I am suitable for the job but unsure why I can't get it! 😕

#webdev #beginners #programming #tutorial

In 2020, I had just closed my previous startup and got tired of my part-time job at a project company. I was (and still am) a digital nomad and looked for remote jobs.

It was pre-COVID, and remote work was not as vital as today. Too many developers (primarily freelancers) looked for jobs and a few positions.

I couldn't find a job back there, and I couldn't even get an interview. With my skill set, I knew I would fit anywhere (I already had more than 7 years as a developer.)

Doing my own stuff

I started another startup called Linvo, and it went pretty well. I got customers and made money - but it didn't work in the end.

Back then, I was working in a co-working every day (9 am to 12 am) and signed unemployment to get money from the government 🙈

I was in the open space of the coworking space, so I had the option to personally connect with different founders—not to get a job but to talk about literally everything.

But as the conversation continued, people learned about my skills.

Hanging out in coworking spaces

I want to be humbled, but I was offered to work at almost any startup that worked in the open space, fully remote, in almost any term I wanted. So, I started to work at Novu for precisely 2 years.

Now, it's evident that it is easier to get a job when you connect with people personally (this is why startups go to events to sell their products). But I wanted to dig deeper into how I went from 0 to 100.

I made a previous article about contributing to open-source will 10x your chances of landing a new job

I stand by it. But there is more.

Everything is about risk in life - the more trust you have, the higher the chances somebody will hire you / use your services / buy software from you.

But trust is hard.

How can you get trust when you - write code?

What I say vs. What I am

Whenever I looked for a freelancer (for example, a frontend developer), I couldn't determine whether:

They have an excellent personal fit
They can actually write a good code
They can think out of the box.

Because all I could extract from them was a few words talking about themselves.

As an entrepreneur, I have shifted my job from a developer to developer growth (growth hacking) as I figured this is essential for a business to grow.

In my second year in Novu, I decided that I needed to build my portfolio of knowledge so people could learn anything possible about me - to gain their trust and show them my personality.

So, I created my Gitroom newsletter and YouTube channel so people can see my marketing skills, but also my Gitroom open-source so they can see my development skills.

And I was very consistent (showed up every day)—currently, the newsletter is on a 46-week streak (almost 1 year).

And share valuable information - this is where it's essential:

I don't teach simple code stuff like algorithms
I don't teach CSS and HTML

I focus on mainly seniority-based to get their trust.
Today, I have too many customers - I turned down a lot of jobs until I learned how to scale or get some missing skills.

Do this

Since most people reading the article are purely developers (not marketers/growth hackers), I would suggest a few things.

Contribute to open source — the best way to show off your skills. Nothing compares to an open-source contribution to a large codebase, which is most of the proof people need.
Amplify your contribution - Not everybody knows about your contribution; talk about it on every possible social media (X, Linkedin, Youtube, Daily.dev) to make people aware of what you have done.
PRO TIP: Tag the company to which you have contributed your code; they might re-post you.
Think about your audience - I see far too many "influencers" that focus on junior developers with things like (10 CSS tricks and 10 HTML tags you must know) and while this will tremendously grow your audience size because there are a lot more junior developers in the world than seniors. You will build the wrong audience. You will mark yourself with many open-source founders as a junior. It might be wrong even for a dev-rel position, as you create an audience that will never pay money.

Gitroom

I am going to inject some self-promotion that can help you :)

Gitroom is an open-source tool for social media scheduling.
Contributing to Gitroom can achieve the two points I discussed.

Contribute to a large code-base
Amplify your contribution by scheduling social media posts.

But there is also number three, that I think you will like.
Gitroom is the biggest community for open-source founders; you will literally hang out with them, and they are constantly looking for remote employees worldwide.

That's a great way to achieve some internal trust.

After you have contributed, join our Discord channel.
All the open-source founders are there.

Please Star Gitroom if you can