What do I need to do to get ANY kind of Web Design job?

I am self-taught through Udemy courses, a Responsive web design course by Kevin Powell, and working my way through the freeCodeCamp lessons. I did build the WordPress theme for my website (kernixwebdesign.com) but there is so much to learn and I don’t know where to start.

How/where do I create an online portfolio? Codepen, GitHub, Figma, other? And what do I put in my portfolio? Does anyone have an online portfolio that I could look at?

There were a number of jobs I wanted to apply for but I was lacking experience in either JavaScript or WordPress plugin dev. I was working on learning some JS APIs so I could at least put that on my resume. I have a decent custom video and audio player on CodePen but which APIs do I learn next?

I need help finding something that will give me some kind of income and experience. I got laid-off from my job in 2007 after 12 years of Inventory/Supply-chain experience and then I started a pet sitting business. But the lockdowns killed that pet business. I am so disheartened with my present situation.

Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated ~ thanks!

1 Like

There is no perfect place to start. Just keep learning and building things.

How/where do I create an online portfolio? Codepen, GitHub, Figma, other?

Definitely not codepen. It is a great place to mess around with things, but it is not a place to display professional work. Github is just a code repository. There is Git Pages that will let you host a static site - that could work. I think it’s better to create your own “real” site. I’m not familiar with Figma.

And what do I put in my portfolio? Does anyone have an online portfolio that I could look at?

There are plenty of sites out there. FCC even has a challenge in the curriculum to build a basic portfolio. If you search the forum you will find many discussions about this.

There were a number of jobs I wanted to apply for but I was lacking experience in either JavaScript or WordPress plugin dev.

Well, unless it is a simple WordPress site, you’re almost certainly going to need solid JS knowledge.

That being said, job postings often exaggerate what they “need”. Don’t be afraid of applying to something if you meet most of their asks.

I was working on learning some JS APIs so I could at least put that on my resume.

I’m not sure what you mean by this. JS can consume lots of different APIs.

I need help finding something that will give me some kind of income and experience.

Just to be clear, I don’t know if (based on the little I’ve seen here) that you are ready for a dev job. I don’t want you drive yourself into homelessness thinking that a job is right around the corner. Getting that first job is insanely difficult. And I think it is going to be very difficult until you have at least solid front-end skills (including solid JS). I would also say some basic back-end skills are very useful. Having built a bunch of little apps and at least one full stack app make a big difference. With regards to the FCC curriculum, I always say that you can think about applying after the first three certificates, but really you need the first six. (Not because of the certificates but because of the knowledge and experience.) And really you probably need 6-24 months after that of just building and learning new things. People have gotten a job before that, but it is rare, imho

At the risk of shameless self-promotion, I once wrote up a doc with my thoughts on the difficult task of getting the first job.

2 Likes

I agree. That is what I was going to suggest; create a site that is out there in the internet that everyone can see and use. If something can be developed that is useful for other then that can really help. Git Pages is a good start but then websites that use server-side programming would be important.

I have a website. I guess I’ll write blog posts on various topics with whatever I’m writing about on the page like a custom video player.

For JS, I’m taking the course here on FCC, built a Tableau Public page using their API, and 2 courses on Udemy - 1 course by Brad Traversy and 1 by Brad Schiff.

  1. Broad Traversy course is called 20 Vanilla JS projects and it includes the following APIs: HTML5 video API, Fetch API, MealDB API, HTML5 Audio Player API, lyrics.ovh API, Drag & Drop API

  2. Brad Schiff course is called Learn JS: Full Stack from scratch. He has a section on a simple To-Do app using MongoDB. Then he has an advanced app with a lot of advanced stuff.

So what is the best thing to do first? Finish the FCC JS course, learn the APIs I listed above for Traversy, or go for the advanced App? I work them into pages or posts on my website. I’m so overwhelmed that I don’t know what to spend time on and I lost all my motivation…

Have you made any projects on your own? If so then pick the ones you’re most proud of and put those on your portfolio.

You say you worked through a responsive design course, show off those skills with good looking responsive websites.

As for JS go through the FCC curriculum or the Udemy course, or both. Whichever you feel more comfortable with. Pair it with Brad Traversy or Net Ninja YT videos if you feel you need some more practice. Take a look at The Odin Project curriculum too. Lastly, Front End Masters has a free boot camp you can try out.

W3schools , MDN, and javasciptinfo are great references.

Then work on some projects. You can do the ones from FCC, the Odin Project, and you can Google ideas too. Again, pick the best projects that show off your skills and put them on your portfolio. The rest can go up on GitHub.

When you want more of a challenge then try out some APIs. Here a link to a list of some you can try GitHub - public-apis/public-apis: A collective list of free APIs

Then you can move on to learning Vue, Angular, or React.

You can also learn Boostrap and Sass.

Then you can try out the backend: Node.js

There’s a lot to learn and it can be overwhelming. It will take time. You might even feel like you don’t know anything. Try to breathe and remember the reason why you started. Go in steps. Eventually you’ll recognize your own progress and that you know way more than you did yesterday, or a week ago, or a month ago.

If you’re overwhelmed take a brake. It doesn’t matter if it’s 10 minutes or an entire day. When you’re ready start again. Don’t forget to take care of yourself.

Good luck on your journey!

1 Like

Thanks, I’ll look at those other sources. I’ll see what I can start adding onto my site, I guess as posts with pre or code tags.

it’s actually more appealing to potential employers to see hosted apps, not just code snippets in a post

The code snippets are going to go with whatever the post is about, like custom controls for a html5 video player. I’ll have a video on the page with some snippets. Otherwise, what I a portfolio? How do I build one? I don’t know what to do other than that.

A full stack app would be a good proof of what you can build

2 Likes

FCC has a portfolio project that you can take a look at and try. If you search the forum you can find examples.

The best thing that you can do is study examples of portfolios from people who just got a junior developer job.

Look at what kinds of projects they had.
Look at the layout.

Research is your best friend :grinning:
There are tons of examples to look at.

You can start with the forum.
Here are a couple to get you started.

Search on twitter, linkedin, github.
If they list themselves as a junior dev, take a look at their body of work.

Also, there are plenty of youtube videos and articles that talk about how to build a portfolio.

Good news is that there is tons of information to help you.
You just have to look for it. :grinning:

Thanks, that’s helpful. So should I be looking for their websites? Is that will their portfolio would be? Search for junior developer or junior designer plue the word job?

If you type in “junior web developer portfolios” into google the first page will give you a lot of good results to start with.

A developer’s portfolio is a site to showcase their projects and resume.
There is a lot of articles and videos about how to create a strong portfolio.
You should also look through previous Career Advice discussions in the forum.
There is a lot of great advice in those discussions.

Thanks - I’m reading articles now that I found searching for Junior Front End Developer Skills. Now at least I have something to focus on and that gives me direction - I wish you well in every aspect of your life!!!

1 Like

Employers post job listings for the ideal candidate, but they will often hire someone who doesn’t meet the qualifications listed in the job description. So don’t be afraid to apply. The worst that can happen is you won’t hear back.

It’s unlikely that anyone will hire you based on your resume. The resume just gets you face time. So work on a resume that makes you sound like someone you’d want to hire and tailor your resume for each job you apply to rather than spamming job boards. It’s not just about the tech skills, you want to give a good impression about the type of person you are and some of that can come across how you organize and word your resume.

Imao, people want to see work that you’ve done, not know how many courses you’ve taken. So focus on blogging and building. But do that with a purpose. If you want to be a React developer build and blog about React. If you want to build WordPress sites than build custom themes and plugins and blog about that.

You want people to trust that you can do the job. Contributing to open source is another good way to establish trust – if employers know that you’ve contributed to open source software they’ll be more likely to trust you to contribute to their software as well.

Don’t spend too much time trying to become a JS pro if you really want a React job. Once you have basic JS proficiency start on React. The same goes for PHP/WordPress or whatever you don’t need to be a pro in the language to start learning the framework. Imao hiring is waited towards being better in a framework than the language.

Employers hire for a purpose and you need to show that you can add value to the company by meeting their needs.