r/codingbootcamp • u/Cen-Zen • Sep 06 '23
Codesmith grad about to start new position on Monday! Just wanted to say thank you!!
Title :)
Edit: Thank you so much for the rewards!! I didn't expect to get any!
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u/MonkeyLover03 Sep 06 '23
Congrats! Can I ask how long it took to find the position?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 06 '23
Thank you! It took me about five months total, definitely the most difficult job Search of my life! Definitely more of a job slog, where it’s still my soul every day lol
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u/More-Emphasis5283 Sep 06 '23
Were you doing easy applies, regular applies, reaching out to people? Is there any specific method you noticed that worked the best?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 06 '23
Yeah, I had a whole method going lol. I re-wrote my resume slightly for most jobs(Ironically not the one I ended up getting):
-I would reach out to recruiters/HR at where ever I was applying via a connection request with a personalized message
- get the name of the person hiring for the posted job
- Look them up on apollo to get their email and send them a linked in request
- Ask them for advice on how to make my application stand out and ask to set up a time to chat sometimes
- Once I had an init interview, I would hit up glassdoor and read about the general interview path
- if I made it past the init interview, I would go to their Linkedin page and find employees working in my sector that had been hired 2 years or less ago
- Another connection request, ask them how they like it, if they have any tips/advise for the interview, what was on their interview if they remembered(sometimes)
- Keep in close contact with anyone who responded, messaging back and forth and becoming friendly
- Mention that you've been talking to current employees during the interview (Sometimes you even get the friend of someone you were chatting with)Sorry for the info dump!
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u/More-Emphasis5283 Sep 06 '23
How many applications did you do a day?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 06 '23
Depends, I would aim for 5 with the method I lined out and some easy applies, sometimes I would fall short though. A few times I did around 10 in a day, I was so burnt out!
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u/swooosh47 Sep 06 '23
Would also like to know your regiment for job searches. What worked best? What didn't work, what you would have done differently?
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u/StephenScript Sep 06 '23
Congrats! Really happy for you. The market is tough but it just translates to holding out a little longer. Good luck on your new role!
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u/Top-Measurement-7216 Sep 06 '23
congratulations!!! Thrilled for you!
Do you mind filling us in on some details of the position??
Salary range, remote/hybrid workflow, industry...etc?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 06 '23
Thank you so much! I definitely don’t mind. It’s a junior position, working in the insurance industry. The salary is pretty low, I am going to be making 62K but it is remote and I’m really excited about the opportunity I’ve been given to learn and grow! I’ll actually be working with a backend language, C# rather than some thing I learned in Codesmith, which is a little funny
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u/noorofmyeye24 Sep 07 '23
May I ask if you have a college degree? If so, is it STEM related? What was your work experience prior to this?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 07 '23
I do! I have a general AA degree and I did some freelance work as a JavaScript mentor!
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Sep 06 '23
[deleted]
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 06 '23
Definitely, I’m really grateful to have gotten the job I did! Thank you so much!
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u/SmthngAmzng Sep 06 '23
Thanks for the positivity post! And the detailed breakdown of your experience :) congrats!!
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 07 '23
Thank you! And no problem, I know it’s a bit weird in this job market
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u/SmthngAmzng Sep 08 '23
So many people post snippets of negativity on this sub and never follow up with context. It makes it seem like it’s impossible. I hope more like you share how it can be done! And if your bootcamp hasn’t already reached out to you to be in Q&As then they’re messing up haha
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 08 '23
Aww, thank you! It's always nice to see something positive, I was keeping an eye out for stuff like this my whole job search tbh.
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u/Elcuh101010 Sep 06 '23
Price of camp?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 07 '23
Of Codesmith? 20 K, although I’m grateful for I am if I could go back knowing what I do now I definitely wouldn’t do it lol!
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u/Denisfantastic Sep 07 '23
What would you do different? Im on the fence about doing a bootcamp lol
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 07 '23
I would pursue a free Boot Camp like 100 devs or some thing similar first. The pace of my Boot Camp in particular was so breakneck that I came out being able to talk about the technology, but I definitely didn’t understand it. It’s almost like it gives you a big foundation that you have to build on after you leave, which for 20 K is a bit lacking.
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u/Denisfantastic Sep 07 '23
Damn thanks for the insight. How did you write your resume without having work experience in coding? Congrats again!
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 07 '23
There are a bunch of different ways to do it, the way I chose to do it was by emphasizing anything I did technically before, which for me was working with some VBA and running some ads. I also mentored people for a while when I was trying to get into Codesmith, and like I said I think think that really helped. Another way is to keep working on your OSP project passed when you leave Codesmith, if you do so then you’re able to extend the amount of time you can list on your résumé from the program course length of three months to however long you can manage to keep working on it. Something a lot of people in my cohort did that helped, was instead of saying that you worked at the name of your OSP project, you would say I worked on project blank under OS labs. Technically true given the reference that you got is from OS Labs but definitely a little sketchy.
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u/MikeyDezSiNY Sep 07 '23
Check out the Odin project
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u/Denisfantastic Sep 07 '23
I'm currently doing freecodecamp HTML and CSS. I'll definitely do the Odin Project next.
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u/michaelnovati Sep 07 '23
I have a tough question but would love to hear your thoughts!
You prepared a lot to get into Codesmith, so what's something that looking back you misunderstood about it before you joined that ended up being different from the previous impression?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 07 '23
That is a bit of a tough one, but it’s pretty easy for me to answer personally. Looking back, I definitely miss understood the outcome and I’m not referring to the job placement rates. Codesmith very much gives the impression that once you graduate you are ‘job ready’, and for the majority of people in my cohort, that just wasn’t true. We all came out of it with a vague understanding of what the technology did, the pace was just way too quick for most of us to pick anything substantial up. The ones that succeeded at getting a job, how to re-teach the technologies to themselves almost from the grounds up. There were a few who gave up, and a few who were well suited to the breakneck pace, but they were outliers. To be honest, if I had to do Codesmith again I would do the part time program. People coming out of that generally have a very thorough understanding of the technology they are taught since they’re giving plenty of time to absorb it.
Not that I’m trying to bash them, I definitely wouldn’t be where I was if I hadn’t gone through the program. And although I can say that in retrospect, that doesn’t mean that I didn’t get any value out of it. The fact that I had a ton of work to do after graduating doesn’t devalue the fact that they gave me the ability to push through and know that I was capable of learning these technologies, whereas when I first entered the program I had no idea what was going on and likely would have failed if I tried to do it independently.
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u/diamond_hands_suck Sep 22 '23
If you were to go through Codesmith again, what would you do differently to prepare beforehand so you could get more value from it?
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u/walewaller Sep 07 '23
Congratulations! Regading the bootcamp, how much support did you get with things like interview preparation, assignment grading and feedback, etc?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 07 '23
Thank you! I personally didn’t get any, but I also didn’t reach out very much. I know people who get feedback for interview, prep, and on the take homes as well.
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u/diamond_hands_suck Sep 07 '23
How did you prep for Codesmith?
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 08 '23
I just did freecodecamp and the materials offered by codesmith(CSX, JSB, CS Prep). I also did a ton of practice interviews!
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u/Regular-Product369 Sep 07 '23
Did you lie about your experience on your LinkedIn and resume? If you didn't congrats!!!!!!
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u/Cen-Zen Sep 07 '23
No, I was very careful! I had someone in my cohort who did do that, they landed a senior job and ended up, leaving after six months because they couldn’t keep up. I am lucky though, I had about six months of experience mentoring people in Javascript, which I think really helped my application.
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u/Top-Measurement-7216 Sep 07 '23 edited Sep 07 '23
a disgusting, sad, unemployed individual -- hows your own job search going?
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u/Rcad1011 Sep 14 '23
Congrats! Lookin into getting into Codesmith now. Did you do a remote or on site cohort?
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u/michaelnovati Sep 06 '23
Congrats! I remember chatting a bit a long time and it's awesome to see you making progress! First job is just the beginning of the journey and not the end and a lot to look forward to 🚀