Hi everyone, I’m Israel
I just joined this community.
I’ve been learning to code for three years now but have not gotten professional experience, that is, I’ve not been hired where I was actually paid.
I’ve had to take menial jobs to fund my journey, but right now, I don’t even have any.
So, my life actually depends on this right now,
Any advice or help would be appreciated
There are no shortcuts. It often takes several months to get professional developer job, even with strong experience.
Start small, try to ask some small company first for internship or if they have any programs. Gain expi and try to apply for other role after.
Thanks for the advice. I’ll keep pushing, but the thing is I’m quite clueless on what to do next cause no direction seems to give results
Where can I find those companies. I already reached out to people (probably 20) in my LinkedIn network. Mostly cold response. It was only one which scheduled a meeting for yesterday to possibly be an unpaid intern, to which I agreed, but haven’t got a reply since yesterday. Still hopeful though
Unpaid internships are exploitive. I would avoid them.
It is difficult to make progress by spamming companies with cold emails.
What do I do instead, applying directly never worked for me. And most job posts I see require an unrealistic amount of skills and experience in range of technologies. Yeah, I see how unrealistic they are, I’ve been learning to code and building stuff for three years! And still don’t qualify?
It can be difficult to prove that you are as skilled as a person with a 4 year degree. Its really not easy to say that you’re job ready just by the fact that you’ve been learning for 3 years.
Hi @izzyrotimi !
For the time, have you build something? That maybe solves a problem? How is your CV? What skills have you gained over the time? I don’t think it’s helpful when you tell us you’ve just been learning. We need to know what you know and the milestones you’ve made.
I confident with React and NextJS and TailwindCSS,
i.e,
I know useEffect() useRef() server components, SSG, ISR, SSR, API routes and so on.
Currently I’m mastering NextJS by building production ready apps.
Meanwhile, I’m learning backend with Express and MongoDB. I know express well, but haven’t mastered applying to production, i.e, I’m still learning databases and security.
( I’m trying to be a master at these before marketing than I do backend, so I don’t break someone’s production database cause).
My major challenge is that not being paid anything is making doubt if it’s worth it and I still need money to master these things anyways.
So, you can see my frustration.
You can check my GitHub to validate what I’m saying:
israelrotimi (Israel Rotimi) · GitHub
Hello,
As you are confident, why not market yourself rather than apply for jobs?
You could have a go at getting your own clients through your own website and other channels. Do you show your work to other people or keep it a secret, waiting for the next job interview? I don’t mean Github, but on social media, where lots of non-tech people will see it.
Hi @izzyrotimi !
Welcome to the forum!
I can feel your pain. I remember what it was like in my 20s having to take menial jobs to help support myself while my career got going. But as was mentioned in the discussion already, getting a tech job does take time. Especially if this is going to be your first job. So if there are any other non tech jobs you can take in the mean time to keep the lights on, I would suggest taking it. These jobs won’t be fun but this will be temporary.
I would highly suggest listening to Danny Thompson and Leon Noel’s podcast.
They have so many episodes talking about the job market. Both of them have resources and groups to help juniors in your exact position that don’t know how to go about this process in an effective way.
Yes, it is frustrating when you see job posts with unrealistic requirements. Especially for a junior role. But there is a reason for this.
The short answer is that hiring is really expensive.
When you add up the time and money it takes to draft the job description, promote the job, go through applications, setup interviews, draft an offer for the candidate, and have that candidate go through the onboarding process it costs the company a lot of money.
The best case scenario for that company is that they hire someone that adds an immense amount of value and creates a lot of impact for that company.
Worst case scenario is that employee cannot do the job or is a nightmare to work with and needs to be let go. Then the company has to start the process all over again.
That is why there are all of these hoops to jump through. The company doesn’t want to get burned.
I wouldn’t worry about become a master at this point. That takes a significant amount of years of learning and working in different companies and solving problems. Heck, I have met devs that are 20 years in with impressive resumes that don’t consider themselves masters.
It is good that you want to continually work to get better. But the key aspects that companies are looking for in a junior are the following:
I know getting that first developer job is tough. But I think looking at those resources I linked earlier will help you change your approach so you get more effective results.
Hope that helps 
