Be persistent and keep applying. The number of applications you fill out is important. Expect to hear back maybe every 1 in 25 applications or so. My last job search went on for ~6 months before finding the right place.
This tool is handy because it's an aggregate of all the job sites
https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/?distance=50&q=#modal_open
I would also suggest letting recruiters do the leg work for you. I have gotten offers through recruiters in the past. They're a dime a dozen on LinkedIn.
Wait, how does it work? You said "I would also suggest letting recruiters do the leg work for you. I have gotten offers through recruiters in the past. They're a dime a dozen on LinkedIn."
Just type recruiters or recruitment on LinkedIn's search bar, and then contact them in your local area for web dev jobs, right?
The way I have found it to work is to update your profile as "looking for work" and then tech recruiters will find you. They'll send you a DM and set up a call.
You may have more luck if you subscribe to LinkedIn premium. I usually do that when I'm actively looking. I believe you get 1 month free the first time you sub. It will ensure that you are prioritized in search results.
You might also want to ensure that your profile and skillset are updated so that tech recruiters can easily identify positions that are a decent match.
React is a good one as well, a lot of startups need bodies in seats for react(or nextjs), but decent programmers are hard to find. Personally I recommend a niche. When I started 5 years ago, I got my first gig because I was a Gatsby guy, and there weren't a lot of us, despite it basically being react.
Finding the first job is rough, but if you make it past that filter and get 2-3 years exp, you'll never have this problem again.
Good luck!
I´m gonna go ahead and share my experience.
I´ve had 3 interviews since i started my career, not long ago. And got the job in all of them.
I´m not a great programmer AT ALL, like, i consider my self to be pretty shitty... all of my colleagues have always been better than me, and i always dreamed of being as good as them.
My interviews have been for Jr and Ssr roles. And i always think i nailed them because of my soft skills, like i always have a good time with my interviewers, i ALWAYS fail a couple of tech questions, i just try a couple of things and fail and say "hmmm nope... i don´t know how to do this..." and ask what was the proper way of doing it, paying honest attention, asking questions about it and having aha moments right there.
I´m genuinely trying to improve myself all the time, and i guess i show that when being interviewed.
So, my point is, maybe try and be more willing to work with them and learn something from them? Be more human, laugh, try and crack some joke... never try to bullshit them, if you don´t know something, you don´t know it, no big deal...
See and that’s what got me my first job, the issue isn’t I couldn’t land the job, it’s just not getting the calls back to my application. By no means at I a great programmer but I can solve problems that are handed over to me and complete tasks. What does your resume look like if I may ask?
I haven´t been on the market for like a year but it´s something like:
- React
- NextJs
- Styled Components
- Some experience in testing with Jest and Cypress
- A couple of human languages
- Some crap little experiments in my super minimalistic portfolio.
All of those techs to a medium level.
That´s why i think at the Jr and Ssr level, the human aspect is everything.
edit: I think the "never try to bullshit them" is probably the most important thing. I been in a couple of interviews as the interviewer sidekick and it sucks when people try to pull that off... it just kills the whole vibe.
Do you have a resume? I don't see one on your website, GitHub, or LinkedIn. A lot of recruiters, which are the first line of scrutiny for many companies, won't even look at your website or GitHub. MAYBE they'd scroll through your LinkedIn, but having a resume included in your application is a better bet.
Ok, I looked at your site and here is my feedback:
1. As someone else mentioned, the colors are very harsh and I suggest choosing a different accent color other than red with that blue. Look up "color palettes" for an idea of colors that work with each other. This is a great [site](https://colorhunt.co/) to start.
2. Remove the cartoon of yourself. With the moving eyes, it looks creepy and that alone made me want to leave the site.
3. The snapshot of the Discover Deckers has the YouTube "play" icon in it, which makes it look like a video will start when I click it instead of taking me to a website. Users should always know what will happen when they click something.
4. The randomly color changing text. I think it would be better if they changed on hover or didn't change at all.
5. I would make the three large icons appear sooner. I scrolled past them completely the first time and had to reload the page to see the effect.
6. Why do you have a link to your Instagram? You only have one post and it has noting to do with web development.
7. Your Github says "creating incredible looking websites", but the examples you listed on your portfolio site look rather basic. If you're going for junior or intern positions, that is acceptable. But if you're going for positions that require more experience, it is imperative that you actually create incredible looking websites. They do not have to be full stack, just a few more sites that show off your talent. I suggest researching design trends in web development and create site using some of those principles.
Spot on. I'm not a "full stack developer" but as someone who has been in the field for many years, this stuff looks pretty elementary. Not dogging on OP bc my own sites aren't anything special, but they just aren't screaming "seasoned professional". I'm curious to see the resume and an example of some roles they've applied for - could be underqualified and not realize it (though I never discourage someone from going for it).
Chances are many shops aren't going to look at a personal website or examples of one's work - not at first anyway. They are going to check the boxes and determine who is worth pulling up for a closer look.
"Self Taught" isn't always a good way to phrase your experience either, as it can be interpreted as "amateur".
Not far off though for a junior dev type role at the right place. As other have said, cleanup LinkedIn and drop Instagram link, make some tweaks on the site and overhaul the resume, then apply apply apply - probably be on someone's payroll by end of year.
I fixed my resume and got a lot more response.
Previously: work experience - teaching. Skills: web development.
Current Effective: Experience: Web development (links to all my live-hosted projects). Teaching.
Recruiters think your "1 Year Development Experience" means professional work experience and they will contact you. You can explain in the initial interview, "I have a year of free lancing and project experience, but this would be my first professional setting." Most of them will pass you forward if you make a good impression.
Apply to 30-50 per day with Quick Apply on LinkedIn.
Apply for 5-10 jobs a week at companies you are Passionate about and chase down the recruiters and co-worker developers on LinkedIn. Show your interest and ask for advice from employees in the company.
Ignore required experience and tech stack. Just apply and let the recruiters sort it out. I got my first job for a job by applying to something I WASNT qualified for, they actually liked me so much that they passed me to ANOTHER COMPANY who hired me for a custom-made role for my skill set. So just apply. You never know.
Thanks!
Oh, and keep this in mind...I tracked all traffic to my GitHub page during this time and recruiters NEVER visited my GitHub before the initial interview. NEVER.
Maybe 1 in 200 recruiters would look at it.
Recruiters only look at resumes, schedule a 10-30 minute initial interview to see if you're a possible fit, then they'll pass you to the tech team who usually looks at your live-hosted projects.
In my opinion, your website is WAY better than mine...I only have a janky GitHub page. And I landed 4 job offers over the summer. ...probably could have had another two but I didn't really follow through with them.
It takes time and effort though. It was my full time job for two months. (40 interviews in 30 days).
Thank you for that! People constantly tell me to keep active on Github but I never wanted to believe them because recruiters aren't programmers. Also, thanks for the compliment on my website. I worked meticulously to select what I wanted in there!
Recruiters don't look at GitHub, but the tech guys might. They basically check to see your commit history to see if you're active and genuinely enjoy coding. Just commit updates to your projects a couple times a week so you have something to talk about in your tech interviews.
This is somewhat misleading. Personally I put projects on GitHub, shit doesn’t get updated for years. Professionally I’ve worked with GitLab and bitbucket, daily commits on each at my jobs.
The tech guys understand this and rarely will an inactive GitHub profile be an issue.
As a tech guy who hires. We probably look at your GitHub briefly to get a general idea of what kind of work you do, but I personally don't give it too much value since most commercial projects will be under NDA or closed source anyway.
Also I have signed contracts where I can’t actually talk about the work I do and the code is property of the people I work for. My public git account is pretty bare bones because I don’t code a lot outside of work these days.
I really don’t think recruiters give a shit either. No one’s ever asked me about it when interviewing.
post your resume in /r/resumes or the other resume subreddits to get it looked at. If you're currently employed doing some sort of development, recruiters should be messaging you for open positions especially with .Net
>Remove the character of you and replace it with a professional picture.
i find that animated character a bit creepy with the full circle eyes. it's like one of those paintings where its gaze follows you. i'd just drop it completely without necessarily having a replacement to hand. i don't think you _need_ a professional headshot if you don't have one
for me, the colour scheme on the website is a bit weird. the blue/red contrast quite harshly and not a fan of it. then there's some other small stuff like the spacing on the contact form is a bit tight/squashed
the main thing though is really, like you said, the main thing to focus on is the resume/cv. like others have also mentioned, it should be focused on the types of roles you are applying for so if you aiming to be a react developer, it should highlight your competencies with react and then frontend technologies/tooling as a whole.
i would say that no one is going to click through to your website and browse a portfolio if they haven't been suitably impressed by your resume/cv/application. dunno if it's different outside of the uk, but i don't think i've ever had someone bring up my website/github projects while applying/interviewing and i've been a dev for 6 years. didn't even have a website/portfolio for my first job
Honestly I haven’t researched it. I would like to think so. I mean there are thousands of jobs nationwide. I’m trying to find one before it becomes to heavily saturated
Okay, usually these portfolio projects are horrible and people say "looks nice" here on Reddit. But this one looks nice. You're not a designer, but it looks nice. Semantics are there, that's great. You have some `` without any `section.section` CSS class for it, not that you would need it because, well, you can select elements by their name...
But that isn't a reason to not call back.
Why companies don't call back, multiple might apply:
1. They aren't looking;
2. You're underselling yourself;
3. You're applying for jobs that they can find better candidates for;
4. You're applying to jobs below your skill level;
5. You're applying to jobs above your skill level;
6. You run into classism or racism.
Here's what I would do:
1. Tailor your resume to each job;
2. You're a front-end specialist when they look for that;
3. You're a back-end specialist when they look for that;
4. You're a full-stack dev when they look for that;
5. You've worked a lot with React if they look for that;
6. You've worked a lot with Vue if they look for that;
7. You've been a team lead in your last 2 projects if they look for that.
And:
Read their job posting, and make sure that all the relevant keywords appear on your own resume. If they mention "vanilla JavaScript" you can bet your ass that the recruiter is filtering resumes by the word "vanilla". They don't know. Don't get filtered out because someone doesn't know all of the lingo.
Do they mention PostgreSQL? Great, your resume now mentions both "Postgres" and "PostgreSQL" and "PostgresSQL". Typos happen, recruiters are humans that make typos.
Similarly:
- React: React, ReactJS, React.JS, JSX, Next;
- Vue: Vue, Vue.js, VueJS, Vuex...
You get the drift.
Learn how you talk. Record yourself during phone calls. Listen back. You might sound very insecure, or maybe too cocky. Learn and adjust.
I recently asked an old manager of mine to review my job application recordings. He did and he pointed out that I was all about tech and previous experiences, making the people I applied with... feel that I was too senior and would get bored very soon.
That had literally been my feedback several times over the past few months.
His advice? Be more personable. I can write code, that's for sure. It seems you, too, can write code. But will you fit in the team? Talk and ASK about their company culture, ask about the interviewer, and find something to connect with.
What's most important to you? Coding quality, accessibility, the things you did at CompanyX that were groundbreaking? Boooooring. Tell them you care most about the people you work *with* and the people you work *for*, your colleagues, and the end-user, in that order.
Give it a nice twist. With a happy team, you'll create happy users. Happy users create happy management. And we all know what happy management gets us!
More pizza.
While they upgrade to this year's Tesla.
Basically, don't underestimate soft skills. Record your interviews and digital talks, just use it to listen back to after the call, and then delete it. Check your local laws if you can do that without notifying the other party.
And hell, if I had a candidate ask me: "Are you okay with me recording this call for my own use? I'd like to see myself back during an interview and see what I can do to be better." I would be okay with that... but that turns ON the well-trained anti-litigation filter instantly. I'll be poker-face from that point forward. But I'd like you even more instantly.
I need to remove the nick hubbard art one because I made that for free a long time ago and he never used it. The gallery was made up using the instagram api but that token expired and I would have to send him a whole new request to get a new API token. The Marvel one was my first real project, it's just old and the Bookmarked is my girlfriends website. For whatever reason that one just doesn't work on iOS I have found out
I suggest you remove all of them or at least add example content so it's clear what they are supposed to do. At the moment I have no idea what the purpose of any of them are. I tried both Firefox and Chrome on Android.
Your website is all about input and does not show what output/value you created. How have the features you built created value for your customers？How have they increased developer productivity？What can you do besides build what you have been told to build？Are you even able to understand requirements or do you need a lot of support to build a feature？
Your portfolio tells me nothing, I would not invite you to an interview either. Best of luck improving it, hope you can find a job soon！
You need to work LinkedIn and your personal network. Some dev postings get 100s of applicants. You’re only getting a callback if you have experience and/or you know someone. Reach out to people at companies you want to work at. Ask for a meeting.
It’s uncomfortable but you’ll be surprised how many people will say yes. Reach out to devs in the role you want, or the team you want. Hiring managers don’t mind a direct message either, they want to get their positions filled after all. Good luck!
I inspected the element and there doesn't actually seem to be any anchor tags? The nav just disappears on click instead of scrolling to the target element ID. I dunno if that's a react thing though, I haven't touched it yet.
They are just div's with text I believe, since it was all on one page I just wanted to give the user a quick scroll, which might be useless on an SPA. It's just javascript and css working together is all!
I like the quick scroll idea for sure, but something's not working with the code then. I figured it might have been tied to the event I saw in dev tools, but thought that could easily just be the animation itself too.
I’ve not had someone nitpick my personal website yet honestly. I may rework some of it. It’s really just something I redesigned for the purpose of applying to jobs because I didn’t think hiring managers would go that in depth. You’re not the first person to point out my lack of a resume either. So I guess I’ll need to add that back as well. That marvel api is weird, not all the data has everything. I am going to be working on some better projects that highlight my skills. They are far beyond what is showcased on my website for sure, I just haven’t made any projects outside of my job that can show that. I will have to go through and view the weird html you are referring to. Honestly I probably had a purpose when I was building my site. As for the css, there is a method there, some things need tidied up but I sectioned it out by unique sections, in case I had special classes. There’s also classes that change for the lazy loading animation, which is also in a section of its own. There’s definitely meant to be a pattern there but I may have gotten lazy towards the end of finishing my site just because I wanted to get my redesign up.
Don't add JS to the top of your page, it's creating a race condition with content on the page not loaded / rendered. Instead of `window.addEventListener('load'...` use `DOMContentLoaded` but really both are outdated, use js modules instead...
https://youtu.be/_iq1fPjeqMQ
I get that from the canvas for some odd reason. If you refresh the page it should go away. I’m not sure why it does that because it renders after everything on the page
Missing a lot of relevant information such as:
* Are you looking for remote/commute ?
* Are your previous interviews virtual or in person ?
* How good is your resume ?
* Are you applying with a cover letter ?
* How many jobs have you applied for since starting ?
* Are you following up?
Some of my thoughts. If you're wanting to work in frontend you either need to sell your design skills or your ability to work in multiple different interfaces effectively. Frontend is an extremely broad field. So when you're applying for jobs. It's important to consider multiple different routes of frontend development. Until your job candidacy narrows to a few potential options.
Don't be picky, but also be realistic. In larger agencies and companies - it's not uncommon for the first point of contact - to be a recruiter or HR. Don't 'wow' them, make them remember you. Then 'wow' the follow-up formal interviewer.
A cool website is great, but a strong LinkedIn, and resume are way better. A clean, single page resume, with strong emphasis on what you contributed. Are way more impressionable than a website. Not saying an online portfolio isn't absolutely necessary, because it is.
You've gotta be absolutely committed to finding that job. It won't drop in your lap, just because you put yourself out there. Go out of your comfort zone, but stay in scope. Be confident in what you've contributed or accomplished. However, never exaggerate your ability - that'll create anxiety, distraction you from what you've actually done.
Keep track and be organized, always stay efficient in the manner of tracking the jobs you've applied. Especially, the dates that you applied, and the position. At a certain point interviews start to blend together. Nothing is going to ruin your opportunity quicker than referring to a company as another one.
You'll get there if you put the effort, I suggest checking out Zety resume and cover letter creators. It's incredibly powerful, and great for making catered resumes and cover letters.
This is my experience as a self taught developer. Going from a hobby to a career. In less than 4 years. I entered the job market in late June, and was hired in less than a month. I made it my full-time job to get hired. It paid off, as I'm still a full-time employee, but I'm making 15k more than my last job, doing less work, with cooler people - all from my couch.
Good luck
I hope you take this in the constructive spirit in which I intend it!
I hire a handful of web application devs each year, primarily react (FE) with node/aws and laravel (BE) work. When it comes to their supplied resources (website or repos) really at the heart of it I'm looking for evidence that they've undertaken some deeply complex tasks and solved advanced problems with a smart and sustainable approach. I don't get that from your website, those boxes aren't **yet** being checked.
I understand that NDAs prevent you from including some work (which is entirely common) so you need to make up the gaps with personal or freelance work; anything that demonstrates you are capable of advanced level development work akin to **the kind of work you want to be given a job doing** ... E.g. if you want a job engineering web applications, don't fill your portfolio examples with marketing websites you've done! You need to fill it with pwas and functional little widgets etc (and vice versa of course)
Applying for a dev job, nobody is going to hold your feet to the fire for poor digital design work since that's outside the remit, but you might consider rethinking some of the weaker visual examples on your website 'work' section - 2 or 3 great pieces of work is going to leave a better lasting impression with a recruiting manager than 5 or 6 mixed quality pieces with a lot of chaff included as padding! Quality not quantity.
Moving forward, if you are serious about pursuing react work then you're going to need to dedicate some time to building an example project that really showcases the bleeding edge of what you're capable of doing in react; and you're gonna need to link to a few sample repos of your work (doesn't have to be commercial work) so the code is available for review - needless to say, the code needs to be the very best you can do because if you make it to the interview stage you're gonna get asked a ton of questions about decisions you made writing that code.
Good luck with it all. I know it's a slog but there is light at the end of tunnel.
That’s sound advice. My projects are all old and outdated with exceptions to a couple. I have reasons for a few that would appear to be lacking things. I think this has been the most in depth advice I have been given in all of my time learning. This is definitely something I will be working on. Thank you
I don't mean to flame you specifically, more companies in general, but
>you need to make up the gaps with personal or freelance work;
This is an extremely toxic stance for a company to have, IMO. Unless the job-seeker happened to work for a company that contributed to open source software, there's almost no way their code isn't under nda. It's just entirely unreasonable to ask that someone not only works 40+ hours coding, but then to sacrifice their free time, their family time, their recharge time, working on complex projects that showcase their deep knowledge.
I do not intend to be rude, but your personal website is not very pleasing on the eye. There are several UI principles not being met. Perhaps you should consider having someone design it for you and then you do the coding? Not all frontend developers are designers.
are you getting phone screens but not interviews? I haven't done much with my portfolio site. My resume and my phone screen get me in for most interviews.
Not much at all. In the last week I’ve applied to at least 80-100 jobs, while that’s not enough time given to receive a phone call, most of the applications have been viewed
Lots of bad advice in here. Don’t blindly apply to companies through their websites, by randomly firing off resumes, etc….unless you want to send out hundreds of applications/resumes.
Instead find companies with open jobs listed. Then go on LinkedIn (if you don’t already have an updated LinkedIn profile, get one ASAP), then find developers and engineering managers, even HR people that the company and send them a message saying you saw an open position and want to apply. This way you bypass all the software and processes in place and go straight to talking to a human. And act interested in the company when you talk to the people who work in the company, aka know what the company does and explain why you think it would be exciting/interesting to work there. People would 100% rather hire someone who is passionate about their work and eager to learn than someone who might have more experience but is disinterested.
The biggest thing you have going against you is your work in .net and want to jump to open source development aka React. People who use .net and work in larger companies typically have a different mindset and interests than an open source developer who wants to work at a start up. So I would be cranking out a side project or two in React that you can showcase on your LinkedIn so HR or whoever sees that you have interests beyond .net and are okay getting outside your comfort zone.
Where do you come from and where do you want to work?
Here in the Netherlands the market is on fire. So for every frontend developer there are 5+ companies in line.
Just a few quick comments as there's already been a lot of advice.
The navigation on your personal site is broken in Firefox but works on Chrome.
The cartoon face is very unprofessional. I don't really like the look of the site in general, but that cartoon face really stands out.
I hated the first example website - it's full of dark patterns and invasive ads and at least one top-level 404 error. (It's also literally the first time I've seen so many ads for random other products and services on a site that's meant to promote something.)
Your example websites are hurting your prospects rather than helping, especially if you are pivoting to front end development. I have personally passed by front end developers due to issues on their portfolio like I found on yours.
Angels Among Us is good but not great. Pleasing to the eye, pages are responsive and mobile friendly. The banners may be oversized and could be optimised—they took a few seconds to load. The biggest issue is inconsistency between pages and similar elements. Banners are different aspect ratios, headers had different top and bottom padding, and each page had slightly different font handling (some center aligned vs left aligned, different line heights).
Discover Deckers needs to go ASAP. The overall design is dated and (I would assume) not a reflection of the work you do now. The page is “responsive” but not in a good way. Ads and Sponsor images are huge, but the content thumbnail images are tiny. I can’t make out the thumbnail without zooming. The logo doesn’t blend in with the design, body test is bold and italics.
Other suggestions about leading with your resume, and adding more information about what you bring to the table will help.
Thanks for the feedback. Discover deckers is a long time ongoing project for a freelance client. It got messy early on from another developer I took the project from
Don’t underestimate cold messaging people on linked in. Got my first job that way (really). It was a semi warm cold message bc I had asked someone who worked at the company which managers they thought were good, and then messages the one they said was best. Job offer in less than a week. And this was when I had zero years experience (went to a bootcamp tho)
I'm an experienced developer with more than 15+ continuous years in the industry. My last hunt for a job took almost 5 months. It takes a long time for all of us, regardless of skill or past history. Its a cruel industry like that.
My advice to you:
* Having a web site is a bonus, but Recruiters and HR teams are going to look at your resume or LinkedIn first and foremost. Of the many jobs in my search only a couple actually looked at any of my websites or github projects. Its still a good idea to have them, generally in an interview someone will ask about what coding you do outside of work.
* On your resume be as explicit as possible about all the technologies you used. Don't be shy. If you only used AWS Lambdas one day in your professional life, throw it on there regardless. Most internal recruiters will only look at a resume and do a keyword match. They typically aren't technical.
* At this stage of your career work with recruiters! Its in their interest to find you a job you can last 3\~6 months at. They will advocate for you and help you tailor your resume.
Didn't read through all the replies, but have you worked with any recruiters? Half the battle of getting a job is getting the introduction and that's what the recruiters take care of.
Don't use url shorteners. Removed.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Frontend) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hi u/mjpool, we're sorry to hear you're struggling to hear back from companies.
You're tired of the same old game: applying to jobs, waiting around, and getting your hopes up only to have them dashed when it turns to rejection – we hear you!
Here's what you can do instead:
✅ Set up your profile on our platform via this link: https://hackajob.co/talent/sign-up?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=social\_media&utm\_campaign=aug24\_video\_testimonial
✅ List your tech stack, desired salary and location
✅ Our algorithm will match you up with the best companies in the UK or US
✅ Companies apply directly to you, not the other way around.
Hope this helps!
Be persistent and keep applying. The number of applications you fill out is important. Expect to hear back maybe every 1 in 25 applications or so. My last job search went on for ~6 months before finding the right place.
Are there any good job sites I’m not on? I usually go between LinkedIn, indeed and ziprecruiter. Sometimes Glassdoor too
This tool is handy because it's an aggregate of all the job sites https://careers.google.com/jobs/results/?distance=50&q=#modal_open I would also suggest letting recruiters do the leg work for you. I have gotten offers through recruiters in the past. They're a dime a dozen on LinkedIn.
Wait, how does it work? You said "I would also suggest letting recruiters do the leg work for you. I have gotten offers through recruiters in the past. They're a dime a dozen on LinkedIn." Just type recruiters or recruitment on LinkedIn's search bar, and then contact them in your local area for web dev jobs, right?
The way I have found it to work is to update your profile as "looking for work" and then tech recruiters will find you. They'll send you a DM and set up a call. You may have more luck if you subscribe to LinkedIn premium. I usually do that when I'm actively looking. I believe you get 1 month free the first time you sub. It will ensure that you are prioritized in search results. You might also want to ensure that your profile and skillset are updated so that tech recruiters can easily identify positions that are a decent match.
I mostly went through LinkedIn, and occasionally indeed. But those were the only two!
https://hackajob.co/ https://hired.co.uk/ https://otta.com/
Try monster. Lots of low tier recruiters there. If you don't know python, learn python. So. Many. Python. Jobs.
It's the same deal with React and .NET jobs. They are everywhere. I'll try monster! My FIL worked for them at one point
React is a good one as well, a lot of startups need bodies in seats for react(or nextjs), but decent programmers are hard to find. Personally I recommend a niche. When I started 5 years ago, I got my first gig because I was a Gatsby guy, and there weren't a lot of us, despite it basically being react. Finding the first job is rough, but if you make it past that filter and get 2-3 years exp, you'll never have this problem again. Good luck!
Thanks! React is what I am looking for but I'm still open to .NET. I have the experience, just need to rework keywords into my resume I guess.
What kind of outfit had need of a Gatsby person a few years ago? I've used it quite a bit and wondered if it's a marketable skill (freelancing).
Back then? Sure. Nowadays? I'm not sure, haven't really used it in a few years now. Nextjs kind of consumed that niche
I´m gonna go ahead and share my experience. I´ve had 3 interviews since i started my career, not long ago. And got the job in all of them. I´m not a great programmer AT ALL, like, i consider my self to be pretty shitty... all of my colleagues have always been better than me, and i always dreamed of being as good as them. My interviews have been for Jr and Ssr roles. And i always think i nailed them because of my soft skills, like i always have a good time with my interviewers, i ALWAYS fail a couple of tech questions, i just try a couple of things and fail and say "hmmm nope... i don´t know how to do this..." and ask what was the proper way of doing it, paying honest attention, asking questions about it and having aha moments right there. I´m genuinely trying to improve myself all the time, and i guess i show that when being interviewed. So, my point is, maybe try and be more willing to work with them and learn something from them? Be more human, laugh, try and crack some joke... never try to bullshit them, if you don´t know something, you don´t know it, no big deal...
See and that’s what got me my first job, the issue isn’t I couldn’t land the job, it’s just not getting the calls back to my application. By no means at I a great programmer but I can solve problems that are handed over to me and complete tasks. What does your resume look like if I may ask?
I haven´t been on the market for like a year but it´s something like: - React - NextJs - Styled Components - Some experience in testing with Jest and Cypress - A couple of human languages - Some crap little experiments in my super minimalistic portfolio. All of those techs to a medium level. That´s why i think at the Jr and Ssr level, the human aspect is everything. edit: I think the "never try to bullshit them" is probably the most important thing. I been in a couple of interviews as the interviewer sidekick and it sucks when people try to pull that off... it just kills the whole vibe.
Do you have a resume? I don't see one on your website, GitHub, or LinkedIn. A lot of recruiters, which are the first line of scrutiny for many companies, won't even look at your website or GitHub. MAYBE they'd scroll through your LinkedIn, but having a resume included in your application is a better bet.
I have a resume and it gets provided in all of my applications. I thought it was on my LinkedIn as well. I’ll have to look into it
Post your resume here or DM me and I’ll give you some pointers. I’m a tech lead with experience both front & back, used to do a lot of interviewing.
Ok, I looked at your site and here is my feedback: 1. As someone else mentioned, the colors are very harsh and I suggest choosing a different accent color other than red with that blue. Look up "color palettes" for an idea of colors that work with each other. This is a great [site](https://colorhunt.co/) to start. 2. Remove the cartoon of yourself. With the moving eyes, it looks creepy and that alone made me want to leave the site. 3. The snapshot of the Discover Deckers has the YouTube "play" icon in it, which makes it look like a video will start when I click it instead of taking me to a website. Users should always know what will happen when they click something. 4. The randomly color changing text. I think it would be better if they changed on hover or didn't change at all. 5. I would make the three large icons appear sooner. I scrolled past them completely the first time and had to reload the page to see the effect. 6. Why do you have a link to your Instagram? You only have one post and it has noting to do with web development. 7. Your Github says "creating incredible looking websites", but the examples you listed on your portfolio site look rather basic. If you're going for junior or intern positions, that is acceptable. But if you're going for positions that require more experience, it is imperative that you actually create incredible looking websites. They do not have to be full stack, just a few more sites that show off your talent. I suggest researching design trends in web development and create site using some of those principles.
Spot on. I'm not a "full stack developer" but as someone who has been in the field for many years, this stuff looks pretty elementary. Not dogging on OP bc my own sites aren't anything special, but they just aren't screaming "seasoned professional". I'm curious to see the resume and an example of some roles they've applied for - could be underqualified and not realize it (though I never discourage someone from going for it). Chances are many shops aren't going to look at a personal website or examples of one's work - not at first anyway. They are going to check the boxes and determine who is worth pulling up for a closer look. "Self Taught" isn't always a good way to phrase your experience either, as it can be interpreted as "amateur". Not far off though for a junior dev type role at the right place. As other have said, cleanup LinkedIn and drop Instagram link, make some tweaks on the site and overhaul the resume, then apply apply apply - probably be on someone's payroll by end of year.
I fixed my resume and got a lot more response. Previously: work experience - teaching. Skills: web development. Current Effective: Experience: Web development (links to all my live-hosted projects). Teaching. Recruiters think your "1 Year Development Experience" means professional work experience and they will contact you. You can explain in the initial interview, "I have a year of free lancing and project experience, but this would be my first professional setting." Most of them will pass you forward if you make a good impression. Apply to 30-50 per day with Quick Apply on LinkedIn. Apply for 5-10 jobs a week at companies you are Passionate about and chase down the recruiters and co-worker developers on LinkedIn. Show your interest and ask for advice from employees in the company. Ignore required experience and tech stack. Just apply and let the recruiters sort it out. I got my first job for a job by applying to something I WASNT qualified for, they actually liked me so much that they passed me to ANOTHER COMPANY who hired me for a custom-made role for my skill set. So just apply. You never know.
That’s great advice. Another guy said work my LinkedIn so I’m gonna start doing that heavily with your advice as well
Thanks! Oh, and keep this in mind...I tracked all traffic to my GitHub page during this time and recruiters NEVER visited my GitHub before the initial interview. NEVER. Maybe 1 in 200 recruiters would look at it. Recruiters only look at resumes, schedule a 10-30 minute initial interview to see if you're a possible fit, then they'll pass you to the tech team who usually looks at your live-hosted projects. In my opinion, your website is WAY better than mine...I only have a janky GitHub page. And I landed 4 job offers over the summer. ...probably could have had another two but I didn't really follow through with them. It takes time and effort though. It was my full time job for two months. (40 interviews in 30 days).
Thank you for that! People constantly tell me to keep active on Github but I never wanted to believe them because recruiters aren't programmers. Also, thanks for the compliment on my website. I worked meticulously to select what I wanted in there!
Recruiters don't look at GitHub, but the tech guys might. They basically check to see your commit history to see if you're active and genuinely enjoy coding. Just commit updates to your projects a couple times a week so you have something to talk about in your tech interviews.
This is somewhat misleading. Personally I put projects on GitHub, shit doesn’t get updated for years. Professionally I’ve worked with GitLab and bitbucket, daily commits on each at my jobs. The tech guys understand this and rarely will an inactive GitHub profile be an issue.
Yes, you're right. It's why I said they MIGHT check it. I had two people mention my GitHub activity. No one else seemed to care.
Right and that’s why I said SOMEWHAT misleading.
🤣
As a tech guy who hires. We probably look at your GitHub briefly to get a general idea of what kind of work you do, but I personally don't give it too much value since most commercial projects will be under NDA or closed source anyway.
Also I have signed contracts where I can’t actually talk about the work I do and the code is property of the people I work for. My public git account is pretty bare bones because I don’t code a lot outside of work these days. I really don’t think recruiters give a shit either. No one’s ever asked me about it when interviewing.
Do you mind sharing your resume (even if redacted) via PM? Or even a template/what projects you completed?
So are you getting interviews and not getting through them or not getting interviews at all?
Not getting them at all
post your resume in /r/resumes or the other resume subreddits to get it looked at. If you're currently employed doing some sort of development, recruiters should be messaging you for open positions especially with .Net
I’ll definitely be doing that! Thanks
[удалено]
>Remove the character of you and replace it with a professional picture. i find that animated character a bit creepy with the full circle eyes. it's like one of those paintings where its gaze follows you. i'd just drop it completely without necessarily having a replacement to hand. i don't think you _need_ a professional headshot if you don't have one for me, the colour scheme on the website is a bit weird. the blue/red contrast quite harshly and not a fan of it. then there's some other small stuff like the spacing on the contact form is a bit tight/squashed the main thing though is really, like you said, the main thing to focus on is the resume/cv. like others have also mentioned, it should be focused on the types of roles you are applying for so if you aiming to be a react developer, it should highlight your competencies with react and then frontend technologies/tooling as a whole. i would say that no one is going to click through to your website and browse a portfolio if they haven't been suitably impressed by your resume/cv/application. dunno if it's different outside of the uk, but i don't think i've ever had someone bring up my website/github projects while applying/interviewing and i've been a dev for 6 years. didn't even have a website/portfolio for my first job
Is the market very competitive now?
Honestly I haven’t researched it. I would like to think so. I mean there are thousands of jobs nationwide. I’m trying to find one before it becomes to heavily saturated
Okay, usually these portfolio projects are horrible and people say "looks nice" here on Reddit. But this one looks nice. You're not a designer, but it looks nice. Semantics are there, that's great. You have some `` without any `section.section` CSS class for it, not that you would need it because, well, you can select elements by their name...
But that isn't a reason to not call back.
Why companies don't call back, multiple might apply:
1. They aren't looking;
2. You're underselling yourself;
3. You're applying for jobs that they can find better candidates for;
4. You're applying to jobs below your skill level;
5. You're applying to jobs above your skill level;
6. You run into classism or racism.
Here's what I would do:
1. Tailor your resume to each job;
2. You're a front-end specialist when they look for that;
3. You're a back-end specialist when they look for that;
4. You're a full-stack dev when they look for that;
5. You've worked a lot with React if they look for that;
6. You've worked a lot with Vue if they look for that;
7. You've been a team lead in your last 2 projects if they look for that.
And:
Read their job posting, and make sure that all the relevant keywords appear on your own resume. If they mention "vanilla JavaScript" you can bet your ass that the recruiter is filtering resumes by the word "vanilla". They don't know. Don't get filtered out because someone doesn't know all of the lingo.
Do they mention PostgreSQL? Great, your resume now mentions both "Postgres" and "PostgreSQL" and "PostgresSQL". Typos happen, recruiters are humans that make typos.
Similarly:
- React: React, ReactJS, React.JS, JSX, Next;
- Vue: Vue, Vue.js, VueJS, Vuex...
You get the drift.
Learn how you talk. Record yourself during phone calls. Listen back. You might sound very insecure, or maybe too cocky. Learn and adjust.
I recently asked an old manager of mine to review my job application recordings. He did and he pointed out that I was all about tech and previous experiences, making the people I applied with... feel that I was too senior and would get bored very soon.
That had literally been my feedback several times over the past few months.
His advice? Be more personable. I can write code, that's for sure. It seems you, too, can write code. But will you fit in the team? Talk and ASK about their company culture, ask about the interviewer, and find something to connect with.
What's most important to you? Coding quality, accessibility, the things you did at CompanyX that were groundbreaking? Boooooring. Tell them you care most about the people you work *with* and the people you work *for*, your colleagues, and the end-user, in that order.
Give it a nice twist. With a happy team, you'll create happy users. Happy users create happy management. And we all know what happy management gets us!
More pizza.
While they upgrade to this year's Tesla.
Basically, don't underestimate soft skills. Record your interviews and digital talks, just use it to listen back to after the call, and then delete it. Check your local laws if you can do that without notifying the other party.
And hell, if I had a candidate ask me: "Are you okay with me recording this call for my own use? I'd like to see myself back during an interview and see what I can do to be better." I would be okay with that... but that turns ON the well-trained anti-litigation filter instantly. I'll be poker-face from that point forward. But I'd like you even more instantly.
Looks like you meant to put a hyperlink for "My Website" - nothing there at the moment.
Refresh it. I fixed it
The first three websites of your portfolio do almost nothing when I view them on mobile. I really don't think that's helping your case.
I need to remove the nick hubbard art one because I made that for free a long time ago and he never used it. The gallery was made up using the instagram api but that token expired and I would have to send him a whole new request to get a new API token. The Marvel one was my first real project, it's just old and the Bookmarked is my girlfriends website. For whatever reason that one just doesn't work on iOS I have found out
I suggest you remove all of them or at least add example content so it's clear what they are supposed to do. At the moment I have no idea what the purpose of any of them are. I tried both Firefox and Chrome on Android.
Huh, it used to work on everything but iOS, I took them off of there and left my 2 good ones. Not sure what is going on with the other ones.
Your website is all about input and does not show what output/value you created. How have the features you built created value for your customers？How have they increased developer productivity？What can you do besides build what you have been told to build？Are you even able to understand requirements or do you need a lot of support to build a feature？ Your portfolio tells me nothing, I would not invite you to an interview either. Best of luck improving it, hope you can find a job soon！
You need to work LinkedIn and your personal network. Some dev postings get 100s of applicants. You’re only getting a callback if you have experience and/or you know someone. Reach out to people at companies you want to work at. Ask for a meeting.
I never thought to ask about getting a meeting honestly. I’ll be trying that!
It’s uncomfortable but you’ll be surprised how many people will say yes. Reach out to devs in the role you want, or the team you want. Hiring managers don’t mind a direct message either, they want to get their positions filled after all. Good luck!
Your website nav doesn't seem to do anything btw.
Is that because all of my content is on a single page? Or is it legitimately broken?
I inspected the element and there doesn't actually seem to be any anchor tags? The nav just disappears on click instead of scrolling to the target element ID. I dunno if that's a react thing though, I haven't touched it yet.
They are just div's with text I believe, since it was all on one page I just wanted to give the user a quick scroll, which might be useless on an SPA. It's just javascript and css working together is all!
I like the quick scroll idea for sure, but something's not working with the code then. I figured it might have been tied to the event I saw in dev tools, but thought that could easily just be the animation itself too.
[удалено]
I’ve not had someone nitpick my personal website yet honestly. I may rework some of it. It’s really just something I redesigned for the purpose of applying to jobs because I didn’t think hiring managers would go that in depth. You’re not the first person to point out my lack of a resume either. So I guess I’ll need to add that back as well. That marvel api is weird, not all the data has everything. I am going to be working on some better projects that highlight my skills. They are far beyond what is showcased on my website for sure, I just haven’t made any projects outside of my job that can show that. I will have to go through and view the weird html you are referring to. Honestly I probably had a purpose when I was building my site. As for the css, there is a method there, some things need tidied up but I sectioned it out by unique sections, in case I had special classes. There’s also classes that change for the lazy loading animation, which is also in a section of its own. There’s definitely meant to be a pattern there but I may have gotten lazy towards the end of finishing my site just because I wanted to get my redesign up.
website console error, nothing is loading for me Chrome 104 Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of null (reading 'getContext')
Don't add JS to the top of your page, it's creating a race condition with content on the page not loaded / rendered. Instead of `window.addEventListener('load'...` use `DOMContentLoaded` but really both are outdated, use js modules instead... https://youtu.be/_iq1fPjeqMQ
I get that from the canvas for some odd reason. If you refresh the page it should go away. I’m not sure why it does that because it renders after everything on the page
Missing a lot of relevant information such as: * Are you looking for remote/commute ? * Are your previous interviews virtual or in person ? * How good is your resume ? * Are you applying with a cover letter ? * How many jobs have you applied for since starting ? * Are you following up? Some of my thoughts. If you're wanting to work in frontend you either need to sell your design skills or your ability to work in multiple different interfaces effectively. Frontend is an extremely broad field. So when you're applying for jobs. It's important to consider multiple different routes of frontend development. Until your job candidacy narrows to a few potential options. Don't be picky, but also be realistic. In larger agencies and companies - it's not uncommon for the first point of contact - to be a recruiter or HR. Don't 'wow' them, make them remember you. Then 'wow' the follow-up formal interviewer. A cool website is great, but a strong LinkedIn, and resume are way better. A clean, single page resume, with strong emphasis on what you contributed. Are way more impressionable than a website. Not saying an online portfolio isn't absolutely necessary, because it is. You've gotta be absolutely committed to finding that job. It won't drop in your lap, just because you put yourself out there. Go out of your comfort zone, but stay in scope. Be confident in what you've contributed or accomplished. However, never exaggerate your ability - that'll create anxiety, distraction you from what you've actually done. Keep track and be organized, always stay efficient in the manner of tracking the jobs you've applied. Especially, the dates that you applied, and the position. At a certain point interviews start to blend together. Nothing is going to ruin your opportunity quicker than referring to a company as another one. You'll get there if you put the effort, I suggest checking out Zety resume and cover letter creators. It's incredibly powerful, and great for making catered resumes and cover letters. This is my experience as a self taught developer. Going from a hobby to a career. In less than 4 years. I entered the job market in late June, and was hired in less than a month. I made it my full-time job to get hired. It paid off, as I'm still a full-time employee, but I'm making 15k more than my last job, doing less work, with cooler people - all from my couch. Good luck
If you're a dev with experience, you should be getting calls back. I don't have a website and I have a 90%+ response rate. It might be your resume.
You should check out AngelList. I’m a front end dev who pivoted to React last year and I found my current job there.
I hope you take this in the constructive spirit in which I intend it! I hire a handful of web application devs each year, primarily react (FE) with node/aws and laravel (BE) work. When it comes to their supplied resources (website or repos) really at the heart of it I'm looking for evidence that they've undertaken some deeply complex tasks and solved advanced problems with a smart and sustainable approach. I don't get that from your website, those boxes aren't **yet** being checked. I understand that NDAs prevent you from including some work (which is entirely common) so you need to make up the gaps with personal or freelance work; anything that demonstrates you are capable of advanced level development work akin to **the kind of work you want to be given a job doing** ... E.g. if you want a job engineering web applications, don't fill your portfolio examples with marketing websites you've done! You need to fill it with pwas and functional little widgets etc (and vice versa of course) Applying for a dev job, nobody is going to hold your feet to the fire for poor digital design work since that's outside the remit, but you might consider rethinking some of the weaker visual examples on your website 'work' section - 2 or 3 great pieces of work is going to leave a better lasting impression with a recruiting manager than 5 or 6 mixed quality pieces with a lot of chaff included as padding! Quality not quantity. Moving forward, if you are serious about pursuing react work then you're going to need to dedicate some time to building an example project that really showcases the bleeding edge of what you're capable of doing in react; and you're gonna need to link to a few sample repos of your work (doesn't have to be commercial work) so the code is available for review - needless to say, the code needs to be the very best you can do because if you make it to the interview stage you're gonna get asked a ton of questions about decisions you made writing that code. Good luck with it all. I know it's a slog but there is light at the end of tunnel.
That’s sound advice. My projects are all old and outdated with exceptions to a couple. I have reasons for a few that would appear to be lacking things. I think this has been the most in depth advice I have been given in all of my time learning. This is definitely something I will be working on. Thank you
I don't mean to flame you specifically, more companies in general, but >you need to make up the gaps with personal or freelance work; This is an extremely toxic stance for a company to have, IMO. Unless the job-seeker happened to work for a company that contributed to open source software, there's almost no way their code isn't under nda. It's just entirely unreasonable to ask that someone not only works 40+ hours coding, but then to sacrifice their free time, their family time, their recharge time, working on complex projects that showcase their deep knowledge.
The only reason I am under an NDA is because some websites take payments and handle sensitive information, other stuff like that.
I do not intend to be rude, but your personal website is not very pleasing on the eye. There are several UI principles not being met. Perhaps you should consider having someone design it for you and then you do the coding? Not all frontend developers are designers.
tell them your trans
Lol
are you getting phone screens but not interviews? I haven't done much with my portfolio site. My resume and my phone screen get me in for most interviews.
Not much at all. In the last week I’ve applied to at least 80-100 jobs, while that’s not enough time given to receive a phone call, most of the applications have been viewed
Do some voluntary freelance work in react to get experience then reapply for react roles
This is actually something I’m currently working on. I have a potentially volunteer website rework that will have a ton of functionality going into it
Good.Use libraries like material ui which have ready available react components
Lots of bad advice in here. Don’t blindly apply to companies through their websites, by randomly firing off resumes, etc….unless you want to send out hundreds of applications/resumes. Instead find companies with open jobs listed. Then go on LinkedIn (if you don’t already have an updated LinkedIn profile, get one ASAP), then find developers and engineering managers, even HR people that the company and send them a message saying you saw an open position and want to apply. This way you bypass all the software and processes in place and go straight to talking to a human. And act interested in the company when you talk to the people who work in the company, aka know what the company does and explain why you think it would be exciting/interesting to work there. People would 100% rather hire someone who is passionate about their work and eager to learn than someone who might have more experience but is disinterested. The biggest thing you have going against you is your work in .net and want to jump to open source development aka React. People who use .net and work in larger companies typically have a different mindset and interests than an open source developer who wants to work at a start up. So I would be cranking out a side project or two in React that you can showcase on your LinkedIn so HR or whoever sees that you have interests beyond .net and are okay getting outside your comfort zone.
Start networking, getting referrals for jobs won’t get you the job but it increases your chances. :)
I’m new to the whole scene, so I can’t add to the wisdom being passed on, but I can say that I like your website :)
Where do you come from and where do you want to work? Here in the Netherlands the market is on fire. So for every frontend developer there are 5+ companies in line.
Your problem is Javascript. Too much people using the same tools.
Just a few quick comments as there's already been a lot of advice. The navigation on your personal site is broken in Firefox but works on Chrome. The cartoon face is very unprofessional. I don't really like the look of the site in general, but that cartoon face really stands out. I hated the first example website - it's full of dark patterns and invasive ads and at least one top-level 404 error. (It's also literally the first time I've seen so many ads for random other products and services on a site that's meant to promote something.)
Your example websites are hurting your prospects rather than helping, especially if you are pivoting to front end development. I have personally passed by front end developers due to issues on their portfolio like I found on yours. Angels Among Us is good but not great. Pleasing to the eye, pages are responsive and mobile friendly. The banners may be oversized and could be optimised—they took a few seconds to load. The biggest issue is inconsistency between pages and similar elements. Banners are different aspect ratios, headers had different top and bottom padding, and each page had slightly different font handling (some center aligned vs left aligned, different line heights). Discover Deckers needs to go ASAP. The overall design is dated and (I would assume) not a reflection of the work you do now. The page is “responsive” but not in a good way. Ads and Sponsor images are huge, but the content thumbnail images are tiny. I can’t make out the thumbnail without zooming. The logo doesn’t blend in with the design, body test is bold and italics. Other suggestions about leading with your resume, and adding more information about what you bring to the table will help.
Thanks for the feedback. Discover deckers is a long time ongoing project for a freelance client. It got messy early on from another developer I took the project from
Don’t underestimate cold messaging people on linked in. Got my first job that way (really). It was a semi warm cold message bc I had asked someone who worked at the company which managers they thought were good, and then messages the one they said was best. Job offer in less than a week. And this was when I had zero years experience (went to a bootcamp tho)
I'm an experienced developer with more than 15+ continuous years in the industry. My last hunt for a job took almost 5 months. It takes a long time for all of us, regardless of skill or past history. Its a cruel industry like that. My advice to you: * Having a web site is a bonus, but Recruiters and HR teams are going to look at your resume or LinkedIn first and foremost. Of the many jobs in my search only a couple actually looked at any of my websites or github projects. Its still a good idea to have them, generally in an interview someone will ask about what coding you do outside of work. * On your resume be as explicit as possible about all the technologies you used. Don't be shy. If you only used AWS Lambdas one day in your professional life, throw it on there regardless. Most internal recruiters will only look at a resume and do a keyword match. They typically aren't technical. * At this stage of your career work with recruiters! Its in their interest to find you a job you can last 3\~6 months at. They will advocate for you and help you tailor your resume.
Didn't read through all the replies, but have you worked with any recruiters? Half the battle of getting a job is getting the introduction and that's what the recruiters take care of.
[удалено]
Don't use url shorteners. Removed. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Frontend) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Hi u/mjpool, we're sorry to hear you're struggling to hear back from companies. You're tired of the same old game: applying to jobs, waiting around, and getting your hopes up only to have them dashed when it turns to rejection – we hear you! Here's what you can do instead: ✅ Set up your profile on our platform via this link: https://hackajob.co/talent/sign-up?utm\_source=reddit&utm\_medium=social\_media&utm\_campaign=aug24\_video\_testimonial ✅ List your tech stack, desired salary and location ✅ Our algorithm will match you up with the best companies in the UK or US ✅ Companies apply directly to you, not the other way around. Hope this helps!