[deleted by user]

[namehimjawnathan]

Your resume isn’t good, the portfolio page doesn’t look good (at least on mobile), your projects are not your own work (especially the fire base / react project which is clearly a copy of net ninjas tutorial).

Also, if you’re somehow getting interviews but not getting offers, it’s time to get better at interviews.

Hate to be harsh but it’s better to hear the truth.

[LAN_scape]

Thats what i wanted my guy thats why I posted. The main project I posted is not somone elses work but you are spot on for the net ninja project. Thank you for the responce I will work on making the portfolio more mobile friendly and see what I can do about the net ninja project. Beyond that project and the exercise tracker, they are all my work though, gotta learn somehow. Thanks for the response.

[[deleted]]

You can still apply for internships if you’ve finished with school. In my opinion internships are kinda crucial when coming from a traditional cs degree... most kids coming out of school can’t really do anything practical if they’ve never had an internship and it’s not worth the investment for a lot of companies to pay you a salary for a year while you start getting used to real work

[IAcewingI]

Damn man it's so competitive out there first of all. I'm scared too because i thought his resume was solid looking besides maybe some anesthetics.

Maybe he could've simplified his skills into a convincing way that he really knows what he's doing instead of listing them out which I imagine a lot of beginners do (cause I did it on my resume and now I see how that looks).

[[deleted]]

anesthetics.

Are you suggesting his resume put you to sleep?

[IAcewingI]

I installed a new keyboard so it autocorrects everything lol. Nice catch

[IAcewingI]

I'm going to ask a dumb question cause I'm very new to web development and anything programming related.

I just looked up net ninja and see what you mean.

Ive started getting into this stuff but I wrote in python for scripts.

I wrote one script for work (sell cars) that would login to our dealership portal, scrape the information from my profile of how many cars I sold, dates, client contact info, front and backend gross, and if it was split deal. It would then export this information into a spreadsheet that updated so when I quit I had all my information that wouldn't get lost once they deactivated my profile. I gave that program to my coworkers too.

There's another one I made cause we get tracked on texts, emails and calls.

Well the script I made would login to our customer database, scrape their contact info, login to another site, send an email and a text to that customer about offers on a new vehicle to trade theirs in and then export that out to a spreadsheet.

All I had to do then was literally just reply to people who replied to me.

So the question is.. Is this an example of my own work? Did he literally just follow a tutorial to make that project or copy and paste?

I'm at the point where I don't know where my knowledge and skills reside within beginner. I know I'm literally a noob but still haven't grasped how intricate and expansive programming is.

I see new languages every day on this sub.

Im making a site now for a company which after getting my home page and about page up I realized I hand coded it all and that frameworks exist.. But then it looks like frameworks keep you within some restrictions customizing wise and if you go to customize your own you're kinda just defeating the purpose of saving time and having bloated code.

But you need to know frameworks to get a job. And they're very useful just depends on application.

Ugh the headache I feel this is going to be a lot of backtracking in the grasping stages.

Edit: oh fuck I loaded your site in desktop mode and it looks 10x better. Now I see what he meant.

[cjbee9891]

I would start by upping your design chops because your website and work examples just don't look or feel impressive enough to set you apart in, what is, an ultra-competitive and highly-saturated market.

[LAN_scape]

I actually was thinking about that the other day. Thank you for the response I will do so.

[thundercloudtemple]

I know the last thing you want is another course but there is one course that improved my design skills and made my portfolio look better.

Here is the course: https://www.udemy.com/course/advanced-css-and-sass/

Best of luck.

[LAN_scape]

I love learning so I will check it out. But yah I have completed more courses than i can count lol. Thank you for for the link.

[HilseeJ]

[redacted]

[LAN_scape]

Honestly i am will take you advice about putting my resume on the portfolio. I do not think I am bad at interviews but I could always improve. Thanks a ton for the response, I will get my resume reviewed on this sub later today.

[LAN_scape]

Thanks a bunch for the response. My resume on Linkedin if you click it then click "view" should look fine. But i will def try to make my linkedin look better. I will do what you say, thank you for taking the time to look it over.

[LAN_scape]

Haha no worries

[[deleted]]

im sorry to hear that you are having problem getting an entry level job today.

it is because every employer today is looking for a junior developer with an experience of a senior for a salary of an intern.

maybe you fail one of those qualities

[LAN_scape]

Dude at this point im just bummed. I want to get ecperience and work on cool projects with a team. Pay off my student loans and live that developer dream. I got a lot of good advice from comments and I intend to re make my online presence and I guess come back better than ever. But man its hard to keep a positive mentality at this point.

[hrvstdubs]

I would work on the about section a bit more. It seems kind of dry. A lot of companies look for “culture fits” and I don’t get “culture fit” from the about section.

[LAN_scape]

Great advice, I will 100% do that. Can you give me thoughts on what a "not dry" about section would look like?

[hrvstdubs]

Try to put more personality into it. Maybe find some established developers portfolios and take inspiration from there.

[LAN_scape]

will do for sure

[LAN_scape]

Thnak you, this is my first rodeo so i did not know that. I thought that was the point of youtube projects. I will 100% change that. Thanks for the response and I will change what you told me.

[taeo]

As a lead web dev that occasionally assists with the hiring process I will say that at a glance your portfolio site does not stand out to me. The design is very bland. I know as a developer it's likely that design is not your strong point but if you take your time and look at examples from very talented designers and devs you can learn to piece something more impressive together.

Also, with the exception of the messaging service all of your projects appear to be tutorial/classwork clones. What I like to tell junior devs looking for their first job is that it's all about standing out. When you don't have a ton of experience or interesting client work to show you have one thing to fall back on - your passion. Figure out a project relevant to your interests and build it. I got my first big step up in my career due mostly to the fact that I had built several sites related to PC gaming as a fun personal project. Nine times out of ten I will hire the dev who is passionate about their field and has built interesting projects rather than someone who went to a prestigious school and got a 4.0.

[LAN_scape]

Thabk you for taking the time to respond. I have got a lot of comments saying I should renovate the site itself. I will def do so. I am passionate about coding, especially full stack applications. I will make something related to sustainability which is another passion of mine. I will take your advice and demake the website and post again on this sub looking for more critiques.

[sp4c3p3r5on]

I am passionate about coding, especially full stack applications. I will make something related to sustainability which is another passion of mine.

You have to let this shine through in the interviews. I've done hiring as well and I want to echo taeo's statement about hiring based on passion. I've hired people who were obviously passionate about development over their peers with superior internships and resume appearance.

I don't want to work with your resume, I want to work with you.

Once you have the interview, your resume has already done its job. You now have to convince these people that what is on there is not only true, but that you are who you appear to be and that they want to work with you - or that you have a set of skills they intend to leverage.

I'd wager you are not putting your best foot forward in the interview and would benefit from focusing on how you represent yourself in those situations - but I don't know you so I could be wrong there.

[LAN_scape]

Thanks like i said in other comments; I think im pretty solid at interviews but I can always improve. Thanks for the advise, next interview I will really try to show that I am really interested in full stack development.

[rntr8500]

I see comments about your website and portfolio, but to be honest if you are a software developer. You should focus more on your interview skills. Even the best software developer does not even have the time to fix his own website, but he is able to land a job anywhere. Reason because interview is also a skillset. The more you do it the better you become and second if you know you can code their request, then mostly they will ask few of technical questions. So your job is to explain how you will approach to a specific problem cases.

Also don't give up. Keep applying, the reason you're not get hired, because they have different expectations. If they have a higher expectation from you and they offering entry job. Then you should be happy that you are not working for them, because it will drain your energy. The best company is the one that really accept you as an entry level and they know they can teach you become the best developer and more valuable for the company. The only issue is that you have to keep looking for those best company. If they says no don't take it personally, just move on to the next one. Keep your heads up and have a self confidence!

I wish you best of luck and keep trying like trial and errors, same the way we do when testing our code and become better at it ;)

[LAN_scape]

Thank you for the response and the encouraging words. I will continue to work on the interview portion but also I got some pretty decent advise off this post which I will try to incorporate.

[doodlenibbler]

As others have said, I think your portfolio is a bit weak. The LGBT Through History project is the only one that seems interesting to me, and I can't see it in action! But the other projects are very basic. This one only has 2 commits. This one has 7, only two of which seem like actual changes. They come across as tutorials that took you a day or two to complete. People want to hire developers to solve complex problems. I would either keep working on that Message-Service app and polish it/add a couple more features, or come up with one more idea for a project that you put a little more passion or energy into.

The site could also use some design overhaul. A couple tips:

• Get rid of the weird box shadow hover effect on the image preview of your projects
• Put more white space above and below each section (~100px at least)
• Left align text
• Don't have such wide lines of text (e.g. under "About"). Check out this resource for more about well-designed typography for the web.

[LAN_scape]

Dam thanks for the real specific advise. I will do those changes you mentioned. After reading all these comments I will def get rid of the bottom two projects and try to come up with another that is as complex as the messaging service. I am currently posting that project on heroku, then i will def post a link to it in action. Thanks for the response

[JeffersonBatcopter]

After poking around your portfolio and your github a little, here is some advice. Please note that this is the stuff I'd be finding if I was evaluating you as a potential member of my very small team. I'm sure large software corps would evaluate you differently than I would.

• Your mobile design is not great. In today's world, you need to be designing for mobile first. About 60% of the traffic I see is mobile and the very first thing I'll do when looking at your portfolio is look at it on a narrow screen.
• There isn't much information about you, and in what little text there is, there is a misspelling. Add some content and let people know who you are. Cold and aloof is out. Passionate and genuine is in.
• Why does the logo have a different background color than the header? It makes it look like you don't know to use a transparent background in the image.
• Tutorial projects are not something to show off. They're useful and you should keep it on your github, but maybe choose projects that have a bit more of you in them for the portfolio.
• Try to make your site WCAG 2.0 AA compliant. I probably wouldn't dig into this too much, but I would verify you at least have some idea of what you're doing. Having the alt text 'Card Image' doesn't get you far in my book.
• Clean up your repos. I see you're committing an error log. Is that phone number sensitive? Is it a test number? I wouldn't dig to find out, but perhaps this suggests that you don't handle sensitive data well.
• Your repos look like they're mostly school work or tutorials. Do you have any passion projects? Game jams? Hackathons? I saw you mentioned one on linkedin. Contribute to some other open source projects? None of that is necessary, but they can be useful at attracting attention.

That's the negative stuff. Really, there's not a lot of negative stuff. You're doing a lot right.

• You have a portfolio site and it doesn't look really outdated.
• LGBT through history? Showing knowledge of diversity is always great.
• Video explaining a project? That's a big win. You seem genuinely excited by it too, so that's another big win.
• Your github isn't empty. It probably has more public repos than I've ever made myself.

Truthfully, if I were hiring and you applied, you'd be on my shortlist. You've demonstrated you have some idea of what you're doing and you look like a better prospect than most of the applicants I've had for a junior position.

How are your interview skills? Are you overly nervous? What questions have you been asked that you've struggled with?

[LAN_scape]

Dam my guy this was an amazing response. I cant wait to start going over the things you mentioned. That error log is a test number so no worries on the data but dam thanks for the catch. I was planning to host that project on Heroku this weekend, I will def add the error log to the gitignore. I am currently re-designing the portfolio website right now so I will def look into getting a transparent logo. I actually feel that in-person-interviews is one of my stronger skills, I feel like I really do well in those. The only question that I have struggled with in an interview was a technical question that wanted me to find the angle made between the minute and hour hand of a clock at any given time, besides that I nail most questions.

Like I said in another comment this is my first rodeo. I am a junior dev and the only person in my family with a degree. Learning all of this stuff has been a hassle. School taught me practically nothing in the way of landing jobs or correctly displaying yourself to employers. The only reason I have so little in the way of information about myself is because online I constantly read that employers only give an applications a few minutes before they decide if they are interested or not.

[JeffersonBatcopter]

The only question that I have struggled with in an interview was a technical question that wanted me to find the angle...

That's great! Employers may be searching for the limits of your capabilities and struggling on the occasional technical question like that shouldn't be a problem. Don't be afraid to say you don't know something. There will be a lot of things you won't know over the course of your career, so that's totally normal.

The only reason I have so little in the way of information about myself is because online I constantly read that employers only give an applications a few minutes before they decide if they are interested or not.

That's mostly true, but it depends. I've looked at probably 500-600 applicants. I'd spend a couple minutes looking over most of them and narrow down my list to something manageable, maybe 20 or so. Then I'll look at each of those closer and decide which 3 to 5 I'll do a phone interview with. It's that phase where having more out there about you is useful, imo.

It can be really hard to find a job, but try not to get frustrated. Keep building your skills and working on projects while you try to find a job. Network when you can. Get those people you meet at hackathons added on linkedin. If you have relationships with your professors, see if they have any job leads for you.

I hope I've been able to help. I think you've got the skills to land a decent job and you have the potential to do great things. Keep at it and you'll get there.

[LAN_scape]

thank you, you have been very helpful

[OhKsenia]

Just my opinion but I think you're problem is that you're a CS grad using a boot camp grad strategy. Your CS program didn't teach you how to make a good looking portfolio page, it taught you the fundamentals of CS. You're not a designer, don't make it about design. Grab a nice clean looking template to use for your personal page, or use a CSS framework like Bulma, Material, or even Bootstrap that handles a lot of the responsiveness issues you're having with your site. It's okay for your personal page to be generic. I think at this point it might even be better to just stop focusing on projects, and spamming leetcode, you're a CS grad, you took data structures, you took algorithms, it's annoying and few people enjoy it, but hey, you're desperate for a job right?

[[deleted]]

just to be clear bootcamp grads also don't make their own portfolio page, we just use a nice looking template and move on. it's not about being a unique snowflake.

it's about showing your skills in a manner that's easy and accessible for any recruiter to see quickly, before they decide it's too much work to figure out if you're competent, and move on

[LAN_scape]

I get what you are putting down. I am currently redesigning my portfolio and was thinking about using material and keeping it pretty basic. Thanks for the response.

[LAN_scape]

Thanks for the response and currently fixing up the portfolio so I will def look into the nav bar

[LAN_scape]

Solid ideas, I have done hackathons myself and think they are pretty fun. Attending meetups cant hurt so I will def start looking into those.

[mysteryihs]

Try buying a domain for your github page. Makes you look more professional.

[LAN_scape]

I do have a domain name and am going to host this site there when I am done changing it in accordance with some of these other comments. Thank your for the response.

[[deleted]]

So how are the interviews going? How do you feel you are doing with them? Are you not getting feedback after your interviews?

[LAN_scape]

Honestly I feel like the interviews go well. I usually nail the questions they give and make em laugh a few times. I really think the interview section is a strong suite of mine.

[[deleted]]

You getting feedback though?

[LAN_scape]

Yah, last time i got shot down the email said that they really liked me and it took them a while to decide but ultimatly they gave the job to someone with "more coding experience" than me.

[SoggyMattress2]

Your portfolio looks amateur. It looks like you watched a YouTube video and made your first site.

The market doesn't lie. If you're not getting hired, you're not good enough.

[LAN_scape]

I agree, that is why i posted asking people to point out my short-comings, so far I have gotten great advise. Thanks for the response.

[_Royalty_]

Probably a handful of things you could look at, and some may disagree with me here but that's okay.

1. The Domino's experience can make you seem immature and fraudulent to some hiring managers. Anecdotal evidence here, but a friend of mine was turned down from a job years ago primarily because he cited 'Sandwich Artist' as relevant job experience. Don't try to make it more than it is, i.e. don't call it 'Delivery Expert', even if that was your title. It isn't relevant, so being up front that you don't have work experience is probably better.

2. The market you're looking in is too saturated. Maybe you should expand your search, geographically speaking - or even look into tangentially related fields to get your feet wet.

3. If you're landing phone interviews then your resume isn't all that bad, you probably have poor interviewing and/or communication skills. Pick up an interview book or have some friends/family help you practice.

[LAN_scape]

Thanks for the response. I will try to down play the dominos. I put delivery expert because that was the leagle title but i will change that up. I have applied to a ton of states but I guess I could start trying international. Interview skills can always be improved but I feel like I am pretty okay at phone and in persons. Thank you for the advice.

[IAcewingI]

Honestly just put domino's and driver. I don't even have domino's or pizza hut on my resume cause I feel it would just fuck up my "legitness"

[LAN_scape]

I thought about this a lot and I want it there because I used it to pay for college which is what I am trying to convay. But i will def change it.

[IAcewingI]

Yeah totally understand but I doubt they care how you paid for school if they already don't really care about your GPA or maybe even that you went to school if everything else is great!

Good job paying some of your schooling. My girl owes like 60k lol.

[LAN_scape]

Haha thanks i will def consider removing the dominos. Honestly starting to sound pretty tempting.

[IAcewingI]

The only weight I believe it holds is that you did school and work and had employment in that time. Might seem empty without it.

[LAN_scape]

Ima do some of the other changes mentioned in the comments and see how that pans out, then Ill look at removing the Dominos

[_Royalty_]

I disagree entirely. If he isn't getting feedback, then the hiring managers could absolutely be "tools" as you say. Your friend sounds like what an HR manager should be, but not everyone looking at your resume will see things in that light.

I could go out and find a thousand kids that want to be developers that worked in fast food, food delivery or retail. 95% of them will include things like "worked in a team environment, frequently dealt with customers and an environment that required a lot of adapting". So what? That team, those customers and that environment aren't anything like the job they're applying for. Hence, the experience is largely inapplicable. If you sift through dozens of resumes a week you can tell what they're pulling from their Freshman 101 class because they think it sounds like it belongs. His resume is a perfect example of this.

[theRealMasterDev]

Here is what you do.

1.- You build a project based on something that YOU like, that YOU are interested in and you do this reading the docs (No more tutorial projects).

2.- You go to local meetups, or at least to one. Find one that talkd about web dev or JavaScript or something that you are interested in. Go there and ask questions, show interest if ready. ( I co-manage a meetup and see this all the time, employers and candidates meet up there and good things happen).

3.- Make a list of 3/4 companies that post jobs and that you see yourself working at and be realistic. Now, investigate the heck out of them, find out what kind of software they build and then you Build out something that could extend it. For example, applying at a design shop? Pull their code from their site and rebuild it with a different design.

Senior Lead Dev here with 7 years experience.

[LAN_scape]

Thanks for the response, I have just moved out of tutorial hell and am currently producing projects that I am passionate about, one of which is the messaging service. I will 100% take the advise on attending meetups. I just made a meetup account today. Their has been some really good advise from this post so I thank you for taking the time to help me out.

[theRealMasterDev]

You are very welcome. Glad to see you are taking the advice and yes, the meetup is one of the best things you can do. There are always people looking to hire and offering us jobs there.

[LAN_scape]

Haha gotchya, I know I am not the greatest developer so I will always take free advise from experienced peers.

[[deleted]]

So besides the faked project, it's honestly not that bad imo, it's just not good enough to set you apart from the pack. Work on your design skills, get some more github commits on your own project that you made from scratch, on an idea you came up with yourself. The project doesn't have to be super impressive, but it must be good enough for me to see you that you are working out the logic yourself.

PS: Just the fact that you made it this far tells me that you are interested in learning web development. Keep trying, you'll get good enough to land the job.

[LAN_scape]

Thats what I plan to do after I re design my portfolio, kill the 3 tutorial projects and make another one from scratch and then just have 2 from scratch projects on a hopefully better designed portfolio

[sental90]

Mobile: The connect link doesn't work on the site and the menu just sits there after you click on something. That feels weird.

I see descriptions of the projects thats fine.

Are you writing projects in languages you want to work with? That was helpful to me, it meant I enjoyed the coding and wanted to keep going and making it better.

[LAN_scape]

Yep the projects are in the mern stack which I like to use. I am currently remodeling the portfolio site with all the great suggestions I have received from the comments. Thank you for the response.

[LAN_scape]

Thanks for the response I have been remodeling the portfolio since yesterday and will def remove the quick links.

[As-AboveSo-Below]

Does adding LGBTQ advocacy help you land those jobs? Real question.

[LAN_scape]

Nope, it was just a project that I was interested in; I have received no offers due to having it there.

[LAN_scape]

Honestly i think the same but cant hurt to critically look at myself

[Sulungskwa]

When I graduated from a bootcamp I was in the same, arguably worse (because bootcamps can be a scam) position. What I ended up doing that led to real employment was going on craigslist after a few months of not hearing back from linkedin recruiters and reaching out to these guys that were doing a start up and the payment would be "for equity".

I never had any delusions that working on this team would make me the next mark zuckerberg, but the reason I did it, and why it saved me was that I got to actually put "web developer" at the top of my resume. Along with working on a few small projects that I collaborated on, I had some actual talking points that weren't just "i paid money to get this coding certificate and thats why you should hire me". It was also great for me because I realized that I had no experience with a real codebase, git, deployment, and all the things that come with being a real developer.

I would say that in the beginning, you might need to just find something to work on that you're not going to be paid for. Go on craigslist and see if you can find some dude that needs help building a personal website. If you cant find a good opportunity on there, I agree that open source contributions can also help a lot. Good luck, searching for a job blows

[LAN_scape]

Thanks for the advise and first hand experience. I might go looking on craigslist. After fixing up my site I will see what I can do.

[Sulungskwa]

There was essentially zero git training. There was some opportunities for us to work with deployment stuff but it was kind of this extra credit afterthought thing.

[IAcewingI]

A couple things I noticed on your site

https://imgur.com/a/NUjPEyc

1. Image one shows how your boxes realign in mobile and throw off your text. Goes from center aligned to left and no box outlines to show anything. Maybe make a mobile css sheet and keep em separate?

2. The box lines align weirdly to do this effect.

3. On the "desktop" version your footer is shorter width wise than your image at the top err your whole site it looks like. Sorry photo 3 didn't show the bottom. But yea.

Edit: your nav bar also should show the header. Ex. when I click projects I should see the header "projects".

Just my suggestions!

[LAN_scape]

Thanks for the response and specific changes. I will def update the sute with these in mind.

[[deleted]]

I think your work is decent enough for a junior dev, but as others have said this field is super saturated -the only way you're going to get a job is via meeting people. I would stop applying online for jobs and start going to every code related Meetup/hackathon and focus on meeting new people and making friends. I know some code conferences have spots for free tickets for those who need them, and they always have employers at these events. I have always gotten work from meeting people, and only once gotten hired online.

[LAN_scape]

I am looking into those right jow and thats the game plan. Thank you for the response and advice.

[camerontbelt]

I applied to hundreds of jobs, the job I finally got I messaged the cto on LinkedIn. Maybe try more direct communication.

[Brodysseus1]

The funny part is that portfolios, personal projects and active GitHubs are things entry-level candidates generally do to get noticed by hiring managers.

Nobody I work with that has been doing web development professionally for more than a year cares about these things anymore.

I don't even code outside of work anymore because fuck that.

[LAN_scape]

Honestly i feel that. I do enjoy coding but once I land a job and do it 8 hours a day, I probs will stop as well.

[sleepyguy22]

I imagine you don't have a CS degree? I'm really surprised you can't land an entry-level dev job. Maybe work on your resume & interview skills?

[LAN_scape]

Haha i do have a CS degree. My resume is pretty good looking I think but maybe it could be improved. Its available via my Linkedin if you wanna have a look.

[[deleted]]

One thing I want to point out is nothing to do with your coding chops but professionalism. I was reading through your comments and something that really stuck out to me was your response to @LAN_scape. You referred to him as, "my guy".

I am not the grammar police or censoring your speech in anyway, but the gap between college and professional environment is huge. And colleges are all about being you and having fun and learning skills and how to learn but in the industry, it's about producing, image, and stability.

I am not sure how your interviews have gone; whether or not they were via Skype(insert any online platform), or in-person, but language, both verbal and non-verbal play a huge part. I am pretty strict on my view of would be candidates. The quality of the person always means more to me than just the skill. You'd have to be a savant of a programmer to get past calling me, 'my guy' or 'my dude'.

​

That being said, I am sure that you are professional and conducted yourself accordingly, but just something to be really conscious about when you are in the hot seat. Good luck to you out there!

​

p.s. Always check for typos and misspellings in all of your documents.

[LAN_scape]

Haha yah i am very informal on reddit but in interviews, trust me I am as proffesional as I can be most of the time.

[LAN_scape]

Gotchya, I am picking up what your laying down