How To Market Yourself as a Programmer or a Data Scientist To Get Your Next Job

Here’s what to do to your land your next job

In the last decade, the way we view a resume and a job interview has changed. Particularly in jobs where you are creating something, what truly matters is your ability to show off your creations and your ability to communicate all the variety of your skillsets. There are programming websites that will prepare you for interviews. Sometimes, programmers or data scientists cite eight months as the time it takes to study for interviews for FAANGs. But most of us are not great at performing under pressure. You need to skew the odds in your favor by decreasing the emphasis on resumes and interviews.

How about spending a little more time marketing yourself through the use of other ways of communication, namely writing?

I don’t know about you, but I don’t believe in tests anymore. A lot of employers understand this. They want someone who can perform rather than someone who tests well.

This is because they know that tests only tell one side of the story. The real key for a programmer or a data scientist is a real passion for the job. These are positions that require you to learn, apply knowledge, and have a kind of determination in solving real-world problems.

You need persistence, passion, and grit. This is why you need to show your potential employers that you will be able to do the job.

This data scientist got her job without going on an interview. She did it through working on projects and writing online.

Here’s another great article about the need to build a lot of things and find reasons to code.

The key here is to use writing as a method of communication with all potential companies out there who will want to hire you ahead of any potential interviews.

Pitch companies about who you are, what your skills are, and what you can do for them through your writing and your projects.

Here’s the four-step program to get your next job and up your odds of success while you still have your current job.

Learn New Skills

Instead of going through a boot camp, you can look into online courses to update your skills. A lot of these courses are free. If you’re a programmer, then learn a new language or a framework. If you are a data scientist, then learn multiple ways to analyze different types of datasets.

Here are some resources to learn to code: Codeacademy, Coursera, edX, Udemy, AGupieWare, GitHub, Khan Academy, MIT Open Courseware

Here are some resources to learn data science: Coursera, edX, Udemy, Udacity

• List out your learning path.

• Create a learning schedule.

• Finish one module before starting the next.

• Learn as much as you can for one topic.

• Stick to one or two learning platforms.

Build Your Projects

While you’re working through your training courses, use the projects in these courses as inspiration. Think up ideas for projects where you can apply the skills you have learned in these courses.

Work on these projects that show off different aspects of your skills and share them on GitHub.

If you’re a data scientist, then you want to practice on Kaggle and upload your code on GitHub, too.

• Upload your code to GitHub.

• Write a summary of your project on GitHub.

• Share your project in Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn programming channels.

Write About Your Projects and Your Knowledge Base

The next step that you can take is to write about your projects and your skills. A lot of programmers don’t like to market themselves. But in this environment, you really have to put yourself out there.

It doesn’t matter if other people have already written about the topic that you want to write about. You are writing to firm up your existing knowledge as well as to show off your skills.

• Pick topics on your learning paths that are truly important for your projects.

• Write about them as either a tutorial or a knowledge article.

• Write about the unicorns that you want to display in your resume.

• Learn to write with clarity.

Here are a few places where you can write about your projects and your knowledge: Medium, LinkedIn, GitHub, Quora.

Here are some writing tips for programmers.

If you are truly passionate about a topic and would like to build a community, then consider also putting up YouTube teaching videos, your personal blog, or a podcast.

Share Your Articles on Social Media

After you’ve hit the Publish button on all these platforms, then share them on social media. You can cross-share them on your social media platforms.

Reddit channels: r/programming, r/learnprogramming, r/datascience

Facebook programming groups LinkedIn programmings groups Twitter programming tags

When people share your articles, thank them on social media and follow them.

There’s no guarantee that you’ll land a job offer if you do all of the above. But following these tips will put you in a much better position than if you just spend eight months studying interview questions.

Carve out just one hour a day and commit to writing one article a week for eight months on top of working on your projects. By the time you sit in that interview chair, your interviewers will already know you from your writing.

SOURCE:Paper.li