Telling Your Story

Figuring out how to tell your story is probably the most important part of marketing yourself. Once you've figured out your story, you'll want to find ways of incorporating it whenever you're communicating with a potential employer - your resume, your cover letter, your LinkedIn and GitHub, and in any job interviews. Especially if you're a career-changer, you'll have to do the heavy lifting of finding a common thread through your experiences so that a hiring manager doesn't have to.

If you're struggling, try brainstorming by asking yourself some of these questions:

• What transferable skills will I bring from my old job when I become a developer?
• What initially drew me to my previous career? What drew me to programming?
• When I was a kid, what did I want to be when I grew up? Why?
• What challenges did I face when learning to code, and how did I overcome them?
• What are my strengths as a developer? How have I demonstrated these strengths in other areas of my life?