With fall semesters starting around the country, recruitment is also about to be under way so, I wanted to share 7 tips on how to find and land your first role.
Tip 1: Professors do more than teach the material
Professors are not only good for teaching you things, they are also a good resource for finding intern and full time opportunities. Recruiters and companies are constantly reaching out to professors and asking them if they have any good referrals for their openings. Use this tip if you especially have a good relationship with your professor(s) as a professor’s word serves as a very strong recommendation when applying to a role.
Tip 2: Network like your career depends on it
Did you know that employees that are referred are 4x more likely to be hired. How do you get a referral you ask? By having a strong network. Networking is the single best thing you can do for your current and future career. Building a network is really just you living your life and having fun.
- Did you attend class today and sat next to someone? Thats a network connection
- Did you get placed in a group project? Thats a network connection.
- Did you attend a smash tourney on campus?
Those are all network connections. Everyone around you is trying to achieve the same goals you are, to get a job. Life works in mysterious ways and you never know what the connection you make today can lead to.
Tip 3: Be a part of orgs
Orgs are a great way to improve your college experience and also build out your resume at the same time. Typically orgs host many helpful sessions like resume reviews, tech talks, networking opportunities and more. Lookup orgs that exist at your school and find the ones that peak your interest. A tip I can give here is to not be afraid to find orgs that may not be computer based. As I said it the previous tip, try to network as much as you can.
Tip 4: Grind linkedin
Youve probably heard of the leetcode grind but have you heard of the linkedin grind? Prob not because I think I just made it up so let me define it for you. Linkedin grinding is when you spend time searching through linkedin posts to find the ones that say ‘im looking for interns’ or ‘my team just opened up a new SWE role.’ Shocking right? People actively asking for people to apply? Doesnt seem true but it is.
The best way to go about it is to search for keywords like ‘internship’ or ‘hiring interns’. When you do that you get results like these.
To further refine the results, you can use all of the filters available to you and search by company name and industry.
Another thing to look out for on Linkedin are the times when a recruiter makes a post sharing an upcoming tech talk or event they have going on. Not only are these good to attend because you can potentially learn something, but you can also continue to build your network by linking with the members of the meetings.
One more thing to add on LinkedIn grind is that people (recruiters) tend to have an affinity to people that they see often. When you add a recruiter or whoever on LinkedIn, throw a like or comment on their posts as often as you can. The more they see you and know who you are, the likelier it is that theyll remember you the next time an opening appears.
Tip 5: Attend local meetups
This tip typically only applies to larger cities but some smaller cities may have meetups as well. The tip here is to find tech meetups in your city and attend those. Having attended some in my area I can safely say that not once did I meet anyone there that was a student looking for an internship. Tech meetups are typically filled with experienced engineers and attending them can work in your favor by building out your professional network. As mentioned before, having a strong professional network is a good way to get more referrals to jobs.
You can use platforms like Eventbrite and Meetup to find local meetups. If you live in the Austin area, you can use the capital factory events site to help you find events and meetups.
Tip 6: Get your resume reviewed and know it from top to bottom
My advice here though is to get it reviewed not by an online stranger but by an expert. Do you attend a 2 year or 4 year institution? Youre in luck! There is most likely a career center that is open for this reason ( and SO many others as well ). Make an appointment with your career center and theyll give you some really good tips on how to improve it.
Tip 7: Go to the career center
In the previous tip I mentioned going to the career center to get your resume reviewed. In this tip im saying go back to the career center and see if they know of any openings anywhere. The reason why is in the name alone, CAREER center. They are their to help you with your career so why not use them for that? While youre there you can also see what other resources they have available to you that can help you in your journey.
Another thing I want to add here is that frequent visits to the career center are a great idea. Career center counselors typically have good relationships with recruiters. If you frequent the career center and build a relationship with the counselor, chances are you can leverage their network and get a referral.
Tip 8: Build stuff
Building personal projects is essential in proving that you know how to code. Whether its creating a clone of your favorite app or just creating something that solves your everyday life, There is no substitute on your resume for showing that you have actually worked and built something.
If you need help with this step, Codubee may be right for you. We mentor groups of students in building and deploying applications from scratch. In our program, students get a feel for what real Software Engineering is like by getting experience with Scrum/Agile, Git, Jira, APIs, Microservices and more.
You can check out our website for more information. Codubee
Early Tech Career Experts | Codubee 