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 think you've been incredibly naive OP, by listening to people on here who belittle thr skill, knowledge and training required to be a computer programmer and tout it as easy to learn, flexible and little training needed.
If it was that easy salaries wouldn't be in the high 5 or even into 6 figures.

The degree wouldn't be over 4 years plus after graduation training and there wouldn't be constant CPD to remain up to date.
It's a job you have to want to do and have a dedication to.
If you just want a job move into unskilled, or minimal skill area, as 100 hours is not enough to make it in a professional, skilled industry unless you are moving into an apprenticeship or training contract where pay is poor until several years down the line when you are trained to a competent but not experienced level and even then it will be some time before you earn decent money and are respected in the field.

It can be hard to maintain motivation for training that takes time and gets boring, difficult, repetitive and stressful if you don’t start out with an interest or passion for the subject. A lot of jobs don’t require that level of training.

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.

Well that careers advisor was taking rubbish - it's not a solitary job.

OP a masters in Internet Technologies is not the same as a degree in CompSci. It's not a degree that sets you up as a programmer. It sounds like a masters that gives you an overall grounding in Internet experience and usability. It could lead to administration jobs, technology management, various roles within the internet space but not set you up as a programmer.

I’ve completed a web design and PHP course online. I’ve invested maybe 100 hours.
Apart from a course, what hours have you put into practicing and utilizing your skills outside of the course? In terms of hours "invested" you're about a tenth of the way to competence. Skills have to be used to be useful. The introduction course was just a beginning.

'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.'

It might be some what solitary as a Principal Developer (a million miles from where you are) but most development requires collaboration be with other developers to get the job done or whatever. Dev is not a lone person in a dark room anymore.

You seem to think you are close to masters level of 240 hours of pure programming tuition
I had a meeting with the course leader for the MSc. They said the course was 20% programming which equates to 60 hours of contact time plus a couple of hundred hours of independent study. I said I’m not interested in the other 80% which is research and ebusiness, I only want to do the 20% programming. And he said well you’d be better off doing vocational training courses which cover xyz programming skills and match that 60 hours tuition plus 200 hours practice. That would put you roughly on a par with the amount of programming our MSc graduates have done and they tend to go into entry level web development positions.

OP did you know any programming before you started the course? I’m willing to bet that the majority of people who do those masters, or degrees know a reasonable amount first. Most people going in to these programming and development jobs have been doing this for fun most of their lives, and this is now taught in schools.

this may not be the career for you, especially as you are saying you don’t really want to do it. Can you do something related to your history degree instead?

Also if you’ve only done 100 hours, that is nowhere near the 260 hours you’re saying a masters course is. It’s less than half in fact.

Again op. Can you just link to this course you keep talking about? I am unsure why you are Not doing so, whilst talking about it constantly as some form of proof you are trained to masters standards.

You don't seem to have a clue what a masters degree is. It can indeed be programming. It can be management. It can be a gazillion things.

I don’t have the option to do a degree in CompSci. For starters I don’t have the money. MSc Internet Technologies sounds like the right thing to do if you want to work in web design, no? I could stretch to afford that one year MSc at the nearest university but having had a chat with the course leader it appears that most of the course is non programming.

I haven’t read the entire thread but I’m a software developer. Object oriented programming is 101 and everyone who is developer should know it. (I don’t know if PHP is object oriented or functional but that’s the kind of answer you should know).

If you are hired as a junior developer, you are expected to be able to complete tickets independently. With only help needed for company specific stuff. It sounds like they didn’t give you a very lengthy tech test.

100 hours is nothing. Our team spent a month retraining in a new JavaScript framework, and we are all experienced full stack devs. We are still not 100% in Typescript and the new framework but we would be reading docs and stackoverflow to find the answer. Devs are engineers and you are expected to find answers to problem and not asking for help every step of the way. Are you a logical problem solver type of person?

Also PHP is dying and they probably can’t find new staff and why they give you a chance. If you have the flair, then it is a good chance to get into the industry and then try to get a job as a junior JavaScript dev.

Computer science don’t teach you how to program. Most people going into it either already know or learn on the side. You can pick up a new language using internet resources like udemy or just the framework documentation. The course teaches you things you should know to be a good developer. Don’t know about internet technologies courses.

I am posting this because I think you misunderstood what computer related degrees are for.

I don’t have the option to do a degree in CompSci. For starters I don’t have the money. MSc Internet Technologies sounds like the right thing to do if you want to work in web design, no?
No. It sounds like the right thing to do if you want to work in internet technology which is not the same thing as web design.

No I hadn’t programmed previously. The MSc was advertised as being for people with other undergraduate degrees who had never programmed before. Which is me. But after discussing it with the course leader it’s 80% academic and business related, and only 20% practical programming skills that would lead to a job. After discussion we agreed that for my specific needs I’d be better off focusing just on the vocational skills from another provider.

No I can’t do anything history related. There are very few jobs in history as I’ve found out to my cost. Anyone who is lucky enough to get a museum job keeps it till they retire! Doing more history is just throwing good money after bad.

"Internet Technologies is a technical field that covers the necessary skills to develop applications on the Internet or Internet based systems, harnessing e-commerce, cloud, mobile, and Web based technologies."
This is not 'web design'

MSc Internet Technologies sounds like the right thing to do if you want to work in web design, no?

No. You need an MSc Conversion in Computer Science. There's loads everywhere eg: https://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/degrees/5055f/#fees-and-funding

Pay using Masters loan.

How awful to have this happen twice, be kind to yourself. You didnt deserve this.

I landed an entry level coding position from self study ( which is going well). I totted up my learning hours & it was 1,000.

I could probably have got there sooner with a ‘proper’ course - but I meandered through free resources online & built up a portfolio. & yes - googled like my life depended on it first six months. Got an (I think) affectionate reputation for asking a lot of questions.

It is fantastically family friendly. Work where I want - no sweat if I wanna pop out to collect my kid - generally very nice people.

I also really enjoy the work. It’s challenging in all the right ways, but doesn’t cut into my free time. Plus I feel judged on my results not on ‘does my face fit’.

It sounds like they didn’t give you a very lengthy tech test.
There was no tech test for either of the two jobs I got. Job 1 I was hired by a HR person and the IT manager was furious and hated me. Job 2 was an estate agent and I was hired by the owner to do their website for them, they had no other IT staff. In both cases there was no training and I got sacked because I couldn’t do everything they were asking me for.

My experience in the coding world is that they were a bunch of macho knobs
I also got fired and suspect I was a diversity hire
I was mortified when I was called in to a meeting and told it wasn't working out but by the time I had got back to my desk and discovered they had removed my access I was cross and then by the time I got back to my car I was so relieved it was a lucky escape

Or online: https://online.york.ac.uk/study-online/msc-computer-science-online/?

I think the main thing about getting somewhere in IT is the ability to solve problems independently. DH is a controls engineer, it involves some programming and he's pretty much self taught in that area, he's been doing it years and years as a hobby and in and out of different jobs (he used to do networks) and he still spends hours googling and on forums and watching YouTube tutorials if he has a tricky issue.

'I can't do that' just isn't going to cut it. You need to be willing to find out how to.