How looks process of finding job as software developer part 3 : HOW TO WRITE A GOOD CV?

WARNINGS:

This is a NOT a professional advice.
It based on my personal experience only and resources that I read on the internet.
It will contain many grammar mistakes.
Please drink double espresso and energy drink as an article is long and boring.

HOW TO WRITE A GOOD CV?

The good template for CV varies depends on country and type of job.

I suggest a do quick research about it.

If you live in UK .Follow UK or EU CV's style.

What to remember:

• In the opening statement, you need sale yourself as  somebody said : "The most effective way we can increase our value is to market ourselves"(I forgot who wrote that :(  ). Write who you are  and what you looks for.
•  Do not use 'CV dialect' given by recruiters and agencies! You should allow recruiters to  check your CV and allow them to do changes, but ask them to see this CV, before they send to the company.(Remove CV dialect and skills that you don't have!).
• GRAMMAR - second most important! Any grammar mistakes will reduce your chance significantly . Dom't believe it ? Imagine this notes will be much readable if I will use a proper grammar.
• LAYOUT -  Formatting is important as the person, who check your CV in the company has 2 minutes and if they cannot find what they looking for due your mistakes in layout decrease your chance.
• Link skills with achievements and experience.
• Use bullet points for skills.
• Ensure that you include the right and relevant keywords in CV. Most recruiters scan for keyword like Java, Java 8, Spring Framework and so on. If you do this wrong, you will be spam with jobs that you are not interesting at all. 
• Add hobbies and bit of personality to your CV. Most recruiters told me that I shouldn't do it and most people who likes my CV said, that it was due I added these things, so hobby is a good way to shows your personality.
• If your English is rubbish (my English is rubbish as you probably noticed already), then you can give to professional CV writers BUT give to the person who knows your industry (Has real experience with IT) or you make thing much worse!
• Do not  hide "easy to catch" important details. Shit happens in your life but if you show "lesson learnt" it can turns be a positive thing. For example, if you got fired, write what you learnt and how you prevent to make this mistake again.
• Designer and other creative jobs should have portfolio website.Software developer should have github account.
• If you put CV online then  add skills that you are good at or you want use in your next job .Otherwise recruiters will spam with weird job (For example I mentioned that i have experience with extjs, so recruiters send me to offer for Sencha Developer (because "Sencha Touch Developers tend to have worked with Ext.js, a skill listed in your CV. Because of it’s a rare skill, I ran a broader search of our database to capture developers that may have worked with ext.js that have since moved on into Sencha Touch."
• Good recruiters should point out mistakes in your CV. Adapt his changes as he may work with HR closely so he may know which CV catch your future company eye.
• Add info about your account on Github , LinkedIn, blogs and so on.

How looks process of finding job as software developer part 5 : Do I need LinkedIn?

WARNINGS:

This is a NOT a professional advice.
It based on my personal experience only and resources that I read on the internet.
It will contain many grammar mistakes.
Please drink double espresso and energy drink as an article is long and boring.

DO I NEED LINKEDIN?

It is an optional thing. LinkedIn sounds like great idea, but ...

 It is worth to have, because:

• Due lack of alternatives. LinkedIn is an only option for a social network for professional (although Google+  can be offer better user experience, but it is not designed for the professional social network.).
• It is a good source to gain intelligence about company and people, who will interview you.
• It is a good extension to your CV.
• It is a useful replacement for your personal website and blog.

However.

In general.I have very bad and annoying experience. 

• It has many phishing issues. For example: If you install the Android application, it will steal your contact and spam you with add these people to LinkedIn and etc.
• It is famous for most evil UX design in the industry because LinkedIn's UX focuses on marketing first not the user . It uses many phishing and spamming tricks to buy a premium account. As result don't be surprised to receive/send many empty invitation or messages from many people. This is due poor design by LinkedIn. You can found many blog entries complaining about this.
• It looks nice, but usability can be painful.
• No ability to block recruiters.

Remember:

• Do NOT add recruiters, headhunters and other spammers. They will pollute your account with lots of useless job offer that in 99% is irrelevant to you. They will call and send an email you and call you anyway. Add only these who were very helpful in the past.

it happens to me few times that I got this message ... 

Hi Dominik,I hope all is well.I have a permanent London based role for a leading finance company. They are looking for a Java Developer to work on a range of greenfield projects. If you interested , let me know and I'll send through further details. Regards

.. on my e-mail as text and as LinkedIn message.

Conclusion:

• It is not mandatory to have an account on LinkedIn.
• LinkedIn is a great alternative if you don't want waste your time on personal website and blog.
• If your job requires constant contact with other people, then LinkedIn is very useful.
• Avoid adding recruiters, headhunters and other spammers. They will pollute your account with lots of useless job offer that in 99% is irrelevant to you. They will call and send an email to you anyway.
• LinkedIn is very valuable for company research (gathering information about the company that you want work for and for job hunting).
• Using LinkedIn can be a pain in the ass as you cannot block recruiters and annoying poor user experience design.

How looks process of finding job as software developer part 4: How to write good Cover letter?

WARNINGS:

This is a NOT a professional advice.
It based on my personal experience only and resources that I read on the internet.
It will contain many grammar mistakes.
Please drink double espresso and energy drink as an article is long and boring.

HOW TO WRITE GOOD COVER LETTER?

I don't know how to write great cover letters as I wrote few of them and all of them were rubbish, but it is very rare in IT industry to ask for a Cover letter. In my opinion, it is actually waste of time for you and company.

However, so far I learnt that your cover letter should have 5 parts:

1. Introduction (what you are applying for, where you found info about job  ) 
2. Who you are and what skills you have
3. Link your skills with experience and match this requirement written in job specification
4. Explain why above skills are good for company (mention good news about company found in news or etc.) 
5. Thank you paragraph (where you said thank you for time spent on reading another boring Cover Letter

and the other useful rules, that I found are:

• The cover letter should be an extension to your bullet points in CV targeted directly to the company that you are applying for.
• They are very similar rules to CV.(Marketing yourself,  GRAMMAR,  Formatting  and Linking skills with achievements)
• Write template of your cover letter  (As 3 parts of cover letters are almost always the same. Main different in part about why you choose the company and what you know about a company. It will save you plenty of time!
• Do not copy and paste cover letters as it is a chance that you will copy stuff, which you don't want (like other company names). If you make this mistake, then ...GAME OVER. (I have done that twice  :( )

How looks process of finding job as software developer part 2: Preparation

WARNINGS:

This is a NOT a professional advice.
It based on my personal experience only and resources that I read on the internet.
It will contain many grammar mistakes.
Please drink double espresso and energy drink as the article is long and boring.

PREPARATION 

Before you start, you need to do a tiny preparation.

• As I mentioned in last previous post, you need start from write down what you looking for. Motivate yourself (do self-brainstorm of yourself to make sure, that you believe, that you can find a new job.
• Do NOT use your primary e-mail! Create a new e-mail or use your current spam account*.
• Do NOT use your primary mobile! Buy prepaid Sim. The reason is the same as above*.
• Think about what you want to do. If is your first job.I suggest look for graduate job**.
• Remember you are like a brand. In order to be the recognizable brand, you need do various 'marketing' techniques. It is quite easy in IT because you can write some blog posts, articles, podcasts, contribute to open source*** project, open account on Github, Gitlab or BitBucket (and put your source code there)  and attend to some meetups. 
• Use Get Things Done or to-do list as an approach to handle all process and make sure that you limit the number of cases.
• Do research about typical questions about languages and technologies that you believe you are expert at. Remember Hard preparation makes for an easy interview!
• Prepare questions that you want ask on the interview and don't be afraid of asking questions! Check how looks a working life, how the company is organised and everything that is important for you to be happy at work.

 * Why? Even, if you remove yourself from websites and unsubscribed from recruiters 'databases', you will be still spammed by them(up to 6 months in my case). 

 ** Graduate job is a type of job that is design to hiring students who are about to graduate from schools, universities or look for experience.If during study university allows you to do "sandwich year", DO IT!

***If you lack experience then participation in open source projects is the easiest way to get some. As a bonus, it teaches you how to cooperate with others and helps you improve your code quality through feedback from others.

How looks process of finding job as software developer part 1 : What I looking for and where to look

WARNINGS:

This is a NOT a professional advice.
It based on my personal experience only and resources that I read on the internet.
It will contain many grammar mistakes.
Please drink double espresso and energy drink as an article is long and boring.

I LOOKING FOR ...

It is a most important question.

What do you want to do?

Always start with this question... Seriously.

Describe what you would like to do and write it down.

• List of languages and technologies that you want to use in the new job.
• Consider other important things like minimum salary ( do research about salary depends on your experience/location and be REALISTIC about it!), maximum commute distance, work hours, perks and so on 

WHERE TO LOOK?

There are  few ways to look for a job these days:

1. Friends (best option)
2. Companies website (especially, your dream companies )
3. Job hunting Website ( specially offer by the company, not recruitment agency.
4. LinkedIn is a great source to gathering information about company and possibility to find which company recruiting at the moment but speaking of LinkedIn.
5. job centre plus in theory (in the UK) are quite useless for professional jobs but It can be a good place free advice if you needed.
6. Recruiters

How looks typical experience of looking for job for junior software developer (Based on my example)

WARNINGS:

This is NOT a professional advice.
It based on personal experience only and resources read on the internet.
It will contain lots of grammar mistakes.
Drink double espresso and energy drink as the article is long and boring.

Article moved to my personal blog :

https://dominiksymonowicz.com/2017/09/22/how-looks-process-of-finding-job-as-software-developer-introduction/