The Path Forward for Career Changers in 2023
How the job search is changing for early career talent and how you can adapt.
Job searching pre-2020 was pretty straightforward. Apply to jobs in the city you live in and you’ll likely get a few interviews. This approach no longer works due to remote work coming on the scene, plus the addition of new job seekers from bootcamps every year, combined with layoffs where lots of seniors are also on the market at the same time.
Suddenly, the job market got way more complicated, for some of these reasons:
Every year the number of job seekers from bootcamps is rising
Every remote job opening attract thousands of applications
Lots of recruiters got let go and then hired again, at different companies
Mass layoffs created confusion in hiring as new teams had to be re-formed at companies with layoffs
Let’s take a closer look with a deep dive into the growth of bootcamp grads 👀
Most career changers come from bootcamps
Making a career change? You’ve likely gone through a bootcamp.
Bootcamps are creating new graduates, or job seekers, every year
Bootcamps went virtual in 2020, so people from ALL over the US could attend, increasing overall attendance.
The number of new bootcamp grads is rising every year. In 2020, Career Karma reports 44K students graduated across all bootcamps, an increase of 9.5% from 2019. The growth continued with 58K new bootcamp grads in 2022.
Most of these bootcamps were SWE ones, teaching people how to code.
Growth of Bootcamp graduates from 2012-2022
Most popular bootcamp fields in 2023 (still programming!)
So in effect, in 2022, there were 58K+ NEW job seekers coming out of bootcamps. This number can be added on top of undergrad students, grad students, and the average job seeker looking for their next role in tech.
MOST of bootcamp grads are looking at REMOTE first roles, so what happens? Chaos.
1000s of applicants for any remote role listed as Junior, Associate, Entry, 3 yrs+ or under.
Cold application (applying without referrals) is going out the window as a viable strategy
Bootcamp grads are stranded in the job market when they don’t hear back from applications, unsure of what to try next to get traction in their job search
Now that we are all on the same page, let’s talk about what you, career changer, can do to break into tech.
Rember the good old, non-remote days
Remote is great, it can be an excellent work style for so many people, but for others, it’s not that great. Before 2020, the job market, even in tech, was not so remote-friendly. Many companies still held on to their idea of having employees work in an office, in a specific location, so hiring was still done locally.
When hiring is done locally, there is naturally a limit to how many people are qualified to apply for the role because, for one, only applicants who live in that location will apply. So at most, there were a few hundred applicants in total over a few weeks, but never the amounts recruiters see today with remote roles, filling up with hundreds of applicants in a few hours.
Hiring locally limits the number of candidates, which is good for everyone in the hiring process, especially for companies that think they can wait forever for the perfect candidate from ANYWHERE in the US.
Hybrid or in-person roles are actually a good thing for career changers because earlier on in your career, in person iteractions can help you get better training, especially in the first few months in a new job in tech.
Personally, remote work is awesome, I love it. However, remote work is not for everyone. Consider if you’re ok with hybrid or in-person work for your first role in tech, it can help you in many ways.
Aiming to go remote for your first-ever role in tech can take you longer to land a job than focusing on your local market.
What about the regular, ol job application strategy?
While some may hate this strategy, IF you can stay consistent every week AND apply in high volume, this strategy can work for you. But if this gets you super depressed, focus on getting referrals through networking first, only then apply.
Can cold applying still work? Yes, 100%
Is cold applying for remote roles for 0-3 years of experience a good strategy? Rarely, because it limits your visibility for roles due to high applicant volume. Low visibility extends the time you’re job searching. However, cold applying to jobs in your LOCAL market can get you good results, since the number of candidates is naturally limited.
Does cold apply + referrals work? Yes, but not all the time. The stronger your referral, the more likely you are to get an interview. Referrals from actual friends versus new Linkedin connections do increase the chances of getting through to a recruiter.
Referrals are more important than ever
No matter the time period, humans hire humans, which means, referrals are always the best way to get hired! With hundreds of job apps to sort through, recruiters always go through referrals first when they can.
Especially if cold-applying is simply not getting you interviews, don’t get frustrated, get social to find referrals.
Strong referrals come from people who know you (ex. friends, family) and are in your current network (ex. bootcamp alumni, former coworkers, etc). Go to your network of friends, family and alumni to ask for help in your job search!
The next kind of referral comes from loose connections from across your network, maybe friends of friends, and new people you are networking with. These people are happy to help you as long as they get to know you a bit first, so share your story with them and ask them for help in your job search through a referral.
90% of career changers in the job search program, landed a role once they received a referral that led to an interview.
It goes without saying that having the right experience for the role is important, yet your work experience might never be seen without a referral to get you to the front of the line. Interviews that come from referrals are more likely to lead to job offers.
What’s the path forward for career changers?
Here’s an actual strategy that can work for most career changers with 0-3 years of direct work experience who are job searching:
🤝 Referrals First
🏠 Local First
👀 Build visibility on Linkedin
Apply as a last resort
While you can still send out applications left and right, applying with the intention of landing a job in a few months is an empty cause. Use the application process to ‘research who is hiring’ and engage in networking with people at those companies instead. There are many ways to engage, that’s what networking is all about!
As a rule, apply to jobs only when you get responses to your outreach.
If you want to apply first and then get referrals, that OK too, but reset your expectations that applications do not equal interviews. You might even get surprised when you do get an interview without networking 😉
Local First
This does NOT mean you don’t even apply to remote roles. Local first is a focus on your local market to see which companies and people in your city or state are relevant to your job search. Sure, apply to remote, hybrid, and on-site, you can do it all - yet don’t expect to get ‘lucky’ by applying to 20 remote jobs a week and saying you’re not getting interviews. For remote first roles, it’s very easy to get lost in the sea of applicants.
That does not mean you’re not networking. Networking with people in your area, but don’t rely on applying to remote jobs on Linkedin as a strategy.
Get eyes on you! 👀
Linkedin favors smaller creators, so if you’ve got 50 connections and 7 followers, when you start posting 1-2x a week, you’ll very quickly grow a following. Make sure to vary your approach between posting your own posts, commenting, re-posting other posts and liking them. The MORE you engage on Linkedin, the MORE you are likely to get in front of the right people. Also, the more active profiles get preference when recruiters search for candidates. Engagement can look like posting, connecting with new people, having DM conversations, adding comments and more.
Learn how to approach the job search in 2023 and beyond. The Social Job Search Course simplifies the job search process with lessons and templates to help you build visibility in your job search.