Editor’s note: The Towards Data Science podcast’s “Climbing the Data Science Ladder” series is hosted by Jeremie Harris. Jeremie helps run a data science mentorship startup called SharpestMinds. You can listen to the podcast below:

Coronavirus quarantines fundamentally change the dynamics of learning, and the dynamics of the job search. Just a few months ago, in-person bootcamps and college programs, live networking events where people exchanged handshakes and business cards were the way the world worked, but now, no longer. With that in mind, many aspiring techies are asking themselves how they should be adjusting their gameplan to keep up with learning or land that next job, given the constraints of an ongoing pandemic and impending economic downturn.That’s why I wanted to talk to Rubén Harris, CEO and co-founder of Career Karma, a startup that helps aspiring developers find the best coding bootcamp for them. He’s got a great perspective to share on the special psychological and practical challenges of navigating self-learning and the job search, and he was kind enough to make the time to chat with me for this latest episode of the Towards Data Science podcast.Here were some of my favourite take-homes:

• Now that interviews are being done over videochat, job applicants have a unique opportunity to do a self-assessment of their interview performance by recording themselves as they practice answering questions. Rubén also suggests preparing some notes that you can reference during your conversation, to help make your delivery smoother and keep you on track. [NOTE: do keep in mind, though, that as my brother Ed recently tweeted, Zoom has a setting that allows meeting hosts to see what’s on your screen, so you may not always be able to get away with this].Staying motivated to learn is a skill you can work on and develop, and it’s especially important now that you can’t rely on teachers or TAs to be physically drawing you into classes or bootcamps. One great way to do this is to leverage the Atomic Habits strategy: find the minimum action that takes you in the direction you want to go (no matter how ridiculously small), and start there. For example, if you want to develop a workout habit, start by putting your workout shorts on and calling that a win — if you do some push-ups after, then that’s just gravy. Once you’ve built your “put my shorts on” habit, make your next goal to do a single push-up, and start growing your habit from there.

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