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.

I did look at that. Nobody seems to want pure UX though. Web design job adverts list UX plus programming skills. They want you to be able to design a website and then program it too. Kind of like expecting an architect to draw the house and lay the bricks too. Completely different skill sets! Anyway it seems like you need to be able to program regardless.

There’s a lot of work but not many contact hours, IME. Maybe it depends on the area of study and type of Masters you do (eg an MRes will be different as there’s pretty much no teaching at all, whereas an MSc will have taught content).

Op, you can argue the toss as much as you like, but people here are telling you:

A) Your course clearly wasn't enough
B) You don't have the time to dedicate to self led learning outside of working hours needed to progress from where you are, or in a role
C) You're getting hired into roles you cannot do

I don't think this is the right type of role for you.

And yes I'm in that area of work.

Yes I realise there's not much contact - but there's a hell of lot of self directed study that needs doing. And OP has clearly been looking at the wrong course for what she wants.

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 your problem!

You have no passion for it so will never manage to do well in that environment.

and you've done about 2 weeks worth of work....so no wonder you dont know what your doing.

You don’t sound curious about the subject matter though.

being in a web role and not knowing in principle what object oriented programming is, is just weird to me.

have a look at Code First Girls, loads of courses, and keep going (if it’s what you really want to do).

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.

op, can you link to thr course please? I suspect it’s how you are counting it.

how many hours of programming have you done? I thought it was between zero and sixty. So I am unsure how. 240 is close?

This 👆

OP i'm sorry but you can't possibly think you've managed to short cut to the same level a masters would provide?!

Admittedly more likely to be MSc OP is looking at though!

You’d get paid more/the same for a contact centre job FWIW. If it’s a certain blue bank that is currently hiring in many locations including London/Sunderland/Northampton. plus if you worked there for a couple of years then you could apply for jobs in the field you want and they would train you

I don't think that this is the career for you Op, and there is no need to feel bad about it. Have a think about what else you might want to do. You have done well to get interviews and be offered jobs.

Have you considered an apprenticeship? They aren’t just for youngsters and many companies offer decent wages now. You can up your experience, get a qualification and get paid.

From your responses on here I'm going to go out on a limb and say maybe it isn't just your technical skills that are lacking.

You don't come across as much of a collaborator or team player which lots of technical roles require nowadays

The masters prospectus says graduates will have career opportunities in the IT industry, public sector or academia, in web design, programming or project management. The course leader said that graduates mostly go on to entry level web development positions. Despite the course only being 20% programming which is a couple of hundred hours. Why would they say that if it isn’t true because that isn’t enough programming?

OP certainly gives off the vibe…between comments about contact centre and shop jobs, and believing that home learning means she can access a masters graduate job…nope

You have no passion for it so will never manage to do well in that environment.
I don’t have a passion for anything. Does that mean I shouldn’t get a job at all?

This is such a bizarre thread though. 100hrs of a short course, little/no work experience and expecting to be able to walk into starting programmer roles. It should be obvious to you now that your short-cut theory isn’t working and you need to build on your knowledge base. If you can’t do a longer course for whatever reason, maybe more short courses that build on your existing beginner knowledge and do a lot of practice at home. Plus as others said, join coding forums/subreddits and maybe look at mentoring schemes. Though you may find the mentoring less helpful if you don’t have an interest in the field.

Op again can you link to this course, it will take seconds.

I think you are confusing people. You seem to think you are close to masters level of 240 hours of pure programming tuition, and that you’ve been looking at a course that says that’s all you need.

if you link to it then folks will understand what you are on about more. As right now, and I mean this politely, it seems you struggle with arithmetic and understanding course content, but are intent on arguing with people you are trained to the equivalent of a masters degree in “internet technologies”

I recently did a four month software dev bootcamp which was full time with perhaps 2-3 extra hours in the evening put in to keep up. After this time (~800 hours) I frankly knew very, very little (it is a huge field, and you need to constantly be learning new things to keep up), but me and all others on the course got hired into junior roles because we had shown commitment and drive to learn. A junior engineer is not hired on their skill but on their passion and ability to pick things and take initiative.

That’s one of my reasons for choosing programming. I have some social difficulties and I was told by the careers adviser that I was better suited to a solitary job like programming.

Sorry OP but you just don’t have enough experience for an entry level role.

I work in a sales role in Tech. I’m immersed in Tech daily and I’m hugely knowledgeable about tech. I enjoy it and have a natural aptitude to understand coding (not boasting just to set the scene). During lockdown I did around 150 hours of python study. There is no way I would be any where near good enough to do a grad role in our business.

Its touted on here that developer work is the golden goose for a good career - you can do an online course and you’re on your way. If that’s the case why do most software engineers have 4 years of study behind them rather than do a short course straight out of sixth form and walk in to the same role?

We have a UX person who's not a coder. The jobs do exist.

Even a senior programmer often won’t know exactly how to do a specific task when it comes to them. What makes a good programmer or even someone who is going to be able to break into the field is someone who is able to get a task and utilize the many resources available to figure out a way to get it done. When I learned many years ago, that meant shelves and shelves of manuals with very little guidance. These days all you have to do is Google.

If you are just sitting there and saying “I don’t know how to do this” that may be the problem. The answer is always, “I have to figure out how to do this” or, “can you suggest what method I should be using to do this so I know what to read up on”

The course leader said that graduates mostly go on to entry level web development positions. Despite the course only being 20% programming which is a couple of hundred hours. Why would they say that if it isn’t true because that isn’t enough programming?

I suspect they're getting people who may not have a BSc in computer science, but who do have some programming experience already. And maybe they're exaggerating. Or maybe you're assuming you'd only need do 240 hours.

And usually yes, if you want a well paid professional post-graduate level job, you do need to be enthusiastic and ambitious and put the effort in and enjoy what you do.

You're looking in the wrong places.

As you're in London there are loads of companies that just do UXR and hire out their people/services to the big tech companies to do bits and pieces of UXR that the tech companies don't have the resource to do in-house.

You do need some experience of UXD if you're looking for an in-house UXR job as you need to be able to translate your findings into Designer-speak.

You could do a HCI conversion Masters which would give you light programming skills plus a really good UXR grounding.

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I'm really sorry but however you want to frame it a 100hr PHP course doesn't even come within 100 miles of a specialist Masters degree. The Masters that you spoke to the academic leader about sounds quite crap so you can't keep using that as a benchmark. In my institution, depending on the modules you chose, you'd do 5 compulsory modules that are 100% programming and 2 optional modules that could also be 100% programming. And then you'd be doing your research project on top. And it's not even a highly-ranked university or course!