Adding marketable skills through a bootcamp in frontend web development

bootcamp in frontend web developmentWhether you are looking to change careers or add new skills to your resume, there are important decisions to make regarding your training path. Consider the top three reasons to complete a bootcamp in frontend web development:

1) Add high-demand, high-growth job skills to your resume

First, let’s define “frontend web development?” It is “the practice of producing HTML, CSS and JavaScript for a website or Web Application so that a user can see and interact with them directly,” according to Wikipedia.

Frontend web development bootcamps typically include all of the languages above, as well as related topics such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media, and Photoshop to name a few.

The IT and web development talent needs in Colorado keep growing. According to the 2016 Colorado Talent Pipeline report, “Software Developers” and and “Computer User Support Specialists” are listed as the top two jobs in Colorado for the IT sector. If you are unemployed or a dislocated worker, and looking to add those key skills that employers are looking for, then the frontend web development bootcamp can help you fill in those gaps.

In a recent meeting with a digital marketing company in town, I asked the hiring manager what they were looking for most in terms of employable skills. He said definitively, “HTML, CSS, and web programming skills.” If you add to these to your resume, you have a serious advantage of the competition in the job pool.

Supporting this sentiment, in a 2014 study of the most in-demand web skills as mentioned on web programming job postings, Javascript, HTML, and CSS were the top 3 most requested skill (see below).
Frontend web development - most mentioned job skills

Credit: Sundeep Pattem and Olivia Zhao original research for SkilledUp.

The skills in this bootcamp are of high demand, the industry is growing, and the job openings are projected to be there. If you are considering a new career in web development, now is the time to add more marketable skills to your resume.

2) Stop paying others to perform simple edits on your own website

frontend web development bootcampSome agencies charge a lot of money to make very simple edits to your website. If you need to edit simple text or images, most websites have a content management system (CMS) to help you achieve this in minimal time.

Taking your skills a step farther than what a basic CMS may provide, with basic HTML and CSS skills, you can edit the structure and style of your site to get that exact look you need.

For example, WordPress is a CMS that provides both a visual and code editor to work on the content of any page or post. Depending on your theme, you will have some simple ways to adjust the format of the content. But, when you hit that one piece of content that you want to style specifically and WordPress doesn’t allow you to make the change natively, then you might feel stuck.

However, with a tiny bit of CSS code you can edit the theme’s style-sheet and produce that finished result you need.
The investment in your training will allow you to stop paying agencies a ton of money while extending the functionality of your website.

3) Launch your own business website

Frontend web development bootcampsMaybe you’ve decided to take the plunge and become a start-up business. As most small business owners realize, you need to be able to do a little bit of everything in order to get the most from your available capital and time.

So, why spend money on hiring an expensive developer? Not only will these skills help you to launch your own business website, you will be able to maintain the content (see #2) and keep the lifetime costs of the website down.

More importantly, understanding concepts like search engine optimization and CSS will allow you to maximize your web traffic, increase sales, and lower the costs associated with digital marketing firms.

Conclusion

There are many bootcamps out there that can help you and your business get to the next level. Consider which one is right for you based on the time, cost, and your style of learning. Understand that there is a lot to learn in each of these languages, but your value as a potential job candidate or to your own business will increase exponentially.

If you are interested in learning more about the frontend web development bootcamp at Digital Workshop Center, fill out the following form: