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Career Journal

Mod 2 Week 1: Creating Your Vision, Part I

  1. 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?

        4

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

      I devote time to making home cooked meals, and do Yoga semi regularly.

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

      Get on a daily Yoga habit to keep body, mind, and soul happier. I could also take more walks.

    • Work: what you do

      • Make a short list of all the ways you work right now
        • Turing is a load of work!!!
          • Projects
          • Pairing with fellow students
          • Studying new concepts
          • Being a Rock
          • Staying Engaged
        • SAB Rep duties:
          • Lunch meetings
          • Weekly retros
          • Gathering Feedback
          • Communicating feedback to instructors
          • Organizing cohort event
          • Organizing cross-pollination between different cohorts.
        • Self-Care:
          • Keeping a tidy workspace
          • Keeping a tidy home
          • I cook 95% of my meals
          • Planning those meals
          • Going grocery shopping
  2. How much value do each of those things bring to your life? How are those activities purposeful for you?

    • For this module, I chose to be a SAB rep. This role involves being more extroverted than my baseline behavior, and practicing a new set of soft skills. However, it's an extra effort that I am enjoying, even if at first it was somewhat overwhelming. It's an opportunity to build deeper friendships with fellow cohort members that I would otherwise not seek out. On the other hand, building surveys, planning retros, lunch meetings all require time that I would otherwise use to recharge.

    • School work still walks the fine line between play and work. I enjoy working through logical paths to find a solution. Similarly, I enjoy having a clean room and home. It helps me maintain a productive mindset. Cooking meals can be the most intensive chore but it's also one of the most rewarding. It's something that satisfies my senses (smell, and taste), allows for creativity, nourishes my physical body, and, above all, grounds me to my heritage.

  3. 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?

      This would be climbing if gyms were open... Now, I can find time to climb outdoors every few weeks which is a welcomed opportunity. I do enjoy walking, and yoga. Joy for the pure sake of joy, is a little hard to find. I'm not at home, around friends or family, so in a way every social venture still feels like work as I have to navigate new relationships. On the other hand, I am enjoying school work enough for it to bring joy to me.

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

      At the end of Mod 1, I decided to upgrade my home classroom setup to improve my learning environment. I used money set aside from selling my business before Turing, so there is a nice sense of continuity between careers. I've now have an appropriate desk, second monitor, an incoming chair, and a few other accessories all of which have made the long working hours more enjoyable. I believe this is a great start. Additionally and surprisingly, I find myself thinking that more effort into time management will improve my happiness. It's a new mindset I am excited to explore.

  4. 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?

      Everyday. Without the help of my family, I would not be able to dedicate my whole being into becoming a developer. I'm deeply aware of their extra effort to support me through these months.

    • How do you show love to others right now?

      I make the time to communicate with them. However, the best way to show my gratitude for their extra effort is to put an equal effort into becoming a great developer.

    • What adjustments would you like to make in this area?

      With the possibility of being remote for my entire time at Turing, I wonder if I should go back home. It would cut on half my monthly cost and I would be closer to the things that bring me joy. I could play with my niece on the weekends, cook and clean for my family, and climb with long time friends. This is a choice I will ponder throughout mod 2.

Given the above, any problems emerge that already may have solutions?

  1. Define your needs, problem, and insights:

    • I value depth in relationships, depth that takes time and a certain proximity to develop. This has been particularly though as I am part of the first inning to be fully remote.

    • I believe this need motivated me to become an SAB rep.

    • It's taken me a while to fully internalize and develop a growth mindset, but I'm doing it now. I used to only see problems, and can still go down that rabbit hole, but it takes less and less time to come back to the bright side to brainstorm solutions.

    • I expected to make sacrifices during my time at Turing, so adapting to a new situation was not too difficult.

  2. Ideate -- challenge assumptions:

    • In our breakout room, we talked about what it meant to deliver a product, and the workflow surrounding it. Essentially, a customer makes a request, you work on said request, return the product to the customer, and collect feedback or further request. This process is repeated until the customer is satisfied with the product.

    • However, I feel more like a developer fulfilling my SAB duties than I do when I'm coding my way through some logic. Perhaps it's because it feels more like work, but I think it's more the fact that it forces me to balance scheduled meetings/regular check-ins with work time. This kind of work flow and added motivation to manage time properly feels more like the daily life of a developer.

    • If someone told me they struggled with imposter syndrome, I would encourage them to become SAB reps

  3. Prototype -- start creating solutions:

    • I actually really enjoy remote work, so that may be a basic threshold. I would totally be ok with having one or two days to work from home. I would like to earn 75-80K starting out, even if it takes some time finding a job.

    • It would be terrible if we entered this century's great depression without having established some experience in the field.

    • Ideal dream would be become a senior developer within three-five years.

  4. Test –- solutions:

    • I want to develop great habits around time management and effective leadership strategies to propel me through my career post-Turing.

Mod 2 Week 2: Creating Your Vision, Part II

  1. 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?

      • It may help ypu challenge assumptions, and overcome some of the difficulties associated with the job search. It may allow for more creativity when searching for jobs and during the interview process. The latter can be particularly helpful, as having a natural curiosity and eagerness to learn are seen as generally good traits.
    • What are some habits you could put into place to cultivate beginner's mind regularly?

      • Go really slowly.
      • Solve a problem, come back a few days later, delete the solution and solve it again.
      • Don't jump to the most abstracted solution.
      • I like asking really simple question when I pesudocode.

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

  1. 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):

      • I enjoy work when it benefits other's, and when that work ia appreciated by them.
      • I enjoy work that is moderately challenging.
      • I enjoy work when it is dynamic enough to allow for different skill sets to reach all solutions.
      • I particularly enjoy moments in work where a degree of flow can be achieved.
      • Even more so, if there is a team component to it, where everyone is operating on the same wavelength.
    • Lifeview: summarize what you value in life; what matters to you?

      • I value my family, and friends. Long-standing relationships.
      • I value time spent outdoors.
      • I value time for solitude.
      • I value my health and eating well to maintain it.
    • Where do your views on work and life complement each other?

      • They are both grounded on having quality relationships.
      • They both require a balance of being around people, and time set aside for solitude.
    • Where do they clash?

      • In previous work, I had a hard time finding adequate time for solitude.
      • In this line of work, I forsee little clashes as I will probably get to work on a smaller team and an easier balance/freedom to get that solitude time.
    • Does one drive the other? How?

      • Sure, I value solitude, independence, and fresh food. My ultimate goal would be to have a place to be mostly self-sufficient, and care for my parents. I undergoing larger, complex projects which is exactly what a homestead is. This was the biggest driver to motivate a change.
      • It's the quality of possibly being remote, working with a smaller team, and having mental challenges that lead me to software engineering, rather than say roped access, the other option.
  2. Go through the Flower Exercise brainstorming worksheets linked here

  3. Complete your Flower Exercise final worksheet here

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

    • Final Flower Exercise

    • I want to help other Latin@s have access to web development as a career option. I want to be valued for structuring projects well.

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?

    • Solo projects have been the most fun since I can really run away with the code and have had general freedom on how to go about solving problems.
  • When have you felt bored, restless, or unhappy?

    • There have been a number of lesson where there has been little opportunity for engagement, so naturally my mind begins to wander.
  • When do you feel energized in your work?

    • When things are coming together. Sometimes that's slowly but it's nice to have something look back on each day.
  • When is your energy drained?

    • When I feel like I have to do a lot of social activities.

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? What activities will you focus on during this time this week? What outcomes do you hope to reach by the end of this week because of these activities?

Applying way-finding to using job search resources - Go through the resources listed here and explore 2-3 tools. List what you looked at here: - Apply way-finding: 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 2 Week 4: Outreach & Networking I

Mind Maps:

  1. --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?).

  2. --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?).

  3. --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?).

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?

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

  • Jorge Tellez - currently living in Mexico City, - What's the tech culture in Mexico City like? In the rest of Mexico? - Are there any companies/industry sectors that stand out?

  • How would this outreach help you further your job search strategy?

    • It would be the best insight I may have to the tech culture in Mexico. This would help me make a decision on which country I want to work in.

Outreach & Networking Plan: Based on your reflections above, create a concrete plan for your outreach:

  • Who is the right person for you to reach out to?
  • How will you find them? How do you know they’re the right person?
  • How will you reach out?
  • What questions do you need to ask them?
  • How will you use this information to further your solution?
  • How will you follow up?

Execute your plan:

  • Reach out to your contact THIS WEEK. If possible, reach out to more than one person OR find a meetup to attend also. What happened? What other next steps should you take? If this is a person connected to a company you're interested in, be sure to add it to your Huntr card.

Mod 2 Week 5: Professional Storytelling & Branding

  1. Write a draft of your professional story here as 1-2 paragraphs. Focus on answering the questions -who are you, why are you here,- and -what's next?- Consider how to talk about your motives and values, the turning points that led to your career change, and what you envision for yourself going forward.

    I am an explorer of cultures and ideas out to find creative ways to get the most out of life. Before I found software engineering, I was on a quest to find a passion that would sustain me; It wasn't enough to find joy outside of work. My choice to move into software engineering was based more on intuition than from any previous computing experience. Even so, I was amazed how quickly I grew to love it, and how much it built on my experience with languages.

    Software Engineering encapsulates communication as an art form in a way that resonates with my sense of being. It requires distilling complex ideas into something simple, elegant, and egalitarian. With that in mind, communicating with machines and the web to translate an experience to other human beings is an exciting process. It's the kind of excitement I want in every aspect of my life and want to share with those around me.

  2. Update your LinkedIn profile with the following: updated photo/headshot, headline, summary statement using your story, and Turing added to your experience and education sections. Include a link to your profile here in the journal. Remember the guidelines and tips from the lesson here.

  3. What other steps will you take this week to update your branding or practice your story?

Module 3

Intermission Reflections

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

    • Outdoor industry (REI/Mountain Project)
    • Outdoor industry (Recreation.gov)
    • Communications (Zayo Group)
  2. 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?

    • REI handles a family of apps to document information of areas for the general community. As an user, I have experienced some of their UI holes and would like to work on fixing them if possible.
    • Recreation.gov handles the information for the nation's parks and I know someone that already works with them. Another extension of my love for the outdoors and wanting to help create a better experience for the general public.
    • I did a quick search of jobs in LinkedIn and came across a posting by Zayo group. Reading through it dawned on me that a job in general communications was the kind of job I would like. As I grow as a developer, I am finding how much I enjoy the grittier details of the tools that we are working with. Upgrading code bases and creating reusable libraries sound exciting to me, and will try to focus in more on this as I go forward.
  3. 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 think my profile does a good job of demonstrating how much I enjoy coding, which would be good for a job like the one offered by Zayo.
    • I does not do a good job of narrowing down my interest to a single industry.
    • It's a little too general.

Week 1

  1. Refine your career vision.
  • I would like to work somewhere where I can explore more about the way things work or where's there's a great deal of learning involved. I still would like to be work remotely. I like the idea of updating a program, restructuring outdated pages.

Week 2

  • Cover Letter for HashiGroup

  • How would I customize my resume for this job posting?

    1. I would highlight my experience learning new technologies. I still would like to have better projects to display as part of my portfolio that incorporate technologies more often seen in the industry. Namely, experience using continuous integration tools in group projects.

Mod 3 Week 4: Interview Prep

  1. Prepare for Job Shadow: AEIOU

    • Activities: what questions do you have about the activities that a software developer does on a daily basis?
      • What does a front-end ticket look like?
      • How long does one usually spend on a front-end ticket
    • Environment: what questions do you have about the overall environment and culture of this workplace?
      • How large are the teams? Are they diverse teams?
    • Interactions: what questions do you have about the team at this company? What do you hope to see in your interactions during the shadow?

    • Objects: what questions do you have about the code or the product?
      • What does apollo do for you? How do you use it?
      • Tell me more about the joys of having a GREAT tech stack?
      • Why is this the chosen tech stack?
    • Users: what questions do you have about how the company interacts with their users?
      • Who are your users?
      • How do you want to reach your users?
  2. 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?

      • Lucy seem very engaged with her work. She was a back-end student at Turing but had transitioned to a front-end role over the last few years.
      • It was great to see how excited she was to continue learning new things.
    • Environment: what did you notice about how they talked about the culture and environment of this company?

      • It seems like she had seen it grow from a small team to a medium team, and was excited about it. She admitted to a degree of organized chaos that's inherent in start up environments, it seems, but all in all it seems like a positive place to work at.
    • Interactions: what did you notice about your interactions with this person/people?

      • Lucy's overall excitement toward coding and hosting us for a job shadow. She even found an opportunity to ask Leah and I for some code suggestions.
    • Objects: what did you learn about their approach to code and/or product development?

      • There are many tools involved to creating a larger scale application, especially one that is live. Pull request become lively chat rooms aimed toward improving everyone's code. All in all, their code based seemed well organized and hence easy to navigate.
    • Users: what did you learn about their approach to their users?

      • The development team has two user types, their clients for whom homebound exists and their own non-developer team to keep track of all their moving pieces.
      • This is where developer teams form.
      • It seems like they seek out user feedback often, as Lucy recalled many details that changed due to home-buyer perspective.
    • What are your main takeaways from the shadow? How will you use this information to help you with your job search strategy?

  3. Interview Prep:

    • Pick a successful project and write about it with the STAR method (What was the situation/scenario of the project? What was the task/target of the project? What action steps did you take? What were the results?):

      • When I first created a React app using create-react-app, although familiar with webpack and vanilla JS, there was a lot going on that I didn't understand. Rather than following along a "to do" app tutorial, I sought to learn about the inner workings of React as a framework by creating my own boilerplate from scratch. I researched what made react work, all the dependencies/configurations, and how they behaved together to create our apps. I learned more about webpack, babel, and command line tools than about react. A lesson I increasingly appreciate as I grow as a developer, because I know not only a framework and how it works, but can also speak to the environment it operates in and the development of the javascript language.
    • Write about a time you failed and what you learned from that experience:

      • Even though it was a passing project, I feel like I failed my final project. It was an opportunity to showcase my skills rather than experiment with outlier concepts that introduce unnecessary complexity only to turn in an average product. It made me confront my tendency to over-engineer, and re-assess the scope/focus of my curiosity. I think both qualities can help me become a better developer, but will require I approach them with greater discipline and awareness to more easily recognize when they are leading me astray.
    • Write about how you've approached working with a team using a specific example:

      • At Turing School of Software, we spent a large portion of our time working on group projects. These projects taught me the importance of a detailed project board coupled with agile practices. My most successful projects have been those in which daily stand-ups, and GitHub project board, were used extensively to assign task and track project progress.
    • What other stories will you prepare to share?

      • Not sure yet, something that display my natural curiosity for programming.
    • 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:

      • A lot of this job will be full-stack. Your experience is largely ____ (Back End, Front End). How do you feel like you’d be able to contribute to the team with only that experience? How comfortable are you with getting uncomfortable with a new language?

      • Describe a time when you received feedback that you were surprised by. What did you do with that feedback?

      • Describe a time when your team or company was undergoing some change. How did that impact you, and how did you adapt?

Week 5

  1. 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?)?

    • I have built up my resume and increased my network via Shades of Turing meetups and my own cohort.
    • I have been reminded at how involved networking really is, but have struggled to keep a discipline around actively doing it week in and out.
    • Now with two react projects that look reasonable there is no need for me not to have my protfolio uploaded on the turing site.
  2. 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:

      • HashiCorp: InfoTech they seem to take care of their employees and encourage continuous learning which I would love to be a part of.
        • I'm still intimidated by this role.
    • Plan #2:

      • Cloudflare: Similar to HashiCorp, Cloudflare's is a provider of tools to facilitate other industries and provide security to certain organizations.
        • Their front-end team uses a similar tech stack to what I have worked with.
        • They seem fast paced, with products being released often. It would play well with my curiosity to do different aspects of an application.
        • Justin Holmes a Turing ex-alum works there. I have reached out to ask a few questions.
    • Plan #3:

      • AppSumo: A consultancy firm that has help create some well known-apps. I like the idea of having rotating projects, requiring different demand and creative solutions.
        • They seem to really care about the well-being of their developers, which I can always get behind.
        • Additionally, they encourage curiosity in the developers. That's a ++
        • No one in network that I can reach out to, but can probably find someone.
        • Uses vue and not react, but seems to emphasize work with modern frameworks rather than vue explicitly. (Perhaps, because it's still a transitioning process from Django)
        • It would be fun to explore two new technologies.
  3. 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.

      • Plan #1
        • score: 2
        • The learning curve may be higher, my current skill set does not align all that well at the moment.
      • Plan #2
        • score: 4
        • Located in Austin, and Turing Alumn works there.
        • Tech stack is almost identical to what I know, so I can get to feeling productive faster.
      • Plan #3
        • score: 4
        • Located in Austin. No network there.
        • It sound like an exciting varied place to work at.
        • I like how much they emphasized taking care of their developers, and encouraging curiosity.
    • Coherence: how it aligns with your career vision

      • Plan #1
        • score: 4
        • I want to grow beyond just a Front-End goal.
      • Plan #2
        • score: 3
        • A varied role where I can refine my skills as a Front-End developer.
      • Plan #3
        • score: 4
        • It seems like the type of company that will allow me to grow beyond a front-end role, without compromising my ability to be productive inside the company as a junior front-end developer.
    • Confidence level: how feasible does this feel to you?

      • Plan #1
        • score: 2
        • This role seems intimidating since their products are more lower level, dealing with systems I have little familiarity with. Even though they are seeking react developers, it may be a while before I feel like I can speak to the company's products as a whole.
      • Plan #2
        • score: 3.5
        • Nearly 300 applicants, but there is an alum there.
        • Big enough team that may hire more than just one developer or more than once in the following months.
      • Plan #3
        • score: 3.5
        • Not as many applicants.
        • No experience yet with Vue, but total openness to learning a new tool.
    • How excited you are about it - I am most excited about AppSumo. They seemed the most forthcoming about their values, so it's easier to recognize the way in which they align with my own.

  4. 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?

    • I want to finish a couple of tutorials that I hope will showcase my curiosity and my willingness to undertake a challenge.
    • I want to start reaching out to people, but still have to overcome a degree of shyness.
    • I don't like the idea of stalking people via the internet to be personable during a cold outreach, but simply reaching out to ask questions seems too transactional for my taste. I want to work toward finding a happy medium.

Mod 4

Week 1

  1. What will success look like for Mod 4 PD?

    • For me, I would like to have my gitHub profile nicely organized for employers to look like. Really put some thought into my portfolio and deploy more of my projects. Lastly, have a really stand out capstone project to display.
  2. What will you implement from the guest speaker?

    • I want to start developing outreach messages / responses, and have them all be organized.

Week 2

  1. Explore your mindset around negotiation.

    • I am not that intimidated by negotiation. My last job involved quick on the spot negotiations, and I am only too aware of the pitfalls of not taking the time to gauge what people were asking of me and the time/effort it would require. If I took a long minute to negotiate the next 7-10 minutes of my life, it's only reasonable to a proportionate amount of time to negotiate terms for where I am going to be spend ~40hr/week.
    • On the other hand, there may be subtleties in terms of art that I will have to review to make sure I am getting the best deal possible (taking a good amount of time to review the offer should help.)
    • I am grateful to have the support in place to be able to take my time to find the place that will appreciate my effort, skills, ideas.
  2. What do you bring to the team?

    • For my time as a developer, I feel pretty good at my ability to read code & spotting refactoring opportunities, or at least I think so. I am always looking to pick up new strategies to refactor. I am generally a positive person to be around.
  3. Draft a counter email:

    Hello future employer,

    Thank you for sending me an offer, I looked over it and it's generally satisfactory. My single concern is that I did not find a mention of funds allocated toward developer growth. I value continued growth as a process to provide the world with great work. Before we move forward, I would like to start a conversation around this. Looking forward to hearing back from you.

     Best,
     Edwin M.
    

Week 3

  • I've updated my contact information on LinkedIn and started work on a personal site.
  • Created an organization under GitHub profile for all Turing work.

Week 4

  1. What is one takeaway/tip taken from session on working with recruiters?

    • Could be a good starting point, since they are constantly looking for the best match possible for companies.
    • There is a likely-hood of being signed on after completing your contract between the company and recruiter.
  2. Networking strategy.

    • After Turing, I would like to seek out an open source project, ideally one associated with a company I want to work at, and try out their 'good first issue' tags. By doing so, I hope to become acquainted with people in the developer world.
    • There are a number of meetup in the Austin/Denver area that I can start frequenting. This may be my main approach as it also offers an opportunity to learn something new and perhaps find a new interest.
    • I haven't had a coffee meeting, because I find it difficult to cold outreach. Some of this will start to resolve with the above strategy as it won't be as cold, and I can prepare more fully/have meaningful stories to share.

Week 5

  1. How successful were you in holding yourself accountable to your job search goals for this mod? What is one big win you are proud of? What are some areas that you could fine tune? What is your plan to do this? What are you excited about for Mod 5 now that you are close to graduating!
  • I think I was able to lay a solid foundation to start the job search, but acknowledge I have to better develop timeboxing strategies and discipline to follow them through.
  • I have experimented with Webpack enough to feel comfortable adding it as a skill to my resume is my win.
  • Time boxing job search will become easier now that my developer profile is near complete, but eventually may require additional training/coaching.
  • I am going to need to streamline the application process to better focus on what's important and balance technical growth with the job search. This means creating more intentional templates for outreach messages and cover letters.
@allisonreusinger
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Hey Edwin, I don't see your week 5 updates with your professional story and LinkedIn profile link. Please make these updates over intermission. The intermission work will ask you to start working on your resume, but you'll need to do these pieces first. Please let me know if you have any questions on this, thanks

@Tracey-M
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Hi Edwin, I requested access to review your cover letter. Also, I do see that you started a resume and uploaded it to the cv compiler. You have a good solid start to build on. I would suggest looking at the resume template resources and start building and using a template that is a developer like style and flow. You also need your portfolio page started. Let us know what supports are needed. Thanks

@Tracey-M
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Hi Edwin, I reviewed your cover letter and you did a nice job with the format. As a heads up, try and keep your header the same as your resume for a uniform and polished look between the documents. You nailed the opening statement- that's attention-getting. Your developer story is great. Remember that the cover letter focus should include matching yourself to the job posting. Your second section should show skills they listed and how you meet those requirements. The 3rd section looks good. Keep up the great work!

@Tracey-M
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Edwin, please set up the mod 4 sections of your gist. Looking forward to seeing your pre work and week 1 responses.

@Tracey-M
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Hi Edwin, nice win for PD with learning webpack. I like your thinking about streamlining your job search process. Please utilize me and your team for reviewing cover letters. You can always omit the company and contact names. Dont forget the outreach message spreadsheet I provided. I will keep adding more examples to it for you all to customize.

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