Developing your brand as a developer
Projected Time
30-45 minutes
Prerequisites
Motivation
- Your personal brand is your way to distinguish yourself from others and make yourself memorable.
- Having a distinct and relevant personal brand can help employers identify you as a good fit for their open roles, or can help you build credibility with colleagues and managers as you further your career.
- It is worth the investment to think outside the box and develop a brand that will help employers get to know you.
What is an example of a great personal brand? Test your knowledge about Techtonica founder Michelle Glauser. Did you learn something new and impressive?
Objectives
- Understand importance of a personal brand when embarking on a new career
- Set up your own site or blog to start sharing your learning
Specific Things To Learn
- Using Twitter—following, tweeting, blocking (we recommend using GG Autoblocker to automatically block thousands of trolls)
- Tips for blogging
- Tips for being social through GitHub
Materials
Lesson
How to win friends and stand out from the crowd Build on the first information. Have participants guess things, do an activity, etc.
Make sure to mention these things:
- Choose your lane
- Pick something you have learned or love and go deep in explanations
- Join a community
- Make Friends
- Get involved on Twitter and GitHub
- Share your experience
Common Mistakes / Misconceptions
- Most new developers feel they need to be an expert at something before they can share on a topic. The irony is, there are not lots of free beginner content out there for new developer geared towards new developers and the same new developers are in the best position to teach each other today. No matter how new you are, there is someone who knows less than you and you are in the best position to teach them.
Guided Practice
Follow this tutorial to create your own blog on Medium!
Independent Practice
Take some time this week to write a blog post on something you learned this week. Before posting to the world, have a fellow classmate review it to see if the information is useful. A typical suggestion is to blog for yourself 3-6 months ago.
Ship it and continue this process at least once a week. Remember to keep the blog post short at first to prevent writers block and anxiety about posting.
Promoting your blog is at least as important as writing it!
Challenge
Tweet out about your new blog on Twitter using the #BridgeTheTechGap or #CodeNewbiehashtag.
Check for Understanding
Send your first blog post to a peer and ask for comments and 2 ways you can improve your post or your site.
Supplemental Resources
- templates.netlify.com - List a variety of website templates.
- codenewbie - A community for new coders that provides various resources and help, including a slack group.
Check for Understanding
- What are the benefits of having a distinct Personal Brand?
- How do you build a Personal Brand?
- Mention some blog hosting sites.
- Mention some communities you would like to join.