How to land your first job as a developer?
June 28, 2022
This is a question I literally get all the time on my YouTube channel: how does someone land their first job as a developer?
The typical problem that people have, is that many jobs require experienced coders. So, how do you get experience if you can’t land your first job?
There is a simple solution:
Do 2-3 FREE freelance mini projects for local small business.
This strategy has two huge benefits:
- You get the much needed experience that employers are looking for.
- You build up real-world skills by actually writing code for the real world!
When I hire people, I am not very interested in certificates of completion (they are next to worthless,) and even proper certifications are not at the top of my list (although certifications are far better than certificates of completion!) … no, I am looking for actual experience building something real with code.
… A big part of being a developer is being able to communicate with people around you, and that you are able to formulate and execute on a plan. You can only learn this on job … tutorials won’t help you there.
Conclusion:
So if your goal is to land a job as quickly as possible, you have to get your nerd-hands dirty with real project code ASAP. The route I have people take in my mentoring program / bootcamp is the quickest and most effective way to accomplish that goal.
This works for any of the major programming languages, but it is especially easy with web design and development because the opportunities are countless. For the non-nerds out there, that means learning:
- HTML5
- CSS3
- JavaScript
- PHP (for freelance)
- SQL for database work
.. The above 5 are the ‘killer’ coding languages in 2022.
Thanks for reading!
Stefan Mischook
