I’m just peering at the curriculum and I notice that you earn several certifications along the way. Is it possible to land a job with the very first certificate, Responsive Web Design? Also, is this actually in web design or web development? I’m confused because the curriculum led me to believe this is web development
Only that? No way.
You have to learn a lot more before you can really do this professionally. The first certification is just a start. You have to keep going.
1 Like
Fair warning, I don’t have a job in web development, or even a related field yet, so all this should be taken with a massive grain of salt.
Sure, you might be able to get some specific one offs. OP is talking about landing a job, to me that implies something ongoing where you’re getting paid. I would say unless you have a lot experience with design, merely learning the basics of css and html really isn’t going to open up your career options. Assuming you have only done that certificate when it comes to studying web dev:
- You can’t deploy a site.
- You can’t have any data persist on the site.
- You really can’t add any functionality, the site isn’t much more than a drawing.
If there was an employer that wanted something like this. There are a whole heap of cheap website builders that can make something like this, wix and squarespace for example, offering a bunch of nice design templates, without the need for hiring another person and paying them a wage. Trying not to be too negative, but I like to think there’s a difference between negativity and realism.
5 Likes
I think he’s talking about long-term jobs like getting hired in a company. If it’s just a few freelance gigs then everyone can do that. I personally have built websites for people in the past without knowing a single line of html code by using Wordpress.
4 Likes
A job, and donating your time are 2 very different things. If OP had asked if he could offer his services for free, then sure, of course people are going to accept something for absolutely no cost to them. But he didn’t ask that.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s great that you are participating in the community and gaining some experience. But you’re acting like you’ve made it AND you’re giving unrealistic advice to people. Imagine that OP is struggling to make rent, living on beans on rice, and some guy says “Sure you can do this easily, I got ‘job’ from FCC in no time and all”. Its pretty ridiculous.
1 Like
I’m sorry but I also agree with @M-Michelini.
It’s a bit unrealistic to get a paying job with the basic knowledge provided by the html + CSS part of FCC.
First of all, as a web developer (and not designer), you are certainly required to know JavaScript (vanilla js for sure and possibly some libraries or frameworks. FCC introduces you to jQuery and React).
And this is for the basic front end.
You can expand it with other stuff like data visualisation (think about the D3 you learn in the curriculum).
Anyway, you still have to know how to connect the front end with the back end (e.g. by calling another page through js).
For the back end you would need to know some server side language like PHP or (if you want to stay on JS) you can take a look at Node.js.
You’ll need to know how to interact with databases, wether they’ll be relational (so you’ll need to know SQL) or not and how to expose the functionalities to the client.
In many small-medium organisations, the roles of developers do not stick to only front-end or only backend. Most of the times it’s a mix.
Also, for how I see it, you have to know some kind of version control (Git for example). It’s pretty much a must everywhere. Sure, there are places that don’t adopt version control or that deploy directly to the production, but in my experience, you wouldn’t really want to work there.
2 Likes
Speaking from my own experience, is it possible to get a job with just the first certification, yes and no. How much time have you spent doing other projects or tutorials? If you are only doing FCC and complete the first portion then no, but if you do other projects and tutorials and build your own stuff and complete the first certificate than yes.
I haven’t even completed the first portion of FCC because most of it I knew and I started right at the JS section after spending a lot of time learning elsewhere, YouTube and Codecademy. I think most employers care more about the projects you have built and less about the certificates, don’t get me wrong the certs are a way to show that you have at least spent some time within the world of web development. But say you have an interview and you tell them that you have the RWD cert from FCC and I am also interviewing for the position and I have the same cert but I have a few more projects I did on my own. Who are they going to go with?
3 Likes
In a certain aspect this is front end development and you will be able to create some SPA and also learn quite a few things rather quickly thanks to FCC. But my advice and the advice of many others is to take a serious look at Udemy, at meetups and also anything that allows you to network, even vicariously, with a professional developer. You will see an entirely different level of programming you won’t glean from free courses online and you will leave absolutely confused and perhaps intimidated by the chasm between you and the professional.
This isn’t to rain on anyone’s efforts but to keep things realistic. And this is not to say you cannot be the exception to the rule, but the amount of effort to do this is offset by easier methods which we suggest here.
As an up and coming devver on my 3rd year full stack, 10 if you count personal site development on LAMP, laziness and simplicity is the goal of all software devvers.
FCC makes it easy for you to ramp up, then you’ll take the next path with least resistance to get hired.
4 Likes
There’s truth in all these replies. It’s not about the need to be negative or positive, because the realities of getting hired don’t care much about our feelings about the issue.
The original question was ‘has anyone landed a job with just the first cert’?
I don’t know the answer to that, but I wouldn’t be overly surprised if the answer was yes OR no.
There are so many other variables that it doesn’t really matter.
Hypothetically, one could get a job with just the first cert. Maybe it’s a pretty straightforward entry level job in an agency pumping out HTML emails or something. Maybe they knew someone there who helped them overcome the usual barriers faced by self taught, inexperienced devs. That said, that might not meet the expectations of other people trying to break into the industry. Others might be looking for more engaging work, or need to earn a higher-than-minimum wage.
The core to this question is ‘what is the minimum I need to do to get the sort of job I want?’
The “I” in that question means the answer will be different for everyone, because our needs, desires, and local employment contexts are all different.
Assuming someone wants what most would consider a junior dev role to launch a career in tech, utilising just self learning, the basic needs are a solid portfolio demonstrating a range of marketable skills.
Again, the variable is the market and what is marketable local to you. Maybe everyone in your city develops on Rails and React. Maybe it’s Laravel shops all the way down. Who knows? Do your research. My local job ads have a frightening number of .NET jobs. shudder
However, there are other paths into dev jobs beyond just getting certs and building a portfolio.
Maybe your open source contributions lead to opportunities. Maybe your years answering help desk tickets and part time tinkering lead to opportunities.
Ultimately you need to convince someone that needs a dev that you have the skills they are looking for.
5 Likes
Jump to the moon. Good luck.
Note that everyone except @curtisgall, is offering an opinion, or their personal experience, opposed to offering you a fact and telling you to ignore everyone else. Also, while telling you to ignore everyone else, he has been on the forum less than 2 months, and is still a basic user, while he tells you to ignore people that have been part of the community for years, some of whom are moderators of the forum. The Dunning–Kruger effect is real.
The fact is, there are people that might get hired without the basic required knowledge, but they are an extremely thin numbered exception. And when you are planning something like asking for a job (or a career switch) you shouldn’t plan it based on a tiny percentage of people that did that.
This stories of “success” strike us precisely because they are an exception.
Anyway, the de facto basic knowledge for frontend web development is: HTML + CSS + JavaScript.
The FCC RWD course covers only a part of html and CSS (the rest is gained with experience and experimenting). A basic course of JavaScript is provided in another module.
And like all the modules in FCC, (thankfully) they are not exhaustive. “Thankfully” because this teaches you the most important thing about development: googling effectively for solutions when you have problems (as well as being able to find and read the official documentation).
Also many places now are starting to require you to have knowledge of JS frameworks, because they make life much easier (FCC introduces you to React).
Sure, you can pick it up later on on the job, but showing that at least you have a familiarity with it, will put you in a better position than you would be if you didn’t have it.
Also, I do agree on the view that providing projects or proofs of what you can do is much better than giving certificates. Building those projects will give you the necessary experience to apply for those jobs.
This project don’t have to be that complicated at the start and you can expand them while you get more knowledge.
The important is to break them down in small steps and start them.
1 Like
I’m closing this because it’s becoming unfruitful.
Anyone can offer ideas that are at odds with the ideas others have offered, but there is nothing to be gained by making arguments about one another’s character or motives.
2 Likes