Land Your First Software Development Job by Embracing the Power of Learning

Starting out in any career is challenging because not only do you have to prepare to perform your profession competently, but also you have to deal with intimidating interviews, which can be nerve-wracking. But a secret technique can increase your chances of landing your first job within a couple of rounds of interviews by a lot.

I’ve helped several developers that came from a career switch and needed help overcoming some of the most complicated challenges in landing their first job. One of them was that they said that “their skills weren’t enough”. I knew for a fact that that wasn’t it, so I told them the secret:

Companies don’t hire junior developers for what they know. They hire them because of what they can learn.

Most of the time, when companies want to save money and improve their team, they hire a junior professional. They hope for them to be someone who can learn a flexible set of skills (instead of specializing in any) to handle them properly. So, if you want to find your job as quickly as possible, you must fulfill that need. To do so, you have to internalize that you’re there to learn and that you have to catch up with the company’s tech and dive deeper into the tools you’re using at work. When you start your first job, you should study more after work hours to achieve this, and that’ll help you learn things that solve real-world problems and make your time at work much more manageable.

Please don’t assume that because you watched a course of someone that might know more than your experienced coworker, you know as much as them. Don’t assume you know more than the other person because that closes you to opportunities to learn from experienced people.

Learning from courses will teach you only some of the things you need to thrive in your job. It will show when you talk with your potential new team that you understand you’re open to learning a lot. Most of the knowledge you’ve acquired from courses will work as a foundation, but the real learning happens on the job. It’s just how it is, and you’ll see it yourself.

Understanding this will help you stand out in job interviews and make you more attractive to potential employers.

When you finally get the job offer and start working, it might take a little while to get started bringing value to the company. You have to get set up with the company tools, learn the new rules, and get familiar with the codebase and the company’s purpose. It’s your time to learn everything you need to understand why your job matters and what’s the most value you can add to the team.

This principle helped me find my first job as a software developer. Because I had learned to code when I was 14 years old, I understood this principle and knew that with my experience, learning something new wouldn’t be a huge challenge. I was confident I could learn whatever was needed to perform my job as expected, and my employer saw that in me. It took me a couple of weeks to get up to speed and deliver new features and bug fixes.

Final thoughts

Apply for all the job applications for junior developers, and it doesn’t matter if your skillset doesn’t match the requirements to the dot.

You will succeed in your interviews and first job if you keep learning. What matters the most is that you start living off your new profession and learn all you need to reach the next level.