Becoming a software engineer when you lack an internship or relevant work experience can seem difficult after you have graduated with a degree.
Here’s 5 steps you can take to improve your chances of landing a job as a software engineer when you lack experience.
1. Create a Github Portfolio
It’s important to invest time into creating a Github account that has projects which showcase your technical skills. Choose a tech stack that is being used by industry professionals and start to build applications using these programming languages and cloud platforms. Choose technologies such as React.JS, Java, C#, Angular, AWS and Azure.
Keep the applications simple to start with and improve the codebase as time goes on. Spend time upskilling in areas such as CI/CD pipelines, logging, exception handling and unit testing. Add these features into your project. Github Actions makes it straightforward to automate software delivery using CI/CD.
Investing time in creating functional projects on Github gives your CV much more credibility and allows hiring managers to look at your code and see why you will be a great fit for their team.
2. Start a Blog
Showcasing your technical knowledge through a blog gives you authority and highlights your skillset. It’s common for software engineers to blog about projects they have deployed to Github, or topics that interest them in software.
You can start by writing a code walk-through of a college or personal project, explaining why you chose certain design patterns or how you implemented clean code principles. You can also start by explaining OOP principles to show you understand these core concepts.
When you lack experience and you are looking for work as a software engineer, it’s essential you look for ways to prove your credibility. Investing time in writing a blog is a great way to start. It’s important to pick topics that interest you and that other members of the software community will find useful.
3. Contribute to Open-Source
Hiring managers want to see experience on your CV. If you lack an internship or you are a career changer, open-source provides an opportunity to show your coding and teamwork skills. It is one of the best ways to gain experience in large-scale projects when you have not yet worked as a software engineer.
When you start contributing to open-source, you become part of a larger team, building software components, fixing bugs and creating pull requests. You will gain an understanding of how automated software deployment works, and learn from more experienced engineers about how to structure your code.
Having open-source experience on your CV shows hiring managers that you are a serious software engineer and you have experience working with other people. Investing time in open-source will help you to upskill and become a better developer.
Learn how to get started in open-source here
4. Focus on LinkedIn
When you are starting your career and lack experience, spend time on LinkedIn to build connections and stay up to date with who is hiring entry-level developers. It’s important to connect with technical recruiters who will post about open roles. This gives you the chance to apply early, and to reach out to the recruiter or hiring manager for more information about the job. You can also follow up on a job application by sending a message through LinkedIn.
It’s important to have a professional looking profile on LinkedIn that contains keywords such as the programming languages on your CV. This will help you to appear in search results when recruiters are searching for talent.
Be active on LinkedIn and reach out to people who will help you to get hired. Send a message to a recruiter or software engineering manager to see if they need another developer in their team. LinkedIn is the best way to keep up to date with the job market.
5. Write a Great CV
Having no experience makes it more important to have a great CV. It’s important to invest time in writing a CV that is concise and gets your technical skills across clearly. As soon as a recruiter picks up your CV, the projects on your Github account should stand out, along with your education and programming skills.
Focus on listing the transferable skills you have gained in college or in previous work experience. Skills such as communication, teamwork, leadership and problem solving are just as important as your technical skills. If you have no internship, highlight these skills along with an example of how you have applied them in college or in part-time jobs.
Always include a link to your Github account and to your blog on your CV. You need to prove you have the technical skills for the job, and these skills must stand out. Use bullet points to keep your CV concise and avoid writing long paragraphs.
Learn how to write a great CV here
