

Ask HN: How to help a friend find her first tech job? - eranation

A close friend of mine has decided to take a career shift from QA and started learning web development basics after I recommended it.<p>She loved it, she learned HTML, CSS some basic JavaScript and even started with PHP.<p>She feels (and I agree) she is ready for a job (junior / intern), but it's hard for me to help her out as it seems the job market has only 2 types of roles, which she doesn't fit fully into one of them yet.<p>One is <i>Web Developer</i> / <i>Front End Developer</i> - she can be a great one, but she needs to start somewhere, and she knows HTML / CSS enough to be productive, but not enough JavaScript to do well without a mentor<p>The other is <i>Web Designer</i> - seemed to me the best description, but it seems that in most of the job posting it is also required to have some graphic design or UX (or copyright) skills, which she might have but not yet sure it's what she is good at / want to do (and doesn't have experience at it beyond knowing how to open a PSD and make it into well written HTML/CSS)<p>So I'm wondering what should be her next route<p>1) Learn some aesthetics / UX somewhere, design some websites on her own, get a portfolio and go the "Designer" path?<p>2) Or if she finds out the world is not ready yet for her creative design ideas, try the coding route and try to improve her PHP / Ruby / Python / JavaScript by doing some "full time side projects"  and go the "Developer" route<p>3) Or, what I hope is the right option, not worry about it, find any job that will allow her to pursue either 1 or 2 (most agencies, startups and even enterprises probably have both) as HTML/CSS is enough of a skill to get something going (at least for entry level roles)<p>But if 3 is the right way, then how? What job title should she look for? in what sites? (Dice? Indeed?) what should she put in her resume? Does she need a portfolio? (e.g. do some free websites for friends and neighbors) or is that unnecessary.<p>Does she need to open a GitHub account (but what would she put there)? Does she need to have some Stackoverflow presence? Is having a HN account going to help? any of these are relevant? or just adding a very small icing to your cake if at all? does she need a twitter account? start following potential employers? any suggestions are welcome
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jdavid
I'd get her set up with a GitHub account and have her start improving open
source software.

There are also a number of companies doing 'developer boot camp'
<http://devbootcamp.com/>

Some of the dev camps will charge a nominal $10k-$20k but will take consulting
referral fee and pay for the boot camp costs if you get placed by one of their
recruiters.

