Employers are seeking candidates that are critical thinkers, think outside the box, well-rounded individuals and talented. The demand for tech talent is larger than ever and employers want the best of the best. Recruiters are gatekeepers to careers in technology at companies, but finding out the ways to impress a recruiter and have the competencies needed by today’s employers is the way to get ahead. There are four major things employers are seeking in candidates and if you check these boxes, you will advance in interviews. Our programs have four main elements that align exactly with what employers are looking for. The process is rigorous but the checklist is the same across the board:
- Depth and breadth of technical skills
- Software development experience
- Strong technical portfolio
- Technical interview preparation
We'll look at each of these elements that help to drive our strong employment rates among our programs.
Depth and Breadth of Technical Skills
Knowledge of technical skills is a defining factor in a good candidate for job applications. They are what sets you apart from other candidates who may not have gone the extra mile to ensure their skills are what the employers are looking for. Recruiters actively look for evidence on a resume of key technical skills and competencies that are pertinent to a given job post. This could be in the skills section of a resume, but also in the technical portfolio of a candidate to see what kinds of languages, tools, frameworks, and concepts they have worked with.
With skills-based learning, the entire curriculum is centered and developed around in-demand skills that employers are looking for. This enables students to become competent and master the important skills for success on-the-job and for opening doors in the job application process. Recruiters certainly look for on-the-job skills and want to select candidates who will have a high likelihood of success once employed. When paid on commission, recruiters want to reduce their risk and ensure as much as possible that they are putting their time and resources to good use, so they look at a candidates skills.
Our programs require learners to build a strong foundation in data structures, algorithms, and databases as these are key skills that recruiters look for. Further, in each program, learners will work with the major tools, languages, and frameworks in their subject area that are most commonly required by employers. This means learners will have a high match rate on the checklist of skills recruiters look for, and evidence of competency can be found in the learner's technical portfolio.
In the Qwasar curricula, many other factors are built into our programs besides just technical skills. Soft skills are developed in many ways through program events like live coding, coding collaboration, and peer code reviews. Structured problem solving is honed through breaking a problem down into smaller pieces and building a diagram to understand the concept and why. This is effective for learners in future careers to articulate problems and work more cohesively in teams.
Our combination of hard skills and soft skills checks many boxes for technical recruiters and help to open doors for candidates in the job application process.
Software Development Experience and the SDLC
The software development life cycle is a major component of our learners' education. Learners gain significant software development experience as they complete project after project in our curriculum. Employers want to see evidence that a candidate has experience with the full software development lifecycle, starting with a project description all the way through to a finished, in-production code base that works and meets project requirements.
Recruiters often demand 1-2 years of experience for entry-level jobs because they do not want to teach how to best navigate the software development lifecycle to new employees. There is so much innate learning in having built larger-scale software projects that not understanding the SLDC brings a heavy, unbearable cost to companies and software teams.
At Qwasar, learners cover the various stages of the SLDC. Through requirement analysis, learners become adept at breaking down a problem into smaller components and looking at what really needs to be solved. In the definition stage, they put the actual problem into words to determine what needs to be solved. Then, they design solutions so that they know what to build and how to go about solving the project at hand. After that, they start coding and then test their solution once it's built. Finally, they deploy the solution after fully understanding their solution. After this stage is maintenance which involves fixing any bugs or issues once the solution is deployed. This could be from feedback given by peers.
Students go through the entire software development lifecycle in their projects at Qwasar which allows them opportunities to fully understand each step and ask for feedback or help where needed. Experience is gained through industry standard projects that students complete, related to actual tasks they will have in industry one day.
Strong Technical Portfolio
A strong technical portfolio is one way for learners to impress a recruiter and also get a foot in the door for an interview. Building a technical portfolio takes time and hard work to develop skills and projects that show your expertise, which is why our programs are designed to develop a portfolio along the learning journey. Further, working on complex projects and reviewing code from peers enhances learners' abilities as well as their portfolio. A portfolio is essential to provide a future employer with a written and visual collection of your capabilities.
Recruiters are looking for a technical portfolio that has 3-5 software projects which show the breadth and depth of what a candidates is capable of. the portfolio should provide evidence that a candidate has strong foundational comprehension (data structures, algorithms, databases), but that they also have specific skills that apply to the job in question. For example, if a learner is applying to a job as a full stack developer at a gaming company, then an appropriate project to put on the resume would be Tetris - this is one of the projects in Qwasar's full stack developer program where learners build Tetris from scratch. Here is an example of a real project built by a Qwasar learner:
All of our curricula are designed to help learners build a strong portfolio as they progress through our programs. It shows that learners have worked with the languages, tools, concepts, and frameworks used in industry and on the job, and evidence of this on the resume helps to "de-risk" them as a candidate in the eyes of a recruiter, thus opening doors to getting the interview.
Technical Interview Skills and Coding Challenges
The vast majority of applicants for technical positions will have to pass a technical whiteboard interview. These interviews are somewhat unique to technical jobs and require solving a software-related problem in a defined set of time, anywhere from 20 to 60 minutes, in front of an engineer or developer at the company.
Applicants have no idea what problem they will be given in the interview: it could be database design, software architecture, data structures, building an algorithm, etc. Problems generally test an applicant's ability to structure and solve a problem, but are also an opportunity for the interviewer to decide whether or not they could potentially work with the applicant on the job. Interviews are about being able to communicate, build rapport, and demonstrate structured problem solving skills; they are not about sitting silently for 40 minutes in front of an interviewer then presenting finished code.
No matter which track students choose to complete within our program, they will complete about 40 technical interviews. These technical interviews are challenging and involve real questions and problems that are encountered in industry. They are meant to prepare learners for future job applications and interview processes with companies. Some of these interviews will be held with industry software engineering professionals. This level of preparation sets our candidates apart when it is time to apply to jobs. Through this practice, participants will act as both the interviewee and interviewer to be better interviewees. This dual-sided perspective is an important factor that sets our programs apart and leads to better candidates.
Such role play scenarios enable learners to practice the real skills required to succeed in interviews: structured problem solving, communicating, and building a rapport with an interviewer. It is only through learning by doing that a learner will gain confidence in technical interviews and the skills required to succeed in real interviews in industry.
What We Do Differently to Set our Learners Up for Success in Future Careers
Most tech training programs aren't designed to help learners succeed in the job application process. Our approach is different and we've designed our programs to set learners up with the skills, portfolio, and interview practice that provide the evidence recruiters and employers want in strong job candidates.
First, our tough curriculum trains to Silicon Valley standards and makes sure students are able to actually build the architecture, write the code, identify trends, think of high levels, and create solutions. Our programs are backed by learning science and 100% learning by doing. Within each track of our programs, learners are engaged in active learning, project-based learning, and competency-based learning. Combining these three methods creates a one-of-a-kind system that prepares students for the real world.
Second, our students gain significant software development experience through projects and coding sessions to display their knowledge. The languages, tools, and frameworks that are mastered by students can be added to technical portfolios. We truly cover and develop the depth and breadth of technical skills required by the 21st century.
Third, our projects have been designed and developed with a level of significant difficulty. This enables students to work on problems outside of their comfort zone and research topics they may not understand. By taking control of their learning, they are fully understanding the concept and will be successful the next time they encounter it. Each project involves different fundamental concepts to the core education.
Finally, our technical interview preparation season sets the stage for learners to apply for positions as developers. They are involved in over 40 technical interviews, as both the interviewer and interviewee to be confident and comfortable when it comes time to interview with recruiters. They participate in Hackerrank competitions to test their skills and abilities. These are an intense practice scenarios given to applicants by companies to test their technical capabilities. They are a bank of challenges and exercises on the Hackerrank platform that are timed and automatically graded. Also, they have the opportunity to be engaged in resume reviews to receive feedback and advice to improve their resume and portfolio. Our students are uniquely qualified to apply to positions at any company they desire. We go the extra mile to prepare and engage our students for industry.
How Our Learning Environment Encourages Learners to Get Jobs
Our learners are provided with constant support from the Qwasar community throughout the program and into the job application process. Students are encouraged to update their peers on their process and feedback from interviews. This helps students stay accountable and motivated throughout a challenging process. Other members of the cohort are able to provide support and advice to each other. The sense of community supports learners in their efforts to be the best candidates they can be through resume reviews and peer code reviews. Positivity flows effortlessly through stand-ups and updates even if students do not receive the news they were hoping to receive from recruiters.
Our doors are always open to review resumes leading up to interviews for all students. The learning environment we foster involves students working on real world projects and developing on-the-job skills so that when they get to the interviewing stage, they are more than equipped and qualified to apply to any company they desire. They fix real bugs and do real peer code reviews that happen in industry so they are prepared.
Working with External Partners and Apprenticeships
By working with external organizations to create partnerships and apprenticeships for students, our graduates have unique access to career on-ramps in the tech industry. They are able to network and gain experience for their technical portfolio that will benefit them in the job search process. Many companies are interested in hiring our graduates and we create an opportunity for them to recruit with our students. They can present their companies to our cohorts, request resumes, and even host Hackathon events for student participation. Some of the external partners we are currently working with are:
Many of these companies want our qualified and capable learners as they come from a learning environment that encompasses everything they are seeking. We touch upon all of the factors that employers require.
Other partnerships are in development and will be announced in the coming months.
Conclusion
All in all, our programs are designed from the foundation to set learners up for success in a future job placement. The curriculum is formed to allow students to fully immerse themselves in their projects and understand software development from all angles. Every learner will go through numerous projects, peer code reviews, coding collaboration sessions, and technical interview preparation events to be ready for careers in tech. We strongly encourage all of our students to apply for and land their dream jobs. We support and assist each individual learner in the process of obtaining a job, which leads to high employment rates from our programs. By the time they are eligible and capable of applying to jobs, students are confident and more than prepared to be successful on the job. These events strengthen students' knowledge while building on-the-job skills such as confidence, perseverance, resourcefulness, attention to detail, and communication.
