Topic. By that I mean the skills gained in getting them, not the certs themselves. I’ve almost completed the Web Dev one, but the rest are taking me some time.
Should I build my own projects or do other courses as well? Getting a CS degree is out because of time and money constraints.
if you do all six certifications you will have more chances than doing nothing
you will still need to show your competences with your portfolio, where you will show some projects you did yourself with the various technologies you are learning
and even if you don’t/can’t want to do a CS degree, consider maybe a CS course online (Harvard offers one!)
you will also find out eventually that you are missing some theory and you will need to delve deeper there, but the CS course could help there.
Most important skill for self taught developers is Marketing.
If you have awesome skills, but nobody knows that you have these skills,
you won’t succeed.
=> Build a brand. Publish: build a portfolio, publish your knowledge (code and posts).
Mmm, vaguely yes. If you dont build anything outside of FCC then probably not. You do, after all, need to understand this technology well enough to do it on your own and not with a tutorial…
What will ACTUALLY get you a job after finishing FCC (or just doing the curriculum and not certs) is networking. Being self taught is a hard road to walk without someone on the inside vouching for your skills. There are so many bootcamp grads now, and they are in the “no experience” category, too.
I completely disagree. This is becoming a common belief and it’s really sad to see.
I’ve interviewed several applicants with amazing portfolios/personal brands, and they were useless. One interviewee had a really polished React personal CRM on his GitHub and several engaging blog posts about his skillls/past solved problems). He bombed hard in the interview and admitted the project was based on a YouTube tutorial and he just copy/pasted the code.
The most important skill for a self-taught developer is the ability to solve problems with code. Marketing is important, but it’s useless if you can’t write decent code.
Realistically, just having any of the freeCodeCamp certifications is probably not enough to get a job. By this I mean that anyone can go through the lessons, build the projects, and apply for the certifications, but how you do that will ultimately determine what those certifications are worth.
[TL;DR version: You’ll get out what you put in.]
If you go through the lessons and projects rather mindlessly (meaning just completing them to get through it all) so that you can get the certification—well, that certificate isn’t going to be worth much of anything.
If you go through the lessons and projects purposefully, with the mindset of really trying to understand the how and why of everything you are working through, which may require seeking out external resources/mentors to fill gaps—then, that certificate is going to be worth a whole lot more. Yet, it will still only be foundational, something to build from.
The first sets of projects you build via freeCodeCamp may be functional and pass the required tests, but they’re likely not going to be great examples for a job search level portfolio. Having said that, you can take what you’ve built (or build other non-fCC projects), reiterate, improve by incorporating the things you have a better grasp of now than when you first started and applying things that you are still learning (through books, blogs, podcasts, forums, etc.). Repeat that process until you have quality examples of the knowledge and abilities you’ve obtained on your journey of getting the freeCodeCamp certifications. If you do that, then the certification will likely be enough to get a job.
I consider both to be vital to getting a job in today’s market. Having 100% of one doesn’t automatically get you a job, you need to have a mix.
What I do believe is marketing and networking is more important when it comes to getting a job than raw skills in general. I’m not saying you can get by with no skills, but rather being able to market what skills you have comes out on top better than just having amazing skills but weak marketing and networking skills.
Having great skills and experience is the core of what you take to approaching jobs, but if you can’t network you wont find any jobs to apply to. At the same time there are jobs out there that will train you in what you need to know and will take you in if you can show you can learn and work efficiently.
Doing the FCC certifications don’t give you any weight, its getting the experience from doing the projects is what you need to show off.
That’s not marketing, that’s lying.
No one cares about the dev who can solve problems in his room, but nobody knows that he exists.
I know a lot of them. Great devs. Can’t find jobs. Because only I know that they exist. But nobody out there knows it.
it is not enough
build your own portfolio from ground up
learn data structures and algorithms
But the catch is this: Would you have interviewed them if they didn’t have such strong marketing skills for themselves?
Short answer, yes. The skills you learn through FCC, and through the research you also include (there are some lessons that will force you to look outside FCC, notably MDN or http://devdocs.io/) will stand you in good stead in terms of getting a job.
Absolutely, build your own projects. Get involved with other open-source projects, as you feel you are able. Get involved with the community of developers, and both ask and answer questions.
Many developers experience “impostor syndrome”, where we may have great skills and abilities, and even experience, but we feel like we’re faking. We question ourselves, we question our abilities, and we don’t allow ourselves to pursue opportunities that are there for the taking.
That, more than skills or certifications, is a challenge to overcome. You are good enough, and you are getting better with each line of code. Good or bad code, you are improving. You are learning what works, and what doesn’t.
So yes. The FCC cert will give you, on an objective level, the skills you require to perform as a developer. On a subjective level, there are things like the marketing, or the personal worth, or other issues. Those are of a far larger scope.
Best of luck!
I would say:
Skills, then marketing, then showing what you can do from previous projects. I am in a similar boat. However, the projects or websites you built is what you can show off. Saying you know this and that is nice, but business people don’t know any of that. They want to see what you have done.
Correct me if I am wrong, I hope this helps
You can also just build a website on something your interested in. Say you like photography, build a photography website to show you can make one. It’ll be fun and challenging… (Just food for thought)
Your both right, marketing and skills are both huge. Learn, show what you know, and market. Then repeat.
Being social helps, being stuck in a room 24/7 doesn’t. I took on a client from going to a bar for example. I even built a website for a previous employer. Be confident in your work, be able to show what you can do from past websites.
Marketing + Skills = $
I agree. I’m not arguing that marketing is useless (having a decent resume would be marketing). I have a degree in Marketing – it’s an important skillset.
I’m arguing that the persistent mindset that marketing is the most important factor for new devs (i.e more important than a solid skillset) is lunacy.
I’m sure that’s the case. Some super talented devs will be unemployed because they have no idea how to communicate with people. However, I can point at several devs with next to zero marketing or sales skills that are employed (I know because I hired them). How many people can you point at with zero technical chops but great copywriting skills that are employed successfully?
My point is that it’s untrue and irresponsible to preach “marketing is the most important skill for devs” especially on a forum where the main audience is a group of people actively looking for an answer to the question “how do I get employed as a dev?”. You should not be telling people “marketing is the most important thing” – all that does is set them up for failure.
Want a real-world test for this? Speak to any hiring manager (not a recruiter) and ask them what’s more important. You might get to a job interview with marketing alone, but you’ll be shown the door very quickly if you don’t have technical chops.
I agree that they’re both important. The argument I’m refuting is the claim made by @miku86 that:
Most important skill for self taught developers is Marketing.
No. It’s not. Marketing is important for anyone looking for a job. Marketing is useless if you have no technical skills and it’s innapropriate to spew this kind of nonsense on a forum filled with people looking for answers to “how do I get a dev job” the answer is not to read everything you can find on marketing – the answer is to learn the hard technical skills that are in demand.
I’ve made a relative claim.
You are arguing with absolute claims everytime you are talking your binary arguments like zero technical chops. I’ve never said anything like don't work on your developer skills.
Most people in this forum are beginner or intermediate developers and do zero marketing. Especially as a self-taught developer no one trusts you if you can’t connect your skills (= your product) to any interested customer (= employer). And then they try to compete with developers with a degree, and most of the time this approach is pretty useless.
Hello! Is it possible to get a job as a junior frontend if you only know HTML,CSS and BOOTSTRAP 3/4? I really appreciate your answer! Thank you!
Hello Emas welcome to the FCC forums 
I’m sure jobs out there exist, but for most companies that can hire junior front-end developers, knowledge of front-end frameworks like React, and JavaScript skills are almost mandatory. Companies that can afford training and hiring front-end developers usually have complex enough use-cases front-end specific developers.
Going back to the original thread topic, as I mentioned before experience is more or less everything. So even though I say having just HTML,CSS skills usually isn’t enough, you could get a job as a designer-type role, with expertise is making things look nice. Just having an FCC front-end cert doesn’t automatically make you better, it all depends on how good you can make stuff look. I’d say its more of an art-form than a technical skill when it comes to being a good web designer/artist, so unless you receive amazing feedback for your designs I wouldn’t focus on it to much, compare to more technical skills like learning JS and a front-end framework.
My take from a noob still learning who has skills in other technical areas.
As far as a degree goes I think that works for some folks but I learn better by doing and making mistakes than listening to some dude talk about code and draw on a white board.
Is fine, nobody is born knowing how to code. The talk I have heard from some folks on youtube an such of “You gotta think this way or you aren’t meant to be a developer”, is total crap. You don’t need a degree to be good at something, you need practice, and time, I have a lot of examples to back that up.
FCC is a great place to learn and grow, the certs themselves may matter to someone, but more importantly they should matter to you because of all the skills, and knowledge you can learn if you really try to give it your all while obtaining them.
I think being able to talk to people, sell yourself, and get interview with networking marketing or whatever you wanna call it are soft skills anyone should have to get any job. They are just as important as your technical skills if you really wanna knock it out of the park. They are even more important when you have to work with a difficult person that doesn’t have good soft skills, but has more technical skills than you.
Those soft skills at least have always helped me get jobs and interviews. My latest job I made navigation maps for the military, sure I got along with the guy that interviewed me, and that’s partly why I got the job. However I also know how to map, on foot with a pen and paper, on a computer, with google earth , GIS, and so on. I also work with folks that do the same job and have no degree. They have soft and technical skills though.
So technical skills are also important. Trust me if you try with freecodecamp, you’ll grow, just takes time. Slow and steady. Just my two cents. FCC rules.