CAMPUX · The Job-Getting Machine · Search Plan

Don't wait until you feel ready.

The certificate is not the start line for your job search — week six is. This is a free, dated, week-by-week plan that runs in parallel with the classes: what to apply for, who to talk to, and what to ship, every single week, from the day you enrol to the day you sign.

Most beginners make the same mistake: they treat the course as a prerequisite to be finished before applying, then start a cold search from zero in month seven. That is the slow road. The average opening now draws hundreds of applicants, and it takes a run of targeted applications to land one offer — a volume that takes months to work through no matter how good your portfolio is. So you start the funnel early and run it alongside the learning. This page is the cadence. The dashboard tracker is where you log it.

The one rule this whole page enforces

Start applying at week six. Not when you feel ready.

Week 6 →

By week six you have your first public capstone plate on GitHub and the foundations classes behind you. That is enough proof to apply — for the realistic first titles: Cloud Support Engineer, Junior DevOps, Platform Engineer I, SRE Associate, Junior Azure Administrator. You will not feel ready. Nobody does. Apply anyway — every rejection is calibration, and the funnel needs the runway.

Feel unready. Send the application anyway.

The band you are aiming at is honest and mapped on the roles & pay page — a floor-to-getting-good range, not a promise. Read it, then aim at the floor titles first.

The 26-week ledger

Every week has a number

Six months, split into two halves. Weeks 1–5 are build-up — you learn, you assemble proof, you set up the machine. From week 6 you are live — a rising weekly quota of applications and networking touches, on top of the classes. "Touches" means a real human interaction: a comment, a message, an informational chat, a referral ask. Log every one in the tracker. Numbers are targets, not ceilings — beat them if you can.

Weekly targets · run in parallel with the classes
Week	Learning focus	Apps / wk	Touches / wk	Portfolio & search milestone
Wk 1	Month 1 · Foundations & setupClasses 1–6 — cloud, models, providers	0	0	Create a clean GitHub profile. Start a search log in the dashboard.
Wk 2	Classes 7–9 — Entra, RBAC, identity	0	1	Build the résumé from a template. Draft your LinkedIn headline (checklist below).
Wk 3	Classes 10–13 — networking, compute, storage	0	2	Complete the LinkedIn checklist. Turn on "Open to work" (recruiters only).
Wk 4	Classes 14–16 — connectivity, DNS, ARM	0	3	Start Capstone Plate I. Save 20 target companies to the tracker.
Wk 5	Classes 17–19 — Git, repos, branching	0	3	Ship Plate I with a recruiter-grade README (architecture + cost). This is your proof.
Wk 6	Month 2 · Go live — apply while you learnClasses 20–21 — Bicep, Terraform	3	3	First applications go out. Floor titles only. Log each in the tracker.
Wk 7	Classes 22–24 — Actions, OIDC, pipelines	5	4	Rehearse the behavioural bank out loud. Ask for your first referral.
Wk 8	Classes 25–26 — scripting, Docker	6	4	Review your funnel. If nothing's moving, fix the résumé before adding volume.
Wk 9	Class 27 — containers on Azure	6	5	Start Capstone Plate II. Do one informational interview.
Wk 10	Month 3 · Volume & first interviewsClasses 28–30 — monitoring, KQL, alerting	8	5	Ship Plate II. Expect first phone screens — prep with the scenario cards.
Wk 11	Class 31 — security & DevSecOps	8	5	Run a mock interview out loud, timed. Record it; watch it back.
Wk 12	Class 32 — cost & FinOps	8	6	Sit an exam-practice set. A cert in progress is a résumé line.
Wk 13	Classes 33–35 — AI on Azure	8	6	Halfway audit: funnel conversion by stage. Double down on what converts.
Wk 14–17	Month 4 · Steady stateClasses 36–38 — incidents, databases, APIM	8–10	6	Start Capstone Plate III. Convert warm contacts into referrals — the highest-yield channel.
Wk 18–21	Month 5 · Close the technicalsClasses 39–41 — pipelines, queues, Functions	8–10	6	Ship Plate III. You now have three portfolio plates — lead every application with them.
Wk 22–26	Month 6 · Land itClass 42 — landing the job	10	6	Full-funnel push: onsites, offer conversations, negotiation. When you sign, read Your First 90 Days.

Roughly ~180 targeted applications and ~120 networking touches across the live weeks. That is the realistic order of magnitude behind one good offer — not bad luck, just the size of the funnel.

Do it in week 2–3

LinkedIn: the checklist recruiters actually search

Recruiters search LinkedIn by keyword. If your profile doesn't name the exact Azure services in the job posts, you are invisible — no matter how good you are. Tick these off; your progress saves on this device.

Headline names the target role + top skills — e.g. "Aspiring Azure Administrator · Bicep · Terraform · AKS · CI/CD" — not just "Seeking opportunities".
About section leads with a specific line: what you build, which services, and a link to a capstone repo. Three short paragraphs, first person.
Skills section lists the recruiter-searched keywords — Azure, Entra ID, Bicep, Terraform, GitHub Actions, AKS, Kubernetes, KQL, Azure Monitor. Pin the top three.
Featured section pins your capstone repos with the architecture diagram as the thumbnail. Proof above the fold.
"Open to work" is on, set to recruiters-only so it doesn't signal to a current employer, with your target titles listed.
Custom public URL (linkedin.com/in/yourname) — put it on the résumé header.
A real photo and a banner. The banner can be a hand-clean diagram or a plain Azure-blue field — no stock clip-art.
Post once a week — what you shipped, what a class taught you, a diagram you drew. Activity makes you searchable and human.

Every week, from week 2

The referral & networking playbook

The uncomfortable truth of a job search: a large share of hires move through referrals and warm intros, not the front door of an application form. The exact figure is debated, but the direction is not — a referral dramatically raises your odds of an interview. That is why "touches per week" is in the ledger next to "applications". Networking is not schmoozing; it is a small number of honest, specific messages every week. Here is the machine.

Warm before cold: Start with people you already have a thread to: former colleagues, classmates, help-desk contacts, anyone in the bootcamp community. One honest message beats fifty cold connection requests.
The informational interview: Ask a working cloud engineer for 20 minutes about their job — not a job. People say yes to curiosity far more than to requests. It ends with "who else should I talk to?"
The referral ask: Once you've had a real conversation and there's an opening, ask directly and make it easy — send your résumé and the exact req link so they can forward it in one click.
Communities to live in: Azure and DevOps Discords/Slacks, local meetups, Microsoft Learn groups, r/AZURE. Answer one beginner question a week — teaching is the fastest way to be seen as capable.
Give before you take: Comment usefully on others' posts, share a diagram, congratulate a launch. A network you only touch when you need something is not a network.

Script · the informational-interview reach-out

"Hi [Name] — I'm retraining into cloud engineering and building toward Azure Admin roles. I saw you work on [platform/team] at [company] and I'd love to hear how you got there. Could I ask you 20 minutes about your day-to-day? Happy to work around your calendar — no pitch, just genuinely trying to learn."

Script · the referral ask (after a real conversation)

"Thanks again for the chat last week — it really helped. I noticed [Company] has a [Cloud Support Engineer] opening ([link]). Given what we talked about, I think I'd be a strong fit. Would you be comfortable referring me? I've attached my résumé and a link to a project so it's a one-click forward. No worries at all if not."

Log every touch in the tracker so "6 this week" is a fact, not a feeling.

The weekly loop

What a live week looks like

From week 6 onward, the search is a repeating rhythm layered on top of your class time. Tick these each week — reset every Monday.

This week's search loop · 0 of 0 done 0%

Hit your application target for the week — tailored, not spray-and-pray. Log each one in the tracker with its stage.
Hit your networking touches — a mix of warm messages, one informational chat, and at least one referral ask when there's an opening.
Advance the portfolio — commit to the current capstone plate, even a small improvement to the README.
One interview rep — rehearse two behavioural or scenario cards out loud, or run a timed mock.
Post once on LinkedIn — what you shipped or learned. Keeps you searchable and in front of your network.
Friday funnel review — count applied → phone → tech → onsite → offer. Fix the stage that's leaking before adding volume.

Everything this plan links to, in one place: the target titles and honest pay bands are on Roles & pay; the ATS-safe templates and exports are on Résumé templates; the STAR-answer question bank is Interview questions; you log the funnel on the dashboard tracker; you practise exactly what employers are asking for on the Job-Market Skills Radar; and the craft of translating your work into an offer is Class 42. Start the funnel at week six. The people who get hired are not the ones who felt ready — they are the ones who were already in the pipeline when the right opening appeared.