Section 0 is estimated to take 2-3 hours to complete. Students come to Turing to change their careers, and we will support you through that. Changing careers, especially get that first job in a new field, requires more than the technical skills you'll learn here. So, we have an intentionally designed Career Development curriculum and a team of Career Coaches who will be supporting you, starting in Mod 1.
Participating in Career Development is an expectation for all students as it is just as important as learning the technical skills. There will be times when you are tempted to put this work on the back-burner because you get so deep in the apps you are building, but because we care about you, we will hold you accountable to keeping up with your professional growth as well.
The assignments below will give you an understanding of what type of work and support is to come, and will provide helpful information to your Career Coaches!
The objective of the Career Development Team is for all Turing students to have the skills and abilities to pursue full-time employment in high fulfillment technical careers upon graduation. To do this, our curriculum focuses on five specific competencies:
- Networking: Using outreach and networking strategies to make connections in the software industry to support a student’s job search
- Interviewing: The skills needed to thoroughly respond to behavioral interview questions, articulate technical process, and demonstrate technical knowledge through code challenges
- Materials: A student’s branding materials that showcase their work for employers, i.e., LinkedIn, resume, portfolio, cover letter Job Search Strategies: A student’s understanding of their own goals and creating a set of steps to achieve them
- Negotiations: Understanding software industry market rates for compensation and the resources needed to negotiate for competitive rates
You can find all information on the curriculum and job search support on the Career Development site.
- Bookmark the Career Development site. You will also be able to find this site again from both the Back End Curriculum site and the Front End Curriculum site. Spend a few minutes browsing around the site and make note of:
- The Career Dev Team mission statement and Team members on the homepage – familiarize yourself with who your coach will be at different points in the program!
- The Module 1 section, which includes lessons, activities, and information on your learning goals for Mod 1
- The Resources section. Here you can find links, videos, and documents to help you with specific areas of support in the job search.
- The Homeroom Groups and Mix It Up information. Within your cohort, you’ll be put into a small group to work on PD activities and discussion together as a way to foster collaboration weekly. Twice a mod, you’ll also be put into groups mixed across program and cohorts to meet others in the Turing community and share resources based on specific topics.
- The Module 5 section, which covers what job search support looks like once you’ve graduated from Turing.
- Reflect on the following questions in the survey you’ll submit:
- How do you feel about the expectations of the professional development curriculum?
- What are you excited about when it comes to professional development?
- What are your questions or concerns about these expectations?
One tool we’ll be using for your professional development at Turing is the Pairin Survey. This survey measures over 100 coachable and changeable skills. This activity invites you to begin building an understanding of how learning about and developing your strengths applies to your success in your new career. We will discuss the results of this survey more in-depth in your first professional development session at Turing.
- Take the survey using this link. It will prompt you to create an account when you take it. There are 2 sections for this survey:
- First section: Choose adjectives to answer how you currently are
- Second section: Choose adjectives to answer how you would like to be. The second section is marked as “optional,” but it is highly recommended that you fill out this section in order to provide more data for you on how you’d like to grow. The survey should take you about 15-20 minutes.
- Download the PDF of your Pairin Top 4 results (or take a screenshot) and include it in your survey submission.
Optional: To build an understanding of your Pairin results, here are additional resources:
- Understanding Your Pairin Results (2 minutes)
- Pairin Qualities Overview (2.5 minute read)
- How the Pairin Survey compares to other assessments
- Four Essentials of Strengths-Based Leadership (6 minute read)
As you begin this new chapter of your career, the Career Development team is here to meet you where you are and help you achieve your goals. To help us understand more about your background and comfort levels with each of the 5 competencies, please complete each competency section below. You’ll submit them in the Career Development Mod 0 Project Submission Survey (see submission directions). Each competency section should take about 10-15 minutes to complete.
The first step for networking in your new career as a software developer is to assess the network you currently have. Please complete this activity and be prepared to share the link to the tracker you create (note: to make your own copy, go to File>Make a Copy). You’ll also respond to these questions in the submission survey:
- Please rate on a scale of 1-4 how easy the networking activity was for you.
- As you start at Turing, what are your biggest questions or concerns about networking?
Whatever your comfort level with interviewing, an effective interview comes down to being able to communicate about who you are. Please prepare responses to these questions to fill into the Submission Survey:
- Tell us about yourself. What is your background? Why are you pursuing a career in software development?
- What are your goals for this career?
- As you start at Turing, what are your biggest questions or concerns about interviewing?
It’s important for the team to know about each student’s level of experience with job search-related materials. Please prepare responses to these questions to submit in the survey:
- Do you have a LinkedIn profile? If so, how do you currently use it? How frequently do you use it?
- Have you created a resume before? If so, how confident have you felt about your resume’s effectiveness previously? What questions or concerns do you have about writing a technical resume?
- Have you written a cover letter for a job posting before? If so, how confident have you felt about your cover letters’ effectiveness previously? What questions or concerns do you have about writing cover letters?
Please prepare responses to these questions to submit in the survey:
- Describe your approach to job searching in the past. What steps were part of your strategy? What was effective for you? What wasn’t effective for you?
- When you think about job searching for a software developer position, what are your biggest questions or concerns?
Please prepare responses to these questions to submit in the survey:
- Have you negotiated for a salary before? If so, what were the results? How did you feel about the experience?
- When you think about negotiating for a software development position, what are your biggest questions or concerns?
If you have any questions about this assignment, please reach out to Allison Reu Singer on Slack: @allison_reu_singer