 Okay, here's the truth. If you want to break into tech and actually get a job, then you need to be better than everyone else. There's no easy way of saying this, but in this video hopefully I'll show you some tips on how you can actually be better than the other people applying. So the other day on LinkedIn I saw a really interesting post by a recruiter and recruiters if you don't know, they're kind of headhunters and they go out and they find people for roles in tech and they were saying that a job they posted it had something like 400 applicants and this can be quite demoralising to people. Obviously if you're on LinkedIn and it says how many people have applied and it says 400, but what they were trying to say was out of that 400 basically 200 people didn't read the job description so they weren't in the country that the job was being applied for and it said entrance from the US only. Then another 100 of them didn't have any relevant skills so that knocked them out and then it was something like only eight out of the 400 actually had relevant skills, were willing to go to an office one day a week and were candidates for the role. So that knocked down 400 to eight and then out of that eight you've got a one in eight chance really of getting the job. But I guess the key thing is because I teach a course online and I try and help out students I've noticed a common theme among people and that is a lot of people expect things really quite easily now and it's kind of just this is quite hard to listen but you need to put more effort in really that's the truth. People are always looking for a quick fix or how can I get this job as quickly as possible I want two weeks and I want to get 80 grand or something like that. The true visit took me like six years to learn design and I'm not saying you can't do it in a year but you certainly can't do it in two weeks. This is something that you need to invest time into. Basically when employers are looking for people they're looking to hire skills they're not really looking to train you. So in the interview process you're looking for someone who knows what they're talking about and the only way to do that is by putting hundreds of hours of work in. So you can do that in a course or you can do that in your own time by getting up early putting a couple of hours in in the morning. This time really you're investing in your own skill set and this is how you actually get a job because you need in our craft so I'm from a UIUX background or a design background. You need a portfolio to show and that could be of your developer and a lot of other tech fields you'll have some like even development has a test and you need to invest in your knowledge early. So rather than focusing on I want to get into tech because it pays a lot of money. It pays a lot of money because there's not many people who have the skills for the job. That's where the money comes from. It's not like Google or Microsoft just want to throw money at you and give it away for free. They pay that money because it's a supply and demand issue. There's supply of jobs and the supply is low of people with the skills and demand is high for jobs so prices go up. So what this video really is about is you investing in yourself and not trying to rush into a career too quickly and that is really building up your skills and that could be done through an online course so I teach a course careers but what I teach you is and what could be any course online. We teach you the skills to get a portfolio ready and there's no course in the world which is going to give you a job at the end of that. Your task then is to represent yourself to the companies and show off the knowledge of the work that you've got and you really need to go above and beyond and that's what my teaching is all about. Normally if I'm hiring for a designer and I get 10 people I'm going to look for the one who's gone above and beyond and that is not someone who's just done a course. It's someone who has put deposits of goodness into the world. Shall I say like someone who goes to a local company and helps them out and does some freelancing online. I'm not talking about like Fiverr and websites I'm talking about like it could just be a local business you could help them out with your design skills in many ways you could do. You know I really teach about doing internships I think they're very important and they're kind of like modern-day apprenticeships I think actually going into a work environment and a giving of yourself and you're receiving back just just think about it you're not receiving back great amounts of compensation but you're receiving back a lot of knowledge and a lot of skills from other people. So the best way really to go about getting a job nowadays is to set yourself a schedule and that would be so I'm an early bird and I always used to get up before the family I've just constantly done this is how I got for university. I used to get up at six or five in the morning as long as you get into bed late nothing really ever good happens in the nighttime or proactively I found towards living you know your best life as your best self. So I used to get up in the morning I used to sit down I used to have breakfast at the computer I used to do two hours of studying a day and you'll be surprised over a week and then you can just get on with your day then at eight o'clock you can go to your regular job you could you can do your life and because you're putting that as a priority first in the morning you kind of getting it done I used to do weekends well I didn't I don't take breaks and I mean you can do it but you think about two hours a day that's 14 hours a week and over a month you're looking at nearly 60 hours so like a couple of months you're gonna get over a hundred hours of experience of you learning and doing skills and really building out your portfolio and then how you actually get a job is remember their your skills and then what a lot of people also are lazy at doing which is the truth is just applying on LinkedIn just applying on job boards and wondering why on why on why aren't I getting a call back and the truth is you need to sell yourself you need to phone up these people I've sat next to recruiters in work they love talking on the phone and but if they had 10 people apply for a job and only one of them actually called them up and went and put some effort in and said do you mind having a coffee and or do you mind having a chat about the role it's really putting you want to put yourself above everybody else and that's by doing things just out the box just just using your imagination to put yourself first I really think calling having a chat with someone having a chat with the hiring manager these people don't mind talking and I feel like you need to sell yourself that's that's that's it's gonna be for a job there's gonna be a hundred people who have the same skill set as you there's a lot of people doing courses now tech because because it's traditionally paid well every kid wants to be in tech really but not every person wants to put an effort and go and actually go above and beyond and do it so remember your sales pet your salesperson for yourself you need to learn the art of selling maybe maybe download some sales books or listen to some audio books try and learn skills outside of just your field but you're basically your own agent and you need to represent yourself have a really solid foundation of knowledge read books do courses watch YouTube videos have practical skills and real life practical skills as well you can do example projects you can so on the course we do example projects but I also really think it's important to have real life projects and local businesses are fine any anything in real life is good try and get an internship again I was lucky to get mine at British Vogue in the UK I got mine from my college but maybe just don't apply through the traditional ones even see if there's any local design agencies and smaller agencies don't do things like they don't put out applications for work experience because it's a pain for them to look after someone who's a just going there so phone them up and show initiative I went to a place which was a photo studio and I just asked the guy who owned it if I could come down for a couple of weeks and sit in there and then and that was a work experience but on my LinkedIn it looks like a professional place that I went to work and it shows that I'm actually getting experience in the real world so you need to get out there don't just think all the jobs are remote remember there's going to be most people are going to want remote jobs now so if you're serious about working in tech throughout my 20s I went and lived in London and now live in the countryside so later on in my life I was able to come out of the city environment but it's just you just going to have more chance honestly of getting a job if you live within reach of an office or can at least commute like throughout my life I did five hour commutes one day a week and you know you've just got it you've just got to put the effort in don't expect you're going to get 80 grand just for sitting at home on your computer that's not realistic for a junior role and it's not what member it's not the companies that's not what they're going on they want it going on so when they can train up and teach skills to because they're going to have to invest a lot in you so that's what I would do if I was starting again and how I would actually get a job which is going above and beyond their skills have a good practical portfolio and represent myself and then try and become a salesperson so I hope that helps let me know in the comments what you think oh and if you're interested in doing the UI UX course then I'd love to see you a course careers so check out links in the description