This is mighty impressive.
If you felt comfortable someday to share more details on what you did to make your resume more attractive to the employers then I'd highly appreciate it. I often get asked by others how to enter this field, and your perspective will add a lot of value to my own knowledge/understanding of what to and not to advise.
I would love to share. I don't want to give enough details to out myself, but if my experience could help someone else get a tech job, I'd be thrilled!
First, I looked at the sad state of my resume. I had been working part-time for several years after SAH with my kids for several years. The pt job wasn't a tech job AT ALL, but (without giving too many details) it was the sort of thing where even though it wasn't in my job description, my tech experience often came in very handy. I was kind of the resident "technical person". I spun my resume to highlight and emphasize these things! I also did many, many technical things on a volunteer basis for an organization over the years, which I also listed. That sort of brings me to my next point. I *tried* to get an internship, but I had zero luck. Here I was, dying to work for free to get some experience, but I got no responses at all! It became clear pretty quickly that internships were for college kids, not early-40s moms, lol.
Next, I decided I was going to be a front-end developer. This is because I looked at the curriculum of various bootcamps and intensives, and they seemed to focus strongly on front-end. I figured that if career-changer bootcamp grads could go on to land these front-end jobs, then perhaps the barrier to entry wouldn't be so bad for a non-traditional candidate like me. I figured I was basically like a bootcamp grad to potential employers, but with the added bonus of a degree in computer science and some years of (outdated) experience.
I looked at tons of job listings and noticed that React (a Javascript library) came up again and again, so I decided that was my first priority was to get good at React. I did some tutorials, created several different projects using React, and then I put together a portfolio website to showcase them.
I started applying for jobs on Indeed and other sites and preparing like crazy for interviews at the same time. I would look at job descriptions and see what skills were listed. For each skill, I would start researching lists of common interview questions for that skill and preparing answers. So I had this file I kept adding to, and I had sections like "Javascript questions", "CSS questions", "React questions", "SQL questions", etc with tons of questions/answers for each one. I also had answers prepared for questions about my projects, like "Tell me about your favorite project", "Tell me about a project that went poorly", and for all the typical "behavioral" interview questions.
I gotta say, this preparation sounds insane but it was incredibly helpful. On my interviews, I'd say about 2/3 of the questions were something I had seen before and had a solid answer prepared. I also did a lot of Leetcode (a website where you can practice for the kinds of coding questions asked on interviews).
Ultimately I only interviewed with three companies, but got two offers. The one I accepted is a total dream job, I can't believe I landed here. This is going to make a big difference in our FIRE journey, too. Accomplishing this goal was a lot of work, but it was SO worth it!
