At work, I don't program games or other software, but I do build websites. I want to fill in some employment gaps in my work history- in particular, the apparent lack of relevant industry experience and an 8 months long period of unemployment. I only have 4 years of relevant experience and it's getting to become harder and harder, it seems, for myself to get a job, and I don't think it's just because of the economy. My background in web development mostly involves PHP and MySQL for this kind of work. I guess now since people that match this skillset are a dime a dozen, competition is pretty heavy for junior-level developers. Do senior developers have it a bit easier since there are fewer high-experienced people but more demand for them? Some more experienced people in the business say PHP is not found much in stable jobs, and those jobs are found more in DB admin, SDLC analysis, etc. Because from his experience, he says that solid career paths rarely involve business that have this kind of "Hey, let's play with this" mindset with whatever new or hyped up programming technologies are around these days.

I'm getting a ridiculous amount of job offers from Dice, Craigslist, etc. during this time that I'm unemployed, and have went through about 15 interviews. None of those places have reached out to hire me. So I feel that I am really lacking in the interviews area, and I want to improve my interviewing skills, but I feel like I haven't learned much from each interview. Maybe this PHP business isn't very lucrative. I want to work in more permanent positions with long term growth (for the employee, not just the company), not contract jobs. I sometimes tell a potential employer "The best job for me would be one where I don't have to quit the company just to move up". The point is, I'm not sure what to do with my job experience to help launch me into a more stable career path.

I have a BFA in electronic media and some comp. sci education. Should I just be hitting the floor running towards another related industry? I do have an interested in electrical engineering but I don't have the money to get back into school for that. 8 months of no work just feels unusual for me because the last time I was unemployed this long, was over 10 years ago in high school where I only took jobs for the summer. I don't have a strong network of friends or family to find jobs for me either.

I guess I'll break the situation down so it'll be easier to respond:

I'm unemployed 8 months and want to keep growing my web development career.
A lot of offers come to me, so my experience looks good on paper. But I always fall short on the interviews.
3-4 years ago I could get jobs that I have trouble getting today, and with more experience (entry/junior level developer).
I don't want to blame this entirely on a failing job market. I feel I'm presenting myself wrongly in my interviews, but I haven't learned much from them.
But the PHP job market may be too saturated. I don't have the necessary experience to expand into other areas like .NET, Ruby or DBA work.
How do I get the above experience when all I've done is PHP and MySQL?
Despite having 4 years of web dev experience, is it more necessary for me to have a BS degree than an art degree?

I guess I'll break the situation down so it'll be easier to respond:

I'm unemployed 8 months and want to keep growing my web development career.
A lot of offers come to me, so my experience looks good on paper. But I always fall short on the interviews.
3-4 years ago I could get jobs that I have trouble getting today, and with more experience (entry/junior level developer).
I don't want to blame this entirely on a failing job market. I feel I'm presenting myself wrongly in my interviews, but I haven't learned much from them.
But the PHP job market may be too saturated. I don't have the necessary experience to expand into other areas like .NET, Ruby or DBA work.
How do I get the above experience when all I've done is PHP and MySQL?
Despite having 4 years of web dev experience, is it more necessary for me to have a BS degree than an art degree?

I'm not sure I would consider you a junior level developer with 4 years of professional experience. Maybe you are applying for jobs you are over qualified for?

I would find the fact that you've had interviews and not been picked up somewhat troubling though. Do you have any idea why they wouldn't want to hire you after an interview? That seems like a much larger problem than filling in gaps.

You are a web developer. But what is it that you've been doing?

PHP and similar is mostly irrelevant. When hiring someone, you want to know whether they do roofs, insulation, plumbing or gardens. They all use same tools, but their domain is different and has little in common.

But the PHP job market may be too saturated.[/quote]Floor fell off that market around 2005.

.NET[/quote]Certification. Microsoft provides complete career track guidance for each and every technology. Seniority plays a big role, so if job requires 5.5 years of .Net 3.0 experience, you will need written proof along with 3 phone numbers of your supervisors along with pay receipts and letters of recommendation during that time. Otherwise you start at the bottom, provided you have the required certificate.

Ruby[/quote]Ego, guts and rockstar attitude. Also, github account and a blog.

DBA work[/quote]You start as intern during college at one of big consultancies or enterprises. For next 10 years you work through the ranks towards DBA position, acquiring certifications and required training. As you progress through enough job positions, strategically migrating inside corporate departments, you end up as a DBA. These are typically serious and boring titles that carry a lot of responsibility and respect that comes with it. For this reason, many companies are opting out of such hard values and instead prefer to wing it, so startups and smaller companies don't have DBA positions.

Despite having 4 years of web dev experience[/quote]
What was the value you brought? It involved HTML and SQL at some point - but what did the applications do?

Listen to this: "Built a web site which connects 700 million people and helps them share memories with friends and family". We're obviously talking about a junior PHP programmer. At Facebook.

So what was it that you were building? If it was enterprise work, then you need to go back and look at various performance indicators and end-of-year reports listing improvements introduced as well as the impact of your work. If it was custom web site development you need numbers, ad revenue, impact, integration with other services and stuff like "social strategy".

Something can be said about tech side. What was your development process? Was it agile? Was it in cloud? Did it use chef? Puppet? AWS? How many people? Which management tools? How many did you introduce? Why? What worked? What didn't? Where did things break most often? Where was most of the time spent on and how was it reduced?

But as far as knowing PHP syntax and configuring Apache - long gone many years ago.

Finally, PHP is about entry-level salary. I know many good developers who complain about employers who cannot find any competent PHP programmers (aka, can actually write syntax, not just copy paste snippets. OO is godlike skill, design or process management remains unseen). Yet, the employers aren't willing to pay more than minimum wage. This starts a catch-22. They cannot advance their tools, so they are stuck with data entry and wordpress tweaks, which doesn't attract better developers, so things don't improve and they don't attract better developers, .... And most employers are happy about it since it's cheap.

Rent-A-Coder? FreeLancer? Maybe those sites could help you pad your resume with more recent experience.

At 4 years of experience I still consider myself junior-level but I feel that I am on the cusp, wanting to develop my career more into mid-level or senior jobs, or either going into another discipline that's still related to my interest in programming.

You are a web developer. But what is it that you've been doing?

PHP and similar is mostly irrelevant. When hiring someone, you want to know whether they do roofs, insulation, plumbing or gardens. They all use same tools, but their domain is different and has little in common.

I make and/or update websites for client projects worth under $10k. A lot of them have been small to medium size e-commerce shops (things from clothing to performance car accessories). The rest were other small businesses, magazines, or creative studios. Note that these were not my own clients, but for the companies I work for.

My biggest project has been working on a custom-built CRM website for a niche industry, with features for sales metrics and campaigning. About 50% was already done, I was brought on to continue it and build off of its legacy code. Three months in, it was put on hold indefinitely for the second time in the project's history because the client ran out of funds.

Floor fell off that market around 2005.[/quote]

I was afraid that this might be true. PHP provided the easiest point of entry for back-end programming and I started messing with it when was in college. There weren't as many resources available for other technologies. As an art major they didn't offer internships (even for computer media) unless you were in graphic design. I decided late that I wanted to minor in CS but it would've set me back another semester and I was already 5 year in my education. I did take a 200-level programming course and discrete math/data structures.

Certification. Microsoft provides complete career track guidance for each and every technology. Seniority plays a big role, so if job requires 5.5 years of .Net 3.0 experience, you will need written proof along with 3 phone numbers of your supervisors along with pay receipts and letters of recommendation during that time. Otherwise you start at the bottom, provided you have the required certificate.[/quote]

Certs would be an option, but not for now. I'm flat broke. I agree that seniority is crucial to it...all jobs I see posted on Dice and Craigslist demand at least 3 years experience fromit. Other than that I had thought that to get my foot into .NET professionally, I would talk to one of my superiors at work to convince them into putting me in a project that would use .NET and I can start learning there with minimal participation in the project at first.

What was the value you brought? It involved HTML and SQL at some point - but what did the applications do?

Listen to this: "Built a web site which connects 700 million people and helps them share memories with friends and family". We're obviously talking about a junior PHP programmer. At Facebook.

So what was it that you were building? If it was enterprise work, then you need to go back and look at various performance indicators and end-of-year reports listing improvements introduced as well as the impact of your work. If it was custom web site development you need numbers, ad revenue, impact, integration with other services and stuff like "social strategy".[/quote]

The products I was building are described above. I think the CRM web software would be the closest thing I did to enterprise work. But again, that one was put on hold. The company I worked with the most was pretty hush-hush to their technical workers about the financial success of our clients. Sometimes we weren't even informed on time when we had lost clients. So it's hard for me to list the practical positive results of a completed project. At most I can provide some verified claims, like "News CMS bug removal and feature enhancements, improving workflow for magazine writers and editors".

Something can be said about tech side. What was your development process? Was it agile? Was it in cloud? Did it use chef? Puppet? AWS? How many people? Which management tools? How many did you introduce? Why? What worked? What didn't? Where did things break most often? Where was most of the time spent on and how was it reduced?[/quote]

I never worked with more than 3 people on a single project. I had a "lone wolf" role in 80% of my experience- I was the only in-house coder in some jobs, and the company I mentioned earlier had practically no leadership qualities on the higher level of things, so we didn't talk about processes too much. When they express their business desires, they speak in generalities instead of having in-depth meetings to define business logic. I want to stop attracting companies like this so I can walk the walk on the things you just described.

But as far as knowing PHP syntax and configuring Apache - long gone many years ago.[/quote]

Yep, I definitely need to get more specialized. Or rather, something that's lower in supply and higher in demand.

Finally, PHP is about entry-level salary. I know many good developers who complain about employers who cannot find any competent PHP programmers (aka, can actually write syntax, not just copy paste snippets. OO is godlike skill, design or process management remains unseen). Yet, the employers aren't willing to pay more than minimum wage. This starts a catch-22. They cannot advance their tools, so they are stuck with data entry and wordpress tweaks, which doesn't attract better developers, so things don't improve and they don't attract better developers, .... And most employers are happy about it since it's cheap.
[/quote]

Usually these kinds of people are the ones who read about the newest buzzword in some online magazine without even having the business skills to realize that they just don't have enough resources to leverage everything needed to apply it. And I keep attracting them like flies These people usually don't hire people that have done a lot more about the business of the industry, and one way for me to learn more is to be mentored under someone that has done more.

My intention is to get another bread-and-butter PHP job in the interim, to be financially self sufficient again, to pad out my resume, and then apply some of my salary earnings to further education and examination. I'm not sure why PHP is not taken seriously in most enterprise-level jobs. Like you said earlier, it matters more about about what you have done and for how long, than the tools that you use. I'm sure an OOP PHP programming wiz can hit the ground running eventually on something that uses .NET. OOP was difficult for me to understand at first, but a few Java classes in college did it for me. I went back and started applying it, provided there was enough time that allowed me to complete it (I mostly talk in regards to on-the-job work).


Also, if I'm understanding correctly, you're also saying that competent PHP programmers are having an even tougher time finding an appropriate job than the entry-level programmers.

Rent-A-Coder? FreeLancer? Maybe those sites could help you pad your resume with more recent experience.

Could be useful in the short term. I'm aware that I'll have to lower my rates to compete here. But in the long term I do want to get away from contractor work. Health care insurance, stock options, and 401k plans have become all too foreign to me


Lastly I want to say that my networking options are not too good. Had some nice colleagues in the past, but they work for businesses that have their wallets tightly closed, or just don't know of any decent places. With the latest job lead/offer being "Hey, my friend's application got rejected from [insert scammy company that has various complaints sent to Ripoff Report and the BBB] but maybe you'd have a chance", no way that's helping me now. Thanks for giving me some feedback, it's starting to help me decide what I should work on the most.

You seem to be very focused on getting a job... why not become your own boss? I say this because I know webdesign is always well paid and in high demand and it's a job which requires talent rather than having a boss, so:
1. Make your own website, should be easy since this is what you do.
2. Make one or more nice website templates (with a link to your site) and drop them for free on many sites that hold such templates.
3. If the templates are nice you will get many visits on your site and if your prices are "right" you will get many demands.
4. Have a set of templates that you can customize for each client (so you don't work from scratch every time)
5. Get some freelancing artists to help you if needed, the internet is full of them.
6. Get paid, pay your taxes, get rich

I'm getting a ridiculous amount of job offers from Dice, Craigslist, etc. during this time that I'm unemployed, and have went through about 15 interviews. None of those places have reached out to hire me. So I feel that I am really lacking in the interviews area, and I want to improve my interviewing skills, but I feel like I haven't learned much from each interview.

By the way, typically 'getting a job offer' means an offer of employment. It sounds like instead you're just getting interviews.

Why aren't you learning much from each interview? What questions are you unable to answer? Have you gotten any written tests, or in-person interviews? The questions you can't answer will be a good indication of the skills you're lacking. So what is it?

I sometimes tell a potential employer "The best job for me would be one where I don't have to quit the company just to move up".

I'm not sure I would say that... Is that really the criteria you have for "the best job"? What do you *really* want to do? What's so important about "moving up"? Are you just chasing money? Or do you have any passion for this work? It sounds like you need to find the passion that makes you want to work on games, and concentrate on that. Money is given to people that do good work, it's not something that should matter during the interview until you actually get an employment offer that has a dollar number on it.

By the way, typically 'getting a job offer' means an offer of employment. It sounds like instead you're just getting interviews.

Why aren't you learning much from each interview? What questions are you unable to answer? Have you gotten any written tests, or in-person interviews? The questions you can't answer will be a good indication of the skills you're lacking. So what is it?

Usually it's some technical questions. Interviewers tell me they don't expect me to know anything, but when I don't know the answer I don't simply say I don't know it. I tell them what I think it could relate to and show my knowledge in other areas. The most common reason I hear for declining me for a job is that they have found someone with more experience and skills that better match their requirements.

Should I post my resume for a review here?

I'm not sure I would say that... Is that really the criteria you have for "the best job"?[/quote]

Yes, it is. I don't know your reason for not saying that- it would be nice if you told me- but my reason for saying that is to let a potential employer know I want to stay for the long haul. They'd feel better about me knowing I am not just gonna up and leave in a couple of months. plus having too many jobs that only lasted a few months (that are non-contract) doesn't look very well on your resume.

What do you *really* want to do? What's so important about "moving up"? Are you just chasing money? Or do you have any passion for this work?[/quote]

I'm not really chasing money, just job stability. Moving up, if I'm not mistaken, brings me the more stable positions at work because seniority is one factor that helps towards that. In my industry, PHP programmers have a high turnaround rate.

And from a person that's been in working in it for about 15 years he had this to tell me: "it's been my experience that solid jobs and or actual careers rarely have this kind of "hey, let's play with this" mindset using things ranging from PHP, various CMS platforms, jquery, AJAX, and all that jazz. .... The stable jobs I've seen and heard about usually have what I refer to as "cushion" for things like scoping, SDLC analysis, database administrators, professional development, etc. Oldies usually work in places like this, have retirement growth, medical insurance, and vacation pay. I have yet to see something like this with PHP being in the picture."

I don't want to be rich- I just worry about the security of my job as a LAMP stack programmer in the long term, especially as [font="Arial"]Antheus said that knowing PHP and configuring Apache is not valued as much anymore[/font]. It's never been my plan to do that forever either- I would like to become a software architect some day.

[color="#1C2837"][color="#1C2837"][quote=RDragon1]By the way, typically 'getting a job offer' means an offer of employment. It sounds like instead you're just getting interviews.[color="#1C2837"]
Why aren't you learning much from each interview? What questions are you unable to answer? Have you gotten any written tests, or in-person interviews? The questions you can't answer will be a good indication of the skills you're lacking. So what is it?[/quote] [color="#1c2837"]Usually it's some technical questions. Interviewers tell me they don't expect me to know anything, but when I don't know the answer I don't simply say I don't know it. I tell them what I think it could relate to and show my knowledge in other areas. The most common reason I hear for declining me for a job is that they have found someone with more experience and skills that better match their requirements.

[color="#1c2837"]Should I post my resume for a review here?[color="#2b3730"]

[color="#1C2837"]

I'm not sure I would say that... Is that really the criteria you have for "the best job"?[/quote]

[color="#1c2837"]Yes, it is. I don't know your reason for not saying that- it would be nice to know the reason as well- but my reason for saying that is to let a potential employer know I want to stay for the long haul. They'd feel better about me knowing I am not just gonna up and leave in a couple of months. plus having too many jobs that only lasted a few months (that are non-contract) doesn't look very well on your resume.

[color="#1C2837"]

What do you *really* want to do? What's so important about "moving up"? Are you just chasing money? Or do you have any passion for this work?[color="#1C2837"][/quote]

[color="#1c2837"]I'm not really chasing money, just career stability. Moving up, if I'm not mistaken, brings me the more stable positions at work because seniority is one factor that keeps them from losing the job. Nothing is guaranteed, but senior people usually have the less expendable skills. In my industry, junior PHP programmers have a high turnaround rate.

[color="#1c2837"]And from a person that's been in working in it for about 15 years he had this to tell me: "it's been my experience that solid jobs and or actual careers rarely have this kind of "hey, let's play with this" mindset using things ranging from PHP, various CMS platforms, jquery, AJAX, and all that jazz. .... The stable jobs I've seen and heard about usually have what I refer to as "cushion" for things like scoping, SDLC analysis, database administrators, professional development, etc. Oldies usually work in places like this, have retirement growth, medical insurance, and vacation pay. I have yet to see something like this with PHP being in the picture."

[color="#1c2837"]I don't want to be rich- I just worry about the security of my job as a LAMP stack programmer in the long term, especially as [font="Arial"][color="#1C2837"]Antheus said that knowing PHP and configuring Apache is not valued as much anymore[/font][color="#1c2837"]. It's never been my plan to do that forever either- I would like to become a software architect some day.