Reader, this week you'll learn how to use numbers to learn how to code and get a job in IT even if you don't have a lot of experience.

Let's get straight to the point, as always!

Why knowing your numbers is important?

You gonna say, Andrew, what are you talking about? What numbers and how will they help me to learn programming and get a job?

Let me explain.

By saying numbers, I mean statistics. During your studies and job search, you should know every single stat.

Because success in programming isn't magic.

There is a very simple formula to go from 0 to being a good developer and to get a job afterwards.

But most people are very chaotic about how they study and search for a job.

Moreover, if you're not tracking your numbers, you won't have enough data to make the right decisions, and you'll act based on emotions, which is a huge mistake as well.

If you are still slightly confused by what I'm saying, don't worry, we'll break everything down right now!

How and What do you need to track?

The simple formula to succeed in IT looks like this:

study + build project + apply for jobs = success

Of course, it's a simplified formula, but overall, these are the only 3 things you'll need to do.

To be productive on every step, you need to track what are you doing.

Let's cover what to track and how for every one of those steps.

Study

Here you need to know how much time you dedicate to your studies every week.

By seeing how much time you spend and how much you've learned over that period, you'll be able to see if you need to study more to move faster.

Also, instead of 'feeling' that you study a lot, you'll actually see if you study a lot.

Practice shows that quite often, even if you feel that you are productive, over the period of 3-5 months, you have a lot of gaps and pauses which significantly slows down your progress.

So track your time, and try to dedicate the same amount of hours EVERY WEEK.

Otherwise, your studies are a waste of time.

Build Projects

This is the easiest part in terms of tracking.

The only thing to track here is once again your time.

For study projects, use the same approach as described above.

But for portfolio projects, track separately the time that you dedicate to it.

Because most people have sh*tty portfolio projects, to stand out you have to build something good.

And building something good takes time.

Based on my experience, you need at least 100-300 hours to build a good portfolio project.

Sometimes even more.

So track the time you are spending on the project, and if it's less than that, your project is probably bad.

Apply For Jobs

After studying and building your portfolio, the last step is getting a job.

Tracking your numbers here IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.

Even if you skipped tracking during the previous 2 steps, you have to start doing it here:

Track how many times you applied (per day, per week and per month)
How many responses have you received

Getting a job is a game of numbers.

So the more you apply, the higher your chances.

BUT 🔔‼️🚨

Just applying a lot is not enough.

You have to constantly adjust your approach.

And knowing your numbers will help you to make the right decisions.

So if from 100 applications, you received 3-5 invitations for interviews, it's a quite good rate.

Just keep applying and preparing for interviews.

But if from 100 applications, you received 0 responses. Most likely you'll get 0 responses even from 500 applications.

It means that you need to change something about your approach (different resume, more personalised applications, direct reachouts, etc.).

Also by tracking your applications, you'll know if you actually apply enough. It might feel that you apply a lot, but in reality, you applied to just 20 companies in 2 months, which in most cases is not enough.

So don't trust your feelings, trust your numbers!

Track the hours you are spending on studies, and hours you spend on projects and count your job applications and you'll be way more productive and increase your chances to succeed!

Content & Personal Updates

Over the last few years, I have conducted and attended over 100 tech interviews and noticed that all developers make the same mistakes OVER AND OVER.

So I made a video to stop that, you can watch it by clicking on the image below or here.

I had 100+ technical interviews, here is what I learned

Over the last weeks, I've been super busy working on content and final touches to ZaCode (coding learning app). I'll be launching a beta version this month, so super excited, but I've got to make it good even for the beta test, so working hard on it.

If you are a beginner in coding and want to participate in the beta test let me know. But no promises here, as it's available for a very small group of people.

Best regards,

Andrew "Uses numbers based approach in IT job search" Zacker