Use LinkedIn To Boost Your Software Engineering Career

There are many channels you can use to kickstart your software engineering career once you’ve finished up at Sabio bootcamp. LinkedIn can be a fantastic way to reach out to CTOs, recruiters, and build a strong network.

Rob Levine, the head of recruiting at Slack, recently joined us on our Sabio Speaker series. He offered some excellent tips for using LinkedIn to find a great software engineering career.

1. Make a great profile

Almost every recruiter spends a big part of their day checking out LinkedIn profiles of potential software engineers. Make sure you make a good first impression!

Have a full and complete profile with accurate, up-to-date information about bootcamp, additional training, and projects you’ve worked on. Add a professional profile photo. Every little piece of your LinkedIn profile will work to improve your reputation and career.

2. Build your network

Rob recommends “absolutely, lean on your friends, network, network, network.”

Building a network is such a valuable way to gain software engineering career opportunities. LinkedIn is similar to a social media platform. This makes it easy to connect to people you know from college, bootcamp, or have met at industry events.

Use LinkedIn to follow them, see what they’re up to, and comment on their posts to stay on their radar. They’ll be more likely to keep you in mind for future projects.

3. Don’t mass apply

You might think that applying for several positions at the same company will increase your chances of landing a great software engineering job. However, Rob doesn’t like it when he sees applicants doing this.

“What it tells me is that they’re indiscriminate and that they are not really being clear about what they are looking for and who they are.”

Instead, be straight with yourself and people who are recruiting about what you can do and what boxes you’ll tick for their company.

4. Keep your resume simple

Rob’s advice to job seekers is to “keep your resume clean and not overly cluttered. You may have amazing skills and, worked on a lot of projects but I don't need to know every single detail over eight pages. Keep it to a page or two.”

People who work in recruiting get overwhelmed with piles of resumes and cover letters every single day. Outline your training, such as bootcamp, experience, projects, and skills, but keep it as short and punchy as possible.

5. Do your research

When you reach out to recruiters, carefully read through their LinkedIn profile to see what they look for in a software engineer. Then, present yourself based on that information.

Rob received a message on LinkedIn where the sender clearly explained how his skills matched the keywords on Rob’s profile. Rob checked out his profile, and now he’s got an upcoming interview.

This is why you should align yourself with the recruiting needs of the company. Make it very clear to the recruiter how you would fulfill these needs.

Keep your message simple, concise, and incorporate keywords that you know they’re looking for.

6. Be specific

When you reach out to recruiters, remember that they know nothing about you or your intent, so you need to lay it all out for them.

“The more specific you can be, the more attention you’re going to get,” Rob says.

Be clear and straightforward about your training (e.g. coding bootcamp), past projects, and your immediate career goals. This will help them to understand the gap you could fill at their company.

The Sabio Speaker series is a moderated conversation between Sabio and industry professionals to provide opportunities for industry professional to interact with the Sabio community and build long term relationships.

Rob Levine is a Senior Technical Recruiter with over 20 years of experience. He now recruits for Slack and has recruited for other amazing companies such as LucasFilm/ILM, Pandora, Autodesk, Apple Inc., and Twitter. He's a proven professional that will find, engage and recruit the right high-quality talent.