Hey guys, so a couple months ago I got my front end certificate, since then I’ve been learning React (I think I’m finally starting to understand it enough to start completing the projects), But I’ve also made a resume and applied at well over 100 junior/front end jobs, I live just out if San Francisco, I wasn’t expecting a job, but maybe a couple interviews. I think it might bey resume, but there is another issue, and I was just wanting to know what I should do to help. One I was 18, and graduated high school, I spent the last 9 years or so taking care of my grandmother, (not trying to make this a sob story), recently she went to live with her son, so I finally decided I would move to the bay area, and finally pursue a job in tech, over the years I mostly just made small games in Unity3D (nothing noteworthy), and I was the tech guy for a internet cafe, but that’s all the experience I have, do you guys think if I continue to complete my certificates that I have a chance of getting a job? Sorry I just have been down about my chances of getting a developer job lately, and just felt like letting a bit out. I see people doing the same thing, and getting at least a couple interviews, but I also noticed most of them have some kind of degree…
You’re in northern CA/bay area, I would assume competition is extremely tough there… and you’re competing against BS/CS degreed programmers.
Any way of enrolling in a community college even an associate degree? – just so you can get some papers/diploma. They may also offer help with internship/job placements.
Other option is knock on doors, talk with small-business owners an offer your services as an independent contractor.
Was hopeing to spend 6 months to a year or so completing freeCodeCamp, and thought I’d be able to get something…
On your portfolio and resume, maybe you can get someone qualified to look at them and provide some feedback on what you can improve on.
If all else fails and you have some savings, or if you don’t need immediate money, maybe you can consider internship with some of the tech firms? 3-6 months later you will have portfolio AND work experience which will put you in a better position to get a job.
Cheers
The only one that I’ve seen that didn’t require you to be in college was Spotify, which I have applied for. Do you guys think if I finish all the certificates there’s a good chance I will get something?
It’s not so much the cert, as to the skills you learn while doing projects and striving to get the cert. The cert is just the result of you putting in effort to build things and learn. Imo you shouldn’t focus that much on cert, freeCodeCamp is not Yale and its cert will never be as impressive as Yale’s. What it provides is a platform for you to learn and build. So build you must.
Of course, im just down, thinking even if I have the skill, I’ll never get invited for a interview.
Hey dude I will give you my advice, I don’t have any degree in programming or something related to it but I have 2 years working as a JavaScript programmer (one more as a HTML/CSS page builder). I’m not from USA (actually from a really poor country) but I’m working with a team from another country which clients are from USA. I have also work for other projects that are in that country…
You don’t need any degree to be a programmer, of course it will help you to get a job but remember that this area is always been updating and is IMPOSSIBLE for you to be updated just with college. You have to prove other people that you have the skills, start with jobs like wordpress programmer or easy stuff related with your area, learn from your colleagues and learn by yourself in internet (I have learnt more in internet that in any other place).
If you spend a year in an easy job where the competition is not that hard, you will learn a lot (more than you think) and you will create a portafolio. During that time buy books or use the free ones in Internet that are also good, teach yourself how to be organized in your code and learn from others.
So don’t be sad, of course is not easy but is not that hard either. Keep trying, create a github account and paste your personal projects there, you will learn a lot that way too and you will also have something to show to the bosses… A tip: if you try with an start up, try to get the interview directly with the boss, it will be better because you will know if the project is real.
Sorry if my English is not the best, I’m not a native speaker haha.
I think this site gives people unreasonable expectations so I try to be a bit realistic, hopefully it does not come off too harshly.
The good news is that a lot of jobs that say they require a college degree do not actually require a college degree but are mostly meant to steer away people who are not confident in their ability.
But… you are still competing against people who do actually have degrees that show they have spent years trying to improve as programmers. Which is why your web dev projects have to be better than theirs.
Its hard to judge someone’s skill level just from what they say I googled a bit. http://ericthegreatproductions.com/ << is that your site? If that is up to date then I feel you are not really ready…
Your first project’s Tic-Tac-Toe’s checkIfWin function breaks the DRY principle completely. I imagine that one function would disqualify you for most jobs if having the entire project in a index.html didn’t already.
Honestly to me it looks like you still have a lot more to learn. I would suggest getting people to review your code so you can find things to improve on.
You can take some free courses to learn best practices. Maybe the Coursera ones from University of Michigan would be a good fit. Anyway there are lots of them out there. Also sites like Code Wars to solve small programming puzzles.
I live in the Bay Area too, hold a Masters in Computer Science from a top Computer Science school and find the job hunt really difficult too. Don’t be discouraged and look for ways to stand out from the crowd. Get a credential that says you’re serious about web development such as on Coursera who offers free finaid. Look for freelance work to build your portfolio.
Just looked Coursera and they are promoting a new Google IT Professional Certificate with free scholarships provided by Google and hiring partnerships.
If you post your resume on here, a lot of FCC members will be happy to provide feedback on it, me included. 
Btw, your personal site has a fairly egregious mistake—the STYLE tag isn’t nested in the HEAD, so those styles aren’t showing up. Also, it’d be more impressive if you re-factored your website to not use Bootstrap. And no offense intended, but the name “Ericthegreat Productions” could also be turning some people off—when you’re applying for a job, first impressions are key.
Try searching for an apprenticeship. Often those are paid and it’s expected that you learn on the job. It’s a lot like a paid internship but a step up in terms of responsibility. Also, most companies hire their apprentices because they trained them for that purpose.
If you have some savings to cover the lack of stability, working with a recruiter as a contract developer is a good way to get a lot of experience and your foot in the door at some companies that you wouldn’t otherwise. Not sure how it is in SF but in Seattle I found myself working on some pretty awesome projects(albeit for days or weeks at a time). You’ll get a chance to meet other devs and make friends.
Additionally, IF your just applying to the companies that are cool and flashy, perhaps take a look at some that aren’t. Now is a great time to be a dev because every business type needs some kind of dev help. A construction company or widget manufacturer isn’t as cool as Spotify on paper, but it’ll get you coding experience 
Good Luck!!!
I’ve owned the domain for years 
How do you go about finding a recruiter that handles this?
To everyone else, I know I need to work on a lot, and that’s what’s I’m doing now
Personally I worked with this company Robert Half, here in Seattle. I loved working with them. Though I will say that it was my recruiter and her team I enjoyed more than the company they represented. Spend the time(if you have it) to find a recruiter you have a good fit with. Be honest with them as to your skill level. It’s their job to match you with projects at companies where your skill set matches with their need. If you inflate your skills you’ll get placed on projects where you’re in over your head right from the jump. It’s also OK to play the field a bit and work with more than one recruiter.
Another good way to get a bunch of recruiters hitting you up is to have a updated and complete LinkedIn profile. I hope this helps.
I come from the UK, so our situations are probably a bit different but hopefully you will find my advice helpful.
Firstly, don’t push these certificates you get here on to employers. Don’t even mention FreeCodeCamp. It looks much better that you completed these projects off your own back. The employer probably isn’t familiar with FCC, and doesn’t know how much it guided you through these projects so best just to not mention it.
Secondly, the most important thing is getting yourself represented properly. If you havent got an interview, then something must not be working for you. Rethink your CV/personal statement and rewrite it. It needs to come across confident and passionate, yet honest.
Thirdly, as mentioned above, think about who you are applying to. Of course Spotify is going to be intensely competitive and they can be fussy about who they pick. Maybe look at smaller, local companies. For instance, I have an interview with a finance company today who are looking for someone to maintain their website. It wasn’t where I imagined or necessarily wanted to be, but I am going for it because it is good experience for me and that gives me more oomph when applying for the bigger/better jobs.
Most junior jobs in the UK, apart from the ones in the big cities (London, Manchester etc etc, where they can afford to be fussy) are filled by people who are passionate and enthusiastic. I am currently in construction, and I have a small group of lads who I am in charge of. When it comes to recruiting, I will ALWAYS go for the one who comes across most enthusiastic and willing to learn. Keep that in mind buddy, and your day will come 
Your advice is probably the most logical place to start. If I were him, I would get some code review on stack exchange or reddit. Because most people cannot criticize their own work.
Difficult to really “diagnose” these things without 1-on-1 work. Couple of things from my personal experience:
- Most companies probably aren’t pouring over your code/projects until after they decide to bother interviewing you–it’s just too much time investment. Not that you shouldn’t make them as correct as possible, it just won’t help much in actually landing an interview.
- Since ^, the biggest things to get your foot in the door are probably “who you know”, a decent resume, and luck.
- The best way to get a job is to already have a job. The mere fact that your resume shows that you already work in the industry is a huge signal to a company that you are worth looking at.
Anecdote time! : I’m not sure how useful working with recruiters directly for projects was, but I did find that my experience doing some freelancing seemed to make a huge impact. While job searching and unemployed, every single interviewer asked about that experience, and I was able to talk about the pros/cons and specific projects accomplished.