I’m going through FCC courses. I like them, I got my first twocertifications. But I started to doubt whether it (completing FCC courses) makes sense. Even if I finish them all, if truth be told, I don’t see a realistic pathway to any employment. Here’s a list of complications:
No work experience.
No degree.
Huge employment gap.
Living in Russia.
No funds to relocate, get visas, etc.
It appears hopeless. Basically, I need a 100% remote job while not being a resident of any English-speaking country and not having a portfolio. Hell of a long shot, isn’t it?
What’s your advice to me? I enjoy coding. It would be a pitty if all of that was for nothing
Should I put off my learning and eagerly start looking for some work to do for free just to get work experience to put on my resume? If so, how do you think I should look for such opportunities? Or maybe, I can’t possibly land a job with any resume given everything I described?
I doubt you are the first to go through, and wont be the last. You are right in saying that just using FCC wont be enough for you to land a job, even FCC says that themselves.
Well, if you think its not making sense then it would not be a good idea to go look for work even if it is free. If you are not able to do a good job because you arent comfortable with it then when you are comfortable no one is going to want to give you a job because of your previous work. It is tough to try and get a job without a degree, but many people have done it.
The only options I see for you are to keep learning to help yourself get more comfortable with this. The first part is making your portfolio, get use to making projects and then go back and make those projects better with new stuff you learn. Having a degree is great but its just a piece of paper that says you got through school. Even people with degree have to be able to show that they can back that degree up .
You can also try the projects are frontendmentor. I used that website a lot, and it really helped me get comfortable using javascript. Its neat because they only give you a picture of what the website needs to look like and its up to you to code that from scratch. It can be hard, but its one of the best ways to practice.
Remote jobs are a big thing now because of the virus, and they arent going away anytime soon. There will be remote jobs, but remember you are not the only one looking for a remote job. Which is why its important to build your projects, practice writing code, and get comfortable even talking about code. The moment you stand still is the moment that job looks 10,000 steps further away.
Hopefully, some of this has helped you in some way. I dont think you are ready to look for opportunities to be honest, getting the first two certs is great but its not near enough to be ready. Just keep going, keep building, keep learning.
Thank you. Doing projects on frontendmentor still doesn’t count as work experience, does it? How do I get one? I believe it’s the crucial component. Getting knowledge and skills is much more straightforward
You get a job by demonstrating your knowledge and skills through a portfolio. Even if its to get a contract with a small grocery store somewhere (just as an example) to update their website. They are not going to trust someone who cant show their work. It just wouldn’t make sense for anyone to do that. Which is why you need to be focused on a portfolio to show your own projects.
I say this to be helpful so please dont take it in a bad way. With what I got from your initial post saying you are unsure if stuff makes sense, and have completed just the first two certs. I dont think you are ready to be worried about looking for a job. Theres still much growth to go through before that.
You misunderstood the “whether it makes sense” part. I meant I doubted whether I should keep completing FCC exercises and collecting certifications. I never meant “code doesn’t make sense to me”
You’re right. I did, and I apologize for that, but my advice would still stay the same. I think at this point its important to get your portfolio started. Then I would still continue with the libraries certification. There is a very good chance an employer would want experience with one of those.
You can look at jobs near you and see what skills, knowledge, technologies, etc are needed and then continue to work in that direction.
Do frontendmentor projects count as portfolio? Those projects would answer the question “what I can do” as opposed to “what I have done”. If they are not “real” projects (projects actually used for some business purpose, even if you did them for free), they are not going to impress employers much anyway, are they?
You can use anything in your portfolio that you have done. Anything that is your code, your time and effort to complete. It doesnt even have to be projects from front end mentor, you can take those as inspiration and create you own thing. Again, if you dont have anything to show no company no matter how big or small is going to say “yes, please work on my website” You might get some friends who say yes, but I think thats as far as it will go. Once you have something to show, then you can go up to small businesses and say “I noticed your website could use some updating; here are some of the projects I have made. I would be happy to work on your website for little or no compensation.” Something along those lines if you really want to work for free.
Hi, nad.chel
I would say keep completing the courses, and watch video’s on other people just like you that was my inspiration when I first started I had many jobs but none were around coding.
These courses are a great way to help close gaps in your knowledge but don’t stop there use the editors finish courses experiment come up with a idea for website, or application, and try deploying it.
This is work experience this will help you sure up what you don’t know and help you figure out what you need to know until you test your self you won’t be confident in your own ability currently.
I’m working for a startup in London on a flutter app that is written in dart and I had no prior experience with flutter and have had to learn it from scratch it’s rather simple, and great to use because of the fact you only need to write one single code base but this isn’t what I would recommend it was super stressful picking up a language that was different then what I learned and having to meet the deadlines for the job, and I had to debug over three hundred errors on the app I would say finish learning what you need to learn and try applying it test yourself pretend you have deadlines, and you have to meet those deadlines but be prepared to miss them!
Do not knock yourself just try again, learn what made you miss the deadline, and try to improve this is the best advice I would tell my self if I could go back in time.
Designs is what got me hired was my skill at making things look pretty the app was seriously looking dull, and hard to use my main job is making it look beautiful, and adding animated icons and images to the background. Also making the UI more responsive and friendly to the users and adding accessibility which making it easier, and more intuitive to use for those who need those options.
I know this was long but I post this to say keep going work on your designs, and focus on making sure you can jump into the job and handle the stress of working don’t knock your self when you start doubting yourself just help prove your self to you by doing it pretend you have a job, and a deadline knock out the feature they asked for and when you do this It will help you prove to yourself you got this.
One thing I learned is that this job is a never ending learning journey I constantly am learning new things personally I haven’t chosen my favorite language for coding.
I decided I wouldn’t try to because if I did I was worried I wouldn’t be able to keep learning what I don’t know. I hope this helped.