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title: 'Codebar talk: Landing Your First Dev Job'

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### 9th March 2020
# Codebar talk: Landing Your First Dev Job

## Choosing the company
- Look at companies that host Codebar each week because they are normally looking for junior developers.
- Don’t let competition within the cohort rush you into applying for things you know isn’t the right fit for you.

## It’s not all about the code
- Skills like communication and enthusiasm are just as important as coding knowledge. You won’t be coding 24/7 in your job so it’s important to showcase you have these skills too.

## Be confident in yourself
- If you feel like you can do the job with some training then apply for it!

## Utilise the tech community
- Meet-ups are good for networking, finding what technologies people are looking for, and general inspiration and motivation.
- Join groups, use Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. 
- It’s not just you looking for jobs, if you’re still looking for a while then other people at meet-ups will be in the same boat. Volunteering and helping at tech events can keep the motivation, and you’ll be supporting people that could return the favour eventually.

## Porfolio tips
- Make sure you have projects that reflect well the technologies that you know, these are things you can discuss into your interviews. 
- Showcase knowledge of accessibility because a lot of companies are behind in this field and are looking for people who can bring this knowledge to them.

## Interview tips
- Practice coding interview tech test questions in pairs.
- During the test you can ask the developers questions, you can even ask to Google syntax - you’ll be doing it all the time in your actual job!

## Negotiation
- You don’t have to answer questions about your current salary.
- Give a range when you’re asking for a salary, it’s unlikely they will take away an offer because you asked for more money.
- There are other perks you can negotiate other than salary e.g. flexible hours, time to learn, a personal mentor assigned to you, budget for conferences, etc.
