Find YOUR Groove
As a new boot camp grad, one of the hardest things after boot camp is landing that first tech job. I’m currently on that same boat, doubt and imposter syndrome tend to kick in after several rejection letters. You may see people you graduated with find a job in a week maybe a month or even maybe a year. Everyone's journey is different, not every outcome is the same and that is ok.
In my journey, I think I found my GROOVE (Growing Relentlessly Over Obsticals & Victoriously Empowered). I consider a GROOVE to be something that highlights your natural skills, combined with Jordan-like confidence knowing that at your best you shine above the rest. What gave me my GROOVE feeling is volunteering.
I came to this conclusion by watching countless videos on how to land a tech job as a new boot camp grad, along with looking at LinkedIn posts where people explained how they landed their first job. In these posts, people vented about how they’re having a rough time finding a job after countless applications. After taking in all this content I cross-compared to see what are the common hardships, and what everyone is doing. I then noticed no one was really talking about volunteering.
This revelation turned on a huge lightbulb in my mind, it was really my ‘Aha!’ moment. Volunteer work allows you to get the age-old issue of ‘lack of experience’ off your back. It shows companies and recruiters that you are serious about what you’re doing, and you have that golden field experience that they’re looking for. BUT! this doesn’t apply to everybody and I’m not saying that this is the golden ticket to land a job. At the end of the day, you still have to show you can provide value to the company. Adding volunteer work and contributing to a cause or even contributing to something that you’re passionate about still shows that you have experience in a work environment.
How I went about this is, I found companies to volunteer for that shared my passions to make a difference in the world, and uses the stack that I am aiming for in the work field. They also contribute to one of my end goals as a software engineer, which is being able to create a curriculum to teach adults and children how to break into the tech industry and also teach them a code stack.
As I mentioned before this is not something that is made for everybody, people and circumstances differ. This is one of the paths I elected to take for my journey, but this is also something that may help somebody in the same very position mentally. Hopefully, this helps you find your ‘‘Aha!’’ moment. I know volunteering may have a bad ring to it because you’re doing something for free, but it’s better to do something for free now and get paid later.
