... and now I'm job-hunting in earnest and jfcsstrrssfgchujbgfryhgftyhgerswww. I hope this is the right place to vent about this sort of thing, but I'm feeling so incredibly stressed and frustrated because I really want to change careers (TEFL teaching is a dead end, and the conditions have got so much worse in recent years) and I know I could do a junior frontend job perfectly well — I've put so much with into getting good at it in my own time — but it's beginning to dawn on me that there's basically no way in to the industry unless you know someone who can help you get a foot in the door.

I don't know where I'm going with this tbh — I just needed to vent somewhere — but it would be nice to hear any advice anyone can offer, or even just the lamentations of anyone with similar experiences...

    • JoeByeThen [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      I'm not technically in the field anymore so perhaps someone else has a better way. But from what I hear that's it. Back in my day, "innovative" people would use targeted marketing to advertise themselves and their projects to people working at the company they were trying for, but I did a quick Google and seems like the idea is mainstream enough that it might be overdone for entry level. One way or another, if you want your foot in the door it's gonna be networking. Maybe you can find a discord server or something on meetup.com that'll get you into the local circle. Linux user groups was a big thing back in my day.

      • frauddogg [null/void, undecided]
        ·
        2 months ago

        ugh. May as well neck myself now if the only way to get an even halfway-decent paying job is to put all the information I've been trying to keep off the internet out there for any tom, dick, or sally to grab.

          • frauddogg [null/void, undecided]
            ·
            2 months ago

            I spent three years in opsec management before trying to pivot harder into programming; anything that demands I give up all my PII to some nebulous capitalist who definitely is going to mishandle it typically doesn't get anything better than a phlegm-filled loogey out of me anymore.

    • roux [he/him, they/them]
      ·
      2 months ago

      Man. I just put my business site up on reddit since I'm still hell-bent on breaking into freelance but god damn, it's got my name and contact into on it and I'm just hoping I can start getting work because I fucking hate it. I wanted to share some of my work off on hexbear but it all links back to IRL me. shrug-outta-hecks