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Any recommendations/tips for mentorship services? (self.programming)

submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by Yes_Man to c/[email protected]

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I've had a very tough time finding my first position as a junior dev and have been looking into getting a paid mentor to help me out. Someone who can give me a specific, clear idea of what skills I might need to have, refine, etc, as well as some looser guidance and direction after losing my confidence.

Do any of you have experience with services like this? Somewhere like Mentor Cruise or something similar?

Edit: to be clear, I'm looking for my first role as a web developer, ideally frontend with React (which is what I feel most confident in). I've been at this for over a year and a half - I do have a portfolio, Github, etc with projects in JS and some basic Python. I'm aware of how to look for a job, but actually getting anyone to look at me has been the hard part, as I've only had two interviews that went nowhere. The handful of people who've seen my portfolio seemed fine with it and the impression I have is that it is enough to demonstrate my skill level, but I'm still getting very little back.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

specific, clear idea of what skills I might need to have, refine, etc,

Make stuff. Keep making stuff. Publish your source code, even the shitty stuff. Maybe especially the shitty stuff, since that tends to be more interesting. Be ready to talk about it (humbly) during job interviews.

as well as some looser guidance and direction after losing my confidence.

Hang in there. The industry is in a fuck around phase right now where we bet that AI will be an acceptable substitute for good old fashioned recruitment.

Another "find out" phase is on the horizon - where we fall over ourselves to recruit anyone who can code to undo our stupidity before we go out of business. (Or to quickly capitalize on market gaps left by our competitors who went out of business.)

Do any of you have experience with services like this?

I've gotten my mentorship a few places:

Community college classes and workshops.
The #python IRC (Internet Rely Chat) channel on FreeNode.org (it's free)
Channels (mostly YouTube) full of free recordings of programming conference recordings.
Networking through volunteering to teach what I know at Libraries and Makerspaces
Occasionally taking lower paying jobs to spend time working with someone known to me to be an excellent mentor.
Professional Programming Conferences (once I could get employers to pay my way)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Depending on the country, your tax laws may also let you get the full cost of job related education and conferences back. I was lucky enough that my employment funded the bulk for me, but in Australia it's a solid way to keep learning once you're in the field you're after.

[–] Yes_Man 2 points 1 month ago

It definitively feels like AI is in my way in many ways. There's clearly a lot of recruiters using it to sort through applications (I've gotten more than a few rejections that start with "Sure! Here's a polite but firm letter rejecting a job candidate."), but also the expectation that AI can do what I'd be doing as a junior, so why bother hiring juniors?

I get the point about publishing everything and I've been doing that. Even my janky early Python is on my Github. It's just frustrating that I'm not even getting the chance to discuss it with an interviewer.

I'll look into some of those channels and such as well, thank you.