Junior Developer Struggles: How to earn credibility the hard way

I'm trying out a new writing style: previously I was verbose, now I'm writing more succinctly and at times blunt and to the point, so you can get the meaningful details quickly.

Hopefully, the blog cover image gave you a hint about what this article is about. Having gone through the experience once in entirety and currently going through it again with a different organisation, I would say that offering your services as a volunteer to support a local charity or enterprise in exchange for learning new web design and development skills (as well as professional skills), is an investment in your self and well worth the effort. Summary of why you should do it below:

• Low barrier to entry: you will likely have an ice-breaker video call where you should be honest in what skills you can bring and what you want to get out of the volunteer opportunity. Don't worry about interview preparation in my opinion.

• Break the cycle of: "I need my first job to get experience but no one will hire me because I have no experience". If you follow-through, you will earn credible, relevant and marketable experience.

• You will learn new processes, tools and management skills. Any organisation that you volunteer your time for, is different and conducts their digital 'tasks' differently allowing for you to learn best practices, lessons learned from mistakes etc.

• You will leverage useful contacts: if they are in the tech field, ask them for a mentor opportunity or if they know of any other local jobs. If not, get the managing director or someone of significance in the charity to write you a referral about the work you did, how you conducted yourself professionally and how you solved their problem or helped them. Remember, you offered your time and skills for free - do not feel shy about asking them to 'repay' the favour for you - it's the least they can do.

• As a developer, your main selling point that organisations care about, is your ability to solve their problems. Always frame your experience with this in mind. So when you come to discuss these volunteer projects you were involved in, mention what the state of affairs were before you arrived, how you went about resolving the issue, tools and tech as well as management. Finally, end with the result of you solving their problem.

Honestly, there are many more reasons to support a local charity, not least the personal satisfaction you get from helping a just cause. However, be prepared for a drawn-out relationship:

• A website feature can quickly balloon into a maintenance task or they give you additional tasks, such that you are continually volunteering your time, more than perhaps you anticipated. Try to establish requirements from the start or simply walk away amicably- remember it's your free time and energy you are donating.

• Some charity workers maybe tech-savvy, but likely many will not be - ask yourself, if they were converse with tech, would they be hiring for a volunteer? This is a great chance to explain technical solutions in layman's terms - something you will need to do in the paid workplace in my opinion.

• You could come across individuals in the organisation that have contrasting opinions, unprofessional behaviour etc. This is hard to overcome and if you felt it's not worth the stress and decided to quit, I wouldn't blame you. I'm having to deal with this right now: designing the features for a homepage and trying to cater to different people's requests- people who are as old as the furniture and are resistant to new ideas and change. If you feel like quitting, remind yourself why you signed up to volunteer in the first place and what you want to get out of it. Ask yourself, if you quit now, are you better off than before the volunteering opportunity?

Hopefully, you will find enjoyment and useful tech experience when volunteering at a charity. Here are some sites I used to search for opportunities (always worth calling or emailing the charity owner directly to follow-up):

• https://charitydigital.org.uk/

• https://www.charityjob.co.uk/

• Search charity jobs in LinkedIn and Indeed

• Check your local council where they may have a webpage on volunteer service