Thread by @DaveyHert

A thread (with proof) on how to land your first role in tech as a newbie.✨🚀

It’s a trick I’ve tested myself and found to be very effective. There’s a small caveat, but if getting your foot in the door is your goal… you won’t consider it a caveat.

Here goes…🧵RT and share.

First off, I’m not a tech influencer nor do I claim to know it all. This is something I’ve tried personally that has landed me 2 roles, and seen work for a few friends.

The psychology: The reason newbies struggle to get their first role in tech is often due to high competition.

But the second, and most important reason is due to lack of experience. Most companies don’t want to invest time, money and resource into training one, only to lose them once they’ve gained experienced.

So they opt for someone that is already market ready, instead of risking it.

This creates an experience paradox where you need experience to land a job, but need a job to gain said experience.

The solution I came up with was very simple but yet effective. I already knew the psychology behind these companies not accepting newbies. So I made a decision.

For this to work, I started looking for startups and companies that had less than 20 or 50 employees. You can push it to 100 or more if you’re willing to risk it (I’ll explain why in a minute).

I would then look for the CTO, CEO, or Hiring Manager/Recruiter. I did this mostly…

… on LinkedIn because it’s easier to find the right info about a company, including number of employees and their individual roles at the company.

Once I found a target company, I would do one of two things, regardless of their hiring status.

I would either send a connection request to those listed above with a certain message attached. But sometimes it takes a while to get feedback, plus there’s a character limit.

So I opt for LinkedIn Premium trial where I get 5-10 inMail credits to message anyone on the platform.

The email would contain a very convincing message about myself and my current skillset (I’d also add my resume or CV).

Then I would pitch myself to the company, explaining my current experience predicament. I’d specifically tell them that if their budget did not allow for…

…a new hire, I’d be willing to work for free. My only goal was to gain real world experience (this is the hook that grabs their attention).

It’s rare to find someone who is so desperate for experience that they’d be willing to work for free. This is something most companies…

…won’t turn a blind eye to. Why? Because at this point they have nothing to lose. They’ll be getting an extra hand, and they don’t have to pay for it… or so they’ll think.

The idea behind picking a startup or company with less number of employees is because they are very…

… flexible in terms of decision making. There’s no long hierarchical decision-making process like with bigger companies (which would typically dissuade that contact).

The CTO/HR can simply speak to the CEO and a decision is quickly made. Hence, the smaller the more flexible.

Here is a snippet of an actual message I sent and the response I got.

As you can see, it works! Why? Because you’ve removed the psychological barrier stopping the company from accepting most newbies… “I’m willing to work for free”.

But obviously we all want to get paid right?

Once you have your foot in the door, this is a golden opportunity for you. The trick to getting paid is in proving your worth by making valuable contributions to the company.

Whatever you do, go the extra mile to show that you’re someone worth keeping. The psychology here is…

Most companies (not Nigerian companies oh🥲) value effort, and appreciate contributions.

It is very unlikely that at the end of the month, when they’re making payment to employees they’ll overlook someone who has actively been adding value to the company.

My advice? If after…

… making these contributions and you don’t get compensated after the first month or two. Feel free to quit and go for another company.

Either way you won. You’ve gained valuable experience working in a team and that can never leave you… you can add that to your resume.

Don’t just copy my message snippet, use that as reference to come up with a better pitch that is well optimized for your particular situation.

I hope this helps. Thanks for reading.🫠

Another proof that it works

https://twitter.com/F_deela/status/1627969836847431681

Another proof😮‍💨

https://twitter.com/_timi_dev/status/1627987492208103428

Another proof 🫠

https://twitter.com/kevitra/status/1627975380240941058

Works 💯

https://twitter.com/mog_o4/status/1628009053858283520

Another one🫠

https://twitter.com/hengage__/status/1628054174259634179