Action Step #1: Establish a shareable calendar (like Google Calendar) and block out time on your calendar now to adhere to these goals. Be prepared to show this calendar to your instructors during your portfolio review. Google Calendar Link.
Action Step #2: Backwards plan for your big goal. What is your cut-off for ending the job search? When do you want to receive and sign an offer by? My cut-off has always been the end of January because I need a job as soon as possible.
Action Step #3: Based on what you outlined above, create monthly, weekly, and daily goals to reach in order to reach your big goal:
See Calendar
For time spent coding during your first 30 days post-grad, consider:
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What skills would you like to improve or develop? Refine and review my react and redux by building a website for my stepdad.
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Are there areas from Turing's program that you feel weaker in? How will you level up? I feel weak in the back-end aspect of things. I might just build a few servers in node to get better.
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Are there new languages or technologies you'd like to learn? How and when will you do that?
AWS Certification considering that many people are using it. Udemy courses
Action Step: Establish a “daily-practice” repository where you’ll put small daily exercises or work on issues from your own projects that you want to update to keep your skills sharp and your GitHub activity chart active. For your Mod 4 portfolio review, be prepared to describe to your instructors what you plan to work on to sharpen and advance your coding skills for the first 30 days of your job search.
As we've discussed, meeting people, forming relationships, and having conversations are the key pieces to getting your foot in the door at any company. It's important to be proactive in your approach to outreach and networking to stay on track during your first 30 days.
Action Step #1: Identify at least 3 individuals from companies you're tracking who could connect with during your first 30 days. Describe why you want to connect with these people and what you hope to talk about, when you will email them by, and what your follow-up will look like once you've met with them.
Christy Pope: Director of Engineering at a company. Need to follow up with her within the week. Miguel Reyes: Turing Alumni willing to meet up with me when I go to FL in a few weeks
Success in the job search means staying organized. The best way to do that is to have a clear system to keep track of your contacts, research, and updates on what you're doing.
Action Step:
Using Huntr allowing me to keep track of daily progress in a fun way
During this module, you've had multiple opportunities to practice your technical and cultural interviewing skills. Think about how those experiences have helped you identify strengths and weaknesses in your interviewing skills.
My weakpoint in interviews is recognising my lack of knowledge. I have to practice by that by being mindful of what I say
do on a daily basis. It eventually translates to being more humble in interviews. I need to work on my coding interview questions. 30 min a day.
Make sure you have all your job search components up-to-date and looking their best!
My linkedIn is updated regularly because it is the only social media platform I am active on. Anything changes I apply it instantly
What other areas would you like to focus on during your job search?
- Blogging
- Planning and submitting meetup and/or conference talks
- Participating in hackathons or open source projects
Accountability is key during a job search and being able to check in with a person whom you trust (or, ideally, more than one person) on your progress will increase your ability to reach your goals in the timeline you've created. I'm gonna be living with my parents til I get a job. Trust me, I don't need someone to keep me accountable other than them.
Action Step: Identify 1-2 people you'll check in with during your first 30 days post-grad. Consider how you might continue to utilize your PD Peer Groups. Describe why you will check in with this person, how you will check in with them, what you aim to talk about, and what you hope to get out of these check-ins to benefit your job search.
I will be checking in with my Mentor Marc Garreau and my friend who works at Nordstrom Fahad. I'll be using video conferences and weekly linkedIn messages to be in touch
While you've made concrete plans for how to achieve your goal, it's also important to take stock of what could hold you back in the job search.
Action Step: Identify 1-2 "barriers" you might put on yourself in this job search as well as the steps you will take to overcome them. Be prepared to describe these in your M4 portfolio review. Having to work a regular job to make it by. I intend to overcome this by getting a tech job ASAP.
In this section, you'll find action steps that you should aim to complete during your first 30 days post-grad, but these are not steps that you need to have completed for your portfolio review. Instead, you should begin thinking about how you will achieve these steps, and your post-grad job search support coach will ask about progress on these during that first 30 days.
Scheduling Post-Grad Action Step: At the end of each week during your first 30 days, assess what worked with the schedule and what didn't so that you can make adjustments as needed and manage your time even more effectively for the following week. This will also help you keep a record of what you've done in your job search.
Outreach Post-Grad Action Step: During the first 30 days, you should aim to reach out to at least 10 individuals. Even if you don't have a list of all 10 for the draft of this plan for portfolio review, be prepared to meet this target during your first 30 days of the job search.
Job/Company Research & Tracking Post-Grad Action Step: Reach out to and apply to at least 10 companies/jobs.
Housekeeping Post-Grad Action Step #1: During this timeframe, you should establish a “master” resume that you’ll customize per employer. You should already have a working version that you submitted in Module 3.
Housekeeping Post-Grad Action Step #2: Establish a “master” cover letter with your key talking points that you'll customize per employer.
Use this checklist here to make sure you have everything needed in your plan for your portfolio review. Your instructors will also use this checklist during the portfolio review.
- Establish shareable calendar and show to your instructor(s)
- List your cut-off date for having a full-time position
- List monthly, weekly, and daily goals
- Create "daily_practice" repo and describe to instructor(s) what you plan to practice
- List 3 people you will reach out to. Describe to instructor(s) why you'll reach out, when you'll email them by, what you hope to talk about, and what follow-up will look like
- List 3 meetups you'll attend and describe to instructor(s) why you'll attend them
- List the job search tracking system you're using and describe to instructor(s) why you're using it/how it will help you
- List 2-3 areas you'd like to continue to improve on for interviewing and outline concrete action steps on how you will improve those skills to describe to instructor(s)
- Turing portfolio is updated with 3 projects
- Summary of how you've updated your LinkedIn profile
- List additional area you'll focus on in your job search and describe why to instructor(s)
- List 1-2 people you'll check in with during job search
- List 1-2 "barriers" and describe how you will overcome them to your instructor(s)