To find your first job as a Junior Software Engineer, you only need to do 3 things:

1. Get the basics (CV, Motivation Letter, LinkedIn / GitHub Profile) correct.
2. Make yourself standout among hundreds of other candidates.
3. Send over 150 job applications and ace the interview.

Want to know how to do it properly? Read on.

How to find your first job as a Junior Software Engineer

Is it hard to find the first job as a junior software developer?

Finding your first job as a junior software developer will be difficult because of the superfast growing number of new devs trying to enter the IT field. When you apply for a Junior role, you are competing with at least 100 other candidates, and you need to use all available magic tricks to make the company choose you. If you are a newbie in the tech industry, you should develop your skills first and make a good preparation strategy to do well during an interview before applying for your first job, which this guide will help you with. 

1. Resume

The first step to get you closer to getting that DREAM job is a good resume!

A good CV allows companies to better evaluate your skills and judge if you are a good fit! At this point, you should focus on:

1.1. Use a CV template 

Don’t try to reinvent the wheel, use a standard and clean CV template (no butterflies or pink font). Remember to convert your CV into a PDF and make sure it’s easy to print and readable (12pt font should be fine)

1.2 Content of your resume 

Firstly, place all basic information like personal and contact details. Make sure that a recruiter can easily find your phone number and email address.

Your email address should have structure based on your name and surname, avoiding silly words or random numbers.

• Always double check for spelling mistakes and other things that look unprofessional.
• Cover letter – it is not mandatory, but some companies require it. 

The cover letter is the perfect place to show that you are interested in the company and know what they actually do. Also, you can describe yourself and make it stand out from other anonymous CVs or if you have already some unique experience you can describe what you can bring to the company.

By creating a cover letter, your goal is to make the employer interested in you as a person and future employee, so place maximum 6 sentences about yourself. Remember to personalize your cover letter for every company you try to apply to.

1.3 Photo in your CV

In most cases, it’s a bad idea to include your photo in a resume. This is because recruiters are careful to avoid discrimination and unconscious bias. It also depends on where you are located.

In these countries, you should include the photo in your CV:

• Middle Eastern countries, Asian countries, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland

On the other hand, in these countries, you shouldn't include your photo in your CV:

• United Kingdom, Ireland, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa

Remember, IF you decide to include a picture: 

• do not use a selfie, 
• dress well to match your outfit to the company culture, 
• make sure your photo looks professional and not like a drunk picture at a party at 2 AM.

1.4 Things you shouldn't include in your Resume

Avoid providing details such as home address, date of birth or marital status! The recruiters have only a few minutes to scroll through your CV and are not interested in this kind of information.

Don't list technologies you are not comfortable with and can't describe in a few sentences, or you don't want to be asked about. Also, don’t include basic stuff like GitHub or HTML.

The resume should take up a maximum of one to two pages. Try to make it one page, trust us - you can do it.

Don't put things like "ability to work in a group", or "resilience to stress". Instead, tell a story that shows you can work in a group.

Should you put unrelated work experience on a resume? It depends. You can mention your non-IT experience if there are any transferable skills or similar activities, or if you have an employment gap in your resume.

2. Projects portfolio and showing your skills 

Work on something that interests you and will give you the motivation to keep working on it. Showcase your work and publish your progress on public repositories like GitHub! Try to cover as many steps along the way as you can, and then publish and share all of your work! Your side-projects can show that you are motivated, what things you like to developing, your coding style and thought process when writing code also things like code samples and attempts to solve complex problems. 

Build a portfolio – in the junior-job-hunting process, having a good portfolio is a MUST to show hiring managers that you can start and finish projects, and you are able to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world problems. Build a portfolio in technologies you're learning, and the ones that are the best matches with the role you like to apply!

IMPORTANT:

Don’t try to start many basic projects, focus on one big project which shows that:

• You can work on both backend and frontend.
• You know how to store and fetch data from a database.
• You can maintain a codebase in git and write useful commit messages.
• You care about code quality and can write tests.

Deploy your projects on a free cloud hosting (like Heroku for example).

3. Experience

How do you get work experience before getting your first job?

• Look for paid or even free internships.
• Join open-source projects where you can work on real projects with real teams and get code reviews from experienced people.
• Freelance work – you can do small tasks for your friends or family. This can be a good extension to your portfolio and experience list.

How can you grow your network and meet new people in the industry?

1. As a junior Developer, it’s important to grow your network and connections. The best way to do this is to take part in IT conferences and meetups, where you can meet other people and develop your knowledge on subjects you are interested in.
   By attending in conferences, you can get benefits like networking, mentoring, career advices, friends to have good times with or even job interviews!
   
   Check out our Tech Calendar with an up-to-date list of IT events.
2. Hackathons – these are some types of programming marathons in which software developers (experienced and inexperienced) build various theme-based projects during a fixed period of time. It includes not sleeping for a few days and free food 🙂
   You can learn there how to work with a real team, how to deal with problems and failures, as well as soft skills like communication, organization, time management and many more.

4. Preparing for interview

Make sure you present yourself well and wear clothes that fit the company culture.

Spend enough time on preparation on topics you could be asked for.

Solve as many code practice problems as you can and check some real interview questions for your role, interviewbit.com for example. Practising with real interview question and problems will help you be aware of the difficulty level of actual interviews. Although, don't expect you will be asked the same questions you have prepared for.

Practice with mock interviews. You can do this with your friends or family and interview with them back and forth, or use websites like gainlo.co

Practice your communication skills – make a review of common interview questions and brainstorm how you’d answer them.

5. Useful job boards

At the beginning of your junior career path, you have to apply to as many job openings as possible because it is actually hard to land an interview when you don't have any experience!

After preparing a good resume and portfolio, all that's left is to look for offers that match your requirements in terms of technology and experience. 

Use every existing job board, search for Junior / Intern / Practice roles and apply even if you don’t feel that you match all the requirements.

On GermanTechJobs.de, you can easily filter for junior jobs and internships.

If you want to get informed about new job offers in real time and apply as one of the first candidates, sign in to our Job Alert.

Also, you may find it helpful to get to know top job boards from Germany.