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Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

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Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#11

Post by llmblockchain »

First and foremost, fuck Github. It doesn't define who you are and what you are capable of. Don't buy into it.

For reference, my Github is set to private and has a single repository pointing people to my personal site. My personal site has 8 sentences on it. It says who I am and what I've built (software products). I don't blog. I don't share code.

What you need is to be able to demonstrate what you are capable of. If you have it in you, it's even better to demonstrate you are not another code monkey that is more interested in 1s and 0s than humans.

My suggestion (biased, from what I've done) is to build one or more products (ex: a SaaS product, etc).

In the best case your product brings in enough money you never need to work for someone else. In the worst case you demonstrate the ability to build a product geared towards regular human beings.

Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#12

Post by llmblockchain »

maury91 wrote: post #10
PaulHoule wrote: post #6

Speaking as someone who learned to edit video on tape: I disagree with the people who think you are overthinking it. If you are planning to do something this big you’d better have a plan. How many hours on camera is this going to take? How much off-camera think time do you expect this to take? I’d imagine if I was coding something this big I’d make at least one major wrong turn that I’d want to if not have to redo. I…

I understand your point of view about polishing, and from the other comments too it is a common theme. I believe polishing will be needed, but that doesn't exclude the creation of also unpolished worked. From all the feedback gathered I will: 1. Live stream the unpolished work, this will help creating a sense of community and people would be able to be part of the short feedback loop 2. Collect the most interesting p…

The audience for such content is incredibly tiny, and those that watch it are not hiring people.

People have incredibly short attention spans these days. If your video isn't 20 second shorts with large text and jump cuts you will lose the viewer.

Video is a terrible medium in general.

You're not Tsoding/T3/Primeagen and you're better off spending your time elsewhere. Note-- their audiences are primarily young junior developers or developers to be.

Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#13

Post by codingdave »

It may be worth asking yourself if your career goal is to be "The React Guy". If that is your desire, you are on-track. But I've found that most people I know who hit an absolute wall in their career are folks who tie their career identity to a specific technology. Because over the course of multiple decades, odds are your chosen tech will fade.

If I were you, I'd put this energy into learning something new, and your video content can show your progress and show off your ability to pick up new skills.

Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#15

Post by maury91 »

ipaddr wrote: post #14

Use your extra time to apply to more places the roi is higher. Get feedback from interviews than focus on those areas. What you think you need might be different than what the market thinks

Unfortunately I already applied to literally all of them

Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#16

Post by SkyPuncher »

What’s your goal for showcasing your skills? Is it just to do something fun? Or, is it to get hired?

If it’s the prior, this is a fun project.

If it’s the latter, this is going to be a low effort activity. Employers aren’t going to watch it during your application. Further, Your target audience (people learning react) isn’t going to have much overlap with hiring managers.

Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#17

Post by maury91 »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #16

What’s your goal for showcasing your skills? Is it just to do something fun? Or, is it to get hired? If it’s the prior, this is a fun project. If it’s the latter, this is going to be a low effort activity. Employers aren’t going to watch it during your application. Further, Your target audience (people learning react) isn’t going to have much overlap with hiring managers.

It is to showcase, I see it as a long-term project, I don't expect I make a video today and get hired tomorrow, my expectations are lower, more "I make a video a week, in a year I have enough to showcase ( and maybe a following )"

Yes I do agree that managers and target audience don't overlap, but also I don't think it's people learning React, but more people curious about inner workings of React

Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#18

Post by maury91 »

codingdave wrote: post #13

It may be worth asking yourself if your career goal is to be "The React Guy". If that is your desire, you are on-track. But I've found that most people I know who hit an absolute wall in their career are folks who tie their career identity to a specific technology. Because over the course of multiple decades, odds are your chosen tech will fade. If I were you, I'd put this energy into learning something new, and your…

I must disagree with your comment, I don't think re-creating React ( without looking at the source code ) makes you the React guy, the skills to be a good React developer, and the skills to be a developer that can create a framework like React I believe are not the same.

I think by creating a React-like framework what I will showcase is a deep understanding of the inner workings of the browser ( for optimization), the inner workings of React, and a good knowledge of languages and tools used to create this framework.

Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#19

Post by maury91 »

llmblockchain wrote: post #11

First and foremost, fuck Github. It doesn't define who you are and what you are capable of. Don't buy into it. For reference, my Github is set to private and has a single repository pointing people to my personal site. My personal site has 8 sentences on it. It says who I am and what I've built (software products). I don't blog. I don't share code. What you need is to be able to demonstrate what you are capable of. I…

I do agree that job postings asking for personal projects are a little bit over the top.

The main problem with building products is the idea, the spark, honestly I can't see at the moment a product that people need, or even less, a product that I would need

Re: Ask HN: I got laid off and I want to showcase my skills, any suggestion?

#20

Post by skydhash »

llmblockchain wrote: post #11

First and foremost, fuck Github. It doesn't define who you are and what you are capable of. Don't buy into it. For reference, my Github is set to private and has a single repository pointing people to my personal site. My personal site has 8 sentences on it. It says who I am and what I've built (software products). I don't blog. I don't share code. What you need is to be able to demonstrate what you are capable of. I…

This! While I do have a blog, it just to share my thoughts and learnings. I kept my Github repo open, but I've moved my work to my own instance of forgejo.

Code is just your understanding of the problem and its solution. What I found count more is the ability to express it in a more natural language. Talking to your teammate, talking to your manager/client and getting that understanding across. And that means being aware of more than the technical space.

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