To maximize the time spent in front of the keyboard, it is best to learn useful keyboard shortcuts that can help you code faster.
Keyboard shortcuts are a powerful and underutilized tool that can help you save time and improve your productivity when using your computer. Whether you’re working on a document, browsing the web, or performing other tasks, keyboard shortcuts can help you perform actions more quickly and efficiently than using a mouse or touchpad.
Keyboard shortcuts: code efficiently, code faster
As a developer, you spend most of your day in front of the computer, and most of that time you spend in your favorite editor/IDE. Therefore, it is essential to be as efficient as possible with our favorite editor.
This is where keyboard shortcuts come in. Knowing the correct keyboard shortcuts for each situation will save you time and make programming more enjoyable.
Shortcuts are the most productive resource you can add to your developer repertoire and will help you over the course of your career.
Learning how to use the system and tools will improve your productivity and generally make it easier to manage all your windows and applications.
In addition to the time-saving benefits, keyboard shortcuts can also be beneficial for reducing strain on your hands and wrists. Instead of clicking through menus and using a mouse or touchpad, you can perform many actions using keyboard shortcuts, which can help reduce the risk of repetitive strain injuries.
But when and where did the first shortcuts appear?
Also read our article about How To Code Well. Peter Fisher, freelance web developer and host of the popular “How To Code Well” podcast, discusses why he started teaching coding and some of the best career advice he has given.
First keyboard shortcuts
The first keyboard shortcuts appeared at Xerox in the 1970s and included functions such as cut, copy and paste.
However, David Bradley, an IBM engineer, was the creator of the iconic Control-Alt-Delete shortcut, which occurred in the early 1980s.
Bradley said it required only five minutes to devise the iconic combination, which became a hit among IBM employees and was then programmed into the original company PC.
How to determine keyboard shortcuts?
Behind every keyboard shortcut is a story, the purpose of which is always the same: to solve a problem or facilitate the execution of a function.
Therefore, the challenge for engineers is:
Make the shortcuts easy to remember
Make sure they make sense with existing keyboards
Develop combinations that do not trigger other shortcuts.
They must also take into account how often a shortcut is used. More frequently used shortcuts tend to include simpler key combinations (e.g., copy and paste). On the other hand, less frequently used shortcuts tend to include more keys (e.g., forced exit from an application).
Modern apps are initiating a new era of shortcuts
The use of shortcuts is one of the biggest trends in productivity software. Companies such as Notion, Superhuman , and Figma have created their own shortcuts to help users save time by dropping the mouse.
For those who are more of a do-it-yourselfer, you can always grab your keyboard. Both Mac OS and Windows allow users to create their own shortcuts.
Overall, keyboard shortcuts are an essential tool for anyone looking to work more efficiently and effectively on their computer. By taking the time to learn and use them, you can streamline your workflow, reduce the risk of injury, and improve your overall productivity. So next time you’re working on your computer, give some of these shortcuts a try and see how they can help you work smarter, not harder.
We have chosen to divide the keyboard shortcuts by type of task:
Basic Editing
Cursor Movements
Debug
Display
Editor Management
File Management
Generic Windows Shortcuts
IDE Shortcuts (VSCode)
Integrated Terminal
Multi-Cursor and Selection
Rich Languages Editing
Search and Replace
This way it is easier for you to check which shortcuts save you time based on your needs.
2024 has already started, and it’s time to take new resolutions to start the year off right. Have you already made your freelancers resolutions for the new year 2024?
If you haven’t already, don’t panic! We offer you 10 good resolutions for freelancers to increase your productivity in 2024. Because productive days are a first step towards the success and development of your activity as an independent consultant.
1. Train yourself to stay competitive and productive
The tools, techniques, software and needs of your customers are constantly evolving. In addition, every day, new productivity tools are emerging: CRM, planning management applications, databases, corporate social networks … The start of the year is therefore the ideal opportunity to start investing in your training. To stay competitive and stay ahead of your freelance competitors, but also to work better on a daily basis, invest in your training! As a freelance, training ultimately means investing in the most valuable resource in your business: yourself! To do this, there are free and certifying courses, online or at university, workshops, webinars, online moocs or offered by organizations or major schools …
2. Resolutions for freelancers: declutter your workspace
The change of year is the perfect time to clean up! Now is the time to free your workspace from all the clutter. Sort and file invoices, letters and other papers from the past year. Also remove anything that is unnecessary on your desk or that may distract you: figurines, keys, books, smartphones … Also sort your emails and digital files on your computer to see more clearly. Then make sure to keep your workspace clean, tidy and organized to have a clear mind and boost your productivity.
3. Anticipate your peaks of activity
In this new year, choose to plan ahead. In 2023, what were the periods of strong activity? Analyze your previous year to prepare in advance and anticipate the highlights of your business. The more prepared you are, and the more you anticipate, the more productive you will be! Also consider hiring other freelancers to help you out in these tense times. For example, you can delegate your tasks with low added value. In 2024, consider outsourcing the assignments that take your time, you will easily find other freelancers ready to take on these assignments for you. This resolution will undoubtedly increase your productivity!
4. Take breaks
Whatever your freelance activity and your workload, you need to take care of yourself: physically, mentally and emotionally. This is important for having a fulfilling and productive freelance life. Sedentary lifestyle at work by sitting at your desk every day can lead to many health problems, as well as reduced motivation. In 2024, you need to somehow add exercise to your daily routine. For example, you can go out every two hours to get some fresh air, walk, do some stretching exercises, and relax. You will find that by the time you get back to your desk, you will be more productive!
5. Resolutions for freelancers: work on your adaptability
With the health crisis, we have all learned more or less about adaptation. As a freelancer, your adaptability has been greatly strained, for example you may work at home one day and the next day be required to work in your client’s offices. Faced with this constantly changing environment, you need to be flexible and adaptable more than ever. In addition, your activity as a self-employed person requires a lot of flexibility. Particularly because you are required to practice in sometimes diametrically opposed worlds, which require a strong capacity for adaptation in order to meet the needs of your clients.
But how do you work on your ability to adapt? First, learn to step out of your comfort zone. Dare to respond to missions that go beyond your usual field. By going on new paths you will be able to evolve and grow your business more easily. Plus, remember, it’s never too late to improve your adaptability.
6. Set goals for the year
To get the year off to a good start, you need to think about what goals you want to set and achieve in 2024. Among the resolutions for freelancers, start to ask yourself the following questions:
Is it a certain number of missions to be carried out?
A certain number of clients to prospect?
A turnover to achieve?
Having personal goals will allow you to track your progress throughout the year. They should be seen as stages to be crossed in order to reach your final objective: the success of your activity.
To define a realistic action plan, use the SMART method (Simple, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Time).
Starting 2024 with clear and precise goals will give you a long-term vision. It is also a good source of motivation to boost yourself in times of blur or low motivation.
7. Check your emails and social networks less and better
As a freelancer, you have no boss and are free to organize your working days as you wish. But it also means that no one is there to control your productivity during working hours. However, we all know that distractions can quickly mar the day. By distractions we mean social networks and emails.
Although this is your work mailbox, stop checking it every 5 minutes. The same goes for your social media accounts, even if they are your work social networks.
Among the good resolutions of freelancers, choose to schedule a time during the day to check your social networks and emails. For example, choose a time slot in the morning before you start your work day, a time slot at noon after your lunch, and one in the evening before shutting down your computer.
8. Take care of your online reputation and develop your network
When you’re a freelancer, it’s almost impossible not to have an online presence. This is all the more important in these times of pandemic when all conventions and meeting places are closed. To increase your bottom line, you need to convince other customers to trust you. The best way to do this is to take care of your online reputation. Be sure to showcase an authentic image that looks like you. Develop your profile on LinkedIn, and ensure a quality presence on social networks by posting your own articles relevant to your activity which will highlight your skills. Also refine your presence on freelance recruitment platforms like Mindquest.io, with a fully completed profile, if you find it necessary, you can also create your website. Finally, for a perfect e-reputation, take care of your current customers! There is no better ambassador than a satisfied customer.
In addition to taking care of your e-reputation, maintain your network! Because that’s one of the most important things about being a freelancer. It is with word of mouth and your ability to bond with others that you will be able to land new assignments. You can join different groups on social media to interact with other freelancers and there are many events online that will allow you to meet new people.
9. Resolutions for freelancers: choose the missions that interest you
One of the main advantages of being self-employed is being able to choose your projects and missions. So why work on missions you don’t like?
For this New Year, only take on missions that are truly valuable to you. The more you like what you do, the more you will want to invest in it and the more productive you will be.
On the other hand, if you’re used to working with clients who always ask for more (without paying more), who don’t showcase your skills and stress you out, it’s time to change them. It is important that you find customers whose values are close to yours.
10. Learn to invest
Sometimes you have to spend some money to make more money! It may seem paradoxical, but have you ever counted the time lost on tasks that you do not master, such as web writing, community management, accounting, graphics, administrative management…? In some cases, calling on another more competent service provider and delegating the mission to them leaves you more time to devote to your customers or to the search for prospects.
Investing in your equipment is also part of the good resolutions of freelancers. If your hardware is failing and slowing you down, invest in better performing hardware. Sure, it’s a cost, but it will save you productivity in the short term. And more productivity means more profits.
In conclusion, stick to all the resolutions for freelancers we have put forward to you to ensure a much more productive year 2024!
Remote work is becoming increasingly common amongst IT pros. Here’s how you can benefit from this trend a from the comfort of your home or personal office.
Remote work is becoming increasingly common amongst IT pros. The way in which tech experts look for jobs and carry out missions was already changing before Covid-19 hit. IT freelancing was on the rise; With higher levels of remote work; slowly becoming an industry standard and the figure of the digital nomad gaining acceptance.
Now that digital transformation efforts have accelerated and companies have had to adapt their hiring strategies to a world in lockdown; remote work across countries and time zones is out in the mainstream. Regardless of country reopenings and a slow return to the office, remote work is here to stay. Here’s how you can benefit from this trend and what you should keep in mind when pursuing a new gig from the comfort of your home or personal office.
First of all, you need to pinpoint your target company type. The kind of company you will be applying for jobs at and that you will turn to support your remote work lifestyle. Whether that is as a freelancer or as a full-time employee.
For that, you need to make sure you are aiming for industries and organisations that have friendly policies towards remote hiring and working. Most big tech companies have fully shifted to remote work after the start of the outbreak. So they will be open to receiving applications and collaborating with fully remote employees. Other sectors of activity will be less prone to hire remote employees due to a lack of organisational readiness or the nature of the job to be done; jobs relating to IT infrastructure and cybersecurity tend to involve an on-site component because of its confidential and hands-on nature.
IT remote work: Make sure your environment and tools are ready
This one sounds rather obvious. But you would be surprised to learn how many IT projects encounter roadblocks along the way. Due to unforeseen technical limitations on the remote worker’s side of things. And we are not talking here about a stable internet connection.
Make sure you have analysed the project requirements and spoken with company stakeholders to understand the technical needs of the project. And also see if you should ask for extra equipment or services – think of cloud processing resources, networking equipment, etc.
The social component
Working remotely can make collaboration with other team members more difficult and requires you to put in some extra effort. The social component of remote working should not be overlooked, but you can follow a few easy steps to ensure you are properly connected with project stakeholders.
First and foremost, make sure you are conducting a proper onboarding. As with most things in life, setting a robust foundation is key. If the employer doesn’t have a fully fleshed out onboarding process, be proactive and put together all the questions you will need clarification on. Make sure you get acquainted with the rest of the team. Even if that means proposing quick one-on-one virtual chats to get to know them a bit.
Secondly, set up follow-ups and regular check-ins with your colleagues to keep track of the progress and let them know you are there and on top of things.
Maybe looking for a job remotely sounds good, but you would rather work on-site at least some of the time. Or maybe you are looking for a job remotely as a way of moving to another country. No problem. The IT jobs market has never been better for that.
Just make sure you are considering everything first, like immigration regulations and demands (visas, health insurance, etc.). Sometimes, working with a recruitment partner who has experience relocating IT experts is the best choice. They will help you figure out all the details so you can get started with your new life as soon and as easily as possible.
This IT job hunting guide will provide you with a review of everything you will need to consider in your journey towards your next professional milestone.
These are prime days for IT job hunting. As industries like commercial aviation are going through the darkest days of their history, tech-related businesses are thriving. From entertainment platforms and social networks to online retail and videoconferencing services. Some companies are simply very well-positioned to take advantage of our society’s sudden change of habits.
Enterprise cloud companies have stepped up recruiting to meet the increased global demand for cloud services. Meantime retailers are hiring in mass to meet the demand for online shopping and home deliveries. It is a golden age for technology professionals, and you should take all the advantage you can of it.
This IT job hunting guide will provide you with a review of everything you will need to consider in your journey towards your next professional milestone.
IT job hunting in today’s jobs market
The IT skills gap is rapidly widening as new technologies emerge at an increasing rate and change the way firms operate. For this reason, most recruiters, predictably, name a skills shortage as their top challenge. The scarcity of skilled individuals raises salaries and empowers those with the most in-demand abilities. And so, new skill niches are continuously emerging. Consequently, IT professionals need to stay up to date with new developments if they want to remain relevant.
Certainly, outlining the greatest professional route for you based on your requirements and objectives is an art, and like any other kind of art, you must first learn the fundamentals.
Firstly, you’ll have to decide what kind of assignments you wish to do and pick the right firm and industry. Then you should describe your skillset and position yourself in relation to the tasks you wish to pursue. Finally, you will need to present a clean and consistent image.
As an IT professional, you must always lookout for new top IT skills to stay current and grow your career. However, with the ongoing growth of IT tools and the changing business climate brought on by the pandemic, deciding where to spend your upskilling efforts might be tough.
Technical knowledge must be updated on a regular basis to keep with current business trends, while softer skills like communication and time management are lifetime assets. The development of data science, the introduction of artificial intelligence, and the strong momentum of cloud computing are all having an impact on the most in-demand IT professionals.
The solution? To familiarise yourself with today’s top IT skills.
The art of CV writing
Once your professional profile and skills are all set up and running, it’s time to make them all come together in a well-rounded CV.
The CV is an essential component of every job seeker’s arsenal, particularly in today’s ultra-competitive IT employment market. These IT professional CV writing ideas can help you stand out from the crowd and land interviews with the finest organizations and positions in the field.
An excellent resume is a succinct and clear summary of your work history, personality, and goals. Because this is the recruiter’s or employer’s first impression of you, you should make it count
First impressions are essential in the online job-hunting environment, just as they are in face-to-face conversations.
After a company or recruiter first identifies a candidate who might be a good fit for the position; they will conduct a thorough review of their digital footprint. Any inconsistencies and red flags found will be taken into account before moving onto the next stage of the process. On the other hand, an insufficient online presence might prevent a candidate from being found in the first place.
Skills, check, CV, check. Now it’s time to go out and hunt for a job.
There is no single way of looking for a job. No single platform you should prioritise or sole strategy you should follow. It all depends on your profile, the kind of job you are targeting, and your personal style. Only one thing is true across the board: you have to be smart about it.
You will need to do some research; figure out where your desired employers get their talent from; approach the right people within the industry or organisation and use the right language.
Any job hunting guide that wants to stay relevant in a post-world should cover remote hiring and working.
Remote work is becoming increasingly common amongst IT pros. The way in which tech experts look for jobs and carry out missions was already changing before Covid-19 hit. IT freelancing was on the rise; With higher levels of remote work; slowly becoming an industry standard and the figure of the digital nomad gaining acceptance.
Remote employment across nations and time zones has become the norm now that digital transformation initiatives have advanced and organizations have been forced to adapt their hiring tactics to a world in lockdown. Remote employment is here to stay, regardless of country reopenings and a delayed return to the workplace.
But remote working and remote job hunting require a slightly different set of skills of involve different priorities and best practices.
Interviews are the final show of the job hunting world. And often the part of the process that most anxiety and self-doubt generates. The rise of remote hiring and the subsequent normalisation of online interviews makes this step particularly challenging; as traditional recommendations regarding non-verbal communication no longer apply to the likes of Zoom.
Selection procedures may be intimidating, especially when it comes to first interviews. Even if you’re a seasoned pro who believes you’ve got interviewing all under contol; it never hurts to take a second look at how you handle these pivotal moments and see where you can improve. Common sense, like in the case of so many other things in life, can be quite beneficial.
Congrats! You have gotten the job. The company or client that hired you is clearly excited about what you have to bring to the team. But do not let yourself think that the journey is over yet.
Onboarding is a crucial step in securing your job position and can well determine the impact and effectiveness of your work within this new environment. From properly getting to know your colleagues and your team’s structure to identifying internal workflows and collaboration tools. Therefore, what you learn in those first two weeks is key to ensuring you can give the best you have to offer and remain aligned with business objectives.
This often requires proactiveness on your part. Sometimes, your new employer will not have the time or resources to properly provide you with a welcome package right away. In these cases, you should take the lead and ask for everything you need in order to do a good job. Don’t be shy. Your employer or client will thank you, and it will show initiative, professionalism and commitment.
Working with a recruitment partner like Mindquest can be of great advantage in difficult onboarding situations. As expert recruiters tend to have good knowledge of the project you have been hiring for and know the company well. They will then be able to orient you through the process with minimum effort on your part.
Interested in hearing about onboarding tips from an IT professional who just recently started a new job? Then, check out our interview with Olena Drugalya to discuss her experiences at her first developer job.
Life-long learning
This is something you should do even if you are not looking for a job at the moment. Since technology is continuously evolving, your success as an IT pro depends in great part on your ability to keep up with the most in-demand skills – both technical and other, softer skills.
Therefore, you need to take advantage of the many free online IT courses out there. Here are five courses to get you started that touch upon some of today’s core AI skills. Develop new skills, challenge yourself. Include your new certifications in your CV and LinkedIn profiles. It will show employers you’re not just standing there, idle, that you are also ambitious and in constant motion.
While it is frequent for technology experts to be overwhelmed by generic offers from recruiters who do not understand their area of technological focus and personal idiosyncrasies. There are great recruiters out there.
To conclude, specialized IT recruiters can become a life-long career partner for technology professionals looking for a steady income of work and guidance to navigate an ever-changing and fast-evolving job market. Consider working with a partner like Mindquest to easily take your career to the next level, saving time and at no cost to you.
Find more about our recruitment and career services here.
A Career in Data Science: Unlocking The Power of Data with AI
We chat with Ton Badal, machine learning engineer at London-based DataOps start-up Synthesized; about pursuing a career in data science and the challenges of working with data.
How did you get started in tech, what made you go for data science career and machine learning in particular?
Since school, I have had an engineering mentality, I’ve always had this problem-solving way of thinking. I’ve always enjoyed math and solving problems. In university, I studied telecommunications engineering and specialised in audiovisual systems, so the processing of audio, images, video and other audiovisual systems from a technical perspective.
There I started doing research in machine learning, AI and data science. I started discovering this super interesting world. After that, I was sure that I wanted to do a data science career. So I went for a master’s in AI. And that’s how I discovered this very, very interesting and challenging world.
What did you find to be the most challenging part of this process of learning data science as career and becoming a machine learning engineer?
When I started university, it was not a clear path yet. Eighteen or fifteen years ago, you couldn’t see the path of a data scientist from start to end. Data science sits between computer science and math. And, throughout my career, I’ve been closer to computer science than to math. But the challenge is that you have to know as much as possible from both worlds. But at the same time combine them as well as possible. So I think it’s been quite challenging to be able to unify both worlds.
What’s the best career advice you have ever been given?
This is not really a piece of advice that someone has given me, but rather something that I’ve seen people do. I’ve realised that, when I was starting to look for jobs and was looking for a career, I was kind of looking for anything. I felt like I was the only one selling myself. But at some point, you realise that it’s important that the company also sells itself to you. The company also has to be interested in the person who’s applying. It’s not just top-down, but also bottom-up. There has to be this mutual understanding. When I started looking for jobs, I didn’t care that much about that. But after a while, I realised that it’s really important to feel confident and be in a good environment. It’s crucial for your career development and for example a data science career.
So, I would recommend to everyone to not just get the first job and be very selective about what they want and what they seek to accomplish. Also, the people who interview you: you have to look at them and ask as many questions as you can about the company. It’s not only about selling yourself, but also about understanding the company and making sure that the step you’re going to take is the best one for you because that’s going to influence the rest of your career.
What’s your advice for those who want to learn data science?
If you want to learn something, the best way to learn it is to get hands-on, to find a project that you’re interested in. There are a lot of open source projects that require some help. For example, at Synthesized, we’re now going to open source a fairness package. If you’re interested in this field, you can collaborate on many, many different projects. The best way to learn computer science and data science is to get a project, get a data set. Sign up for a Kaggle Competition, for example, and try to solve it and get as close as you can to the top of the ranking.
What are the biggest issues with working with data these days?
First of all, there is the problem of ending up with a poor signal-to-noise ratio. The amount of data that you can find nowadays is huge. But, many times, this data contains a lot of noise. And, if you are not careful, you are just going to end up with just a lot of noise that renders it useless.
The second big issue is compliance, so GDPR, HIPAA, etc. If you have data that is not privacy-compliant or that is discriminating against some groups, that’s going to be not only useless, but it’s also going to be illegal to use. So you need to work closely with compliance teams. You need to spend time with the legal team to make sure that you make proper use of your data.
Finally, there’s the problem of data sets becoming data silos. More and more, to access data, you need a data engineer, a data scientist or a machine learning engineer — someone who can do the magic with the data. It’s getting more and more complex to access the data because doing so requires the knowledge of a data engineer or a test engineer.
How is Synthesized helping to solve these problems?
Synthesized has a core engine that is able to solve these problems by enabling users to easily access their data products in many different ways. So, for example, let’s take one of the problems that I was mentioning before: working with compliance and privacy. Our engine is able to generate data that is representative of the original data but is free from privacy issues and from even biases.
Another of the problems is related to infrastructure, to data silos. Current approaches are data warehouses and data lakes. There are some problems with these approaches, for example, the signal-to-noise ratio in the case of data lakes. There’s a lot of data in there, but it’s very difficult to use. But, the infrastructure problem is also there because the data is very centralised and you need a data engineering team to get to it. So what we’re working on is a new infrastructure called data mesh that aims to decentralise data access. It tries to decentralise all these data products so that each team can access the data independently. Both for internal and for external collaboration.
Can you tell us a bit more about your role at the company?
I’m very lucky to have been a very early employee of the company. I joined at a very early stage, and this meant that, although my official title is machine learning engineer, I’ve been able to touch a bit of everything.
However, my main role as a machine learning engineer is making sure that the core technology is as good as possible. But that also involves a lot of what a pre-sales person would do. So, going to the clients, asking them for requirements, and making sure that the product works well for them and is as tailored as possible to their requirements. But about also improving the product.
And there is also some marketing work involved, like developer relationships. We need to push into that direction because we’re a small company with very new technology and we need to make sure that we sell bottom-up, not top-to-bottom. We approach customers as machine learning engineers, as the nerds who sell to other developers, not as the marketing guys who are trying to sell something to them. Otherwise,+j the message doesn’t get through that well.
What’s next for data? Where do you see data science in, let’s say, five years from now?
I think that, right now, we’re in a very crucial moment for data. We are having all these privacy issues, fairness problems, and the users are more and more aware of this. So, we have to make sure that we have the best practices in place, that we make the best that we can with our data but still respect users. It’s going to be a very challenging time.
At Synthesize, we mainly work with structured data, but I think it’s worth mentioning unstructured data. What’s happening with OpenAI, GPT-3 or other generative models — what’s being done is amazing. It’s a very exciting time. I’m very, very excited to see what the next new thing is going to be.
You’ve been based in London for a while. What do you like the most about the London tech scene?
What I like the most about it is that there are a lot of people working on the same topic, and you can very easily meet people doing really interesting things. And that’s one of the most powerful things when you are doing research or trying to improve your product. Just talking to people, understanding their problems and just having a conversation about something that probably you don’t understand and you don’t even know about.
Discussing new tech trends with people at other companies, that can really help. You discover new things and go out of your usual boundaries. London is great for that because there are a lot of meetups. Well, there were before corona. But yeah, you can talk to and meet a lot of people. There’s this big ecosystem where a lot of things are happening and there’s so much to learn. I’m really happy to be living here.
Peter Fisher, host of the popular How To Code Well podcast, discusses why he started teaching coding and some of the best career advice he has given.
Peter Fisher; freelance web developer and host of the popular “How To Code Well” podcast; discusses why he started teaching coding and some of the best career advice he has given.
I never actually wanted to be a programmer. I actually started off from an arts background. So I did a lot of graphics design and a lot of 3D animation. We did a lot of flash animation and action script coding, so the coding came alongside the multimedia stuff.
When I was at school, I was building small little websites for myself and friends just to post images on. And I found it interesting that one could build something with really small feedback loops. All you had to do was write some HTML code and refresh the page and you had something.
And then when I got my first job in a web development agency, I discovered very quickly that I wasn’t actually a graphics designer as more of a coder. So, I was able to transfer my passion for design to a passion for designing and architecture.
You are the host and teacher of How To Code Well. A podcast and learning hub around web development and pursuing a web developer career. How did this adventure start?
I never started How To Cope Well with the intention of building a business from it or being a creator. It was a purely accidental thing that I got into. I always started blogging when I started learning because that was my way of keeping note. But I was writing to myself rather than to others.
After I finished university, I was in this ocean of developers who’ve just come out of university, and they were all looking for the same jobs. I was speaking to a lot of recruitment agents, and one of them, off the cuff, said “I wish there was a way I could show our clients how well you can code.” This was like 2006-2007, so YouTube was just coming out. And I thought: “You know, that’s something people is starting to use more, so I will video myself doing some code.” It was a very selfish decision. It was never intended to teach anyone how to code, it was just to show how I coded, so I could have called it How Well I Code rather than How To Code Well.
But then you decided to focus on helping others. What changed?
At first, I did about four videos and posted the links up onto my CV, but I very much doubted that anybody would actually see those videos from a job perspective. So, I forgot about it for a few years and didn’t bother logging back into YouTube.
Then one of my family members wanted to post or share a video for other family members. And I just thought “Oh yeah, I’ve got this YouTube account.” So, I logged in and, after several years of it being dormant, I noticed that there was a ton of comments and questions and feedback which were all very positive. I thought this was something I could run with, and it went from the very selfish decision of promoting myself to helping people out. People on YouTube were asking if I knew how to do other things, how to use other programming languages, where the next part of the course was. The funny thing is that I never thought it was a course when I did it. The driving force of How To Code Well is its community.
What was the most challenging part of starting to produce educational content on a regular basis?
I was a junior dev working a full-time job with freelance work on the side, and I was now teaching people to code, so time was and is a thing that is against me.
I’ve got a very strict rule of not doing it during working hours, so it’s evenings and weekends, and over several years I’ve managed to keep that going. But there’s a lot of sacrifices one has to make. For instance, if I live code on YouTube on Tuesdays after work, my working day is prolonged, and my downtime is shorter. If I live code on Twitch on Sundays, my Sunday afternoons are out of the water. And there’s a lot of preparation that you have to do before you do that. You need to think about what it is that you’re going to code and talk about.
What about impostor syndrome. Do you experience it yourself? How do you address it?
Impostor syndrome is something that is definitely real, and with the podcast that came through accident as well. I started doing long-form content where I was touching upon subjects that I didn’t know much about. It got to a point where I was getting to the limits of my knowledge, and I just decided to bring people on the show to learn from them. It’s always a learning journey, always knowing where my limitations are.
With every course I build, I think that I’ve done the wrong thing, if I’ve said the wrong technical thing. You know, if I’ve pronounced an acronym wrong. You’re constantly doubting yourself. It does get easier because you get used to that feeling and you can have a little word with yourself and say “It’s fine. It’s okay, you can publish it.”
You’ll never truly know how the audience is going to react until you publish it. So, every doubt that you’ve got in your mind is just your doubts. It’s not the doubts of others. I think that’s how I get through it.
Speaking to people on the podcast who know about the subject matter, I do come away feeling like I know nothing. I know what they’ve said because I’ve understood what they said, but it just makes me aware of how little I know of web development, which is another reason why web development is so good, because there is so much to know and so much to learn, it’s endless. You’ll never learn everything.
In your experience, what makes a good web developer versus a great one?
From a technical standpoint, a good web developer knows the syntax and the processes. But a great developer understands the technical consequences of those processes and decisions, and they can lean upon past experiences.
Also, a great developer is highly professional. They know when to say no and they have justifications of why they’re going to say no. They have testing, they know how long things are going to take, they have some experience behind what they’re doing. They’ve seen it from inception to deployment, and they’ve gone through the whole bug fixing cycle. But really, I think what boils it down is experience. You can’t just learn to be a great developer, you must embrace it and experience it.
Based on what you have seen through your courses, what are most developers struggling with these days?
Not understanding core programming concepts is something that I see a lot, so knowing the framework but not understanding the core principles of the programming language behind that. Learning the concepts of programming is a transferable skill. I’m not just talking about learning JavaScript or learning PHP or Python. It’s learning the operators, the logical flows, learning what a function is versus what a class is. All of those things you can take with you to the next programming language.
What I see a lot is people diving into frameworks and then getting stuck when they move to another position or another job, or when that framework changes. They are comfortable in that world, but they’re not comfortable in the world outside of that framework.
What’s the best web developer career advice you have given?
First of all
Take breaks. Take more breaks than you think you need to. Your brain works offline, so even if you’re not physically at your machine, you’re thinking about the work. I think about the work when I wake up and when I go to bed. I never switch off in terms of thinking about the bugs that I need to fix or the logical flows, but because I’m not staring at a screen, I’m not getting stressed about it. I’m processing this information in my brain in the background. And, when you come back to the code, it’s easier to identify the issue that you are in.
The second one
The second one is to keep asking questions. Web development is super hard and it’s going to get harder. You think you know it now, but, in two years’ time, you’ll know two years’ worth of it, and then you’ll discover another two years that you don’t know. There’s more stuff in web development that I don’t know than there is that I do know, and I’ve been in it for a long, long time. Don’t beat yourself up and if you don’t understand what you’re trying to achieve, then ask someone. And, if you don’t understand what that person is saying, ask someone else, because perhaps that person hasn’t talked about the answer in a way that you can absorb. Maybe you are more of a visual learner. Maybe they can show you on a whiteboard or take you through the process. Throwing acronyms at someone isn’t a very useful thing, is it?
Lastly
Lastly, technology comes and goes. At university, I studied visual basic and action script. Well, action script is for Flash. Flash is never used. And visual basic, I just wouldn’t even know. I did well in that course, but I’ve never used it. What I’m trying to say is that technology comes and goes, and whatever you learn now probably won’t be the thing that you will be learning in 10 years’ time or doing in 10 years’ time. So, what you need to do is accept that and embrace change, but don’t embrace change every five minutes.
And the only thing would add is to just enjoy it. Don’t get too stressed with it all. It’s a very challenging thing, and I find that, the more I get stressed, the more I dislike it. So, once you find that you’re actually getting stressed and frustrated with something, take a breather, take a couple of hours. The code will still be there tomorrow, so take an evening off.
How To Code Well is a video podcast which is live on YouTube every Thursday at 20:00 BST. The audio version is released every Friday and is a week behind the live show. You can find it on iTunes, Spotify and most other podcast platforms.
You can follow How To Code Well through its website, on YouTube (Live every Tuesday @ 17:30 BST and Thursday @ 20:00 BST for the podcast) and on Twitch (live every Sunday @ 14:30 BST).
The CV is an indispensable part of any job hunter’s toolkit, especially in the ultra-competitive IT job market of today. These CV writing tips for IT professionals will help you make your profile stand out from the pile and open the doors to the best jobs and companies in the industry.
A good resume is a clear and concise showcase of your experiences, personality and aspirations. Since it is the first impression that the recruiter or employer will have of you, you better make it count. Here is how to do it.
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CV writing tips: Choose a positioning strategy for your profile
Due to the constant evolution of work culture and business processes; more and more IT experts are more and more looking for a job that is part of a well-defined project. To do so, you need to be strategic. You can use the header or the first part of your CV to describe your professional profile and aspirations using the keywords that your target employer is more likely to be searching for.
This ‘seduction’ phase, if you will, requires a solid business and marketing strategy. Adapt your speech as much as possible by offering services that are in line with what expected of the position and industry. If you are a developer, look for a cv profile example for software engineers; the Internet is teeming with good ones. You can also ask a colleague or mentor for theirs.
Make your CV clear and enjoyable to read
Content over looks, but do not neglect the visual aspect. Without falling into an excess of originality, make sure that all the elements are easily readable and prioritize the information. Remember that your resume is like your advertising booklet. It should invite reading and also contain all the necessary information.
Describe in a few lines or preferably bullet points what your duties and accomplishments were during previous projects. Indicate the type of companies you have worked for and the specific sectors you are familiar with. You can also specify the technical context and team configuration for different positions. As this will help attract employers who are looking for a specific level of expertise or experience.
Highlight key information for maximum impact
Single-page resumes are for people at the start of their careers. Opt for a multi-page CV that highlights your past experiences in relation to the type of mission you are aiming for.
In order to make your CV more impactful and attract the attention of the recruiter, you should highlight certain elements of your CV based on your strengths and the target position. If you have already done several similar gigs in the past and have some big wins to display, put the emphasis there.
You should also bring up some of your soft skills and passions to help you stand out among other candidates. Perhaps you have a rock band on the side or are a great climber – figure out a way to squeeze that in there. It will make you more relatable and help recruiters remember you more easily when weighing on their various choices.
Complement your CV with a portfolio
Chances are you already have a great deal of experience under your wing. You’ve worked for interesting companies, played a key role in noteworthy projects, helped bring to light successful products.
Beyond including all that experience in your CV, putting together a short portfolio can help potential employers get a better picture of your skills and strengths. It doesn’t need to be a portfolio as polished as, let’s say, that of a designer or a graphic artist – a simple explanation of every one of your best projects will suffice. If you’re after a programming job, put together some of your best code.
Make sure your CV is aligned with your online presence
Last but not least, keep in mind that one of the key CV writing tips for IT professionals does not have much to do with the CV itself, but rather with presenting a coherent online presence when compared to your CV.
After a company or recruiter first identifies a candidate who might be a good fit for the position, they will conduct a thorough review of their digital footprint. Any inconsistencies and red flags found will be taken into account before moving onto the next stage of the process. On the other hand, an insufficient online presence might prevent a candidate from being found in the first place.
Make sure that you are presenting a cohesive profile across all platforms and services. Is the image you are projecting in your CV consistent with your LinkedIn or Twitter profile? Are your past job titles the same on the different job boards you are present in? Do the start and end dates of previous projects match?
In the ultra-competitive IT job market of today, finding the right job is not as straightforward as one would wish. Understanding how it works is a must.
In the ultra-competitive IT jobs market, finding the right IT job is not as straightforward as one would wish. Things move fast, with top skills and technologies changing every few months and a constant stream of qualified IT candidates making it difficult to secure the best jobs out there.
But today’s complex environment is also one ripe with opportunities. Understanding how it works will help you achieve both your professional and personal goals.
Also, need advice on how to start or develop your freelance consulting business in tech or IT? Need to start a new permanent or freelance assignment? Join Mindquest and get support from our team of experts.
The growing IT talent gap
Technological advancement has its adverse consequences – skill obsolescence is a well-known side effect of progress. However, with new technologies emerging at a growing pace and changing the way businesses operate, the IT talent skills gap is rapidly widening.
Not surprisingly, most recruiters cite skills shortage as their top challenge. The lack of qualified candidates drives salaries up and empowers those professionals who possess the most desired skills. These candidates become increasingly hard to attract and retain, which, in turn, perpetuates the vicious cycle. That’s good news for tech experts.
Ironically, the same evolutionary speed that often makes IT professionals so valuable and sought-after can be their downfall if nothing is done in response. More so than in other professions, technology experts have the implicit duty to constantly renew themselves in order to remain competitive and grow their careers.
Emerging skills and niches
New technological and business breakthroughs are constantly updating the list of most desired skills and capabilities. While softer skills like communication and time management are life-long partners of success; technical knowledge needs to be periodically revisited and updated to keep up with enterprise trends. The rise of data science, the AI boom and the strong momentum of cloud computing are all setting the agenda for the most in-demand IT skills.
In addition, the pandemic has put the focus on business-related skills. With companies increasingly looking to hire IT professionals who also understand the business side of things and can coordinate better with the rest of the organisation.
The change of focus makes sense. As higher-level business and management skills can help a great deal in navigating change and identifying new opportunities. For IT professionals and technical profiles, making a lateral career move to become more business-savvy can prove very beneficial.
How the Covid-19 Pandemic is Accelerating the hybridisation of Careers in Tech & IT
The current health and economic crisis is generating profound changes in careers and recruitment within companies. And especially within tech & IT departments. Manuela Delfort-Garampon, co-founder of Mindquest and Club Freelance, sees both a rise in freelancing and a comeback of permanent contracts. Two trends which may seem contradictory but which in reality testify to a convergence of the two forms of employment. The pandemic is causing a hybridisation of tech.
Pandemic hybridisation tech – Crisis-proof agility: the confirmation of the freelancing model
The common denominator in all crises is urgency. With the Covid-19 pandemic, companies have had to reorganise under unprecedented pressure. In this context, many organisations called on freelancers and external experts; a phenomenon far from being new in the IT field. But which has intensified in certain industries essential to business continuity.
Specifically: the urgent deployment of tools that are essential to the implementation of teleworking has generated a wave of requests for network and support consultants, cloud, VPN, and cybersecurity experts of all kinds. Some IT departments have also resorted to freelancing to compensate for the recruitments that were already planned.
At the same time, some candidates and IT professionals have made a choice in this period of crisis to turn to freelancing opportunistically. Both to stay active and to position themselves on high added value missions that help companies quickly deploy critical solutions.
While the flexibility of the freelancing model has long appealed to companies and applicants alike. The agility it provides has made it an obvious solution to the current situation. But that’s not the only trend regarding careers transformation in the tech world.
Consolidation for tomorrow: the return of the permanent contract
Beyond the emergency, many companies see the current crisis as an opportunity to get ahead and differentiate themselves. Many paused their recruitment efforts during the first lockdown, but most have resumed – or even accelerated – their search since September.
Why? Quite simply because in times of crisis, the best talent is more essential than ever in an IT team. Hence the need to attract and retain top performers that sustain strong teams. The war for talent has intensified around these key profiles. Which companies are tearing off and now want to “secure” under permanent contracts.
At the same time, the permanent contract has made a comeback in the hearts of many candidates and tech & IT professionals; even among some who previously swore only by freelancing. A certain number of freelancers have chosen to go (or go back) to salaried employment, in order to (re) find greater stability in these times of crisis.
Resorting to the freelance model, although it has grown in importance with the crisis, does not however supplant the permanent contract model. In fact, the two statuses coexist now more than ever.
Pandemic hybridisation tech, towards the end of the silos between statuses?
In terms of professional careers, the last few decades have seen many silos gradually fall. For a long time, the norm was to do the same job in the same company throughout one’s life. Then careers began to be built across several companies. For the past twenty years or so, it has been common practice to have several different jobs during a professional career, and sometimes to retrain or reskill completely. Today, there is also the alternation and combination of statuses, with an increasingly porous border between permanent contracts and the self-employed status.
In fact, this trend of hybridising careers in the world of technology and IT did not originate from the pandemic. The motivations for moving from one status to another can be multiple and independent of the current crisis. Example: many freelancers decide to (re) switch to permanent contracts to access management positions. But the current pandemic is greatly accelerating the phenomenon.
Status doesn’t matter as much as it used to. For companies, the challenge now is to attract the best talent, whether they are on permanent or freelance contracts, to accelerate their IT projects. For professionals open to new opportunities, what matters is more the interest in the project and the technical stack, as well as the dynamics of the team. Status is no longer an end in itself.
Continuing education is key to your professional development as a technology expert. But what are the most popular IT certifications amongst employers?
Embracing continuing education is key to your professional development as a technology expert. And beyond what you can learn on your own or through experience, official certifications are a great way to validate your newly gained expertise in front of the industry. But what are the most popular IT certifications amongst employers?
Given how fast new technical roles are being created and traditional ones are branching out. This can be a quite daunting question to answer. In fact, as any seasoned IT specialist will tell you, there is no simple, straight answer to this problem. It all depends on what you need the certification for.
Here are some pointers to help you navigate the increasingly complex certifications ecosystem.
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General-purpose certifications
Often regarded as the first step towards pursuing a career in technology, general-purpose certifications are amongst the most popular IT certifications. From networking to repairs or system configuration; they touch on a broad variety of topics without getting into much depth in any of them. Not surprisingly they are frequently compared to a driving license. These certifications, such as CompTIA’s A+, are an effective way to learn the fundamentals of computing and establish a solid foundation for your career.
But they can also be helpful for more seasoned professionals who want to transition from a functional role to a more technical one. The growing need for Agile and Scrum methodologies, which tend to encompass a more generalist set of skills. Is another example of how general-purpose diplomas can help advance your career.
Role-specific certifications
However, as it happens with most things in our society; the most popular IT certificates tend to favour specialisation rather than a holistic approach. Role-based educational programs have gained so much popularity in recent years. That industry giants like Microsoft have rebuilt their entire training catalogues to accommodate the various career paths within their ecosystem.
Specialised certifications are most often divided by level of experience. That makes them a great resource for specialists seeking to advance their career from the associate-level to other; more senior positions within their speciality.
The most in-demand specialist certifications
Cloud and security badges
Some of the fastest-growing role-based certifications are those that have to do with the cloud. Digital transformation is accentuating the talent gap for cloud skills, and official certifications can help bridge it. The most popular certifications within this ecosystem include the AWS Certified Solutions Architect diploma and the Microsoft Azure Solutions Architect badge.
Virtually the same thing is happening with security certifications. The sweet spot lies where the two fields meet. Getting certified in cloud security is certainly a winning proposition when it comes to employability and salary expectations.
Another area in which role-centric certifications tend to deliver a solid return on investment is that of enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software. With even more adoption than cloud, most medium-to-large-sized businesses today employ these systems to coordinate operations across departments and keep track of clients and sales.
Whether it is in finance or supply chain management, companies need experts who can set up the environment and maintain it. Getting SAP certified, for example, will open the doors for you to thousands of lucrative and exciting career opportunities.
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Cloud and security badges