Every time, I do code day and night, I spend my entire time learning and developing but here I am still making nothing(or just little) from web dev, what should I do?
Hello my dear reader, I'm Lucas and I'll be giving you tips and tricks to make money from web development in today's post. Stay tuned 😉.
One of the hardest things in web development is getting a paid job, could be contracts, part-time or full-time, it's not easy. But why? I'll be listing some reasons I got from research below:
- Real talents are wanted
- Less job openings in your region
- Years of experience
- You have zero network
Let me take time to talk on each reasons mentioned above.
Real talents are wanted: When we talk about real talents, it means those who have the necessary skills the particular company needs, those who have worked on several projects and have built up several skills from them, that's real talent.
Less job openings in your region: If you find yourself in a location where there are very few startups or tech companies, it could be a challenge.
Years of experience: Even though this shouldn't matter in every situation, a lot of recruiters want people with several years of experience (3-5+ years) working with other companies or so, and this could be really challenging to newbies or junior devs.
You have zero network: You could be very skilled, have a very nice portfolio and so on but still have difficulties getting a tangible paid job, why? This is simply because you aren't making yourself known to the necessary set of people/circle. It's not just about randomly posting your recent works to Facebook, Twitter...it goes beyond that. It involves tagging the necessary groups/people, those who will see your work and get in touch with you for business. If you're a student, it's not all about telling your colleagues, it goes to joining tech clubs such as GDSC, Microsoft student club and much more out there.
The big question now is, how do I start making money from web development in 2022? 🤔 a very important question.
Partner with the right niche: Reach out to other developers your close to, those who are making money from web dev already and tell them what skills you possess and ask them for help by guiding you as to how you can get your very next big hit. Don't be afraid of doing this, developers love to help each other.
Start utilising LinkedIn: LinkedIn has helped people get employed. Start by uploading your resume and constantly uploading your profile, upload links to your most recent projects. Follow relevant profiles and setup your profile to get job listings.
Create a personal website: You may find this irrelevant, but it really isn't. Having a personal website says so much about you. You get to put all your recent jobs/projects there, including testimonials from those you've worked with if perhaps you have. Ensure your website isn't unprofessional, don't use just any UI, ensure it looks very professional. Feel free to buy templates or look up some UI you can use.
Start a conversation with small business owners: Do you have a store around you where people go often time? Then that's a big hit for you I say. Walk up to the owner, and introduce yourself, tell them what you've worked on in time past(very necessary) and tell them the advantage of having a website for business(you can just look that up from Google or anywhere 😁) and assure them you can give them the best they can ever ask for. You know what to do from here if you can successfully convince them. Congrats already 🤝
DO NOT WORK FOR FREE: I felt I needed to lay emphasises on this. This is very common among beginner developers, you believe "it will build up my portfolio, blah blah blah". No don't work for free. Having this mentality of working for free will really affect you both mentally and physically. Do not care of who the person involved is, the best you can do is give discount in pricing. Ensure you receive a pay on every job you do. (I'll be writing on how to negotiate with clients very soon, if you are excited, let me know in the comment section).
Freelancing: This is a two way thing. If you're not really experienced in web development, I'll advice you do not to go into freelancing just yet. It could be overwhelming and probably discouraging, thereby killing your morale. Rather, meet with people in person(startups, stores, senior developers...) for job vacancy. But if you're confident in your skills and can build big projects, kindly watch tutorials or buy good courses on freelancing for web devs. This will help a lot.
Finally, blogging: If you're like me and you love helping young/upcoming developers, writing blog could actually land you a job. Since most of the time you'll be blogging from experience, a recruiter could stumble upon your blog posts, visit your profile(could be LinkedIn or GitHub...) and reach out to you. So you should make it an habit to go into blogging about your stack.
I'll stop here for this post and I really do hope it helps. If it sure did, kindly drop a like and comment on what you think could have been added. Remember to share as well.
Thank you 🎉
Top comments (2)
Slight error at the "Create a personal website" section, the first sentence says - "You may find this irrelevant, but it really is", but I'm sure you meant to say - "......but it really isn't", because atleast then you point out a disagreeing statement to the first part of the sentence.
Also have to mention that I do agree with most of the things you mentioned, I want to mention that it's always better to just work on a personal project and displaying it on your portfolio than creating something for free for a client and sharing that on your portfolio & socials, it will eventually demoralize and crush your mental, the product just won't seem good enough - Because it was free.
Another thing is to just apply to positions that maybe do require more skill then you think you can offer, most employers will notice if you're inexperienced on the first questioning/interview, if you do get trough the initial one, that's great now it's just your time to prove them that you're capable! Also gaining coding job interview experience is useful, some fail because they fail the interview part, but it's mostly only because of stress and maybe failing to answer a question on the spot. More attended interviews will provide more confidence for the next one 😅
Anyways good luck to all the junior devs reading trough this post, you'll get there eventually! Keep your heads up & keep grinding!
Thanks for this & yeah you're right, applying for such position will help.