After lots of peer pressure about opening a telegram channel, the day has final come 😁. I’ve been thinking a lot about careers, people, growth, and the parts of tech we don’t really talk about.

I have lots of friends that took everything I know and can contribute too so I took my time into finding a small niches where I might not be the best candidate but also not the worst one 😁. For the other sides of the tech community like building projects, or into DSA or Prodcut Management, there are lots of better candidates than me so I will leave that space to them but barj in sometimes 😆

So I’m starting a Telegram channel.
Soft skills, HR stuff, lessons I’m learning, mistakes I’ve made, and sometimes just my thoughts.

Not polished. Not perfect. Just honest.
If you’re into that kind of space, feel free to join.

Let me give a bit of introduction about myself. My name is Mr. O for now 😁 and I'm a software engineer at a certain company called Y. Why I'm focusing on soft skills and HR perspective when I am a software engineer? Good question. Prior to my current role I've worked as a developer specifically backend and product manager. So one of the projects I worked on is related to outsourcing and I've worked on it from the start. So during that time I've seen hundreds of resumes and also conducted bunch of interviews some for actual roles and some for mocks to help people get better during interviews. I also gave a a couple of workshops related to resume and soft skills as part of my role. Anyways I'll talk more as we progress 😁

Let's start small. The first thing is "Don't sell yourself short". Here is a simple scenario. Let's say you've a product and want to pitch it to investors. You start saying like "I know you might have seen a lot better product than this but...." and you lost the investors at this point because why would they invest in you if there are other better products or candidates. Interviews are the same you are there to show why you're the best fit, why who ever is hiring takes there time and resources to hire you is worth it. The reason why I've this first is as Ethiopians we think selling oneself short is being humble but it is not being humble and It'll have its own consequences.

For today let's go over the other extreme of "selling onself short" which is "overselling oneself". This is a bit tricky because mostly you're competing with hundreds of candidates if not thousands. So maybe to oversell yourself is one of the options you've got. But here is the most common issue I have seen when people do that and it is you'll most likely fumble over a simple question for the things you said or wrote. For example, when writing an experience it is recommend to use the XYZ mechanism which is I did X using Y resulting in Z and mostly the Z part is quantified. Now I've seen people being asked how did you find this number, how did the metrics for it works and usually developers are good at technical parts but forget to navigate those simple questions. So my recommendation is to know your resume and what you're talking about. If you don't know them then study them before or after the interviews.

Went to work after 5 days of full rest and now I'm feeling sleepy through out the day 😭😭😭. Luckily I found that eating keeps me awake So I've been drinking and eating and will continue to do that 😂😂.

Until I find a good logo let's stick with this one ig 😁

Usually people forget that inteviews are two ways. As much as you're being interviewed, it is also a chance for to interview them. There are at least three ways to make your mark that I know. The first one is to be the smartest of all which is quite hard to guess when you don't know all the candidates. The second one is to be the dumbest and I wouldn't recommend that 😂. The third one is asking the interviewer simple but good questions. The questions could range from technical part which the interviewer might mention in the introduction or could be personal or stms ask them the questions they asked back by just rephrasing it. This shows your curiosity and also your ability to convey your questions clearly which is bonus as part of your communication skills.

Things to keep me awake in the afternoon 😁😁😁 and that's not coffee

Don't show being desperate in interviews. When you show desperation, you'll try to show how smart you're, how well fitted you're by trying to be complex. But most of the things the interviewer wants is first obviously are they technically fit to work here which is judged by your technical solutions to given problems. The second one is would I be happy working with them in the same team. So this is not judged by your technical skill but also how you can communicate and also how can you explain things simply as they're without making them complex. The smarter you try to look the more complex you've to be or people think so but not rather It is the opposite. Make It as simple as possible so they can understand you as well. Simple doesn't mean easy or dumb 🤝.