Aeickelman40/Career Journal.md

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              Career Journal.md
            
          
    Module 2

Mod 2 Week 1: Creating Your Vision, Part I


Start Where You Are (Empathize with the user -- you):


Health: how you answer “how are you”; intersection of physical, mental, and emotional health

How would you rate your overall health on a scale of 1-5?


4ish


How do you currently make time for activities associated with your health?


I believe that physical health is directly linked to mental health, so if I am not doing what I can to stay physically
healthy my mental health will suffer. I try to set aside at least an hour a day for physical activities and try to do
some sort of exercise during poms.


What is a small change you could make here to readjust your health ratings?


Being more aware of pom timers so that I do not get burnt out.


Work: what you do

Make a short list of all the ways you work right now


I best work in an environment with not a lot of distractions. Coding requires a lot of focus!


How much value do each of those things bring to your life? How are those activities purposeful for you?


Play: what brings you joy? Think about joy just for the pure sake of doing it; everyone benefits from this kind of play

What activities do you do that bring you joy throughout an average week?


Going on bike rides, cooking, solving a problem, reading.


In what ways could you make a small change to bring more joy into your life?


Prioritize what is important (education, personal life, health).


Love: sense of connection; who are the people who matter in your life and how is love flowing to and from you and them?

How does love currently show up in your life?


Currently engaged (wedding in October!), love for us is putting up with each others flaws and recognizing the big picture.


How do you show love to others right now?


Recognition and appreciation.


What adjustments would you like to make in this area?


Looking back at the 4 areas, do any problems emerge that you want to begin designing solutions for?


Define your needs, problem, and insights:


Based on what you wrote about above and your group conversation, what problems have you identified that you'd like to design solutions for?


Not letting the stress of Turing get to me. It can create a negative mind-space that is not productive.


What do you already about what you want for your career? What do you still need to find out?


I want a career that is constantly evolving and doesn't feel stagnant. I feel like tech changes so much, that it will consistently keep me on my toes.


Who or what do you want to grow into by the end of the Turing program?


A confident front end developer!


Ideate -- challenge assumptions:


When you discussed software developers with your small group on Monday, what assumptions came up about what software developers actually do?


They can do so much, every job will be a little different in terms of daily tasks and big picture programming goals.


What steps could you take to challenge those assumptions and find more facts to answer the question of what developers do?


Reach out to developers within the industry. See what they do, maybe look at sample code or just try to get a better idea of the day to day work.


In addition to what a typical software developer life could look like, what do you want yours to include?


Freedom to make decisions based on what I think is best practice, but also guide me into those best practices in order to improve my skills.


Prototype -- start creating solutions:


What is the basic threshold that your new career must meet after Turing?


Company culture that I can identify with.


What would you hope WILL NOT happen in your future after Turing?


I hope to have a job that I don't feel like I am doing the same thing day after day. I hope to be constantly challenged (in a good way) so that I stay sharp.


What is your absolute, no-holds-barred, ideal dream for your future after Turing?


Working remotely on an alpaca farm in Vermont. Being a team lead and the go-to guy.


Test –- solutions:


Based on this week of reflections, write out your vision statement for your career:


The biggest thing for me is to not stay stagnant. Tech in general is constantly evolving and there is always something new coming out. The opporitunity for me to enter a work force that fulfills my occupational goals is something that really excites me about being a software developer.

Mod 2 Week 2: Creating Your Vision, Part II 


Design Thinking Review: Cultivating Beginner's Mind


How can beginner's mind be helpful when it comes to thinking about your career and job search?


Approaching the job search with a beginner's mindset will be good in order to remove pre-concieved notions about a certain
career or company, in which case my assumptions could be wrong.


What are some habits you could put into place to cultivate beginner's mind regularly?


Treat every day as a new day, avoid viewing my daily activities as just part of the routine. Recognize changes when they happen, and look for understanding.

Optional additional reading: How to Cultivate Beginner's Mind to Become a True Expert

Workview & Lifeview


Summarize what good, worthwhile work means to you (Tip: this is NOT about what work you want to do but about why work matters to you):


Having a sense of accomplishment with projects and a feeling of personal/prefessional growth are what I would consider redeeming in work.


Lifeview: summarize what you value in life; what matters to you?


Economic security, and working for a business with a company culuture that reflects my values.


Where do your views on work and life complement each other?


I try to approach projects in work and life in a methodical fashion. By breaking down what I need to do in manageable chunks, it helps me envision what needs to be done a general path for how to accomplish this.


Where do they clash?


Finding the balance between life and work can be a little hard. I'm currently in the middle of a major professional transition, and recognizing what needs to done personally can be hard.


Does one drive the other? How?


At the moment, professional life has precedence based on time demands.


Go through the Flower Exercise brainstorming worksheets linked here


Complete your Flower Exercise final worksheet here


Here is my copy:
(https://docs.google.com/document/d/13aktRYG94FWeNjImlLFGjEw7VEMAp13eIvMld5H6O4g/edit)

Write a refined vision statement here (what new things have you discovered this week to incorporate into your vision statement?):

Mod 2 Week 3: Job Search Strategies 

Reflect on how you’ve spent your time so far at Turing to gauge your engagement and energy:

When have you been excited, focused, and enjoyed your work?


Being in an environment that is challenging yet enjoyable is when I feel most engaged in my work.


When have you felt bored, restless, or unhappy?


I have felt bored and restless previously when I felt like I was just going through the motions and not developing myself.


When do you feel energized in your work?


I feel most energized when I am actively pursuing a solution that is within my grasp, or I know what I need to do in order to achieve this.


When is your energy drained?


When I feel like everything I attempt does not end with a solution, no matter how many times I attempt to think outside the box for an answer.

Setting up habits and routines to make time for the job search this module:

Block out time on your calendar this week to work on your job search. When will you make this happen?


Wednesday nights, every other day I have group responsibilities are dedicating time for studying.


How will you hold yourself accountable to this? What activities will you focus on during this time this week?


Familiarizing myself with huntr and getting better situated with LinkedIn.


What outcomes do you hope to reach by the end of this week because of these activities?


A better understanding of the type of company I would want to be a part of (larger, more stable or a smaller company withe potentially more room for growth). See what skills are required, and how it differs from company to company.

Applying wayfinding to using job search resources

Go through the resources listed here and explore 2-3 tools. List what you looked at here:


While on Glassdoor I realized that I began my search a little too specific (javascript developer)and it only showed very limited results. From there I expanded my role terminology to still be applicable for front end jobs, and the amount. jobs.github.com seemed promising as I would imagine it would enable those in charge of hiring to have easier access to your GitHub profile, which is a one of the best indicators of your skill level as a software developer.


Apply wayfinding: of what you looked at, what did you discover that aligns with your vision? If it didn't align with your vision, what will you try next?


There did seem to be a lot of cooler startup companies that are focused on mainly mobile applications. I have messed around a little bit with cross-browser compatability, but it would be interesting to see what the day-to-day workload would be.


Find a job posting that aligns with your vision. What's the posting? How does it align with what you're looking for? Add it to your Huntr.
What next steps will you take to explore that opportunity and find contacts? Add that information to your Huntr card.

Mod 2 Week 4: Outreach & Networking I 

Mind Maps:


Engagement. What did you reflect on last week in regards to when you're engaged in your work at Turing? Pull out an idea that resonates with you most (e.g., "Talking through a problem with a partner," "The moment when I solve a problem that I previously didn't know how to do," "Setting up a successful project management process for my team") and break that idea down into parts and make a list (what are all the steps that go into that moment? When do you get to use your strengths? What is fun about this?).


While at Turing I feel most engaged when I can understand the problem and have a clear cut plan for what the solution will be. This can include doing codewars problems on my own, or working out tricky issues together with my group/partner.


Energy. What did you reflect on last week in regards to when you feel most energized in your work at Turing? Pull out an idea that resonates with you most and break that idea down into parts and make a list (what are all the steps that go into that moment? When do you get to use your strengths? What is fun about this?).


I feel most energized when I feel like a solution is within my grasp. This mainly manifests itself when working through a problem step by step and I can understand the entire process and what the next logical step should be. Many problems we work on as front end developers are not solved with just one method, but a combination of many methods that act in conjunction with one another to get the desired result.


Flow. When have you had an experience recently in which you were in a state of flow? You can also think about this as "joy" or "play." Pull out an idea that resonates with you most and break that idea down into parts and make a list (what are all the steps that go into that moment? When do you get to use your strengths? What is fun about this?).


Flow at Turing can manifest itself in many ways. Turing has taught me to develop a pretty regimented schedule as there are many things required from a student at any one time, and being able to dedicate certain hours of the day in order to accomplish these multiple tasks is essential.

Prototype your mind maps: what do these mind maps tell you about what's important to you as a software developer? What questions do they bring up about what you still want to learn about this career?

These mind maps indicate to me that in order to enjoy/be successful as a software developer I need to maintain a sense of structure with my schedule, keep my energy up by having momentum by overcoming obstacles, and feel like I am an active participant in the process.

Prototype your outreach: (Be prepared to share this in your small group discussion)

Who comes to mind as a person you can reach out to? Why that person? What questions would you ask them? Come up with 2-3 people here to serve as prototypes


My friend, Marco Lopes, is the CEO of Kordspace, a web development company. I have known him as a personal friend for a while now and he has always encouraged me to pursue a careeer in software development. As a CEO I would ask him what he looks for in an employee, what are the best steps a junior developer should take now in order for future success, any additional languages I should familiarize myself with that are in demand.

Module 3

Intermission Reflections


Please list the top 3-5 industries and companies you'll pursue in your job search as of right now.


Design


Security


Mobile applications


Why did you pick the industries/companies that you listed above? How do they relate to the values and goals you have for yourself in your job search?


When I originally signed up for the Front End develoment program, I initially had a goal of designing user interfaces and interactions in mind. While working in previous jobs I would typically deal with interfaces that were either ineffecient or not user friendly and always thought that if I had the skills, I could design something that is has a better user experience. Another goal of mine is to further develop my skillset in order to become more of a full stack developer, namely within knowing some of the key concepts involved with backend development. Having 'fullstack' on the resume definitely increases the amount of opportunities available. I mentioned mobile applications because previoulsy within my job search I have seen a lot of postings about android and iphone mobile development options, I think this would be a little more of niche market to pursue, but if the company aligns with my values I would be happy to develop my skills within this particular sector.


How does your LinkedIn currently reflect your goals and industry interests? What changes will you need to make to your LinkedIn to better reflect these?

Mod 3 Week 1: Professional Storytelling II: Resumes & Portfolios 


Refine your career vision: What are the values that will drive your job search? What are your goals for your job search? What kind of role do you see yourself pursuing in your job search? Based on your latest version of your career vision, list the top 3-5 industries and companies you'll pursue in your job search as of right now. Why did you pick these industries/companies? How do they relate to the values and goals you have for yourself in your job search?


Build your resume


What will you emphasize in your resume that directly relates to your targeted industries?
Pick a template from those listed in the Templates section here
Order your content in this way:

Header (Name + Software Developer OR Back End Engineer OR Front End Engineer, etc.)
Contact info
Summary
Skills
Projects
Experience
Education


Check out other resources here including the Resume Checklist
Link to your resume or include a screenshot here:


Upload your resume to CV Compiler by following these steps:


Go to https://cvcompiler.com/students/turingschool
Click on "Improve Your Student Resume"
Authorize it with either LinkedIn or GitHub
Fill out the fields with your Name and Email and the promo code Turing2003
Upload your resume
Based on the feedback you received from CV Compiler, what updates will you make to your resume?


At the moment my resume is mainly focused on my previous skill set and not yet based on software developement. I need to add links to my projects and have it more centered on a getting a career in software development. The CV compiler mentioned that I had 15 good points, but also 13 points of weakness to work on.


Set up your Turing Alumni Portfolio:


Log in with the link you got in your email. Going forward, log in at alumni.turing.io/user
Fill out all fields
Select "publish" before saving (projects must also have "published" selected)
Reflection questions:

What do you want this portfolio to say about you?
How will you continue to add to this to portray your story and showcase the kind of work that demonstrates your brand?\


Ian's workshop this week is designed to help you break down your interest in specific industries even further by exploring their tech stacks to decide if you want to utilize any of their tools in upcoming projects. Make a copy of his template here and post a link to your copy here to show what research you've completed. You can also link this research to your Huntr board.

Mod 3 Week 2: The Application Process  


Find a position or use a position you've put on your Huntr board and write a cover letter for that position in a Google doc or gist. Reference these cover letter resources as well as the session to complete your cover letter.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1x-y_LM1NB35jXRnJVb1AeBBt2CBKbLbT3sRUYkh-72s/edit

Review your cover letter with a peer some time this week. What feedback did your partner give you? What next steps will you take to make your cover letter even stronger?

Make the closing sentences of the middle paragraph less forward.

If you were to apply to this position (and you should!), how will you customize your resume for it? What other next steps would you need to take here?

As this is for a mobile development process, beef up my resume with more mobile oriented technologies (after the appropriate research of course).
Mod 3 Week 3: Outreach & Networking II 


Back to your resume and cover letter you've been working on:


What other next steps do you want to take to make these two components stronger?


I want to make my resume more tech focused, at the moment it is primarily based on my previous field of expertise which was in the retail environment. My cover letter(s) need to also be more inclusive of this, and to start with a hook rather than a generic message of 'I am interested in x position'.


Outreach Brainstorming:


Either explore the company you wrote a cover letter for or find a new company to explore this week; Go to their company LinkedIn page and start to explore the employees. Who are a couple people you could reach out to? Why?


There is a company called Strava that has an office here in Denver. It looks like there are a few Turing alumni that currently work there, so maybe they would be good to initially reach out to seeing as how we have a similar educational experience.

Mod 3 Week 5: Refining Your Strategy

Taking stock of where you are: what have you accomplished this module? What have you learned? Where are you stuck (have you not been able to follow through on outreach? Is your resume not finished?)?
Create plans for 3 different companies you want to target:
Questions to reflect on here: Why do you like this company? What makes you want to work there? Why are you a good fit for this company? What do you bring to the company? What transferable skills do you have? What do you already know about the company (product, team, culture, company size, location, etc.)? What do you need to learn?
Steps to take:
Outreach: look at the company’s LinkedIn page: who could you reach out to? What questions do you want to ask that person?
Experience: once you've made a connection at the company, how could you find out more? Consider setting up a job shadow or exploring their tech stack in your projects
Read back over the plan. How does it reflect your vision?
Imagine that you get the job. A year later, what have you gained from this experience? How have you started to fulfill your vision?
Plan #1: Reach out to a friend of mine that owns a smaller software developer company that I have done very entry level work for on a contract basis. The only downside is is that it is a smaller company and I would like to have a consistent work load and benefits, main goal is to get experience and have a better developed portfolio. 4
Plan #2: Continue doing research on how to best approach companies working remotely, and broaden my job search by what opporitunities are going to be purely remote. 5
Plan #3: Expand companies that I want to work for. As a junior developer, my main goal is just to get actual experience for 2 or so years. If I mesh well with the company culture, I would focus on progressing within the internal company ladder, if not pursue opportunities elsewhere. 4
Make it actionable: rank each plan on a scale of 1-5 for how much your plan aligns with the following:
Available resources to help you pursue it: contacts, time, knowledge of the company, etc.
Coherence: how it aligns with your career vision
Confidence level: how feasible does this feel to you?
How excited you are about it
Now, pick the plan with the highest numbers across the board. What steps will you take next to pursue this strategy as you go into the next module?
Approach every prospective job as an opporitunity to learn, even if I don't get the job itself. Looks for options on how to refine my process every time I start the application process.
Mod 4: Intermission work

Remote Coffee/ Informational Meetings/ Interviews

I reached out to 2 personal friends that I have known for a while who both work in software developement. The first works on a team based in Denver that does contractual work for Nike. Met up with him for a beer both to catch up with each other and asked general tech stack questions about what he is working on. Big takeaway from linking up with him was that he said a big thing about technical interviews is how you can explain your process and how well you would fit in with the current team as far as how you problem solve, and he didn't stress actually solving the problem itself. This might differ from company to company, but I think that will help keep me a little more calm when I eventually have my first technical interview.
Mod 4: Week 1


How many people did you reach out to this week?

No new outreach, just followed up with my previous contact mentioned in the Intermission work. Had a 20 minute or so Slack call in which he ran me through some of the codebase he works on and explained things in general terms.

How many new leads or contacts did you get?

1, a classmate of mine recommended reaching out to her neighbor that works at The Pro's Closet in Boulder. I hear they have a history of hiring Turing grads.

How many jobs did you apply to?

None, yet.

How many interviews did you have?

0

How many hours did it take you to do all this?

6 or so hours

What will success look like for mod 4 PD?

Ideally have a job! But at least have gone through the interview process with at least one company.

What are two things from the guest speaker that you will implement this week?

Not to call myself a junior developer.
Give outreach targets time in responding to my initial contact.
Mod 4: Week 2


Explore if you have a fixed or growth mindset around negotiation? What mantra or thought can you use to foster a growth mindset when it comes time to negotiate an offer? Example; “I am in charge of how I communicate my value, goals, and offer to their team.”


It is better to try something difficult and fail rather than succeeding in doing nothing.


Write out what accomplishments, experiences, and the value you bring to a team or role.


Detail oriented, managerial experience, user/developer empathy.


Draft a counter email message.


Good Afternoon (name),
It was great to meet with earlier this week, and I am excited to pursue this opporitunity! I was curious if there was flexibility in terms of the salary amount. Based on market research into the value of what React developers typically bring for their respective companies, I am seeing $80k/yr as a median amount. I would love to continue this conversation at a time that works best for you. Please let me know if there is anything else from me as well in order to prove how I can be a vital member of your team.

Have a great day,
Alex Eickelman
Mod 4: Week 3


Sign up for Jobscan: https://www.jobscan.co/register


How tailored is your resume to the jobs you are applying for?


Screenshot or write in your journal your match rate score for a role you are interested in.


If your match rate score is lower than  80%- make the necessary changes and keyword suggestions. Share your new match rate score.


Scan your LinkedIn profile using Jobscan. Is your profile telling recruiters and hiring managers that you have the right skills for the job? Share in your journal one step you will take to improve your profile.

After updating my profile to reflect their important skills I feel like I would be able to separate myself from the majority of applicants. Add skills and endorsements is one way that my profile can improve.
Mod 4: Week 4


What is one takeaway or tip you will use from this session on working with recruiters?


Recruiters are a great way to provide focus to my job search and confidence that I am doing it correctly.


How is your networking plan going? Have you had a coffee meeting thus far in Mod 4? If so, how did it go? If you have not, please share your progress and challenges in this area.


I start onboarding with my contract position during week 6, so no additional outreach has taken place to other potential positions. Just focusing on finishing up my capstone project and doing research into the tech stack of my new position.


Please share what PD support is needed via this journal or schedule a coaching call with me. Here is my calendar: http://bit.ly/2xJytgV for 1:1 customized career coaching and support.


I've been reading many articles on how best to handle the contract landscape as a developer, I need to reach out to Ian like you recommended as well.

Mod 4: Week 5


How successful were you in holding yourself accountable to your job search goals for this mod?


Fairly successful, I am graduating with work already lined up! It is a contract position and ideally I am looking for something salary based for consistency reasons, so there is still work to do.


What is one big win you are proud of?


GRADUATING!


What are some areas that you could fine tune?


Managing my calendar better and multi tasking.


What is your plan to do this?


Post graduation I see myself having a little more time to work on these skills.


What are you excited about for Mod 5 now that you are close to graduating! YAY


Getting paid to develop!