On Wednesday 10th August, the team and I at Initi8 hosted our first event with Coding Black Females - Recruitment Tips and Networking.

Coding Black Females

For those new to our page, Coding Black Females was founded in 2017 by Charlene Hunter as throughout her career as a Software Developer she saw black women were heavily underrepresented in the tech industry.

Since then, Charlene and her team have not only been providing opportunities to black females developers by helping them network and build relationships, they also offer free training courses and support through mentoring and other development initiatives.  

It was a real delight to meet the woman who attended our event, their pure passion and drive to do well in the industry didn't go unnoticed and there were great discussions throughout the evening.

Talk #1 - How to Write a Killer CV

To start the evening off, Claire Dutton, Senior Consultant at Initi8, gave tips on how to write a killer CV (keep an eye out for her future blog on this!). She went through everything from the format of your CV, fonts you should use, layout and what to include.

Talk #2 - How to Prepare for a Technical Interview

Next up was Max, Team Lead at Initi8 who educated us on how to prepare for a technical interview. Max's talk really opened the floor to questions and discussions. 

Talk #3 - How to Ask for a Payrise Without Quitting Your Job

Following on from Max, was Stephen, Director at Initi8. Stephen's talk was advice on how to ask for a payrise without quitting your job. I think this talk was extrememly insightful, in whichever industry you may be in, it is sometimes a daunting thought asking for a payrise. Stephen presented 8 Top Tips to help with this process. I think some great tips were to 'Know Your Worth' and 'Write a script'. (Keep an eye out for Stephen's future blog on these tips in more detail!)

Talk #4 - Emerging Tech

Last but not least was Calvin, Principal Consultant here at Initi8. Calvin held a really interactive session where he really got the group involved and discussed what he believed was 'emerging tech'.  

After the presentations, our consultants reviewed CV's and answered any questions the group had. Overall, we think the evening was a success and we are so happy we were able to help an amazing group of people. 

Initi8 will continue to help the Coding Black Females community and we are already really looking forward to hosting another event.