On most of the jobs I have a majority of the skills that they are asking for, but I usually find that there's one or two skills that I'm missing, and usually because of this I don't really get considered for the job, even on front end jobs they ask for PHP, I do have some knowledge of it, but it was ages ago since I tried it. But it's never a static skillset, each employer asks for a few things different.

 

The employers also said that my website didn't have good UX, and they didn't even consider the code underneath, but I don't know why because it was a web developer job not web design, and would it matter what it looked like? When the graphics I would be given would be designed by the designer.

Edited April 30, 201610 yr by NullDrone

The employers also said that my website didn't have good UX, and they didn't even consider the code underneath, but I don't know why because it was a web developer job not web design, and would it matter what it looked like?

It matters to the people who looked at your site. Doesn't matter what you think is important, all that matters is impressing prospective employers.

Slightly contentious question here....

 

You've been warned....

 

Does your CV suck? I've sat in numerous interviews where my skill-set hasn't matched 100% with what was in the ad but still got an interview (and been successful in most of them I might add).

 

I haven't looked at your website but I'd put money on either that being terrible or your CV... something is obviously putting them off.

 

You could post up a link to your website and your CV to see what people think but only do so if you want the truth and will take the feedback constructively.

How is that contentious?

 

I've been over my CV many times. I can only send it to you directly, as I don't want to upload it publicly here.

 

My website is the same as last time I talked about it. codexx.co.uk Do you think I should restart it again completely, or just update that?

 

Another option is to start your own business.

I tried advertising ecommerce on ebay and got no replies.

 

A possibly better way to go would be yell.com to market yourself locally or country wide.

 

If you don't have the skills then learn them.

Do a project of your own that uses those skills.

That's how I learned.

 

Do not venture into ecommerce if you don't know what you're doing. No amount of indemnity insurance will cover you if you've done something plain stupid and starting with ecommerce is a bit like purchasing a Lamborghini as your first car when you're 17... you'll think you're doing well until you realise you're out of your depth and by then it's too late.

 

I'd agree. Don't do anything on eBay, unless you know how to "play the game" so to speak.

 

Secondly, I've taken a look at your website and I can see why they have said what they have said. I look at potential staff all day long. I was taught a few old fashioned sayings "First impressions are a last impression" & " you won't get back the chance to make a first impression"

 

 

Personally speaking, it seems to me you're simply not ready to work in the dev/designer world. All you've got is header, photo and some text. In black white and it's boring. This is YOUR chance to impress & i'm sorry to report your website doesn't

What most employers look for is experience. And the best thing you can have in your resume is a good portfolio showing "real life" work. If you don't have any work to show you need to get started now. You can start by offering to create free websites for your friends and family or maybe some local charity organisations. You can also go through existing websites of local businesses and see if any of them needs improvements (they often do) when you have found a few businesses which could need a new responsive layout or a JavaScript slider instead of their old Flash banner, call them and make them an offer. Be honest about the fact that you are inexperienced and building a porfolio, but if a professional business aprove and use your work you should charge for it. Make sure they agree to that in a written contract.

Your website does need quite a bit of work. I'm not a designer either but I'm sure you could come up with something that looks fresher, more modern. Perhaps use a good quality image for the background, or at least a gradient background. Check Google fonts and use a slightly more imaginative font.

 

I don't get the point of your current projects if I cannot click on any of them.

 

I don't understand the contact form. And you shouldn't have your e-mail address on display for robots to collect.

 

If I were you, I'd start again. Take note of all the good criticism on here (gosh I got a hell of a lot of very, very useful constructive criticism this morning...deflated me at first but I'm back and running) and create portfolio v2. Keep going.

A good idea would be to get an intern job for a few months with a company, so you can get a bit of experience. Offer yourself to a few companies in your area - gaining first hand experience will make you a lot more confident when applying for junior positions later on.

 

Your other option is, of course, to become a freelancer. As the above posts suggest, you could work on a few real-life projects and setup your own business.

 

Both approaches have their pros and cons, but a solid portfolio is important, whichever way you decide to go.

 

If you are applying for (and building a portfolio for) a front end development job, find a few nice designs to code and bring to life (with credit and permission from the designer, of course), use them as case studies, explaining what challenges you have faced and solved building them.

 

If you are building a freelance portfolio, the approach would be a bit different as business clients won't look so much into your skills and code, but more into what business problems you have solved and how have you helped others.

 

Keep going, though, you'll get there

 

 

And you shouldn't have your e-mail address on display for robots to collect.

 

I think you need to display your email address - a lot of people don't like using contact forms, and otherwise might not try to contact you.

 

I think you need to display your email address - a lot of people don't like using contact forms, and otherwise might not try to contact you.

I always thought that was a guarantee of spam mails? I always have my e-mail address as a link you have to click.

And how does that stop harvesting exactly? My email is on display, I have spam assassin setup and I have no problems.

 

Pass - beyond my technical knowledge of how robots work. Just what I'd previously been advised to do!

Or you can obfuscate your email address. There are plenty of ways to do this, for example: http://alistapart.com/article/gracefulemailobfuscation

 

That's is how I do it and I've been spam free for years - don't even need spam assassin.

Or you can just put it in as a regular link and text, I've been doing this for years and I don't get any spam, and even if I did It would be worth having to sift through the odd spam mail here and there in order to make it as simple as possible for legitimate people to contact me. I have the same opinion as far as captchas go, they are absolutely horrible for UX and accessibility.

 

With regards to the OP, I feel I'm repeating myself here again - but if you don't have the skillset then either acquire it or look for a different job. All of us on here who are employed have acquired the skills necessary for the roles we had. I had no experience in TDD, Agile, React that I needed for my current role so I spent around 6 months learning them in my free time. my current project has a bunch of technologies / frameworks that I was not familiar with - so I learnt them.

The recurring theme is you always have to be learning. If you don't like the idea of that then this isn't the career for you.

 

I can see you have limited design skills based on your website. As do I. So you can either pay a designer to mock up designs that you can then code up, or grossly simplify your design. Why are you attempting to use Ajax on your site (Which doesn't work btw) when you can just use regular links? Ajax is great but don't try shoehorning things on that are unnecessary just to prove you can do it. My blog is mostly about JavaScript - yet there is barely any actual JavaScript being used as it's not necessary. If you want to demo a skill create examples on CodePen or github and link to them.

Edited May 2, 201610 yr by rbrtsmith

What is the big deal about a bit of spam, quite nice as fritters with a couple of fried eggs on top.

 

TBH I used to enjoy sifting through the spam I used to get on my old business site. Some were really funny. One highlight was from some Russian bird who wanted me to pay her fare so she could come over and make whoopee with my wife while I watched. Don't get that kind of offer very often.

What most employers look for is experience. And the best thing you can have in your resume is a good portfolio showing "real life" work. If you don't have any work to show you need to get started now. You can start by offering to create free websites for your friends and family or maybe some local charity organisations. You can also go through existing websites of local businesses and see if any of them needs improvements (they often do) when you have found a few businesses which could need a new responsive layout or a JavaScript slider instead of their old Flash banner, call them and make them an offer. Be honest about the fact that you are inexperienced and building a porfolio, but if a professional business aprove and use your work you should charge for it. Make sure they agree to that in a written contract.

 

I disagree that you need to have done real life work, I find myself doing a lot of code reviews and so on for applicants and it doesn't really matter if their projects are for real clients or just totally fabricated. We want to know if the candidate has the ability to do the job, fabricated websites can demonstrate that as often when starting out finding and dealing with clients can be a real pain point when all you want to do is code so my advise would be to eliminate that by fabricating work.

This is assuming it's the candidates first job, which like for many Junior devs they may not have real experience but are able to demonstrate an ability to write good code.

Edited May 2, 201610 yr by rbrtsmith

I've just changed two mop heads which was a more entertaining experience than looking at your site. I have no idea what you're trying to convey with it.

 

The first thing that strikes is your scowling image stuck right in the centre looking as if you would sooner be somewhere else.

 

The jarring, transition-less slider seems totally out of place with the rest of the page.

 

The nav buttons change on hover but don't work unless the text itself is clicked.

 

The form is, well enigmatic to say the least, I wasn't inspired with confidence to enter anything into it.

 

The colour scheme is drab and drear, like a rainy day in Port Talbot.

 

The only reason I bothered to look at the About Me page was to get away from the damned slider flashing away.

 

None of the links seem to work.

 

I was however amused by this in script6.js

$(document).ready(function(){var profileDesc=$("<p>The most handsome web developer</p>");

 

I disagree that you need to have done real life work, I find myself doing a lot of code reviews and so on for applicants and it doesn't really matter if their projects are for real clients or just totally fabricated. We want to know if the candidate has the ability to do the job, fabricated websites can demonstrate that as often when starting out finding and dealing with clients can be a real pain point when all you want to do is code so my advise would be to eliminate that by fabricating work.

This is assuming it's the candidates first job, which like for many Junior devs they may not have real experience but are able to demonstrate an ability to write good code.

I'm only refering to my own experiences. At every jobinterview I've ever been to experience was in high demand. The only other way in was through internships or assistent work where you can hope for a chance of a job later. Also I think doing some "real-life" projects is valuable for your skill set because you will be presented to challenges that you might wouldn't think of yourself. The list of requirements for fabricated projects tend to end up being what you as a developer would like to work on rather that what is actually in demand.

Edited May 2, 201610 yr by Nillervision

 

The colour scheme is drab and drear, like a rainy day in Port Talbot.

 

 

That made me laugh Nothing is as bad as a rainy day in Port Talbot though, except perhaps a rainy day in Merthyr Tydfil

 

I agree about the photo of the OP - a nice smiling photo would do much better job.

I agree about the photo of the OP - a nice smiling photo would do much better job.

 

At the moment it's like a picture of a young Jimmy Durante scowling out at you.

Sadly, I think you need a bit of a reality check.

 

Not to put you down, because this is a long learning curve that will never end but you need to realise that design and dev skills cannot just be 'learn't' over X amount of time and then you have a job.

 

Any employer looking at your site will disregard it within minutes. Small things matter, like a page title and favicon? Why do you not have those set?

 

Not only is it a small detail, but would show you understand how to set up a site structure etc as required. At the moment it looks like you are missing out important tags and information.

 

I have seen so many posts from you about not being good enough etc when you just need to knuckle down and build things. I am only in my first dev role now and I have been self learning pretty much every evening for the last 3 years! I am still no where near high level yet.

 

As much as I and others despise dribbble.com it is a good place to find ideas on what to build. Go on there, find a few site designs and try to recreate them. Thats a good real world example of converting a design to a real site and it will also give you exposure to modern design.

 

I could go on for ages, but I don't need to. Start building things, ask for feedback on them and not yourself and your struggles.

I'm not going to discuss your current site as I think everyone previous to this post has done a pretty good job of that.

 

If I was you I'd take all of the above posts as constructive criticism and nothing more, you've proven that you don't have an eye for design which isn't the end of the world.

 

I do think you would be best to start from scratch in regards to your website. Start with a clean slate and take your time and get it right. As far as designs go, I'd personally recommend you go to somewhere like themeforest and pick yourself a clean modern DESIGN from the UI section, not a pre-built html site or wordpress theme, they are as cheap as chips and it will give you an idea of how you may receive website designs from clients.

 

Then take your time to turn the designs into working html and css. When you're looking for a design keep in mind what content you already have, what content you want to display, and which design they will be fit into, don't just pick a design because you think it looks good, the design has to work with the content you're displaying.

 

Anyways good luck and keeps us posted!!

Edited May 4, 201610 yr by richardmountain

Perhaps you're not ready for a full time position yet? Why not hone your skills to a point where you actually do fit the criteria for the roles you're looking for?

 

Take all feedback from employers and the people over on WDF as a positive and make changes to your website to reflect what has been said. You could even take it offline. If there's no portfolio then you can't get bad marks for it.

Edited May 5, 201610 yr by jakdothtml

people on this thread are making me lol. Is it just me that gets a sense of anger towards OP? jealously for his muscles by any chance?

 

OP... Try Google Material design to explore more design concepts:

https://design.google.com/

...jealously for his muscles by any chance?...

 

 

 

Must be that

jealously for his muscles by any chance?

 

 

A little off-topic, but his profile picture is actually this guy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Shavershian