Struggling to find employment

Hi @Anthonyf323

I really appreciate you creating this thread sharing your struggles and also for being open to critique. This thread is also a testament to the great community around FreeCodeCamp.

You are much more experienced than I so I have no technical specifics to critique. You definitely have a strong portfolio site but there was also something about it that confused me at first.

Described as a opinionated and subjective user story, here goes: “I see a grid of images, each grid representing a project you have worked on. When I hover over a project a rollover effect makes the image darker and adds some context, When clicking on the square I am taken to the project.”

This rollover effect (There is probably a better term) feels like to me like you are closing a curtain rather than opening it. Like being told a story in the wrong order. Where is the focus once I hover?

If you would for example reverse the rollover effect my user story changes to this “I see a darkened grid where every square shows come context of a project. Now when I hover over a square, tada! the curtain raises and I see some imagery while everything else in the grid remains in the shade. When I click on the image I am taken to whole project.”

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P1xt, what thread did you write these other posts on how to get good? I'd love to read them.

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@P1xt :

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Hey Anthony,
I was advised to include links to the projects that I listed on my resume. Maybe you should do the same. Also, I think you need to work on the descriptions for your projects. They maybe a bit vague, try to include what you did to achieve specific results. You may want to give 2 to 3 bullets per project, that highlights different strengths/skills that are not repeated in the other projects. For example, these are descriptions that I have on my resume for 2 different projects.

  • Assisted in the implementation of sockets to connect the client and server for player detection and game play.
  • Designed and architected front end with Foundation for Apps for integration with AngularJS.

If you need help with this, I am happy to assist you. Sometimes it just takes talking through what you did to figure out the best to display your skills.

@TheOnlyRealTodd :
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Ha - that’s hilarious!

Edit
Also, back on topic now :wink:

oooooooow aaaaaaaaaahhh. Really nice comment :blush:

booking this page too. Great resources.

I cannot speak for everyone, but as a young professional in something other than computer science, being good is not enough to get to the next level. I have had many superiors commend me regularly on a job well done, and have said I deserve a promotion. Unfortunately, making it to the next level requires a lot more than ability. Timing, luck, the competence of colleagues/superiors are all major factors that come into play. These factors, I have found, are a bigger influence on a person’s success than one’s performance. For that reason, I am devoting the same amount of time to becoming a fantastic developer as I am marketing myself for a job. I simply do not trust the system to reward the best applicant.

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Your advice has always led me in the right direction. Thank you for sharing with us on all of your posts.

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The music app you have built is awesome man! I found some tracks I’ve been searching forever for, very nice UI and great UX imo! You will surely get employed soon, keep going :sunglasses:

@Mozar10 There’s still alot I want to do with it before I go through with purchasing a domain for it and what not.

But I appreciate it, glad to hear people are already enjoying it.

I didn’t see anyone mention it above, if someone did and I missed it I apologize. As of right now, your site is using HTTP.

I would suggest looking into switching that over to HTTPS with a verified cert.

Check out letsencrypt.org to get that taken care of, which is completely free. Depends on who is hosting your site, for me it was a simple one line command and https was up and running verified.

You seem to have come a long way, keep up the hard work and someday soon you’ll have the offer you desire.

Well, P1xt, I learn something new from you again!

Bookmarked the W3 Validator and Google Speed Test sites.

Thank you!

Anthony,

I liked some of what you did and some other bits not so much. Let me elaborate.

I’m not sure what the status of your situation is, but it sounds like were in similar boats. You’ve been doing this kind of thing for some time and are struggling to get started in the business full time. Same here. I am getting ready to redesign my portfolio, as I realize this is part of my problem, but enough about me. Lets start talking about yours.

On first glance I would remove the box shadow from the nav bar, its been my experience that a flat nav generally is more eye pleasing. I am often finding myself in inner conflict over the notion of simplicity vs style. I liked the logo and call to action section, but its a lot of white, you might offset that with some color, or maybe some sort of sublte pattern? Then we move into the “what I do section”, I’m not crazy about the styling for your section header, h1 or whatever. The big white boxes could be better, but I really like what you did offsetting the three. That seemed unique and different. Same thing in the how I do it section. If I were you I would rewrite the about me. I can’t tell you what the best thing is to put in there, but I would definitely rewrite it. I have the same issue, where its hard to know what to say, but that is your chance to say I am someone that you should be interested in, not I am someone who will be a risk to you. Finally, the contact me section is just a button with a mailto: link attached. You could be a little more creative, but there are worse ways you could’ve done it. Also, I like what you did with the social media buttons.

The Work page. If I was a recruiter going to your site, the main focus of my visit would be to see your work, right? Well the way you have it setup, I almost missed it. If I hadn’t noticed the link in the nav, I would have missed it altogether. How about a jumbotron or the like with your work on it? You could include a work section to your first page and do something a little more reserved to display them than you did on the second page. You could have a “Showcase” section on your first page, demoing one project that links back to your secondary page with all your projects on it. Just throwing some ideas out there.

I do like that you stuck with your theming on this page and you’ve got a lot of great projects for showcasing. It is interesting that you haven’t found work yet. How long have you been coding now?

I enjoyed the blog section of your app. You had me at “listen. Morty”, as I am a huge fan of the show. Its a fair looking and functioning blog. Still a little heavy on the box-shadow property. Considering that there is only two posts, I won’t get into content, but I do encourage you to continue writing posts.

Overall, I think you have a fine site. Do I think it will get you any jobs? It might get you some attention, but it could definitely be polished. These are some things I have noticed. I hope any of it is helpful. Feel free to message me back about any of my critique.

This portfolio is absolutely amazing. Your inability to get a job has nothing to do with your skills.

Great analysis here by you. I really learn from it. I want to ask that do you acquire all these knowledge from fcc ? I am a beginner and I haven’t found fcc convincing because I have started forgetting what I learned so far. Should I depend only on fcc or look for other resources? You can recommend please. I am an Economics student.

As am I but I just keep going forward no matter what. The jobs are there just need to find a willing employer. I know sooner or later it will happen. Half the battle is having confidence that you can indeed do this in real life. That for me is the hardest part. Keep the faith!

Let me knnow how I can get them, thank.

Thanks a lot P1xt! I can see you’re pouring a lot of work into this place for those of us that might be struggling - just wanted you to know it’s appreciated!

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