For career changers or general job searchers who have experience, and developers in general. Skills and subsets needed to be hirable; How and where to learn FED Skills; Job Search Preparation; Where to find job openings; How to write a resume; How to be a good interview

1. by Mike Wilcox
November 2010
How to get a Job as a
Front End Developer
For career changers or general job searchers who have experience
Developers in general can benefit

2. Overview
Skills and subsets needed to be hirable
How and where to learn FED Skills
Job search preparation
Where to find job openings
How to write a resume
How to be a good interview

3. Front End Developer Skills
Or FED for
short!

4. Minimum Skills
Photoshop
HTML Markup
CSS
JavaScript

5. Marketable Skills
HTML5
CSS3 / Advanced CSS knowledge
Flash / Flex / AS3
Usability
Design
SEO
etc, etc.
Note that Photoshop was the only software mentioned by nameNot too many ads for
someone who knows GIMP and nobody cares that you know DVD Ripper Extreme
Why are these extra skills important? See the Club AJAX blog:
Why Your Company Needs A Front End Developer
Why Your Company Needs A Front End Developer
Why Your Company Needs A Front End Developer

6. Experience
You need 'evidence' more than you need experience
Language and problem solving skills
Communication skills
Motivation and interests.
Demonstrate Drive and Attitude
Get yourself known
Be "pesky"
Be that guy they take a chance on
How do I get a job with no experience

7. Test Your Knowledge
Potential questions interviewers may ask to
get insight into your understanding of these
basic languages

8. Photoshop / Design
Difference between a JPG and a GIF?
Difference between a vector and a bitmap?
What is an image sprite?

9. HTML Markup
When is a closing tag is needed? <div></div> <div />
Does a script tag support both text and a source?
Which? <script src=”file.js”>foo = bar;</script>
Why is the use of Frames discouraged?

10. CSS
Box model - does border affect width?
Difference between block, inline, and inline-block?
How many different ways can you hide an element?

11. JavaScript
What are reserved words?
Your code works in all browsers but IE6 - why?
In IE, what causes: Stack “Overflow line zero”?

12. JavaScript Coding Questions
How fast can you code a FuzzBuzz?
Write a script that reverses a string

13. Flash Terminology
Flash / Flash Builder
Most work done in the IDE; little code
Flex / Flex builder
MXML markup used as an HTML-like markup language to render
ActionScript objects (still creates a SWF)
AS3
Java-like code-heavy development
The rumor of its demise is greatly exaggerated
Note that most recruiters won't even understand these termsIn Dallas anyway, there are
more jobs for Flex than there are for AJAX Because of iOS, this could be changing as
we speak

14. AS3 vs JavaScript (AJAX)
Which should you learn, or which should you learn first
JavaScript has easier learning curve
AS3 is pretty hard unless you already know Java
But AS3 tends to be design-driven
Flash has many perplexing nuisances:
Attaching code to library items
Figuring out where the hell the root "node" is
Loading parameters

15. HTML vs Flex
HTML is much easier
Flex pays much better
But Flex is a lot like jQuery - you may not know what level of
knowledge the job really requires
I'd still recommend learning HTML and CSS first, so you
can understand the environment in which you are
working.

16. Flash vs Photoshop
Trick question - a designer should know both
Flash is actually darn good as a design tool

17. How to learn
Front End Development
Front End Development

18. On the Job
Don't expect teaching, training, placement or help
The initiative must be yours
Take on simple tasks and learn how to do them
Very effective if it takes the load off of a colleague who would then
also help you along the way

19. Peer Review
Buddy Code (Agile)
Have code review
Needs to be relatively simple code
Look at other code
Preferably complicated code, not snippets

20. Personal Project
Enormously effective for self-motivation
Does not have to be brilliant or original
Can simply be useful - even just to you

21. Open Source
Use it, doc it, patch it, contribute, commit
High Quality Open Source - Dojo good, jQuery not as
good
Working with open source is the opportunity to see other
people's code
Something FEDs don't get to often do

22. Community College
Currently a college degree is not the best place to learn
FED
Exception: community college that happens to offer
relevant courses
A Bachelors in CS is certainly nice, and will open up a
few more doors in large companies.
College pricing should be
factored into this decisionBut CS
will also mess you up by
teaching you too much Java :)

23. Books
Books alone won't do it, but can provide the foundation.
Highly recommended method for this field.
Start with books on HTML and CSS
Need at least an above average mastery of CSS
For HTML, find one that also teaches some server basics, so you
can run Apache on your computer, and push files up to an
inexpensive (or free) web server
A lot of JS books are bad, so you have to be careful
here.
The best book is David Flanagan's JavaScript the Definitive
Guide.
Anything by Douglas Crockford is good.

24. ABL! – Always Be Learnin'
Bookmark everything!
Carefully archive your test files
Read Tech Books
Read Blogs - keep up on technology

25. The Job Search
Being Prepared
Being Prepared

26. Long Term Prep
Online blog
This is why you don't want to be swearing on it like an asshole
Facebook
Yeah. They check there now. Happy birthday by the way.
LinkedIn
Very important
Open Source work
Allow a lot of time to ease your way into the community

27. Short Term Prep
Resume
High quality (parchment) printer paper
Nice folder to hold multiple resumes and cover letters
References
From colleagues of former employers
Use LinkedIn
Online portfolio
Needs to be good, clean, up to date, and working
Reiterate: online. Not on a CD. FED right?
Cover letter template
Template for each style of job you are capable of doing
Edit each one to fit opportunity

28. The Resume

29. Look at your resume from the POV of
someone looking to fill a position and has 50
resumes on their desk.

30. Resume Review Stages
Keyword search
Mostly to online resumes like Monster
Spot check for maniacs
Intern filters out irrelevant resumes
Due to lack of experience, too much experience, or just plain spam
Expertise Filtering (not filtered by an expert)
Either a peer or HR looks for qualified resumes
HR may not be qualified
This is why startups are better

31. Resume Review Stages c’nt
Software filtering
List every single professional app you know in small print
Subjective filtering
When the resumes actually gets read
Language knowledge
Few companies will retrain
Amount and relevance of experience
Distance to work

32. Stand Out
Leave behind the stuff you learned in college
No "Objective"
Two pages is okay!!
What does the applicant do? WHO ARE YOU? I
shouldn't have to guess!
Should look nice electronically or printed
Printed should not be not
black text on white paper,
go for dark colors that
match the resume paper -
usually dark brown on
beige parchment

33. Resume Tips
Have someone else proofread it
Have someone else proofread it - again.

34. Resume Examples
Club AJAX Resume examples

35. The Interview

36. Nervousness
Research the company
Research the position
Schedule least-wanted jobs first, for practice
Be ready when asked “Tell me about yourself”
Be Prepared

37. What is Expected of You?
The quintessential blog on the subject: The
Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing
by Joel Spolsky
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/GuerrillaInterviewing3.html

38. What is Expected of You?
They are smart
They get things done
They are likable
A good interviewer looks for three things in a
computer programmer:

39. Be Smart
Know your shit.
Make sure you know what the requirements are and be
ready to sound authoritative on your field (even if you are
not – but don't lie)
If you don't know the answer, explain how you would
find out

40. Get Things Done
Refer to projects with this in mind
"I did X in X time."
Keeping the interview moving along.
Time wasters babble and ramble
If the interview starts to lull - say "next question!"

41. Be Likable
Do what your mama taught you
Be polite
Don't interrupt
Remember everybody's name
Be on time
Dress appropriately
When in doubt: business casual
Be excited about the project /
position / company

42. Be Prepared
Know your price range
Don’t be afraid to negotiate
Know before hand how much you’ll accept in “stock”
Ask for benefits details
Vacation days