Recently graduated from Flatiron School, my job search has began. Its intimidating and stressful. I’ve never been someone who handles rejection or failure well. Honestly the fear of such things has kept me from doing a lot of things in my life.
In the past few weeks I have been bolstering my resume, creating a portfolio website, adding connections and submitting Job applications. The portfolio has been the most fun aspect of the job search because it allows me to continue working on my coding ability.
Working from scratch, I’ve used JavaScript, CSS and HTML to build a decent website to display my other projects.
Ultimately however the most frustrating part of this process is networking and communicating with others in my field to gain insight into the world of Software Engineering. An introvert by nature, I find the task of talking to strangers, both stressful and anxiety inducing. However, I think it absolutely needs to be my primary focus. It is without a doubt my biggest weakness, and it has been for almost my entire life.
All of that aside I’m actually quite happy with how I am progressing through this aspect of the process. I have bolstered my network on linked in to over 70 connections and have reached out to more than 10 different people within the industry for insight on what these kinds of jobs entail.
I look forward to the rest of this process and continuing to improve both my social skills and my networking ability. I can’t wait to finally break out of the pizza industry and into my dream job and the world of Software Engineering.
Ryan's Coding Journey 