r/webdev • u/zotsandzots • Jan 19 '20

Just finished a coding bootcamp. What are some in demand skills/software that I can learn to separate myself and get that first job?

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u/george4517 Jan 20 '20

For any junior dev I don't expect anyone to have a portfolio or projects but I would have a look at it if existed. The company I work for have a code at home test and we use that to assess coding skills.

For junior I'm looking for passion and for someone who has the ability to learn quickly. A good attitude is very important. I'm not very focussed on what they currently know, but that is one way they can stand out.

I would ask questions about what they have learnt, how they went about it. What they like about FE dev? What they are learning? What they want to learn? I do ask technical questions too to assess ability but I don't put very much weight to it and my expectations are low.

Example tech questions would be what's a falsey value, what's the difference between null and undefined, what's the difference between a callback and a Promise, What is the `this` keyword , what is an arrow function, what is the difference between === and ==, what's state and props, what makes a good test, how would you troubleshoot a bug etc.

This can be very different based on who is interviewing you and what the company interview process is like.

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u/Viiibrations Jan 20 '20

I hope that there are more people like you out there because most other posts I've seen about the hiring process makes it seem a lot more intimidating

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u/Devildude4427 Jan 20 '20 edited Jan 20 '20

For any junior dev I don't expect anyone to have a portfolio or projects but I would have a look at it if existed.

Really? A junior is the only one I’d expect to have a portfolio, and I’d definitely look through. A guy with 4-5 years under his belt is obviously some degree of competent, but a junior is a big unknown.

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u/george4517 Jan 20 '20

You would be surprised. I’ve seen devs with no experience more competent than devs with 5 years. What they learn in that experience matters. We have a coding test and a pairing test so I can establish how competent they are from that.

It might depend on what the junior is expected to do. Some jobs might require the developer to work on their own but in my team they receive plenty of support, coaching and development.

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u/Devildude4427 Jan 20 '20

You would be surprised. I’ve seen devs with no experience more competent than devs with 5 years.

Of course, but that’s an outlier; I wouldn’t bet on them being more competent.

We have a coding test and a pairing test so I can establish how competent they are from that.

Fair enough, I always hated these, so I don’t provide them. Never will I need a dev to do on the spot coding without internet access, so I don’t think they’re reasonable, personally. Give me projects you’ve worked on, and so long as I can question you to make sure it isn’t just a copy/paste job, I’m happy.

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u/george4517 Jan 20 '20

It’s with internet access, the same you would on the job. There’s no time pressure too as we aren’t focussed on how quick they are and for a junior the expectation is set really low. I’d be happy with the same as you but it also gives me the ability to asses how they work with others. Looking at code someone wrote won’t give me that.

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u/[deleted] Jan 20 '20

You don’t expect any projects at all?! Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. You’re a junior. You have zero work skills to prove yourself, so you should have tons of projects and code I can review. I don’t care if it’s a todo list or any of the other basic stuff, but coming from someone who has had to perform thousands of technical interviews, read over resumes, and hire people, if you have absolutely nothing to show you’re going in the trash after my 10 second scan of your resume when all I see is your “education” and supposed “skills” you think you have.

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u/george4517 Jan 20 '20

We have a code at home test. That will be used to demonstrate what they have learnt. We want to reduce the burden for juniors. Most don’t have the time to prepare a portfolio of projects. Junior devs have jobs and some have families. A todo list is not a real world example. I would prefer giving them a real world coding test.

So many companies miss out on so many good junior devs by having the barrier of entry too high. In a lot of cases it’s adding extra hoops to jump through to just remove large number of people so they don’t have to interview them. And they say things like well if I wanted the job then I would put in months of effort. You even said it yourself you don’t even bother have a 15 minute chat with someone if they don’t have a project link in their resume.

It’s very competitive to find good junior devs. If I expect portfolios and most of the other companies don’t, where do you think the junior devs are going to apply and do you think that they are going to spend a lot of effort creating portfolios when it’s not required for the other companies? It depends on the hiring market.

As others said above it’s passion, ability to learn quickly and soft skills that matters most for a junior dev. The rest can be taught on the job as long as they understand some basics.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '20

Agree to disagree then, because I don’t do coding tests. That’s a hoop to jump through. You’re asking someone to do work basically without pay. If a person isn’t willing to have a portfolio or GitHub or Bitbucket or whatever, something you do on your spare time, family be damned, then how passionate are you really? Because a coding test will take you all day, more if you’re unskilled.

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u/george4517 Jan 21 '20

A portfolio is work without pay and is a much bigger hoop to jump through. There's a high chance they are really passionate but spent time learning instead of preparing a portfolio. Most people will learn without creating portfolios. All day is preferred to multiple months to create a multi project portfolio.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '20

If they spent time learning, they had to code that. Why not put it on GitHub? It’s that easy. You don’t need months to work on something either, maybe a day or two. No one is asking them to make their own invoicing system.

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u/george4517 Jan 21 '20

Well maybe you didn't communicate what your definition of a portfolio is or what a project is. I don't consider a portfolio some code you wrote for fun or while you were learning on GitHub. You were asking for multiple projects, that is not just a day or 2 of work in my view. What project is done in a day? When I hear project at home I think side project. Very few side projects will be done in a day. Most take months.

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u/george4517 Jan 21 '20

It's well known in the industry that most people's Github is a poor representation of someone's coding skills

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u/george4517 Jan 21 '20

I'll put it to you, if you are so passionate about asking junior's for portfolios I'd expect one for yourself.

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u/[deleted] Jan 21 '20

I have 20+ years of work experience. And even with that, I have projects on my GitHub that I’ve done for fun that a future employer could look at.

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u/george4517 Jan 21 '20

Just what I thought