I practice programming for about 2.5 years. I taught myself c#, typescript, & sql. I was trying to become a dotNet Developer. Little did I know, these companies out here don't care about what you know. They want to see what you can do! I had to build a project using python, scala & sql. They gave me about 3 weeks, after I presented the project via zoom call, followed by an interview. It took them a whole month to contact me but I got the job. Long story short, apply for any job with any company. The language don't matter. Get your foot in the tech dept no matter what it takes! Also. Never give up!
Asking junior dev for open source contribution is only for delusional tbh. Dont need it for small to medium size company, just show you can do merge rebase and resolve conflict
The language sometimes does matter. After getting hired at two places, I've overheard coworkers at both places reject people because they expected the interviewees to have experience with the language we used at work.
I broke into tech shortly before the pandemic as a former truck driver . I put in 500 applications for get one job. That’s a success rate of .002%. No one told me it would be that hard. And I think that’s why people end up quitting. Understand that your chances of success are low for any particular role but if you stick with it long enough and apply to enough companies you will eventually break through. Now I get at 5 messages from recruiters on LinkedIn every day for the same tech jobs that rejected me .
Great material! I agree with all the above, and if I could add to this, my impression is that many fresh developers have hard time talking about their soft skills and tend to skip them in resumes and letters. While soft skills are often on the top of the wish list. Employer can send you to yet another course in coding, but they cannot change your personality, values and level of integrity, so you need to be able to explain what kind of person (as a professional) you are and what you stand for, otherwise you won't even get an invite to an interview.
Doesn't help. I've studied psychology, read the Six Thinking Hats, Crucial Conversations, How to Win Friends and Influence People. You can master all of these things and it won't help. When employers say they want soft skills, they don't want someone who is likeable, can influence, positive attitude, etc. Nope. They want agreeableness and subservience. Ego stroking is definitely a plus. Hate to break it to you but those are not soft skills. Imagine approaching romantic relationships this way. What a joke.
Also. I like to add to what he said about solving problems. I used to watch tutorials all the time! But it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. It's only when I stopped watching them and started reading documentation & books my learning really began. Point I'm trying to make is, try to solve problems on your own! Watching someone solve problems is like asking someone else to do the work for you.
Tutorials are great. Let's say you want to learn to write a web server quickly. You watch a targeted tutorial to get the basics, and then use the cocumentation to improve and refine. The problem is most people slip into a cargo-cult mentality when it comes to them. The trick to avoiding that is, as you said, start doing things on your own. Use what you know to play at coding while adding new things into the mix every so often. Code, code, code.
I graduated from a so considered "highly legit" coding bootcamp, 6 months ago. I have a decent portfolio with robust projects. Been using Stack Overflow for 5 years to deal with software issues. Contribute to GitHub every single day (missed only 1 day during this year for some reason). Still, the recruiters don't give a heck about giving me even an internship opportunity, not even for a cultural interview. Lately (and very luckily) I've been part of a startup project which seems promising and it's giving me some real life experience in the industry. Things will probably get easier afterwards.
Perfect timing, thank you Stef. I have an interview coming up, and I’ve been job hunting for months. I’ll be sure to apply your tips, regardless if I get the job or not.
It's really nice to be here around people who have and had same struggle as me at this very moment - Guys am shatterd am applying everyday building and practicing on top of that there's the job of applying of job. I checked my email for the amount of rejections I got over past couple months I start laugh so hard damn I got some thickkk skin LOL. taking the advice of some of the commenters on here which past 2 days am really starting to questioning myself as its getting very personal. HE SAID - NEVER GIVE UP. thank you brother
I think the coding game is harder to get into today. When I got into it there were geographical barriers to talent so if you lived in the city with the tech jobs that was already a big leg up, there also wasn’t as much competition, and people actually would hire people to html/css. I think it’s different now standards are higher talent is National if not global. If I lose this coding job will I try and get another one, I dunno…
Standards are veeeery high today. People start with coding early as 15 and at 25 they got a lot of knowledge and experience. Most of them have some sort of degree in IT. I am 47 and for 1.5 years i tried to learn and land a job as a WEB designer (HTML, CSS, Java Script), nothing on sight so far. I saw, during the time, that most of the people who land a job have a vast experience in that field at least 10-15 years. I decided to give up because it s not enough to learn entry of HTML,CSS and JS which is pretty hard but you must know a lot of other things (SQL, PHP, PHYTON).
@@branko917 I am in the same boat with one year degree level diploma but will do a master in Ai next year. Im 39 and been learning by myself Html , css, js , sql and php and for php and sql the page wont open but I downloaded the server and the code is correct. I ll be learning phyton too and I m brushing on my maths. There is a lot of competition and they ask for too much . I have qualified as a ux designer and have the skills but I cant find a job, jobs are being given to foreigners non EU people in Europe or 18 years old with no opinion and basic skills with a master. This is what I am witnessing. The standards are high but its not necessarly about what you can do but about WHO they can. exploit, who will go to the pub and drink and smoke, or has a piercing or tatoos and so on. I did finally find a job where I can troubleshoot html and javascript even if its not something I really want to do. At least the company had their minds made up and they hired me on the spot. However either they dont care about drinking etc or they ll fire me but they seem flexible unlike the other crazy companies who interviewed for BS jobs.
@@branko917 Yeah, a lot of designers are more UX designers these days. Another kinda unmentioned thing with designers is many of them go to very fancy design schools that cost a lot of money. Design at least, is a more elitist field than people would think.
People from poor country can make 5-10x minimum salary just by becoming junior dev. So yeah, hard to compete with that. You are not competing with average third worlder, its top 1% of them
From a linux admin (with no CS degree, but a degree in Physics), for the last decade almost , I will start my 1st coding job next week! I am nervous, but dedicated to do what it takes to make things work. I even accepted a 10% (15% if you take into account the small increase I would get had not I quit my current job) decrease in salary.
If you managed to obtain a degree in physics, you will have no trouble getting up to speed fast as a developer. You already developed a high level of abstraction of concepts.
@@Trinitas666 Meh not really, unless hes going into video game design. I've been programming for 7 years and nowhere have I found a relation to physics except game design.
I just got an entry level job as an intern after 1 and a half year after searching jobs. Guys, make sure to give the employer the impression that they have next to nothing to lose on hiring you and much to win. That's the key trick and that needs to get cleared away from the start to filter the companies that could value such a thing. It's better to be rejected by companies 95% of the time, but by the time you then land an actual interview, they go in with the right expectations and have next to nothing to lose.
This is a clash of reality vs the fake promises sold by bootcamps, courses, coaching overall the industry of giving false hope. The market seeks mostly experienced people who are up to date. Software engineering will get harder/more demanding and specialized, the easy parts get automated this leads to less positions. I went into a job fair event, from the 100 people I talked, only 1 made it and he was already experienced with a uni-degree. It was heartbreak seeing a sea of people graduating from bootcamps that were searching for months for a position. These people paid money to get into a game with the odds against them, and now they also face an economic downturn while still unemployed. Take note that if you are experienced you are still not safe. It takes two years to be left behind in skills to get redundant, then guess whose positions redundant people fill so they can catch up.
Its the same with youtubers advocating the "self taught" route "I learned python in 2 months and now I work for Facebook, you can do it too" The handful of those guys that are legitimate got very incredibly lucky to have the job they do, it's pretty much mandatory to have a degree nowadays.
@@nathanwhite704 I suspect there can be a hidden version of the story in those cases. For example getting hired by FB or Google by doing the talk and get fired within the notice. Then go to youtube to capitulate this. If you work at Google or Facebook FANG or even in a demanding software company provided you can hold your arm there's no need for youtube. I've interviewed gazillion candidates, they all had degrees, nowadays the candidates with degrees are more than the jobs available so go figure who has better odds.
I'll agree with this quick over view. One thing to add, seek jobs you have already solved problems in that industry using one of your projects. Most of the time your hiring manager won't know much, so you gotta keep it simple with them. Get too technical and their ego will get hurt and then no job for you! Happy job hunting!
I noticed that in Tech people have very fragile Egoes... I mean if I start to fairly criticize some aspect, the fell hurt like some sort of kindergarden soft skin characters... I don't get it... Or the reality is there is a ton of people that want to work in Tech, so as a consequence these compannies can play games beause they have a whole ocean of thirsty people who want to work in tech...
Just checked into this asap. I had a job an year ago but the company management was utterly disgusting they wanted their candidates to learn JavaScript in day. And 15 programming concepts in a month.Considering they were taking 9 hours per day to "teach" and none of their virtual environment worked in the weekends. And in the end I got burnt out and they just alloted everyone tester. And the work there was just form filling. Had to take few months to recover from the burnout.
Ive really been struggling lately and I appreciate this advice. Since ive graduated my bootcamp its a bit overwhelming on learning so much. But doing these kinda jobs would help me focus.
I recently had to get a non-tech full time job to make ends meet, and haven't had a commit since July. I got really discouraged when I wasn't hearing back from companies, mostly because I have a criminal record, so I often have to apply to jobs where it isn't mentioned. I'm still on the fence of giving up, even though I really enjoy coding, I just feel like my previous life decisions and mistakes are what's really going to filter me from having any hopes of landing a tech job. Also that I tend to get rusty very quickly. I took a 6 month bootcamp, and passed with an A+ average, but 2 months later I couldn't even build a CRUD app from scratch. It took another 2 years of self-learning while working to even get back to that point, and now I'm pretty sure it would take me a few months to get back into the loop of it.
Don’t worry, it’s not a criminal background holding you back, it’s just the tech hiring process. Maybe an employer could turn you down if it got to background checks, etc. But most of the time employers aren’t even viewing your resume unless you’re utilizing keywords, have at least a bachelors or previous relevant professional experience. I’m getting a warehouse job just to get some dough while I’m on the hunt for work in IT. Morale of the story is don’t get demoralized/depressed,etc., something eventually has to give (one day). The difficulties are actually normal for most. It is when you give up that you’ll never succeed, and that’s for sure. Think of it like this: (at least) 5 applications a day (while pooping even) = 150 applications a month = 1,800 applications a year. It’s bound to happen eventually, and I’m even putting my own theory to the test. Good luck!
Is it even worth it?? I mean I wasted over 3,000 hours to learn front end, html css JavaScript... And nobody hires me.. I applied to over 200 jobs but people don't care... I mean I start to lose my patience and say F it!!! There is too much competition, and because of that the Tech Companies exploit their developers anyway... I don't know.. I just see giving up as a real option. When I can't pay my rent or buy food because I can't find a real coding job :(
Bob is your uncle, the majority of companies won't give you a reason for rejection they all use the same rejection email templates and when you ask for a clarification you never hear from them. having a lot applicants is their main excuse, I have seen that a lot to say
Yes, I took mern bootcamp and applied to several companies, got nothing and am now unemployed. I lost interest in developer jobs but still do code for fun and took training to become a data analyst, hope it'll work this time.
Don't put too much hope in.. Problem now is the market is oversaturated.. Therea is a ton of people that want to work in Tech. So the companies will only chose the top number 1 some sort of Alfa type personality... I stort to lose my patience with this industry of self absorbed ego centric maniacs for work in abstract sh!t...
...At this point it is best to go straight to the cash. A lot of things are automated now and most enterprises won't give a damn to get you in, or are outsourcing somewhere. If you build something for yourself and sell it, it will go much better than working for somebody. Maybe 2 decades back it was fine to do these type of work, but now it's all publicly available to the point that is easier to do what ever it is and just market it yourself. It will require lot's of cash though to advertise what ever product you wrote inn code. At the end of the day this topic requires money and most people who are in this programing thing or field aren't wired to think that way and naturally fail.
Even if a don't a job as a Coder/Developer, I'll never stop coding. I love hitting that keyboard and materialize anything on a background process or the monitor. It's cheaper than paying for Netflix.
Companies declines me without even look at my portfolio for like.. 2 years now? I love coding but i hate that this will probably never get me any money..
I'm also planning go for hiatus to meet the end in the non-IT related job. I faced with a cruel reality that companies do real talks starting from mid-level developers because they want that developer could fully deliever in the team ASAP. Deadline is deadline and onboarding junior is too much luxury for the company delivering the projects.
From my personal experiences (over 25 years), you need to have "thick skin" as interviews in this and similar fields appear broken for several reasons as they are all borrowed from a google type of interview process and candidates solutions are interrupted differently per interviewer and company; So the cards are already stacked against you from the start. The behavioral interviews are abstract psychological questions reviewed by unqualified people, they extract what they feel from it. There are classes based on helping you contrive and regurgitate responses. The coding interviews can actually be more complex, not based in reality, and do not pertain to real world role expectations. They might be, scrutinizing pleasantness, real time design story-boarding, gathering requirements, working from a brute force approach up, any push back, frustration, emotions, inability to focus under such stress, coding styles, commenting, reacting to curve balls or adjustments, ... the list goes on. But you will never know which standard to meet and you will never know why you passed or failed. You are encouraged to ask questions, but with most companies the engineers rarely seem enthusiastic or what might be construed as unpleasantness. They want to know all this, but when I have asked them to solve a problem of equal complexity to show fitness as my equal or boss, they scoff at the idea of it. What am I to think? The system design interviews are equally nebulous. They ask you to design a system whether in your current knowledge set or not and ask you to design a solution with certain features. My experience is that they are ambiguous scenarios and they let you assume and roam where your brain takes you. Real world project efficacy can be determined by several paths of engagement. One might be someone hands you a well defined set of requirements, you turn them into specs and build it... done. Another path I have witnessed many times is someone says I need this thing built with this end some end result, however, even this scenario has you cycling back for clarification of things like requirements or resource allocation confirmation. The point is, cycling back for more info is key in the real world and when I press interviewers for more details in deciding further down the line they again show signs of frustration. In any case again, you will never know why they passed or hired you. I have passed interviews and worked for google and ibm at certain points and failed at others... never knowing why. My solution is to no longer engage with these mentally abusive, deceptive, nebulous practices, which have collectively wasted entire months worth of my life. My best, longest, and favorite jobs have been with the good old... resume, review my past with engineers, and references. This has a 80% success rate for me and I end up working with people I work well with.
Instead of portfolio projects that nobody cares about, what about joining an active opensource project and starting off fixing bugs or collaborating on features? Then you're working on a real world project, getting your code scrutinized by other devs, and learn a lot of the production pipeline that professional devs have to deal with daily. [edit] So, since posts with resources keep vanishing into the aether, in response to the question "Where for art thou beginner open source project?" The answer is, "Verily, I have searched for 'how-to-find-open-source-projects-for-beginners' on yon vast seas of Internet and have found many an omen of good fortune." Let's see if this works =)
to do that you have to have experience, open source project doesn't mean everybody who is fresh and new is able to give anything significant. In fact, a lot of open source projects are developed by people who are way better then a casual mid-level dev in some company.
I have been at it for over 2 years (consistently) and I have yet to even get an interview. I have invested a lot into this just to even get my foot in the door. One of my mentors said I was pretty much job ready after 6 months in and I have improved a ton since; yet nothing. I have freelanced for small local companies for next to nothing for experience and still nothing. I honestly am beginning to question if I should quit. I have a GitHub, portfolio, non-projects, I've networked and I a lot of people I have spoke with didn't even have a GitHub, degree or even a portfolio. I even started a small blog series ffs! I am sure there are tons of other people in a similar spot but god damn as many openings there are for developers it is amazing how hard it is to even get an interview.
@Mindless Dreamz Oh for sure, it makes sense. I personally would take a low paying position just to prove myself and gain more experience, but it seems like those positions are a dime a dozen.
It's very strange to be honest. There could be couple reason i can think of: 1. Looking in wrong places. For example i could get a job in 2 weeks or something and probably first job i apply or second for sure. But i tried some freelance websites and i couldnt get an answer in a month even that i applied like 20 jobs. It's just whole different experience. So check where you looking for a job. Usually those who spend more time and resources in finding a developer are easies to get interview and those who want something fast are not worth investment of your own time because their decisions are random. 2. If you dont have job experience but your CV looks too shiny it could be bad too. Because we all know that someone with no experience can't know much so writing too much in your CV may signal a wrong message. They may think that your expectations may be too big for someone with no real experience. It's better to write few things that you really good at and just say in interview that it's not a problem to learn anything new or just mention more in your interview what you know. 3. Mention important things and avoid not important. Very similar to second one but there is no reasons to go in to too much details. Stick to the important things. That will show what you think is most important which sometimes tells a lot about your epxerience because with experience things that you think are important or not changes. You can change your CV depending on the company you send. That way you can remove those experiences that are not needed for a job and keep only those that mentioned in job description. By removing not needed experience you will send a message that things that not important to the company will not increase your price, you know what you want and you are focused which means you can learn things deeper instead of going from one technology to other and most important you know at least basics what company needs. Companies that hire developers with no experience usually hire them for 2 reason: 1. They need to do easy job that can be done with not much epxerience. 2. They want to shape you and give you right experience or a right way of writing code. A lot of developers that have experience have very bad habits that is hard to get rid of if you have like 10 years of doing something in a way that is not very good for distributed systems for example it will take a lot of time and effort to change that while salary would still be high which is not worth so better to hire with no experience and pay less till he improves. So if for example you mention your blog in your CV it kind of doesn't fit in any of those 2 categories. Since those who have easy job to do dont need that, they will think it only gonna increase your salary and those who want to shape your experience dont need that too. And like i mentioned before it jus sends a wrong message. Other reason why i would not recommend adding blog in your CV is that you dont have much experience and probably dont know yet in depth what you are writing there and if there are some mistakes/misconceptions or just same can be done easier or it doesnt work in bigger projects and etc.. that may even lower your overall image while again increase salary. With experience things may be different since your salary would be increased anyways. Give only what they need and no more. Atleast for now. Good luck!
My story is pretty unique, at least that's what I think. I have almost 14 years in software development, now I'm a technical director. I didn't go to any colleges or university. I taught myself pretty much everything. I started teaching myself PHP & Perl when I was in high school. That was before Internet was easily accessible. I still remember that back in high school, I had to ask for my father's friend, who at the time lived in Germany, to bring back some programming books for me to study (it was around 2002 or 2003). And somehow, he got 2 books: PHP & Perl (I can't remember the names of the books, but they were photocopied). After that, I realized that I didn't know much English, so I taught myself English. Fast forward 14 years, now I'm comfortable leading several teams, most of them are very talented developers. But still after 14 years, I haven't learnt any algorithms. It's not that I don't want to learn, it's just that in my case, 99.99% of my time, I won't be using algorithms. Ofc, there will be a lot of fields where algorithms are relevant, like AI or data processing. But for data structures, I disagree. I think every developers should have extensive knowledge of data structure, even frontend developers. After all, we're manipulating data in software developments. And finally, if you want to stay in this industry: + Never stop learning, even something not relevant to you today, it might tomorrow + Don't give up + Work ethic is important + Don't afraid to go the extra mile
”even if something isnt relevant today it will be tomorrow” absolutely true in my case, I started working on powershell and barely anyone used it 6 years ago. Now, after Microsoft release powershell core (linux compatible) powershell has become very popular and my questions in stackoverflow from 6 years ago now have 1000s of views. I'm literally at the top of the powershell chart lol To make things better I dont have to learn it because I alrdy know it well
Well I can, "Go to someone's garage", or "Create a website for a coffee shop", Its not out of reach and pretty practical... But I'm interested building games, and even bigger things then that, I'm as blessed as it gets, the 408-page Book that I brought "Computer programming for Absolute Beginners" from the Packt series was printed on 2/22/2022, catch my drift? if you believe in numerology... knowledge is power! Knowledge is life and can behold a lot of good things.. I also have Sam's teach yourself HTML, CSS, AND JavaScript, can wait to finish that 778-page puppy. Cant wait to buy Data Engineering with Python, and Learn Programming with Python, PHP, C++, and C# and finish those!
There are so many variables that go into getting a job. Location is huge. Obviously some areas are going to be much better than other in terms of landing a job in tech. How is your resume structured? Is it formatted in a template that is optimized for HR algorithm key word searches? What is in your portfolio? Do you have original projects or is it 'To do list' type tutorial level projects? Do you know anyone in the industry? Like it not a lot of it is who you know. What is your skill set? I mean the reality is the market might be over-saturated with JS, React, developers. Maybe think about learning Php or Angular or something that boot camps don't teach but is still in high demand. What is the overall market like at the time you are trying to get a job? What is the overall market like in your specific area? Are you just throwing resumes out blindly or are you focusing your job search? I could on and on but the point is there is no one easy answer as to why someone gets a job after submitting 5 resumes and others don't get a job after submitting 500+ resumes. Some of it is in your control and some of it is not. Sometimes is just boils down to luck and being in the right place at the right time.
Location?! Not really I don't know if you heard, but most of Tech jobs are remote! Which means that companies can outsource their work to third world countries!!! And more and more and more people try to get into Tech, which makes it worse and worse to find a job. I wasted over 3,000 hours to learn a ton of stuff, and I applied to over 200 jobs.. and I still can't find a job not even as a entry junior dev!!! This is absolutley madness!!!
This is me. I got an associates in software applications programming from ITT Tech in 2011, I have been through multiple bootcamps, and still havent landed a full time job.
I think full stack web dev with Java or C# and angular is a great way. The competition is extremely high with JavaScript and python only jobs. Most jobs I see for entry level all are usually in a OOP language like C# or Java.
Thank you for the advice Sir. Fortunately, i've already done it twice working on two small individual s project when in college and they pay me 25$ - 26$. It's both a website project using laravel + other js framework, one is for administration school, second is for charity website.
I have never been paid to code, though I did do a little bit as a favor. I can think of nothing worse than having my employment dependent on how or what I code. That would simply take the fun out of it. It's always been my hobby and I like it that way.
I Unfortunately gave up... been learning front end development for 3 years , making projects, uploading to Github.. nothing worked.. now in learning to get my a+ cert and try out IT
I'm struggling with this - unemployed for 9 months - it's been tough getting past technical interviews - you have to answer the results on the impossible programming test - and it's nearly impossible because most of these jobs want you solve 4 problems that take at least an hour to solve - I can solve these problems but the structures of these exams in the past year has gotten worse
That mens you haven’t put in a enough time. Those coding interviews are easy to crack if you have put in the work on studying your coding problems. Have you spent your weekends studying leetcode? Once you’ve done that for a year then you’ll be good.
@@JEsterCW if you want to get paid the big bucks then that’s what it takes. You gotta be totally immersed in your field of work. Call it a magnificent obsession.
@@TheTopProgrammer Disagree. Some companies pay big bucks regardless whether you can crack leetcode or not. The key is to find desperate companies for tech talent :) Speaking from experience and living the life :)
thank you Uncle Stef I made many tutorials, been on many interviews... now I started some basics project and already see how I improved, will see how it goes in next months thank you for advise!
Thats stupid. Do free labor just to get a job. That makes no sense. Companies should hire entry level devs with no experience to help get them started and mold them into the developers that the company wants. Lower the pay to around $45k to $50k for beginner devs and the industry would be better for it.
Might be a stupid question, but i hope I get a good, serious answer anyways. I‘m an engineer considering getting more into programming as I really have fun doing it. What I dont understand is why people expect that you already completed full projects. No one expects an engineer to have built a house when he applies for the first job 🤔 isnt it about learning on the job ?
Because in one case (civil engineer) it is not easy to have built a house , so you just have the relevant degree and companies consider that enough to trust you initially (the degrees have a whole century history behind them), but on the other case , the degree if you have a CS degree is only with a history of half a century, (and if you do not have it , the companies will trust you even less, if you come from a bootcamp lets say) , and further more , it is easy and cheap to build a project on your own, you need no initial investment of materials , or land ! So if you have not build a webpage, or have not build some bash scripts or python scripts, or some small java/C application, and have it in github, how can they trust to hire you?
Your question is a logical one. Once upon a time, companies used to train employees. Nowadays, they want you to train them, with your leet skillz they are willing to pay for.
Your question is a logical one. Once upon a time, companies used to train employees. Nowadays, they want you to train them, with your leet skillz they are willing to pay for.
I learned how to code, got a crappy job... And realized very quickly that the job market was a joke. Guys, the demand for junior devs is going to continue to trend downward. I picked up my CCNA and moved into IT, and now I make over six figures. Your coding experience will mean MORE in IT, not less. Those who can code, provide excellent customer service, and troubleshoot infrastructure is a BIG deal. I took the effort I put into learning to code and brought it into another area of the job market, and I couldn't be happier.
I've been looking for over two years after learning, building projects, getting freelance experience, networking, doing everything I can and after applying to hundreds of positions, I've had two interviews total. I've tried pivoting to applying to non-coding tech jobs, I'm applying to just about any job at this point and I don't get any kind of response. It's exhausting and it's brutal out there. I basically can't give up because I have no other options at this point but I want to give up so badly. I haven't even coded anything in almost a year's time now. I honestly think I would've found a job had things not been the way the are right now but yeah, just wanted to let anyone else out there who's struggling with this know, you are not alone. I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass and tell you it's all going to work out because life is not that kind but something's gotta come from this right? You gain something, even if we don't land a dev job, we have new skills and that amounts to something right? It doesn't feel like it but I guess that's better than nothing
The fact that we live in a reality where someone should have to work for free to prove themselves enough to get a job is an absolute shame. OF COURSE an entry level coder is going to have a sparse resume and project portfolio. Do employers these days not realize that they too were once entry level employees and a company recognized that and gave them a job so they could gain experience anyway?
it's not that hard finding an IT job here where I live but it is "extremely" hard to find a proper one most cases the payment is not even great and you'd be sleepless your co worker doesn't care about code quality which lead to bugs and security issues left and right also your employer would probably force you to keep using the newest or the most popular tech stack available regardless of your portfolio it's insane
As someone who has graduated with a CS degree and is struggling to find any position that matches my education for years, the idea of having to work pro bono for some business that I hardly care about is far from palatable. At this point, I'm starting to question if the professional world wants my kind.
Hi Stefan. Nice Channel brother. My advice as a fellow professional developer who has seen a lot change over the years is this... Become the person that makes software that the modern developers use to never code. Create a software they can utilize to satisfy their intense need to click/drag and copy/paste instead of learning to develop properly from the start. Future human is screaming to never look at code again. That's where the money is now. A software where no code knowledge at all is required, made for modern developers. Also consider creating/launching something like restaurant POS software, hotel booking software, etc... software you can charge a monthly fee to use. Big bags of cash will come if you can match or innovate what is available currently. Best of luck with whatever you choose.
The one piece of advice I'd give someone who doesn't have any formal training is go to a coding boot camp. My company has hired a few people who have trained through them and they've been very successful. A lot of schools don't teach the right things, focusing on C++, writing algorithms, and things like assembly. What you need to get a job quickly is HTML, JavaScript, css, sql, and a web framework like angular/react/vue. many jobs to be filled in that area, at least from my experience
C++ and assembly are wrong to focus on? What? Theres way more to software engineering than front end web dev. Theres robotics, theres aerospace, there's cybersecurity. Also bootcamps aren't taken seriously only degrees are.
@@nathanwhite704 i guarantee you that the number of available front-end jobs dwarfs the number of C++/Assembly jobs. Not saying low-level and machine level language jobs aren't important. But if you're looking to get hired quickly, node/angular/react/vue is going to get you where you need to go much faster.
@@BrianKapellusch "i guarantee you that the number of available front-end jobs dwarfs the number of C++/Assembly jobs." They do not but even if that were the case those low level jobs are typically more secure/stable and depending on your specialization you could be making more than you would in web dev in a shorter amount of time like making 80k straight out of college in an entry level job. Aerospace engineering and biomedical engineering are obviously much more respected than web dev.
@@nathanwhite704relax there son. Some of the most grotesque code I have ever seen is from embedded systems programming. Those sons of bhs can't code to save their lives. They are taught just enough to get by. They are some of the biggest tech charlatans you'll ever meet. 😂
Once I had an interview with twitter. They gave me a task and asked to do in 4 hours which was done. I've sent them the app which was working and next day they've sent me an email saying that I wasn't selected. I've replied that wanted to get exactly what was done wrong, what kind of bugs I had on my code because I wanted to know the problem, work on it and don't make in the future. So they agreed to call me back and when they called me they said that they could not share such an information. I really got pissed and I said that will never ever apply for such a crap as Twitter is! After only just a week I had an offer and got a job in really great company!
@@mrpirate4100 to be fair you could easily start a massive criminal enterprise in a 3rd world country and become richer than any American 9-5 worker or become a king🤷🏾♂️.
I gave up on web development. I studied full stack web development. I became so good i Could make almost any website from scratch. I mainly used React, Express js and mongodb. I got job interviews and this where i gave up. every job interview the code interview is so pathetic. It is nothing to do with web development. All of them give me a code test from a third party like solving some weird shit that you would never ever Ever! use in web development or in anything. Every company wants to give some bullshit code test which is extremely hard to do and even understand it. Every company wants to be google. I did all this study for like 2 years many hours and now I'm moving studying cloud engineer or devops engineer.
So you are just going to flush 2 years of effort? Why not just bite the bullet, slap a datastructures and algorithms course on there, do a code test prep course and get that job? What is another couple months of coding study to salvage those 2 years?
If the problem solving and culture of IT is more your style and you enjoy it, then good for you! You're skill in code wasn't a waste of time at all. In higher level IT, you need to know how to code. They don't call it "infrastructure as code" for nothing. I was in IT for years, I knew BASH and Powershell like the back of my hand, wrote Python scripts, dealt with various APIs, and more. Not knowing how to code would have been a serious handicap. As for the BS interview questions, some of that is directly geared towards assessing how you cope with problems that you don't know the answer to. It's not about your experience or the practicality of the problem, they want to know how you approach new problems, how you break them down, conceptualize, and the questions you ask as you're working through it. Now, if it's just an exam like test, yeah that's BS. Waste of your time, and theirs, for sure. B/c shit, you can totally just look it up if you need to, right?
some people see through this, I was asked to sort in python showed them the default sort and time complexity and was given the job -this year has been tough so many jobs out there have over 200 applicants in the position
Good move man. The money are actually better there! Learn some linux, and AWS, and Jenkins CI/CD, some Python and bash , docker and kubernetes, and understand microservices. Basically you will have to start as a junior linux admin, then some technical support engineer position, and then you start flying.
Earned degree in Computer Engineering in 2006. Could never get into that exclusive club of my degree field. Feel like I should give up for good. Put like 10 hours into last coding exercise and didn't get the job despite being 98% complete. Such a waste of time chasing that delusion. Wouldn't I be better off loving what I'm doing rather than chasing? I look at the staff profile of these jobs and it's 95% white. Basesd on those statisticals alone I have a 5% chance of hire. Is there a hope?
I've been through this, so I created a platform that pushes developers to work on their own startup or join a startup to gain more experience. I created the platform because a lot of developers give up because they can't find a job in their field.
These advices about how to look for a job in a smart way could be used even outside the programming realm: if you're new in the coding area you could try to do this to get a job in the area you're already in.
I agree. I'm working on private security and coding in my free time. It's been almost 3 years now. I finished a mobile app and now I'm on a MERN project. But it's really though. My working shifts are horrible, I'm very tired, I can't code every day. And it's almost impossible to get a part-time job as a developer (at least here). And I can't just quit this job and try get a job a full time junior dev job. That'll take time. How I'm I supposed to pay my bills?? 😒
You can volunteer to do free coding job on a part time basis.... Try not to get into a difficult project.... I would work for a small shop, they’ll appreciate it... Good luck.
@@leoMC4384 I spent over a month making an app. My take away is, sure a big app may seem impressive, but am I realistically going to walk into a job working on some corpo's apps? Probably not, and how many small business sites could I have made in that time instead? Which would have made someone more confident in hiring me based on the content of my portfolio? Several small sites that a start up would have been happy with? Or some banger niche app? No regrets here, but that time pinch is real, and content is king, as they say. Just some food for thought
Stick with it. The hardest job to get is the first one. Your email and linked in dms will get flooded with opportunities as soon as you snag the first job.
@@nable0306 Stick with it. This is one of those things were all you have to do is not quit. Make sure your resume specifies technical specific skills and accomplishments. There’s a lot of resume gold even in a simple responsive html page that a lot of people overlook. If two people built the exact same single page, responsive html site with the exact same code, but one guy wrote that it’s mobile first, grid system, semantic html, accessibility friendly, deferred JavaScript loading, etc etc, that guy is showing their knowledge is deeper and their creative process is more intentional. Being able to talk about those details is how you stand out.
If you do not have a 4 year CSci degree: 1: Complete an established "hard" online course (e.g. Udemy, Coursera, ...). You need to take more than the entry level course. 2: Get certification in the language you have learned. If there is good book on it, read the entire book. 3: Put 1 and 2 on your resume, which needs to "honestly" include tech keywords that are in the job description. Apply only to junior/entry-level positions. 4: To pass the interview, it will helped to have worked through an entire book.
For me coding is a passion, a tool to express myself via making software. For over two decades I did it as a hobby. More recently as a job. But even if I didn’t have a job that involves programming, I would definitely still be doing it, as I did since I was 12.
It doesnt matter what projects or experience you have at this point there are so many people applying for each job posting literally in the hundreds for each one. If you are not in the elite top 10 you will not get hired. There are too many people applying in the IT field in general.
Agreed with most of it. I do think you should follow up after a reasonable amount of time (saw 2 wks) and while I do ask, most employers won't tell me where I fell short
can you drop a video explaining business confidentiality while trying to offer free service to small business. when it comes to a lot of IT jobs they usually involve a lot of private info to be worked with and i could imagine some companies being hesitant to accepting any free services because of the nature of the job. just wondering if you know of any ways we can protect ourselves as independent contractors when offering IT services
If you have to work for free, it means all significant demand for the skill has dried up. It also undermines wages in the sector. Why bother hiring people if you can get desperate wannabes to knock out your projects for you? Coding and web dev are the literacy of the the 21st Century. Nobody gets paid for just being literate anymore - its expected. In the year 1950, you could earn a good living just from being good at reading, writing and arithmetic. That skill set wont get you anywhere today, and the bar for even entry jobs is crazy high. The never ending inflation of skills & qualifications has lead us to this point of a highly educated, often talented, unemployed mass. Its much better to teach(and get paid for it) than to learn.
If I owned a small business, I wouldn't want to expose it to someone whe offered to do it for "free". I would be much more likely hire someone who had a history of successful group projects in an academic setting, or someone who could show their contributions to an open source project.
Evan Erickson everyone else is doing the same you are doing my man, that is, applying to lots of jobs, every HR person has thousands of applications to read, what makes you think you will be lucky enough that your resume will be read?
@@adrian-4767 Yeah because I did it and it worked for me. First and second jobs are the hardest to get. Now I have 4 years of experience and get job offers all the time.
20 per day? i filled out 2000 applications to land a sr fullstack position last week after 1-2 months of applying for jobs. i did like 30+ minimum a day. i started to get rsi in my fingers looking after looking for so long. my advice is to be on job boards all day and have projects. you might not need them, but if you do, you'll be glad you did. you need to get to the listing as early as possible. the older the listing is, the lower the chances. i hope this helps.
@@xthetempestx Yeah 20 is still rookie numbers but I was aiming my advice for the bare minimum people need to do. There’s a lot of devs that only do like 5 a day and then wonder why no one calls them.
That's the big problem with "tech" social media. All these people telling you to learn language X or Y ... and then people don't look at their local job market and miss out
What Steph isn't taking into consideration is this isn't the 90s or early 2000s when he was young. I've built dozens of free web apps and when the industry is steadily going down that does not matter do not spend all your time creating free apps for businesses. Why is he not telling you how many projects to build for free? Because if you keep doing that you'll never make it and you will keep returning to these videos seeking his "tips". Have fun never making it in this industry if you listen to this I'm very glad I went into finance and to Steph your super cool man I just wish you could accept the tech industry is collapsing and what once may have been good advice, no longer is.
People don't understand what superpower software engineering is. You can make an idea a reality in a fairly short period of time, and with some smart marketing, you can make money. The best part: You can re-use the code and your product and just re-brand it to saturate the market and make even more money.
Hi . I am just want asking you, is it possible to get a job as a front end developer, if you start in a “ old years” to learn ? I am almost 52 and have no experience as a programer at all. Than you for your advices in this video.
Hard but yes you can, specially if your country have rules against age discrimination, I know someone in France who got hired at the age of 57 in big company.
Guys, I spent 3 months looking for the correct job. I was totally burned out on my previous one and needed something really better. Believe me, it is worth spending time looking for a better job ( where you are respected and have time to recover ). And you can easily get some experience on websites like Upwork. Freelance is not that great but, for beginners, it will do. Just keep trying. Being persistent is the key I think.
The advice of applying to many positions seems to me to conflict with putting forward certain knowledge in a resume. I don't think a new developer can have projects in twenty different languages.
Most job ads are just fishing for 'rockstars'. A Javascript posting will try to just every framework under the sun, for example. If you have an app with meat on it's bones, the languages matter less and you just need to tick the 'base' box.
@carldrogo9492 I exaggerated on purpose. Obviously no one can ever learn or need that many languages. My point was that lots of job listings even those meant for "entry level positions" require 2 to 3 years of experience in whatever specialization that position requires. It is hard to satisfy that when there can be quite a variety of knowledge different companies require.
🖖🏼 As always great content for the newbie like myself. Always encouraging, offering solutions & support. Even though I had to pause taking HTML5 course by Uncle Stef (job related) I still feel "connected" thru your videos. THE ALMIGHTY BLESS YOU & KEEP YOU!🙏🏼
I practice programming for about 2.5 years. I taught myself c#, typescript, & sql. I was trying to become a dotNet Developer. Little did I know, these companies out here don't care about what you know. They want to see what you can do! I had to build a project using python, scala & sql. They gave me about 3 weeks, after I presented the project via zoom call, followed by an interview. It took them a whole month to contact me but I got the job. Long story short, apply for any job with any company. The language don't matter. Get your foot in the tech dept no matter what it takes! Also. Never give up!
What do you think of open source ? Is it good to have that on your resume ?
Asking junior dev for open source contribution is only for delusional tbh. Dont need it for small to medium size company, just show you can do merge rebase and resolve conflict
The language sometimes does matter. After getting hired at two places, I've overheard coworkers at both places reject people because they expected the interviewees to have experience with the language we used at work.
Another proof that College is waste of time!👏🏾
Bro recruiters don't even bother opening a portofolio. They dont care what you can do.
I broke into tech shortly before the pandemic as a former truck driver . I put in 500 applications for get one job. That’s a success rate of .002%. No one told me it would be that hard. And I think that’s why people end up quitting. Understand that your chances of success are low for any particular role but if you stick with it long enough and apply to enough companies you will eventually break through. Now I get at 5 messages from recruiters on LinkedIn every day for the same tech jobs that rejected me .
that's actually a sucess rate of 0.2%, but i get why you needed 500 applications now.
@@luizcastro5246 🤣🤣
@@luizcastro5246 💀
Yes, once i did similar to you and could find a job.
@@luizcastro5246 ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
Great material! I agree with all the above, and if I could add to this, my impression is that many fresh developers have hard time talking about their soft skills and tend to skip them in resumes and letters. While soft skills are often on the top of the wish list. Employer can send you to yet another course in coding, but they cannot change your personality, values and level of integrity, so you need to be able to explain what kind of person (as a professional) you are and what you stand for, otherwise you won't even get an invite to an interview.
any tips for how to do that?
Doesn't help. I've studied psychology, read the Six Thinking Hats, Crucial Conversations, How to Win Friends and Influence People. You can master all of these things and it won't help. When employers say they want soft skills, they don't want someone who is likeable, can influence, positive attitude, etc. Nope. They want agreeableness and subservience. Ego stroking is definitely a plus. Hate to break it to you but those are not soft skills. Imagine approaching romantic relationships this way. What a joke.
Also. I like to add to what he said about solving problems. I used to watch tutorials all the time! But it felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. It's only when I stopped watching them and started reading documentation & books my learning really began. Point I'm trying to make is, try to solve problems on your own! Watching someone solve problems is like asking someone else to do the work for you.
Nice! RTFM all the way =)
Tutorial give knowledge, practice give experience. Most company prefer proven experience, not proven knowledge
Tutorials are great. Let's say you want to learn to write a web server quickly. You watch a targeted tutorial to get the basics, and then use the cocumentation to improve and refine. The problem is most people slip into a cargo-cult mentality when it comes to them. The trick to avoiding that is, as you said, start doing things on your own. Use what you know to play at coding while adding new things into the mix every so often. Code, code, code.
@@Hewanliar1this dude is preaching.
I graduated from a so considered "highly legit" coding bootcamp, 6 months ago. I have a decent portfolio with robust projects. Been using Stack Overflow for 5 years to deal with software issues. Contribute to GitHub every single day (missed only 1 day during this year for some reason). Still, the recruiters don't give a heck about giving me even an internship opportunity, not even for a cultural interview. Lately (and very luckily) I've been part of a startup project which seems promising and it's giving me some real life experience in the industry. Things will probably get easier afterwards.
You've done s lot. What possible reasons do you think could be behind not getting a job sooner?
@@MJ-xl5jz That's the question. And, thank you.
@@randerins A Saturn transit might have been messing with your outcomes. Are you around 30?
@@randerins I feel you buddy. It's so unfair. Why the hell is it so hard for us to get a job?
Perfect timing, thank you Stef. I have an interview coming up, and I’ve been job hunting for months. I’ll be sure to apply your tips, regardless if I get the job or not.
It's really nice to be here around people who have and had same struggle as me at this very moment - Guys am shatterd am applying everyday building and practicing on top of that there's the job of applying of job. I checked my email for the amount of rejections I got over past couple months I start laugh so hard damn I got some thickkk skin LOL. taking the advice of some of the commenters on here which past 2 days am really starting to questioning myself as its getting very personal. HE SAID - NEVER GIVE UP. thank you brother
I think the coding game is harder to get into today. When I got into it there were geographical barriers to talent so if you lived in the city with the tech jobs that was already a big leg up, there also wasn’t as much competition, and people actually would hire people to html/css.
I think it’s different now standards are higher talent is National if not global. If I lose this coding job will I try and get another one, I dunno…
Standards are veeeery high today. People start with coding early as 15 and at 25 they got a lot of knowledge and experience. Most of them have some sort of degree in IT. I am 47 and for 1.5 years i tried to learn and land a job as a WEB designer (HTML, CSS, Java Script), nothing on sight so far. I saw, during the time, that most of the people who land a job have a vast experience in that field at least 10-15 years. I decided to give up because it s not enough to learn entry of HTML,CSS and JS which is pretty hard but you must know a lot of other things (SQL, PHP, PHYTON).
@@branko917 I am in the same boat with one year degree level diploma but will do a master in Ai next year. Im 39 and been learning by myself Html , css, js , sql and php and for php and sql the page wont open but I downloaded the server and the code is correct. I ll be learning phyton too and I m brushing on my maths. There is a lot of competition and they ask for too much . I have qualified as a ux designer and have the skills but I cant find a job, jobs are being given to foreigners non EU people in Europe or 18 years old with no opinion and basic skills with a master. This is what I am witnessing. The standards are high but its not necessarly about what you can do but about WHO they can. exploit, who will go to the pub and drink and smoke, or has a piercing or tatoos and so on. I did finally find a job where I can troubleshoot html and javascript even if its not something I really want to do. At least the company had their minds made up and they hired me on the spot. However either they dont care about drinking etc or they ll fire me but they seem flexible unlike the other crazy companies who interviewed for BS jobs.
@@branko917 Yeah, a lot of designers are more UX designers these days. Another kinda unmentioned thing with designers is many of them go to very fancy design schools that cost a lot of money. Design at least, is a more elitist field than people would think.
@@unitedstatesofpostamerica7559 Very true. Didn't realize how good designers actually were until I saw some of the work 😂
People from poor country can make 5-10x minimum salary just by becoming junior dev. So yeah, hard to compete with that.
You are not competing with average third worlder, its top 1% of them
The process of getting a job is a learned process.
so so correct stef
From a linux admin (with no CS degree, but a degree in Physics), for the last decade almost , I will start my 1st coding job next week! I am nervous, but dedicated to do what it takes to make things work. I even accepted a 10% (15% if you take into account the small increase I would get had not I quit my current job) decrease in salary.
Is the decrease in salary because the new job is entry level, or because the previous job was relatively high salary
Hi, I am also from a non CS background. Can you suggest me where to start or where did you started.
Honestly a 10% decrease only hopping from a job with a decade of experience to one with almost none is a huge achievement!
If you managed to obtain a degree in physics, you will have no trouble getting up to speed fast as a developer. You already developed a high level of abstraction of concepts.
@@Trinitas666
Meh not really, unless hes going into video game design.
I've been programming for 7 years and nowhere have I found a relation to physics except game design.
I just got an entry level job as an intern after 1 and a half year after searching jobs. Guys, make sure to give the employer the impression that they have next to nothing to lose on hiring you and much to win. That's the key trick and that needs to get cleared away from the start to filter the companies that could value such a thing. It's better to be rejected by companies 95% of the time, but by the time you then land an actual interview, they go in with the right expectations and have next to nothing to lose.
What I found after 5 years as a java developer and now close to seniority is that more then technical skills, is very important to be proactive!
I agree, practice and practice and learn from interview
I really thank you from the bottom of my heart.
as a third year IT student, I benefited a lot from you
This is a clash of reality vs the fake promises sold by bootcamps, courses, coaching overall the industry of giving false hope. The market seeks mostly experienced people who are up to date. Software engineering will get harder/more demanding and specialized, the easy parts get automated this leads to less positions. I went into a job fair event, from the 100 people I talked, only 1 made it and he was already experienced with a uni-degree. It was heartbreak seeing a sea of people graduating from bootcamps that were searching for months for a position. These people paid money to get into a game with the odds against them, and now they also face an economic downturn while still unemployed. Take note that if you are experienced you are still not safe. It takes two years to be left behind in skills to get redundant, then guess whose positions redundant people fill so they can catch up.
Its the same with youtubers advocating the "self taught" route "I learned python in 2 months and now I work for Facebook, you can do it too" The handful of those guys that are legitimate got very incredibly lucky to have the job they do, it's pretty much mandatory to have a degree nowadays.
@@nathanwhite704 I suspect there can be a hidden version of the story in those cases. For example getting hired by FB or Google by doing the talk and get fired within the notice. Then go to youtube to capitulate this. If you work at Google or Facebook FANG or even in a demanding software company provided you can hold your arm there's no need for youtube.
I've interviewed gazillion candidates, they all had degrees, nowadays the candidates with degrees are more than the jobs available so go figure who has better odds.
@@nathanwhite704degree in what? Be specific.
I'll agree with this quick over view. One thing to add, seek jobs you have already solved problems in that industry using one of your projects. Most of the time your hiring manager won't know much, so you gotta keep it simple with them. Get too technical and their ego will get hurt and then no job for you! Happy job hunting!
I noticed that in Tech people have very fragile Egoes...
I mean if I start to fairly criticize some aspect, the fell hurt like some sort of kindergarden soft skin characters...
I don't get it...
Or the reality is there is a ton of people that want to work in Tech, so as a consequence these compannies can play games beause they have a whole ocean of thirsty people who want to work in tech...
Just checked into this asap. I had a job an year ago but the company management was utterly disgusting they wanted their candidates to learn JavaScript in day. And 15 programming concepts in a month.Considering they were taking 9 hours per day to "teach" and none of their virtual environment worked in the weekends. And in the end I got burnt out and they just alloted everyone tester. And the work there was just form filling. Had to take few months to recover from the burnout.
Ive really been struggling lately and I appreciate this advice. Since ive graduated my bootcamp its a bit overwhelming on learning so much. But doing these kinda jobs would help me focus.
I recently had to get a non-tech full time job to make ends meet, and haven't had a commit since July. I got really discouraged when I wasn't hearing back from companies, mostly because I have a criminal record, so I often have to apply to jobs where it isn't mentioned. I'm still on the fence of giving up, even though I really enjoy coding, I just feel like my previous life decisions and mistakes are what's really going to filter me from having any hopes of landing a tech job. Also that I tend to get rusty very quickly. I took a 6 month bootcamp, and passed with an A+ average, but 2 months later I couldn't even build a CRUD app from scratch. It took another 2 years of self-learning while working to even get back to that point, and now I'm pretty sure it would take me a few months to get back into the loop of it.
Do you have a GitHub account?
Don’t worry, it’s not a criminal background holding you back, it’s just the tech hiring process.
Maybe an employer could turn you down if it got to background checks, etc. But most of the time employers aren’t even viewing your resume unless you’re utilizing keywords, have at least a bachelors or previous relevant professional experience.
I’m getting a warehouse job just to get some dough while I’m on the hunt for work in IT.
Morale of the story is don’t get demoralized/depressed,etc., something eventually has to give (one day). The difficulties are actually normal for most. It is when you give up that you’ll never succeed, and that’s for sure.
Think of it like this: (at least) 5 applications a day (while pooping even) = 150 applications a month = 1,800 applications a year.
It’s bound to happen eventually, and I’m even putting my own theory to the test.
Good luck!
@@Whatthellisthisthing wait whyd you put in that "while pooping"?
@@Erlisch1337 To defeat any urge for procrastination.
Is it even worth it??
I mean I wasted over 3,000 hours to learn front end, html css JavaScript...
And nobody hires me..
I applied to over 200 jobs but people don't care...
I mean I start to lose my patience and say F it!!!
There is too much competition, and because of that the Tech Companies exploit their developers anyway...
I don't know.. I just see giving up as a real option.
When I can't pay my rent or buy food because I can't find a real coding job :(
Bob is your uncle, the majority of companies won't give you a reason for rejection they all use the same rejection email templates and when you ask for a clarification you never hear from them. having a lot applicants is their main excuse, I have seen that a lot to say
I've recently got into coding and this is my biggest fear.
Thanks for suggestions Uncle Stef, hope it all works out fine.
Freelance, volunteer, build applications or systems for a small business.
Yes, I took mern bootcamp and applied to several companies, got nothing and am now unemployed.
I lost interest in developer jobs but still do code for fun and took training to become a data analyst, hope it'll work this time.
Don't give up
Don't put too much hope in..
Problem now is the market is oversaturated..
Therea is a ton of people that want to work in Tech.
So the companies will only chose the top number 1 some sort of Alfa type personality...
I stort to lose my patience with this industry of self absorbed ego centric maniacs for work in abstract sh!t...
@@limitless1692the exceptionally low barrier of entry made the tech industry unbelievably saturated.
...At this point it is best to go straight to the cash. A lot of things are automated now and most enterprises won't give a damn to get you in, or are outsourcing somewhere. If you build something for yourself and sell it, it will go much better than working for somebody. Maybe 2 decades back it was fine to do these type of work, but now it's all publicly available to the point that is easier to do what ever it is and just market it yourself. It will require lot's of cash though to advertise what ever product you wrote inn code. At the end of the day this topic requires money and most people who are in this programing thing or field aren't wired to think that way and naturally fail.
Even if a don't a job as a Coder/Developer, I'll never stop coding. I love hitting that keyboard and materialize anything on a background process or the monitor. It's cheaper than paying for Netflix.
🤦♂️
Companies declines me without even look at my portfolio for like.. 2 years now? I love coding but i hate that this will probably never get me any money..
I'm also planning go for hiatus to meet the end in the non-IT related job. I faced with a cruel reality that companies do real talks starting from mid-level developers because they want that developer could fully deliever in the team ASAP. Deadline is deadline and onboarding junior is too much luxury for the company delivering the projects.
From my personal experiences (over 25 years), you need to have "thick skin" as interviews in this and similar fields appear broken for several reasons as they are all borrowed from a google type of interview process and candidates solutions are interrupted differently per interviewer and company; So the cards are already stacked against you from the start. The behavioral interviews are abstract psychological questions reviewed by unqualified people, they extract what they feel from it. There are classes based on helping you contrive and regurgitate responses. The coding interviews can actually be more complex, not based in reality, and do not pertain to real world role expectations. They might be, scrutinizing pleasantness, real time design story-boarding, gathering requirements, working from a brute force approach up, any push back, frustration, emotions, inability to focus under such stress, coding styles, commenting, reacting to curve balls or adjustments, ... the list goes on. But you will never know which standard to meet and you will never know why you passed or failed. You are encouraged to ask questions, but with most companies the engineers rarely seem enthusiastic or what might be construed as unpleasantness. They want to know all this, but when I have asked them to solve a problem of equal complexity to show fitness as my equal or boss, they scoff at the idea of it. What am I to think? The system design interviews are equally nebulous. They ask you to design a system whether in your current knowledge set or not and ask you to design a solution with certain features. My experience is that they are ambiguous scenarios and they let you assume and roam where your brain takes you. Real world project efficacy can be determined by several paths of engagement. One might be someone hands you a well defined set of requirements, you turn them into specs and build it... done. Another path I have witnessed many times is someone says I need this thing built with this end some end result, however, even this scenario has you cycling back for clarification of things like requirements or resource allocation confirmation. The point is, cycling back for more info is key in the real world and when I press interviewers for more details in deciding further down the line they again show signs of frustration. In any case again, you will never know why they passed or hired you. I have passed interviews and worked for google and ibm at certain points and failed at others... never knowing why. My solution is to no longer engage with these mentally abusive, deceptive, nebulous practices, which have collectively wasted entire months worth of my life. My best, longest, and favorite jobs have been with the good old... resume, review my past with engineers, and references. This has a 80% success rate for me and I end up working with people I work well with.
Nice write-up!
I learned quite a bit.
Instead of portfolio projects that nobody cares about, what about joining an active opensource project and starting off fixing bugs or collaborating on features? Then you're working on a real world project, getting your code scrutinized by other devs, and learn a lot of the production pipeline that professional devs have to deal with daily.
[edit] So, since posts with resources keep vanishing into the aether, in response to the question "Where for art thou beginner open source project?" The answer is, "Verily, I have searched for 'how-to-find-open-source-projects-for-beginners' on yon vast seas of Internet and have found many an omen of good fortune."
Let's see if this works =)
Can u send me a link of such an opensource project?
Finding the projects are the problem
@@71sephiroth this is like the easiest google-search...
to do that you have to have experience, open source project doesn't mean everybody who is fresh and new is able to give anything significant. In fact, a lot of open source projects are developed by people who are way better then a casual mid-level dev in some company.
@@DaddyOKaboom finally someone to say it
Thanks for all of your content, we all appreciate your effort!
I appreciate that!
I have been at it for over 2 years (consistently) and I have yet to even get an interview. I have invested a lot into this just to even get my foot in the door.
One of my mentors said I was pretty much job ready after 6 months in and I have improved a ton since; yet nothing. I have freelanced for small local companies for next to nothing for experience and still nothing. I honestly am beginning to question if I should quit. I have a GitHub, portfolio, non-projects, I've networked and I a lot of people I have spoke with didn't even have a GitHub, degree or even a portfolio.
I even started a small blog series ffs! I am sure there are tons of other people in a similar spot but god damn as many openings there are for developers it is amazing how hard it is to even get an interview.
If I were you, I would post my github, because such channels may be viewed by relevant people! Expose your self even from a youtube comment.
Thanks for the suggestions guys. Sorry for going on the rant, I am just peeved at how much it seems like you need to know for an entry level position.
@Mindless Dreamz Oh for sure, it makes sense. I personally would take a low paying position just to prove myself and gain more experience, but it seems like those positions are a dime a dozen.
It's very strange to be honest. There could be couple reason i can think of:
1. Looking in wrong places. For example i could get a job in 2 weeks or something and probably first job i apply or second for sure.
But i tried some freelance websites and i couldnt get an answer in a month even that i applied like 20 jobs. It's just whole different experience.
So check where you looking for a job. Usually those who spend more time and resources in finding a developer are easies to get interview and those who want something fast are not worth investment of your own time because their decisions are random.
2. If you dont have job experience but your CV looks too shiny it could be bad too. Because we all know that someone with no experience can't know much so writing too much in your CV may signal a wrong message. They may think that your expectations may be too big for someone with no real experience.
It's better to write few things that you really good at and just say in interview that it's not a problem to learn anything new or just mention more in your interview what you know.
3. Mention important things and avoid not important. Very similar to second one but there is no reasons to go in to too much details. Stick to the important things. That will show what you think is most important which sometimes tells a lot about your epxerience because with experience things that you think are important or not changes.
You can change your CV depending on the company you send. That way you can remove those experiences that are not needed for a job and keep only those that mentioned in job description. By removing not needed experience you will send a message that things that not important to the company will not increase your price, you know what you want and you are focused which means you can learn things deeper instead of going from one technology to other and most important you know at least basics what company needs.
Companies that hire developers with no experience usually hire them for 2 reason:
1. They need to do easy job that can be done with not much epxerience.
2. They want to shape you and give you right experience or a right way of writing code.
A lot of developers that have experience have very bad habits that is hard to get rid of if you have like 10 years of doing something in a way that is not very good for distributed systems for example it will take a lot of time and effort to change that while salary would still be high which is not worth so better to hire with no experience and pay less till he improves.
So if for example you mention your blog in your CV it kind of doesn't fit in any of those 2 categories. Since those who have easy job to do dont need that, they will think it only gonna increase your salary and those who want to shape your experience dont need that too. And like i mentioned before it jus sends a wrong message.
Other reason why i would not recommend adding blog in your CV is that you dont have much experience and probably dont know yet in depth what you are writing there and if there are some mistakes/misconceptions or just same can be done easier or it doesnt work in bigger projects and etc.. that may even lower your overall image while again increase salary.
With experience things may be different since your salary would be increased anyways.
Give only what they need and no more. Atleast for now.
Good luck!
@Spots Corner no bs? People lie on tech resumes?
My story is pretty unique, at least that's what I think. I have almost 14 years in software development, now I'm a technical director. I didn't go to any colleges or university. I taught myself pretty much everything. I started teaching myself PHP & Perl when I was in high school. That was before Internet was easily accessible. I still remember that back in high school, I had to ask for my father's friend, who at the time lived in Germany, to bring back some programming books for me to study (it was around 2002 or 2003). And somehow, he got 2 books: PHP & Perl (I can't remember the names of the books, but they were photocopied). After that, I realized that I didn't know much English, so I taught myself English.
Fast forward 14 years, now I'm comfortable leading several teams, most of them are very talented developers. But still after 14 years, I haven't learnt any algorithms. It's not that I don't want to learn, it's just that in my case, 99.99% of my time, I won't be using algorithms. Ofc, there will be a lot of fields where algorithms are relevant, like AI or data processing.
But for data structures, I disagree. I think every developers should have extensive knowledge of data structure, even frontend developers. After all, we're manipulating data in software developments.
And finally, if you want to stay in this industry:
+ Never stop learning, even something not relevant to you today, it might tomorrow
+ Don't give up
+ Work ethic is important
+ Don't afraid to go the extra mile
”even if something isnt relevant today it will be tomorrow” absolutely true in my case, I started working on powershell and barely anyone used it 6 years ago. Now, after Microsoft release powershell core (linux compatible) powershell has become very popular and my questions in stackoverflow from 6 years ago now have 1000s of views. I'm literally at the top of the powershell chart lol
To make things better I dont have to learn it because I alrdy know it well
Thank you. This is one of the best, concise videos on how to monetize and develop one's coding career that I've seen in awhile. I'm going to share it.
Glad it was helpful!
Well I can, "Go to someone's garage", or "Create a website for a coffee shop", Its not out of reach and pretty practical... But I'm interested building games, and even bigger things then that, I'm as blessed as it gets, the 408-page Book that I brought "Computer programming for Absolute Beginners" from the Packt series was printed on 2/22/2022, catch my drift? if you believe in numerology... knowledge is power! Knowledge is life and can behold a lot of good things..
I also have Sam's teach yourself HTML, CSS, AND JavaScript, can wait to finish that 778-page puppy.
Cant wait to buy Data Engineering with Python, and Learn Programming with Python, PHP, C++, and C# and finish those!
There are so many variables that go into getting a job. Location is huge. Obviously some areas are going to be much better than other in terms of landing a job in tech. How is your resume structured? Is it formatted in a template that is optimized for HR algorithm key word searches? What is in your portfolio? Do you have original projects or is it 'To do list' type tutorial level projects? Do you know anyone in the industry? Like it not a lot of it is who you know. What is your skill set? I mean the reality is the market might be over-saturated with JS, React, developers. Maybe think about learning Php or Angular or something that boot camps don't teach but is still in high demand. What is the overall market like at the time you are trying to get a job? What is the overall market like in your specific area? Are you just throwing resumes out blindly or are you focusing your job search? I could on and on but the point is there is no one easy answer as to why someone gets a job after submitting 5 resumes and others don't get a job after submitting 500+ resumes. Some of it is in your control and some of it is not. Sometimes is just boils down to luck and being in the right place at the right time.
Location?!
Not really I don't know if you heard, but most of Tech jobs are remote!
Which means that companies can outsource their work to third world countries!!!
And more and more and more people try to get into Tech, which makes it worse and worse to find a job.
I wasted over 3,000 hours to learn a ton of stuff, and I applied to over 200 jobs.. and I still can't find a job not even as a entry junior dev!!!
This is absolutley madness!!!
Damm hard finding coding job ? But, how ? I though this industry had a large job growth.
It does but certain areas of it are full of under qualified people with no formal education or training.
@@nathanwhite704yes, it's a very saturated field.
This is me. I got an associates in software applications programming from ITT Tech in 2011, I have been through multiple bootcamps, and still havent landed a full time job.
I think full stack web dev with Java or C# and angular is a great way. The competition is extremely high with JavaScript and python only jobs. Most jobs I see for entry level all are usually in a OOP language like C# or Java.
The tech bubble is popping , people had to good for to long, I kept telling people this but everyone laughed at me
Damn you got a sub man, you are living in reality, I am loving it
Thank you for the advice Sir. Fortunately, i've already done it twice working on two small individual s project when in college and they pay me 25$ - 26$. It's both a website project using laravel + other js framework, one is for administration school, second is for charity website.
I have never been paid to code, though I did do a little bit as a favor.
I can think of nothing worse than having my employment dependent on how or what I code. That would simply take the fun out of it.
It's always been my hobby and I like it that way.
I Unfortunately gave up... been learning front end development for 3 years , making projects, uploading to Github.. nothing worked.. now in learning to get my a+ cert and try out IT
What’s your github?
Too bad.
Maybe it's a better idea to work as a freelance web developer especially if you're older (40 years and above), instead of working for someone else?
yes i would just create some apps and work for my self instead
I'm struggling with this - unemployed for 9 months - it's been tough getting past technical interviews - you have to answer the results on the impossible programming test - and it's nearly impossible because most of these jobs want you solve 4 problems that take at least an hour to solve - I can solve these problems but the structures of these exams in the past year has gotten worse
That mens you haven’t put in a enough time. Those coding interviews are easy to crack if you have put in the work on studying your coding problems. Have you spent your weekends studying leetcode? Once you’ve done that for a year then you’ll be good.
@@TheTopProgrammer XD
@@JEsterCW if you want to get paid the big bucks then that’s what it takes. You gotta be totally immersed in your field of work. Call it a magnificent obsession.
@@TheTopProgrammer
Disagree. Some companies pay big bucks regardless whether you can crack leetcode or not.
The key is to find desperate companies for tech talent :)
Speaking from experience and living the life :)
@@WeyardWiz That is true. There is plenty of opportunity out there if you look for it.
thank you Uncle Stef
I made many tutorials, been on many interviews... now I started some basics project and already see how I improved, will see how it goes in next months
thank you for advise!
Thats stupid. Do free labor just to get a job. That makes no sense. Companies should hire entry level devs with no experience to help get them started and mold them into the developers that the company wants. Lower the pay to around $45k to $50k for beginner devs and the industry would be better for it.
Might be a stupid question, but i hope I get a good, serious answer anyways. I‘m an engineer considering getting more into programming as I really have fun doing it. What I dont understand is why people expect that you already completed full projects. No one expects an engineer to have built a house when he applies for the first job 🤔 isnt it about learning on the job ?
Because in one case (civil engineer) it is not easy to have built a house , so you just have the relevant degree and companies consider that enough to trust you initially (the degrees have a whole century history behind them), but on the other case , the degree if you have a CS degree is only with a history of half a century, (and if you do not have it , the companies will trust you even less, if you come from a bootcamp lets say) , and further more , it is easy and cheap to build a project on your own, you need no initial investment of materials , or land ! So if you have not build a webpage, or have not build some bash scripts or python scripts, or some small java/C application, and have it in github, how can they trust to hire you?
Your question is a logical one. Once upon a time, companies used to train employees. Nowadays, they want you to train them, with your leet skillz they are willing to pay for.
Your question is a logical one. Once upon a time, companies used to train employees. Nowadays, they want you to train them, with your leet skillz they are willing to pay for.
What do you mean you are an engineer? There are all kinds of engineers, be specific.
Thanks for the tips, I'll focus on doing real projects instead of coding competitions.
I learned how to code, got a crappy job... And realized very quickly that the job market was a joke. Guys, the demand for junior devs is going to continue to trend downward.
I picked up my CCNA and moved into IT, and now I make over six figures. Your coding experience will mean MORE in IT, not less. Those who can code, provide excellent customer service, and troubleshoot infrastructure is a BIG deal.
I took the effort I put into learning to code and brought it into another area of the job market, and I couldn't be happier.
Yeah people in other IT fields look to a junior developer as a genius xD
@@mrpirate4100 Hey bud, there's a lot of things I could say to you, but in the end people like you tend to take care of yourselves.
Hope you are well Uncle Stef. Miss your live streams!
Slowly getting better.
Thank you Sir, this CZcams Video of yours such a helpful form A to Z.
I applied for many javascript jobs but never got one, as soon as I learned ruby I was able to get a job.
Ruby is a niche language, not many people know it. JavaScript on the other hand is extremely saturated.
I've been looking for over two years after learning, building projects, getting freelance experience, networking, doing everything I can and after applying to hundreds of positions, I've had two interviews total. I've tried pivoting to applying to non-coding tech jobs, I'm applying to just about any job at this point and I don't get any kind of response. It's exhausting and it's brutal out there. I basically can't give up because I have no other options at this point but I want to give up so badly. I haven't even coded anything in almost a year's time now. I honestly think I would've found a job had things not been the way the are right now but yeah, just wanted to let anyone else out there who's struggling with this know, you are not alone. I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass and tell you it's all going to work out because life is not that kind but something's gotta come from this right? You gain something, even if we don't land a dev job, we have new skills and that amounts to something right? It doesn't feel like it but I guess that's better than nothing
The fact that we live in a reality where someone should have to work for free to prove themselves enough to get a job is an absolute shame. OF COURSE an entry level coder is going to have a sparse resume and project portfolio. Do employers these days not realize that they too were once entry level employees and a company recognized that and gave them a job so they could gain experience anyway?
working for free actually gave me experience to get my first paid job. My skills or projects didn't change just the text on my resume
@@bruh-rr6pl where did you find the free job to get experience? It's actually what I'm looking for at the moment
@@Nanofederer on indeed, there are lots of jobs like that on there
@@bruh-rr6pl working for free… lol… just lol.
@@skip0 its better than not having a job
😍😍❤️❤️💙💙Hey Stef! Pray all is well!❤️
i love this comment !
it's not that hard finding an IT job here where I live
but it is "extremely" hard to find a proper one
most cases the payment is not even great and you'd be sleepless your co worker doesn't care about code quality which lead to bugs and security issues left and right
also your employer would probably force you to keep using the newest or the most popular tech stack available regardless of your portfolio
it's insane
As someone who has graduated with a CS degree and is struggling to find any position that matches my education for years, the idea of having to work pro bono for some business that I hardly care about is far from palatable. At this point, I'm starting to question if the professional world wants my kind.
Hi Stefan. Nice Channel brother. My advice as a fellow professional developer who has seen a lot change over the years is this... Become the person that makes software that the modern developers use to never code. Create a software they can utilize to satisfy their intense need to click/drag and copy/paste instead of learning to develop properly from the start. Future human is screaming to never look at code again. That's where the money is now. A software where no code knowledge at all is required, made for modern developers. Also consider creating/launching something like restaurant POS software, hotel booking software, etc... software you can charge a monthly fee to use. Big bags of cash will come if you can match or innovate what is available currently. Best of luck with whatever you choose.
The one piece of advice I'd give someone who doesn't have any formal training is go to a coding boot camp. My company has hired a few people who have trained through them and they've been very successful.
A lot of schools don't teach the right things, focusing on C++, writing algorithms, and things like assembly.
What you need to get a job quickly is HTML, JavaScript, css, sql, and a web framework like angular/react/vue. many jobs to be filled in that area, at least from my experience
C++ and assembly are wrong to focus on? What? Theres way more to software engineering than front end web dev. Theres robotics, theres aerospace, there's cybersecurity. Also bootcamps aren't taken seriously only degrees are.
@@nathanwhite704 i guarantee you that the number of available front-end jobs dwarfs the number of C++/Assembly jobs. Not saying low-level and machine level language jobs aren't important. But if you're looking to get hired quickly, node/angular/react/vue is going to get you where you need to go much faster.
@@BrianKapellusch "i guarantee you that the number of available front-end jobs dwarfs the number of C++/Assembly jobs." They do not but even if that were the case those low level jobs are typically more secure/stable and depending on your specialization you could be making more than you would in web dev in a shorter amount of time like making 80k straight out of college in an entry level job. Aerospace engineering and biomedical engineering are obviously much more respected than web dev.
@@nathanwhite704 the target audience of this job is people who are getting denied for job interviews. Not people who are going back for a degree.
@@nathanwhite704relax there son. Some of the most grotesque code I have ever seen is from embedded systems programming. Those sons of bhs can't code to save their lives. They are taught just enough to get by. They are some of the biggest tech charlatans you'll ever meet. 😂
Once I had an interview with twitter. They gave me a task and asked to do in 4 hours which was done. I've sent them the app which was working and next day they've sent me an email saying that I wasn't selected. I've replied that wanted to get exactly what was done wrong, what kind of bugs I had on my code because I wanted to know the problem, work on it and don't make in the future. So they agreed to call me back and when they called me they said that they could not share such an information. I really got pissed and I said that will never ever apply for such a crap as Twitter is! After only just a week I had an offer and got a job in really great company!
First world problems.
@@mrpirate4100 You really are just a silly little troll.
@@mrpirate4100 to be fair you could easily start a massive criminal enterprise in a 3rd world country and become richer than any American 9-5 worker or become a king🤷🏾♂️.
I gave up on web development.
I studied full stack web development.
I became so good i Could make almost any website from scratch.
I mainly used React, Express js and mongodb.
I got job interviews and this where i gave up.
every job interview the code interview is so pathetic. It is nothing to do with web development.
All of them give me a code test from a third party like solving some weird shit that you would never ever Ever! use in web development or in anything.
Every company wants to give some bullshit code test which is extremely hard to do and even understand it.
Every company wants to be google.
I did all this study for like 2 years many hours and now I'm moving studying cloud engineer or devops engineer.
So you are just going to flush 2 years of effort?
Why not just bite the bullet, slap a datastructures and algorithms course on there, do a code test prep course and get that job?
What is another couple months of coding study to salvage those 2 years?
If the problem solving and culture of IT is more your style and you enjoy it, then good for you! You're skill in code wasn't a waste of time at all. In higher level IT, you need to know how to code. They don't call it "infrastructure as code" for nothing. I was in IT for years, I knew BASH and Powershell like the back of my hand, wrote Python scripts, dealt with various APIs, and more. Not knowing how to code would have been a serious handicap.
As for the BS interview questions, some of that is directly geared towards assessing how you cope with problems that you don't know the answer to. It's not about your experience or the practicality of the problem, they want to know how you approach new problems, how you break them down, conceptualize, and the questions you ask as you're working through it.
Now, if it's just an exam like test, yeah that's BS. Waste of your time, and theirs, for sure. B/c shit, you can totally just look it up if you need to, right?
some people see through this, I was asked to sort in python showed them the default sort and time complexity and was given the job -this year has been tough so many jobs out there have over 200 applicants in the position
That's sounds really frustrating...
Good move man. The money are actually better there! Learn some linux, and AWS, and Jenkins CI/CD, some Python and bash , docker and kubernetes, and understand microservices. Basically you will have to start as a junior linux admin, then some technical support engineer position, and then you start flying.
Earned degree in Computer Engineering in 2006. Could never get into that exclusive club of my degree field. Feel like I should give up for good. Put like 10 hours into last coding exercise and didn't get the job despite being 98% complete. Such a waste of time chasing that delusion. Wouldn't I be better off loving what I'm doing rather than chasing? I look at the staff profile of these jobs and it's 95% white. Basesd on those statisticals alone I have a 5% chance of hire. Is there a hope?
Wtf man, why's that? Doesn't make sense at all 👀
Where are you from?
That's an incoherent rumble.
Anyway, have you tried applying for Embedded Systems roles?
And still, you exclude "portfolio projects" like they don't matter!!!
That was very useful Uncle Steph!
God Bless
I've been through this, so I created a platform that pushes developers to work on their own startup or join a startup to gain more experience. I created the platform because a lot of developers give up because they can't find a job in their field.
These advices about how to look for a job in a smart way could be used even outside the programming realm: if you're new in the coding area you could try to do this to get a job in the area you're already in.
Thanks for the advice
I am hearing the same arguments I heard in 1983 when I graduated
What do you mean ?
I want to say, thank you very much for your adivices!!!
You are so welcome!
In nowadays world is impossible to keep paying for your bills and work on projects for free. Sorry but this doesn't work for most people!
Seems like day to day demands are catching up and time is getting shorter for some reason
I agree. I'm working on private security and coding in my free time. It's been almost 3 years now. I finished a mobile app and now I'm on a MERN project. But it's really though. My working shifts are horrible, I'm very tired, I can't code every day. And it's almost impossible to get a part-time job as a developer (at least here). And I can't just quit this job and try get a job a full time junior dev job. That'll take time. How I'm I supposed to pay my bills?? 😒
You can volunteer to do free coding job on a part time basis.... Try not to get into a difficult project.... I would work for a small shop, they’ll appreciate it... Good luck.
@@leoMC4384 I spent over a month making an app. My take away is, sure a big app may seem impressive, but am I realistically going to walk into a job working on some corpo's apps? Probably not, and how many small business sites could I have made in that time instead?
Which would have made someone more confident in hiring me based on the content of my portfolio?
Several small sites that a start up would have been happy with?
Or some banger niche app?
No regrets here, but that time pinch is real, and content is king, as they say.
Just some food for thought
Stick with it. The hardest job to get is the first one. Your email and linked in dms will get flooded with opportunities as soon as you snag the first job.
Thanks for this. Got a non-tech job to pay bills. Looking to get that first Tech job
@@nable0306 Stick with it. This is one of those things were all you have to do is not quit.
Make sure your resume specifies technical specific skills and accomplishments. There’s a lot of resume gold even in a simple responsive html page that a lot of people overlook.
If two people built the exact same single page, responsive html site with the exact same code, but one guy wrote that it’s mobile first, grid system, semantic html, accessibility friendly, deferred JavaScript loading, etc etc, that guy is showing their knowledge is deeper and their creative process is more intentional.
Being able to talk about those details is how you stand out.
@@RA-xx4mz appreciate this
@@RA-xx4mz wow never expected for a reply. Thanks man. Needed this to read.
@@nable0306 everyone is trying to get into tech these days. You have to wait in the line.
If they ask you to memorize code, turn down the interview immediately!!!
If you do not have a 4 year CSci degree:
1: Complete an established "hard" online course (e.g. Udemy, Coursera, ...). You need to take more than the entry level course.
2: Get certification in the language you have learned. If there is good book on it, read the entire book.
3: Put 1 and 2 on your resume, which needs to "honestly" include tech keywords that are in the job description. Apply only to junior/entry-level positions.
4: To pass the interview, it will helped to have worked through an entire book.
For me coding is a passion, a tool to express myself via making software. For over two decades I did it as a hobby. More recently as a job. But even if I didn’t have a job that involves programming, I would definitely still be doing it, as I did since I was 12.
♥️
Cringe.
It doesnt matter what projects or experience you have at this point there are so many people applying for each job posting literally in the hundreds for each one. If you are not in the elite top 10 you will not get hired. There are too many people applying in the IT field in general.
Hahaha. You seem defeated. 😂
@@carldrogo9492 hahaha you seem not very helpful and smug tables could turn any day and someone could find your troubles hilarious 😂 😂😂🤣
Agreed with most of it. I do think you should follow up after a reasonable amount of time (saw 2 wks) and while I do ask, most employers won't tell me where I fell short
It was soo good and useful I appreciate
Love the information in this vid.
this video helped a lot!
can you drop a video explaining business confidentiality while trying to offer free service to small business. when it comes to a lot of IT jobs they usually involve a lot of private info to be worked with and i could imagine some companies being hesitant to accepting any free services because of the nature of the job. just wondering if you know of any ways we can protect ourselves as independent contractors when offering IT services
If you have to work for free, it means all significant demand for the skill has dried up.
It also undermines wages in the sector. Why bother hiring people if you can get desperate wannabes to knock out your projects for you?
Coding and web dev are the literacy of the the 21st Century. Nobody gets paid for just being literate anymore - its expected.
In the year 1950, you could earn a good living just from being good at reading, writing and arithmetic. That skill set wont get you anywhere today, and the bar for even entry jobs is crazy high.
The never ending inflation of skills & qualifications has lead us to this point of a highly educated, often talented, unemployed mass.
Its much better to teach(and get paid for it) than to learn.
land an interview is hard enough. no degree sucks.
love this post thanks man
If I owned a small business, I wouldn't want to expose it to someone whe offered to do it for "free".
I would be much more likely hire someone who had a history of successful group projects in an academic setting, or someone who could show their contributions to an open source project.
I’d also question how hard they are trying. You need to apply to at least 10-20 jobs PER DAY
Evan Erickson everyone else is doing the same you are doing my man, that is, applying to lots of jobs, every HR person has thousands of applications to read, what makes you think you will be lucky enough that your resume will be read?
@@adrian-4767 Yeah because I did it and it worked for me. First and second jobs are the hardest to get. Now I have 4 years of experience and get job offers all the time.
@@adrian-4767 You create your own luck by trying harder than everyone else.
20 per day? i filled out 2000 applications to land a sr fullstack position last week after 1-2 months of applying for jobs. i did like 30+ minimum a day. i started to get rsi in my fingers looking after looking for so long. my advice is to be on job boards all day and have projects. you might not need them, but if you do, you'll be glad you did. you need to get to the listing as early as possible. the older the listing is, the lower the chances. i hope this helps.
@@xthetempestx Yeah 20 is still rookie numbers but I was aiming my advice for the bare minimum people need to do. There’s a lot of devs that only do like 5 a day and then wonder why no one calls them.
This is a great video and very inspiring!!
That's the big problem with "tech" social media. All these people telling you to learn language X or Y ... and then people don't look at their local job market and miss out
Correct: Don't learn Algorithms and Structures - useless time waste. Learn how to build stuff. You must be someone who gets the sheet done.
What Steph isn't taking into consideration is this isn't the 90s or early 2000s when he was young. I've built dozens of free web apps and when the industry is steadily going down that does not matter do not spend all your time creating free apps for businesses. Why is he not telling you how many projects to build for free? Because if you keep doing that you'll never make it and you will keep returning to these videos seeking his "tips". Have fun never making it in this industry if you listen to this I'm very glad I went into finance and to Steph your super cool man I just wish you could accept the tech industry is collapsing and what once may have been good advice, no longer is.
I made a bad decision breaking into tech now, 500+ applications still no job. Nobody wants to give entry levels a chance.
People don't understand what superpower software engineering is.
You can make an idea a reality in a fairly short period of time, and with some smart marketing, you can make money.
The best part: You can re-use the code and your product and just re-brand it to saturate the market and make even more money.
Hi . I am just want asking you, is it possible to get a job as a front end developer, if you start in a “ old years” to learn ? I am almost 52 and have no experience as a programer at all. Than you for your advices in this video.
Hard but yes you can, specially if your country have rules against age discrimination, I know someone in France who got hired at the age of 57 in big company.
Thanks unc stef
Guys, I spent 3 months looking for the correct job. I was totally burned out on my previous one and needed something really better. Believe me, it is worth spending time looking for a better job ( where you are respected and have time to recover ). And you can easily get some experience on websites like Upwork. Freelance is not that great but, for beginners, it will do. Just keep trying. Being persistent is the key I think.
One thing I suggest is going to employment agencies instead of trying to just apply to a bunch of jobs yourself.
Bullshit, that's how you get exploited.
Is this guy the Jordan Peterson of programming ?
Just doing this fpr a Crypto company. Working on a Python Project.
The advice of applying to many positions seems to me to conflict with putting forward certain knowledge in a resume. I don't think a new developer can have projects in twenty different languages.
Most job ads are just fishing for 'rockstars'. A Javascript posting will try to just every framework under the sun, for example. If you have an app with meat on it's bones, the languages matter less and you just need to tick the 'base' box.
Why TF do you even need to know 20 different languages? That's clown talk.
@carldrogo9492 I exaggerated on purpose. Obviously no one can ever learn or need that many languages. My point was that lots of job listings even those meant for "entry level positions" require 2 to 3 years of experience in whatever specialization that position requires. It is hard to satisfy that when there can be quite a variety of knowledge different companies require.
2:42 Ruby doesn't get a rest! xD
🖖🏼 As always great content for the newbie like myself. Always encouraging, offering solutions & support. Even though I had to pause taking HTML5 course by Uncle Stef (job related) I still feel "connected" thru your videos. THE ALMIGHTY BLESS YOU & KEEP YOU!🙏🏼
Job people should just offer projects for the interview then.
Thank you!
thank you uncle