I guess I’ll add my freelance experience to my resume then xD.
I love this topic, because everything you are saying is so true. Even with degrees and the eagerness to work and showing you can do it. Getting a job in this field, really any field is just hard. I hope you keep up with your applying. It does sound your location might be hurting your chances the most in your instance. Please keep us updated also as you move forward, and I wish you the best. I appreciate the truthfulness in sharing the struggle since I am there everyday with you. As a side note, I am trying to constantly put coding in a better mindset where I look at it as a hobby, so I can keep up with it while I wait for an opportunity to come my way. KEEP IT UP!
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Yup! Thanks! Will do. 
I’ve modified my resume last night. This time I’m going to use a skill-less section and go with an extreme change to see if that works. This time it focuses more on projects. Hopefully someone will notice me on their radar haha. Maybe I should remove my location (and only keep state, USA) this time and just bring it up once I’m deep into the interview process.
Just thought of a new project to work on to practice webpack more. Yup, we love web dev, gotta keep on loving and learning more about it.
Im just adding on additional emphasis on points brought up, so that you can be very sure of how important it is!
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Yes, speaking yourself up as an entrepreneur with all the things you are doing, while sounding impressive, also makes hiring managers wonder why you need a job and if you’ll be as devoted to the job they want you to do with so much on your plate that you are already devoted to. Expressing that coding is a big part of your life, blogging, teaching, sharing with others is awesome…but dont let it come off as something that already is a full time job in itself.
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Network, network, network! I applied for jobs for almost a year with zero success, I ended up going to a bootcamp, one to learn skills to make me more employable, two to meet others and start getting more involved. As a matter of fact, I chose my school because of how active they are in the local tech community.
The networking opportunities alone was worth it…because of people I personally met and knew bringing me up as a personal referral, I finally started to get call backs and interviews. I even got an offer for a job I had no skill set for, because “you can learn the skills, but we cant teach you how to be part of the team” …my personal referral got me int he door so I could meet them and once they met me they wanted to work with me.
Something I learned from someone I met now that I was actually leaving my house an networking, was the power of reaching out to people on LinkedIn. When I applied for a job, I didnt just sit and wait. I scoped out people in the company with a title similar to the job I was after, and would shoot them a message to let them know I applied, and would love some info about the company culture, any info about working there theyd like to share, etc.
Id say, at least 60% of the people I sent a message to replied, and after some convo, most of them either said they would ask the hiring manager if they got my resume, or gave me a direct email/phone number to the hiring manager so that I could reach out personally. Both of which helped tremendously with getting a manager to reach out and talk to me.
Having said all that, dont compare yourself to anyone you perceive to have less skills getting jobs. Keep in mind what the guy who gave me an offer said…skills can be taught, being part of the team cannot. Someone with less skills may have networked their butt off and when an opportunity came up, someone thought of them as someone they’d love to work with, or who would be a great culture fit for the company and referred them for the job. So dont begrudge others for it, talk to them and see if what they did can help you get where you want to be too.
Use Netlify to host static files. That would be enough for the portfolio. So the only expense you will have is the domain name.
Yeah I know about that site
If you want to hear about other approaches try listening to the FreeCodeCamp podcast, there are a few episodes about getting the job and negotiating the salary
Thanks! I’ll check it out
I’m always surprised by this kind of advice. I stayed at home all days learning to code and did zero networking. Then used the job boards for applications. Using this method, I got my first job after two months of applying and my second job after a week.
However, I’m in the UK, and the tech culture might be a bit different!
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I think the fact that the OP did probably the same and had limited success for 10 month suggests that he needs an alternative. It could be a culture and regional difference, or you could be doing something subtly different in your application that makes pass through the job board level.
It is however not the typical experience for me and my circle of peers, ie non CS/engineering major with no relevant work experience, mostly self-taught developers
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With the hussle that is required to become a junior developer seems like you may as well just go ahead and become an entrepreneur.
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Dude, looking at your portfolio - I’m surprised that you havent been hired yet. Truthfully, it’s a little discouraging for myself. If even you cant find a job, then I’m definitely screwed 
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I would but running out of money so job hunt XD.
Where are you located?
If you are somewhere where there are no jobs, then you’re always going to have an issue. If you want to keep at it rather than being forced to move, I can empathize — I live in a part of the UK that didn’t used to have many tech jobs, and it was very painful when I was starting out, I just kept picking up bits and pieces of freelance work while I worked a service job (and learned in my spare time). It took a long time before applications started working for me, although I wasn’t constantly applying over the period of time it took.
Edit, I was thinking about this, and if there are jobs but you’re just being rejected:
(note the following is from a UK perspective, plus it’s all context sensitive, and plus I can’t see your resume (as I said some posts up). There are several things that are definitely unattractive about what you’re presenting here, things that would definitely make me think twice about hiring you if I was in that position.
On the plus side, given you are applying for junior developer jobs:
- You have a BA in computer engineering.
- You have a set of well-presented web projects on show.
- You have produced a set of C# beginner tutorials that look like you’ve put a lot of work into.
- You seem to understand some front-end tech and seem interested in learning.
Those four things surely make you an attractive candidate on their own. But (and note I’m just basing this on your site):
- you make it clear, up front, that you’re primarily interested in setting up your own business/businesses. So you’re giving the impression to me that your focus won’t be primarily on any job that you’re going for.
- you also note that you have a “side hustle”. So if that happens to pan out for you, I would assume you’re going to sack off your day job immediately.
- you have written a book about a platform designed to connect professionals. This doesn’t quite add up. I say that knowing from this thread that you can’t get a job atm, yet you’re advertising that you’ve written a guide to LinkedIn.
- you are effectively trying to brand yourself - your site reads as sales website. This is in itself a bit suspect if the site is what I can see when you say you want a junior developer job. It emphasises 1 and 2. Sales patter reads like sales patter.
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Do a Udacity nanofegree program on full stack. It’s fairly inexpensive. Add those projects to your portfolio.
Create a web app. A website about something you like and maintain it. Gather analytics on that data and reapply en 1 year.