If you need some motivation regarding persistence in your switch to a green job, check out this new article by Sophie Cheong on Fact Company:
Like many bright-eyed recent grads, I thought I had my post-college life planned out, with my degree and industry decided. While I graduated with a degree in Business Administration and Management, I quickly realized that my passions were actually in software engineering. So, I took a risk, quit my job, and signed up for a coding bootcamp to learn everything I could about a new industry.
Although I did everything I could to prepare myself for this career pivot, I struggled to find a company that would even move me through the first or second round of the interview process. While the length of the application process varies by field, Linkedin recently wrote that it takes, on average, 49 days to land an engineering role, with the slowest 10% of hires taking about 82 days. I didn’t know that this journey would be as lengthy and challenging as it would be when I started, but I soon realized that so many people (actually over 68,000 people on LinkedIn!) related to these struggles.
I can’t say that it was easy, but after 357 rejections and 40 interviews, I finally landed my dream job as a full stack engineer and I couldn’t be happier.
Despite the constant rejections and necessary mental health days, I’m where I am today because I refused to let my failures and bad experiences define me. And, when you’ve applied to as many companies as I have, you tend to learn a thing or two about the hiring process and how to keep going when it gets really tough. Read the full article on Fast Company.