Thoughts: Getting first job in tech as a self-taught

I often got questions from people who didn't study tech at school/university wanting to get into tech. This can be someone early in their career, or even mid-career looking to make a switch.

My honest answer: I honestly don't know! While I do feel like a lot of the things that I learned was self-taught, I studied informatics at a polytechnic so I can't and won't pretend that I understand what you're going through.

However, I did quite a bit interviews in the past and I can say that I personally don't care whether someone is self-taught, mid-career, or whatever. What I looked for was whether someone would be a valuable addition to the team, and that's it. I've written my thoughts on how to go about maximizing chance of getting a job offer.

Of course, this does not mean everyone thinks the same way I do. I have heard of stories of interviewers having personal biases that could either increase/lower your chance of landing a job. For instance, some people might look down on bootcamp graduates, but some would actually see it as a strength. In an ideal world, these non-objective factor shouldn't influence a hiring decision, but unfortunately we're just not quite there yet.