hiya! this is my side blog from @fraberry-stroobcake. I’ve created it awhile ago, but i guess i’ll be making my first post now.
So, what’s the deal? Basically, last year I started helping out my friend with her tasks from her Uni course, which led me to start learning C# on my own. I couldn’t access the footage from online classes or anything, so I was only relying on Microsoft documentation really, and a help from a very kind person on tumblr i met exactly because of the situation. This summer she passed her final tasks (very proud of her!) and now she wants to take the course for the next year as well.
My plan for this blog is to share everything I learn, both from the past and the future, including (and focusing mostly on) C#, if I’m able to translate from my language/available only for them Python, html(?). I don’t know exactly what i’ll be learning yet, so no promises, but coding seems kinda fun to learn, so maybe i’ll keep learning more things how i can! It does mean though, that you won’t be able to rely on me for some great knowledge. What i have is my own self learning as I’m not officially getting taught these things (except for Python, hopefully), it’s not gonna be anything super cool, or even explained well, but for people that are just curious how the progress is going, maybe learning a thing or two on the way would be great!
This side blog may also grow into smth like a study blog as well, featuring pictures of my notebooks as i study in my own university perhaps.. maybe i’ll share some knowledge from there
Cut to the chase, this will be a very long post because of the amount of information the people presenting gave us! So much! Anyhoo, the 1.5-hour Zoom meeting was a bunch of representatives from mostly tech companies giving out advice for CVs/Resumes, practical career advice, interviews, and technical interviews. Though this is targeted towards tech people, anything can find the information given to be somewhat helpful!
The Sections
CV/Resume Advice focused
Preparing for first round Interview
How to Stand Out on LinkedIn
Technical Interviews and how to stand out to the Tech Hiring Manager
Career and CV/Resume tips for Tech Graduates
Warning Signs from An Interview
Section 1 - CV / Resume Advice 💻📑
Employers only read your CV in 30 seconds - make the information they are going to read count.
Make it personal to you AND relevant to the role you are applying for
Make sure the content on your CV is concise - don't ramble on forever
The layout should be easy on the eye - not all stuck together in terms of text but not too colorful and in your face
Formatting - The most important and relevant information at the top.
Create a punchy Bio summary at the top - Three-four sentences about who you are and what you do - what you are passionate about
It’s okay to have a 2-page CV/Resume IF the information is all relevant. If not, keep it to 1 page.
Skills - Technical skills and soft skills listed
Your experience ✨
Fact-based.
Don’t copy the job descriptive
Talk about YOUR achievements
Don’t use too much “I did this… I am this…”
Your education 🏫
Include everything relevant like bootcamps, apprenticeships in the area you are applying for
Keep high school information minimal if not relevant
Hobbies and Interests 🎮🎲
Share hobbies that show a skill
Think about what the company does e.g. A gaming company and you're a gamer
Share you’re creative - an eye for colour, design, and creative thinking
Know how to destress - you like yoga and mindfulness
Don’t include hobbies that are more lifestyle e.g. shopping and eating out
Include awards you have gotten that would be relevant to the job you are applying to.
Section 2 - Preparing for first round Interview 👩💻
❌ Don't ❌
Do not speak negatively of your previous company/employees - it has a bad look on you and might jeopardize your employment stage if you get the job when they talk to your previous manager
Do not appear to be disengaged/uninterested when interviewed - body language can be assessed also
Do not give false information - about your skill set, don't lie saying you know a language when you don't, and be transparent
✅ Do ✅
Do ask for clarification if you are unsure about anything. Could be about the job description, or want them to expand on things, do ask questions 💯
Do active listening and respond 👂 - ensure that you are present in the moment
Do ensure you sell your strength/have a positive attitude - sell yourself so that they can pick you
What is the typical interview process? 🎬
Phone/Video Screening with the hiring manager/someone from the company
1st interview - Face-to-Face / Remote with the hiring manager/member of the team via Teams / Zoom etc
2nd Interview
Stakeholder/Hiring Manager
Might do a presentation or a task (technical interview if for a tech role)
Give yourself enough time to complete the task
Key Tips to succeed in the interview 🔑
Preparation - ensure you look up who the attendees are for the interview (e.g. via Linkedin)
Research - Look up the company information/Statistics/Glassdoor reviews/Social media content. See how they are online, what the company’s culture is like, pros and cons
Questions - Do not be afraid to have a list of questions for your potential employer / take a notepad with you, to prompt this / take responses down.
Review - Study the job descriptions to identify the pros and cons of the job.
Structure your answers - STAR approach - Situation, Task, Action, Approach
Time management - If you have multiple interviews to prepare for, schedule allocated time in your day to prepare for each process
Rest - Ensure to have a good night's rest prior to the day. Allow yourself no distractions in the last 15 mins leading up to your interview!
Section 3 - How to Stand Out on LinkedIn 🙌
Going through each section of your LinkedIn profile and tips on how to improve it!
Banner
Having a banner is best, don’t leave it empty.
Make it related to your desired role - a techy image for tech people, the image of the city’s business sector for business people
Profile picture
Have a profile picture to have an idea of who you are
Have the “Looking for work” banner on
Sub-section
The headline: Be passionate about who you are. Have key elements of who you are.
Have your name and pronouns
It's okay to use emojis in your profile - shows personality
Featured Section
Use the featured section to show off who you are
Show pieces of work you’ve done
Have certificates? Show them here
You can have up to 5 pieces in the featured section so choose wisely
It shows the employer how active you are in the community for tech people
Activity
Write posts every so often
Use hashtags (only 4-5 at most) to make your post reach more
Use hashtags that have a lot of followers (search in on LinkedIn to find out how many followers the hashtag has)
If you have recently been let go, make a post about it, with the hashtag, and people will repost or comment to help you
About
Another part where you can talk about yourself
Make it really personal
Be specific - not just a long paragraph about yourself
Key skills - programming languages, even things you are currently working to learn
Talk about your strong areas
Add a GitHub, Replit, GitLab, etc
Recommendation
If you have worked somewhere else, have an ex-coworker make a recommendation for you - employers love to see how other people who have interacted with you have to say about you
Talking to Hiring people - Not a section but a to-do
It can be scary but it’s okay to message the hiring individual to say “Hey I have recently applied, is it okay to look out for my application” and go on more about why you would be a good candidate.
The hiring managers have to look at so many applications and CVs/Reumes and they find it difficult to see people’s values and personalities so giving them a message will prompt them to search for your application and read through it.
Section 4 - Technical Interviews and Standing out to the Hiring manager in one 🚀🤘
Each company is different and will be doing it in a different way - e.g. one company tests your C# skills and another might test your PHP skills
Prepare by asking questions about what it would involve - most employers tell you what languages will be involved, if they don’t, ASK!
Coding exercises and Take-Home challenges are the most common
Understand what platform and what format will it be in e.g. what programming language you will use
Ask questions if you don’t understand something! - You don’t understand one part of the coding exercise, ask. It’s not weak to ask questions, you don’t want to do the exercise completely wrong.
Use Google - It's okay to Google to refresh your knowledge you've forgotten a bit. Googling is a skill in itself.
Use the STAR technique
Be honest and be yourself - don’t lie, be honest if you completely don’t understand something
Be confident in what you CAN do
How to Impress a Tech employer 👀
Ask questions 🤔
The relevant question to the job role
Ask about the team, company, culture, responsibilities, and career path, and even ask the Hiring Manger why they like their job also!
Don’t wing it
Highlight additional learning
Coding bootcamps, open source contributions, online free learning
Showcase your previous work
GitHub, GitLab, Projects, Presentations, etc.
Section 6 - Warning Signs from An Interview 😰❌
Not every company knows how to hire and interview well - making the whole process even worse. Here are some things to watch out for...
Structure ❌
No structure to the interview
No intro to set expectations
Not being able to articulate what the company does not get you excited about the work they do
Or it’s like they asked to do an interview with 10 minutes notice…
The Interviews 😨
Whenever you ask how long the interview process / how many rounds there will be and they don’t give you a concrete answer… start to worry…
Rule of 4 interviews - having so many rounds wastes your time and the company’s time. 4 interview rounds at most!
Quality ❌
It might be structured but they might be asking shit questions that have no relevance to the job role at all
E.g. “How many golf balls can you fit in a mini car?” Why are you asking me that when I’m applying for a C# Developer role?
Power to the people!!! 🤘💯
Leave reviews on Google, Glassdoor, or anywhere else if the interview process was terrible.
Let other people know what the company is really like!
Call them out and make them improve their interviewing process.
┌── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
Well, that's all! I hope some or all of the information I collected help you! If you think any of the information is incorrect or false, take it to the companies because I just copied what they presented on their slideshows 😋
Hello! These are from our first academic writing class this week! Pretty exciting because this is the FIRST teacher who is finally teaching the discipline in English!!!! I'm so happy :DDD
Anyways, nothing too cool or anything, just a few tips for different fallacies to avoid and a handbook!
and here is the same thing in Russian for any rus readers :)
Also! He pointed us to a (russian) Stepik course, so any of you who want to check it out feel free to do so:
https://stepik.org/97161
Also, I'm making a little shared folder where you guys can check out some stuff i upload for you, including the handbook i mentioned! good luck and have fun! :)
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1T_920aov6LOsPApz_B4UoRny9CfvXQ9D?usp=sharing
HI!!! i’m back from from PASSING MY EXAAAMMMM woooo!!!! :DDDDD
i’m very happy, i’m so glad that the teacher was mostly chill about all of this, even got 2 chocolates
I am literally so tired after it though, i had to get there in the evening, the exam started at 7:30pm!!!!!! buehhhh
other than that, i had to skip 2 classes because of it, but from i heard one of them didn’t happen luckily,, AND we don’t have classes tomorrow all of a sudden, so i don’t have to worry about not going to my aunts birthday party… i still don’t really want to though..
i still need a loooot of time to adjust to this blog and the attempts at daily posting… plan for now is to start writing while i’m in metro and then edit the post throughout the day…. i think that’s the best decision i can make for now? that way i shouldn’t skip days even if not much happens
anyways today we literally have ONE class but i still have to drive to our uni for it. which i’m doing right now ugh. good news is that i’m almost there
this class is gonna be sooooo boring, the teacher is just your basic lecturer with a voice that’s impossible to listen to
plan for after i come home is to read watch and learn for my exam tomorrow… i HAVE to pass both of them otherwise i’ll be stuck on the sociology program and i’m not letting that happen
abuelas maternos/paternos - grandparents from the mothers/fathers side
conmigo - with me
contigo - with you
—————————
para (con infinitiv) - for
porque (con conjugado) - because
¿Por qué? - why?
por (con sustantivo) - for
salir a la pizarra - go up to the blackboard
hablar delante de los compañeros - speak in front of classmates
———————————
Feelings
sentir miedo - feel scared
la ansiedad (anxiety) es un sentimiento de miedo, temor (fear) e inquietud
la frustración es un sentimiento desagradable (malo) que sentimos cuando no podemos tener lo que queremos (when we don’t get what we want)
vergüenza - shame
me da miedo / vergüenza + infinitivo (hablar en publico)
timidez - es la sensación de miedo, incomodidad e inseguridad (self-consciousness) que siente un inidividuo al momento de relacionarse con otras personas
La ilusión (hope) es una sensación positiva, un sentimiento de alegrIa y satisfacción que nos acompaña y nos ayuda a perseguir los sueños (make wish come true)
entusiasmo - el entusiasmo es "exaltación" (exaltation) o fervor ante una situación de la vida
————
🌻 aprendemos a manejar las emociones negativas
primre paso: identificar la emoción
segundo paso : tomar medidas
tercer paso: buscar ayuda para las emociones difIciles
————
Ansiedad - anxiety
Miedo - fear
Frustración - frustration
Ilusión - hope
Entusiasmo - enthusiasm
Vergüenza - shame
Timidez - timidness
(In)seguridad - insecure/secure
Ridículo/a - ridiculous
(In)seguro/a - insecure/confident
Nervioso/a - nervous
Frustrado/a - frustrated
Perdido/a - lost
Feliz - happy
(In)útil - useless, helpless/ useful
(In)cómodo/a - uncomfortable/comfortable
Fuerte - strong
Relajado/a - relaxed
Bien, mal, fatal, regular - adverbios
-----------
Sentirse + adjetivo + cuando + presente
- me siento ridículo cuando hablo español
- yo me siento insegura cuando hablo con nativos
Me siento <???> ⬇️⬇️⬇️
cuando tengo que hablar en público
cuando me hacen sorpresas
cuando llego tarde a clase
cuando canto en la ducha
cuando tengo que hacer los deberes
cuando salgo a pasear con mi mejor amigo
cuando hago deporte
cuando preparo la cena
cuando llama a la puerta un desconocido (stranger knocks on the door)
cuando tengo que levantarme temprano (get up early)
all of the classes today were online and oh my goooodddd it was such a long day, but we finally finished one hour ago. i’m not done though, i still have to tutor in an hour, so i need some energy for that ….
i also realized that i really need to remember my spanish, i was really struggling on these (gonna upload the notes that i made later!)
the new english classes seem kinda ehhhhhg… i mean they aren’t too bad, but clearly the teacher wants us to do silly stuff even if it’s really small and doesn’t seem all that useful or anything.. to me at least. our homework is to make an elevating pitch about ourselves + an existing pecha kucha presentation analysis (pecha kucha is a timed presentation where you get 20 seconds for each of your 20 slides, the slides have to be catchy but the focus should still be on what You are saying).
and then the history of sociology class…… omg it’s actual HELL the teacher has THE lecturer voice… i literally missed everything he was saying because you listen to him and he just goes on and on.. he makes just the right pauses that everything you hear goes past you… and you never know what he is saying and omg it’s so frustrating!!! and that was online!!! what am i gonna do on thursday when i’ll see him!! 😭😭😭 i also kinda embarrassed myself cause i had a laughing fit that turned into a crying hysteric.. while my cam was on… jeezzzzz..
so today is actually our first day and im on my way there right now! i’m actually pretty nervous but hopefully everything will be fine… i’ll tell you how it goes!
————
so that was super embarrassing, but it was also productive, so i guess i’m glad about that! we had to sign a paper about plagiarism (that we promise we won’t do it and stuff) aaaand yeah! all the classes were introductory though, so no notes really
today i sent an email to the course manager or whatever to make sure i’m actually gonna be a part of it… hopefully i’ll get a letter in a day or so. i also asked them to check the forms from my friends too just in case they do that
also anxiety got me and my friend wondering if we shouldn’t actually change the program we are in right now… but no.. no, i think we should, sociology just isn’t something worth it.
he is upset that mkp won’t have as many disciplines and he will feel guilty paying more but learning less. he’s also upset because most of the classes in the timetable we have right now seem to be online….. even though we were promised it to be face to face. i understand his concerns, but i think we’ll be fine. i hope..
the group chat for all of future mkp students though…… they are so aggressive, it’s always upsetting to look at. but to be fair, last year when we were just about to start our first year we had to deal with that too, and we got lucky.. more or less…. i got most of it… but i’m sure he’ll find awesome people. i also hope we’ll be in the same group, that would be fun!
happy 1st of september! i decided that i’m also gonna post all, my entire study notes here too! why pay for a uni course when you can get them from a tumblr blog am i right….
I’ll be using uni specific tags for these posts btw, smth like:
#university #study notes + whatever class it is
buuttt this does mean it’ll all probably be in my language…… sorry english speaking readers….