how long before applying for entry php position??

[loudog]

hey guys, I wanted to learn php, so i took a php course over the internet that lasted about a month. In that course i learned basic html,basic javascript, php, and basic ajax. I still consider myself very new to all this stuff, although been that the internet course was my first ever dive into programming of any kind. Not to mention that its been about 2 months since the class ended. i did learn how create forms and valid it them using javascript and php. I also learned how to insert data and retrieve data from mysql's database. All that i mentioned above is something that i now know how to do. Although there is alot more that he taught me and i still have the class files that i constantly keep learning it and going over to try remember stuff .

I was wondering how long before i can start applying for entry level jobs or interships??:bigear:

 

[Izaya]

Look for internships, 2 months isn't a lot of time at all, unless you were practicing 12+ hours a day. I would keep practicing for at least 1 year on my own and keep taking some type of classes.

 

[AddisonDomains]

Easiest way to figure this out is call the HR departments of wherever you're thinking about getting a job and asking them. Explain to them that you've taken a class and done some work on your own (I don't recommend telling them how new you are to it all) and see if they can give you some more in-depth information.

I'd start making a portfolio/resume as well.

Good luck!

 

[Nebraska]

A 6 month plan to 3 years experience...
Go to webmaster forums and hang out at the PHP forums.
Answer as many PHP questions as you can. You will probably have to do a lot of research for many questions.
Build a shopping cart and put it on a site.
Build a scraper.

Get 1 friend to lie/pretend that you worked for them at xyz company (remember the shopping cart you built?) for a 1 1/2 years.
Show some work examples, from some of your better PHP answers at the forums, and state that you were working contracts for 6 months.
Get another friend to lie about working for them for 1 year.

If you spent 6 months answering a variety of PHP questions in forums you WILL have more of a variety of experience than most 2 year in-house php programmers. I know, I work with in-house programmers all the time and the holes in their knowledge is very wide.

Create a spiffy resume. Don't ask for too much or too little in salary.

As the Director of Staffing at a fortune 30 company once told me - "If you can't get two friends to lie for you you're a looser".

 

[tdfxx]

You should attempt at least 2-3 projects on your own before you can even claim to know what you're doing. You should be using a web framework (Kohana, CakePHP, CodeIgniter, etc. for PHP) by the 2nd or 3rd project. I would highly recommend getting a cheap bare-bones VPS (highly recommend Linode) so that you can learn the basics of setting up a server and deploying your projects on your own. It's $20/mo and will greatly fill in your knowledge gaps. There's extensive tutorials in the Linode library.

With the correct motivation and free time you could be entry-level-ready in a few months.

 

[iSynergy Media]

2 months is not a long time , i guess if i am not wrong ?

 

[robber]

I have been using php for over 10 years, and I would still class myself as learning, over the years my coding has improved a lot, but even now I would research things to confirm what I thought was true if i haven't touched it in a while.

Keep at it