Pro Dev Day

Today was Pro Dev Day, it’s a few hours of a lot of companies and freelancers willing to talk to students and anyone really about their company. Some have job placements or permanent jobs available for graduates, which is great for someone like me in their final year of University. While that’s briefly about what it is here’s the website: http://prodevday.com.

Overview of my day

I went of course, to hopefully get a good idea of what companies want and whether they have anything going. Some chats were fairly brief, some longer, the longer ones were the jobs I was mainly interested in and they were positive about my work and wanted to see my portfolio (for what the University wifi allowed…) Throughout the few hours the title I usually give what I do “web designer” lost the meaning I thought it had. That meaning I do designing of sites, coding of websites, and so on. What I considered to be a full requirement, and what I think should be, wasn’t what every company looked for but instead I was talking to people then telling them I’m a front-end web developer (as what they called it, I didn’t think there was much difference but everyone has their own opinion). I prefer web designer if I’m honest – much shorter and just what I’m used to.

I went to a session they have called “pimp my CV”, a definite eye opener, and though my portfolio does more talking than my CV, I think I’ll be definitely going to rework my CV a little. I do wish I’d got an opinion on it but I was more interested in finding a potential placement and showing my work.

Conclusion

I’ve found it extremely helpful as a whole, and it gave me a great understanding of what companies want. Though I would take any creative web job at the moment, just for experience. I think I’d like a role where I design and I code the websites that I would be making. Then again I’d have to see how that went with a job, I’m not 100% fond of coding but I like to keep my skills sharp and learn more. If it is a specialised job I do get it’ll depend on the opportunities, but I’d take the designer role every time. I recommend anyone within the central Manchester area to attend. Even if you have a job, just purely to meet people if you don’t have your name out there as much as you’d like.

Though I definitely need to expand my portfolio! Slowly but surely working on that though.