Well finally after months of sending out CV's I've got my first interview (and hopefully my last) coming up this Friday.

 

One thing they want to see is code examples, so I'm working on some snippets I can take with me to the interview,

 

What I'm looking for is some advice from those who have been through this process before.. some insight into the kinds of questions asked. I will go without saying that I will thoroughly research the company.

 

Thanks in advance for your responses.

I went for a front-end developer job interview a few weeks ago and came "second" if it were a race. I would take some print outs of coding you've done that is preferably live and in-use on the web, so you can talk them through how you code, your style of coding etc. Also it's good to show them current projects and exactly how you're contributing towards it.

 

Company research is paramount, so yeah make sure you understand their purpose, mission statement and style of business. Other than the standard "why do you want to work for us", "where do you see yourself in five years" questions, there isn't much else to it. I would rehearse every possible scenario beforehand and make sure you have answers to questions such as those two. If you can, bring a device to show them live examples of your websites.

 

Good luck.

Sorry to hear you came second buddy, you know your stuff and clearly were prepared going off your reply. Still it's a learning experience I guess - that's how I'll try to look at it if I get the same result.

 

Thanks for the advice you have put forward for me, I feel I will be well prepared. I want to strongly put across that I am dedicated to continue my learning and strive to be the best I can. Hopefully that will make up for any lack of experience I have.

Is there anything you would have done differently now you've had time to reflect?

I had two interviews with the company I'm current at, both pretty full-on. Try to engage in a general conversation with them at first, within a few minutes I had already found a few things in common with them, we were musicians and played in bands and the other guy played electronic music so I suggested some stuff to check out. It was a real ice breaker and allowed me to reflect some of my personality into the interview without them having to ask what hobbies I have ect.

 

I had to show a few sites that I had built, and talk through how I went about it. At the time I used WP which was a lot more uncommon than nowadays, they wanted to know what my decisions for choosing the platform ect. I'll say now that you have to be completely transparent with your skill set, quite often they do a bit of a code review.

 

Having side projects can help, I didn't have any at the time but now I have stuff that I could easily put on Github or on my site. It shows your willingness to learn outside of work.

 

Anyway, check this site out, it has some great tips on it.

 

 

Well the interview went really well. It's now down to me and one other guy. I've offered to work for them next week on a trial basis to prove to them that I am upto the job.

 

So good news there - Thank you both for the advice it helped me considerably. Now next week I will be writing the front end for a magento project they have been working on. They generally use Twitter Bootsrap and LESS.

 

I've always been a SASS guy, and not used many frameworks, preferring to build my own as I feel it helps improve my CSS ability. I don't think either are going to be overly complex but if you guys on here can point me to some decent resources for learning and implementing these that would be of great help.

 

Cheers

Well done on the interview stage - fingers crossed that it pays off for you.

 

I'm a Sass guy too and like to do things from scratch as well, but there's nothing wrong with a framework. Bootstrap is one of the most complete of them (that and Foundation). Less is actually easier to learn and has much better documentation but the increasing popularity of Sass means it's catching up. Coming from a Sass background should work in your favour.

 

One of the best sources for learning Less other than implementing it from scratch is using something already out there. Obvioulsy Bootstrap (isn't Bootstrap 3 Sass now? I haven't looked) but you could have a look at the code for the WordPress theme Bones as some of the conventions are transferable to your own work.

 

Working on Magento? Now that's the hard part (in my opinion). Good luck with it all - hope it goes as well as you've sold it

I found bootstrap real easy to get used to, and frameworks often frustrate me (build-your-own kinda guy here too)! The Bootstrap website itself, http://getbootstrap.com/, provides pretty clean and thorough documentation with good examples so you actually shouldn't have to dig around too much to get to grips with it

Just been reading through bootstraps docs - the class names they are using I don't like at all. I thought we were supposed to be naming our classes based on what the elements function is as opposed to its appearance?

You're absolutely right, but we can save the day with LESS!

 

While .btn-default isn't a very semantic name for a button,

#nextpage-button {
   .btn-default
}

might provide something more suitable; when LESS compiles this it will mix in the properties from .btn-default to your custom #nextpage-button - these are called 'mixins'.

Good advice above, but the other thing to consider with Bootstrap is you don't have to use all the components. I totally agree - semantically it's a pain in the harris but you can strip it down. The best part of Bootstrap for me is the JavaScript bits as I don't create those from scratch. When I first tried out Bootstrap, I thought the grid was great (it is still good) but I don't like the semantics and deep level of nesting.

 

Mixins are the way to go if you've got the time to create them, alternatively there are quite a few good libraries out there. My first custom grid used bourbon and that was almost as good as the sliced bread I purchased earlier today.

Well the interview went really well. It's now down to me and one other guy.

 

Sounds f*cking familiar to me.

 

#sad #dwellingonfailedjobapplications

Lot's of developers like to use SASS. I agree this that and now i am learning SASS. Bootstrap is good for me cause have ready JS snippets. About job.. i have got new job a few weeks ago. All owners wants to see "living" sites and ask to show site in Internet, want to hear that developer can do all (design, coding and banners) and do it fast. They can ask how you can imagine your work process in their company. Befort coming on interview I seach job blacklist if i don't see this company name - its okey i go for interview. Also i listen the voice the person who gave me a call, and if i hear that he (she) grown up and look seriuos, i ask for his position in company. if he (she) director - i will go. Also i ask all question about time and salary and job details. I need to hear maximum from phone cause i want to save my time.

Well after a long week, two broken laptops later (one broken fan, next some fault with windows 8 ) I am pleased to report I have the job - On a trail basis for the next few projects. I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to join a team of experts who have a vast array of experience. I think working with this team will push me to become far better than I am now.

 

Thanks all for the advice, it was invaluable.

 

Think I will buy a Mac when funds allow. I am all but done with Window sodding 8 now.

Edited August 24, 201313 yr by rbrtsmith