Two jobs ago, I worked for a small web support and development firm that went out of business when it’s parent company went under.
In my most recent position I worked for a consulting firm that had me placed in one company for 2 1/2 years. I maintained and made some improvements to that companies existing website. They eventually decided that they wanted to bring IT in house and terminated the contract, at which point my employer terminated me. Shortly before all of this, the company went to an outside web firm and had them create a more modern up to date website which I had no access to and did no maintenance for.
Before those two jobs, I was in business myself, setting up websites which made money through banners, Google ads, and hawking merchandise as an affiliate. When the economy crashed I stopped making money at that. So I got a full time job and stopped paying for the server that was hosting my money losing websites.
The upshot of all of this is that I have quite a bit of experience with creating and maintaining websites and managing Linux servers running Apache, PHP, and MySQL, but when a potential employer asks for examples of my work there is nothing live on the web to show them.
I could create something myself, but that takes time.
Do potential employers always ask for online examples? If they do, what’s my best answer (that doesn’t sound like bullshit)?
I thought of pointing to my most recent contract’s current website, but that’s dishonest and anyway it’s labeled with the name of a CMS that I know nothing about so I could get caught on that. In any case lying to a potential employer is something I don’t do and I won’t start now.
I may be interviewed today for a rather lucrative contract to bring a limping, half-finished website into acceptable working order. If the guy asks me for online examples, what do I say?
Hmm… Possibly. The small web firm folded before anything I had done went live so that stuff won’t be there.
Most, or all, of my personally owned sites blocked archiving as part of my SEO strategy. The point was to stop robots such as Google from archiving, but it may have also blocked Wayback. I’ll have to check.
I just checked the Wayback archive and they have the front page of the old website from my most recent contract, but none of the links work. That’s to be expected since the site was all mostly the same php file and the different content was pulled from a MySQL DB. The various animations, and the jquery driven dropdown menus and scrolling text work, so that’s something that I can show them at least.
Thanks for the suggestion.
Opinions? Is showing them a half working page in the Wayback Machine a good idea or is it worse than nothing at all?
I’m actually in the middle of doing that, but I’m expecting a possible call any minute and was looking for suggestions as to what to do if they call before I finish.
Explain it to them. They might be impressed by your initiative. If you’re talking to someone technical you might make a better impression than some people with active websites. If it’s just some HR puppet, well sorry about that.
I’m hoping that the call is from a techie because then I can at least try to steer the conversation towards what their current problems are, suggest some possible causes and solutions, and show that way that I know what I’m doing. Of course, if they have someone technical and, as I’ve been told by the headhunter, they need this thing up and running ASAP, then I’d think they’d have their techie doing it. So who knows.
Since it’s now 4:30, and I’m pretty sure this firm is local, they may not be calling today. That may be bad because it may mean that they’ve found someone else, but it could be good because it gives me all night to put together a site (sleep? what’s that?). Either way I’ll have a demo site for other possible jobs.
And I have a possible interview today. Thank you so much for the helpful comment. :rolleyes: I’m not an idiot. I am working on something (which you’d know if you’d actually read the entire thread).
I threw up a photo gallery overnight but it was one of those download and install things which I can’t really pass off as my own work. It’ll at least show that I can configure a server and install a website. Hopefully that’ll be sufficient since this particular job involves an already installed but broken website.
If I can get this work, then I’ll be able to point to at least one thing that somebody paid me to work on.
If you find versions of the stuff you worked on on the Wayback Machine, screencap it instead unless you’re certain you are talking to a techie. Most people gloss over the concept of ‘old archived site’ and go ‘why do none of the links work? This is crap!’. Just tell them the site has been updated substantially since you worked on it so you don’t want to show the current version.
The next time a client freaks out and sends corrections about a dev site they’ve been told is still in development and is not final, I’m gonna punch them in the face.
I just heard from the recruiter that they decided to go with a different consulting firm. I never even got to talk to them. I could have done this job, dammit! Two days ago it was “this website has got to be fixed ASAP. Tomorrow if possible.” Now they’re being picky about consulting firms.
If you have more time now, here’s a way to show off your skills:
Set up a cheap VPS account - the kind with a raw OS, no cpanel. It’ll cost you $20-30/mo. Install and configure nginx or apache, php, mysql et al yourself, and document what you did. Then set up a few sites running WordPress, phpBB, photo galleries etc for your friends.
You’ll be able to give them specific examples of software you’ve installed and maintained and go into detail when they ask. It’ll also give you good material for interview questions about solving problems and initiative. And if you’re working on a design portfolio too you’ll have a place to host it. You could host your own blog and use it to write about the process.