Transcript from the "Showing Experience" Lesson
[00:00:00]
>> So now, we're talking about experience, right? So that's the most important part as a front end and as a programmer. That's what trumps whatever college you went to, whether you're self taught or not, or whether you went to a boot camp or anything like that. So the boot camper problem is you're gonna talk about the product.
[00:00:28] We tend to talk about the projects, but you don't really talk about what you learned or what was the impact. So we're gonna go through an exercise right now, in which after I go through this, I'll give you guys some time to do it. I'm gonna show you guys how to write for experience.
[00:00:47] So let's say it was a boot camper. Let's say I would write here, I will put, so this is what I was immersed in, right? So I'm gonna put General Assembly. I spelled that wrong, make sure, Assembly just spell, now assembly, colon, Web developer, Try and hit preset, And let's see, So we will focus on our problem solving and working alone on parts of it, right?
[00:01:46] So how to find the solution of the problem, right? So focus on building projects. Let's see, I'll use get, Various workflows and how to quickly pick up technologies and adapt them to our goals, right? Cuz that's what they really wanna know, right? Cuz all the boot camps pretty much now teach the same thing, unless they're a city style boot camp, right?
[00:02:34] If you're in a region that's heavy in .NET, they'll teach .NET for the boot camp, right? But for the most part, they all teach either full stack MERN, full stack MEAN or JavaScript and Python, right? So that's what it is, they wanna know is the things we learned, the heart, what you learned that people don't talk about, right?
[00:02:58] They can look at that and see, right? So I'm talking about how I learned how to use Git, how to use workflows, how to quickly pick up on various technologies, multiple technologies, Building multiple projects and learning how to work as a unit on tight deadlines without constant guidance from instructors.
[00:03:29] So what I'm saying is, I focus on building multiple things and learning how to work as a unit on a tech team, right? Or yeah, let's use unit, cuz I'm military, I use unit, but tech team. There you go, as a tech team with tight deadlines without constant guidance from instructors.
[00:03:51] So it's kind of this idea like the instructor is a manager and your tech team is working without bothering them. They're meeting the metrics of the manager without bothering them too much, right? We'll understand how to use get various workflows and how to quickly pick up multiple technologies and adapt them to our goals, right?
[00:04:09] So to showcase that I was in a constant learning phase and always building stuff, right? So let's talk about job experience that has absolutely nothing to do with my web developer stuff, right? So I'm gonna put US, Air Force, because that was my first job, right? And I will put, it was 2004 to 2010, so US Air Force, 2004 to 2010.
[00:04:45] I was security forces, so what does that have to do with tech? So this is what I do when I follow this protocol, I extrapolate or extract the soft skills that I got from the military right here, right? So I'm talking about how I was, Worked in a fast paced environment which is true because doing gangster stuff with the government is, well, it's fast.
[00:05:29] [LAUGH] We're in a fast paced environment where I had to rapidly learn and pick up new skills by immersing myself into cultures and other teams, Took a disciplined approach to learn multiple languages. That benefit me, My performance of my duties, all right? Because I was deployed multiple times.
[00:06:43] So this is basically me saying, hey, I'm accustomed to work in a fast paced, ever evolving environment, because that's what technology is, right? I know that tech moves fast, military moves fast. Let me show them I'm already accustomed to moving fast, right? Where I had to rapidly learn and pick up new skills by immersing myself in a culture change.
[00:07:02] Like so he's already accustomed to jumping in, becoming a part of the team and devouring everything, all of our practices and things. Cuz he had to do that already, right? Took a disciplined approach, I make sure I put that in there, disciplined approach in learning multiple languages to benefit my performance of my duties.
[00:07:20] What was the motivation behind that? To benefit performance of my duties, you learn multiple languages, can you explain to this disciplined approach? Yeah, well learn about about how the Lord's Prayer had all the words in it that most language is used. And I would focus on that to learn language, things like that, being able to have that stuff and converse to actually be able to share that when I'm in an interview, right?
[00:07:45] So that's what I mean by extrapolating or extracting the soft skills that you're gonna have from something out of a job that might not have the soft skills that you need or the hard skills that you need, right? Cuz I didn't touch a computer at all in the Air Force.
[00:08:00] I'm not one of those people that are behind a desk and pushing numbers, tapping on my fingers on computers and keys and stuff. No, I was outside in the desert, it was hot, not fun. It was like Texas times five in the summer, so it was a big, big nope.
[00:08:18] So that's what I had to do when I left the military, was I had to showcase the soft skills that I picked up while in the military to the employer. So thinking like, okay, this matches what we need here, right? So mine is collaborative, someone is accustomed to being fast paced, uncharted waters regularly.
[00:08:40] Someone who's accustomed in immersing themselves in new things. These are the things that we need here now, so at least, we know he has that.