Changing careers - advice needed

It sounds like the issue is that you have knowledge of the languages but you don't have much to show for them. I have a friend who works for the recruitment office at the company I work for. She tells me that when she says they need someone with more commercial experience, she is saying that she knows that the possible recruit has knowledge of language, but she is uncertain that they have actually applied that knowledge to anything. An analogy would be: You are applying to work as a waiter in a Spanish restaurant, in order to do that you need to be bilingual. So your employer interviews you by asking you to decipher Spanish text, of course you are able to do so. However, after further questioning they find out, that while you know Spanish, you have never actually carried out a conversation in the language. As such they don't hire you because you don't have a working knowledge of the language.

The same concept applies to programming, you may have HTML/CSS/JS knowledge but you don't really have any practical examples to show that off. For example, if you claim to be a Web Developer, then showing them a website you created (could be your own portfolio) will show them that you have commercial knowledge in building a website from the ground up.

Basically if you want to get into these positions that require 2+ years of work experience, you need to show them that you have this experience.

So have a portfolio or github that showcases your programming skills, and then possibly also have a blog where you talk about topics related to the field that you want to work in.

On a side note, what questions took you several hours to answer. Normally a programming question only takes about 15 - 30 minutes to solve (which is why they ask at least 3 - 4). Did you have to build an application from the ground up, or was it a take home project that you had a while to complete? This question may actually be relevant because it could lend reasons as to why your where passed on. If the interviewer was expecting the question to be solved in 30 minutes and you took 2 hours, then they may be inclined to believe that you don't code that often.

Thanks for the reply!

I have a portfolio site, with two projects that I have done for clients (for free), and a few other projects to show certain skills. All the potential employers have looked at these before inviting me for interview, and I have discussed them in interview.... However, I am going to change the design of the site, and change some of the examples, to be more in keeping with the sites that the employers have asked me to build as tasks.

The tasks that have taken several hours to complete are web pages involving several hundred lines of code (HTML, CSS and JavaScript). At the weekend, for example, I was asked to do a particular page from scratch. I had no problems creating it, and worked quite quickly, but it was a lot of work. It wasn't timed and it was completed at home, so the employer doesn't know how long I took to do it... so I'm not sure that's the issue. As I say, all the comments that I've had so far say that my skills are very good.

I am trying to go for junior level positions (around £30, 000 here in the UK)...

Thanks,

Andy

Hi Andy,

I agree with Dane, but also understand that you already have work to show off then, correct?

Then I would actually recommend you to ask the companies that turn you down what exactly they mean with more commercial experience. This might help you pinpoint the problem, and that way you might know where to start in improving your process.

Don't give up, you'll land that job soon enough!

Jonas