Skills, Projects, & Certifications

[00:00:00]
>> Okay, so after we get done with putting our education on, now that's when we start putting our projects that you following along on the resume template. Now, we start putting our achievements, our projects. No, I think there's a languages component as well, right? So here we have this, we have our skills.

[00:00:20]
So this is where keywords play again, right? You have your native programming language and then you have what you're also getting with technical writing, right? This is where you want to put those keywords in if in case you have to be that person to put all the different keywords in.

[00:00:41]
You wanna have different resumes out here in these streets, that's cool. And you have a secondary skill. I always have a secondary skill because I just feel like that really makes you stand out. Secondary skill that isn't as technical but not technical especially as a junior. Cuz you need to learn and writing especially on paper, that makes it easier for you to understand things as well as, is the easiest point of entry for open source sharing, right?

[00:01:16]
Or putting or implementing things open source, joining an open source project and like that. The seniors, they don't wanna document anything, right? So the juniors going in, helping with the documentation, that is low hanging fruit on helping bolster your contributions for open source projects. Which is why I always recommend technical writing, learning about writing blog posts, things like that to junior developers because it's very easy.

[00:01:43]
The higher people get, the less they wanna write even though the more they should be writing, so that is something that you as a junior should definitely be breaking, running into. We also have articles and talks, right? So this is where I put all of my, it's kinda like my awards and achievements area, okay?

[00:02:07]
So I'm talking about, here's my articles, here's my talks, here's everything I've done. All these are made up. I had ChatGPT, I said, give me eight conversations that don't exist, blog posts that don't exist and this is it. I don't even know what Passport.JS is, don't ask me, I wouldn't know.

[00:02:28]
I said we've talked about the education component. You see I have a Software Engineering Bootcamp. I have the bootcamp provider, the city, country, what you complete it, and those are the type of bullets that I have for this. Where I'm saying, where I gained, what I developed, how I collaborate it, what did I explore, what did I participate in, especially if you're in a modern bootcamp.

[00:02:54]
Participating in code reviews is very important, right? They should be having you do that by now. If you're not, and you're looking for that experience, you shouldn't be having people review your code as a part of process and learning how to code. Interviewing your colleagues, your friends, right?

[00:03:10]
That's something that if you're not doing right now, you can add this to your resume and then start doing it immediately and just hey, can you review my code? That's a great way to network, right? Hey, I respect going into somebody that you follow on Twitter. I respect your opinion.

[00:03:29]
I would like it if I could have you review my code. Can I give you access to a PR and have you as an assignee? It's simple, no one says, you respect me? Sure, I'll do this. Let me, I got 10 minutes. It's cool, I'll do this over lunch.

[00:03:47]
It's all right, and then they telling their friends, they're like, yo, this person hit me up on Twitter and asked me to review their code, yo. Cuz I'm big brain, you little brain, it's cool cuz that's what programmers, they talk smack to each other.
>> How about writing skills colon and then list of skills like JavaScript, HTML, CSS, TypeScript, Python, C++ and common node.

[00:04:10]
>> Essentially just a skill, where it lists on here, I've seen it. I'm against it cuz I want the language to flow in resumes, right? I want to write a resume as if I'm speaking to a human. So having human centric language, it matters to me because I know that eventually a human's gonna see this.

[00:04:35]
And I don't want to just have a bunch of, here's the skills I did, but no, I'm proficient in this. I've used this in these type of projects, right? I want to make sure that I am showing the how and the why. And not just, yeah, I'm proficient at HTML, and that's a skill of mine.

[00:04:52]
And I don't even know, I'm not gonna tell you why.
>> So it might help with the ATS and the key word thing but it might be a turn off for a human reader when it gets past that first level?
>> Absolutely, but also the ATS's are trained on LLM 's now, right?

[00:05:07]
So for LLM means Large Language Model, so its looking at it from a human centric level, right? So if you just have the skills out there just spewed out like that, what's gonna happen is, it's also looking for the how and the whys, looking for the structure coming from that, right?

[00:05:26]
So you have to think about that. Well, everybody's adding LLMs to their processes now. You just assume that the thing that you're about to use has ChatGPT, OpenAI competitor baked into it because that's what everybody's doing right now as we speak. Its kinda like the MSBuild is going on right now, by the end of this workshop and by the time this gets on air, half of Edge is gonna be like ChatGPT and Open AI.

[00:05:59]
So it's gonna be, it's a crazy, wild new world out there. So just assume that it's gonna be human centric, large language models baked into these ATS systems. And 10 points for bringing up ATS system on in here. Most of times I bring that up and the people just, the eyes glaze, you just use it, you're like, what, no I don't wanna talk about the hard stuff anymore.

[00:06:26]
Yeah, bro in here, at the very tail of my education. I'm very happy I did this cuz I was literally thinking about certifications. Someone asked me about certifications, this is exactly what I would do with a certification. And these are the types of certifications that I will look for, AWS, Google Cloud Platform, we're talking about cloud computing.

[00:06:54]
This is what I would do. This is how I would do it because that's the only certification that I recommend being put on your resume. Those that are in correlation with direct company toolings, right? So Cloudflare, Google Cloud Platform, AWS, Azure, those, they get my blessing. Some random web development certificate from, I don't know, Udemy or something.

[00:07:21]
Not hating, but don't put it on there. So, yes.
>> I just wanna echo your secondary skill on technical writing and how you put that there. I think that's incredibly important. And if you can learn a concept and then communicate your understanding, even if there's a million blog articles about the same thing.

[00:07:47]
But if you put it up on dev.to or a Hashnode or something like that, I guarantee employers are gonna see that and see that you can actually take a technical concept and understand it and then also communicate it.
>> Yes sir.
>> On LinkedIn if I have certifications from Udemy and stuff like that, should I remove those, are those making me look?

[00:08:08]
>> No, let's see LinkedIn. Here's a secret that I probably, I'm not gonna get fired cuz they don't pay me so but [LAUGH]. So, I have this term I've been using for a few years called LinkedIn engine optimization, right? So I treat LinkedIn like its own search system, right, like I would treat Google, Bing, any of that.

[00:08:39]
Now what I have noticed in my experience with LinkedIn is that when the certifications come from LinkedIn, your rankings on jobs get higher. The opportunities go faster versus the certifications that don't correlate with LinkedIn. I've done this myself cuz I have access to it through as a veteran where I would intentionally go and get certifications from the LinkedIn Learning courses, put them on my LinkedIn just to see the job opportunities raised significantly and jet the opportunities that are being approached to me differently, right?

[00:09:27]
So, certifications on LinkedIn, I'm not gonna say no. I am gonna say, if you are gonna put certifications on LinkedIn, I would recommend you actually use LinkedIn Learning certifications for those, just because it's going to help you rank higher in their system.