Applying tech jobs can be very competitive, after all, we know it’s a popular sector. But when applying for tech jobs there are a lot of common errors people make in the process.

For example, something as simple as not knowing what to apply to can prevent you from getting ahead in the race for a tech career. It’s also quite common that people will disregard the little things that may trip you up later down the line.

It’s important to be aware of these schoolboy errors, so in this blog post, we’ll be going over some of the errors that we feel are most common. There are 24 we’ve come up with, no specific reason for this number as there could be a million things.

What you can expect from this post is how you can avoid some common errors. We will explain how you can mitigate these through simple steps. Why? – You need to have a competitive edge. Well, below we’ll be showing you the things you can do when applying for tech jobs.

One of the biggest errors people make when applying to tech roles is not knowing what to apply to. Really? But how can people be that clueless?… It’s easy to fall into this trap.

Remember there are a dozen roles in tech that you can apply to. It’s important to have an initial idea of what you intend to apply to because this saves time and makes things a lot smoother for you. The last thing you want to do is spend hours thinking about what roles to apply to in tech.

You owe it to yourself to be well-equipped. So what can you do to prevent yourself from getting tripped up by this schoolboy error?

(1). Know what you want — define your own criteria.
(2). Know what roles exist for your level of skill.
(3). Make a list of the roles you want to apply to.
(4). Spend an hour or two making this list.

You shoot yourself in the foot by doing this. You should never look at salary first when applying for a tech role — particularly when you’re just starting out.

When you’re first starting out in tech, you do not know the market well enough or have the experience to expect a strong salary straight off the bat.

Looking at salary first will more than likely put you off 80 percent of the jobs you find. But that’s because you’re not being strategic. You’re being emotionally driven by the financial reward you could receive. The truth is, this isn’t a true reflection of what to expect.

You should focus on skills. Do your skills align with a role? What are you missing? Is it something you can pick fairly quickly? You will find the most value in skills and simply getting your foot in the door.

Remember, if you’re new to this, you want to get your foot in the door. Now if that’s not you and you’ve been in tech for a hot minute now… then looking at salary first isn’t a bad idea as you probably know what you’re looking for and understand the market.

You do not really see yourself in tech. You lack a real reason that drives you toward a tech career. You probably don’t have a real interest in the industry and just want to be in it since it’s popular.

You’re not in it to win it. When you want to win at something, you have within you a certain level of drive that pulls you toward your goal. This goal can be in the form of many things, in this particular case, a tech career.

Having a passion for what you want to get into makes your journey a whole lot easier — you also find it refreshing and worthwhile. Passion is something you must find with yourself — unfortunately, it’s not something you can buy from a store or market.

Some may even suggest it’s a case where either you have it or you don’t. Luckily if you do lack passion, it’s something you can build up. What’s your why? What’s your reason?

This mentality can ruin your whole application experience when looking for a tech role. An interview question I once had was “What’s the difference between a job and a career?”… You know what was?

A job is something you do whether or not you enjoy it. You do not necessarily have to like your job to do it. A career on the other hand is something you commit to and proceed with conviction. A career is something long-term whereas a job can be short to medium-term.

When applying for a tech role you must go into it knowing it’s more than a job. Look beyond the job aspect of things and see what you can benefit from it.

At the end of the day, it’s more than just a job — it’s a career, it’s a lifestyle. Can you see yourself in tech? How will you move in this industry?

You don’t want to lack motivation from the beginning all because you started with the mentality of “it’s just a job”. How you start something determines how you finish.

So if you start with a laid-back approach, you’ll most likely end up with a laid-back career.

You want to get into tech because it fits with the current state of affairs. You probably saw it’s an industry that the majority of people pursue, so you also follow suit. You’re resistant to going with something out of the ordinary and find tech to be the perfect fit.

You want a secure job, something that’s consistent, not overly draining, and you’re not too fussed whether you really like it or not. If this is the mentality then you’re just following a routine, something familiar.

Doesn’t take much convincing to get you onboard nor did you actively go out of your way. It’s not a problem if this is you, but be mindful that this laissez-faire approach does not fall into areas where conviction is required.

It’s better to apply for a tech role when you’re fully convinced this is what you want. It’s problematic to go into this phase half-heartedly. The obvious risk you pose is that you will lose out on a role that’s a good match for you.

A common error people make is thinking in terms of popularity. You should never base your application on the popularity of a role.

A common mistake people make is assuming that tech is all fun and games. Don’t get me wrong, you can have a lot of fun depending on the work you do, however, it’s not a joke and something you must take seriously.

When looking for a tech role of course it’s ideal to pursue something you enjoy. Doing work that you enjoy is priceless, it doesn’t feel like a burden; it doesn’t even feel like work. But you need to be careful not to confuse fun with easy. All because work is fun, it doesn’t mean you can kick back and relax.

You hear how popular tech is and that makes you suggest that it’s easy. You misinterpret the level of work required.

The problem with this is you get complacent, which leads to poor preparation. You prepared for the role poorly and this reflects on your performance.

Because you think tech is easy, this then leads to not properly understanding the expectations, i.e. what’s expected of you versus what isn’t?

Some tech roles can be very complex, and more time will throw you off. There’s a trick I have to supplement this… Firstly, you must go into a tech role with your expectation to get up to speed as quickly as possible. Secondly, do your research on the role type and what it entails.

You need to adopt a pragmatic mindset, the way you look at problems has to be conducive, with sensible reasoning. Approaching a tech role like this will help you think with an IT state of mind.

You don’t want to put in the work so you look at the easiest ways you can cut corners. Don’t make it a habit to look at ways to cut corners. You can still manage to get a tech role but it requires effort.

You don’t want to rely on best practices that will guarantee you success, instead, you choose fake gurus and get-rich-quick schemes. You make the mistake of wanting things to happen quickly, unfortunately, this isn’t always the case.

Don’t let the pressure of applying to roles get to you, it’s a process — your first application may not be a winner but that doesn’t mean all is lost. Stick to a plan, be persistent, and don’t take your eye off the prize.

Have you ever been on the road driving and realise that the route you’re taking isn’t necessarily the best one at that moment; you then opt for the smart thing to do, which is, to use the satnav from your car system or phone, to help you find a quicker way to reach your destination. Thank goodness for tech, right?

Not all shortcuts are bad. Let me be clear, when we’re referring to shortcuts, we are speaking of those attempts, by a means, to cut corners. And it is that behaviour that we do not condone. Any person who opts for the option to cut corners and not go through the motions will struggle in the long run.

Look! I get it… a tech role can be demanding; it can be daunting; with long hours and high expectations – but the rewards are there. You see with tech; you get out what you put in. It’s no coincidence that one of the richest men on the planet, according to sources, went years without having an adequate life – oh! If you don’t know who I’m talking about, I’m talking about Elon Musk.

His story is not only inspiring but respectable. In an interview, Mr. Musk shared events of his past when he almost lost everything, even his life. There was a point when one of his companies was “bleeding money” (his words). He would sleep at the factory, and would work without breaks back-to-back, day after day.

He didn’t have any money to pay his workforce. When he wanted to give up, he just kept going. And when he wanted to take a shortcut, there wasn’t any available – haha no, taking a shortcut wasn’t an option.

Mr Musk had to simply go through what was necessary to bring his company to the point at which it is today. It wasn’t straightforward and doesn’t have to be, focus on being persistent and see it through.

If you’re looking for a tech role to avoid the reality of the nature of work then maybe this isn’t for you. You’re taking the easy way out! That’s only going to cost you. Isn’t investing in what you want important enough?

At the end of the day, you want to achieve the best result possible – and in our case, that’s securing a job role in tech.

Tech is a big industry; you need to be aware of that. As a result, you need to think BIG. You need to look at what’s possible, what can be achieved, and what are the opportunities within that. Applying for a tech role can be intimidating, but only if you believe it. There are a vast amount of opportunities within tech that are on standby to get utilised.

I’ll be honest, applying to a tech role when you’re pessimistic is the perfect recipe for failure because your mind is already prepared to lose. It’s a common error because you’re setting yourself up for failure… How? – The disbelief in failing to see what’s good will cloud your judgment. You’re quick to jump the gun and focus on negatives when you should be thinking about “what is” and “what can be”.

It can be quite draining. I say quite, but, having a pessimistic view on things can play a detrimental role in tech. Any new idea that is born becomes retired in a matter of minutes, all because you’re draining your mind with unproductive thoughts.

Your approach to things speaks volumes and sometimes determines where you end up later on in life. It’s okay to be sceptical when required; it’s okay to question things – but having a pessimist view, when all you want at that moment in time is a job role, doesn’t make much sense.

You’re applying for a tech role, just do that. No questions are needed. Anything that’s not aligned with you maximising your chances for achieving success in a tech role, remove that and focus on winning.

Being a pessimist will make you lack enthusiasm. There are only 24 hours in a day, is this how you want to spend it? Everyone has the same amount of 24 hours, how you spend those is critical. Like a wise man once told me… Dream Big, Act Now, and Never Give Up, You’re Amazing!!

I know I went on and on about the pessimist. The truth is, it might be a red flag being a pessimist, but I’m afraid that train doesn’t just stop there… It’s just as bad being overly optimistic.

Why?

You need to take a chill pill, that’s why – no but seriously, baby steps my young Jedi, baby steps. When applying for a tech role, be humble. Don’t get too excited thinking the world is yours – who told you that anyway? Have confidence YES but this has to be in moderation. You need to find a balance. How do you manage that? – Well, you can do so by trying the following things:

Being Objective – don’t take whatever tech job you’re applying to so personally, of course, it’s personal as this is something you want, but you want to maintain the best state of mind in this process. Having your head straight keeps you on task and performing at your best with emotions substituted to the side-lines.

Being Rational – you’re well aware of the possible outcomes. You can either get the job, not get the job, or not even apply for a job. Without being difficult and complicating this set of scenarios, you can see the rationale behind applying for a tech role, right? It’s worth keeping this at the forefront of your mind to remind yourself that nothing is guaranteed.

Being Logical – you follow everything above and you stick to the playbook, don’t reinvent the wheel, just stay focused and remember what the objective is.

You have no knowledge of the tech space, type of roles, or what to expect. You’re going into it in blind faith.

It would help a lot if you built up your knowledge in tech before applying to a role.

Build up your commercial awareness through some of the traditional ways like tuning into the news, and industry articles on tech, and probably the most convenient and accessible is…

Ask yourself two questions:

What’s your general knowledge of business?

What’s your understanding of the wider IT industry?

General knowledge of the industry shows you have a good level of understanding to engage in a conversation related to that topic.

People will start to perceive you as someone competent in that area. The trick is to know a little about everything, just in general.

Doing this will help you 8 times out of 10 – you’ll be able to walk your way through most conversations.

Why is this important? It’s important because let’s say you go out for dinner.

The individual who has a well-rounded view of a topic area is someone reliable and trustworthy.

We think it’s best practice to have a basic to a good understanding of anything you find yourself getting into.

A lack of awareness/knowledge gap may act as a hindrance when it comes to learning on the job.

This gives you a good foundation as you work in your tech role. You will find some familiarity with what you’re doing.

You also look good — the fact that you didn’t come into tech empty-handed, shows initiative and how serious you are.

The mind tends to create problems that don’t exist. It is challenging to stay positive 100% of the time, especially when you’re not having the best of days — one of our challenges of being human.

So, how do we mitigate this?

It’s not as easy as just saying, “OK, from now on, I’m staying positive”… It is as simple as deciding because ultimately you are making a decision. But it’s a question of how and what decision you’re making.

Let’s start with “HOW” — how does one tackle this burden of overthinking? You can start at the beginning. Work your way back to the beginning of what is making you think this way, and if you can’t or don’t know, here’s what you can do…

Think well and hard about what got you to the position you’re in. You may not be exactly where you want to be, but where you are today isn’t the same as where you were 5 years ago. How? It’s called ‘progress’.

How, because you managed to progress over time.  It’s progress that made you go from where you were before to where you are today. And that’s all that counts.

Now you’re here, what do you do?

What decision do you need to make?

You decide to focus on today and take it one day at a time — step by step.

Not enough hours in a day – that’s a lie. This is one example of overthinking. Only focus your energy on what you can control. I think that’s a fair way to treat yourself.

There’s no value in something you don’t like.

But there is value in simplicity. People like what they understand. People eat what they understand. Essentially, the pattern we see here is a growing satisfaction with what’s common to humankind.

KISS (keep it stupid simple) is a nice way to formalise a practical approach. When we use KISS we’re removing ambiguities and speculative assumptions and focusing on what is most useful at that moment in time. For example, in a job where you’re required to have an objective view, you’re only meant to focus on the hard facts.

What happens when you’re not proactive?

Opportunities will pass you by. That’s life in general. The clock keeps ticking and time doesn’t stop.

Not being proactive slows you down, and you start to feel yourself fading away; becoming less and less competent in what you are doing. It also makes you unproductive to a certain extent.

But this doesn’t mean you force it. Never force yourself into being proactive, you must want to be proactive regardless. Remind yourself of the end goal and where you’re trying to get to. This is extremely necessary when you’re applying for a tech role.

Remember, you’re not the only person applying — you have Amber, Bamani, and Cairo all applying for the same role (Just a disclaimer I don’t know anyone with those names).

You want to set yourself up for success when you apply for a role — you want to get it, you want to win. Period!

Another common pitfall is when you lack hustle. Maybe you forgot what motivated you to begin with or maybe just lost that drive that you had when the idea first came to you.

What are you hustling for?

I remember having an interesting conversation with a friend. We were sharing our experiences at university. My friend said they encountered two different types of people, which summed up their whole experience.

You have the first person who is academic and manages to navigate the complexities of the university through their academic ability.

Then you have the second person, who my friend referred to as the hustler, who somehow managed to achieve a first-class degree scoring the highest mark out of everyone in the whole year.

So I asked, what do you think it was that made the hustler do just as well as the person with good academic ability. The answer I got was, “The difference between the hustler versus the average person is that the hustler knows how to navigate any situation”. That stuck with me like glue.

Be a hustler! It’s one of the most underrated transferable skills out there. Knowing how to navigate people and difficult situations will get you through doors that would’ve been closed otherwise.

Another common error when applying for a tech role is complacency. You can also call it the cousin of procrastination – the moment you feed into it; your progress is halted.

Momentum slows down significantly as you begin to ease and relax. It’s always necessary to take breaks but overdoing it leads to complacency. Remember, the reason we’re doing all of this is to get into tech. The more progress made, the better. It’s about securing your position in the field you want.

There are many roles out there but only a handful of people will reap the rewards of getting those jobs. What do you think happens if you get complacent? — That’s exactly what we’re trying to avoid.

How you get into tech is by exhausting every possible avenue. This also relates to how you spend your time. Taking too many breaks? Oversleeping? Or lacking motivation?… every move is the result of something, which either you like or dislike.

It stunts your growth. The last thing you want is to be in a predicament where you’ve become lazy.

And it’s not always your fault.

Laziness can come in many ways, especially if you get too comfortable.

You’ve applied to a hundred jobs and feel like you’ve done a good day’s work.

You now believe you are entitled to be rewarded for what you’ve done — as you should.

What you don’t want to do is think you’ve won before you’ve even won.

• Do you have a feeling of contentment or are you mistaking that for a ‘can’t be asked’ mentality?
• Have you accomplished everything you wanted in life? — even so, find something else to work towards.
• Whatever happened to that ‘thing’ that pushed you to apply for a tech role? — where did that idea come from?

When we dream or visualise something, we start with having a strong conviction.

This conviction then gives birth to ideas, which we then capture and visualise according to what we desire.

What’s powerful about this process is that we’re able to visualise the whole thing.

The next step is easy. Now we know what we want, we move to pursue it (we work towards it).

That vision, whatever that thing was, you have to go back and find it. When you find it, hold onto it.

Think about that every time you apply for a role. Your consistency in moving forward will eradicate traits of laziness and entitlement.

First off, who said that you need to seek approval… hmm? — That has never been and never will be part of the criteria. You have to be careful with what you listen to.

You need the ability to decipher between what’s phony and what’s fake. It can also be a question of ‘What is reality?’.

It’s ok to have an opinion. But remember that’s all it is, an opinion. That shouldn’t influence or deter you when applying for a tech job.

An opinion should never have that much power over decisions you need to make for yourself.

You need to be strong-minded. You can’t allow everything to get in your head and manipulate you. Try to be intentional with what you let in your mind.

Sometimes a strict regime can help in this case, but always be mindful and take your time before taking such precautions.

In another post, I spoke about avoiding fake gurus and sketchy video tutorials. Now look, I’m not knocking anyone’s hustle… but we have to be extra careful with the information we receive from ‘fast food’ sources.

Huh, what do you mean by ‘fast food’ sources?

Information that changes by the minute or faster.

Content has become like fast food — the faster and shorter it is, the quicker it is to consume. But why is that a bad thing?…

Well, it’s a bad thing because let’s say you want to acquire knowledge about a particular subject, but all you get are short spurt video clips, the information you get becomes obsolete as it can change within the next clip.

Sources of information matter. Whether that’s books, tech magazines, or each one teaches one. Information that’s thorough and detailed is useful. There’s a reason why information from a book is useful… Good content is information that sticks — not something that just sets off dopamine.

• Books: a traditional proven method for acquiring knowledge, facts, and information about a particular subject area.
• Tech magazines: information from tabloids need to be well-researched and validated. You should only seek the most reputable sources.
• Each One, Teach One: all we do is help you get into tech. We only want to provide information that’s relevant to your needs because, quite frankly, not everything is. Therefore, we always aim to be direct and punchy as much as possible.

One of the biggest enemies in your journey of working in tech is the act of looking for validation. It is indeed a hard nut to crack so we need to break this down and understand its root cause.

It is natural for the pursuer, in their quest, to self-reflect on their actions and performance, while taking into account the perspectives of external forces who share common interests in the field of the pursuit.

Moreover, it will also seem necessary to depend upon the responses provided by an external party, notwithstanding that this will become a habit of dependency. To ensure full control over one’s narrative, it is key that ‘focus’ is applied. The focal point is a set criterion.

For the pursuer to remain fixed in their pursuit to get into tech, they must focus on the criteria. I like to keep it simple and say “Just hit the criteria”.

You execute by doing the following:

1). First, we must understand what the criteria are set (i.e. what’s been set? What’s the learning objective?)

2). Once you know the criteria, what is most relevant to you that needs to be applied (i.e. what should be taken into account? What can be missed?)

3). Apply focus and only do what’s necessary to meet the criteria target /or benchmark.

Essentially, all you’re doing is working smart. When you focus on the criteria, you’re being efficient — for example, there’s no need to complicate something or reinvent the wheel, you can just apply focus to specific areas that account for a majority

Having no plan is like going to war with no armour, gun or sword. What happens if that’s the case – you’re done, RIP!

When you enter the field, you need to be ready. You need to know what you’re getting yourself into.

A plan is like your set of keys, you can’t leave the house without it. You’ll also find that the very first thing after the completion of buying a house is getting the keys.

Before you have anything, you need the keys to your house to have full control, security, and peace of mind.

The same principle applies to planning. Before you apply for a job in tech, the first thing you need is to have a plan.

A plan will ensure you’re well prepared and act as your governing body when it comes to navigating different situations.

I understand that creating a plan will not always come easy, so to help we’ve broken this down into four disciplines:

• Structure
• Stability
• Guidance
• Delivery

Structure

Going back to the house analogy… When you buy a property or when you buy a building, the structural model is important, right?

The structure of the property determines whether or not a property is good enough. If the foundation is not structured, if there are any defects with the structure, then this needs to be resolved right away.

Having a good structure means having a good starting point— a blueprint. You want to know all the measurements and dimensions of the property. You want to have an idea of where you can make adjustments.

What we’ve described regarding property is the plan, or in other words, the blueprint. This blueprint tells you everything you need to know about a property’s structural design.

Why is this so essential? It’s essential because it provides us with the detail and overall view of the project.

In the same way, that a plan can be used as a blueprint for a property, you can also use a plan as your blueprint to get into tech.

Instead of measurements and dimensions, your plan will have objectives, targets, and goals. All of which should help you on your mission to acquire a role in the tech industry.

Stability

Having a plan gives you good ground. Once the structure of a plan has been defined, you then have a foundation.

Initially, a plan doesn’t need to be fullproof — you will have plenty of opportunities as you progress to make amendments.

You can start with just the outline, which gives you a skeleton view of what you aim to achieve.

It’s like when the doctors do an x-ray on someone’s body and they want to find out where the problems are.

Just like an x-ray, the outline of a plan provides reassurance— it gives you something to rely upon and provides a sense of ease. Without it, you can’t have full confidence.

Guidance

A plan also gives you something to refer to — something like a reference point. If you get stuck in the process, a plan will help you refer back to a familiar point.

This is extremely helpful especially when you’re deeply tuned into what you’re doing.

Without a plan, it’s difficult to refer back or easily remind yourself of the next steps and key focus points.

How many times have we heard just stick to the plan?

A plan works as your guiding principle, you can find assurance in following it through; once completed you should achieve the objective.

A plan is like your bible — it gives you all the foundations you need to go about your business.

It helps you every step of the way, as long as you focus on the principle you should always achieve your goal.

At the end of the day, you want something practical and useful that will guide you along your journey nicely and keep your head in the game.

Delivery

Will the plan get delivered? And can it?

The way you execute the plan is critical. You mess this up, there’s no point continuing.

Having a plan is good and all but if you don’t know how to execute it, then it’s a losing battle. Some ways you can help yourself:

• Understand how to deliver (learn the plan, make it part of your five-a-day)
• When delivering, what is being done to get the result you want?
• Is it an ongoing plan? What’s the tenure? Short-term or long term
• Efficiency is key, you don’t want a plan dragging out forever, do you?

It’s also a good idea to set some deliverables that you can realistically achieve.

When I say deliverables I mean short tasks you can set yourself that are easy to complete as part of your plan.

So let’s make a plan. One of the easiest ways is by using MS Word and Excel templates.

Microsoft Word and Excel have some simple templates you can use to start a plan.

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Knowing how to execute is key. When we talk about the end product we’re talking about the output. What is the output? What do you want the output to be?

In football, there’s a saying when a player has an opportunity to score a goal as a result of an attacking play, we call this ‘the end product’. In these situations, the expectation of the end product is for a goal to be scored.

As you can imagine football is a competitive sport and not always straightforward, so the end product is not always executed. So why are we talking about goal-scoring?

You have to be able to score jobs in the tech industry. You can have the best plan, best tools, and best kit, but if you don’t know how to execute, you may stay in the same position.

What do you want?

When applying for a tech role you want to keep things simple – you don’t want to overcomplicate the objective. All you need is a simple objective as your first step. Going back to basics, what is the objective? Getting into tech. That should be your only goal.

The goal is to get a job in the tech industry. We’ve listed several things you can do now that will help. But this is only possible if you hold onto the initial objective. It’s about staying focused, disciplined, and precise with what you’re aiming to achieve.

The reason why many people trip up is sometimes because the initial objective is unclear. Without a clear objective, your life becomes difficult – things that should take you an hour are taking a lifetime. You need clarity which will help you see why you’re doing what you’re doing, but you also need simplicity.

Keep things simple. Simplicity is priceless, everyone gets it – it’s understandable to everybody. Therefore, having simple objectives will be a talisman for you, especially in guiding you along your journey.

What you lack in knowledge is difficult to make up when applying for jobs in the tech industry. You always need a certain level of knowledge whether that’s general knowledge, commercial or specialised knowledge. Just a little bit of each can help you secure a role when sending an application for a job.

Firstly, you ought to have done your research. For example, you need to have information on the jobs you want. What information? This will vary… You can’t just be knowledgeable about a job you’re applying for, you need to know outside of that to some degree.

There may be things related to the job that you need to be aware of. The idea is not to get blindsided. The last thing you want is not knowing a little about everything—even the smallest thing can help your chances of getting into tech or it could cost you an arm and a leg.

I’m not asking you to be a guru, but you need to know your stuff. You’ll end up boosting your chances of success in interviews. You want to at least have an idea of what the person on the other end of the table knows. You can acquire knowledge in different ways, some simple steps:

⁃ Reading in your spare time: the cliche way to pick up on knowledge but very effective
⁃ Social media: you have YouTube which is a powerful tool. You’ll find some useful tutorials there.
⁃ Traditional forms of media: videos, tabloids, or magazines
⁃ People: socially interacting with people…

Knowing a little about everything is a good approach to take to help you keep up to date with knowledge that may be of use to you. We touched on this in another blog, go check it out here 17 Steps to Break into the Tech Industry.

Like playing a game of poker, you want to have the best possible hand. You’re able to control the narrative and facilitate the game to your liking. You want the same level of control when one-on-one with an interviewer/recruiter — own the conversation, and control the narrative so that they play into your hand.

How you go about acquiring knowledge is entirely up to you, the lack of it is what you wish to avoid.

Another common error is when you don’t lay out a clear path for yourself. Is the road ahead clear?

Do you have an idea of how you intend to progress throughout your career?

Is it even a career you want? Or are you just here for the money?

Regardless, you need to think about the progress you’re making.

Progress is everything. It’s how you measure how well you’re doing in reaching your goal.

You also want to make room for further growth as part of your journey.

Let’s face it, not everybody wants to stay the same, so you want to make sure you give yourself opportunities where you can easily make progress.

What we want to do to better our chances is to map out ways more progress you’ll make, it’s simple. You want to be as efficient as possible.

What are some ways you can be efficient to progress, well we spoke about having a plan earlier – in your plan you’ll want to add key triggers that will help you stay efficient.

For example, you should include in your plan specific goals that are tailored towards making progressive steps – such as the number of job applications; the number of job industries in say one month; and the number of people you’ve connected and reached out to.

These are all specific goals you can include in your plan that will give you those milestones which you can then measure against.

Review these as a checklist to measure your progress; add dates, comments, and details so that you’re tracking everything.

Yeah, this one you need to pay close attention to.

In other posts I share tips on how you can, without any technical skills, still manage to get a job in the tech industry.

This will forever hold, however, you must understand that you need to still pick up some technical skills once you’ve entered the industry.

It’s how you play the game and stay relevant. You show that you have something to bring. This is your leverage.

You can enter a job at a junior level, for example, and show you know more than your current level – this will help you when it comes to negotiating for better opportunities.

You have something to talk about and you never know how quickly this may change your situation.

The thing is, you don’t necessity need to have anything technical to you.

What’s important is knowing how to explain something tech-related.

Your understanding and knowledge of technical subjects determine whether you’re competent or not.

You do not need to have done something technical, you just need to show you understand it enough to explain it.

You need to have honour when applying for a tech role. There’s no cheating. You can’t fake it till you make it.

When you apply, be honest, truthful, and have some self-respect.

There’s no reason to compromise one’s integrity – tech isn’t one of those industries of secrecy.

The way people get into the field is the simple way of liking your job application, or your character, or hobbies you’ll be able to secure a job.

I think it’s essential to commit yourself to an oath – something like “I solemnly and sincerely declare that I will never intentionally compromise my integrity”. You want to be as clean as a whistle.

It’s not a good look to start your career off shady. And yes, people always spot it.

Have respect for the job you want, but more importantly, have respect for yourself. The road will get tough at times.

Tech is a fast-paced industry, skills become irrelevant faster than a YouTube ad – no shade, promise.

Tiredness will kick in at times and so will procrastination, but still, it’s not worth your integrity.

You don’t want to be that person who sends their application and then you realise you forgot to update your resume.

Next thing you know, you’re being questioned about that job you did 10 years ago which you completely forgot about.

Yeah, this may come as a surprise, but not everyone remembers to update their resume – which is probably the biggest schoolboy error.

When updating your resume you want to make sure you include every experience you hold to date – nothing is exempt.

You may not think everything is relevant but put it on your CV anyway. It’s about how you articulate yourself.

Take for example someone who’s travelled to multiple countries, you can talk about your experience in being adaptable, and quick on your feet to pick up new languages (being able to adjust and navigate unfamiliar territory).

The way you articulate this experience is what makes your application more or less appealing.

Your resume is like your passport – it’s the thing that helps you get to your destination (without a passport, you can’t travel I’m afraid!).

Passports expire, so when they do you must renew them with the most up-to-date information.

It’s best practice to update your CV regularly so that you save huge amounts of time memorising every experience.

And if you hadn’t guessed already, an up-to-date resume keeps you on track in general.

The last common error is a real bummer – you do everything right then you realise you don’t know what roles to apply to. This is a classic schoolboy error.

So how do you know what roles to apply to, furthermore, what are the different roles?

Well, that’s the first thing to look at, let’s start with different roles. You have many roles to choose from… you have IT support roles, front-of-house IT reception jobs, service desk jobs, etc.

Whatever role you decide to go for is down to you.

First study and understand some of the tech roles available out there. Try and see if you can align yourself to some, based on your current experience.

It also won’t hurt to look at roles you are interested in, remember, it’s sometimes about what you know – so if you have an interest in a particular topic, get to know that topic the best you can, know it so well that you’re able to explain the pros and cons of the role to the person interviewing you.

More importantly, you need to know what you’re getting yourself into – so that you don’t set yourself up for failure. Having clarity on different roles will help you filter out the best options for yourself.

That brings us to the end of this blog post.

What you now have is a comprehensive list of actions you need to be aware of so that you don’t fall into the common traps that may steer you off course.

I hope this is useful and gives you food for thought.