How do you get hired as a developer?

How do you get hired as a developer?

Fire off your CV in a scatter-gun manner to as many places as possible?  Or try something a bit more targeted?  You can probably guess where my preference lies.  

Firstly, I'm not going to talk about technical skills - I'm assuming you have those or know where to find them.  

Instead, you need to think about what will make you stand out from the crowd.  

I'm speaking here as someone who's hired a lot of freelance developers to come and work with me although I will admit my experience in corporate is limited.  

Corporate, freelance or somewhere in-between; there's still one important question that you need to answer.  

What is the outcome they are looking to achieve by hiring?

Agencies generally want someone who can get up to speed and start churning out code as quickly as possible.  And they don't really care about the quality because they are hired on a per-project basis; once it's done, it's done.  

Corporates generally want someone who is willing to learn the ropes and do things the right way.  Because the code is going to be around for years, so needs to be well-structured, well-engineered and well-tested.  And knowledge transfer is vital, so you need to be able to document, explain and work within a team.  

And small businesses need to be able to trust you.  The owner is placing their livelihood in your hands, so even if you don't have all the technical skills, if you've got the people skills you've got a way in.  

So take the time to understand who you are applying to.  Figure out what they're looking for.  Discover what their values are - are they data-driven or person-led?  And optimise for what they are looking for.