Just got fired from my day job - what should I do next?

When I'm between contracts I just build side projects in languages and frameworks I ultimately want to work with while I'm contract hunting.

If something comes of the project, awesome. If not, you still gained experience with the technologies and a portfolio piece to talk about during the interview process. It's win win.

A few thoughts:

• if you were “laid off”, never say you were “fired” (not your Title post is different fro the Body of the post). Laid off is when a company reduces its workforce in size and is not a negative reflection on you. Being fired means you weren’t doing your job and/or you were terminated for cause.

• Layoff typically happen to lower value roles within an organization. So avoid those roles. Note: the same “job” at two different companies can have radically different values to those respective organizations. Eg working for an design agency where you’re a billable resource creating website might have huge value to that organization but doing the same website work as an employee of an Oil company might have little value to them.

• therefore, think hard about what your best at - and then map those skills to seeking a job at a company who most values those skills.

This is a minor thing, but take inventory of all the projects and accomplishments you did in that job while they're fresh in your head.

i've always learned new frameworks and such on the job. But I absolutely put in the time outside of work too. Getting paid to learn is the best. But for sure sign up for Treehouse/codecademy/whatever, and practice practice practice. Try freelancing. Thats kinda how i got started. i built terrible websites/apps for money and i didn't know jack. Fake it till you make it.

having been on both sides of the interview, an eagerness to learn and try new things will go far with employers.

I got my current job with little/no experience with our day to day framework (Elm).

put a portfolio together, put stuff on github. apply to places, and if you haven't yet, Set up for a Linkedin. I get hounded by recruiters constantly on there. Some people don't like recruiters but they've gotten me my last 3 jobs, and i must say I love my day job.
Best of luck!

Hi Jatacid,

First, don't be discouraged by being fired from your day job. It doesn't sound like you are, but just in case you start to feel that way, just remember that there are a combination of factors that lead to the situation. However, it's important to try and take at least some responsibility for it. The reason why is that it's actually empowering. It means you have the power to do better in the future, rather than living totally at the mercy of other people's decisions, which is a great thing. Just take it as a learning experience!

Second, be very clear with yourself about what you want to achieve. Set goals with deadlines. Do you just want to be a junior developer, or do you think you're capable of something much more? What do you want to be, and how soon? "Dress for the job you want" can be treated as a metaphor, meaning act the role you want to be, rather than the role you currently are. Once you do that, you'll be focusing on becoming that, and the stakes will raise.

I recommend spending at minimum an extra couple hours each day, and half of your weekend, on personal development. Your career in software engineering/web development is almost entirely merit-based. So your status and position largely correlates to the work you put in.

This could be a great opportunity to try your hand at freelance type work. That would give you a chance to try new frameworks and libraries, show yourself what you're made of, make mistakes faster, and in the future if you apply for a job you'll have a much stronger position because it shows that you're autonomous.

Good luck!

Hi jatacid! I'd do both - find a job just to pay your bills, and start a side project (anything really) to learn new skills. On the first day of the new job I would start looking for the next one, requiring the skills you're learning doing your side project. Hopefully by the time you find one that interests you, you'll have something shipped and ready to show. Good luck!

Learn something new while looking for a new job?

Personally, I believe working + learning is more effective than full-time learning (for programming).

It depends.

Elsewhere I already commented that being laid off because you automated your job is not the same thing as being fired. But losing a job causes huge turmoil in your life and is very upsetting.

First, take stock of your finances. How long are you okay? Do you have six months of living expenses? A year? More than a year? If you aren't strapped for time, take some time off. Get out and do things, spend time with friends and family, focus on all the other things in your life besides work.

Then think about where you can go to get the experience you want while being paid. You want to be a front end dev, so apply for those jobs. If you have 80% of the skills needed to come into such a position and be productive on the first day and the gaps are learning particular frameworks, you're not in terrible shape. If you understand the network layer, how HTTP works, CORS, and the like, most employers are going to shrug at whether you've used their framework.

Then start working your network to find referrals and places to apply where you will go into the hiring queue via someone already there instead of a resume submitted to a web form.

Try to find some freelance job until you'll find something that will suit you. maybe you'll stay in freelance as it's really convenient as you can work from everywhere and take working hours that suit you.

Contrary to what everyone believes, you don't need to know react/angular etc to get a new job. The internet makes you think that, but in real life there are many companies that just need someone who can do HTML, CSS and a little JS. Fine it does not pay as much, but those jobs are out there. My advice is make a few sites and show what you can do, even without "the frameworks". When i started out, this is what i did and it gave me a massive advantage. I made heaps of sites to show what i was capable of. People usually just want to see what you can produce, they will know you can learn those frameworks when they need you to.

An awesome resource that I've been using to improve my understanding of frontend technologies, which may help you, has been frontendmasters.com. I'm not affiliated with them, I just sincerely think that they have great, comprehensive courses.

@jatacid Hey im in the exact same position would love a front end dev to help build my project. Im a back end web dev myself and would love to work with someone on projects with.