DEV Community: Chantae P.

Job Search: Month 5... Finally got a job! ...Just not in tech 🤷🏾‍♀️

Chantae P. — Thu, 11 May 2023 17:43:13 +0000

Hello Dev community👋🏾! I am back with awesome news...

I FINALLY HAVE A JOB!

I finally have a job offer that I have accepted and I will begin working end of the month!!! Wooohooooo!!!!!

The job I have now, is a Nevada State Auditor job. Although it's not a tech job, it's still something I am proud of. Job searching has officially come to a screeching halt. At least for now. This is actually my first ever professional job. Who knows, maybe I'll like it and forget about tech altogether. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a bit because I don't want to just forget what I've learned and I have came long way in my journey.

But at least for now, I have a job that will pay the bills and keep me grounded until I am able to get my dream job. Until then, I will definitely keep learning about technology. It's just that right now, that will be put on hold for a while since I am in the process of moving and preparing for my new job 😁.

I am super duper excited and can't wait to see what my future holds. Like a user once said, "One of the best ways to get a tech job now is to get hired internally". So who knows, maybe this road can lead to IT Auditing or Data Analyst. Either way, I have quite a journey ahead of me. But as of now, I'll just prepare myself so that way, after a year or two, I'll have enough experience to transfer my skills to something tech related.

60 job applications later, 31 rejections later, 26 ghosted applications later, waitlisted for 2 jobs, 3 interviews and one person finally said YES! I am forever thankful for this opportunity and hope that this job will lead to even more opportunities as well!🙌🏾

My first hackathon was a fail...

Chantae P. — Sat, 22 Apr 2023 01:09:59 +0000

Hello Dev community 👋🏾,

Just thought I would talk about my experience doing my first hackathon.

So the hackathon I participated in was the Wix Make-a-SaaS hackathon. It was four of us in a group. These were the group roles:

Group Member "A" was in charge of the UI design using Figma
Group Member "B" was in charge of Machine Learning
Group Member "C" was in charge of FrontEnd
I was in charge of Backend but eventually ended up working on the Frontend

So, everything was nice in the beginning. Met my team members and everything was great. My teammates were nice and we all got along pretty well. The only negative was that all four of us were in completely different time zones.

Our Project

The name of our project is H20h_yeah! which is a website that helps people figure out ways to cut down on water consumption since there is water shortages through out the US. I wasn't too crazy about the idea but hey, it was 3 votes against 1 🤷🏾‍♀️. How you use H20h_yeah! is by signing up and uploading your water bill information.

The amount of your water bill will be compared to others in the community and will determine if you're wasting water or decreasing your water consumption.

You'll also be able to provide and receive tips within the online community.

Well, that was the original plan. Unfortunately, our project was not even 50% done. To this day, it is still incomplete. For some odd reason, communication between the group became less frequent. I guess different time zones and busy schedules played a huge part in that. But I felt as though I was the only one putting in the time and effort of working on the project.

Group member "A" already fulfilled their duty of creating the design.
Group member "B" was supposed to be working on a feature that allows you to use your camera to scan your water bill to upload it instead of entering the information manually.
Group member "C" began working on the front end using Editor X.
I was busy learning and reading the documentation on how to use backend code (which was honestly a waste of time. Turns out the backend code wasn't necessary🤦🏾‍♀️).

It's as though everyone gave up on the project

During the last two weeks, the project came to a halt. I wish I didn't waste all that time learning about the backend and just worked alongside Group Member "C" with the front end instead. The project would have came a long way if I worked on it from day 1. Group Member "C", I guess, was having difficulty learning how to navigate Wix/Editor X. In the end, I did help a bit in the front end but it was too late. There was too much work that was left. Group Member "B" on the other hand, promised to complete the camera feature using Machine Learning. But when I asked Group Member "B" to upload their portion of the code, I was ghosted! That person deleted their Github Profile and didn't bother answering back to my messages in Discord.

As a matter of fact, when I would message in group chat about everyone's progress, it seemed like no one was on the same page. So since, everyone stopped caring about the project so did I. I know that's not a good look but when you have team members who aren't as focused or motivated to work on something, it kind of decreases your morale. And I'm not someone who leaves a project unfinished. I was really disappointed in my team.

What I've learned

In the end, even though the project is incomplete, I wouldn't say this experience was a complete waste of time. I did learn about Wix and how to use a website builder. And so far, I can honestly say that I do not like Wix. Call me crazy, but I prefer building websites from scratch. Maybe I just need to build more projects using Wix, just to get a better grasp on how to use website builders.

I also enjoyed meeting new people and having that experience of working on a team, even though this experience wasn't terrible, it wasn't great either. In the future, will I have them as team members again? No don't think so. I'd rather work with a new team or work on a project myself.

I just had high hopes and expectations for my group and I was let down big time. I'm to blame too since I wasted time learning about something that wasn't necessary in the first place! All that time learning backend, could have been spent working on the front end and getting things done!

In all, I wish my team members the best and good luck in their future endeavors.

Job Hunting Season: Month 4

Chantae P. — Sun, 02 Apr 2023 21:18:28 +0000

Hello Dev community👋🏾! I am back with another rant about job hunting😫. Here is my job search summary for March:

As of April 2, 2023

Total jobs applied for : 47
Total rejections: 20...and counting
Total jobs that ghosted me: 14
Jobs applied to between March 1st and April 2nd: 13 (still waiting to hear back)

I know getting your first job in tech was hard but man is it brutal out there! Back when I first started to learn how to code, you would see plenty of junior developer roles available. Now, they're all mid to senior roles and mostly engineering or full stack.

A user did recommend for me to have an open mind to applying to non-coding jobs such as desktop support or QA. I'm definitely open to that even though, that too will be a pain in the ass to get. I don't mind starting from the bottom and working my way up to the top. I did, however, complete the Google Course on Coursera. All that is left for me to do is to get Comptia A+ certification. I know that won't help me to get a job but at least it's something. I was also looking up IT/desktop support jobs, and the certifications I'm seeing mostly are for Microsoft Azure, and Oracle. AWS certification won't hurt either. So I'll just have to go another route and see where that will take me.

But on a positive note, I have been getting help with my resume. My resume looks and sounds much better than before I had the help of fixing my resume. I know I will need to add more skills but eventually I will get to that. I'm still working on the Wix Make-A-SaaS Hackathon. The group project I am working on will be a great addition to my resume. Instead of working frontend (which is my comfort zone), I took the initiative to learn and work on the backend. I'll make sure to document how that project went.

Welp, this is now the second quarter of the year. Anything can happen!🤞🏾

What are the best ways to get a tech job in 2023?

Chantae P. — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 00:00:48 +0000

Hello Dev community👋🏾!
I'm in a limbo here and need some help...

I am currently in the market looking for an entry level job as a web developer or front end developer. Don't really see much junior positions available.Everything is pretty much mid or senior level. If there IS a junior position, the stack tech list has technologies that I haven't even learned about or heard of. My current skills include but not limited to:

React
Next.js
Tailwind CSS
JavaScript
HTML/CSS
Git/Vercel/Netlify

Do I need to increase my tech stack? Should I also learn backend to increase my chances of finding a job? Right now I am currently learning about algorithms and giving myself 2 months to job prep. But in the mean time, what resources (other than LinkedIn) are good for looking for work? I created my portfolio and thought I would get noticed. But nope, nothing. So any feedback would be great, and also any job boards or (legitimate) tech recruiting agencies!

🎊Finished my portfolio🎊

Chantae P. — Wed, 08 Mar 2023 02:18:10 +0000

Hey guys!👋🏾
Finally finished my portfolio. I used Next.js, Tailwind CSS and Framer Motion. I wanted to create something simple yet elegant. These are the portfolios that inspired me:

Dunks1980 - I really liked the simplicity and animations of this portfolio.
Lauren Waller - I liked simplicity, the color scheme, and the font. Too bad the Grandslang Roman font is not free 😟. I don't have the exact background color but 'nude pink' is still a nice color.
Keita Yamada - I liked the simplicity and color scheme. But mainly the splash screen.

And here's the link to my portfolio 😁

Month 3 of Job Searching😫

Chantae P. — Fri, 03 Mar 2023 00:45:44 +0000

Hello Dev Community, it's me again!

Giving an update on my job search. Well so far, nothing yet. I have applied for 10 jobs in February. Half of which are non-tech jobs.I figured might as well apply for any job I see fit to make some money until I get the job I really want. So I'll see how that will go.

I have also started working on my portfolio😁. To build my portfolio, I am using Next.js, TailwindCSS and Framer Motion. So far everything is going well. I have to finish the 'Projects' page and make a mobile navigation menu and should be done with it hopefully next week.

And lastly, I have found a wix hackathon that seems interesting and says is beginner friendly. I will probably join if I can find some group members. If not I'll just work on it solo. So if anyone wants to join me, leave a comment down below👇🏾.

Other than that, nothing new. The goals I have for this month are:

Finish my portfolio
Join the hackathon
And if I see any jobs that are interesting, I'll apply. Other than that, not going to focus too much on my job searching this month.

What was the project you built that got you hired?

Chantae P. — Thu, 09 Feb 2023 20:09:33 +0000

For those who were able to land their first tech job, what projects did you build to get noticed by recruiters? Was it your personal portfolio? An App? A cool product?

Month 2 of Job Searching Begins...

Chantae P. — Wed, 01 Feb 2023 19:06:37 +0000

First month recap here

Just to give an update on how my job searching is going, since the last blog entry, I have applied for an additional 8 jobs. So that makes it a total of 16 jobs thus far.

So far no other interviews, and I have been rejected from 4 other companies that I applied to. The jobs that are highlighted with gray, are jobs I have not heard back from in over 2 weeks.

I have been attending meetups and networking with people who are in a similar situation as I am. Either transitioning careers or looking for their first tech job as well. Nice to know there are other people on the same journey as me.

I know getting your first tech job isn't easy. And there will be lots of No's before I get that one YES!. But what I am noticing, not many junior positions available. Even the jobs that are considered 'junior' or entry level require 3-4 years professional experience, and knowledge of about 10 frameworks and/or libraries! Another thing I am noticing, TypeScript is starting to become a common requirement now. And looks like jQuery is making a comeback at some companies as well. jQuery is pretty easy to pick up since it's basically like using JavaScript DOM. So after learning about React, it will be time to move on to learning TypeScript!

To those who read this, any advice is greatly appreciated! ☺️

How I fixed the React Router Issue

Chantae P. — Fri, 27 Jan 2023 23:44:14 +0000

In my previous post, I was having problems with my React project not showing when uploaded to Github. Turns out, all I had to do was add the 'basename' attribute to BrowserRouter.

<BrowserRouter basename="project-name">
//Code
</ BrowserRouter>

According to React Router,

The prop may be used to make all routes and links in your app relative to a "base" portion of the URL pathname that they all share.

Let's say for example, your project URL is "https://username.github.io/myProject"
When using 'BrowserRouter', make sure to pay attention to the local host URL after running npm start. If it looks like this, localhost:3000/myProjectThis means that the base portion of the URL pathname is 'myProject'.

So in your App.js or index.js file, or wherever you have imported BrowserRouter, make sure to add the basename attribute so your project can work.

<BrowserRouter basename="/myProject" >
//code
</BrowserRouter>

Hopefully this will help those who had the same issues I had. Happy Coding!

Help with React Router 😫

Chantae P. — Wed, 25 Jan 2023 01:28:03 +0000

** Update: as of 1/25 I fixed the issue!!!! I had to add the 'basename' attribute to BrowserRouter:**

 <BrowserRouter basename="/shopping_cart">
....
<BrowserRouter/>

Here's the live site

I am currently working on The Odin Projects "Shopping Cart" Assignment. Right now I am stuck on the Router section.

When I'm opening the project in VS code and using npm start to launch the application, this is how my screen looks:
and this is my terminal after entering npm start

For me to access the home page, I need to edit the url like so:

I'm trying to figure out what I did wrong but still don't understand what's going on. Here's my github repository. Any help is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

My Journey to getting my first tech job begins...

Chantae P. — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 18:27:26 +0000

Hello DEV world!

The past few months, I have been spending time building projects and updating my resume and staying active on LinkedIn.

So far this year, I have been on a job hunt for my first tech job! So far it has been a bit disappointing. As of today, 1/15/2023, I have applied for 8 jobs.

Two of which I was not a great candidate for. And one, I did have an interview ( which shocked the hell out of me) but unfortunately did not move forward with the hiring manager. Even though I was not selected for any further interviews with that company, at least I'm getting noticed. So I guess that's a positive sign. But still, I am disappointed since the hiring team did say they were willing to teach and they hire ALL levels including juniors. The "introductory" interview went well, I have used majority of the tools they list on their job requirements. So I don't know 🤷🏾‍♀️ where things went wrong. But anywho, just need to move on and improve my skills.

During the job searching process, my goals are:

Finish the last React project from The Odin Project
Build ONE big project which will be my portfolio. That will take about one month minimum. I have too many projects and feel like a portfolio will be better.
And lastly, refresh my JavaScript skills on FreeCodeCamp and learn algorithms😩.

Since looking for a developer job as a self-taught developer can be a bit difficult, I figured this is the perfect opportunity to take you guys along my journey of all the ups and downs of looking for a job.

Is it still necessary to learn Webpack in 2022?🤔

Chantae P. — Sun, 09 Oct 2022 23:28:34 +0000

Currently, I am on the journey of completing The Odin project Full-stack JavaScript curriculum. The current project I'm working on is the Restaurant page project. But for the life of me, I have a hard time understanding how to use Webpack. Well, I kind of understand the basics of using Webpack. Such as the entries, outputs, loaders and so fort. But when it comes to adding multiple web pages, that's where I get stuck. Yes I understand you need to use the HTMLWebpackPlugin but it's still not clicking. I can do a single webpage using Webpack.I just can't understand how to create a bigger project using Webpack.

So my question is, how important is it to learn Webpack as a frontend developer in today's job market?