the pain of not being able to find a software job...

The jobs in the tech industry are absolutely right now, especially in my network, it's hard for people to get jobs. If you're a new developer straight out of boot camp or you have a computer science degree, the barrier to entry has increased immensely. Getting that job is not as easy as it was a couple years ago. It's a lot harder now. But this reminded me of my own struggles when I was first getting into coding and trying to get my first job. In this video, I'm going to talk about the pains that I went through in my early years and what you can do and control during these times. When I first got into programming, after I first learned how to program after my bootcamp, I was so lost. I was just coding networking events, and it seemed hopeless, honestly, because I was just meeting people, I was new and I didn't really have anything to offer. I was like, bleach. I was going up to them, I was saying, hey, is your company looking for a developer? Can I hopefully send you my resume? Can you look it over? And I would say that over and over and over again to everyone I met. And I'm sure people were just like, who is this guy? I was networking as hard as I could. I was using my social networks. I was using like meetup app and going to all the meetups and just trying to meet as many people as possible. But it was just like blindly shooting out a whole bunch of resumes and I wasn't getting any response except like a couple I would completely fail at. And it wasn't a good feeling, right, Because I was new. I was go, like, do these technical interviews or these coding interviews, coding tests, and I would fail miserably. They would leave me in a room. I would like, look at my, my old code and I would try to be like, okay, a pen child. What is that okay? And I would, like, try to like, sneak at some things, but I guess, like, people do like ChatGPT now, but people can see right through that. And like, I didn't know what I was talking about at the time, but I needed someone to give me a chance. What I did was join. When you go to these social networking events, you see a lot of these, like, entrepreneurs. They're always looking for, like, start a company, but what's their one problem? They don't really have any capital or any money, right? And they're like, hey, join my startup and I will give you some shares of the company. It could be a good thing or a bad thing, but, you know, if you find that person to drive. And you look them up and it's. It seems like a good fit. Maybe it is cool. And that's what happened with me. I remember going to WeWork. I met this guy and he brought pizzas and there was like four people there was there. They're like, hey, this is what like the salary cap is. This is the cap table. Here's what you can all get. And it seemed pretty professional. Even though it seemed just like a bunch of like young professionals just trying to like, start something. It was not easy because it's like, oh, yeah, I want money. We'll give you shares. And then just wait it out and you'll get. You'll get money. And you know what? Like, during those times, it was really hard. And at that time, yes, I wanted money. Yes, even after the coding bootcamp, I wanted to work at that boot camp, but I wasn't offered that position. And it was horrible. I did that free work, you know, the school, sweat equity or whatever. And it was not easy. Like, I remember going to McDonald's, splitting an apple pie between like two or three people, right? And it was just. So I was coming from an okay paying job like English teaching or whatever, and now I was like, not earning any money and I was getting this wonderful, immense experience. But yes, I was earning experience and I was learning how to work with like Google Maps and coordinates and making like polygons and all this kind of stuff and things that I wouldn't have a chance to like, do if I didn't really join this project. That guy, the CEO, if I looked him up on LinkedIn or whatever, he had experience in real estate and he was doing a real estate project and he had like the Rotary Club or whatever. So there was network. We found like an angel investor who basically asked us, and like, I've talked about this in other videos, but he basically asked us, like, how much do you guys need to kind of like live right to survive? And you know, we called that ramen money. You basically can just survive on this money. I couldn't even take my girlfriend out on a date. I couldn't even go get a. I don't know, even like a soda is like a dollar at like McDonald's, right? I couldn't even, like, think about go getting a soda. I would hang out at the WeWork or Startup center where there's free coffee and hack away. And you know, it sounds sad at that time. It's not. It's not a fun life. But at least I was like working towards a goal And I was coding and I was getting all this experience and I was getting paid a little bit of money and it was like, if I can look back to those times, I don't know how people viewed me or whatever, but like, we were just these scrappy dudes that are like trying to get a goal done. And that's like how I think of these startup things, is starting like a band. When I was young, you know, I was like guitarist. So, you know, it's like that garage band or whatever feeling you're. It's like a bunch of programmers just getting together and just kind of hacking away. I did gain a lot of experience and then we ended up actually getting invested and it was, it was amazing. But like, to go back to the point, like, it was very hard for that first opportunity, but that first opportunity turned into two and a half years and I gained a lot of experience and just it takes doing something first to get something later. It's what you have to do. So while the job market is not so great, we're just talking the tech industries, not hottest of places now. I would say there are things you can do. You can like, start a project, study and get better. You can take an entrepreneurial route. You can build your own product. And it's one of the. Coding is one of the best things for an entrepreneur, right? Because there's zero overhead cost. It's just you on your computer programming away and getting that MVP out and getting some traction. Or even if you have some skill and you go knock on like other people's doors, not like your neighbors or anything, but like, you go to like mom and pop shops and you're like, hey, you need a website. Hey, you need a website. What's the worst thing that could happen? They can just say no, but maybe you go to that restaurant and they say, hey, I want a website. I want a landing site. I want to show the menu, I want to show some pictures. Even if they can't give you a lot of money, maybe they'll give you some free food. That'd be awesome. But yeah, the job market sucks right now. I'm not going to lie. People are going outside and hanging out and people are sick of being in front of the computer. To build those websites, you're going to need to use JavaScript. JavaScript is a wonderful language because it runs on browser client and it works on server. You can do many things like, and one of those things is build a website. Or you can build like, maybe I'm a little old, but I Know, sneakers were super popular a couple years ago. There's a release date and you need to make a bot. You can use like Node JS and Puppeteer and make it so that you can like press that button for reservation or buy that thing like at a certain time. I don't know, like there's a bunch of things you can do as an entrepreneur to kind of like people can find you useful because all you're doing is like, hey, I'm a programmer, I can add value somehow. And that's what a business is, you know, trading your skill for some money. And you can think about that as an employee too. Why an employer pays you is they you trade your skill for money and. But it's the same thing with your own business. So you can take that entrepreneurial route. And you know, with my background, I've started a bunch of startups like coding, card game, a reservation software, or the real estate company I was just talking about, which I was a co founder at. Right. You know what the backbone of all that was that I was a programmer, I knew how to code. So I was able to kind of pull myself up and you know, find the people and network and add value to them. And it was a good thing. I'm happy I learned how to code. I'm happy I found how to add value and not just be a value leech. And should you offer to work for free, I'll never offer it because my, my greatest tip, right? It's really easy to get something for free or you know, borrow something for free, but it's really hard to get someone to pay for something. So if someone wants a website or something programming, they want some help on programming, at least get them to pay you a dollar. Just so you, you could say it's paid work. I mean, it doesn't seem like much, but it changes your mindset from thinking, oh, I'm just doing this as a nice guy, but you actually turn into something like, oh yes, I have done paid work before and you're not really lying. And it, I feel like it switches something in your mind. And the greatest businesses are businesses that make money. Doesn't make money or not. Yes, okay, good business. No, Which a shitload of companies don't make money. Right. You'd be surprised. They just, they're just trying to grow and grow and grow and take, take the whole market. Right. But in the end, if you are a single person and you want to make like some money, go around, ask people if they need some development help and trade your Skill for money, that's very business minded thing you can do. So if you're learning how to code right now and you're getting kind of like your motivations getting shot down because people are getting laid off, there's you know, AI chatbots coming out and you feel like your job's gonna get taken like, and you've sent out hundreds and hundred like resumes and you're not getting any call back like, or email back. Just keep going. All it takes is that next guy or girl to say, hey, give a chance to this guy. The next application could be that, that person, right? Even though it's down right now, what does the market do? Usually it goes down and then it goes up. So it's a perfect time to kind of jump on the opportunity to learn a skill that is on its way up. And just because chatbots are around now and you feel like jobs are not going to be there is so not true. More companies are going to need chatbots, more companies are going to need development, Companies are going to want to grow. Growth takes development. So what I have to say about that, so just don't give up, just keep going. And if you don't want to leave it to chance, just start your own startup. You know, people will respect you, you learn a lot if you make your first dollar. It's an addictive thing, it's not a bad thing to do. And then after you get that experience, you can leverage it to get that position you really want, right? And so I just want to say, if I can do it, you can do it too. Coding saves lives.