Building a Portfolio

[Josh Shroy]

Hello!

My current job work hours (unfortunately not as a developer) keeps me from being able to attend all the meetups, so I am very excited to have found this group! 

My journey with Rails began about 5 months ago and I am ready to build a solid portfolio and resume. This leads me to question...what do recruiters look for when hiring an entry level position? Any recommendations or advice that will help me prepare?

[Rachel Sakry]

I'd say it's important to demonstrate that you have potential --
passion, ability to learn quickly -- and that you bring something to
the table that compensates for your limited development experience,
i.e., transferrable skills from other work you've done.

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[Katherine Wu]

I think if there are particular companies you're interested in working for, projects that are related to their product (like a plugin, or using their API, etc.) might help catch a recruiter's eye. Also project using technologies they mention in their job postings. In general though, as Rachel said, it's helpful to have projects you can talk about building because you were solving some problem you can articulate and/or you wanted to learn something new.

[Rico Jones]

Building a portfolio is good. Not sure what you had in mind for portfolio projects, but I think real apps work the best. Ideally, a portfolio project would:

1. Be deployed to a server so somebody could visit a URL and see your app in action

2. Have source code up on Github

3. Not just be a regurgitation of a tutorial you followed, but be a synthesis of various things you have learned

Aside from demonstrating your ability well, making apps that fit these criteria is also the best way to learn how to be a Rails developer.

Also, perhaps somebody else has a different opinion about this, but I don't think you can count on a recruiter to get you into a position. I think you're gonna have to hustle and make it happen on your own. I think the people who can give you the best advice are hiring managers at companies that hire junior devs. Getting a hiring manager to give you some of their time may not be possible. I think the next best group of people for you to talk to would be working junior devs, since they have recently been where you are now.

A useful approach might be something like this, "Hello, so and so, I am junior Rails developer looking to transition into web development as my career. I was wondering if we could meet for coffee so I could talk to you about how you made this transition. I would work around your schedule, so wherever/whenever is convenient for you. Here is a link to some of my work. etc. etc."

And then treat these coffee meetings as job interviews. Be prepared to make a good impression, because if you seem like somebody worth hiring and the person you're meeting with's company has an open position, guess who can put you in touch with their hiring manager?

Anyway, just some thoughts. You gotta hustle.

-Rico

[Shawna Scott]

Hi Josh!

I officially transitioned to getting paid for code just over a month ago, so have hope, someone will hire you. :)

Portfolio: Having an app you've written or a project you've contributed to is great. (I'm a Calagator contributor, and we're always looking for new people to help us out, so let me know if you're interested in learning more!) Also, volunteering and showing you're connected to the tech community is a huge bonus. Even just volunteering with tech organizations in town in non-technical ways has garnered attention from companies.

In my experience, though, nothing beats connections. Portfolios are great, but as a junior dev, every interview I got was from an introduction to the hiring manager. When I asked my new boss at the job I just landed why he picked me out of all the other juniors, he said, "All the candidates had about the same relative level of skill. But only you had a recommendation from someone I know and trust." Right or wrong, it often comes down to who you know to get hired.

Recruiters: In my experience, recruiters are often not very motivated to work hard for junior devs. It's a lot of work for them to find a position for you, the positions that are open are competitive, and the payout for them is relatively small. It's not a bad idea to sign up with them, have them review your resume and do some mock interviewing with you (if they will), even take job leads if they have them for you. Ultimately, though, I wouldn't rely on leads to come from recruiters.

If you ever want any introductions, I used to help junior devs find jobs in Portland professionally, so I'd be happy to help out however I can.

Good luck!

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