I Got A Job! - Thank You Makers!

The Final Stretch

So it has been a while since my last blog post, and a lot has happened since then.

I'm pleased to say that I have gotten a job at Mettrr! I found out at the beginning of March, and as of right now I've had my first week there, which has been fantastic.

At Makers we use Slack and when someone gets a job they gong the gong and it gets announced in the channel.

I had been job hunting for 4 months since finishing the course and it has been a big learning curve in this process. I learned a lot about interviewing, tech tests, and balancing out working on my own self initiated projects. I learned the importance of networking, going to meet ups, but only for things I'm interested in.

The majestic gong that all Makers students aim to hit

I learned so much about myself, and Makers had provided such amazing support, essentially having three coaches (careers coach, wellbeing coach, and coding coach) helping me during and after the course had finished!

Coachee Becomes The Coach

My previous post may have been rather confusing, as its aimed directly to Makers Students. This was because after I had gotten my job, I had decided to spend my free week before starting to give back to Makers in anyway I could.

My amazing careers coach let me give some one on one time to the current January 2018 cohort. This was a good way to gain some experience in coaching, and also give some advice that I thought would be useful to them.

One of the challenges of doing the one to ones is to figure out what you want to talk about, and find your 'style'. I had a one to one with a previous Maker before, and he was super confident and amazing technically.

Coaching Style?

In Makers students that excel are more likely to give back resources to the job hunters in the form on blogs, one to one's or interesting talks. I've felt that there is a lower representation of the 'struggler' which I feel like that I am. I suspect that most Makers that struggle and finally land a job end up just feeling so exhausted that they just want to start as soon as possible.

So as that guy, my style is trying to be relatable and empathetic to those students that feel that way about themselves. Most of the time they're in their heads, because when one is judge of themselves its hard to quantify (which is usually inaccurate).

In the end I found my structure was divided into two, helping the students with their concerns and questions, and then giving them a few tips to do that I thought were useful that I had collected from various talks, personal experiences, and articles.

These would consist of looking at their LinkedIns, Github CVs, networking ideas, and talking about their interests and preparing for it. For example, if one was interested in front end work then learning React.js would be super useful. Medical related work most of the time would involve using Python, and from my experience would also be more likely to be located in Cambridge or Oxford since they would work with the Universities.

Even though there was 4 weeks to go, it is a good idea to help them think about these kind of things, and who knows they could land a job before the course finished! In fact I've found out recently that one of the guys that did exactly that, annnnnd I'll take some of the credit :P

Diversity is an Understatement

Whether I mean race, gender, sexuality or background it really is very diverse. The students has come from all types of backgrounds, from already having a long career in an established company, to lawyers, nurses, teachers or to being a fresh graduate from University (just too smart)!

What is the main common factor? They all have that amazing Makers attitude of learning and the community spirit of helping each other out. There's no doubt that they will all get jobs after the course.

After I was given a brief introductions in one of their workshops my schedule was booked up fully almost straight away. Just the fact that I am a Maker that has done the course is enough for these students to give me the chance to help them. Its very humbling.

Thanks Becks for giving me the opportunity, and January 2018 cohort for just being so freaking awesome!

Blue-July 2017 All Have Jobs

A my time with Makers draws to an end, I found out that my friend has just gotten a job. This means that in 5 months our whole cohort of 17 people has all gotten jobs after finishing the course. This is quite amazing considering that the November/December period are the worst hiring times as companies usually like to plan out things in the new year.

When it comes to putting where your money where your mouth is, Makers has done it, and I've seen it first hand! This comes as no surprise as they have spent years bringing up their reputation within the community as the best coding bootcamp in London, if not Europe.

I was told that this time last year, 55 Makers students were looking for a job, and now its 18. So they're constantly evolving and improving. I can already see so many great changes they have done to the course whilst job hunting.

iFixIt

Just to end off with a plug to iFixIt. Its a great place to get parts for your products, and it has amazing documentation with clear instructions on how to replace things by yourself.

This is to fight the way companies make it difficult for you to fix things yourself, and make you buy a new product instead.

I really needed a replacement battery for my Macbook Air, because it was dying when reaching 30%! I got the parts, which included the weird tiny screwdrivers needed, followed the instructions and managed to install it no problem!

Here's an interesting documentary following them during the release of the iPhone X. Have a great week everyone!