Tech Job Readiness Roadmap

Deliverable: Set up the first meeting with your assigned career navigator.

Each tech certificate can lead to careers in different types of roles. Take some time to research these various opportunities and take a look at a few sample job descriptions that detail the required skills in each position.

Recorded Tech Panel Events

• Landing Your First Job in Tech Panel
• Digital Marketing Careers Panel
• Programmer/Developer Careers Panel 
• Business Intelligence Analysis Careers Panel
• UX Design Careers Panel
• CyberHire Program Careers Panel

Employer Events

• Accenture Employer Info Session
• Amazon Web Services Info Session
• iMatrix Employer Spotlight
• Vista Outdoor Employer Spotlight

Deliverable: Share three tech job descriptions you are interested in with your career navigator.  

The second step of moving towards job readiness is learning how to research the local labor market. Do you ever wonder how to identify key skills, technologies and industries that employ your desired occupation? These resources will help answer those questions and more.

Instructions: Watch the Labor Market Information Workshop recording and click here to read the step-by-step guide and get started on learning the industry.

Deliverable: Identify three hard skills and three soft skills that will assist you with your career transition and share these with your career navigator to develop a plan to build your skillset.  

The San Diego Workforce Partnership learning team hosts a six-course Career Growth Series to provide job seekers with a foundation for successful career navigation by building self-awareness, exploring tools and learning strategies to help them on their career journey.

The fifth course in the Career Growth Series from the Workforce Partnership is called Job Quality. This course will explore questions like: What does it mean to have a quality job? How does that differ for each person and how can it change over the course of your life? What can you look for/ask for from a company. 

Deliverable: Register for an upcoming session of Job Quality by visiting our event calendar. After completing the session, you will receive a virtual certificate of completion to share with your career navigator. A copy of the worksheet used in this session can be found here. 

The San Diego Workforce Partnership learning team hosts a six-course Career Growth Series to provide job seekers with a foundation for successful career navigation by building self-awareness, exploring tools and learning strategies to help them on their career journey.

While technical skills describe what you do at work, essential skills describe how you do it. Employers tell us time and again how important these skills are for career success, and how much they make job candidates stand out. Learn what they are, practice them and get introduced to a tool to keep them front of mind.

The fourth course in the Career Growth Series is called Essential Skills for Workplace Success. You can register for an upcoming session of Essential Skills for Workplace Success by visiting our event calendar. After completing the session, you will receive a virtual certificate of completion. Upload that certificate for this assignment. A copy of the worksheet used in this session can be found here. 

Deliverable: Register and attend the Essential Skills for Workplace workshop and share your certificate of completion with your career navigator.

Once you have an updated general resume with all major achievements, you will need to tailor it toward the direction of your new or improved career path(s) and specific positions you apply for. Continue to add skills and projects as you develop them in class. Follow the Tailored Resume Checklist to start developing a certificate-specific resume that you can apply to jobs with. 

Deliverable: Identify a job that you are interested in applying to and create a tailored resume for this role using our Tailored Resume Checklist. Send this information to your career navigator for review. 

Now that you have a resume that you can apply to jobs with, you’ll need to supplement it with a LinkedIn account. 90% of recruiters in San Diego used LinkedIn to find candidates for roles, and some won’t consider an application unless a resume has a LinkedIn.  

Watch our Building Your LinkedIn Profile and Putting Your Profile into Action workshops to guide your profile revision, including how to highlight your new tech skills. If you are looking to optimize your profile and get noticed by recruiters, check out this video from Candor!

Deliverable: Schedule a LinkedIn review with your career navigator and set job alerts related to tech roles you are interested in applying for.

Deliverable: Craft a professional summary using the Professional Summary checklist and share with your program specialist to review. 

Deliverable: Identify a job that you are interested in applying to and create a cover letter for this role using our Write a Cover Letter guide. Send this information to your career navigator for review.

Watch the below video for tips and tricks to take a professional headshot.

Deliverable: Add your new headshot to your LinkedIn and Slack profiles.

General Interview Preparation

Use these Interview Guide and Practice General Interview Questions to prepare for your upcoming interview. Some other helpful resources are listed below:

• How to Prepare for a Video Interview – Indeed
• Ace Your Virtual Interview Check List – Proven Recruiting

Feeling nervous? Here are 3 mindset tricks to help calm interview anxiety. Don’t forget to follow these Interview Follow Up Best Practices to ensure that you send a thank you within 24 hours of interviewing to increase your chances of success!

Technical Interview Preparation

In addition to the first general screening interview, there is typically also a technical interview and, in some cases, a longer technical exercise. To prepare for the technical interview, review these Practice Technical Interview Questions.

Deliverable: Schedule a mock interview with your career navigator before your next interview.  

Expanding your professional network and connecting with tech professionals is an integral step in your job search. In a climate where there’s a less than 1% success rate for applicants who apply through job websites, you NEED to network in order to land your next opportunity.

Requesting informational interviews is a great way to begin building your professional network. After you’ve reviewed the LinkedIn Resources in stage 3 to build a strong profile, watch this Networking for Your First Job workshop on how to request an informational interview and use our Informational Interviewing Guide to see templates and best practices.

Attending networking events is another great way to expand your community. Look for free webinars, conferences, or meetups on LinkedIn, Slack, or anywhere people connect. We encourage you to attend our program events as well to expand your network with fellow classmates and employers. Watch our recent Employer Spotlight with iMatrix to see how these events can help build your network. 

Also consider joining these online communities to connect with professionals and access mentorship, guidance, and job or volunteer opportunities: 

• Mentor Mesh Online Tech Community
• San Diego Tech Hub Community and Slack Channel 
• Start Up San Diego Community and Slack Channel
• San Diego JavaScript Community 
• San Diego Data Visualization Group
• San Diego Tableau Group
• San Diego Java User’s Group
• Amazing Design People List – free design mentors
• One Club for Creativity San Diego
• San Diego Digital Designers
• San Diego Tech Scene

Deliverable: Join three online tech communities and/or attend two networking events in person. Identify three people from these groups to invite for an informational interview.  

Deliverable: Watch the above resource video, Working with Imposter Syndrome, and reach out to your career navigator for support.  

Watch the video below on why mentorship is crucial for successful careers.

Deliverable: Ask your program specialist about mentorship opportunities.

If you are concerned about not having enough professional experience or projects in your portfolio, we highly recommend joining an online community (see the Build Your Professional Network section in the roadmap), searching for volunteer projects, or even contributing to an open source project. People in online meetup groups are typically looking to connect with other tech professionals on projects. 

Volunteer Projects

• Open San Diego
• Taproot Foundation
• Volunteer Match
• Catchafire – Skills-Based Volunteer Matching

Deliverable: Refer to the above list of opportunities under “Volunteer Projects” to gain more work-based experience.

Portfolios are crucial in the application processes of many career paths. Here are some resources to help you get started on building your portfolio. Check out our “Volunteer” section and join online communities to add projects to your portfolio!

Front End Development

• Frontend Mentor Challenges
• 5 Coding Projects to Include in your Portfolio
• The Portfolio Projects that Landed me My First Front End Job

UX Design 

• UX Case Study Factory
• How to give a great product design portfolio presentation

Digital Marketing

Forthcoming

Business Intelligence

Forthcoming

Deliverable: Share your portfolio with your career navigator and other colleagues to gain feedback.  

In this stage, you should be finalizing job materials, practicing interviewing, adding and refining projects to your portfolio and, if applicable, taking on volunteer, internship or consulting opportunities to make yourself more competitive. Review previous Stages in this roadmap for resources for each.

Deliverable: Continue to tailor every resume and cover letter to each job that you apply to. Update materials with newly acquired skills and projects. Review previous stages in the roadmap for resources.

Not all job search strategies are created equal! It might be far more useful to land an interview by developing 3 new LinkedIn connections than it is applying to 30 jobs on websites. Some job seekers should focus on building portfolio pieces while others should practice technical interviews.

When you are ready to launch your job search, let your career navigator know. You can work with them to develop a job search plan with SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely) goals that make sense for you.

1. Watch our job search support workshop on Organizing Your Job Search to get started.  
2. Setup automated job alerts on Indeed, Zip Recruiter, LinkedIn and any other relevant job site to have jobs sent to your inbox. In addition to searching for role titles (“web developer”) you can also search for skills (“javascript”), which might get you more relevant results.
3. Use this Excel job search template or Trello template to track all your applications and progress. Unless you document which jobs you apply to and have success with, it will not be possible to know what you’re doing right or wrong in your search. Send the template to your program specialist every couple of weeks for feedback on the positions you are applying to.
4. Revisit the “Build Your Professional Network” section in Stage 4,and reach out to people on LinkedIn to hold at least 1 informational interview a week at a company of interest. Having someone refer you to a role gives you a 20% chance of landing an interview, versus less than 1% if you submit a cold application. 
5. Identify bottlenecks in real time. If you are having trouble getting any interviews, maybe you aren’t tailoring your resume enough or your LinkedIn isn’t updated. If you are getting rejected after the 2nd round, perhaps you need to add more high-demand skills or get involved with more projects to have deeper examples for interviews (volunteer projects or internships). If you are making it to the final round with no luck, are you researching the company and discussing strategy with your interviewers? Are you signaling your excitement and passion for the role? Are you making it clear to them that this is your dream job, and you would love to join the team? 
6. The job search can be challenging but there are many ways to stay motivated. Watch our panel on Resilience in the Search for your First Tech Job with program alumni for inspiration. 

We are here to help! Reach out to your program specialist if are feeling stuck at any point. 

Other resources:

• 9 Ways to Optimize Your Job Search – Proven Recruiting
• 50 Best Freelance Programming Job Search Sites

Deliverable: Set up a planning meeting with your career navigator to discuss strategies and ideas to optimize your job search. 

Read the article How to Negotiate a Salary: 30+ Tips and Examples.

Deliverable: Set up a meeting and practice your negotiation discussions with your career navigator.

Deliverable: Watch the above resource video, How to Successfully Onboard Yourself, and reach out to your program specialist for support.  

Deliverable: Watch the above resource video, Transitioning into a New Workplace, and reach out to your program specialist for support.

Deliverable: Watch the above resource video, Negotiate a Raise or Promotion, and reach out to your program specialist for support.

Deliverable: Watch the above resource video, Mentor in the Workplace, and reach out to your program specialist for support.

Deliverable: Watch the above resource video, Long-term Success, and reach out to your program specialist for support.