Not skilled enough to keep a job

[Mashinga]

I’ve completed a web design and PHP course online. I’ve invested maybe 100 hours. I’ve applied for jobs and been very clear that I’m a mum who has done this IT training at home while my DS was at nursery, I have no prior training in IT (my degree was in history). I’ve shown interviewers my portfolio and said that’s the extent of my current skills.

I’ve been hired twice. Both times I’ve been sacked within a couple of weeks because I couldn’t do stuff they were asking for, they wanted more programming skills than I had. Even though I was very clear about the extent of my skills.

I don’t know what else to do. Surely the employer should know what skills they want and ensure the candidate has them?

I should say this is not a new experience for me. There have been a few occasions prior to this where employers have hired me on minimum wage and been disappointed to discover I can’t do stuff that’s way beyond my pay grade. DH says it’s just shitty little employers wanting the moon on a stick for min wage. But it’s really knocked my confidence and I now feel like I’m just not skilled enough to get a job.

That course doesn’t sound ideal for programming either. If you want to be on a par with others with an MSc in programming, then that’s what you need to do.

Doing a 2 week online course is probably the equivalent of someone who has done 2 weeks of an MSc course!

Then these are basic entry level roles op and this means you are not qualified to do the basics, which even though you say this is the extent of my skills to them, they are clearly assuming you can do the basics or you’d not be applying.

your husband is wrong, it’s not poor employers wanting the moon on a stick. It’s you’ve done three weeks training and don’t have the skills to do the jobs you’re applying for and employers aren’t grasping you don’t even have the basics.

it really is be properly trained or do something else.

I spoke to the university and they said 80% of the masters course was research skills and e-business and project management etc, only 20% was programming. So if your DH’s course was 10 months that would be 2 months spent on programming.

No idea whether it's too late, but have you seen ISC2 are doing free cyber training for 100k UK people?

I don’t think the masters hours you’ve seen are correct. I did a coding/programming course as part of my teaching degree & it was a lot more than 30hrs & it was only a basic introductory unit. The fail rate of the unit was 65%, it was a lot of hard work so I imagine the work in a masters degree is even harder. I think I easily spent 500hrs doing the unit over one semester (11wks) & only just passed.

For 22k in London, I think expecting more than basic skills

Then these are basic entry level roles op and this means you are not qualified to do the basics

Not necessarily, it could also mean that the employer is expecting skills ways above the pay grade. I'd be expecting to do a lot of handholding if I employed anyone in a 22k programming role.

Nope. My DH did his Masters conversion in programming. I think you are looking at the wrong masters courses.

I’d seen it discussed on here and suggested as something that was easy to pick up and flexible to fit around kids with lots of wfh opportunities.

I really wish people on here would stop pretending that this is the case. I've been trying to recruit for a mid-level dev role for months and will actually scream if I get another CV where the sum-total of their experience is a 3 week MOOC.

Honestly, OP, it doesn't sound like this is the job or career path for you -- tech involves a hell of a lot of independent work and learning even when you're senior and have been in your role for 20 years!

As you've got a History degree you might find that UX Research aligns more closely with your existing skillset, and you might actually enjoy that more?

Masters degrees are not about programming..! Masters are aimed at business and sales, project management, operations management etc.

OP is on the right track having done a boot camp. Suggest doing more boot camp stuff and building out your own portfolio of projects you can draw on. Set up your home lab and go for it.

OP top tip next time you land a job, please don't say "I can't do this" just say "yeah uh huh" then go away and google like your life depends on it..! That's what real programmers do day in day out. You will always be solving a problem, often a novel one. It's not like being an accountant

This makes no sense. How does thirty hours in each module come to a whole year?
That is how a masters works. You have maybe 10 hours of tuition per week for 25-30 weeks. Then you’re supposed to put in another 20 hours or so of reading and practice every week by yourself. And in the summer holidays you write a research dissertation by yourself to wrap it up.

Min wage for a 40 hour week is £20k.

The kind of level of skills you have would suit an administration position where you maintain the company website as part of your role - I do this. It doesn't suit a programming role, eg my dd has a 3 year degree in programming

You think 60 hours of study is the equivalent of an MSc. I can see why you are not lasting in jobs.

I think you’re confused.

Firstly people are refering to a masters conversion, an example is below. Plus you can get a masters in many many different subjects, it is the name for a higher level of study usually above that of bachelors. It is not specifically business and sales etc,

www.bris.ac.uk/unit-programme-catalogue/RouteStructure.jsa?byCohort=N&ayrCode=20%252F21&programmeCode=4COSC005T

That is how a masters works. You have maybe 10 hours of tuition per week for 25-30 weeks.

No-Masters courses are much more full time than that. Way more tuition than 2 hours a day.

Masters degrees are not about programming..! Masters are aimed at business and sales, project management, operations management etc.
That is what the course leader said. It’s an academic course of education not a vocational course, so it’s 80% writing research papers and studying e-business models and project management, and only 20% programming. They recommended if I was only interested in programming I should look for a purely vocational training course from a vocational training provider. Which is what I did.

If you want flexibility and a good employer look at church admin (it's a properly paid position) they would love your web skills and appreciate that you have a family, generally the positions are 15-20 hours per week and I could take my school aged kids to work in holidays and if they were sick

How very odd. I posted a link to a msc in programming. It’s widely available and normal course. But why were you asking about master degrees and not conversions?

I agree with a pp that UX might be a better fit or even project management. Something where you can communicate with the developers rather that do the coding.

@Mashinga

Min wage for a 40 hour week is £20k.

My post got truncated, for 22k in London I would only expect very basic skills to be required and there be lots of on the job learning, but I see a lot of adverts that take the pee in what they require versus salary they're paying.

Err yeah they're really not. If the one you looked at is like that - you're looking at the wrong thing.

The taught component of that course is 120 credits which they equate to 1200 hours. The “masters in internet technologies” which I was looking at was only 20% programming, which would be 240 hours. So not a million miles away from the amount of hours I’ve done.

" I don’t particularly want to be a programmer but then I don’t particularly want to be a shop assistant or a call centre person or a carer or any of the things that are available to me really."

This is probably your issue, not your lack of skills. Programming really is one of those things that you need to enjoy to be any good at all. I've known people start in junior roles knowing next to nothing but just enough to know they have a real desire to want to learn to code and that they bloody love it. They have all thrived.

All of the stuff about how dev work is a great option as well paid and flexible and very in demand is all true but only if you are really suited to it (and by suited to it, again, I really mean enjoy it as that tends to be enough of a litmus test)

Also, as an aside, I know it's nobody here's fault but I get so annoyed on these threads with the fact that so many of the responses are of the "My dh/dp is a programmer and he says..." type. I can't wait until there are enough women in this industry to not need all these second hand male perspectives...

The “masters in internet technologies” which I was looking at was only 20% programming, which would be 240 hours. So not a million miles away from the amount of hours I’ve done.

Well, that masters probably would have got you sacked from two jobs as well then.

Who don’t you look at a more relevant Masters conversion course then rather than repeatedly talking about that one which clearly isn’t suitable?! There is more than one course in the country!!

I suspect doing that would get you a well-paid, flexible and interesting career in programming. Feel free to carry on applying for jobs with an equivalent of 2 week work experience though, and get sacked a few more times if you’d prefer.