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Resume Secrets for New Programmers
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Feb 7, 2024
"Resume Secrets for New Programmers" is a helpful video tailored for individuals new to programming seeking guidance on crafting an effective resume. The video likely covers essential tips and strategies for presenting programming skills, education, and relevant experience in a clear and compelling manner. It may discuss formatting techniques, keywords to include, and ways to highlight projects, internships, or coursework to stand out to potential employers. Viewers can anticipate gaining valuable insights into optimizing their resumes to increase their chances of landing interviews and securing entry-level programming positions.
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That could be okay for applying for conventional jobs
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but I would tell my younger self to take more risks here, break away from the convention if needed
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What do you put on a resume when you don't have any ... programming experience? That first resume is really ..
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hard, at least it was for me. I mean, I spent more time on that ... resume than on any other one throughout my career
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And in this video I'm going to share what I did, as well as we're going to look at some other common ..
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scenarios and how to handle them. When I was trying to get my first programming job
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that first draft of my resume sucked, and the second one, and the third one
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and I don't even remember how many drafts I went through, but it was a lot. My number one problem was that I ..
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was so focused on coding skills that I developed tunnel ... vision and completely ignored a bunch of other super ..
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important skills. I don't want to bore you with ... everything that I did on that first one
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so here are the things that I did on that final draft. I had a bunch of disconnected and random jobs
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and instead of focusing on listing out all of the normal ... skills for each role, I tried really
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really hard to try to pull out everything that I could ... that was even remotely relevant to software development or to ..
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the tech industry in general. For example, with my underwater construction job
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instead of focusing on skills that would only make sense to ... a commercial diver, I focused on highlighting my ..
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problem-solving skills, having to think outside of ... the box in very unique situations
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along with leadership experience. I once had a sales position at an online boat parts company
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I could have focused on selling, but in between calls, I was also responsible for ..
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leading an effort to add product information and ... descriptions and stuff like that for thousands of new ..
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products on the website. You know, upload a picture, and there was a form field ..
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for putting in the title, and then another one for the ... description. On my resume
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my focus for that position was content management and team ... leadership. I had totally forgot about it
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but as I started down the path of content creation and ... trying to figure out how that tied into everything
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something clicked. As trivial as it is, when I was formatting those lists in that text box
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I had to use HTML ordered and unordered lists. You better believe that I noted that
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and it was something completely related, but I didn't even know it back then when I was doing it
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When I was filling in those descriptions, I was like, this is a really weird way to ..
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format stuff, but okay, whatever. In college for one semester, I worked as a pre-law peer advisor
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I helped answer questions for students who were interested ... in going to law school, and pointed them to helpful ..
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resources. But instead of focusing on ... that, I emphasized that I managed a ..
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distribution of a newsletter to thousands of students. You know, more content creation stuff
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I regularly updated the pre-law website content, and I organized monthly lectures
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My reasoning for focusing on content creation was that I ... figured that a lot of potential employers would be ..
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looking for programmers to support content management ... systems, and it would be somewhat ..
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related to the goals of those companies. I also worked at another company where I was doing ..
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scanning documents for other companies and government ... organizations. I could have just given some ..
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bland description of how I just scanned things day in and day ... out, but instead I focused on my ..
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ability to learn new technologies quickly, and that because of that, I was trusted to figure out how ..
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to use some of our more specialized machines, and then go and train other employees on their use
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And some of these were very expensive machines that could ... cost like over $100,000. Even though this didn't involve ..
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writing code, I knew that good programmers ... had to figure things out, had to configure systems
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and then had to be able to mentor and communicate that to others. Being a new self-taught programmer
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I was super limited on actual coding experience, so I had to focus really hard on selling my potential
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I had to demonstrate that I had the right aptitude and ... mindset to become successful in order to encourage a ..
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potential employer to just take a risk on me. So that's great and all, but what if I didn't have much ..
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to say on my resume, or I just hadn't worked at ... many companies, and my resume was feeling ..
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really empty? That could be really ... intimidating, and it was for me
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There was this time when I felt that I had to write my ... resume according to some set of HR best practices
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I mean, we had spent weeks learning the ... do's and don'ts in one of my college classes
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That could be okay for applying for conventional jobs, but I would tell my younger self to take more risks here
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break away from the convention if needed. Let's say I had worked two jobs
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one as a burger and another as a cashier at a grocery store, and I just didn't think there was much to say that would ..
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even relate to the tech industry. In a situation like that, I would try to keep my resume ..
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professional by using good grammar and that kind of stuff, but I would probably break the rules of normal
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traditional resume structure. Instead of filling up lines ... of text underneath each of those positions that have ..
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absolutely nothing to do with text, I would have a job history section
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and I would put it at the bottom of the resume with the ... name, the job title
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probably a date range or how long I had worked there. And that's it, a two-liner section
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The top of the resume is the most important because it's ... what you see first, and that's where I would put a ..
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relevant experience section. This would focus 100% on my ... portfolio projects. For each project
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I would have a header with the title of the project, and then underneath it, I would have information about ..
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what are the problems that this application solved, what are the tools, the frameworks that I used to ..
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solve it, how many people are using it ... if that's available, and other information to convey ..
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that I have relevant skills. And I would order them with ... the most significant projects at top
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especially those that are commercial in nature and that ... would best relate to the job listing that I'm applying for
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and the less relevant ones I would put towards the bottom ... of the list. The goal here is to focus on ..
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what I can do rather than on unrelated stuff that I have ... done. And this might ruffle some of ..
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the HR purist folks' feathers, but who cares? I likely wouldn't be impressing those kind of people anyways
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I'm really hoping for the ones that are technical enough to ... know what I did and why I did it
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and that can see my potential. And a lot of people, they just skim the resumes really quickly in order to ..
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filter people out or the companies are going to run your ... resume through some software that looks for matches of ..
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keywords against the job description. So by focusing on the stuff that I can do heavily
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that's going to position me better in those search results. In HR, they're most likely going to get ..
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that other job history stuff anyways because they'll ... probably have me fill out an application where you have to ..
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specifically enter the company and when you worked and ... information about it. So they can get that later if ..
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they want. But my resume is going to be ... more of a marketing piece that complements my portfolio
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and then I would be sure to have a really clear link to ... that portfolio in the resume. Your resume is super important
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but you should really watch this video because I share ... some super important things that I would do to help you ..
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get a programming job as soon as possible. Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next one
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