How to get your first job, without a college degree (Part 2)

Weeks 5-48: Begin to create your resume experience

If you missed Part 1 of this series, just head here.

Now that you’ve built one simple small project for yourself, like a static website, it’s time to begin to create your own paid work experience. The #1 hurdle to getting your first job is lack of paid work experience. If you don't have experience, but getting hired requires experience, how can you get experience? Here's how: create your own paid work experience. Follow these steps:

1. Make a list of friends or relatives that own a small business or lead a small organization. Here are some examples: mosques, pet grooming stores, book clubs, kid sports teams, churches, non-profits, local restaurants, bars, hairdressers, etc. 
2. Find their website.
3. If their site is nonexistent, terribly out of date or looks like it was built by a 12-year old, contact your friend or relative and use this script: “Hey there first_name, I’d love to build you a brand new website. I've built projects before, but because I'm early on in my career, I'll only charge $100. Here are a couple times I'm free in the next seven days to chat about this. All you have to do is reply and pick a time that works for you. Thank you!" then add 4-5 times you're free for a Zoom or phone call.
4. To get one meeting you'll probably have to ask at least 10 people. Remember that every "No thanks" moves you closer to success. You'll probably have to get 10 meetings to get your first paid project. That means you'll need to ask 100 people to get your first project: 100 requests -> 10 meetings -> 1 project. Remember, the entire process of creating your experience could take you 12 months. Do NOT quit after your first 4 weeks of getting constant "No thank you!" responses. Instead, commit daily to send out at least five requests. If you do that for 20 days, you'll have asked 100 people. So if you just send out your daily five requests for meetings, you did your job and you're winning. This is a classic sales funnel. You've got to put X number of people in the top of the funnel, to get Y projects out of the bottom of the funnel. Here's an example sales funnel:

1. Once you secure your first $100 job, make sure to be clear about what you can deliver. I'd recommend a 1-2 page site. Don't promise more than you can deliver (remember, they're only paying $100!)
2. After you finish this first job, you simply repeat steps 1-4 but this time, raise your prices slightly (for example, $200 for the second project).
3. Keep repeating this cycle until you have 5+ real-world paid project under your belt. By the fifth project, you should be able to charge $1000+ for a project.
4. Now you're a real Developer with real-world paid experience. You can put these projects on your resume.

Stay tuned for Part 3 where I teach you how to apply for your first paid job as a Junior Developer.