How to compete against CS degrees (as a self-taught dev)

So picture this: a company wants to hire for a job that requires html, css, javascript, and python and two developers come and apply for this job. One developer has a cs degree and they know c++, and the other developer is self-taught, or maybe even went to a bootcamp, but on their resume they say that they know html, css, javascript, and python. So who has the advantage here? Believe it or not the person with the degree actually has the advantage here even though they don't know the languages that are required by the job. But why? And how can we overcome this advantage? So some of you guys might not know this, but when I apply for a job I actually don't have a portfolio, I don't have a personal website, and github profile. So why do I recommend you guys to have these things when I don't even have these things? And the reason is: the most important thing when it comes to hiring a software developer is trust. The company needs to trust two things. Number one that you're good enough for the job, and number two that you're a nice person to work with. So number two usually comes out during the interview, but number one being good enough for the job, is what gets you the interview in the first place. So the reason why I don't have a portfolio, or a personal website, or github, is because I have work experience that work experience is enough to build trust with a company. When they see my work experience, they think hey this guy's worked somewhere similar, he's done similar projects, so he's probably good enough for our job. So that's mostly what you're trying to do, you're trying to build trust with the company, you're trying to make them believe that you're good enough. That's why when someone inside the company refers you, it's a lot easier to get the interview, because the person who's hiring knows the person who refers you, and they trust their opinion. So if you don't have work experience, that's why we recommend you to build a portfolio and to have a github profile. This is how you build trust with a company, they're able to see what you're capable of making, and they're able to see the quality of your code. So let's go back to the example we were talking about in the beginning. We have one person who has a cs degree, and they know c++ and we have another person who is self-taught, or went to a bootcamp and they know html, css, javascript, and python. So what do we know about the person who has a cs degree? Well we know that they went through four years of college, so doing a bunch of assignments and tests, so they're probably very dedicated. What else do we know? Well they can put down the classes that they took in their degree. They probably took programming 101, data structures and algorithms, object oriented programming, all of those courses are actually really important when it comes to being a software engineer. So that's why having a degree already builds a lot of trust. We know that you're able to do work, or assignments that the company will give you. We know that you have a fundamental understanding of computer science. Now if we switch over to the person who is self-taught or who went to a boot camp, what do we know about this person? When it comes to a boot camp we do know that they went through the boot camp, they probably learned these technologies that we're looking for, and they probably worked on some team projects in the boot camp. So that's a plus for them that builds trust with the company, but for the self-taught person we don't really know anything about you. It's really easy to put html, css, and javascript, on your resume without actually being good at those languages. In order to build trust, you have to build a portfolio, and not only that your portfolio has to communicate to the company why you're a great developer. Having a portfolio is not a guarantee for getting job interviews. So let's say that you build something like a facebook clone or a netflix clone, and then you put that on your resume. Well the company doesn't actually know what that project looks like they don't know if it's just a simple html, css, and javascript page that was made to look like those websites, or if it's a full-fledged web application that you built. They don't know how complex it is, so this is not doing a good job of building that trust with the company. Remember the whole point of having a portfolio is to make the company trust that you're a good developer so you want to make sure that you have demos of your project. The company needs to be able to use your project, or at least have a video of yourself using your project, so that they can actually see what you did. They have a clear idea of what you created. And if possible you can put your code on github so that they can get a clear idea of your code quality. Doing those things will build more trust than simply just having a portfolio and having a bunch of projects. It's also really important to build trust as fast as you can, so when a company looks at your portfolio they need to know quickly whether you're a good developer or not. The longer it takes for them to review your resume and your portfolio and figure out whether you're good enough, the less chance you have of getting an interview. That's because it's very expensive for a company to get someone to look through applications and figure out who they want to hire, so they only spend a few seconds on your resume looking to see if there's anything interesting. That's why in addition to having great projects, you also want to present yourself really well, and I guess really efficiently in your portfolio. You want to have demos

video recordings, nice designs, anything that makes the recruiter's job easier, makes it faster for them to see if you're a match for the job. And that is how self-taught developers can get the advantage back from people who have a degree. Of course the degree can also come with their own portfolio, or even with internship experience, but remember that there's no limit to how good you can make your portfolio. If you build a web app, for example, that lets your local restaurants take online orders without paying ubereats fees, and a bunch of local restaurants sign up for that, I would actually hire someone like this over someone who has a degree and an internship experience, because this kind of experience is really hard to find and it's really good in communicating why you're a great developer and even a great entrepreneur. So that's my advice to you, at the end of the day it doesn't really matter whether you have a cs degree, or if you're self-taught, the most important thing, remember this, is to build trust with the company. You have to show them as fast as you can how good you are, whether you have work experience, that's a really fast way of showing them, or you built a portfolio and you have a bunch of demos, and videos, and images. Thank you so much for watching my name is Simon from supersimple. dev I want to make a tech career possible for anyone. If you have any questions or comments please leave them down below, and I'll see you in the next one.