Graduate as Full Stack Web Dev, applied to more 140 jobs, but now I applied to my old regular job

They are frameworks. You can believe what you want and be stubborn, but go ask actual developers who are working or people who set the programming questions in interviews.They will tell you the same thing

Gah! The bickering! Its making me break out in hives!!!

@RafaelHernandez, esp from your last post, you seem really self aware and it looks like youā€™ve done your research. Iā€™m going to ask a completely different question about your job searchā€¦youā€™ve applied to 140 job, of those, how many did you send a follow up email or try to get in touch with someone at the company?

Theres a hierarchy to this application madnessā€¦ the first level are inside hires / or they already know who they want to hire and only posting the job for hr purposes so they are not looking at any of the applications. The next in line are people who are personally referred to the job, after that, people who stand out in one way or another, then after that, people who filled out an online application.

So, if you dont know someone who can get you a personal referral (those are gold), the next best bet is to stand out. When I apply to a job, firstly, if I find it on LinkedIn or Indeed or whatever, I always go to the company site and see if I can apply from there instead. If the company has inhouse recruiters, I write an email to the recruiter to let them know I applied. Otherwise, I try to find someone on the team I applied to. Recently, there was a job I was super interested in, and the only contact I could find was the CTO. So I emailed himā€¦he said he got an overwhelming number of applications and I was the only person to actually reach out to him, that in itself impressed him and made him want to talk to me.

Next thing, work on getting those personal referralsā€¦ I check LinkedIn nearly every day and have reached out to people based on articles or posts theyve written I found interesting and added them to my network. There are people Ive never met save for being in my network who have helped me get interviews. On top of that though, get involved in your local tech community, meet and get to know people. Not only may you find out about opportunities that are never posted (theres quite a few of those) someone may decide to give you a reference.

I would like to mention something you said about back end requiring more of the problem solving and design patternsā€¦ front end does as well. Now, Ill admit, this could be a demographic thing (Im in Seattle) but every interview Ive had, I had to do challenges that required data structures and algorithmsā€¦only in one interview did they even ask me any front end questions. So whether front or back end, be equally prepared.

On another note on enthusiasm, it sounds like a line but Ive heard you can teach someone to code, but you cant teach them to be curious, excited about their work, have a good vibe and be someone you enjoy working with. It seemed like a line to me, cause okay yeah but if you dont have the skills, then thats a hard dealbreaker full stop. I have an onsite coming up with a top companyā€¦Im freaking excited about it and honestly floored because I felt like I totally bombed the interview.

I was so deflated and he told me, its not about whether or not I could solve the problem, its about how I think, how I communicate and what its like to collaborate with me and I did a great job. A few hours later he emailed me to let me know he was putting me through to onsite. That encouraged, motivated and excited me so muchā€¦to know he really meant it and sees potential in me. So yeah, if you are genuinely enthusiastic, I can tell you right now, it helps.

And yeah, you can show that from the moment you apply by reaching out, send follow up emails as soon as you apply, if you know anyone who can put in a word in for you, do thatā€¦stand out as someone who is willing to take that extra step because you want this. I promise, youā€™ll see a difference in the amount of people who will decide to give you a chance.

Youā€™ve got this :slight_smile:

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I mean, focus on making a full app like an ecommerce, and say it was freelance instead saying it was for fun. You dont need to know ops as freelancer. If you dont know well django, stop it and focus fulltime node/react.

At the end, the recruiter wants someone operationnal bringing value, not just an enthousiast costly guy. Give the feeling you are pro not a hobbeist who enjoys todolists and podomo clock projects.

I read someone who suggest you to focus on algorithm instead framework. I think it is totally not true, your boss just wants you to be efficient. Because anyway, you will do the basic stuff such as CRUD and auth operations daily. Do not expect them to ask you to create a db architecture for million users or other complex stuff. Just learn the basic: loop, splitting, immutability, arrays and object manipulation. No need to go very deepā€¦

Anyway your chances to get hired are much higher in startups, there is no coding challenges generally there. Just show that you are the guy who get the job done.

Good luck

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You do not understand the value of algorithm which is why a lot of self thought programmers end up with spaghetti code in the long run. Learning algorithms in not just dealing with sorting algorithms and time complexity , its about breaking your code in a ideal way to solve code, the JS algorithm session in freecodecamp is a good example .

You are seriously giving self thought developers a bad name , although algorithms is not something explicitly mentioned in companies as bosses value the app being built compared to code quality. Its something expected from you to be a good developer to work in a team.

Good code matters , if you just care about getting the job done and not care about good code refactoring and writing quality code you wont last long and get yourself to more sticky situations.

Good practices, clean code, good architecture are important of course, but are not linked with algorithm. As I said previously, basic array and object manipulation knowledge is enough.

In real life the daily tasks are classic: CRUD, Auth, sorting, filterā€¦ You will not need to calculate complex stuff. And in case you need to, stackoverflow is your friend.

In my opinion, time, energy and motivation are limited. Using tools born from synergy of thousand of programmers is crucial.

Example, concerning react you have to know: redux, selectors.
Concerning node, you just have to master these packages to master almost any project:
express, mongoose, body parser, passport.
And in secondary: nodemon, Morgan, cors, concurrently.

There is no magic, always same stuff here, good luck all and work hard.

Your common ā€œtasksā€ is only applicable to the job you are currently at. In the real world at bigger enterpruse , code is more complex. Its foolish to think that basic array and object manipulation is sufficient, because u have not work with larger code.

Nothing is sufficient in programming, and this is why its a lifelong skill you are expected to learn alot and there is no shortcuts in life. You may have luck your way through the industry, but dont drag others because you have shown lack of integrity for suggesting to lie and bad attitude which wont help people.

I am someome who went thru a cs degree and understand that programming isnt easy hence i have complete confidence in my point. Time energy and motivation are limited? Guess what no one is special.

People who are good in programming dont get good overnight but have the patience and resilence to learn things properly and appreciate things.

And any senior dev knows it takes years of practice and perserverance.

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Manā€¦ you have a cs. People without cs like me are targeting startup to create fullstack app.
We dont need to pass interview with HR and comtemplating code all day long at work.

Startup are moving fast

So? Do you seriously think its a good thing because u got a job at a startup? . Go look at stats whats the rate of startup failing in a span of 10 years . That dosent equate you on being competent. And ty for proving my point that u luck ur way thru the industry.

Unlike u i like interview tests, i wouldnt want to be hired unless it challenges me to be better.

The most challenging for people without degree, is to find the first job.
The years you spend on theories at school, I spent it on real projects with other seniors with passion :wink:

By the way, I would wonder your hiring stats on span of 10 years the proportion of people without cs in big companies.

You are v foolish to think that cs students are only learning pure theory. OOP and design patterns are everywhere for the past 25 years go look at some of their assignments which are real world interview questions.

Also do u seriously think that cs students dont do anything outside their degree? Alot of good cs students intern themselves for good companies or joined hackatons which solve real world problems . Your working on real projects with senior is nothing new , alot people who studied cs are passionate people.

Go look at coding sites , alot of events that are real difficult problems that target cs students

You are really clueless about things. You only know things within your grasp. Thats why u rely on lucking and bs ur way thru to get in.

This is why alot of good companies rather hire cs grads. I respect people who self teach themselves , and know their struggle to break thru. But they must understand the reality of no shortcuts in life.

There are good self thought programmers who appreciate cs and work way harder than u.

Companies prefer hiring cs people, but the pb is that cs students learn mostly legacy stuff that big companies are depending on.

Thatā€™s why there is huge opportunities in python, ruby, reactā€¦

This is the gold shortcut. Donā€™t discourage other students trying to judge their targeted job market that you dont know.

Those "legacyā€™ things u mentioned are what modern code that compiled down too. Our OS is written in C.

Knowing legacy code helps us see the big picture of code.

This is why i say you are clueless, you do not understand the big pic of things and throw vague assumptions without proof.

FYI its thanks to what i learn in cs , it helped me pick up modern languages like javascript or python easily.

Cs students code in modern language as well in fields like a.i which uses python. My ex who is a current cs student worked for the industry in israel using .net frameworks.

Your assumption is false again.

Im not discouraging , i am strongly against bad mindset and attitude from people who think its okay to cut corners.

This is not helpful to people at all for people who wants to work in the long run, even good self thought developers appreciate and learn cs.

I need to know C to use a computer? No.
I will waste energy on C as I could instead specialize in a high demanding tech? No

CQFD Haha

Self thaugt dont have enough time and ressource to learn on the long run at beginningā€¦

There are blogs written by self thought devs who self learn cs and many of them are current full stack devs.

Go check dylan israel channel he is self thought and focus alot on algorithms to get offered by microsoft.

Wrong again.

u are right u dont need to learn c for the job, but its teaching u other things that happen behind the scene when u write ur code.

C++ was used to write javascript. V8 engine written in c++. Why are schools teaching c/c++?, isit to learn the language or understanding things

Again clueless.

I agree. On the original post couldnā€™t put everything in detail, but I have done some freelance work. I did a Shopify site where I only hard coded some features, not much. Also, a simple Jekyll blog site. These project has nothing to do with what I had learn but I also needed to make some $$. I have done freelance before I got my pest control job, mostly was simple websites; HTML, CSS and bootstrap.

Thats exactly my plan right now, to learn and build react projects ( budget, calculator and etc) but first have a strong foundation in JS. I love JS some I want to get strong and then learn React and Node since companies want everything clean and quick for production.

Https://rafaeldavis.me

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I did follow up emails to around 20 position I applied. Most of these job were referrals or forward to me by a friend. Those friends that work in the companies or organization help me to get a hold of the right person. I have some that friends found the post and forward but they did not work there or did not know anyone in the company. So, for those I searched in LinkedIn for Devs to connect and asked them for advice on how to land a position such as theirs.

Now I would say most of them of these job were not a perfect match, meaning some required Java or Ruby on Rails, or worst Coldfusion strong knowledge.

Thatā€™s greatā€¦ I would love to get the chance to show my enthusiasm and drive I have. I am not one to confirm with just learning the basics, my intentions is to quick learning and be major contributor to open source.

I really learned a lot on this post. I appreciate and respect all the point of views. I canā€™t say I disagree with any of you. @Balancedsan has a great point and firm position about learning the core fundamentals of programming before spending time on frameworks that come and go. I agree with @Balancedsan and have all the intentions of getting strong on my fundamentals.

I am a problem-solver, and right now my main problem is not finding work, not landing that interview. So, I have to get into what will get me that first job, which is learning React development. I am okay learning React because it complements python along with Node. I will practice and practice my problem-solving algorithms and so on to do good on interviews.

Once I solved the most urgent problem, getting the first job, then I will target and continue getting strong on the fundamentals of programming. I have no intentions to settle once I have the first job. It would be foolish of me to think that once I learn React and Node I have made it. I am aware of how quick can a React or any of these Frameworks can be replaced with something shinier and trendy.

Now, if I was 20 years old and singleā€¦OH man, I would be ALL in working hard to get my CS degree. I would be doing internships and hackathons left and right.

My goal is to provide for my family (like I always have) and pursue my dream job at the same time. I could have given up my dream and focus only on providing income. I could have told myself ā€œdonā€™t be foolish wasting time learning programming, this is for young CS devsā€. I am not learning code because I am following a trend or because my friends are doing it. Iā€™m learning programming because its what I would love to do for the rest of my life, this would be my dream.

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Finding jobs is mostly a ā€œwho you knowā€ or ā€œsomeone you know who knows someone whoā€™s hiringā€. Itā€™s about marketing.

Iā€™d suggest go find/join a React group, meetup, club or whatever in your area. Attend meetings, show-and-tell stuff youā€™ve currently learnt/built in React, speak to the group about a topic, lecture about something, demo something (even if youā€™re a beginner)ā€¦ just show up, stand in front of them, and market yourself. ā€“ like ā€œHey, Iā€™m just a beginner, but hereā€™s a short tutorial on XXXXXXX subjectā€ and demo/sell yourself.

Who knows, one of the attendees may be a lead developer looking for someone to join his team, or someone that can refer you for a starter position, or consider hiring you as intern or entry level position.

If they see youā€™re a great communicator, personable, cool, fit their company culture, or youā€™re someone that theyā€™d like to have around as a co-worker, hungry to learn, fast learner, eager, positive-attitude ā€“ who knows? they may give you a chance even if theyā€™re not looking, or dont have an opening.

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