Career Advice

February 1, 2020 by Julie McGrath

A worker is no longer the average 9-to-5 employee. Rather, an organisation’s people are its talent, representing a diverse range of individuals including brand ambassadors, gig economy workers, social influencers and partners. These individuals reside both inside and outside the walls of the organisation.

In this new world of talent, it is important for businesses to recognise that their collective workforces often comprise individuals from different backgrounds and diversity who come with differing perspectives, experiences and goals. Organisations that acknowledge and value each individual’s experience place the entire person at

the centre of what they do, aiming to create a sustained and connected experience for all their people. To create an environment that values all people, bold leadership should champion the human experience and help ensure that the workforce is included.

Integrating the talent and customer experiences we see a common theme—the human connection matters more than anything else. Successful organisations should account for all humans within their ecosystem (including the workforce) and align them with the organisation’s purpose.

How businesses can unlock the talent experience.

Having understood how to engage customers beyond the walls of the organisation, many business owners are embracing the challenge of creating deeper, more meaningful engagement with their people. Drawing on research, we outline specific strategies that show how many companies are supporting the talent experience:

Build a symbiotic workforce and customer experience.

Your workforce can be your best ambassador. Being authentic to your workforce, leading with values and supporting collaboration across the organisation strengthens the human experience for all people and helps provide an environment in which your workforce can thrive. Take the example of

Value personal interaction.

In the new world of work, it can be difficult to evoke loyalty in the workforce, with more than half of all workers thinking about leaving their jobs according to a recent report on talent in the workforce. Retaining people typically requires building real relationships. Companies often design tech-enabled sensing and monitoring systems to track and gather feedback on the talent experience. However, the challenge is to identify the appropriate time to implement and use feedback rapidly. Pulsing surveys sense how and whether the workforce is having a good experience and whether they might leave the company. Making them a routine practice can enable real-time course correction if a person is contemplating changing jobs. Unlock the value of data to understand how and whether people are fulfilled in their work, but do not lose touch with the value of personal interaction. Many workers especially value opportunities to build relationships with each other and with leadership. Find time to meet face to face and use pulsing survey data to assess how a person is feeling in the moment to share positive stories, praise and mitigate challenges.

Go beyond the four walls.

The marketing function and the CMO already serve as brand ambassadors for customers. In the new world of work, it can be increasingly difficult to uphold values and understand who aligns with your purpose outside of your walls. Similarly, what it means to be part of the workforce is changing dramatically, making it even more important for companies to have oversight of every person’s “talent experience.” The goal is to bridge gaps and better account for the collective customer, workforce and partner experience.

Improving-the-talent-experiece-Graffiti-Recruitment

In this new world of talent, it is important for businesses to recognise that their collective workforces often comprise individuals from different backgrounds and diversities, who come with differing perspectives, experiences, and goals. Embrace IT! If you would like to explore other options to improve your talent engagement or need support on expanding your already fantastic team then please get in touch, we would love to hear from you.

December 10, 2019 by Julie McGrath

Take a look at what we believe are the key marketing trends for 2020 that marketers need to be aware of in order to ensure their marketing strategy is up-to-date and as effective as possible.

Social media has now become synonymous with digital marketing, going hand-in-hand with most – if not all – digital campaigns. However, social media is far from static and what worked a few months ago may not get you the same good results now.

Habits change, platforms evolve, and new platforms come into existence. All of this influences how people use and react to social media marketing, as well as how marketers are able to reach their audience.

It is more important than ever before for marketers to understand and stay ahead of the curve when it comes to social media. Doing so ensures you have the right tools at your disposal, an up-to-date strategy, and the required skills to make the most of social media.

With this in mind, we’ve taken a look at some of the trends that we believe are going to be important when it comes to social media marketing in 2020:

The digital detox

There are now 3.484 billion social media users across the globe, which is a 9% increase compared to last year. This equates to 45% of the world’s population being on social media. It also means that social media adoption has actually beaten previous estimates, which suggested that an estimated 2.82 billion would be using social media in 2019. While this suggests that brands have the opportunity to reach larger audiences than ever before, a new trend is affecting that audience base.

Digital around the world 2019

More people are now choosing to “detox” from social media, deleting apps and profiles in order to step away from it. This is more than just the usual changes we see in terms of people choosing to use one platform less in favour of another – such as Facebook seeing users decline but Instagram attracting more – this trend is seeing people take a temporary or permanent break from all social media.

One in three adults in the UK are now reducing their social media use. Some 6% of users have removed an app from their phone, 6% have permanently deleted their accounts and 8% have both deleted their accounts and removed social media mobile apps.

A big reason for this is that people now feel overloaded by social media, with the permeation of social media affecting their mental health and wellbeing. Others choose to detox because they don’t trust social media platforms, either due to issues like Fake News or because of privacy and data concerns.

“I think that this year, we’ll be seeing more of a change in the way social media users act online; I think that digital detox will become more prevalent this year, with many people trying to limit the amount of time they spend on social media.

“I also think that there will continue to be a big push towards making social media more private and secure for its users – this has been a big problem recently and many people are just realizing how truly dangerous a lack of online privacy can be. And these things, of course, will have a big impact on marketing too – brands and marketers need to be on top of these trends and act accordingly.”

Lilach Bullock – Content marketing and social media specialist.

This isn’t to say that social media will become void in terms of digital marketing, but marketers do need to understand the impacts it could have. When added to the issues that pay-to-play social media brings, more people taking on a digital detox (whether temporary or permanent) will impact reach and engagement of your posts. This can affect the results of any customer acquisition or brand awareness campaigns you launch across social media platforms.

Ultimately, it’s vital that you don’t start putting all your marketing eggs in the social media bucket. You need to ensure that enough budget and resource is still being given to other channels, including email marketing and search engine marketing. However, it’s also vital that you ensure that any social media presence you do have is as meaningful as possible. Your brand needs to offer more than memes – you need to deliver content that has a positive and memorable impact on your audience and that provides as much value as possible.

Building social media communities

A big part of meaningful and valuable experiences on social media is the way that brands engage with their audience. While sharing posts that you believe your target audience will enjoy is part of maintaining your social media presence, you also need to encourage and cultivate interactions that are more than a simple like or share.

This isn’t to say that communities are a new concept, but they are being built by brands in different ways, which is paying off and will likely continue to do so as we head into 2020.

“While social communities aren’t a new concept, how brands build them is changing the way we interact with them. There are many brands, both B2C and B2B, that have massive followings with no real engagement. The bottom line is your online presence should expand your reach, to ultimately drive more conversions.

“For starters, it’s crucial to measure your efforts and stay in touch with your audience. Social media suites are a great way to see everything in one place, from post creation and distribution to monitoring and analytics. Figure out what’s working and what’s not – don’t be afraid to pivot and try something new!

Encourage your team to create their own social presence to promote content and increase overall brand trust. This tactic leads to an authentic voice for your company,
Twitter chats help create a strong sense of community through content, bringing thought leaders from all areas together in a real-time conversation. It gives your brand the perfect opportunity to engage directly with current and potential customers.

“More than ever before, potential buyers want to hear from current customers – so give them a place to do just that.”

Bridget Poetker – Senior Content Marketing Specialist at G2

Building social media communities away from your profiles is just the start, after all, creating a group and having people join is no guarantee that they will engage. You also need to create content that gets them talking, encourages conversations and cultivates that feeling of community. Doing so can keep people engaged with your brand but also bring in new leads and customers while also adding a human, personalised element to your brand.

“I believe that the days of merely posting content and people showing up to engage are slowly coming to an end as pay-to-play social media becomes more and more prevalent with every social network over time. As a company, you’re already at a disadvantage, which is why it will become more important than ever to actually engage with your community.

“I’m not talking about engagement so that your content shows up better in the algorithm, but actually thanking those people in your community not only when they comment or engage with your content but actually proactively reaching out to them like a social media user would reach out to a friend. If your business wants to survive in organic social media in 2020, I believe that this sort of humanisation of your brand will be necessary.”

Neal Schaffer – Leading Global Educator and effective implementer of social media strategy for business.

Social media influencers and word-of-mouth marketing

One benefit of building social media communities is the fact that they help with word-of-mouth marketing, which is another big social media marketing trend for 2020. Communities allow you to engage with nano or micro-influencers who are already advocates of your brand in order to get them to share honest views and experiences of your products or services.

We all know that influencers have been around for a while and they have now become an expected part of the social media experience. They can offer great benefits for brands, including a relatively high earned media value, especially now that Instagram usage is continuing to grow at an elevated rate.

Influencer marketing average earned media spend

However, many types of influencers are no longer trusted by consumers. Big influencers are not only expensive for brands, they no longer have the impact that they used to because they are seen as disingenuous. In fact, 61% of consumers will trust the recommendations of friends and family over celebrity endorsements because they are more likely to be honest.

In comparison, smaller influencers, such as those who are likely to be part of your communities, tend to have better relationships with their followers, which means they benefit from a higher level of trust. This can lead to more engagement at a lower cost, as well as increased trust in a brand that is more likely to culminate in conversion.

“A good reason to follow my advice on social media communities is that this will also make it much easier for your brand to engage with influencers in 2020. This obviously is the other way to incite Word of Mouth marketing on social media when organic social media for businesses is pretty much dead.

“Now I’m not talking about spending thousands of dollars and reaching out to celebrities who are promoting one brand today and another brand tomorrow. I’m talking about authentically engaging with those in your community who are already following you and are already nano if not micro-influencers and finding a way to collaborate with them.

“I am so passionate about this subject that it is going to be the focal point of my next book, Age of Influence, which publishes in March of 2020, but needless to say I hope that marketers in 2020 will realize that social media is not just a place to market to people, but really is the ultimate forum for you to find and collaborate with a variety of social media users of varying influence that can help push your marketing objectives forward.”

Neal Schaffer – Leading Global Educator and effective implementer of social media strategy for business.

Taking on nano or micro-influencers as brand ambassadors means that they can share posts about your brand but also engage in conversions with their highly engaged following or others within communities. It is these conversations that are more likely to influence buying decisions and help build trust in your company.

This type of marketing creates positive brand sentiment, gets people talking about your brand and provides more insights into consumers’ buying behaviour and pain points. All of this better enables you to create a genuine experience for your audience.

The rise of alternative platforms

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram tend to be the core platforms used by B2C brands, with LinkedIn also being vital for B2B companies. However, many users are growing fatigued with these core platforms while brands have to fight harder than ever before to achieve good levels of organic reach and engagement.

While Twitter has seen growth so far this year, its active user numbers have declined from it’s all-time 2017 high. Similarly, Facebook has seen a huge drop in users – especially younger users – over the last two years, with younger audiences opting to spend time on other platforms. Combined with the increasing pay-to-play format of social media channels, this means that brands aren’t seeing the results on these platforms that they previously did.

[Average monthly Twitter users by year]

One social media platform that is becoming a go-to, especially for younger generations, is TikTok. While the app was launched in 2016, its popularity has grown fairly recently, with 2019 seeing a huge number of users flock to the platform. It now has around 500 million monthly active users worldwide and registered more than 1.1 billion installs as of March 2019. Active monthly TikTok users

While TikTok is unlikely to be the best option for B2B brands, B2C companies with a younger target audience (41% of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24) could find it to be a great platform to encourage engagement with users who are stepping away from more traditional social media platforms.

As well as TikTok, a good platform to invest in for those looking to encourage e-commerce sales through social media could be Pinterest. Although Pinterest is far from new on the scene, it has experienced a recent resurgence, meaning it is now used for more than just saving recipes or getting decorating inspiration.

Pinterest has found that it fits well into the e-commerce space and has an audience that is engaged with the idea of buying products they see on the platform. In fact, 75% of Pinterest users say they are “very interested” in new products compared to just 55% of people on other social media platforms.

This is likely why retail brands are finding success on the platform, with them reporting 2x higher returns on ad spend from the platform than other forms of social media and a 1.3x higher return than traditional search.

“Since Instagram as an e-commerce platform is getting harder to gain customers from, marketers will highly likely move to Pinterest. Pinterest now resembles Instagram when the latter emerged. No obtrusive ads, user-friendly search engine, and no fake influencers. More than 250 million people use Pinterest every month, and this number will increase.

“Speaking of TikTok, this platform keeps growing very rapidly. Marketers and business owners whose target audience are teenagers and young people should definitely consider TikTok as a winning marketing platform. TikTok is already an attractive platform for YouTube, Instagram, and Twitch bloggers since it’s effortless and fun to make videos and gain fame there.”

Klara Alexeeva, Content editor at combin.com

Utilising these alternative platforms allows you to engage with an audience who may not be on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, as well as providing you with different ways to share your content. This could help deliver better results and shape your future social media marketing strategy.

Social media as customer service

Customer service is always going to be a vital aspect of providing a good customer experience, but in the digital age, the customer service you offer is a lot more visible to everyone online. As well as online customer reviews, customer complaints and issues are easier to find than ever before due to the fact that a lot of them are shared on social media.

Over a quarter (28%) of consumers have used social media to communicate with a company in the last year, a trend that is likely to increase due to the fact that more than 30% said it is a convenient contact method and around 23% believe it is a good way to get 24-hour service.

Customer communication channels

Because social media is viewed as being so convenient, it is expected that brands will find it easy to use as a method of customer service. As a result, most people expect brands to respond to a question or complaint on social media on the same day, with 37% wanting a response in under 30 minutes. Only 6% don’t expect a response at all, while 31% want one in under 2 hours and a further 26% want to hear back within four hours, showing that the expectations for good customer service on social media are high.

This is why social media as a form of customer service is going to be a big trend for 2020, especially with so many brands looking to create online communities.

“In the same way that social media became a real alternative for an actual social life, it is rapidly evolving as a customer service tool. Companies have taken notice of this, and offer more and more customer service through social media. Brands have developed significantly more active social accounts, all for the sake of interacting with the massive user base spread across social media channels.”

Dmitrii Kustov – Internet Marketing Director at Regex SEO

As well as offering an easy way to speak to customers and quickly deal with issues – especially as everyone is so connected to social media – this form of customer service offers benefits for brands. Answering a customer complaint can increase customer advocacy by as much as 25%, meaning that responding to complaints can help create loyal customers. However, you also need to remember that failing to respond to a complaint can decrease customer advocacy by 50%, so a social media customer service strategy is required in order to ensure all members of your customer care team are following the same steps, especially as more customers are likely to be contacting you through social media over the next year.

Telling Stories on social

Since the launch of Snapchat, other social media platforms have rushed to add the Stories format to their offering. The result has been huge growth in the usage of this format for Instagram in particular, which as of January 2019, boasts 500 million daily active Stories users across the globe.

Daily active Instagram Stories users

Stories offer a different experience to feed-based sharing due to the fact that they are visual and designed to be both created and consumed in-the-moment, rather than shared to a feed that will remain visible. There’s a lot of room for experimentation, tongue-in-cheek posts and fun, which makes Stories highly engaging, and it is one of the likely reasons as to why Stories had a growth rate that was 15x the rate of Feeds in 2017.

However, the growth in Stories isn’t just among consumers, businesses are also utilizing this social media tool for marketing purposes. According to Hootsuite’s 2019 Social Trends Survey, 64% of marketers have either already implanted Instagram Stories into their social media strategy or are aiming to do so in the next 12 months.

On average, brands are posting Stories on around seven days a month, averaging out to one Story every four days. Brands with a following of 100,000 or more share Stories more regularly (every two days), likely due to the fact that they can benefit from a greater range of Stories features – such as adding a link to their posts on Instagram.

Average company Stories posts in a month

Brands are also advertising more via Stories, with 45% of Instagram ad spend being on Stories, suggesting that brands are seeing better results with the more direct format being offered by Stories.

“If you regularly use social media, it will not come as a surprise that Instagram Stories’ popularity will further increase in 2020. Battenhall conducted research that found that 98% of Instagram accounts use Stories, while 400 million users watch Instagram Stories on a daily basis.

“It appears that big brands are favouring Instagram Stories for their advertising and marketing, in fact, one in three of the most-viewed Stories are from businesses. However, the question is why are they so popular?

Instagram Stories are more authentic than traditional Instagram posts that allow for heavy editing and altering.
The content is only available for 24hrs, therefore, it is current and will not become outdated.
Consumers want live updates and real-time content. Instagram Stories are normally the most up-to-date content a business can offer a consumer.
Through Instagram Stories, you can share other people’s Instagram posts. This function allows people to connect easily with other accounts and businesses.

“I think that brands are going to begin to use Instagram Stories to push consumers to IGTV, to create more long-form content for their organizations. Alternatively, perhaps towards social e-commerce, where brands will begin selling their products via Instagram Stories.”

Maisie Tomlinson – marketing coordinator for Penguins Events and Incentives.

Stories aren’t going to be a suitable option for every brand out there, but with them being so engaging and seeing an increased use that will likely lead consumers to expect brands they follow to create Stories, it is worth assessing if and how you can utilise them. As Instagram sees more businesses use Stories, the platform will also likely release more features designed for brands, which could make the format more accessible for a broader range of companies.

Follow up

With so many areas of marketing and digital marketing, there are a huge number of changes across the industry that you need to keep up with. This is why we’re keeping track of all the big digital marketing trends for 2020 across various channels to keep you up-to-date and ahead of the curve.

By Joanna Carter – Smart Insights

July 17, 2019 by Julie McGrath

Project managers are always in demand: No matter what the industry, qualified professionals are always needed to plan and provision the work. Of course, that’s just the high-level view of project management, which can be a complex and rewarding career. Why project management? If you’ve wondered whether becoming a project manager is right for you, hopefully we can help clarify why project management might be your best career move.

What Do Project Managers Do?

The basic principles of project management include planning, organising, securing, controlling, leading and managing resources and tasks to achieve specific business goals. Project managers determine strategies to kick off the project, evaluate and understand the project requirements, analyse and bring the required professionals on board, and monitor the progress of the work.

In addition, a project manager also:

· Sets the budget for the work

· Leads meetings to track the project’s progress

· Sets the schedule and time frame for the project and all sub projects

· Decides how the work will be completed

· Reports on progress to stakeholders

Juggling multiple projects, schedule, and tasks can be extremely difficult, but with training and experience, individuals can learn to handle this and more.

Scope of Project Management

Like many jobs, project management requires a person to have a variety of skills to be successful. In addition to keen organisational skills, project managers should also be effective problem solvers, and be clear communicators. For those who enjoy varied responsibilities, project management may be a good match.

Some other reasons to follow a career into project management include the following.

1. The demand for project managers is high. The Project Management Institute (PMI) expects 22 million new project management job openings through 2027.

2. Project managers are needed in a wide variety of industries. Although quite common in the IT field, project-oriented work is also common in the business service, oil and gas, finance and insurance, manufacturing, construction and utility industries—all over the world.

3. Salaries for project managers are competitive. An Entry-level project manager salary can range from £25,000+.

4. Working with project teams and clients can add a lot of variety and creative challenges to the job.

5. Project managers are always learning. They must regularly refresh their knowledge of processes and structures, new markets, technology, products and services, and customers.

Are you currently working as an Account Executive, Project Co-Coordinator or similar, and are ready to take the next step in your career as a Project Manager? Contact one of our Recruitment Experts for some free confidential advice and support. You can also check out some of our Project Management jobs here now.

July 1, 2019 by Julie McGrath

If you’re looking for a total change-up Glassdoor’s just released a list that might give you some inspiration. The jobs site has just released their rankings of the best jobs in the UK, judged on median base salary, job satisfaction, and the number of openings.

Apparently, we should all be going into tech and management, I guess you have come to the right place then!

25 best jobs in the UK and their average salary:

You’ll notice that the top jobs aren’t the highest paid jobs, and that’s for an important reason: Salary isn’t everything. Audit Managers, on average paid £52,000, have the highest job satisfaction of the bunch, with a 4.5 out of 5 rating. There are currently 1,124 job openings for this role. Solutions Architects, despite being paid on average £70,000, report a lower job satisfaction with 3.4 out of 5. There are 1,597 of these roles up for the taking.

Do your research and think carefully about what kind of work would make you feel fulfilled before rushing towards whichever role pays the best. There’s no question that emerging technologies designed to grow and scale business, such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and automation, are having an impact on the types of jobs employers are hiring for across the country.

For more information on your career options, please get in touch for some free confidential advice.

May 20, 2019 by Julie McGrath

Upwards of 70% of tasks done by human workers soon could be performed by machines. This shift could affect not only factory and retail workers, but cooks, waiters and others in food services, as well as short-haul truck drivers and even clerical office workers. The people that will be most affected are those working in manual or repetitive jobs.

What AI Means for Jobs

Just as the machinery didn’t kill the British textile industry, and in fact created new opportunities, there is the argument that AI actually could improve the lot of modern employees.

The auto industry is a good example where AI, robots and computerised systems are nicely integrated with human workers. While it is an attractive option to human labour, there will always be a need to supervise, check, maintain and program these technologies, which will generate higher-level jobs. Depending on the sector, you will see various forms of AI and robotics in verticals such as healthcare and manufacturing.

The Skill Factor

There is also the argument to be made that even those replaced by AI or robots might have opportunities to acquire new skills. Retraining workers displaced by automation or AI will be absolutely necessary as we move forward, particularly for those in mid-career.

This task of retraining and encouraging life-long learning will have to be undertaken by a number of different stakeholders, including the government — particularly at the state and local level — as well as the companies themselves that are introducing increasing levels of AI and automation into their organisation.

In some cases, where jobs are displaced by AI and automation, those forces could lead to the creation of new jobs and even careers. Many of these jobs we haven’t even conceived of yet. Those at the beginning of their career will be able to learn these new skills and transition into these new careers, but many at the mid-career level will need retraining programs to break into these emerging fields. Workers shouldn’t wait for their jobs to be replaced but should take advantage of all opportunities to get retrained or to acquire new skills.

Filling Unfillable Jobs

AI also could help fill openings in some industries where there simply aren’t enough workers. This is certainly true in the tech world, notably in IT and cyber security, where there is now a High skills shortage. It’s been estimated that by 2021, there will be 3 million openings in cyber security.

Retraining workers to fill those positions isn’t an option, but AI and machine learning could take some of the burden off overstretched IT departments. Enterprise IT organisations are increasingly embracing AI technologies to address the cyber security skills gap that they are struggling with.

In fact, it’s been projected that there will be 3.5 million unfilled cyber security jobs within the next couple of years, so it appears that AI is not taking away jobs at all. On the contrary, AI and other intelligent technologies are filling the skills gap by automating many of the manual tasks that normally would be done by a human. Since humans with those skills are unavailable in sufficient numbers, machines need to fill the void.

AI to Retain Workers

The other end of the spectrum for AI is in how it could be used by employers to help retain workers, especially in a tight job market. AI is now being used by HR departments as a tool to help employers know if employees are thinking about leaving their respective position.

One example is IBM, which has replaced about 30% of its HR staff with AI. In this case it actually is to help retain existing skilled workers, not to replace them with AI, but to ensure that valuable talent doesn’t jump ship.

The HR AI was designed to help employees identify opportunities for new skills training, education, job promotions and raises. In other words, AI can predict why employees may be thinking of seeking greener pastures elsewhere. By addressing these issues, IBM can keep its workforce intact whether by adding a new skill or promoting a deserving worker.

One component of this is through the tracking of social media posts that can indicate levels of happiness in ways that a human might not see. AI can find patterns and determine if an employee is considering a job switch.

AI is actually made up of four layers; and this includes a sensing layer where it can sense about an employee’s mood or feelings. This can be a measure of motivation for example. From sensing you can learn, and then you can decide based on what you’ve learned to determine how you’ll act.

AI also could be used to aid in the recruiting process, but its use to retain or hire employees could come with ethical conundrums.

Follow us on Facebook to stay up to date with the latest Tech News and Jobs.

November 13, 2018 by Julie McGrath

Francisco is a FullStack Web Developer, below he is sharing some tips on how to become a Software Developer and how to get started.

Francisco: How do I get started as a developer? This is probably the question I get asked the most on social media. I run a page on Instagram called @thedevelife, with 47k followers at the time I’m writing this. That question comes up at least once a day. It is also a hard question to answer.

Sometimes people get glamoured by the pictures they see on Instagram of a dude attempting to be code at the beach on a sunny day. I’ve been a programmer for more than ten years, and I have not been able to code at the beach efficiently. I have attempted it a couple times, but it did not work out for me. At least in my experience that has been the case. What I’m trying to say is that sometimes people want to become programmers for the wrong reasons. Aspiring developers like the freedom being portrayed in social media, but sometimes that is all it is, just a portrayal. There is a lot of freedom that comes along with being able to work from any place with a WiFi connection, but there still some limitations. There are a lot of good things that come from being a programmer, the biggest, in my opinion, is knowing that someone out there is using an application you built in their everyday life. I became a programmer because I love to create cool stuff and then eventually the perks of being a programmer came along.

When I give advice to someone on how to get started, I lead with the following questions.

What do you see yourself doing as a developer?
Do you see yourself working on the front-end, back-end, maybe programming for mobile devices?

Depending on the answer to these questions, the steps anyone looking to become a developer should take might be slightly different. There isn’t an answer that fits all situations. Also, I cannot provide advice on areas I have not enough experience with like Big Data, AI or IOT. I am familiar with back-end development, mobile, and web development being my strength (my kung-fu is pretty strong when doing work for the web), so if you want to pursue any of those areas I have deficiencies on, I apologize (sad face), I can’t be of value there.

Let me start with bad news first. If you aren’t able to sit in front of the computer for long periods of time and work late nights, sorry to say this might not be for you. I say this because you will have to work long hours to develop an application worthwhile, once that application goes live you might be required to work even longer hours. If the app goes down for whatever reason, you will be expected to show up in the office (or get online at 3AM) to help resolve the issue. At the very least you will have to respond as soon as possible, even if you are working on another project. If you don’t like the sound of this, maybe being a developer might not be for you.

Something else you will need is to have is a mind of a problem solver. I have met programmers who struggle because they are not able to solve a problem or are not resourceful enough to look and find the information that will aid them to resolve the issue at hand. You will not be expected to have a swift solution to every problem that is thrown at you, but the expectation of you being able to solve issues will definitely be a factor in your success as a dev.

Now that we got all the negativity out of the way let’s get into something more constructive. Don’t try to take on too much too fast. I suggest you get proficient at one thing at a time before moving onto learning something else. Figuring out where you want to end up working will help with this. If you’re going to be a full-stack web developer, focus on either the front-end or the back-end until you learn it, then and only then move on to the other. Trying to learn both at the same time might overwhelm you. Let’s explore or this scenario a bit more. Let’s assume you will choose to learn the front-end first, then move on to the back-end and you know your way around a computer, but have not taken any computer science courses.

Front-End Web Development

HTML, CSS and Javascript. Those are the main things you will need to learn to be able to build a UI. JavaScript can be used on the back-end, but in this case, JavaScript will be used for the UI. HTML and CSS, go hand in hand, and without being familiar with those two, you won’t get far, so I advise you learn these first. Then you can get familiar with JavaScript, pure JS without jQuery or any other framework or library. I would only devote enough time to learn how to access DOM elements (by the way if you don’t know what some of the acronyms or terms mean, I will make a list at the bottom of the most common ones) and make simple manipulations to HTML elements. Once you feel comfortable moving around the DOM, I recommend choosing a JavaScript framework. I like ReactJS (technically, React is a library, but many refer to it as a framework), there is also Angular and VueJS which are very popular. All have their pros and cons, the reason why I chose React is that is the most versatile, and once you know ReactJS, the learning curve to learn React Native is small, this will be an advantage if you ever want start building mobile applications. Take some time to do some research and pick the one you think is the best.

Mobile Development

Like web development there a few flavours you can choose from. You can be a truly native developer and learn Java or Kotlin to develop for Android then learn Swift to code for iOS devices. Or, you can choose React Native for which you need to learn JavaScript and develop for both platforms, Android, and iOS at the same time. I personally chose this route because using React Native is just a hop away if you are already familiar with ReactJS. React or React Native will require you to have knowledge of JavaScript. Another advantage is that if you start with mobile development using React Native moving your skills to web development the learning curve will be minimal.

Back-End Development

Here is where you can choose from a plethora of frameworks, some of them are PHP, Python, Java, Ruby On Rails, NodeJs and many more. The best approach for planning out your back-end is to develop a RESTful API your web application or mobile application can access to be able to send and retrieve data securely. All the frameworks or languages mentioned above can help you achieve this. The frameworks I work with are .NET Framework and .NET Core with C# as the language of choice. Again, I was pragmatic with my approach I chose C# because I can build applications for many platforms and there is a ton of documentation on how to get started with Web APIs. The main thing to keep in mind is to make sure you can reuse your code and/or web API(s) as much as you can.

I don’t expect this to be a guide on how to become a developer. I would look at it more like a set of tips that I wish someone would have shared with me when I was starting out. I’d love to hear your thoughts on this, you can find me at @thedevlife on Instagram.

For more career advice on how to get a job in software development or change jobs if you are already a Software Developer then please click here, we would love to help you.