When you read this, I’m assuming that you’re either preparing for a career change, or in the midst of one. I just spent 11 months switching careers. Let me tell you my story.
How long did it take to change careers? 11 months
When preparing for a career change, I read a lot of career change experiences written by people who have been there. What qualifications did they have? How long did it take them to change careers. Then compare oneself what condition, estimate change profession success rate and oneself need time.
Let’s take a look at what people are doing on the Internet. Many articles praised online (self-study programming), many are successful in one or two months to change careers. In the advertisements for training courses, the whole training period is usually 4 to 6 months.
Then look at the conditions before you made the switch. 211 books, Industrial Design; Master 985, Design; I have some programming knowledge and built my own WordPress website from scratch. In my last company, I wrote programs for a living. Saved a month and a half’s salary before quitting naked.
Looks like the condition should be good, at that time estimate oneself a half month can find next home. Unexpectedly, from my naked resignation, to the next company, fully experienced 11 months. Had it not been for the support of my family for food and accommodation, I would have been living on the streets.
If you’re ready to change careers, take a look at me as a slow spinner. Use 11 months as a kind of lower limit and as a reference point before quitting naked. That’s one of the reasons I’m writing this article.
It’s been 11 months
It has been 11 months since I resigned naked and joined my next company. In fact, this includes the time to choose a new career direction, to work on Unity game development, and the time to make a formal offer such as an oral offer. It took 8 months to get the offer from the current company. The effective effort time is 150 days, with a total of about 771 hours. The average effective time is 5.14 hours.
The time allocation of front-end learning in 8 months is as follows:
| when | content |
|---|---|
| 1 month | HTML5, CSS, Bootstrap |
| 1 month | JavaScript |
| 0.5 months | ES6 |
| 1.5 months | Vue and ITS H5, CSS in-depth |
| 1.5 months | React and functional programming |
| 1 month | Servers and apis |
| 0.3 months | PHP-MySQL |
| 1.2 months | Brush test and interview |
Note that this time allocation is an afterthought, not a “best practice.” At the same time, knowledge is interrelated, and this statistical classification is not rigorous. When DOING Vue, I found that I was not familiar with HTML and CSS. When I React, I realized that mastering JavaScript wasn’t mastering at all. The reason for making this table is to give newcomers an intuitive impression of the “volume” of knowledge blocks. Don’t think you can master Vue in a week and be happy looking for a job, as I did.
The statistics come from my daily log. I keep a journal every day to simply record what I do. I also have the habit of using iHour to record my time expenditure. However, ON iHour I put the learning front end under a “special programming”, did not do a breakdown. The table is based on the iHour total time record and daily work content cross-comparison collated, only for the new reference.
During the career change, I still reserved one day a week for recuperation. After all, this is long-distance running.
11 months can be compressed
There are many factors that have a greater impact on the time of career change. I will only mention “training courses” and “naked resignation”.
Whether to attend training classes
Taking classes is a really quick way to make a career change. There is an environment where students are encouraged to learn. There are teachers, do not understand the pit can ask. At the same time, high tuition fees and uneven teaching and student standards are also blamed.
But for me, it’s not worth it. For the tuition, really can’t afford. As for the learning atmosphere, students like me, who have been in school for 21 years, need no supervision. I have a search engine for teachers to answer questions. In these eight months, there are few technical questions that search engines can’t solve. Of course, search engines include “Google Pigeon.”
There’s another important reason to skip the class: to see if you’re really cut out for the front end. For me, if I can’t change to the front end through self-study, it means I’m not suitable for programmers, not suitable for the front end. If I take a training course, whether I am suitable or not, I can reach the level of employability through training. It’s hard to see if you fit in the front end.
Not attending a training course does not mean not being able to use its power. You can find the curriculum available in the training class, and then follow the knowledge points in the curriculum, bit by bit self-study.
Of course, whether to attend training classes varies from person to person. Anxious employment, the class is also a choice. In order to avoid advertising suspicion, there is no recommendation. Knowledge is objective. It makes no difference whether you learned it yourself, from someone else, or from a teacher. You don’t have to be less confident just because you have a training background. After a few years on the job, this “origin” is even less important.
Whether naked resignation
Teaching yourself a career change in your spare time is a mild way to ensure income and have a back-up plan. If your day job is easy enough, maybe you can try it. Of course, it also means that you won’t have the determination and momentum to burn Bridges, and the success rate is not guaranteed.
In my last job, I worked late at night or all night, and there was no “spare time” to learn skills. I had to resign naked. Quitting naked means having enough time to commit to studying, but it also means the anxiety of losing your income. However, after naked resign full-time self-study programming, indeed much higher efficiency. Otherwise this article should have been called “It took me XX years to Change careers”.
11 months of being chased by the tiger
In 2018, when I switched industries, the front end was in the middle of a technology shift. There was a strong feeling that knowledge was “learned and eliminated”.
Just like a person running on a rugged mountain road. There’s a wagon ahead, and if you can catch it and get on, you’ll have work and food. There is a tiger (technology) running after the wagon. The tiger ran fast, so did the cart in front of him, and he himself, caught in the middle, could only run as fast as he could. If the tiger catches up with you, you are no problem being “eliminated”. For 11 months, I’ve run and run and run
I started with HTML5 and CSS. These are the basis of the web page, has been learning to come down without too big changes, still good.
Next, you’ll inevitably come across a lightweight framework called jQuery, a “living antique.” Since this framework is on the verge of obsolescence, I studied it a little and put it aside. I didn’t expect jQuery to show up a lot in future interviews, and every time I was penalized here.
Then learn Bootstrap and develop responsive web applications. If you dig deeper, you can even write your own responsive framework. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find that big companies don’t play responsive anymore. In reactive mode, some elements are hidden when accessed from mobile and some elements are hidden when accessed from desktop. But no matter what device is accessed, all elements have to be downloaded. Large companies write two sets of pages for both desktop and mobile, with better compatibility and higher performance.
The latter stage of career change, basic learning framework. When you learn frameworks, it becomes clear that the old “development model” is outdated. Write HTML, CSS, JS, jQuery directly, all slash-and-burn. Use a frame. That’s driving a tractor. Presents? The React? Vue? The new framework is dazzling and the framework ecology is full of vitality.
JavaScript itself is an evolving language. When learning ES6, it’s almost like learning a new language!
Back to the mountain road. I had started behind the tiger, and now I had caught up with the carriage and got on. When I got on board, I found out — where did the horse come from? It’s a man pulling! While I was still in my panic, an old man pulling a cart in front of me tripped over a stone and fell. The cart ran over him relentlessly, and in a few seconds the tiger would overtake him. Without hesitation, I picked up the suspended bridle and tied it to myself. Silently, I pulled the carriage forward, unable to look back…
What offer have you got in 11 months
I have obtained 5 offers in total in 11 months. I chose the last offer, a big factory. Space is limited, if many people are interested in this, write a separate article about the process.
The tail
Today’s story is mostly technical. Actually change profession still has the difficult problem such as state of mind, life. But I’m sure you can handle this on your own, so I don’t need to say anything more.
I hope you can find a job as soon as possible in 2019, and don’t have to struggle for so long like me.