Advice for Transitioning into a Web Development Career

Question

My name is Ryan. I develop software in C# and SQL for a local company, but still do help desk and a whole host of other IT things for them, at the same time. You guys may have seen my Cyber Punk Trainer, I posted on here a couple of weeks ago. I want to move into a more 'legitimate' development job, but I'm getting tons of rejection emails and putting in hundreds of applications with no response. I've been at it now for about 6 months, and, am honestly finding it hard to fight off the depression from being told 'No' so consistently. Once or twice I've done some coding tests for potential employers, but I still never make it past the recruiter. I've been told on a couple of them, that I did fine on the coding challenges, but for the most part it's sort of a "You passed, but so did they", type of response. I'd appreciate any and all advice you guys have to give. I just want to turn all this unbridled hunger, into a real career! Thanks!

lhorie · Accepted Answer

- Consider doing some freelance work to build up a portfolio of actual field-related work. You could also consider volunteering to help local charities with website stuff, if you're up for it.
- Learn some buzzwords. React is hot these days, for example.
- Find local recruiting agencies, they're more than happy to pitch you to whatever clients have openings for the type of position you're looking for
- Also look for other types of agencies (e.g. marketing) and tech consultancies, as they sometimes have unadvertised openings (e.g. crunching to finish some behind-schedule project).
- Don't mention help desk experience. If you're at entry level for web development, it looks better if your resume only presents relevant experience (better yet, highlight skillset over work history). Displaying irrelevant experience looks like unprofessional filler text.

jessehorne · Answer

It's a complicated situation to be in and I feel your pain. Been there done that! I don't think I've ever gotten a single job from sending in applications randomly using something like Indeed or Monster. Usually they were all through word of mouth. That being said, you should probably just keep trying. Besides encouraging you to keep going, here's some other advice which you can take or don't. Just trying to be helpful if I can!
1. Build up a portfolio of work, through hobby at first. Build some apps, release something, post it here and at the bottom of the post or on the README, or website, mention you're looking for work. It gives you exposure and experience and could lead to some interesting opportunities, but at the very least you're gaining some relevant knowledge. Try to work on things you love, but work with tools you're not familiar with (yet). Figure out some modern tech stacks, methodologies, practices, etc, and run it. You could even get started learning Web Development with C#. Come up with an idea such as what we discussed before, pick a solid framework, learn how to do proper testing (and implement full enough test coverage), pick a apidoc generator and write some really nice docs, pick up a framework like React and build a UI, etc.
2. Try to expand your networking. I've gotten three jobs by asking around to all my IRC friends, and one job through responding to a Hacker News thread. Join some relevant IRC channels, Discord communities, etc, and get to know people. Like I said, I've never had success just submitting resumes. Might need to be a bit more strategic and reach out to people personally, perhaps through LinkedIn.