Post Graduation Things To Focus On

Welcome to post-grad life! This guide should help serve as a guideline on how to approach the upcoming weeks.

Job search

Of course, your highest priority during this time is the job search.

Job applications

Applying for jobs should be a good chunk of your time. During this, it's good to keep a healthy pace for applying for jobs. We recommend at least five quality job applications per week. A quality application is well-put-together and customized for the company. Check out your career support resources to remember what makes a proper application.

Social media

Social media is a powerful way to connect, meet, and interact with the tech community and also folks who are hiring.

Use LinkedIn to your advantage. Be sure that it's up to date, has good recommendations, and is a polished profile. Once you have connected with folks on LinkedIn, reach out and send a message. There is nothing to lose, and you might gain a contact that could lead to an opportunity.

Slack is also an excellent way to keep active, both on the student slack channel and the community slack channel. Both of these slacks help connect you to other developers.

Interview prep

One of the crucial parts of the job search is the interview. Because the interview is essential, it is vital to be ready and prepped. Each interview is different, and each company does the process their way. Still, there are some strategies to prepare for the journey. Take advantage of the time, momentum, and your peers to prep for this process.

Code katas are a great way to prep for technical interviews and whiteboard problems.

We recommend:

• https://exercism.io/
• https://leetcode.com/
• https://codewars.com
• https://hackerrank.com
• Algo Expert

Also, to help you prepare, you can use this as a guide to what kind of questions you might see.

Continue learning and growing

You have come very far during the cohort, but your learning can't stop with graduation.

Learn a little bit of Computer Science

If you want to learn some of the academic view of the software world, check out the resources at Teach Yourself Computer Science.

This youtube author walks through computer science papers and tries to explain the ideas in an approachable way: Vivek Haldar

Online Resources

• Frontend Masters
• LearnCode.academy - Youtube playlist
• Udemy - Complete JavaScript Course
• Udemy - React 2nd edition
• Academind - Youtube playlist
• Pluralsight
• JavaScript30

Attending meetups

Meetups are a great way to meet new people, learn new ideas and see projects and concepts under development. During the job hunt, we recommend 2-3 a week. When at these meetups, be an active participant, ask questions, talk to other people, and thank the speaker in person afterward. A good goal is to meet three new people at every meetup.

Giving a tech talk

Understandably, this is a giant leap, but it has a considerable ROI. Giving a tech talk is a fantastic experience. It doesn't have to be a huge conference; it can be a crash course on campus or a small meetup. When you give a tech talk, it forces you to learn a topic in-depth enough to talk about it. They say that teaching an idea is the best way to teach yourself, and giving talks is the perfect example.

Not only will your knowledge grow, but a tech talk is an extended commercial for you. It should ensure that you are excited about tech, have a passion for learning new ideas, and communicate what you are thinking.

Continue coding

Coding every day is the best way to keep your skills sharp and to make getting that job a little easier. Keeping your skills sharp is like going to the gym; it's better to be consistent than to go in spurts.

You have a foundation of web programming. To grow those skills, start taking a look at these topics. To learn new topics, always build small sample projects demonstrating the idea and then apply them to a past project.

More technologies

Over the course, you saw a small portion of the tech world. One way to grow your abilities and knowledge is to start to dip your toes into other technologies. The best way to learn new technology is to walk through a tutorial and build a project using the new ideas.

During this time, you might try to learn all the things after graduation, but that might not be the best path to success.

We would recommend only start to learn a new technology if:

• The technology solves a problem you have in a project
• You are going after a job that has that as a "nice to have" or "requirement."
• You need a short break from what you are currently working on.

Give back!

As always, our handbook is open source and is always looking for contributors. Contributing to the handbook is a great way to help reinforce areas you'd like to practice.

Final words of wisdom

Stay active

Stay active and be proactive during the job search. Staying active will help speed up the process and keep you occupied during your search.

Have patience

This process takes time. That is an unfortunate reality of the hunt. During the job hunt, patience is your best friend. Realize this is a process, and companies are on a different timetable than you. You want a job today; they need to fill the position in the next four weeks. Be patient, and persistent and good things will happen.

Daily cadence

Set up a schedule for yourself. Dedicate time to applying, coding, and meetups. Schedules and planning help you only if you keep at it.

Again, congratulations for getting this far, be confident in what you know and what you can do.