Is fake it till you make it good idea?

Career Advice
#1

I had been very unlucky to keep a job, sometimes it is redundancy, sometimes it is my skill they lacked but I had been honest in my search. I had 38 rejection in 4 months but time has really been hard on me now with a very grim situation as I have family to feed.

I see a lot of jobs on Angular 4+ but I only did angular for 6 months 4 years back. I have vue experience but lately got into React and it seem simple to me.

I was hoping if I can add/demonstrate Angular 4+ and React in my cv and website I can 10x my search for job but it will be mostly like I have to revise and repeat a lot so it will be mostly like ‘faking it till making it’

What should I do, is it something people do?

#2

Hi @mahassan !

I would suggest building something with Angular and putting it on your portfolio.
Then you can try and apply for jobs and see what happens.

If they really want someone with more Angular 4+ experience then they will not accept your application.
But if they are wiling to give you a shot and see potential why not try. :grinning:

As long as you don’t flat out lie about your experience then you are good.

I would be honest and apply and see what happens. :grinning:

1 Like
#3

IMO: “Building, learning and trying till you make it” :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#4

that is what I am thinking of doing but having no portfolio is another thing coz I keep telling myself, I suck at product design so why bother?

#5

Well maybe you can just have a link to the live site on your resume then. :grinning:

Plus, a lot of developers are not designers.
You are in good company there.

#6

Why should anyone, e.g. an employer, trust you as a developer, if you even got these kind of excuses?

#7

The advice “fake it until you make it” refers to an attitude toward confidence, not being dishonest. I absolutely do not suggest that you lie on your resume.

2 Likes
#8

what exuses?

what excuses?

#9

If you are having issues keeping a job, I would really dig deep as to why this is happening to you.

Sure you can learn a new framework, but if there are other reasons why you can’t hold onto the job then you will need to address that.

Otherwise, you are just going to continue the cycle.

Hope that helps!

#10

He might also have been referring to this as an excuse.

To this point, yeah, I’m a crappy designer too. But you still have to have something. Do your best, and maybe learn a little design. And especially if it is just demo stuff, don’t be afraid to borrow some design elements here and there - that’s part of how you learn.

I’m sorry that you’re struggling with your family. As to “should I do Angular…”, that depends. If you see that there are a lot of Angular jobs in your area, then sure. I don’t think there are a lot of Vue jobs anywhere, so Angular or React will be your best bet. But pick one and build some nice projects. Build, build, build. And learn, learn, learn.

At the risk of shameless self-promotion, I once wrote up my thoughts on getting the first job here.

As far as “faking it till you make it”, if I understand you correctly, you’re talking about pretending to have a competency that you haven’t fully acquired. I think that doing that in moderation can be a good thing - there’s nothing wrong with confidence - as long as you don’t take it too far. Don’t lie about what you’ve know and what you’ve done. I may have done the tiniest bit of exaggeration, but mostly for me it was answering questions like, “Well, no, I haven’t used the Foobar library much, but it sounds interesting and I can’t imagine it being too much of a problem.” Be confident in your abilities, but don’t outright lie about what you know or have done.

1 Like
#11

“I don’t have a portfolio because I suck at product design.”

95% of beginners’ portfolios are not great. Because you can’t expect something to be good after 1/3/6 months of work.

Like you also suck at playing guitar, riding a bike, writing novels etc. after just some months of doing it.

“I suck at X” is a bad excuse for not doing something and makes no sense at all. Especially because if you suck at something, you should practice it.

#12

Hi again!

I read your previous post and I have a much better understanding of your situation.

Is there any way you can get a job doing this again while you learn javascript on the side?
If you were able to get a job, similar to what you used to do then that would probably alleviate a whole bunch of stress.

Then you can learn javascript on the side and when your skills are ready then you can switch over to front end development.

#13

I can and would love to but I don’t know why web deisgning is mostly product design or I am not finding jobs such as that? I still do in jobs as front end developer but the mastery of frameworks and libraries have made front end game forever changed.

#14

Well my advice would be to find a job similar to your old job.

It doesn’t have to be the dream job. Just something that pays the bills for now.

Because your current strategy is not working.
Trying to learn javascript, and frameworks, and trying not to be let go again can’t keep going on.

You are just looking for stability right now while your Javascript skills become job ready.

Tap into your network and land you a product design job, or web design.
Do whatever it takes to get through this season.

Good luck!

2 Likes
#15

There are 2 sides to this statement.

  1. Your situation could be serious, so being able to feed everyone and keep a roof over your head should be pretty important.
  2. 38 rejections means at least 38 applications… in 4 months. This comes out to be roughly 1 application put out and rejected every 3 days.

Now I’m not saying if your apply to a huge amount of jobs your chances increase drastically. As if your getting clear feedback on your current applications, its possible that will only carry over to the next job applications.
However*, 38 rejections in such a time span either gave you a clear idea of what you need to work on next, or it didn’t as its a rather small sample size of your overall application process, and thus skills. Applying to more will get you more feedback, which should be taken and used to move onto the next goals.

This could be improving your Angular/React skills, or improving other skills, or expanding your goals. However which is the most important is more determined by your current job market and application process rather than guessing what to do. As you might realize you can spend any amount of time on a million different things and “feel lose”. As such the best use of your current time, is whatever gets you closer to employment. The best source on knowing what you need to get a job, is applying, and when your rejected, get feedback on why.

Good luck, keep applying, keep grinding, keep getting rejected, keep getting feedback, keep improving. :+1: