Hi Devon!
Rob, who met you a few weeks ago, recommended me to your course and everything I read thus far has been spot on. Thank you!
Right now I’m actively applying in the Silicon Valley area to find my first role as a web developer. This is day 73 of sending out applications and I quickly realized what an uphill battle this journey is.
Some background, I graduated from UCR with a business marketing degree, worked as a manager at Enterprise Rent-A-Car for two years when I decided it was time to leave this 💩 job and fulfill my longtime dream of becoming a web developer who will hopefully one day build sites of his own that will generate their own income.
I graduated from the Actualize coding bootcamp almost a year ago at this point, and spent the following months continuing to learn technologies such as React and fine tune my skills and understanding of JS, CSS, and HTML.
I feel that I have a strong resume having two projects live on Heroku, apprenticeship experience, working with an open source project / team in San Jose, etc. But I have gotten literally 0 responses from my applications sent via job boards like Indeed and LinkedIn. Sure I get recruiters messaging me through LinkedIn, but the majority of them end up being spam and I have no strong leads towards an actual job as of this moment.
I just started attending Meetups semi regularly to improve my network and put myself more out there, but at the same time I was incredibly interested in putting myself on the freelance market to continue building my skills and earn some cash as I continue my job search.
What I could really use your help with is advice on how to make my resume more effective, the best way to break into and succeed in the freelance market (if you believe it is a good idea for me of course), and how to better fine tune my plan to finally land my first junior role☺.
Best!
Roadmap:
- Refine resume and send to people where possible. Will probably piss some people off, but it’s probably worth it to break through the noise.
- Get out to more meetups, both technical and business-related. BNI, Chamber. Find the ones you like and be consistent. Tell people what you do. Share examples that are relevant to them. Share results. You’re building reputation, relationships, and trust.
- Look for opportunities where your skills overlap with a problem.