the madness of finding a job for a junior developer

full transcript

auto-generated from the audio, so expect a few typos. the audio is the source of truth.

Hey, what's going on? Looking forward to bringing another episode of guidance counselor 2.0 to everyone First before I make an introduction just a few things First off if you need to reach me best way to reach me is through social media and my user name on all platforms is at T-decent that's tdesseyn At Snapchat Twitter Instagram you name it also If you do want to email me the best way to reach me is Taylor at vaco vaco.com Another thing if you want to rate this in the app store. That would be amazing I really really want for this podcast to grow and and gain a little market traction within the app store and Be used as a tool for other people outside of my community who are looking for jobs Finally, I have a great opportunity to speak at codestock next month in Knoxville So if you do plan on being at that event come find me.

We'll love to hang out and And answer any questions you may have about the job process job search process So in this episode super excited to partner with our marketing team With everything that's going on with March Madness I'm going doing more of a themed podcast this time and basically what's what I'm speaking about is the madness around Trying to find your first job as a junior developer That is something that I see every single week day and day out in this market is The newly graduated National software school individuals or any code school individuals wanting to land their first real job as a developer So in this episode I talked to Thomas Fitzgerald had a great opportunity to work with him in place and at his current position He goes over his story and us working together.

Hope you guys enjoy. Thanks. Thomas. What's going on man? Hey Taylor. How's it going? Good. I thanks for joining me on this. I appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on So basically not gonna do too much introduction, but if you want to give Give kind of everybody a quick rundown about who you are what you do and we can go from there Yeah, sure My name is Thomas Fitzgerald and I am currently a junior dotnet developer at Navah health in Nashville originally from the Boston area and That's kind of where I started my development career and and sort of migrated my way down here and You know five years later.

I found myself at the position of that now Awesome, so and and for everybody I's listening so Marketing our marketing department is kind of doing this doing this Partner with me in regards to the whole March madness theme and so the point of this Podcasts with Thomas is to catch up just one of the more Maddening things in today's tech market as Thomas can attest this is the junior quote-unquote developer Trying to get their way and find their way into their first tech job And so I had the opportunity of working with Thomas and Super excited he can join me on this so we're gonna kind of hear from his end on Kind of his his background his story and the steps that he took To get where he is today.

So Thomas. I guess the first question is and I'm always interested in With developers and answers on this is I guess how did you become a developer? Why did you want to become a developer and just tell us that story? Yeah, so Initially when I was studying graphic design at Boston University in 2011 2012 I kind of I did my toes in a little bit of web design and course that got me introduced to the JavaScript and HTML and CSS and that sort of introductory language Right after I graduated I got my first job working for a marketing company Very small company just outside of Boston.

It was a great space And I sort of had this hybrid Account manager role but since I had a little bit of design and development background I could kind of put forth those skills To allow for just a more customized experience for my clients that I had at the time I Didn't really like working with clients as much as I liked doing the work for them so I kind of Delved into that did a few courses through general assembly which I'm not sure if they're down here, but they're pretty popular around the around the country Which led me into doing a lot of freelance work

I became very self-taught through PHP and WordPress excuse me And I did ended up doing a lot of freelance work which over the course of three four years Kind of got me some good experience, but when I moved down here I found that that type of experience was not really Something an employer was looking for mainly because freelance web development work in the as an employer I don't think they take it very Highly so when I was coming down here and looking for programming jobs and development jobs I wasn't getting a lot of nibbles or a lot of bites Not sure so When I got

my first job down here it was working for an email marketing company It was just a kind of a boring space, but nonetheless it's You know, it was a good developer job, and I really enjoyed it and while I while I was there and working there I decided to do night courses at National Software School Which kind of excelled me forward and into the market in the Nashville Awesome, so I guess Let me ask you this as a developer as an individual who just is starting out Would you recommend them to take any?

Media job or any type of job to get in with the company because I think a lot of the misconceptions like I need to go in as a developer and Obviously you didn't start that way you were kind of the media side and kind of transition more into more A peer developer is is that a type of strategy that you would recommend to other developers come out of code schools? I Think a lot of it lies with your past experiences especially with NSS as well But more or less you know if you know I had that design background and The reason I loved the reason I got into coding was because I could design for somebody and Do coding it was like a whole package that didn't need to hire anybody else So I sort of fell in love with coding and programming out of necessity.

Okay But awesome in terms of somebody getting into it. I would say you know figure out where Where do passion lies? Where you know where it came from where it lies what you what led you here and what skills? Other than coding if you have any others that you know you can put forward as well Absolutely that makes total sense. So you know you mentioned national software school. I know obviously work with them really well. They I know them really well and and obviously have worked with a lot of developers coming out of there I guess tell me about your experiences with NSS and National software school and I guess What did you learn?

What did you take away and and at the end of the day? What is what is one of the main reasons you would recommend NSS to an individual wanting to get into coding? I had a I had a really good experience at National Software School. They I think their their staff is extremely extremely good I have done two different boot camps General Assembly being one of them and then Center for Digital Imaging Archwaces also located in Boston and both experience there were okay I think that the content of what they did lacked a lot and I was a little bit reluctant going into NSS But halfway through it.

I think I was I was very impressed with the level of the teaching the level of the curriculum How much they were kind of driving home. They were really Installing the fundamentals of programming not just teaching you how to build a to do list or teaching you how to style of You know a landing page. It was it was very fundamental and it was There were a lot of things that I think are valuable skills as a developer like knowing your way around GitHub and working your way around a command line Knowing how software teams Actually interact like using that agile process which was a big thing that they kind of instilled in their students In going through it.

I think a lot of students were reluctant to learn those things or Or they just didn't understand why And then until you get to a company and you're like wow that was very very helpful So I think they're they did a lot of things really really well in that aspect Absolutely, and then I know and we talked about this too And the reason why you and I met each other is because of a mutual connection that we would not have known That we would that you would not have known if you didn't go to NSS. So I know one thing that NSS really preaches at least that I see is definitely Networking and so I wanted to kind of see your thoughts.

I mean is that something I mean you know if a developer or aspiring developer wants to take these code schools Do you think the networking side is is just as important? Absolutely and it depends on Whether or not you're gonna stay in the city that you're doing it in right so so National Software Schools Network is huge down here I'd say in five years you'd be hard pressed to go to a Dev Shop around town and not find one of their graduates And there's a lot of Dev shops in Nashville Absolutely But speaking in terms of somebody that would like to go to one I think Because there's a lot out there and I think the one thing to take away from National Software School that you don't see At other bootcamps is their ability to adapt They they have a lot of courses.

They don't teach the same thing every year They adapt to what is needed in the market and within that networking why they're so good at it is because they get feedback from Employers about hey, this is what we need now or this is what we're gonna need in a year Or this is the type of stuff we want you to teach our juniors Absolutely, so The next component is so you go through NSS to graduate I know there are and I always talk about this. There's always a lot of recruiters out there and I'm sure They probably contacted you a ton Fortunately, you and I were able to get connected to a mutual connection So there's already kind of a a semi-warm lead there I guess tell me about your experiences work with recruiters in the past Obviously, tell your experiences about Kind of around working You know with with me just so other people can understand hey listen There is some success stories with recruiters for people listening.

I actually had the opportunity to place Thomas at his current employer And so Thomas if you want to go ahead and run down kind of working with recruiters in the past and kind of You know working with them as a late Yeah, I think recruiters somewhat get a bad rep and um I don't know How much of that is warranted or not because I have had obviously bad experience, but I have had very good ones like ours But when I initially moved down here I didn't have great experience with recruiters It was a lot when I was on the job search and I would get contacted by them They say hey, I got this great role.

Think you'd be great for it I'd kind of give out my resume give out all that information and then I'd never hear from him again Which was very unfortunate it kind of hurt me At least I think it hurt me in the long run because now I got my resume out there With ten different recruiting firms who knows who companies they're giving it to Now I'm kind of out there and not even being looked at by anybody so I think that kind of hurt me in an aspect, but With our situation having that be a mutual connection and someone putting forth and saying hey This kid's gonna be great for the re-quality role you're recruiting for I think that plays in favor of both hands Absolutely, so what so would you recommend?

Developers coming out of code school to partner with a recruiter and if so I mean how many would you recommend I usually say one or two But I obviously want to hear your thoughts as well. I say Definitely get Yourself a reputable recruiter. I wouldn't just jump at the first one. I would certainly look around at different recruiting firms. I might watch out for in-house recruiters But as far as as like your first initial search, I would say Find one that's gonna stick with you not kind of dump you and ghost you after the first You know job that they don't place you in I 100% agree with that Absolutely So obviously your your little over a month in To your current position that we work together on so I guess tell me How is it?

You know how is it being kind of in a more true dot net environment under your last Position was a little bit more PHP oriented Tell me kind of how the transition is and for individuals that maybe have your background Is it a huge obstacle to tackle or has it? You know gone fairly smoothly It has been all rainbows and butterflies for my No, but it's been it's been great. It's been a really fast-paced environment I've just you know been learning tons and tons and that's kind of what I wanted out of a role So I don't think me personally have had Any issues with the transition actually because this is this is exactly what I was looking for I do see there are a lot of other juniors at this company.

I do see some there are a bit more Lost in the chaos And I'm not sure if that's just a personality thing But I think there is a level of Like if you go from being a bartender into national software school into one of these roles I can see it You know that level of change and not being able to comprehend it after a while can be a little difficult For sure, but I think for myself I'm having a great time doing it. I can't wait to Continue learning and continue working in.net That's awesome man. Well Thomas. That's that is as everything. I appreciate you hanging out and Obviously, we'll need to catch up soon again over lunch.

Okay. Yeah, that sounds great Taylor. All right. Thanks Thomas. All right. Thanks. Have a good one All right, bye