I got offered a full-time web developer position.I am unequipped for it.How? | Hacker News Reader

I got offered a full-time web developer position.I am unequipped for it.How?

2 pointsgotrecruit4 comments

i am a business school graduate who has tremendous passion and interest in technology, software and web development. I also consider myself an entrepreneur who is currently operating my own little e-commerce startup, with great ambitions for my idea. Simultaneously, I'm also learning software development and engineering via online courses such as coursera and codecademy. I am also slated to return to school for a software engineering or computer science degree next spring.<p>A recruiter just contacted me on LinkedIn with a job offer for a full-time web developer position in NYC. I have no idea why she thinks I'm "a perfect fit for the job", other than the fact that I listed myself as lead developer for an idea I'm working on, which in honesty is not entirely true yet. To be more clear, I do intend to develop the concept myself but as of today I'm still in the learning stage, and have not even begun actual development.<p>I'm interested in the job, but despite my interest, I have no real relevant skill to speak of. I'm thinking in lieu of returning to school, I could learn on the job instead while still building my startup on the side. How should I respond? Can i fake it til I make it? If so, how to do that?

Cool your jets - recruiters often parse/automate their email-sending habits (for example, if you've gotten commendations from friends on HTML, CSS, and Django or something, they can find this out) -- or do some basic searches and send a lot of those kinds of emails.

If you are interested in this job, and they have actually looked at what you have made, and you want the job, just go ahead and take some interviews (remotely, you might not necessarily want to fly to NYC for an interview that doesn't pan out) and BE HONEST.

You're not going to do anyone any good by dishonestly "faking it till you make it". Companies don't assume that everyone knows everything when they get hired (so there will be time for you to "ramp up"), but you definitely want to make it known up front your actual level of expertise, and things that you know/don't know

1) Getting emails like this is, sadly, very common

2) Can you fake it? It depends. Some people have it easier than others when it comes to coding ... call it an innate capability. If you have "it" and can learn fast, you might be able to fake an entry level position without effort. Anything more, not so much I'm afraid. So .. have you ever coded before?

3) Seriously think it through if you're going to fake it. Apart from stuff like reputational harm, if you are an alpha-personality, you might find it very hard to fail badly at something. For instance, people stay in PhD programs for years because they are smart and have no idea how to fail out. If I were you, I'd be honest with them ... tell them the extent of your prior knowledge and experience. If they can deal with that and you can learn fast ... that's awesome. If not, no big deal, right? :)

If the interviewers are worth their salt then they'll figure out quite quickly just what level you're at (which obviously means it serves you to be up front and honest besides the fact that its the right thing to do).

So things can go two ways after they realist your true skillset:

1. They see your potential and offer you the job.

2. They turn you down but you get some solid interview experience.

Either way you have nothing to lose. I've mentored many different graduates and always tell them to take as many interviews as they can - even jobs they're not 100% interested in - because all that experience counts.

If you wanna chat more about this then feel free to shout me over at @modernprogrammr

recruiter + linkedin = common

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