vault of things i really vibe with! on extremely (EXTREMELY) rare occasion, a wild original contribution??? but mostly reblogs, lately of sonic or wild robot, but also some fallout and other things here and there ;-)
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Latest Posts by barkgch - Page 5
I was about to move on to the other villagers but I forgot to include Krobus with all the bachelor/bachelorettes so I needed to remedy that ASAP. To all the people who cried out on behalf of Krobus, please enjoy. 🥰
Cut to the chase, this will be a very long post because of the amount of information the people presenting gave us! So much! Anyhoo, the 1.5-hour Zoom meeting was a bunch of representatives from mostly tech companies giving out advice for CVs/Resumes, practical career advice, interviews, and technical interviews. Though this is targeted towards tech people, anything can find the information given to be somewhat helpful!
The Sections
CV/Resume Advice focused
Preparing for first round Interview
How to Stand Out on LinkedIn
Technical Interviews and how to stand out to the Tech Hiring Manager
Career and CV/Resume tips for Tech Graduates
Warning Signs from An Interview
Section 1 - CV / Resume Advice 💻📑
Employers only read your CV in 30 seconds - make the information they are going to read count.
Make it personal to you AND relevant to the role you are applying for
Make sure the content on your CV is concise - don't ramble on forever
The layout should be easy on the eye - not all stuck together in terms of text but not too colorful and in your face
Formatting - The most important and relevant information at the top.
Create a punchy Bio summary at the top - Three-four sentences about who you are and what you do - what you are passionate about
It’s okay to have a 2-page CV/Resume IF the information is all relevant. If not, keep it to 1 page.
Skills - Technical skills and soft skills listed
Your experience ✨
Fact-based.
Don’t copy the job descriptive
Talk about YOUR achievements
Don’t use too much “I did this… I am this…”
Your education 🏫
Include everything relevant like bootcamps, apprenticeships in the area you are applying for
Keep high school information minimal if not relevant
Hobbies and Interests 🎮🎲
Share hobbies that show a skill
Think about what the company does e.g. A gaming company and you're a gamer
Share you’re creative - an eye for colour, design, and creative thinking
Know how to destress - you like yoga and mindfulness
Don’t include hobbies that are more lifestyle e.g. shopping and eating out
Include awards you have gotten that would be relevant to the job you are applying to.
Section 2 - Preparing for first round Interview 👩💻
❌ Don't ❌
Do not speak negatively of your previous company/employees - it has a bad look on you and might jeopardize your employment stage if you get the job when they talk to your previous manager
Do not appear to be disengaged/uninterested when interviewed - body language can be assessed also
Do not give false information - about your skill set, don't lie saying you know a language when you don't, and be transparent
✅ Do ✅
Do ask for clarification if you are unsure about anything. Could be about the job description, or want them to expand on things, do ask questions 💯
Do active listening and respond 👂 - ensure that you are present in the moment
Do ensure you sell your strength/have a positive attitude - sell yourself so that they can pick you
What is the typical interview process? 🎬
Phone/Video Screening with the hiring manager/someone from the company
1st interview - Face-to-Face / Remote with the hiring manager/member of the team via Teams / Zoom etc
2nd Interview
Stakeholder/Hiring Manager
Might do a presentation or a task (technical interview if for a tech role)
Give yourself enough time to complete the task
Key Tips to succeed in the interview 🔑
Preparation - ensure you look up who the attendees are for the interview (e.g. via Linkedin)
Research - Look up the company information/Statistics/Glassdoor reviews/Social media content. See how they are online, what the company’s culture is like, pros and cons
Questions - Do not be afraid to have a list of questions for your potential employer / take a notepad with you, to prompt this / take responses down.
Review - Study the job descriptions to identify the pros and cons of the job.
Structure your answers - STAR approach - Situation, Task, Action, Approach
Time management - If you have multiple interviews to prepare for, schedule allocated time in your day to prepare for each process
Rest - Ensure to have a good night's rest prior to the day. Allow yourself no distractions in the last 15 mins leading up to your interview!
Section 3 - How to Stand Out on LinkedIn 🙌
Going through each section of your LinkedIn profile and tips on how to improve it!
Banner
Having a banner is best, don’t leave it empty.
Make it related to your desired role - a techy image for tech people, the image of the city’s business sector for business people
Profile picture
Have a profile picture to have an idea of who you are
Have the “Looking for work” banner on
Sub-section
The headline: Be passionate about who you are. Have key elements of who you are.
Have your name and pronouns
It's okay to use emojis in your profile - shows personality
Featured Section
Use the featured section to show off who you are
Show pieces of work you’ve done
Have certificates? Show them here
You can have up to 5 pieces in the featured section so choose wisely
It shows the employer how active you are in the community for tech people
Activity
Write posts every so often
Use hashtags (only 4-5 at most) to make your post reach more
Use hashtags that have a lot of followers (search in on LinkedIn to find out how many followers the hashtag has)
If you have recently been let go, make a post about it, with the hashtag, and people will repost or comment to help you
About
Another part where you can talk about yourself
Make it really personal
Be specific - not just a long paragraph about yourself
Key skills - programming languages, even things you are currently working to learn
Talk about your strong areas
Add a GitHub, Replit, GitLab, etc
Recommendation
If you have worked somewhere else, have an ex-coworker make a recommendation for you - employers love to see how other people who have interacted with you have to say about you
Talking to Hiring people - Not a section but a to-do
It can be scary but it’s okay to message the hiring individual to say “Hey I have recently applied, is it okay to look out for my application” and go on more about why you would be a good candidate.
The hiring managers have to look at so many applications and CVs/Reumes and they find it difficult to see people’s values and personalities so giving them a message will prompt them to search for your application and read through it.
Section 4 - Technical Interviews and Standing out to the Hiring manager in one 🚀🤘
Each company is different and will be doing it in a different way - e.g. one company tests your C# skills and another might test your PHP skills
Prepare by asking questions about what it would involve - most employers tell you what languages will be involved, if they don’t, ASK!
Coding exercises and Take-Home challenges are the most common
Understand what platform and what format will it be in e.g. what programming language you will use
Ask questions if you don’t understand something! - You don’t understand one part of the coding exercise, ask. It’s not weak to ask questions, you don’t want to do the exercise completely wrong.
Use Google - It's okay to Google to refresh your knowledge you've forgotten a bit. Googling is a skill in itself.
Use the STAR technique
Be honest and be yourself - don’t lie, be honest if you completely don’t understand something
Be confident in what you CAN do
How to Impress a Tech employer 👀
Ask questions 🤔
The relevant question to the job role
Ask about the team, company, culture, responsibilities, and career path, and even ask the Hiring Manger why they like their job also!
Don’t wing it
Highlight additional learning
Coding bootcamps, open source contributions, online free learning
Showcase your previous work
GitHub, GitLab, Projects, Presentations, etc.
Section 6 - Warning Signs from An Interview 😰❌
Not every company knows how to hire and interview well - making the whole process even worse. Here are some things to watch out for...
Structure ❌
No structure to the interview
No intro to set expectations
Not being able to articulate what the company does not get you excited about the work they do
Or it’s like they asked to do an interview with 10 minutes notice…
The Interviews 😨
Whenever you ask how long the interview process / how many rounds there will be and they don’t give you a concrete answer… start to worry…
Rule of 4 interviews - having so many rounds wastes your time and the company’s time. 4 interview rounds at most!
Quality ❌
It might be structured but they might be asking shit questions that have no relevance to the job role at all
E.g. “How many golf balls can you fit in a mini car?” Why are you asking me that when I’m applying for a C# Developer role?
Power to the people!!! 🤘💯
Leave reviews on Google, Glassdoor, or anywhere else if the interview process was terrible.
Let other people know what the company is really like!
Call them out and make them improve their interviewing process.
┌── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
Well, that's all! I hope some or all of the information I collected help you! If you think any of the information is incorrect or false, take it to the companies because I just copied what they presented on their slideshows 😋
Have a nice day/night and happy programming 👍🏾💗
└── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆
my take on cleo n deuce 💕
what if u saw a grim reaper out of his usual robes and it turned out his body was just a normal flesh body and only his head and hands were bones
Oh shit I just realized I can post the "Gaussian Blur Wizard That Gaussian Blurs You" here
beginner’s guide to the indie web
“i miss the old internet” “we’ll never have websites like the ones from the 90s and early 2000s ever again” “i’m tired of social media but there’s nowhere to go”
HOLD ON!
personal websites and indie web development still very much exist! it may be out of the way to access and may not be the default internet experience anymore, but if you want to look and read through someone’s personally crafted site, or even make your own, you can still do it! here’s how:
use NEOCITIES! neocities has a built in search and browse tools to let you discover websites, and most importantly, lets you build your own website from scratch for free! (there are other ways to host websites for free, but neocities is a really good hub for beginners!)
need help getting started with coding your website? sadgrl online has a section on her website dedicated to providing resources for newbie webmasters!
HTML (HyperText Markup Language) and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are the core of what all websites are built on. many websites also use JS (JavaScript) to add interactive elements to their pages. w3schools is a useful directory of quick reference for pretty much every HTML/CSS/JS topic you can think of.
there is also this well written and lengthy guide on dragonfly cave that will put you step by step through the basics of HTML/CSS (what webpages are made from), if that’s your sort of thing!
stack overflow is every programmer’s hub for asking questions and getting help, so if you’re struggling with getting something to look how you want or can’t fix a bug, you may be able to get your answer here! you can even ask if no one’s asked the same question before.
websites like codepen and jsfiddle let you test HTML/CSS/JS in your browser as you tinker with small edits and bugfixing.
want to find indie websites outside the scope of neocities? use the search engine marginalia to find results you actually want that google won’t show you!
you can also use directory sites like yesterweb’s link section to find websites in all sorts of places.
if you are going to browse the indie web or make your own website, i also have some more personal tips as a webmaster myself (i am not an expert and i am just a small hobbyist, so take me with a grain of salt!)
if you are making your own site:
get expressive! truly make whatever you want! customize your corner of the internet to your heart’s content! you have left the constrains of social media where every page looks the same. you have no character limit, image limit, or design limit. want to make an entire page or even a whole website dedicated to your one niche interest that no one seems to be into but you? go for it! want to keep a public journal where you can express your thoughts without worry? do it! want to keep an art gallery that looks exactly how you want? heck yeah! you are free now! you will enjoy the indie web so much more if you actually use it for the things you can’t do on websites like twitter, instead of just using it as a carrd bio alternative or a place to dump nostalgic geocities gifs.
don’t overwhelm yourself! if you’ve never worked with HTML/CSS or JS before, it may look really intimidating. start slow, use some guides, and don’t bite off more than you can chew. even if your site doesn’t look how you want quite yet, be proud of your work! you’re learning a skill that most people don’t have or care to have, and that’s pretty cool.
keep a personal copy of your website downloaded to your computer and don’t just edit it on neocities (or your host of choice) and call it a day. if for some reason your host were to ever go down, you would lose all your hard work! and besides, by editing locally and offline, you can use editors like vscode (very robust) or notepad++ (on the simpler side), which have more features and is more intuitive than editing a site in-browser.
you can use ctrl+shift+i on most browsers to inspect the HTML/CSS and other components of the website you’re currently viewing. it’ll even notify you of errors! this is useful for bugfixing your own site if you have a problem, as well as looking at the code of sites you like and learning from it. don’t use this to steal other people’s code! it would be like art theft to just copy/paste an entire website layout. learn, don’t steal.
don’t hotlink images from other sites, unless the resource you’re taking from says it’s okay! it’s common courtesy to download images and host them on your own site instead of linking to someone else’s site to display them. by hotlinking, every time someone views your site, you’re taking up someone else’s bandwidth.
if you want to make your website easily editable in the future (or even for it to have multiple themes), you will find it useful to not use inline CSS (putting CSS in your HTML document, which holds your website’s content) and instead put it in a separate CSS file. this way, you can also use the same theme for multiple pages on your site by simply linking the CSS file to it. if this sounds overwhelming or foreign to you, don’t sweat it, but if you are interested in the difference between inline CSS and using separate stylesheets, w3schools has a useful, quick guide on the subject.
visit other people’s sites sometimes! you may gain new ideas or find links to more cool websites or resources just by browsing.
if you are browsing sites:
if the page you’re viewing has a guestbook or cbox and you enjoyed looking at the site, leave a comment! there is nothing better as a webmaster than for someone to take the time to even just say “love your site” in their guestbook.
that being said, if there’s something on a website you don’t like, simply move on to something else and don’t leave hate comments. this should be self explanatory, but it is really not the norm to start discourse in indie web spaces, and you will likely not even be responded to. it’s not worth it when you could be spending your time on stuff you love somewhere else.
take your time! indie web doesn’t prioritize fast content consumption the way social media does. you’ll get a lot more out of indie websites if you really read what’s in front of you, or take a little while to notice the details in someone’s art gallery instead of just moving on to the next thing. the person who put labor into presenting this information to you would also love to know that someone is truly looking and listening.
explore! by clicking links on a website, it’s easy to go down rabbitholes of more and more websites that you can get lost in for hours.
seeking out fansites or pages for the stuff you love is great and fulfilling, but reading someone’s site about a topic you’ve never even heard of before can be fun, too. i encourage you to branch out and really look for all the indie web has to offer.
i hope this post helps you get started with using and browsing the indie web! feel free to shoot me an ask if you have any questions or want any advice. <3
I HAD ONE OF THESE!! I HAD THE PURPLE ONE!! I LOVED IT!
LOOK. AT. THEM.
2006 mcdonald’s happymeal furbys
and just like that he has more than an unread email to spend his birthday with
happy wednesday
TGIW~
There is nothing better than wandering the world with your friends!
If you know, you know. If you don’t, this is a reference:
That post about death note being "everyone's first anime" (untrue statement) made me curious and now I want to gather data for science
Can you reblog this and tell me where are you from and what was your starter anime?
I loved that part in Mob Psycho where he said "It's mobbing time!" and mobbed all over those guys
Sans sweep was so powerful the residual shockwaves accidentally killed the fucking queen
An Update:
Also, happy Antifa mob anniversary
keep making eyes. what colour should I do next
so did we all just experience that or was it a collective hallucination
it took us a hot minute but the badges are done. reblog to receive your badge
