keep you motivated to push through, and will simulate a real-work situation with a deadline to deliver by. In addition to a timeline, write down what you are hoping to learn or gain from completing this course or project. Reflecting on these will be extremely useful in job interviews when speaking to what you are currently working on.

Courses come in all shapes and sizes. Some are free, while other require a subscription to enroll. I tend to start with the free course, which typically covers the basics, before diving deeper into a paid course. Two websites I have used, and recommend exploring are:

• Scrimba.com
• Coursera.org

If you are looking for a personal project to take on, remember to keep it focused. Your portfolio projects should be similar in size and complexity as the projects you completed during bootcamp. Taking on something larger or more complicated than you are ready for is much more likely to lead to an unfinished project than something you are comfortable with.

Starting with a code-along project is a good idea! Not only do you have a guide to follow, but their scope is often limited to something you could complete in less than a week. If this route is of interest, spend some time on YouTube looking for an instructor who’s teaching style works for you.

Pick projects that demonstrate some real world value. Creating mock e-commerce, social media or blog sites are great ways to show employers you can produce what they are looking for.

If you are feeling comfortable with the material you learned in bootcamp, feel free to explore other technologies you find interesting. A few I wish I had some practice with before launching my career are:

• Frameworks like Tailwind or Bootstrap
  • Pre-designed utility classes and components that allow for rapid development
• Typescript
  • Can be used with React to add static typing to React applications, improving code quality, catching errors early, and enhancing developer productivity
• Storybook
  • Development environment for UI components that allows developers to build, test, and showcase isolated components in isolation

Job Search Plan and Strategies

Before we go into the finer details of developing a job search strategy, it’s important to set realistic goals. While you have developed in-demand skills, your experience will likely be much less than other applicants. So your job search may last a little longer than you are hoping for. I know how much it sucks, I’ve dealt with all the rejection too. Despite that it is not hopeless, below we will cover a number or strategies that will increase your chance of getting noticed, and booking interviews in no time!

Going Up? Perfecting Your Elevator Pitch

Mastering your own elevator pitch is key towards building confidence in your value as a job seeking candidate. The key is blending personal with professional to build a strong personal brand. Your elevator pitch is a short summary you can write or say out loud that describes who you are, your past, your current and your future goals.

Here is the elevator pitch I crafted for my post-bootcamp job search, use this as inspiration to guide yours:

I love using front-end technologies to create responsive apps and webpages that bring brands to life! I apply my knowledge of HTML, CSS, Javascript and React to develop impactful connections between users and technology.

Through a previous career in Brand and Event Marketing, I’ve developed strong project management skills, effective communication and presentations skills and the ability to develop new ideas into deliverable products.

I’m excited to apply my mantra of “solving complex problems through creative solutions” to my future opportunities as a developer.

Take time when writing this, and review it often. Practice it in front of friends and family until you’re comfortable. Perfecting this helps you to see your own value and communicate it to prospective employers. Your elevator pitch will likely be featured on your resume, and is the perfect answer to the dreaded interview question - “So, tell us a bit about yourself”.

New Resume, Who’s This?

Almost all bootcamp grads have zero working experience in a developer role when they graduate. They have likely worked in a totally different industry before making the jump. This means we’ll need to create a fresh resume to begin our job search with. I’ll leave the resume design tips to the real pros (there’s tons of info available online regarding resume design), but I want to cover the headings and highlights you should include, as well as a few to avoid.

• Include:
  • A short written summary of yourself and your goals as a job seeker. Adapt your elevator pitch to fit here!
  • A link to your portfolio site.
  • Skills (both hard skills (proficiency in React) and soft skills (Project Management)
  • Coding projects (with links to live sites and repositories for recruiters to view)
  • Education, including your bootcamp.
  • Past job experience
    • Even if not coding related, employers will value the transferable skills you have built in past positions.
    • Don’t allow past experience to take up majority of your resume if none of the work is relevant, just highlight the most recent or most significant experience you have.
• Don’t include:
  • A photo of yourself
    • Due to discrimination laws, many recruiters will not even read a resume that has a photo included. This is required to avoid any possible unconscious bias of a candidate.
  • Bar / Pie charts to demonstrate skill level
    • Just list the skill under the relevant heading. Rating your own proficiency is likely inaccurate and can hurt your chances of being considered.

Getting Your Application Noticed

💡 This may feel like more work than necessary but this is the most important topic I’ve covered in this blog. Using these strategies I gained from my bootcamp, I landed my first job. No doubt about it, my employer cited my unique approach as a key reason to give me a shot.

The job search experience feels like an endless cycle. You find a position you like, fill out the application and then hope for the best only to eventually get that “Thank you for taking the time… Unfortunately we have decided…” email hundreds of other applicants receive for the same position. While this process can’t be avoided, the application strategy learned in bootcamp requires additional work and focus, but offers much more promise than the traditional approach.

The stand-out approach:

1. Assess the job description. Find key details you can speak to in your resume or cover letter. Customize your documents to address these key details, making sure to connect your previous experience with the posting.
   • As you apply to more jobs you’ll find you have “versions” of these documents to highlight various skillsets, which will reduce the amount of customizing you do over time.
2. Apply. No changes here, when your resume and cover letter are updated, submit your application.
3. Find a contact to reach out to. Look for someone who may be involved in the hiring process or can connect you with someone who is.
   • Browse LinkedIn for employees and find someone who you think can help. (ex. Manager, or Team Lead)
   • Use hunter.io or snov.io to find company emails, or just guess.([email protected] or [email protected] are frequently used)
4. Write and send a thoughtful introduction email. Highlighting yourself, your career goals, one reason you’re interested in the position and a call to action. Your introduction should show you have researched the company, are motivated to work there and provide concrete proof you have strong communication skills.

5. Follow up every 2-3 days until you receive a response. When you have followed up 3 times since your initial introduction email, send a final email expressing your regret you were not able to connect and request they keep you in mind for future positions. Don’t overthink that you may be annoying them, this is what it takes to get noticed and many employers will admire your drive and organization!

   • Write out all the communications you want to send at each step. Highlight the areas you will need to customize for each different application (job title, dates, reason you’re interested and more)

   • Create a spread sheet to or use huntr.co to track your applications and the dates you applied and have followed up. Staying organized is key to your job search!

     Not sure how to write your intro and follow up emails? Use EAR as a guide to craft your message. EAR stands for Emphasize, Attention, Response. The main message of your email should emphasize the value you offer them. Blend together your previous experience with the new skills you’ve picked up. Draw their attention to your application by asking for a review from a technical person. Finally, use a call to action to request a response. Ask if they have time for a short coffee chat to learn more about the company or the industry you are interested in.

     Most importantly, don’t be afraid to show a little personality! Here is a follow up message I sent, to a fellow New England Patriot’s fan, after an interview where we addressed my lack of experience.

     I wanted to follow up on the topic of my experience as a web developer to offer another point for you to consider. While I am currently a junior, I was able to pick up a solid foundation in front-end development in a short period of time. I believe combining my personal drive to continue learning and my desire to get involved on day one with Fishtank's commitment to develop their staff, could be an exceptional partnership and investment opportunity.

     After all, Tom Brady himself was once a 6th rounder who's skills were doubted. ;)

Final Tips for Bootcamp Graduates

It won’t be quick or easy, but you knew that when you signed up for your bootcamp! It is absolutely crucial to continue developing your skills during this time to avoid a loss of motivation or skill regression. Plus, employers will be interested to hear about what you are currently working on.

While any job search can be a long, exhausting process bootcamp grads need to apply a unique approach to get noticed. Lacking experience in the field means you need to sell your future employer on your personality and potential. If you only take one thing away from this blog, please remember to follow up on your applications! The first hurdle you need to clear before getting an interview is simply to get noticed!

While you shouldn’t expect an easy or quick process, you can do this! It’s up to you to stay organized and motivated to land your dream job. Best of luck to all recent bootcamp grads, I’m cheering for you!

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