Wut lol, definitely not. At least in tech/programming careers and it has been starting to spread to other industries (slowly, but spreading none the less). A solid project portfolio, well written resume and maybe a few applicable well chosen certifications can get you far.

I'm decently high up with the ability to hire and fire and I can tell you I def choose the self-taught person with a solid portfolio full of cool personal projects and self taught over someone just fresh out of college with the college-standard portfolio just about every time

[–] PoopingCough@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Would love to know what kind of cool personal projects you've seen! I'm trying to get my first job in web dev and feel like i have a hard time coming up with stuff to do for my portfolio.

[+] SamiDena@programming.dev 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 3 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Keep in mind I'm more of a "Jack of all trades" sysadmin/IT/devops role

Your portfolio seems pretty solid, but it's all very... technical utilities and such. What I like to see is a passion/fun project. For example, do you like gaming? Build a game! But not just any game, a game on a topic and style that you like. That sort of thing. Passion projects have a way of bringing out your best skills whether you realize it or not.

Also some parts of your readme.md kinda seem...unsure. id cut out that entire aliases blurb and just stick with one professional alias. Or your actual name if you're not worried about it

Also the "employed(?)" thing, it's too ambiguous, just pick the closest fit for it. Is it just something he hits you up every once in a while for something and offers a one time payment? I'd put something like "regularly freelances for" or something like that.

Keep in mind that I have never done 'aggressive applying'. I think I have applied for a job less than 10 times. I used to get jobs from my friends and I earned a good amount of money from it. But then my friends stopped having jobs to give me lol.

This is probably your biggest problem. I got my current role 3 years ago and even then I sent over 200 applications across <2 months, and had just 10 interviews.

It's so much worse now after all the layoffs and AI bs. Might seem daunting to do all those applications, but you're a developer, automate it!

Also, you're in the EU, even if you pay for college it's still basically free compared to us in the states.

Here college runs 20k/yr at best without scholarships and upwards of >50k, so you don't "just" go-to college here unless your career actually needs it (ie. Doctor), you're rich and can afford it, got lucky with some scholarships or join the military to get free schooling

[–] massive_bereavement@fedia.io 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

it was basically a meme college.

So your alma matter is also the Bovine University?