Getting a job back in 2022 was so hard and frustrating, but the key is to never give up and get better at your craft. Learn and get better with each day and trust me you will get the job. Its all about understanding it all and building a big real project that works.
Great video, IAmTimCorey. Looking forward to your next upload! I crushed the thumbs up icon on your content. Keep up the fantastic work! Your insights on building a real-world portfolio are invaluable. How do you suggest new developers balance the depth of knowledge in one technology while still being adaptable to industry changes?
Focus on learning the language deeply first. Be ok with some things seemingly passing you by while you learn. You will be much better equipped to learn them once you have a deeper understanding of C# first. Think of it like sharpening your axe before you chop down a tree. Just because someone else is using their dull axe to make wood chips fly doesn't mean you are falling behind.
Yep, although I would argue that it shouldn't be considered "over and above the job" but rather "fully doing the job." We've let the pendulum swing too far. When employers want us to work 50+ hours per week when we are getting paid a salary, that's asking a lot and you should feel free to push back on it. However, during the hours when you are paid to work, you should be putting in your best work.
If I have to freelance until I acquire skills valuable enough to get a job, then I won't need that job. I'd stick to acquiring B2B clients as a solo software development agency. Why would I gain all those skills, build a professional network, and then cap my potential earnings by working for a single employer that can lay me off when they feel like? That makes no sense & is very risky, it would be smarter to start a software agency & do contracts on my own terms. If I have to self-learn all the technical skills to be an effective dev on my own, then I might as well self-learn business, marketing, and sales too. Trust is dead & employment is dead too.
This thought process is based upon some faulty premises. First, while freelancing can get you the skills you need to get a job, that doesn't mean you won't need a job. Freelancing can be very difficult to keep going. A solo software development agency is really hard to run well. Let's say you land a big client. They are going to pay you $100,000/year to work for them 50 hours per week. That's awesome! It is also a lot of time. Don't forget that time billed to the client is not the only time you spend on the business. There are all of the administrative tasks, plus you need to continue to push your knowledge further (and quickly). That means you will probably be working closer to 70+ hours per week with just that one client. Still, you are making more than you would make at a company as a newer developer. So, you probably won't be getting more business from other customers because you don't have the time. Now 3 months into the contract, your client tells you that they are cutting your contract short. Hopefully you had some protection in there that covers a little extra time, but either way, your income has now dropped to $0/month. Now what? You need new customer(s), but you don't have any in the pipeline because you were focused on your existing customer. Even if you find them, it will take time to get them on board and get them to approve a contract. Maybe you get one new client part-time that will bring in $10,000 but that is it for a few months. Second, you are assuming that an employer is a cap on your earnings. While that is true, it is also true that it is the floor on your earnings as well. Meaning, as long as you are employed, you will have a salary and benefits. It may not go up much, but it probably also won't go down much. In consulting, your income will swing wildly from very high to zero and back. This is especially true of solo agencies, where you don't have a team to average things out. Third, you are assuming that learning software development will be easy enough that you can also add other major topics on top like marketing, sales, business management, accounting, contract negotiations/creation, and more. It is definitely possible, but it is a LOT more work. By the way, I know all of this because I have done all of this. I also regularly talk with friends who are still doing this. I've done freelancing on the side for years, plus I did it full time on my own as well. After doing it full-time for a while, I took a full-time job and went back to doing freelancing on the side. It wasn't that I couldn't make money with freelancing. By the time I fully shut down my freelance software development business, I was making $500/hour and I was turning down jobs all the time. The issue was that there is a LOT of work that goes into a business like that and a lot of stress. The regular salary and benefits provided me with a solid foundation of stability that I could build off of while spending less time working.
Getting a job back in 2022 was so hard and frustrating, but the key is to never give up and get better at your craft. Learn and get better with each day and trust me you will get the job. Its all about understanding it all and building a big real project that works.
Thanks for sharing!
If you think that getting job in 2022 was "hard and frustrating"... oh boy...
Great video, IAmTimCorey. Looking forward to your next upload! I crushed the thumbs up icon on your content. Keep up the fantastic work! Your insights on building a real-world portfolio are invaluable. How do you suggest new developers balance the depth of knowledge in one technology while still being adaptable to industry changes?
Focus on learning the language deeply first. Be ok with some things seemingly passing you by while you learn. You will be much better equipped to learn them once you have a deeper understanding of C# first. Think of it like sharpening your axe before you chop down a tree. Just because someone else is using their dull axe to make wood chips fly doesn't mean you are falling behind.
5:27 That's what we call in the industry, "hustle". A "go-getter". Someone who is self motivated to go over and above the job.
Yep, although I would argue that it shouldn't be considered "over and above the job" but rather "fully doing the job." We've let the pendulum swing too far. When employers want us to work 50+ hours per week when we are getting paid a salary, that's asking a lot and you should feel free to push back on it. However, during the hours when you are paid to work, you should be putting in your best work.
If I have to freelance until I acquire skills valuable enough to get a job, then I won't need that job. I'd stick to acquiring B2B clients as a solo software development agency. Why would I gain all those skills, build a professional network, and then cap my potential earnings by working for a single employer that can lay me off when they feel like? That makes no sense & is very risky, it would be smarter to start a software agency & do contracts on my own terms. If I have to self-learn all the technical skills to be an effective dev on my own, then I might as well self-learn business, marketing, and sales too. Trust is dead & employment is dead too.
This thought process is based upon some faulty premises. First, while freelancing can get you the skills you need to get a job, that doesn't mean you won't need a job. Freelancing can be very difficult to keep going. A solo software development agency is really hard to run well. Let's say you land a big client. They are going to pay you $100,000/year to work for them 50 hours per week. That's awesome! It is also a lot of time. Don't forget that time billed to the client is not the only time you spend on the business. There are all of the administrative tasks, plus you need to continue to push your knowledge further (and quickly). That means you will probably be working closer to 70+ hours per week with just that one client. Still, you are making more than you would make at a company as a newer developer. So, you probably won't be getting more business from other customers because you don't have the time. Now 3 months into the contract, your client tells you that they are cutting your contract short. Hopefully you had some protection in there that covers a little extra time, but either way, your income has now dropped to $0/month. Now what? You need new customer(s), but you don't have any in the pipeline because you were focused on your existing customer. Even if you find them, it will take time to get them on board and get them to approve a contract. Maybe you get one new client part-time that will bring in $10,000 but that is it for a few months.
Second, you are assuming that an employer is a cap on your earnings. While that is true, it is also true that it is the floor on your earnings as well. Meaning, as long as you are employed, you will have a salary and benefits. It may not go up much, but it probably also won't go down much. In consulting, your income will swing wildly from very high to zero and back. This is especially true of solo agencies, where you don't have a team to average things out.
Third, you are assuming that learning software development will be easy enough that you can also add other major topics on top like marketing, sales, business management, accounting, contract negotiations/creation, and more. It is definitely possible, but it is a LOT more work.
By the way, I know all of this because I have done all of this. I also regularly talk with friends who are still doing this. I've done freelancing on the side for years, plus I did it full time on my own as well. After doing it full-time for a while, I took a full-time job and went back to doing freelancing on the side. It wasn't that I couldn't make money with freelancing. By the time I fully shut down my freelance software development business, I was making $500/hour and I was turning down jobs all the time. The issue was that there is a LOT of work that goes into a business like that and a lot of stress. The regular salary and benefits provided me with a solid foundation of stability that I could build off of while spending less time working.
Jowho Friday urhobo music christi 0:00 the first time