When should I start applying for jobs?

I’ve been doing FCC for around 2-3 months, and I’ll be done with the front-end course in maybe 3-4 weeks. I feel confident in designing and laying out a website well, a bit less on the JS, and I have to Google a LOT.

Every job I search up seems wayyy out of my reach, but I’m in circumstances where I’m pressured to find a job soon, and I’ve read posts about other campers finding jobs before even getting their front-end cert (how?? :smiley: ).

How do you know when you’ve reached the point of being competent enough to actually land a job?

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The video in that thread really calmed me down, thanks! :smiley: Love the guy’s other videos too!

I live in London, where there are so many jobs, but I’m still terrified of not being able to find one. I think I’ll finish my front-end cert and start applying.

The front end certificate, at a minimum, but really I’d recommend doing the full-stack certification. You want to hit the marketplace with as much value as possible, so understanding D3 and Node is a big deal. Not to mention having actual project experience.

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Great question and answers here. My 2 cents for what they are worth is that you should start applying when you complete the front-end certificate, learn basic usage of Git and Github, and know how to deploy a simple website. It can take a long time to get your first job , so keep that in mind and just keep chugging along on the rest of the FreeCodeCamp material before quitting your day job (don’t sweat if you already did, just keep making progress on web development).

On another note, if you get close to finished with the backend certificate too before landing a job, make sure you learn unit testing and then start networking hard at meetups and buying coffee for senior devs for advice.

Good luck. You will definitely make it happen if you keep making progress and don’t give up.

Thanks @slocodemonkey and @NathanGE for your advice! I agree that I should know some back-end stuff too, so I’ll finish the front-end cert, polish up my finished projects, learn Git & Github and some other back-end basics, and start applying while working through my back-end cert.

I just finished high school so I’m lucky to have a lot of time to spend on this, but I’d love to land a job in the next few months at least.

Thank you all for your help and further tips are most welcome :slight_smile:

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