Finding work?

icor1031

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
1,295
I'm trying very hard to get work as a web dev, but it seems like it's almost impossible because I don't already have work experience in this field. I've been doing a crazy number of applications, but I rarely get anyone's interest -- even though I have a decent tech stack and project: React (primary), JS, Jest, Cypress, Typescript, Tailwind, PHP, MySQL ... and https://finances.jerradjohnson.com (among other projects, this is my best one).

Any thoughts, any suggestions? I've been trying for months and haven't been able to get a junior or an intern role yet.
 
That finances site - were you paid for that? How about other sites? That is experience and should be plugged into your resume as such.
 
That finances site - were you paid for that? How about other sites? That is experience and should be plugged into your resume as such.

I was not paid for it. I did it to build experience and have more to show in my resume... It's listed there as a project, but sadly it doesn't help me show work experience. Same with my other projects; I've never been paid to do anything as a programmer.
 
Are you on LinkedIn? How's your profile?

Beef up your profile a little with where you've been, what you know, what you're learning and so on. Shine it up real nice

Make a few connections with recruiters. In time you will be beating them away with a stick
 
The first job is the hardest one to get. Snooping your past posts, you were a student before... Are you still in school or did you graduate? Make sure you're using the career center as one of your sources for leads.

Are you pushing your finance site anywhere? I didn't actually try it, but it looks professional... You might add an About tab that gives maybe some more info about how the tool work, but also includes a link to your resume. If you spend some time linking it on relevant financial forums. Don't spam! but some places might have a place to discuss financial tools and you can say you built this and ask for feedback, etc; if you participate in Hacker News, you could do a Show HN, etc. Anyway, if you get a little interest in your tools, some people will click around and if they're hiring, you might make a good connection.

Otherwise, try to find jobs that are at least adjacent to web dev and see if you can make things happen over time. I did IT and technical support stuff getting started in software development. If you can do a bit of web dev on the clock, that's something you can talk about to your next job, etc. Smaller companies are better for this, because bigger companies tend to have more regimented roles.
 
The first job is the hardest one to get. Snooping your past posts, you were a student before... Are you still in school or did you graduate? Make sure you're using the career center as one of your sources for leads.

Are you pushing your finance site anywhere? I didn't actually try it, but it looks professional... You might add an About tab that gives maybe some more info about how the tool work, but also includes a link to your resume. If you spend some time linking it on relevant financial forums. Don't spam! but some places might have a place to discuss financial tools and you can say you built this and ask for feedback, etc; if you participate in Hacker News, you could do a Show HN, etc. Anyway, if you get a little interest in your tools, some people will click around and if they're hiring, you might make a good connection.

Otherwise, try to find jobs that are at least adjacent to web dev and see if you can make things happen over time. I did IT and technical support stuff getting started in software development. If you can do a bit of web dev on the clock, that's something you can talk about to your next job, etc. Smaller companies are better for this, because bigger companies tend to have more regimented roles.

I am in school, I made the mistake of triple majoring. CS, Phil, and Psy. My phil and psy major requirements are nearly finished, but I have quite a way to go for CS... I'd be in school for about four years longer if I kept all the degrees, and waiting that long to get a job is not an option. But also I've taken a reasonable number of classes for my CS degree and the majority have been too simple / too far below me.

I list my CS degree in my resume since I'm still majoring in it, and I do not list the other two because split attention (especially in soft fields) seems to turn away potential employers.

Hmm, I might have to try sharing my project with financial forums, if I can find any good ones.

I have a CompTIA A+, but it's most likely not an option for me to work in IT.

My resume lists the rest of my projects, etc. Look good?

 
I am in school, I made the mistake of triple majoring. CS, Phil, and Psy. My phil and psy major requirements are nearly finished, but I have quite a way to go for CS... I'd be in school for about four years longer if I kept all the degrees, and waiting that long to get a job is not an option. But also I've taken a reasonable number of classes for my CS degree and the majority have been too simple / too far below me.
OK, your school must have a career center. If you're not using it already, start using it now. If they run career fairs, go to those, but they should have listings separate from that. When you submit your resume through a college career center, you're more likely to get it read than a general listing. July is a bit late to look for summer internships, but figure out what kind of stuff they do for that, and if there's any interships available during the school year, and how to get inteviews for that. People come to school career centers to hire because they're looking for people like you, so be there. :)

On the CS classes being too simple; it can happen... a significant part of a college degree is an attestation that you can follow through on stuff, so doing the time and getting it done is worthwhile, even if you don't feel like you're learning much. The later classes can get harder though (depending on your curriculum). Triple major probably wasn't the best choice, but what's done is done; one thing to consider if you're running out of time in school (whether because you're burning out, or burning through your money) is to see if there's a way to drop some of your majors to get a degree in something rather than no degree. In terms of career usefulness, I'd probably rank them CS -> Psychology -> Philosophy, but 4 years of university debt and a philosophy degree is way better than 4 years of debt and nothing; if you can turn a major into a minor, that's nice too.

I list my CS degree in my resume since I'm still majoring in it, and I do not list the other two because split attention (especially in soft fields) seems to turn away potential employers.
That makes sense. Keeping your resume tailored to the market is an important skill. Good on you for recognizing that.

Hmm, I might have to try sharing my project with financial forums, if I can find any good ones.
The forum doesn't necessarily need to be the best, just needs to have some users... take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/, lurk for a week to see the vibe and if you might fit in without being spammy (I don't frequent there, so I dunno); if that doesn't seem like a good match, try one of the 'friends of' next week, etc; lurk in one forum a week until you find a good match. From the descriptions of your other stuff, I'd really suggest you also start lurking on Hacker News, and when you feel like you've caught the vibe, do a series of Show HN posts with your projects; do one, then two or three weeks later, do the next, etc. I'd start with a less polished one, so if you get negative comments it hurts less. Sometimes HN users are real nitpickers, so wear your flameproof underwear. HN tends to have a bit of a startup+VC echo chamber, so like take their advice with a grain of salt, but a lot of energy towards building things, often positive, but sometimes negative as I said. You could also do an Ask HN with nearly the same content as here and those usually get a lot of feedback. But don't do it right away, try some other stuff first.

I have a CompTIA A+, but it's most likely not an option for me to work in IT.
You may want to put this on your resume (or try it and see what you get). It's not relevant to the work you're trying to get, but it's adjacent, and says you're interested in technology and may help you get your foot in the door at places that are concerned about credentials.

My resume lists the rest of my projects, etc. Look good?
This is pretty good, a nice one pager. I think you can tighten up the project blurbs though. For your general resume, go ahead and keep all the skills, but when you submit for specific jobs, you may want to tailor the skill set. If the job is backend focused, don't list JavaScript and TypeScript... just pick one to list, etc. Basically you want a focused list of skills that matches up what you've got with what they need, and doesn't have too much detail on extra stuff. Or at least re-arrange to meet their needs. I'm also not sure I would list Github as a skill rather than Git, but I don't know what the market is looking for.

For your photo business, make the date formatting consistent with your education date. Maybe write Portrait Photographer - April 2016 - current - Rapid City, SD, then on the next line just write Sole Proprietor.

As an example on cleaning up your other blurbs:

RSS Reader (link)

Web-based RSS reader. Refreshes on timer. Saves unique RSS entries to MySQL.

On the financial planner, drop the sentence about it being your favorite and best project. It's the first one listed, everyone knows it's your favorite and best project. :)

It would be best to include urls rather than just links; some people are going to print your resume, and Live and Github in blue and underlined on paper doesn't help anyone see it.

I can't tell what you blurred out, but it looks like it might be a street address? If so, leave that out, unless you're responding to a position by physical mail; but know if you're looking at a job listing that wants you to apply by physical mail, usually with very specific requirements for how to apply, and often with pretty specific education and work experience requirements for the applicant, those are almost always positions where they have someone in mind, but need to post the job for procedural requirements and you're unlikely to get the job; things like H-1B applications, etc). Make sure your email address looks professional; if you've got a .edu from your school that's best at this point; don't use [email protected] ... sign up for a gmail if you need to have something that looks normal. ;) Include a phone number (and make sure it works and you answer it / at least have voice mail that you check).

This is going to sound nitpicky, but the spacing after your dashes looks too big on your image... could be whatever you used to screenshot it, or could be me being weird, but 'user-defined' and 'web-based' look funky. Sometimes people reviewing resumes are in a bad mood, don't give them something to toss your resume for nothing over. If you can't get the spacing to look better, just write user defined and web based. You don't really need a dash there anyway.

If you tighten up the project descriptions, you may find you have too much space, and your resume doesn't fill the page. You could consider adding a list of CS courses under education, if you need a subheading, call it 'relevant coursework'. If you've taken Data Structures or Computational Whathaveyou, or even just Programming in C (or whatever language), that's actually somewhat useful information for the person reading the resume. If you still have too much space, you might want to list some school projects that were most interesting. Most of my CS classes had something that you could put on your resume to have something to discuss. It might be nice to have one or two of those anyway, so you can call them Course Projects and your other projects Personal Projects or Extra-Curricular Projects to add more emphasis that these are outside of course requirements.
 
Here's my LinkedIn. Suggestions? https://www.linkedin.com/in/jerrad-johnson-7b84a1190/

How do I make connections with recruiters?

Your About me section might need a little more work. I'd really expand on who you are, even personally. Why do you like to program? Really sell what makes you a good programmer / developer.

Try to make connections with people in the industry or already in jobs at places where you'd like to work.
 
Your About me section might need a little more work. I'd really expand on who you are, even personally. Why do you like to program? Really sell what makes you a good programmer / developer.

Try to make connections with people in the industry or already in jobs at places where you'd like to work.

I updated the About Me section and I've started spamming connection requests. What do you think?

I can't focus on specific businesses.. I'm like 600 applications in now and still don't have a job. If I focused on a few in particular, I'd be screwed. Lol.
 
OK, your school must have a career center. If you're not using it already, start using it now. If they run career fairs, go to those, but they should have listings separate from that. When you submit your resume through a college career center, you're more likely to get it read than a general listing. July is a bit late to look for summer internships, but figure out what kind of stuff they do for that, and if there's any interships available during the school year, and how to get inteviews for that. People come to school career centers to hire because they're looking for people like you, so be there. :)

On the CS classes being too simple; it can happen... a significant part of a college degree is an attestation that you can follow through on stuff, so doing the time and getting it done is worthwhile, even if you don't feel like you're learning much. The later classes can get harder though (depending on your curriculum). Triple major probably wasn't the best choice, but what's done is done; one thing to consider if you're running out of time in school (whether because you're burning out, or burning through your money) is to see if there's a way to drop some of your majors to get a degree in something rather than no degree. In terms of career usefulness, I'd probably rank them CS -> Psychology -> Philosophy, but 4 years of university debt and a philosophy degree is way better than 4 years of debt and nothing; if you can turn a major into a minor, that's nice too.


That makes sense. Keeping your resume tailored to the market is an important skill. Good on you for recognizing that.


The forum doesn't necessarily need to be the best, just needs to have some users... take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/, lurk for a week to see the vibe and if you might fit in without being spammy (I don't frequent there, so I dunno); if that doesn't seem like a good match, try one of the 'friends of' next week, etc; lurk in one forum a week until you find a good match. From the descriptions of your other stuff, I'd really suggest you also start lurking on Hacker News, and when you feel like you've caught the vibe, do a series of Show HN posts with your projects; do one, then two or three weeks later, do the next, etc. I'd start with a less polished one, so if you get negative comments it hurts less. Sometimes HN users are real nitpickers, so wear your flameproof underwear. HN tends to have a bit of a startup+VC echo chamber, so like take their advice with a grain of salt, but a lot of energy towards building things, often positive, but sometimes negative as I said. You could also do an Ask HN with nearly the same content as here and those usually get a lot of feedback. But don't do it right away, try some other stuff first.


You may want to put this on your resume (or try it and see what you get). It's not relevant to the work you're trying to get, but it's adjacent, and says you're interested in technology and may help you get your foot in the door at places that are concerned about credentials.


This is pretty good, a nice one pager. I think you can tighten up the project blurbs though. For your general resume, go ahead and keep all the skills, but when you submit for specific jobs, you may want to tailor the skill set. If the job is backend focused, don't list JavaScript and TypeScript... just pick one to list, etc. Basically you want a focused list of skills that matches up what you've got with what they need, and doesn't have too much detail on extra stuff. Or at least re-arrange to meet their needs. I'm also not sure I would list Github as a skill rather than Git, but I don't know what the market is looking for.

For your photo business, make the date formatting consistent with your education date. Maybe write Portrait Photographer - April 2016 - current - Rapid City, SD, then on the next line just write Sole Proprietor.

As an example on cleaning up your other blurbs:

RSS Reader (link)

Web-based RSS reader. Refreshes on timer. Saves unique RSS entries to MySQL.

On the financial planner, drop the sentence about it being your favorite and best project. It's the first one listed, everyone knows it's your favorite and best project. :)

It would be best to include urls rather than just links; some people are going to print your resume, and Live and Github in blue and underlined on paper doesn't help anyone see it.

I can't tell what you blurred out, but it looks like it might be a street address? If so, leave that out, unless you're responding to a position by physical mail; but know if you're looking at a job listing that wants you to apply by physical mail, usually with very specific requirements for how to apply, and often with pretty specific education and work experience requirements for the applicant, those are almost always positions where they have someone in mind, but need to post the job for procedural requirements and you're unlikely to get the job; things like H-1B applications, etc). Make sure your email address looks professional; if you've got a .edu from your school that's best at this point; don't use [email protected] ... sign up for a gmail if you need to have something that looks normal. ;) Include a phone number (and make sure it works and you answer it / at least have voice mail that you check).

This is going to sound nitpicky, but the spacing after your dashes looks too big on your image... could be whatever you used to screenshot it, or could be me being weird, but 'user-defined' and 'web-based' look funky. Sometimes people reviewing resumes are in a bad mood, don't give them something to toss your resume for nothing over. If you can't get the spacing to look better, just write user defined and web based. You don't really need a dash there anyway.

If you tighten up the project descriptions, you may find you have too much space, and your resume doesn't fill the page. You could consider adding a list of CS courses under education, if you need a subheading, call it 'relevant coursework'. If you've taken Data Structures or Computational Whathaveyou, or even just Programming in C (or whatever language), that's actually somewhat useful information for the person reading the resume. If you still have too much space, you might want to list some school projects that were most interesting. Most of my CS classes had something that you could put on your resume to have something to discuss. It might be nice to have one or two of those anyway, so you can call them Course Projects and your other projects Personal Projects or Extra-Curricular Projects to add more emphasis that these are outside of course requirements.


BTW my school is remote. But yes they have a career center, and it has been practically useless. There are very few opportunities listed on their site, unfortunately.

I didn't know HN had section for showing projects. Nice!

I'll remove Github from the list and check my formatting/etc., thanks for all the suggestions :)
 
Good luck, I've been a programmer for 16 years now and I can't find a new job to save my life. Can't even get interviews. If anything you have online is not completely perfect and up to the times with trigger words you are screwed.

I wouldn't even worry about it being too simple. most of the stuff you learn isn't much good in the real world. I felt like college didn't get me ready for real jobs. The internship is really your best bet to get into something. It took me almost 2 years to get a programming job after I got out of college and I say that is because I had no internship type things during school. You also need to live in the right area but not sure how much that matters anymore with remote work.
 
OK, your school must have a career center. If you're not using it already, start using it now. If they run career fairs, go to those, but they should have listings separate from that. When you submit your resume through a college career center, you're more likely to get it read than a general listing. July is a bit late to look for summer internships, but figure out what kind of stuff they do for that, and if there's any interships available during the school year, and how to get inteviews for that. People come to school career centers to hire because they're looking for people like you, so be there. :)

On the CS classes being too simple; it can happen... a significant part of a college degree is an attestation that you can follow through on stuff, so doing the time and getting it done is worthwhile, even if you don't feel like you're learning much. The later classes can get harder though (depending on your curriculum). Triple major probably wasn't the best choice, but what's done is done; one thing to consider if you're running out of time in school (whether because you're burning out, or burning through your money) is to see if there's a way to drop some of your majors to get a degree in something rather than no degree. In terms of career usefulness, I'd probably rank them CS -> Psychology -> Philosophy, but 4 years of university debt and a philosophy degree is way better than 4 years of debt and nothing; if you can turn a major into a minor, that's nice too.


That makes sense. Keeping your resume tailored to the market is an important skill. Good on you for recognizing that.


The forum doesn't necessarily need to be the best, just needs to have some users... take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/Fire/, lurk for a week to see the vibe and if you might fit in without being spammy (I don't frequent there, so I dunno); if that doesn't seem like a good match, try one of the 'friends of' next week, etc; lurk in one forum a week until you find a good match. From the descriptions of your other stuff, I'd really suggest you also start lurking on Hacker News, and when you feel like you've caught the vibe, do a series of Show HN posts with your projects; do one, then two or three weeks later, do the next, etc. I'd start with a less polished one, so if you get negative comments it hurts less. Sometimes HN users are real nitpickers, so wear your flameproof underwear. HN tends to have a bit of a startup+VC echo chamber, so like take their advice with a grain of salt, but a lot of energy towards building things, often positive, but sometimes negative as I said. You could also do an Ask HN with nearly the same content as here and those usually get a lot of feedback. But don't do it right away, try some other stuff first.


You may want to put this on your resume (or try it and see what you get). It's not relevant to the work you're trying to get, but it's adjacent, and says you're interested in technology and may help you get your foot in the door at places that are concerned about credentials.


This is pretty good, a nice one pager. I think you can tighten up the project blurbs though. For your general resume, go ahead and keep all the skills, but when you submit for specific jobs, you may want to tailor the skill set. If the job is backend focused, don't list JavaScript and TypeScript... just pick one to list, etc. Basically you want a focused list of skills that matches up what you've got with what they need, and doesn't have too much detail on extra stuff. Or at least re-arrange to meet their needs. I'm also not sure I would list Github as a skill rather than Git, but I don't know what the market is looking for.

For your photo business, make the date formatting consistent with your education date. Maybe write Portrait Photographer - April 2016 - current - Rapid City, SD, then on the next line just write Sole Proprietor.

As an example on cleaning up your other blurbs:

RSS Reader (link)

Web-based RSS reader. Refreshes on timer. Saves unique RSS entries to MySQL.

On the financial planner, drop the sentence about it being your favorite and best project. It's the first one listed, everyone knows it's your favorite and best project. :)

It would be best to include urls rather than just links; some people are going to print your resume, and Live and Github in blue and underlined on paper doesn't help anyone see it.

I can't tell what you blurred out, but it looks like it might be a street address? If so, leave that out, unless you're responding to a position by physical mail; but know if you're looking at a job listing that wants you to apply by physical mail, usually with very specific requirements for how to apply, and often with pretty specific education and work experience requirements for the applicant, those are almost always positions where they have someone in mind, but need to post the job for procedural requirements and you're unlikely to get the job; things like H-1B applications, etc). Make sure your email address looks professional; if you've got a .edu from your school that's best at this point; don't use [email protected] ... sign up for a gmail if you need to have something that looks normal. ;) Include a phone number (and make sure it works and you answer it / at least have voice mail that you check).

This is going to sound nitpicky, but the spacing after your dashes looks too big on your image... could be whatever you used to screenshot it, or could be me being weird, but 'user-defined' and 'web-based' look funky. Sometimes people reviewing resumes are in a bad mood, don't give them something to toss your resume for nothing over. If you can't get the spacing to look better, just write user defined and web based. You don't really need a dash there anyway.

If you tighten up the project descriptions, you may find you have too much space, and your resume doesn't fill the page. You could consider adding a list of CS courses under education, if you need a subheading, call it 'relevant coursework'. If you've taken Data Structures or Computational Whathaveyou, or even just Programming in C (or whatever language), that's actually somewhat useful information for the person reading the resume. If you still have too much space, you might want to list some school projects that were most interesting. Most of my CS classes had something that you could put on your resume to have something to discuss. It might be nice to have one or two of those anyway, so you can call them Course Projects and your other projects Personal Projects or Extra-Curricular Projects to add more emphasis that these are outside of course requirements.


Much better?


 
Get a resume objective statement at the top under your name. Consider moving your education to the bottom.
 
Objective statement. Like state that I'm seeking a junior or intern role as a web dev?
 
Maybe not a realistic option, but when you start has a programmer you will not necessarily start in the field you desire, if you cannot find work in web development, maybe spread out to find any coding work, I had to work in network stack and video games 3d engine before finding a job in what I more specifically studied in.

After some time in programming the world, you could give it a try again in web dev if you discovered that other programming was not for you.

Being an employer, the fact that you are still in what look like full time school would keep me to interview you for most time demanding jobs, if you apply for anything that is major hours I am not sure I would put a mention of being in what look like a full time university program.
 
Maybe not a realistic option, but when you start has a programmer you will not necessarily start in the field you desire, if you cannot find work in web development, maybe spread out to find any coding work, I had to work in network stack and video games 3d engine before finding a job in what I more specifically studied in.

After some time in programming the world, you could give it a try again in web dev if you discovered that other programming was not for you.

Being an employer, the fact that you are still in what look like full time school would keep me to interview you for most time demanding jobs, if you apply for anything that is major hours I am not sure I would put a mention of being in what look like a full time university program.

When I send my applications, I tell them that I am a part-time student.
 
When I send my applications, I tell them that I am a part-time student.
Is there a way to have the part time status on the resume itself, it is possible that in some place someone (or an IA) just quickly look at resume has a pre-screening without considering additional info that was in an email or letter.
 
Back
Top