I want to become a Web Designer / Developer...

andy91 · 7 Feb 2011 at 23:36

Interesting thread. I have spent the last 4 years doing what the thread starter has proposed to do. I gave up my dead end job and went the web developer route as I had been playing with it as a hobby.

But it has not been easy at all. One of the first things I found out was that its not just as simple as going and learning some HTML, CSS, Javascript then PHP. Employers generally look for an Honours degree with grade of at least 2:1 before they will even entertain you as a candidate.

When I left my Job I went and did an HNC in Web development for a year at my local college. It turned out that course was still teaching web design as if it was 1996 not 2007. I knew more than the lecturer who didn't even know css he did everything with tables. I stuck with it just to get the qualification and applied for some jobs, never got anywhere not even an interview and was advised for development level jobs you need a degree or xxx years of experience.

So I bit the bullet and went to uni (I was 27 at the time) My HNC got me into second year. I spent another three years doing my honours degree (degree is 4 years in scotland)

Now I have an BSC(Hons) Internet Software Development 2:1 and I am only on my first job after graduating last June at 32 year old. I have found it very hard to get a Job as developer even with my degree and decent knowledge and coding skills.

Employers are sooo picky! What I found is that often they advertise a job as graduate level simply because they don't want to pay a decent wage. When you go for the interview it turns out that they are really looking for somebody with more experience than a grad would have or that they are really looking for somebody with a computer science degree. The technical tests iv been hit with were well beyond me on occasion, expecting you to know complex algorithms ect that you would never use in web development. Its been a nightmare and I was one of the best programmers in the entire year at uni.

Ill also add that maybe Iv had such a hard time as I live in Scotland and also I got my first job but its not really a development role since all I'm doing is a couple Joomla sites for a small company that has no clue about web development and are easily impressed! I also landed a couple of short lived Jobs while I was studying.

So after all this I'm still not sure what you've got to do to get a decent job in this field.....

tsinc80697 · 8 Feb 2011 at 10:08

Luck!

I graduated with a degree in Interactive Multimedia about 3 years ago, waste of time but that's another post, setup a PSD to HTML service and got about 5-10 small clients over a couple of months. I started getting involved in the web design/development community on forums, Twitter and various websites. Kept me actively up to date with everything and I just kept applying for jobs.

I think after about 2 months of looking for a job, a recruitment agency contacted me asking if I wanted to put my details forward and voila, I got a great job, on a junior wage albeit, working in another city.

Just have to keep trying I suppose and if you've worked hard enough, have the right skills and attitude you'll be on to a winner soon enough!

FabienO · 8 Feb 2011 at 16:44

There's an element of luck but fortunately some companies, especially media based ones hire based not solely on qualifications. A large reason I got my job was because of my passion. I am very fortunate to have a great company with great management. As my MD has said. "We can develop skills, we can't develop personality".

Show passion.

I have 0 qualifications in web-related fields.

RoEy · 12 Feb 2011 at 11:55

Hi all,

Just to update:

I went for an interview a couple of weeks ago for a web designer / developer role. Main skills they wanted were XHTML / CSS and Photoshop. It's a junior role and the company have also taken on one more junior and a senior role. I only had one day to prepare for my interview so I put a quick portfolio together so they could have a look as I thought something is better than nothing. The interview lasted around an hour and a half and I got a great vibe from the place and knew the interview went well.

Anyway, I got a call on Wednesday to say I got the job! Apparently they interviewed hundreds but mine was one of the 'stand out' interviews, so I'm really pleased I got it. It's a big pay cut to what I'm on at the minute with my current employers but this is not a job change, it is a career change and now I can finally work my way up doing what I love! They've said if I pass my 6 months probation period I'll get an increment, which is great.

They don't touch Dreamweaver at all and code all there sites from scratch. They use Notepad++ which is what I've been using since last December. I explained in the interview that I haven't used Photoshop before and that I use Fireworks but they said I'd pick up Photoshop in no time at all. They are willing to train me up because I have obviously showed them that I have potential and more importantly, passion. I see the role as more of a Front-End Development so I guess most of the time I'll be building what the designers give me.

I'm a little nervous but that's a good thing as it shows I care and I now have 5 or 6 weeks to get even more studying in before I start.

Thanks for all the help and info you guys have contributed to this thread. It's certainly has helped a lot and I hope that others have also gained something from it.

Never give up!

RoEy

pieplough · 12 Feb 2011 at 13:53

Wow, thats awesome matey! Congrats

Just out of interest where did you see the job advertised? Ive yet to see any junior web dev jobs advertised in aberdeen/glasgow

I may need to look harder/more often though!

FabienO · 12 Feb 2011 at 14:10

Awesome stuff RoEy, congratulations.

RoEy · 12 Feb 2011 at 19:06

Cheers lads! It was advertised in JobsToday - Mansfield, Nottinghamshire. Can't wait to start.

Spyhop · 12 Feb 2011 at 22:18

Well done. Genuine passion for the field should see you well.

Randomface74 · 12 Feb 2011 at 22:21

UberTiger · 12 Feb 2011 at 22:41

Well done RoEy!

Who are the company?

Sagalout · 13 Feb 2011 at 16:29

Well done

Thats exactly what I did - career change at 27 - dropped from £30k to £13k to get a junior role (which wasn't easy as I have a wife and 2 kids) then made my way up until setting up our own agency when I was 34.....needless to say the financial rewards are far greater now

Nothing beats going to work and actually really loving the work you do

jonneymendoza · 13 Feb 2011 at 16:37

13k? bloody hell that is shocking mate. well underpaid. i started at 17k straight from a grad.

im about to do a small career change and instead of earning less i will actually be earning 6k more hehe

Sagalout · 14 Feb 2011 at 08:03

That's what it took to get a foot in the door. What made it more attractive was that it was working for Sky Sports on all of the Premier League websites (when Sky had them - this was back in about 2002). Was good experience to work on very high traffic websites

RoEy · 20 Mar 2011 at 13:14

Hi all,

Well I start my new job tomorrow. Really looking forward to it but I am slightly nervous. :eek:

I've been a bit ill for the last 2 weeks so not had much time to do web stuff but thought I'd create an online portfolio to get me back in the swing of things. I need to re-word some of it and I have to create a contact form but the majority of it is done for now. Not made it to generate me work or anything but it will be some thing I develop for that purpose in the future.

I tried to keep all of my code clean and developed the content before I styled it with css, which I'm led to believe is the right way, although I much prefer to build the structure of the site first and style, then add content.

I went for xhtml 1.0 strict as I like to totally separate content from presentation. It's also the first time I used a css reset style so I'm trying to get into doing things properly / professionally. Only been using Photoshop for 1 week so still getting used to a lot of it's features but I did manage to get the design for my portfolio done in it (didn't use fireworks at all but was very tempting especially when pulling my hair out

). I even created a favicon!

Only tested the site in firefox 4 / ie9 / latest chrome and safari.

Anyway, just wanted to show you guys to see what you think and suggest any improvements I can make with the code etc? It's not a normal color scheme but I like to be different and whacky.

http://www.roey.co.uk

Thanks all,

RoEy

UberTiger · 20 Mar 2011 at 20:24

It's been great following this thread and so cool to see that you've managed to score a job that you're passionate about out of it.
Best of luck tomorrow!

FabienO · 20 Mar 2011 at 20:35

Looks good RoEy. Start reading around about principles of design etc, look for more advanced CSS tutorials etc... I recommend nettuts+ as you get a TON of other sites related to webdesign too.

http://net.tutsplus.com/tutorials/html-css-techniques/object-oriented-css-what-how-and-why/
http://net.tutsplus.com/articles/lectures/the-top-5-mistakes-of-massive-css/

Also, start perusing some simple to use PHP features. Let me give you the easiest and one of the most useful first ones

<?php
include('path/to/file.txt');
?>

Make your menu in the "file.txt", use whatever extension you prefer. I use .inc mainly.
Then just call it with that in all your pages, rename the .html to .php.

All it does is grab that file and print it's contents. Now any time you need to change a link, you only change it in that single file and it updates all the pages.

Second useful function

Good luck RoEy, I'm sure you'll do great.

antijoke · 24 Mar 2011 at 10:49

That was a great story to read!

I am in the throws of doing the very same thing you started off doing last year, at the tender age of 29. I have had enough of sales jobs and want to do something I have had a burning desire to do for a long time, I even spent some months last year creating a new website for the company I am currently at (sadly the project got shelved) but I am looking at creating them a new salesboard from scratch.

It was inspirational to read your posts though.

Would anybody recommend a college course to do to gain some qualifications in thsi field or is it just a case of spending my time reading w3schools (any other links I should study/read to get design tips etc?) and learning everything then creating a range of sites?

Throrik · 24 Mar 2011 at 10:58

anticonscience said:
Would anybody recommend a college course to do to gain some qualifications in thsi field or is it just a case of spending my time reading w3schools (any other links I should study/read to get design tips etc?) and learning everything then creating a range of sites?

College course are generally not regarded too well when it comes to website development, after all it's a constantly changing niche, and two years ago in my website development module when I was in college, I was taught frames and tabular based development, which is a very common teaching method at the majority of colleges (or it was when I was there).

I'd also be very careful with W3Schools, they're not associated with the W3C and many of their pages are outdated, W3Fools has some interesting information on W3Schools, who seem to be editing their information to be more correct.

The best thing to do, to get into a Web Developers role is create a vast portfolio, ignore the idiocy of 'IDE Politics' and focus on quick rigid development and keep very up-to-date of the latest trends in Design, as people want them and you will need to understand them to get the jobs.

TidyWorks · 24 Mar 2011 at 11:14

Can I just say this thread was a great read and probably helped me confirm my future.

antijoke · 24 Mar 2011 at 11:14

Any resources I could read? is that smashing magazine a good place to start?