- Please describe the current vision you have for your career. 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?
- Right now I am having a hard time narrowing down my vision for a career. I truly think I would be happy at any job where my values are represented and my interactions with my co-workers are meaningful and positive. At my future job, I want to be adequately challenged every single day. I want to tackle difficult-to-solve problems with a dynamic team that supports each other. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I value being valued. I want to contribute positively to whatever projects I am working on. When searching for a job, I want to find a place where I can grow as a developer. I would ideally like to stay at my first job for two years in order to even out my work experience. I see myself getting a junior developer job where I can have mentors who I can call on to seek guidance. Eventually, if I grow, I can move into managing positions of teams.
- Based on what you wrote above, please write a refined summary statement for your professional story:
- As a trained chemical engineer, I have always enjoyed figuring out how thinks work. After getting my undergrad, I wanted to share my interest in engineering and science, so I became a high school science teacher. I am extremely proud of the relationships I built with my students in order to get them to achieve in school and beyond. Moving forward into a software development job, I know that I work well with others and I enjoy helping people.
- Please list the top 3-5 industries and companies you'll pursue in your job search as of right now.
- Technology (Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
- Beauty
- Engineering
- Education
- 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?
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The larger tech companies appeal to me because of the constant challenge they give their employees. The applications and services that those companies build are ever changing. The dynamics of working in groups and teams also appeals to me. I have, however, heard from my friend who works at Google say that he feels like he doesn't affect anything meaningful. Since Google is such a large company, my friend works on a subset of a subset of an application-not all that life-changing.
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The beauty industry really interests me because I am a bit obsessed with skincare. I see so much happening (especially in the last three years) in this industry from YouTube influencers to Sephora adding more and more Korean-based cosmetics.
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For engineering, I feel like I could handle a software development job that requires more technical knowledge. I've been exposed to many different engineering concepts from turbine thermodynamics to tissue regeneration.
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I think I'll always be a teacher at heart. I'd love to expand students' access to programming as early as possible for every kid.
- 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?
- I would say that my LinkedIn doesn't truly reflect my goals right now. I think to show some of my interests I'd like to link my GitHub account in order to show projects that I've worked on.
- How can you capitalize on the outreach and networking plan you made this module to create new contacts in the industry and/or gain information to help you refine your job search strategy?
- I have quite a few friends who work in the industry and I am consistently talking to them about how they like their jobs and what to look out for.
These prompts are adapted from the book Designing Your Life
- Add to your vision that you wrote about above: Workview: summarize what good, worthwhile work means to you Hint: this is NOT about what work you want to do but about why work matters to you)
- Important to feel accomplished Lifeview: summarize what you value in life; what matters to you?
- Creating something, helping others, enjoying different cultures Where do your views on work and life complement each other?
- If you enjoy your work then you never have to work a day in your life Where do they clash?
- Sometimes a specific job isn't exactly what you wanted. Does one drive the other? How? They are completely intertwined. We identify ourselves by our jobs.
2.Reflect on how you’ve spent your time in the previous 2 mods to gauge your engagement and energy: When have you been excited, focused, and enjoyed your work?
- At the beginning of a project if I don't feel overwhelmed, I get very excited about a project and try to figure out how to work on it the best way possible. When have you felt bored, restless, or unhappy?
- I definitely was the least happy during mod 2 when my mom was sick and I was mainly focused on taking care of her. When do you feel energized in your work?
- When I feel things are rolling along and they appear to be easy to me. When is your energy drained?
- When I start to make careless mistakes in my work and I am stuck for too long on the same problem without asking for help.
- 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? How will you hold yourself accountable to this?
- I will do an hour of job searching on Saturday, 1-2pm. What activities will you focus on during this time this week?
- I will What outcomes do you hope to reach by the end of this week because of these activities? Applying wayfinding to using job search resources Go through the resources listed here in the Finding Job Opportunities section and explore 2-3 tools. List what you looked at here: 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? 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 3 Week 3 Reflect on your schedule:
How effective were you in sticking to your schedule last week? What were your results? How can you adjust your schedule this week to make it more effective? I've had a very hard time setting aside time to do job searches. I've felt like I can take the time during intermission to do more focused job searching.
Mod 3 Week 4: Refining Your Strategy Prepare for Job Shadow: AEIOU
Activities: what questions do you have about the activities that a software developer does on a daily basis? How often do you pair program? Work alone? Is your work remote?
Environment: what questions do you have about the overall environment and culture of this workplace? HOw do you go about asking for help? When you're stuck, is there a set algorithm you follow when you need more information?
Interactions: what questions do you have about the team at this company? What do you hope to see in your interactions during the shadow? What does a typical workweek look like? Do you have meetings weekly? Daily?
Objects: what questions do you have about the code or the product? HOw fast are you expected to work? I've heard some companies prefer speed to 100% accuracy/making a perfect product.
Users: what questions do you have about how the company interacts with their users? Do people require having a specialist on hand at all time to answer questions? Update software?
After the Job Shadow, reflect on the same questions; what are your takeaways from the shadow?
Activities: what was engaging to the person/people you shadowed? Billy was interesting to shadow because he had a degree in mechanical engineering. My degree was in chemical engineering, so we were able to bond and talk about the switch to software development.
Environment: what did you notice about how they talked about the culture and environment of this company? It seemed like asking questions and getting help were encouraged through twice-weekly standups with the coding group. He told me about his previous job where it was 100% paired programming. He said it was a neat skill to learn, but it was exhausting most of the time.
Interactions: what did you notice about your interactions with this person/people? BIlly was super friendly and willing to help people as much as possible. He mentioned to me after I said that I wanted to help people that his job wasn't the most glamorous in 'making the world a better place, but he enjoyed his work." I felt like he was being genuine and he seemed like he enjoyed his job.
Objects: what did you learn about their approach to code and/or product development? They really focused on test driven development. Many of the skills we're doing at Turing were being carried out at Four Winds.
Users: what did you learn about their approach to their users THey wanted to have two types of users. One where they could sell a product and never touch it again. This means that they sell the screen as is and make it easy enough to program that someone doesn't need to be specialized in computers to work. Another version is their subscription-based services. This is where they could continually update everything and work closer with the user on a monthly basis.
What are your main takeaways from the shadow? How will you use this information to help you with your job search strategy? For the take home part of interviews, take as much time as you need to make a good rpoduct. They might look at your timing for assignments, but try to use as much time to make a great submission. The jump from engineering to software development is an easy one and more fulfilling.
Mind Maps:
Engagement. Go back to your reflections on 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 of how you can search for these engaging activities in jobs and companies you're looking at. Energy. Go back to your reflections on when you're 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 of how you can search for these engaging activities in jobs and companies you're looking at.
"Organizing thoughts and to-do lists into a project board": This is a question of overall organization. WHen compnaies do weekl;y standups with their groups, questions about a certain process are encouraged to be asked. Sometimes it's difficult for me to ask for help, so these kind of group settings that happen week;y could allow me to get the help I need.
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 of how you can search for these engaging activities in jobs and companies you're looking at. Prototype your next steps: what do these mind maps tell you about what's important to you as a software developer? How could you use this information to adjust how you're looking for jobs? I need a place where it's easy to ask questions and things don't get pushed back to the next week because people are experiences roadblocks. Questions are addressed in a group setting.
Mod 3 Week 5: Interview Prep Reflect on the module: What have you accomplished this module (do you know what you’re looking for?) What have you learned? Do you need to change anything about your approach? Where are you stuck (have you not been able to follow through on outreach? Is your resume not finished?) I was able to start thinking about what kind of developer I want to be and found some companies that I could be interested in pursuing for a job. I definitely put professional development on the backburner. I've had a very hard time separating TUring from my personal life and I found myself just working all day on my coding projects. I rarely felt like I had energy to do job searches. During intermission I plan to do a lot more research and finalize my resume.
Getting unstuck with new strategies:
What new things will you try? What will you do differently in your strategy? I'd like to do some reading over intermission about designing my life. I need to be better at keeping this journal up-to-date with everything that I am doing.
When will you have your resume completed? When will you have your portfolio updated on the Turing site? As you plan out your schedule for the week, think of how you'll hold yourself accountable to these goals. By the first Friday of the two week intermission, I will have a finalized resume and an updated portfolio on the Turing site.
Interview Prep: Pick a successful project and write about it with the STAR method: S-We created an app in React exclusively using hooks. Our teachers allowed us to choose a technology that we hadn't learned in class to use in our projects by researching on our own. T-We created a game app that could take in lyrics and omit a word. The user would then be prompted to guess the missing word. I focused on the form validation and testing. A-We worked as a group to get most things working in the project. Sometimes we split work up to get things done faster, but we could come together and talk about the different problems we were having that day. It worked the best when the group members did solid work on their own, but might have had an issue or two that the group could address.
Write about how you've approached working with a team using a specific example: My favorite approach to working as a team is to sandwhich group work with individual work. During the Lyrics Game app project, we would come together as a group and decided what the next steps were for everyone. We'd discuss any possibility of shortcomings or difficulties in doing that specific work for the day. Then we were split up and work independently for a couple hours. After that individual time, we could come back together and solve any issues we were running into together. This made for a really dynamic work group and we were able to get a lot done quickly.
Do some research into your top companies' tech stacks; what do you already know? What can you compare to your own learning? What do you need to learn more about? I would like to learn PHO and more about back-end technologies. I am looking forward to the cross-pollination during mod 4. I also want to get more reps in creating idea boxes in different languages.
Using this interview prep resource doc, pick out at least 3 resources you will use to prepare for interviews as well as 3 behavioral questions you could practice: Proparing for interviews: I'd like to find a book or two to read during intermission on preparing for technical interviews. I'd also like to participate in more regular coding challeneges to keep my skills sharp. Finally, I need to set a resonable amount of time to do this each week and strictly stick to it. Behavioral: Pick most recent project to talk about in terms of my challenges and wins. Practice talking about it to someone in real life. I'd also like to get more practice writing cover letters, as I find them really daunting.
Outreach 7/2 Nico V. of Two's Complement 7/2 Ben S. of Google
Remote Coffee/ Informational Meetings/ Interviews
7/5 Zoom Chat with Nico
7/7 Scheduled meeting with Ben
How are you feeling about your job search? I'm feeling very intimidated by the job search. Cold/warm outreach doesn't match with my personality at all. I enjoy meeting people in person and I am very comfortable with talking to people when we are physically together.
Questions for Week 1:
1. What do you feel is your biggest challenge with your job search?
I'd say I need to become more comfortable with reaching out to people online through LinkedIn. I guess the best way to become comfortable is to do it more and more.
2. What are two things from the guest speaker that you will implement this week?
During Chris Hough's talk, I learned that it is very important to work on personal projects at all times. The projects allow employers to see what you're interested in and they can gather trends about your work ethic, coding style, and personality. I also learned that it is good to offer any and all help with different projects that you might find done by a employer and/or mentor. Offering to help with something, no matter how small, can show them that you care and you are grateful for their time.
Outreach 7/8 Nick Nist from Mock Interview 7/8 Jeremy Oehrke
Remote Coffee/ Informational Meetings/ Interviews
7/12 Met with Ben S from Google over Zoom
How are you feeling about your job search? My job search wasn't very extensive last week, but I am really proud of myself for doing the mock interviews. I was very nervous and didn't want to put myself out there. I had a great experience and I am getting used to the idea of answering technical questions with people.
Questions for Week 2:
What are some examples of skills/traits/knowledge that you have that you can use to leverage in negotiation?
I hold a degree in chemical and biological engineering, so I am well versed in solving difficult technical problems. I worked at an engineering school in Paris, France and had to conduct meetings with my principal investigators in French. I also became a high school science teacher and hold a master's degree in Curriculum and Instruction focusing in Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Education. As a teacher, I have plenty of experience in communication, management, and organization.
What ways do you think you can approach outreach online that will feel more comfortable to you?
I think a way to ease myself into meeting people online is to attend events online. Since everyone there is expecting to talk to new people, it will remove some of my anxiety over making the first move.
Questions for Week 4:
Remote Coffee/ Informational Meetings/ Interviews 7/23 - Meeting with Ryan
Name two people in the cohort who do a great job holding you accountable: * Dave * Brian
Are there any specific career paths that you would like to explore? Think in terms of industry and position type.
I think I would like to possibly get into a company that does work with engineering software. It would allow me to integrate my understanding of higher-level math and my undergraduate degree.
8/1 - Worked on resume 8/1 - Reached out to Fred and Eric of soaicl networking in Zurich.
I can understand your concerns with remote networking. I can be a challenge. You are doing it though and that is good! Keep it up. What ways do you think you can approach outreach online that will feel more comfortable to you?