Steven Espinal - Software engineer in NYC

Introduction

The tech world may have been the hardest door to get my foot into. The competitive nature of the job market is intense, you have very skillful, brilliant people from all over the world applying to the same position you are. You need these 3 things in order to stand out from the crowd and have all eyes on you.

#1: Crafting an Up-to-Date Resume

A resume that gets passed the Applicant Tracking System (ATS) is the first of your worries. Nowadays most companies use this to process your Resume and eliminate the ones that do not meet their criteria. You need a resume that is easily parsable, concise, and reflects your current skills and experience. Some may even argue that you should optimize each resume to match the companies desired skillset (only if you have those skills you would then update the keywords to reflect their job description).

Every resume should have your name, a professional summary, education history, skills (both technical and soft skills), work history and relevant projects that showcase your best work. If you do not have relevant projects through experience, I suggest you make up a problem and solve it with a well designed, well organized project that can be traced back to a GitHub repo. Highlighting your accomplishments is extremely important under your work history as this shows what you can do for them.

#2: Building a Compelling Portfolio

Building a Portfolio is an important task for getting hired. I don't believe you should go too crazy though, there needs to be a balance. Personally, I've used plenty of templates in the past and just ensured the quality of writing is up to par and had emphasis on my projects I've worked on. You may do the same or create one from scratch. I did not create one from scratch because I am not a designer. I decided to make better use of my time applying to jobs rather than spending a few months trying to create a pixel perfect portfolio website. Definitely use your time wisely and trust yourself on what your process should look like.

#3: Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile

An important note about LinkedIn: I typically do not use any form of social media anymore for my own personal reasons. I do however have my LinkedIn profile set up to date where I add many earned certificates, projects, and skillsets I have achieved over the years. LinkedIn is the very reason I have gotten my first job as a Software Engineer. There is no doubt in my mind about LinkedIn and how useful it is in todays world. You can create some meaningful connections (although in the very early days of my profile I just connected with anyone I could to get started).

The best LinkedIn feature for me was LinkedIn's Job section utilising Easy Apply. You are able to filter jobs based on an Easy Apply button where LinkedIn will do the work for you! You no longer need to tediously add your resume items one by one anymore, you can just simply hit a button if the job offers it, and boom you're done. This can allow you to apply in bulk fairly quickly. Use everything you can to your advantage when applying as it will be needed.