Three quick tips for getting a job as a developer
Tags: beginners, career, codenewbie, motivation
Published: 2019-09-25 13:15:51

---
title: Three quick tips for getting a job as a developer
published: true
description: It's hard to get that first job as a developer, even if it's not your first job, there's a lot of competition out there! Here are a few quick suggestions to put you to the top of the donut pile! 🍩
tags: #beginners, #career, #codenewbie, #motivation
cover_image: https://images.pexels.com/photos/1407346/pexels-photo-1407346.jpeg?auto=compress&cs=tinysrgb&dpr=2&h=750&w=1260
canonical_url: https://joshuagraham.info/articles/three-quick-tips-for-getting-developer-job/
---

Why three quick tips? Why not?! There are a lot of different tips and suggestions for getting a job as a developer, but these are three particularly great ways to stand out.

Why donuts? Because I like donuts. That's why! 🍩

## 1. Use everything you have to stand out. 

I spent a lot of years doing the exact opposite. My resume was perfectly designed to be “normal” it had all the right content. It was formatted cleanly and minimally so as not to offend. I followed every rule of professionalism I could find. 

But something magical happened when I decided I just didn’t care. (sorry.. this is as close as we're going to get to a Harry Potter reference this time around...) Someone once told me it’d better to have 90 people hate you and 10 love you than to have 100 simply not notice at all. I think that’s probably a bit extreme, but these days I’m all about showing personality and my unique traits. I’d someone doesn’t like it, maybe I didn’t want to work with them anyway! But, more importantly, it gives me a chance to be noticed!

## 2. Join your local tech Slacks

Get to know local developers and recruiters. Engage with them and let them get to know you! Again, you want to be noticed, don’t hide away and just watch. 

(*This isn’t just restricted to Slack. Local dev communities on Meetup, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc can all be just as good.*)

If they’re running events volunteer to help out, even if it’s just cleanup after. 

If newer developers are asking questions you can answer, answer them! If you’re embarrassed to answer in front of others, answer in private. Word will still get around that you’re helpful. 

Have some opinions. If you don’t have any, spend some time researching a particular area of interest until you know enough to have one. 

Which leads me to our last item....

## 3. Write more!

Writing articles (or making videos or podcasts) have three huge advantages.

In order to write something you need some knowledge. That likely means learning more than you know today. They say the best way to learn is to teach!

This also generates more content to gain more of that all important attention. Post your articles here on dev.to. Post them on LinkedIn. Share them in any of the dev communities you found.

Creating this sort of content also puts back into the community. The community supported you in your journey, by adding some back you’re doing your part to ensure there’s fresh content to support newer people. 


### That's three...

These three alone won't guarantee a job, but they can absolutely put you on the right track. Want some more tips? We talk about these subjects a lot on our podcast [Getting Apps Done](https://gettingappsdone.com/)

Specifically it's worth checking out:

[https://gettingappsdone.com/episodes/resumes-interviews-and-chainsaw-wielding-teenagers/](https://gettingappsdone.com/episodes/resumes-interviews-and-chainsaw-wielding-teenagers/)

[https://gettingappsdone.com/episodes/unicorns-in-business-suits/](https://gettingappsdone.com/episodes/unicorns-in-business-suits/)