How To Get Job Experience While Still Learning IT Skills

Blink twice if you’re familiar with this struggle: 

a. You come across the perfect job opening, just perfect!  

b. You confirm that the working conditions are excellent and would be a great test of your skills, which would also be suitable for your career.

c. You get excited about applying, dreaming of the “competitive” salary because, come on, they might as well have made this job opening for you. The job was literally made for you. 

Until you get to the closing parts of the offer and see it. It. The curve you should have seen from a mile away—the downer that drops through your guts: Must have X years of experience.😥

It’s a frustration that many of us can relate to in the job-hunting process. You’ve probably seen the jokes on social media about companies wanting a 21-year-old with 5 years of work experience. But in reality, many businesses, even for entry-level roles, require some level of work experience. They want to see that your certified training is backed by real-world experience, a sign that you can bring value to their team. 

Now, here’s the issue: How do you get the required experience, and where should you look for it? The good news is that it is possible to gain experience while still learning tech skills, especially when you see your tech journey as an empowering process. 

There are many ways to level up your skills, gain experience, and fortify your resumé to secure your dream job. Some of them are:

1. Internships

This is the most obvious path to gain work experience. Working for little or no pay might be challenging, but sacrificing a little will pay big in the long term. A good internship stint will set you up for a smooth recruitment into IT. 

Do proper research on organizations before applying for their internship programs. This way, you will only apply to companies that will give you the best growth opportunities. 

Bonus points: You’ll make great connections, expand your knowledge, and boost your chances in the job market.

2. Freelancing

Offering your newly acquired skills for pay on freelance platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, and Toptal is a sure way to get job experience. Granted, most of these platforms favour skilled and experienced professionals, but there’s still a chance for beginners. You get a feel for real-world applications of your tech skills and discover job-related challenges for your skillset.

3. Personal Projects

While this may not seem like work experience at face value, it counts as project experience. Your ability to start and finish a project with your newly acquired tech skills is a testament to your competence and passion. It shows potential employers that you are capable of using your skills to solve problems and should make you feel proud of your achievements.

The difference between theoretical knowledge and hands-on experience is application. Be sure to document and share your projects on a personal website, platforms like GitHub, or anyone best suited for your tech skills.

4. Volunteering

Offering your skills (however limited) to organizations and projects related to your field will help you grow and gain hands-on experience. Startups and nonprofits are always looking for volunteers with tech skills. This way, you can even get the added advantages of earning recommendations, referrals, or even recruitment. And who knows? You just might make innovative solutions while actively giving back to society.

5. Open Source Contributions

For hands-on programming work experience, start contributing to open-source projects. Open-source projects are software projects whose source codes are open to the public for inspection, modification, and collaboration. Contributing to these projects can make you feel part of a larger tech community, and give you a sense of the collaborative nature of the IT industry.

A software’s source code is the part of the software that controls how it runs. Most computer users won’t interact with it, but these projects have their source codes available for programmers to change or fix the parts that are not working correctly.

Places to find open-source projects:

Google open source

Meta open source

Others

6. Mentorship Programs

Being taken under the wings of an experienced professional can work wonders for your tech career. Mentors in your chosen field can show you the ropes of the game, direct you away from pitfalls, and bring you into the inner circle quicker than if you were on your own. 

When you sign up for mentorship programmes designed to guide you through volunteer jobs, you can gain as a volunteer and a mentee. The experience you gain from any program structured like this will enrich you with industry techniques, strategies, and insights.

On the other hand, projects completed under your mentor can be used as work experience, and they can act as your referee.

7. Hackathons and Coding Competitions

Hackathons, coding competitions, contests for grants, and scholarships will put your skills to the test. Contests hosted on Kaggle, Google Summer of Code, and hackathons on Devpost are prime examples of this. They test your technical proficiency and problem-solving reach. They also expose you to the experience of collaboration and working on real-world projects. 

Winning at any of these draws benefits beyond prizes alone. You can be sure of getting recognition and easier access to opportunities. Listing your achievements on a resumé assures potential employers of your practical experience and ability to work as a team member.

8. Online courses with hands-on labs

As mentioned earlier, practical experience is very important in boosting your chances as a prospective employee. Enrolling in online courses with hands-on labs and projects will give you the desired practical experience. You can build more on these projects and add them to your tech portfolio.

9. Social Media

These platforms are not just for touting your skills and building your brand. As a tech professional, you can build a formidable portfolio on social media. While these platforms are best known for updating your audience, they also expose your skills to a diverse range of interests, thereby increasing your opportunities. 

Tech recruiters often directly reach out to prospective employees on platforms like LinkedIn and X (formerly known as Twitter).

These days, building a strong social media presence is beneficial for almost any IT profession. However, for work experience, it is more beneficial for public-facing tech careers like digital marketing, tech education, and design. In trying to show off your skills, you acquire new ones and reinforce what you already know. The visibility, connections, and resources you gain from these spaces can be valuable for your career.

Gaining experience is good, but showcasing it gives you an edge. One way to showcase your practical skills to potential employers is by building a portfolio. A portfolio is essential because it makes a case for knowledge and experience—recruiters love experience! It is also a way to track your achievements and show your key competencies instead of just listing them in a CV.

Platforms For Building Your IT Skills Portfolio

There are many online platforms for building your tech skills portfolio. Building a portfolio on these platforms will sharpen your skills, connect you with other tech professionals, and make you more visible for job opportunities. It can also help you gain experience by exposing you to open-source projects. But beyond just improving your tech skills, these platforms can benefit you in other ways. Here are a few of them to check out: 

—GitHub:

This is one of the most popular platforms for developers. It has been around since 2008. As a developer platform, it allows programmers to network, share code, and work on software projects as a team. Talk about maximum value! If you’re a beginner developer or a pro, you’ll definitely use Git (version control system for code). 

GitHub is one of the web-hosted services for git repositories. Pushing your codes to GitHub or making your projects public via the platform signals dexterity in your coding skills. Many tech jobs that require coding skills request for your Git profile as a way to assess your skills. 

GitHub is free and easy to learn. On the platform, you can find open source projects in the areas of your interest and contribute to them. This will significantly enhance your programming and collaborative skills. You can use this as work experience on your resume.

The platform’s README section lets you pitch your projects, broadening your opportunities for a call-up or direct recruitment.

GitHub Alternatives: GitLab, Bitbucket, OneDev, Codeberg, Radicle, Google Cloud Source Repositories, Azure repos, and Launchpad.

—Behance:

From Adobe, this one is for the creative arm of tech. It is the largest network for creators to showcase and discover creative works. Behance is dubbed the social media for creatives. It offers design inspiration from thousands of creative templates. It is free, unless you want to upgrade to pro and access premium features.

Once you sign up on the platform and create your profile, you can start showing off your designs. 

You can use Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign, After Effects and Illustrator from the platform. This allows you to master these creative tools. As a plus, the platform showcases freelance opportunities and has a marketplace to sell your designs.

Behance Alternatives: Dribble, Carbommade, Format, Dunked, Ello, Portfoliobox, and Portfoliopen.

—Figma:

There are many reasons why Figma remains a popular and versatile choice for UI/UX designers and front-end developers. For one, this cloud-based tool is a literal whiteboard for anyone looking to create high-quality designs. 

Whether on a web browser, desktop, or mobile app, Figma lets you build realistic prototypes, coordinate workflows, and collaborate with others for team projects. You can develop your technical design skills here, but that’s not all. As a collaborative tool, Figma connects beginners, professionals, and experts. This provides opportunities for receiving guidance, feedback, and tips that can improve your design skills.

You can create a portfolio of your best work on Figma and share the link with potential employers.

Figma Alternatives: InVision, Sketch, Adobe XD, Marvel, UXPin, Moqups, Penpot, Creatie, Wireflow, Miro.

—Kaggle:

As the largest data science community, Kaggle is perfect for aspiring professionals in Data Science and Machine Learning. There are tons of resources and powerful tools in this space that can help you enhance your career goals as a data scientist and machine learning engineer. 

Additionally, Kaggle is known for hosting contests with monetary prizes. These contests are often sponsored by large companies to encourage innovative solutions for practical data science challenges. Your chances of securing a future-proof career in data science and machine learning are stronger when you have collaborative experiences from platforms like Kaggle.

Kaggle Alternatives: Paperspace Gradient, Amazon SageMaker, Google Colab, KodeKloud, Tableau Public, DataCamp Workspace, and Jupyter Notebook Viewer.

—WordPress:

The popular way to build a digital portfolio is on a personal website. Building a WordPress site is easy and free. It can also be a starting point for growing your web development skills. And this is not just because it lets you build, customize, and launch functional websites. Practicing web design with website templates on WordPress helps you gain hands-on website-building experience, especially if you favor no-code tech skills.

Using your personal website to curate your projects and services will showcase your skills. It is also a great branding strategy, one that sets you apart as a high-value professional.

WordPress Alternatives: WebFlow, Framer, Adobe Dreamweaver, Wix, Pantheon, Duda, and Canva.

—CyberDefender:

Venturing into cybersecurity quickly teaches you that theoretical knowledge alone is insufficient. To advance your career in any of the niches under cybersecurity, you need to have hands-on skills along with critical thinking and problem-solving capabilities. CyberDefender is a cloud-based platform that features interactive simulations that help you develop practical proficiency. These simulations and other fun, instructive features serve as tests for learning the fundamentals and advanced strategies of cybersecurity. 

In real-world settings, businesses would rely on your abilities to recognize and deal with threats, incursions, and weaknesses.

CyberDefender Alternatives: OverTheWire, GNS3, Python Principles, Blue Team Labs, Hack The Box, VulnHub, Cisco Packet Tracer.

—CodeProject:

This has often been compared with Stack Overflow but is still a unique platform. It’s a free, open-source, self-hosted, and reliable space for developers and programmers to connect and network, especially those just starting out. 

On the platform, most people post, trade, and use vital articles, tutorials, and resources. These contributions can help you level up your understanding of web and software development, programming languages, computing techniques, and related areas. From the platform, you can develop solutions and strategies for dealing with coding challenges in practical, real-world settings.

CodeProject Alternatives: CodeWars, HackerRank, FreeCodeCamp, ServerFault, Baeldung, SuperUser, CSS Tricks. 

Conclusion

See? Hunting for tech jobs doesn’t have to be so frustrating once you know how to navigate the labyrinth of skills and experience. It’s a slow grind, and you might have to get out of your comfort zone, but the long-term benefits are worth the hustle. 

If you’re getting into tech and looking to secure a solid career, don’t be afraid to ask questions, seek guidance, test your skills, work with a team, and showcase all you have to offer. Every step you take brings you closer to your career goals, not to mention the financial freedom and life you deserve.