¿How to know when you're ready to look for a job?

Career Advice
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Hello guys, i want to be short, so i don’t waste your precious programming time, so, here’s the thing:

I’m leaving my background below so you can properly check and help me with an answer to: ¿Am i ready to look for a job?. The thing is that i look for Full junior curriculums and courses and in fact i already know those things to a certain degree, not a master but no an idiot. then i go to LinkedIn and see that companies look for things like : Javascript, (ReactJS, Redux, Hook, Vue.JS, Vuex), MongoDB, MySQL, Symfony, Laravel, Lumen, NodeJS. all of those for a junior with no experience, and those are the needs, i did not include the optionals, when i look at this i just get terrified and feels like everything i learned is just in vain and that i won’t get a job ever. so good people, Am i ready?.

(Background below)

I’m a mechatronical engineer from Venezuela (so, sorry if my english is not the best) who is just recently graduated from college. I studied whole career about robotics and programming, but in fact i realized that while i like programming in PLC’s and those stuff, i like web development more, not in vain that knowledge is pretty similar to web development, so i started to take courses in my free time, to see if i did well in those too.

I started taking courses about web development 2 years ago, did basic of a lot of languages like C, C++ ,PHP and some Visual Basics, and i struggled at first but as more time i spent studying those languages i became more and more sharp, and that leads me to 3-4 months ago when i found FCC, i’m not lying when i say that i fell in love with it.

I started as every newbie would and started the Responsive Web Certification, which includes the HTML and CSS basics and more, just to see if was good enough to take the Javascript or Python ones, i got to be honest, it was fun, and i learned pretty fast, even started doing my own projects and testings, i’m not much of a graphic designer so there was some stuff that made my life a bit harder. Then i started the Javascript which i really loved and crushed the most part of basic Javascript, getting a bit slower as more as i go forward until today, where im 8/21 intermediate algorithm scripting.

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It would be more informative if you could post your portfolio, resume & Github as well.

  • Based on what you described, seems like you have a good background in programming, and given that, I would say start applying. Let the market tells you whether you are ready or not. There’s nothing to lose to give it a try
  • The list of requirements on job descriptions looks intimidating, but not all of them are checked off for most of the candidates
  • Try to look for hiring company’s recruiters on Linkedin or referrals if you have any connections that are working in this industry, you might not be qualified for the job descriptions, but you may be qualified for the job itself
  • You will be unlikely to hit the jackpot on your first round of job hunting, don’t be discouraged if that happens. Be analytical to pinpoint what to be improving on, whether you need to polish your resume to get past the ATS(applicant tracking system)/recruiter, or building up strong portfolios to convince the hiring manager what you are capable of, or even what topic to study if the interview didn’t go well. Come back(or any other places) and look for advice as you hit your next brick wall
  • Again, start applying and let’s see what comes next
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When you start seeing job postings and thinking “I could probably do that.”

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Hi Yuchiu, i 'll take your advice for sure, it is really intimidating seen a 30 requirements page for a job, but i’ll try hard and don’t let that stop me. About a portfolio, i recently started to create it, but this topic was something that really cloud my mind when i tried to do so. it is not finished but i can show a little of what i did in the HTML & CSS here at FCC, i’ll leave here 2 links and obviously they’re made of only HTML and CSS:

This is from the Survey test: https://codepen.io/Zetmastery/full/GRZRKNV
I did it really fast and tried more the CSS and graphic resources to make a catchy page, but that really didn’t work too much.

This is the Tribute page: https://codepen.io/Zetmastery/full/MWKNbQq
The first i made, i remember tried to do some animations with css like the ball moving left to right to divide the sub text of the img and the awards and the awards from the footer, but it didn’t work haha, i’ll try to upload some other projects.

About Github, did not really used it, i mean i’m pretty noob there and i don’t really know what to do there. i just know that you can upload your projects and have people look at them and maybe help you finishing them so that didn’t really fit me as i want to be able to do if not all most of it on my own.

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Thanks for sharing your projects. Just keep in mind that what I suggest would be based on the market in the U.S. So things could be different from your targeted location.

To answer your question first, you are not ready for a full-time position, at least for web development. Don’t let that discourage you, it is a chance for you to have a more clear path on how to achieve your career goal. I will break down the experience level and the steps to achieve that.

  1. Hobby Level
    Skills: html, css, js(Responsive Web Design)
    Time: 0 - 3 month
    To-do: Finish all the FCC Web Design projects first, and make them at least pleasant to look at and functional working. You could search on codepen or google for some design ideas to implement yourself. You could skip algorithm challenges, but you really need to get your basic project building skills up first to have a chance of getting an interview. You may start applying for low requirements web design/dev jobs or internships at the end of this point. But it is unlikely that you will land one.

  2. Entry Level
    Skills: sass, react, redux(Front-end libraries)
    Time: 1 - 6 months
    To-do: Understand the basic workflow of GitHub, put all your projects up there. You could skip jQuery & Bootstrap, dive straight into sass, react & redux. Finish all of the projects in Front-end libraries certifications. At the end of this, you should acquire the basic skill set to be working as a frontend developer. This is the time you need to really look into how to polish up your resume and getting interviews, do some algorithm prep. Meanwhile, keep honing your project building skills and keep on improving at them. You should be in full-on job apply mode with both internship and full-time positions at this point. Also, come back to look for more discussion/advice, like what would the next thing to learn and so

So to be realistic, it might take you a year or so of self-study to be working in a full-time entry/junior position. I have a computer science background and it took me more than a year of self-studying before landing full-time.

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Hi Yuchiu, i love your answer, it summarizes the things that i know and have a decent grasp (html, css, js) and the things i need to learn (Sass, react, redux) as you say i wont let it discourage me, in fact in encourages me more since i know the way now.

Also it is very kind of you to mark the path i should take to learn it in an efficient way, i’ll take some time to review all the hobby level stuff before taking on the entry level. Thank you very much <3.

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@Zetmastery Hey, I actually just made a video covering how to know when you’re ready. I get asked this question from newer developers all the time so I tried to address this.

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I’d also like to add that my experiences with this stuff are all based out of the US. The tech you use greatly is dependent on your area. If there’s any questions I can answer that could help you on your journey let me know!