From Crisis to Opportunity: How GitHub and LinkedIn Can Transform Your Career in a Recession

 Dear Readers,

No, this is not some kind of letter (or it might be). 

As I am writing this, I keep hearing many news like it has become tough to land a job as a fresher. Our time is unfortunately marred with recession. While many candidates might miss many opportunities due to hard (BAD!!) luck, some might miss due to their own mistakes.

However, one more thing I observed. Many candidates underuse the platforms such as GitHub and LinkedIn. In fact, I would say in this fast-paced growing world of technology, these 2 might become your digital resumes. In this blog, I will highlight the importance of both of these social media tools and how they ultimately helped me to get an edge over others in the tech industry.

Rewinding to my college days where I had very hard luck in landing job during campus placements. You will not believe this but I was sidelined multiple times just because I had a weak LinkedIn and GitHub profile. Why would recruiters want to see these two? The same question was constantly arsing in my mind. As I have found my answer, let me elaborate.

In a recession, companies often look to streamline their operations and become more efficient. By actively contributing to open-source projects on GitHub or showcasing your own projects, you can demonstrate your skills, creativity, and ability to contribute to cost-effective solutions. This can make you more attractive to potential employers or clients looking for innovative and skilled individuals.

Networking becomes even more critical during a recession as job opportunities may be more limited. LinkedIn allows you to stay connected with colleagues, industry professionals, and potential employers. By actively engaging with your network, sharing relevant content, and participating in discussions, you can increase your visibility and demonstrate your expertise, making you a more desirable candidate for job opportunities that may arise.

One of my friends gave me some advice back then. He told me about GitHub. He stressed the importance of this meme (Just for fun).

That's right, followers on GitHub are a huge achievement, as said on the web. Okay, jokes apart. By building your GitHub profile, you can show that you can code. Not just code but by doing some open source contributions across the platform, you will gain valuable insights on how the code is written and documented and also gain confidence in your coding abilities, as contributing to prestigious open source projects would be good enough to be highlighted on your "Digital" Resume.

Immediately after my friend's advice, I opened a GitHub account. It was back in 2019 I presume. As I became aware that GitHub houses codes, I pushed all the college assignment codes on the platform. For example, in our college, there used to be practical labs, consisting of 9-10 assignments. I used to post the solutions of those assignments in the form of codes. Whenever my classmates used to ask me to provide help with some assignment, I used to forward them links to the specific repository where the assignment code was present.

It took some time to gain fame but during my final years, I received many mails from students, who thanked me as my assignment solutions helped them to crack their viva. Soon I started gaining followers in the form of students. Later I also created a repository where I put all my interview preparation codes and links to useful materials across the web. I made it open-source so that people can give it a Star and contribute to the repository. This move was also good as it helped a few students in their technical interviews and I was just happy that my work was doing good things for others.

But that was not enough.

Even though many people got placed using the material I posted on GitHub, I was still searching for a job. The thing I was lacking, was an impressive LinkedIn profile which I noticed too late. During a few off-campus interviews I attended, I was sidelined due to this criteria. Believe me or not, I have seen this at many places if your social i.e. LinkedIn profile is not good enough, you are sold down the river there itself mate!!

There are many sections you can show off to the recruiters on LinkedIn. You can show your impressive projects, research paper publications, test scores, achievements, etc. Make sure to connect with more people as much as possible as it might lead to better results while job searching. As connections are vital cogs while using LinkedIn, you must not keep them below 100 at any cost, and increase the connections as much as possible.

How do these both help me?

When I joined the training academy to get placement, they shared the information that an impressive LinkedIn and GitHub profile is the one that recruiters prioritize. I started regularly posting on LinkedIn and side by side, contributed to open-source projects. I gained valuable insights on many things here and as a result, I started getting calls from multiple places instantly.

A massive don't point I would like to add is, don't keep an empty profile picture on either of these platforms. Be professional here. Although you can put a bit casual picture on GitHub, on LinkedIn, I would say no.

Also, regular posting helps. Suppose, you are doing some project, or some course that you want to show it to the "professional" audience. If you are lucky enough, you might gain a limelight there too; ultimately helping you to start your professional journey.

Signing Off.

Hope it will help someone during this hard time of job search.

All the Best.