Updating resume with new technologies

So I find myself at a point in my career where it's hard to land a java job if I don't have Spring or Angular on my resume. I've been studying the tutorials in my spare time. Here's one for Angular and one for Spring .

Fun little technologies; they remind me why I got into computers in the first place :).

At any rate , these are the challenges I face:

1) Doing exercises beyond the tutorial. I've never really worked well at the "just think of an application and write it" school -- I prefer structure. What I'd like is a set of problems that would really exercise my knowledge of the frameworks WITHOUT giving me the answers. Well -- not until I was fully done, anyway. What I'd wish for is a group of peers that I could submit the work to and get feedback on the solution. And since I'd love this to be for free, it obligates me to review THEIR submissions as well. Fair's fair.

At any rate, once I've got some real experience under my belt and can answer questions reasonably on both theory and practice, the next step is:

2) Reflecting it on the resume. It's not production experience, so it's probably not a good idea to just slap it into the experience section; I prefer to reserve that for production work. But simply adding a one-word entry under technical skills doesn't seem to really sell well.

Any suggestions on the above?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

For #1, what about trying to replicate a problem you've already solved with one language/software in this one?
An additional benefit could be that, if you get the same output as what you had previously generated (under base Java?), then that acts as a check that you did it right. You could either try something similar to what you've done for work before, or something fun as an example of mastering the software (write a dice roller, or Tic-Tac-Toe, whatever seems fun to you but not too easy).

For #2, no great ideas, but I'm curious what others offer here.
One (maybe bad idea, not sure of professional standards): If you go with my idea for #1 and replicate a work project you've done in the past, it might be appropriate to mention that you've upgraded that project to run within these technologies. While it's not something you did for that job, it is something you did after the fact related to that job and shows mastery of the skills.

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Originally Posted by pendell

2) Reflecting it on the resume. It's not production experience, so it's probably not a good idea to just slap it into the experience section; I prefer to reserve that for production work. But simply adding a one-word entry under technical skills doesn't seem to really sell well.

Any suggestions on the above?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

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Create a "Technologies known" section where you list e.g. all the languages you can program in, possibly with years of experience or soft competence levels ("basic/moderate/expert").

It is honest, and it will work, since a lot of the resume reading is know done by bots looking for key words. Mentioning these two languages anywhere will be enough for your resume to be passed on to a human who then will scan through the whole thing.

Unfortunately, if that human is looking for professional experience in the matter then you are going to be stuck until such time as you do have some, but there will be jobs were knowledge is enough, if accompanied by other desired characteristics.

GW

Good suggestions, both of you. Thanks!

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Is it possible to get certification or other validation that you've at least trained in these techs somewhere?

Online courses perhaps? That's also a place where you could get real problems ot work with and answers to them in due course.

That way you get skill validation and more training in one so to say.

Are their any gaming or community type programs that use those technologies? Or any programs that use those technologies that allow community developers/extensions?

For example, I use Fantasy Grounds, ifI was a LUA developer, I could get into doing a bunch of community extensions for that program and get feedback from other community devs. Some professional developers, some not. But then you would have real challenges with self-designed structure. Get feedback etc. And at some point I don't think it would be inappropriate to have a section on your resume with something like "community developer for XYZ using QRS, released extensions include; 123, 234..."

Lord entrails is a really good idea -- to look for open-source projects with the target technology to contribute to.

The problem with certification is that it means a lot less. Anyone can get a certificate from various web sites for a few hours work -- what hiring managers are looking for is serious experience with the technologies at hand, preferably a proven track record of success, or at least a deep knowledge of the subject.

Respectfully,

Brian P.