Junior developer tips from more experienced colleagues

Junior’s job: from knowledge to practice

Before starting freelancing, beginners usually take paid courses or study a lot of free materials on their chosen profession. Sometimes both at the same time.

A certain part of those who want to start a new job have a feeling that they have not studied the necessary information deeply enough. Such beginners often pay for additional courses and continue their studies.

Here lies the mistake

For a confident start, it is better for a junior to move on to practice as soon as possible. A skill is knowledge applied over and over again. Without practice, knowledge will quickly be forgotten, and the skill will not be acquired.

After the very first courses, you need to look for available projects. Even if initially you will not have very high wages, you can still take a job in order to get the first experience in the desired field of activity. However, it is also better to refuse from strong dumping.

When working with real problems, difficulties and questions arise, that have not come up during training. Finding solutions to such problems will help you gain real-world experience quickly.

If you still cannot find projects in which you agree to take newcomers, it makes sense to create a portfolio:

• designers make their own extremely high-quality layouts;
• advertising specialists offer services to friends or work with their websites;
• programmers write applications or create other small products.

By performing small tasks, a junior developer forms a quality portfolio with which he can profitably present himself at an interview. It is much more effective to highlight a finished website or improved stats than just talking about your skills.

How to find a job for a junior in a team

Expensive orders become available only with high qualifications. Therefore, it is necessary to be able to successfully solve complex problems on time. It is possible to reach this level on individual orders yourself, but it will take a long time. The fastest way to high-paying skills is professional development in a team that takes on interesting and challenging projects.

Working remotely as a junior, but with other professionals, you get a lot of feedback. In addition, interesting projects are always a unique experience that will allow you to quickly raise the price tag for your services. If a company or studio stops taking interesting and expensive orders, then it makes sense to look for another place to work remotely. Alternatively, go into independent freelancing, if you have certain skills.

The stagnation and monotonous work of a junior in a prolonged mode significantly reduces the cost of a specialist in the labor market. For this reason, you had better be where there is constant development.

With good skills and a rich portfolio, you can quickly find expensive freelance orders and start developing your personal brand. No longer dependent on a particular employer.

Feel free to ask for help when you need it

Newbies often think that asking for help with a problem is a sign of low competence. In fact, no one expects impressive skills from a junior. All that a manager needs from novice employees is knowledge of the base and the desire to understand thoroughly current issues.

Once on the team, you do not have to be afraid to ask questions. Nevertheless, asking what can be easily found on the Internet is a manifestation of labor laziness, unwillingness to thoroughly approach work.

If a search on specialized forums, in YouTube and in other sources have not given results, then you can safely contact your colleagues. In most cases, they will be willing to help. This approach will allow you to quickly get the most useful information from professionals.

Take on challenging tasks

One of the problems for beginners is the fear of difficult projects. Most people want to work with familiar tasks and not feel discomfort from something incomprehensible and difficult. But it is these difficult projects that often propel a specialist up the skill scale.

You can even try to complete some difficult task yourself, even before finding a job as a junior. That is, just look at the market which orders are paid the most, and complete one or several of them just for your portfolio.

Even if you have to master freelancing entirely on your own, you need to try complex orders. In more than half of the cases, they are on the shoulder. On condition of thorough immersion in the topic and good communication with the customer.

Difficult tasks become habitual

After a few difficult projects, you will begin to realize that difficult tasks can be solved. As a result, working with a developer in a “hard and hard” format will begin to become the standard work norm. You will form new neural connections and once overwhelming tasks will become habitual.

At the same time, it is important to correctly calculate your strength and not take several difficult orders, otherwise you may not be able to cope with their implementation. This will negatively affect the reputation.

Many experienced professionals agree that it is better to take one complex project and tinker with it for longer than responding to 5 low-priced proposals that can be completed quickly. Inexpensive orders can be taken to form a small financial cushion. But you should not fill the main part of the working day with them.

Be above your competitors

Freelancing takes a lot of experienced professionals and a lot of beginners. Making a name for yourself and attracting good customers against the background of many performers can be difficult. There are two ways to fix this.

Correct communication with clients

In the first year of working as a junior, it is important to learn how to communicate with customers. You can start with a competent job response. It is necessary not only to write about the readiness to take on the project. In your comment, you need to explain to the customer what exactly he will receive in the end: how the problem will be solved, what results are guaranteed to him, etc.

The response must be written taking into account the specifics of the order. The client should see that the junior developer has carefully studied his declaration and understands what he needs to do. It won’t be superfluous to ask a few clarifying questions. Such activity is perceived as interest in the project. Personalized responses look more convincing when compared to standard messages.

Choosing a narrow niche

If you, as a specialist, offer standard services, then it will be difficult for you to climb the price ladder in the first year. And in the following years too. The strategically correct decision is to choose a narrow specialization with a minimum number of competitors. This can be a separate area of ​​the profession or something that they usually do not want to do because of the high complexity.

For example:

• Not everyone is able to effectively set up contextual advertising for the info business niche. But those who do it successfully can make good money.
• Some developers create only landing pages, but very professionally and at high prices.

This principle applies to programming, design and other niches.

Competent management of social networks

With the right approach, in the first year of operation, you can create a queue of customers. Social networks play a key role in this process.

There are many ways to find clients. It can be:

forums;

conferences;

groups on social networks;

publication of cases, etc.

If a customer pays attention to your post in one of the FB or VK groups, he can go to the profile to rate you as a potential performer. This stage is often decisive.

If there is no information in your profile that sells you as a specialist (posts with explanations, cases, etc.), then the client may leave. When viewing your page, you should feel professionalism. Sometimes even abstract photographs and posts about life can help with this.

Many people take an alternative path and create two accounts – one for friends, one for work. However, a profile customized for professional activity is a must-have resource for every specialist who intends to work on the Internet.