How to Get a Job in Web Development

Book excerpt: "How to Get a Job in Web Development" is designed for junior web developers. Whether you’re coming from a coding bootcamp, are completely self-taught, or graduated from college with a tech-related degree, this book is for you. Written by RealToughCandy. In this book, you will learn how to: • Expertly craft the ‘holy clover’ of application materials: your resume, cover letter, GitHub page, and portfolio. • Leverage the power of LinkedIn, Meetups, and social media. • Handle follow-up emails and phone calls. • Prepare for the multiple types of interviews you will encounter, whether via phone, video conference, or in person. • Strategically apply to jobs so you can maximize your salary demands during negotiation. • Efficiently organize and prioritize the jobs you’ve applied to. • Craft results-driven email check-ins with your potential employer. • Reduce your vulnerabilities for discrimination. • And much, much more! No awkward whiteboard interviews. No hour-long explanation of Big O notation. Just practical, actionable steps that will put you far ahead of the pack when it comes to getting a job in web development. Now let's go get that job! "Just finished reading your book and all I can say is WOW! Mind you since May of 2016 I have taken about 6 online courses specifically looking for employment and around three of them were specifically for either how to get an IT or Web Developer job. These courses cannot hold a candle to the majority of the information you put in this book!" -George M., Web Developer WHY I WROTE THIS BOOK: When I started my web development journey, I was a lost hiker in the digital woods. I knew I wanted to build web apps, but didn’t know what those people called themselves. Were they website builders? Programmers? The term ‘software engineer’ floated around a lot online – was that my aspiration? Since I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for, I spent a lot of time reading and watching materials that were nothing but discouraging: mock Google coding interviews with whiteboards and markers. Lots of articles and videos that name-dropped things like binary trees, Big O notation, and time complexity. Forum post upon forum post that gave away actual coding interview questions from the biggest tech companies in the world like Facebook, Google, and Microsoft. Making things worse, some web developers I had discovered on YouTube were talking about a really good, popular book for coding interviews. I checked it out and once again my stomach sank. “I’m never going to make it in this field,” I said to myself. “I’ve been studying and practicing and building projects for months, and I still have no idea what these people are talking about.” What they didn’t tell me was that the book is geared towards senior software engineers trying to get a job with Amazon and Google. I wanted to quit my coding journey. In fact, I did quit. The difference was, I didn’t stay quit. Something told me to keep pushing forward, keep building projects to put in my portfolio and Github, keep reaching out and trying to find clients who needed websites. I kept pushing until I got a job as a fullstack web developer at a data company. As it turns out, the internet isn’t very generous to our career field. Beginners are especially marginalized. There aren’t any quality one-stop resources for discovering one of the most important questions – if not the most important question – web developers have. “How do I get a job in this field?” I wanted to change the junior web developer tech landscape with this book. My goal is for every junior developer who reads this to find a job. And if you take the recommended actions in this book, you can do it.