I have one word that sums up the journey to getting a job and that would be persistence. I am not writing this article to brag but I am writing to inspire.

I started coding freshman year of high school when I made the decision to take the path of vocational education. Vocational education for anyone that isn’t aware is where you learn a career skill or trade alongside your traditional high school education. At the vocational school I attended I learned all the basics of HTML, CSS and Javascript. I didn’t get taught how to build APIs or use Javascript frameworks so I set out to teach myself.

At the start of 2019 I decided that I was going to dedicate every spare moment I had to learning and getting better. This meant that I woke up at 5am everyday to code before school this also meant that anytime that wasn’t spent with friends, family or work I was ultra focused on coding.

By May 2019 I started to pull together my portfolio of a few projects that I made in angular and start to build my resume. I also did some mentoring sessions with a senior developer that really helped me define the path that I would need to take in order to get to where I wanted to be. So from June until September I applied to every single job that I could find on linkedIn that fit my ability (363 to be exact).

I had my first ever technical interview in september 2019, 4 months after graduating high school. I studied for an entire week reviewing JS fundamentals and whiteboarding. Long story short I didn’t get that exact job but I stayed persistent and continued to apply for jobs everyday.

I applied for a job that I wasn’t qualified for just hoping that someone would see my resume and I could tell my story and show my work. Next thing I know I am talking with the head of development for the company and having another technical interview. This interview goes very well and I fly down to check out the office and meet the team.

That brings us to where I am now. I am currently working for a company in Louisville kentucky where I am developing products for the home healthcare field.