Will I Be Able To Find A Job?

I've found out that I've passed my first year at college, studying Web Development. I haven't received my results yet, but I've been told by my lecturer (who has the results back), that I have passed everything. Once I find out my results, I'll let you all know.

I will be starting my second year at the beginning of next month and I'm really looking forward to it. But I have to ask: How hard (or easy) is it to get a job in this field? I'm not talking about freelancing here, I would like to do that on the side at some point, but I would prefer to go straight into a job at first because that would give me a steady income.

My mum always asks me if I'm going to be able to find a job once I'm finished with my education. She asks if I'm going to be able to find a job close to home, or whether I will have to pack up and head to another country for work. I don't know the answer to this question, so, I thought I would ask the people who do know; you guys. I know a lot of you are freelancers, but I also know some of you are employees of a company (Village Idiot, to name one.)

Thanks to all who apply.

Depends how fluent you are in the web development field. If you know your XHTML, CSS, PHP, Photoshop, etc... very well then I'm quite certain that you won't have any problems finding a job.

it's a matter of what you know, who you know, and how proficient/efficient you are at what you do - quality portfolio/experience.

what is studying web development? what's your target job? if web development to you is html/css you'll be competing with everyone from marketing, design, programming and advertising. if web development is .net/C# you have a much more narrow stream of competition.

if you're going into your second year of training, the chances of you getting hired are slim, unless you have some supurb connections, because you're going to be competing against everyone a year a head of you that's graduated and devote 9-5 to them.


edit: portfolio/experience is the most important thing. if you've made 1-2 web sites for school, you've shown you can build the product, but if you've built 40 over the last 4 years, you'll have learned lots of ways to improve your skill.

More than likely the job you end up with will be completely different from what you are expecting to do, just to put a bit harsh reality into it. There will be jobs out there doing what you want to do, of course, but not as many jobs as there are college and uni leavers who want those jobs. Some of that will also depend on your area.

From everyone I went to college with who studied it not one of them has a job in web development. That was obvious though as were I live there is pretty much zero demand for it.

Doesn't mean that your time at college has been wasted though, your qualification will help you land other jobs and open up other paths. If it's an option I would go to Uni if you can though, it means an extra 4 years without havening to worry about where you will end up after it all

Anyway thats me being negative, I'm not saying you wont get a job doing what you want to do. There is every chance you will, it's just in my experience a large amount of people don't get to do what they thought they would so you need to be prepared for that chance.

If you are good at what you do, you'll find a job.

Derek: I don't plan on trying to get a job in Web Development just yet. I want to wait until I've completely finished my education. I plan on going to university after this year of College to get my degree.

It's a three year corse which starts with an HNC (which I've just done), then HND (what I'm about to do) and finally, a degree (what I hope to do next year).

This year of college focuses a lot more on programming languages such as PHP, JavaScript and a few others which I haven't been told about yet. Once I've finished my HND I can start to go down more specialised fields. And no, I don't expect a job coding in xHTML/CSS.

Bazza`: As said above, I plan on going to university. It's just I had to start with the HNC first.

Ah right sounds good, I did 3 years at college before Uni (did mine just before they switched over to HND).

I would think having your degree will help, I hope it helps anyway!

Last year at Uni I did .net which I think is pretty common(ish) with web development courses it wasn't too bad actually have no idea what kind of jobs, if any, it would help with getting mind. I'm supposed to be doing an advanced PHP and Java module next year but I'm thinking of changing because I bloody hate PHP.

Anyway good luck with your course and eventual job hunting, hopefully you can end up landing the job you want!