Getting first React job without experience - Ask Preethi

Hey, so I'm Priy Caser ready and as I just wrote in my blog post, I'm starting my first year Priy series. And the whole idea is that um I've gotten a lot of emails from programmers who are kind of learning to code and they're trying to break into and and get their first jobs or or really just trying to learn to code and they have a lot of questions or doubts along the way. And and I'd love to kind of take the time out of my uh take some time every week to kind of answer some of these questions that I think are very very uh common questions I get. And I think um I can give you my best advice based on the experience that I've had kind of breaking in and in into the world of being a developer. Right. So this week I got a question from a girl uh and what she's asking was she said, "I'm really keen on getting some ReactJS experience, but anywhere I apply to they seek an experienced React engineer. I have learned React on my own and recruiters don't seem to appreciate it. Further at this stage at big at at the big companies I reached one or two rounds behind the final round and then they say they found a more experienced person for this role. Recently I got a rejection from company X and company Y. They both required 5 to 6 years of industry experience. My application took me to the initial rounds and they seemed interested in gauging my potential only to find that I was not as good as someone they were looking for. Next week I'm going to another full stack role at company C, but it's clearly out of my league. They're seeking at least six years of experience in JavaScript. I'm pursuing it honestly for the interview experience and maybe who knows what if it works out somehow. Um I don't know many people who who can refer me to these jobs either. So how do I get my first React job without experience? I totally empathize with this issue. Um, and I haven't interviewed in probably a little bit over over a year for engineering role, but I was just curious and I kind of read these and I went to look at the descriptions of some of their job postings. And so, for example, there's one on Facebook where they're looking for Instagram software engineer and graphics. I'm scrolling down into the min in the into into the qualification section. And yes, it definitely says, you know, a BS or master's degree in computer science. It says five plus years of professional experience in interactive computer graphics using C or C++ um a bunch of other requirements. So definitely they have the years there listed. Another um role at Facebook is software engineer full stack and if I look at the minimum qualifications it says BS or MS in electrical or computer science. Uh two plus years of relevant work experience. Um, so yeah, again they list uh they want some kind of work experience here too. Uh, another one I went to was Netflix. What's funny about Netflix is they don't really have anything but senior software engineering roles on their website. So the senior software engineering role, partner engineering, it says BS or B in computer science, five plus years of experience in software development. Um, so again another company that shows year of experience. Um, let's see. I also went to LinkedIn. I'm looking at their software engineer performance, mobile or web. Uh, this is probably the most daunting job application I've ever seen. So many requirements makes my head spin. Okay. One plus year of experience in mobile web. One plus year experience in software design development algorithm related solutions. One plus year of experience in programming in object-oriented language. two plus years of experience in mobile, web or browser performance engineering. So yes, again they list years of experience that they're looking for. Um then I decided to go to look at some earlier stage companies. Um one is a firm and their application doesn't have any years of experience listed which is cool and it looks like you know they're kind of looking for passion and drive someone who's fluent in front-end web technologies comfort comfortable finding their way around backend APIs but nowhere does it list years of experience. Interesting. Um, another startup I went to was a company called Data Bricks. I'm looking at their and it looks like they too don't have um a minimum qualifications or anything. It just says someone who can, you know, develop HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, good communication skills, etc. So, interesting. Um it looks like some of the bigger companies listed years of experience while some of um didn't. But I'd have to go search to figure out like what kind of companies list years of experience and what don't. But overall um it's definitely clear that there's a lot of companies that explicitly state the number of years of experience. And honestly, sometimes you're looking at these requirements and you're like, "This makes my head spin, right?" Like, and I totally understand your pain. Some of these applications sometimes can be extremely daunting because they make it look like there's looking for someone who almost has superhuman capabilities. Um, but you've probably been coding for like what, a year, maybe two years, maybe even less. And you really need that first job to just like prove yourself, right? Um, I I can't give everyone like blanket advice, but I'll tell you how I approached it when I was looking for money because something said like x years of experience. Um, it didn't mean that I didn't apply, right? I would typically look at the requirements and and and kind of the what the job application said and get a sense for what they're seeking. I would try to evaluate whether I can honestly fulfill those requirements. For example, in the first Facebook one where they were looking for five plus years of experience in computer graphics. Clearly, I don't have five plus years of experience in computer graphics. I don't even have one year experience in computer graphics. In fact, I don't think I've ever worked on computer graphics. So, I wouldn't apply for that. But the second Facebook role with where it was just software engineer at um just a full stack software engineer. Uh even though it says two plus years of relevant work experience, the rest of the bullets I feel like I can fulfill and even if I don't know everything today, I'm confident I can learn it on the job if I needed to. So, uh that's kind of how I would evaluate whether I may it makes sense for me to apply or not. Um and if I'm confident I can fulfill those roles, then I would apply. And also one thing I've noticed pretty frequently when I was applying was that a lot of the senior a lot of the roles that said like senior they they mostly meant someone who could do the work without needing a lot of help maybe not needing a lot of mentorship. Someone who can like kind of just run with it and stand on their own feet and and be and think through these problems themselves. And if you think you kind of meet that go ahead and apply. Who knows maybe you'll get the get get an interview right. And again it's just important to be reasonable. If they say five plus years of C++ experience, have you never written a line of C++? Then don't apply. There's no need to waste your time and their time with that application. Just be honest with yourself uh when you're applying. And another really great way to get in the door is get referrals. Um I found this to be incredibly helpful. And in fact, there was a lot of times where I would get a referral into a company and even though they didn't have the job listing for me on the on the jobs um page, they would they would still give me a phone screen at least because because you know referrals go a long way. Someone is out there watching for you and saying, "Hey, I know Priy. Um I think she's awesome. I think she's smart. I think she's capable. So, I'm referring you to this company." They're putting their their name um in front of you and and they're willing to do that for you. So, the company kind of takes that as positive reinforcement. They're like, "Okay, so she got a referral, so maybe it's worth kind of bringing her in and seeing what she's got, right?" And another thing that I found really helpful personally was kind of showing them that even though you don't have those years of experience, what have you done outside of work, right? Um, this can be things like, you know, making sure that your GitHub profile looks good. Like, do you have side projects that you're really proud of? maybe make them public so that someone who's a recruiter or a manager can go onto your GitHub profile and see what you've been working on. Um, another great way is contributing to open source. Even if it's just documentation, whatever it is, any kind of small contributions you can make um to open source goes a long way. It shows what you're capable of and shows your involvement in the community and your passion for programming. Um, another really great way that worked for me is I I love writing and I started writing pretty early in my programming career. And I used writing as a way to explain concepts that I was learning. And so that really helped me in my job process for sure. Um, people would kind of run across my blog and see that hey, like even though she doesn't have experience, she she knows what she's talking about, right? And so the idea is that even though you don't have the experience, just show them somehow figure out a way that to show people that you're really capable and you have the potential to meet those requirements. And so you apply and if you get a response, congrats. That's a huge step, right? Um the first thing you typically get at that point is like a phone screen. And from my personal personal experience, I've had a lot of people use this phone screen to kind of ask me to quantify what experience I've had in the past. And I'd be honest, I'd talk about my side projects um in depth. Um again, you know, like you don't if you don't have experience, don't talk about what you don't have. Talk about what you have. Um because because then you can kind of really um show them that even though you don't have that work experience, you've done a lot of programming on your own, right? And again, things like side project, open source projects, blog post, these goes a long way to to fill in the gaps for the experience that that you don't have. And once you get past that phone screen, at this point, the ball is really in your court. Um, throw away any doubts that you had along the whole application process about your abilities to perform when you apply. Just throw it all out because you're really in the driver's seat at this point. Um, the company when if they've given you their first interview, they've indicated that they think you have potential to fulfill the role. Look, they get hundreds, maybe thousands of applications and they chose you and they're saying, "Okay, this person, I think he or she has potential and now it's really up to you to prove that you you do have potential and that you're capable of fulfilling the role." And I often found that the best way to to to kind of prepare for this was, you know, reaching out to the recruiter and asking her like him or her like really bugging them about the role like what is the tech stack? What's your role going to be like? What are you going expect what are you going to be expected to do and build? What's the culture like? What are the key skills they're going to be testing and looking for? Um, uh, what's the interview style like? Is it like a whiteboarding interview? Is it like a practical take-home interview? Is it a mix of both? Like, don't ever be surprised about the interview. Uh, really anything that that the recruiter is willing to share with you. And just like use all that information to prepare as much as possible. And um I can go I probably can go talk about um the preparation process in another video, but the the main point I want to get across is like even though the application might have said x years of experience, you if you've gotten the interview then then the ball is 100% in your court and you really have to use this opportunity to show them everything you've got because they've kind of put their tr they they they by giving you an interview they're like okay I I I think she has potential or he has potential. Um, and now it's your job to kind of prove that to them. And honestly, just be honest with what you can do and what you can't do. And if you don't know something, the best you can do is tell them that you don't know it. But show tell them that you have or show them somehow that you have potential and that you're excited to learn, that you're capable of learning, that even though um you don't know this, that you'll you'll you'll sit there and you'll you'll figure it out. Because honestly, no programmer knows everything, right? like everything. Every programmer is learning almost every single day, learning something new. And and they're really looking not looking for someone who knows everything under the sun, but they're looking for someone who knows a good amount, but you know, if they're thrown something or thrown across a problem or faced with some kind of debugging issue, they they can figure it out. They can learn. They can they can grow. Um that's kind of the people that's kind of the people that um a lot of these managers are looking for to hire. And even if you don't get the job because you know you don't meet some you you don't have the experience or because some other senior engineer got the job over you really don't waste this opportunity. Use it as an opportunity to get candid feedback. Ask the company hey like I know that you know you hired someone else because they had more experience but where could I have improved? Where do where was I missing experience? Was it in my should I learn more about databases? Was it my um computer architecture questions? Was it more my algorithms and data structures? Like where where was I lacking the experience and what can I do better next time? Because you never want to make the same mistake again, right? And you always want to focus on improving some of the weaknesses that you have. Um don't focus on what you already know really, really well for the interview. Just focus on for the next interview making sure that you improve on what they told you you could have improved on. And honestly, if you got an interview for a job that said five plus years of experience and you have no experience, that's pretty awesome. Let's admit it. You were basically competing against senior engineers and experienced engineers. So, use it as an opportunity to grow and learn and and really just experience the process of interviewing for for some more advanced roles. And kind of to conclude, um I totally get that getting your first gig is almost the most hardest one and most frustrating one. Um I went through this process myself and I was honestly pretty shocked by by how difficult the process is and I I totally get it and in fact my little sister is going through that process right now. Um and it's been taking her a few months. Uh what I often found is everyone kind of wants you to come back next year when you have a little bit more experience and you're like sitting there going well like where the hell am I supposed to get experience from if you can't give me the chance to get get this experience? And I trust me like I know that feeling. But just for your first job particularly, keep persisting, keep applying, keep looking, let people know around you that you're looking for a job. Um and just use every interview as a learning opportunity. Sometimes the whole process takes weeks, sometimes it takes months, sometimes it might even take a year. But once you land that first gig, um it's you you you're kind of the next one gets way way easier. So work really hard for your first one and in no time you'll have your first job. All right, I'm