Hey ,

The 2023 tech industry was wild!

Kyle Simpson lost his job and has been job hunting for 3 months so far. Here's his portfolio:

• 18+ years of experience
• Author of most popular Javascript book (You don't know JS Yet, 174k stars)
• 75k+ followers on LinkedIn
• All round amazing guy

You'd think it'll be super easy for him to land a job. You'd think people will be lining up to offer him a job.

But no.

2023 was a brutal year in the tech job market.

I have bad news for you.

2024 will be worse.

Predictions for 2024 tech job market

1. Tech companies will continue to lay off. (Cloudflare

• Google laying off hundreds of employees in Jan 2024
• Twitch lays of 500 employees in Jan 2024
• Amazon laid of hundreds of employees in Jan 2024

Layoffs cause an oversaturation in the job market. Meaning job postings will receive 3,000+ applications.

2. Job searching strategies will fail you

Doesn't matter how beautiful or perfect your resume is.

Or how brilliant your portfolio is.

99% of the time, no one will see it when you apply for jobs. Because there's just too many people applying for opportunities.

3. New tech talent will continue pouring in the market

Tech is still one of the easiest industries to get into, so thousands of people will transition into tech in 2024, bringing in even more competition.

How to advance your career in 2024

There are 2 phases of landing opportunities in tech. This applies to you if you're trying to land your first job, or you're trying to improve your career by switching to a better job.

The first, extremely difficult phase: Getting a job invite. Imagine applying for 1 role, and 5,000+ other candidates apply. To get an invite, the stars literally have to align.

The second, extremely difficult phase: Competing during the entire interview process and becoming the best candidate. In the past, you could make it even if you didn't do well in some interview stages.

Today, not even possible.

There's so much amazing talent in the market, and you literally have to be perfect to make it through and become the best candidate.

1. Focus on networking

The competition in the tech market is at extreme levels right now. A job opening receives thousands of applications in minutes.

So the traditional route of applying and hoping does not work anymore. You need an insider.

In 2024, focus on growing your network.

Here's an example:

This conference Moonshot is for businesses and entrepreneurs in Africa, happening in Lagos.

The attendees are going to be hundreds of entrepreneurs hiring talented people to join their companies.

So what do you do?

1. You make a list of 5 amazing decision makers who most likely will be attending. Example, the CTO of a small tech startup in Nigeria.
2. You write down 2 conversation topics or questions to ask them.
3. You attend the event, and spark a conversation with them.
4. You create a great impression, follow them on social media and send a message later to create a connection.

This is how you network with the right people, and create meaningful connections that might turn out to be great opportunities in future.

Now when there are opportunities, you can easily send messages and ask for referrals, or even get an invite to interview from people you've already met and chatted with.

2. Get really, really, good at what you do

Imagine applying for 50+ jobs. And getting 49 rejections.

But finally, finally you got an invite to an interview at a top tech company.

1 interview only in the past 2 months.

But then you flop the technical interview.

This is what happened to a friend of mine. It was so painful. They loved him, but they had 5 other candidates that were just way better than him.

This is the year to become a business problem solver. Someone who solves problems for businesses, and knows exactly what they are doing.

Do not just be a frontend engineer. Be a:

- Performance expert

- Accessibility guru

- Automated testing Ninja

- Business driven product engineer

This is what makes you win opportunities.

Walk into 2024 with a new mindset of becoming extremely competent at the job you do.

Conclusion

You've got what it takes to succeed in 2024, and I am personally rooting for you.

Wishing you a successful and booming year,

Stay growing.