yourself as one which puts you in a position of competing in a race to the bottom, in a fight against millions of others instead of marketing yourself as a
scarce asset with little to no competition.
ok so I need to vent for a sec
I've been applying for like 6 weeks straight and it's just… nothing. or lowball offers. like embarrassingly low
Welcome to the jungle or welcome to this journey of nightmare experiences. This has nothing to do with your experience if you're a junior, mid or senior. Everybody experiences exactly the same things at potentially different levels.
wait so it's not just me being junior?
because that's what I assumed. like once I have more years on my CV this stops
Well, there are many problems, and most of them are on the other side. Most of them are on the recruiter side, on the automation with AI side, and you can't really control those ones. What you can control is the problem on your side.
ok what's the problem on my side then
because honestly I thought my portfolio was decent. I've got 3 projects, clean code, deployed everything
Well, most people those days are looking for React, Angular, rarely for stealth, solidjs, and other ones. From time to time, you may see View Vue.js. But the point is, most people are looking, most companies, most teams are looking for React. So that means most will learn React. And now you have a competition, let's say, a backlog of React developer capable people that all of them want to get hired. So by marketing yourself as a React developer, you position yourself in a very big sea of other React developers.
oh
so the problem isn't my skills. it's the label
Well, you see it as a problem, I see it as an opportunity.
ok now you sound like a LinkedIn guru 😅
what opportunity, I'm literally getting ghosted
Yes, but not knowing anything will get you even more ghosted. So you need to understand that building a bike has nothing to do with selling a bike. Yes, they might have something in common, the bike itself, but having the capability to be very good at the craft has nothing to do with selling that craft. I'm not sure if you're following me, but do let me know.
no yeah I get the analogy
but like… what am I supposed to call myself then? "not a React developer"?
I would specialize myself in doing something with React. So I would call myself a React developer and I'll do something really, really good in React. Maybe high performance. Maybe a new AI library. Maybe something that I see myself doing it while I'm looking for a job and just do my best to be the best at it. or among the best at it so like specialize in one of the fields that the Deact library and other things open for companies and things products in general web products that's one thing then there is the other one
wait so specialize within React, not escape from it
ok that actually makes sense. like instead of "I do React" it's "I do React for X specific thing"
what's the other one
Well, the other thing, I think I'll create a special dedicated post for it, but it's all about your availability and how you present yourself on the market. You focus so much on applying for jobs, and I kind of potentially do the same thing from time to time instead of doing something else, which is develop a strategy that allows them to come to you. So, the recruiters, the companies that are looking for somebody allow them to come to you. Put yourself in a position where they ask you, Hey, can you do this for me? I think this is one of the things that work kind of everybody will want it, but there is a lot of work, and so everybody stays away from it.
ok but that sounds like "just build an audience" which… easier said than done right
like I'm 1-2 years in, I don't have some big following or reputation yet
Yes, you're right. Guess what? I don't have one either. I used to have on different other businesses that I created in the past, but right now I have zero people knocking on my door. So what does that mean? Should I never start it or should I start it right now?
ok fair point
but like… where do you even start
Well, believe it or not, our current chat is the second piece of content that I'm creating since I started this new venture. It's not new for me, it's just a new iteration of it.
wait this is content?
like I'm in a piece of content right now?
Yes, if this would be a magic show, you're part of the show.
haha ok that's actually kind of wild
so you're doing the thing while explaining the thing
You got it, and now that you've reminded me of that part that you've mentioned earlier, how do you present yourself on the market and how do you position yourself to not just look for a job and hope for the best, but look for a job and in the process of looking position yourself with multiple job offers. That means a minimum of two. It's doable. I've done it. I've got like five, six, seven offers in a month. I've even got like five offers in the same day. Not right now, not this year, but I think it was 2022 or 2021 when I got them. Anyway, the point is it's doable. If you're crazy like me, you can get even to 24 job offers in one year or 12 months in the past 12 months. That was my pick. And that's because I positioned myself so everybody was looking for the things that I was doing. Well, everybody. Enough people, enough companies, enough teams were looking for what I was doing. It's doable. Let's talk about it in a separate chat. What did you get out of this one? Did anything change for you?
honestly yeah
I came in thinking my problem was experience. or maybe my portfolio. or the market being rough
and now I'm sitting here like… I've been fighting a battle on the wrong terms this whole time
I don't know what my "scarce version" looks like yet. but that's the first time I've even thought about it that way
I get it when it comes to career progression and development. Most people bark at the wrong door, and most people meow instead of barking at the door, even if it's the wrong one. So, wrong door, wrong language. Most people just do that and then wonder why there are no outcomes, why their expectations are not met.