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Lee Nolan
21,690 PointsQuestion for Treehouse students in the UK
Hi all,
This is a question particularly for my fellow Treehouse students in the U.K. regarding that all important first attempt at landing a job.
Following a decision to change careers, I have been studying with Treehouse for about a year, and feel pretty confident in my skills that I have learned, along with developing a site for a local artist using Bootstrap, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and some basic PHP stuff. With the help of my brother who is a developer, I have put together a good CV that makes lots of examples of the things I have done in the artist's website and how I have used the skills I have.
So, I decided to dip my toes into the job market and had a response from a local digital agency who looked at my code very positively, and asked my my salary expectations, to which I replied £18-20k - which seems like the going rate for a lot of entry level dev jobs. They said that due to my expectations they would be unable to progress my application further, as they could hire uni graduates at that price. I get that we have to start at the bottom when changing careers (I earn £30k in my current job that I hate, so it is definitely a passion driven change!) but I don't think someone who can code a responsive website should earn less than many many unskilled jobs out there.
Also, already got recruitment consultants calling me without reading my CV properly and then telling me I don't have enough experience for a role THEY called ME about!
What kind of experiences have you guys had trying to get your first job? Have you come up against a lot of 'graduate fascism'?
I love Treehouse, however I am aware it's main target audience is the US where 'anyone can be a developer' seems more achievable than it does over the pond. Sorry for the long post but it would be great to hear some stories from fellow Brits!
5 Answers
Martin Balon
43,433 PointsHi Lee, I will have to face this in few months as well. I'm still building my portfolio - which is rather difficult as there's almost no time left to build websites. I'm usually just checking CV Library - it gives one pretty good idea what is in demand. I hope I get student loan this year so I can study part time. Anyway finding new job is always difficult so good luck mate! :D
Lee Nolan
21,690 PointsYes CV Library is good, uploaded my CV to it, that's where the recruitment consultant bombardment came from, but they are just there to make their commission so I don't believe they have our interests at heart, and will happily waste our time putting us forward for jobs we don't have a chance with to fulfil their call quotas. Indeed is good too. Also considering relocation to a bigger city. Good luck Martin!
Steve Davies
10,389 PointsI have just landed my first WebDev job, and I feel very inadequate. I am taking a salary cut from my current position (Digital Marketing) but it is not too far off what you have been offered. I'm taking the role as a stepping stone to get more experience with real live projects. One thing that has helped me is to sell my people skills / soft skills well. Things such as project management, accessibility. I have managed to get a fair few interviews for jobs around £30k, I have not been successful in getting those jobs so I had to be a little more realistic.
Lee Nolan
21,690 PointsHi Steve,
Thanks for your insights and good luck in your new position. I have just had to do a 'technical test' for a position I applied for and totally messed up! It was to build a pixel perfect responsive company web page from a photoshop PSD mock up - although I am fine with the coding aspect of it I haven't done anything around converting mock ups as all my layouts just come from my head! It was a good experience to highlight some learning needs though. Had a few issues with background images in divs behaving themselves too so more practice required I guess!
Martin Balon
43,433 PointsHow complex the mockup was and how much time were you given to complete it? Did they wanted to see any work you had done or would have been passing the test enough as a proof that you have skills they need? Were they also strict about cross-browser compatibility and supporting old browsers like - IE7 & IE8 ?
Lee Nolan
21,690 PointsHi Martin, the mock up didn't look too complex on the surface, transparent nav bar with social media icons, jumbotron with background image, div about the company with nested columns inside, and then another div with eight boxes each containing an image that has to be 2 x 4 on desktop down to single stacked on mobile.
They asked to push to GitHub at the beginning and end of the project to see how long it took. They said it shouldn't take more than 2 hours, took me about 4.
Didn't ask about browser compatibility or anything like that. The main problem for me was lack of compliance to the mock up as I have almost zero photoshop skills and just kind of eyeballed it.
Martin Balon
43,433 PointsOk, thanks for the info and good luck with your next interview! :D