Volunteer to do What I want to do for pay?

March 4, 2019 9:33 PM

Hi, AskMe. :) Anyone who's read previous questions from me might know that I'm trying to break into the accessibility/web development space. I've currently got some freelance work, but was also given some advice from a job placement person I'm trying to process.

My job placement person is suggesting I basically do volunteer web development. I'm rather leery of this idea, because I ultimately want to get paid to work in this field, and I'm not sure how much volunteering to do development or accessibility work would help with that. I know volunteer hours of some sort probably look good on a resume, but I worry about the idea of giving people the wrong impression.

My previous experience with this person hasn't really lead me to feel very confident about her abilities. SHe's not very tech-literate, so perhaps her understanding of norms and such in the field isn't great either?

What do web devs and others in tech think?

posted by Alensin to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Being able to talk about projects you have done is great for interviewing, and working in open source is a good way to contribute to something more than a toy. I would suggest looking at some software you use that has open accessibility bugs and trying to fix them - I don't know how much background you have, but if you haven't done any open source work before you can start with this first timers intro.

I would hesitate a little to recommend actually volunteering to do web development for someone, unless you a) are confident you can do the whole project management/scoping/requirements part yourself or b) you would be volunteering under someone else who was explicitly doing those bits - just because IME the hardest part about volunteering tech/webdev help is defining a doable project that actually meets some of the users needs.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 9:58 PM on March 4, 2019 [8 favorites]

Define specs as mentioned above, open source as mentioned above and possible volunteer work for a non-profit organization or group doing some things you would like to be able to point to as examples of your work.
Consider it freelance work you are choosing not to bill for or project work external to your training or as I would, being part of the community. Heck you could even invoice them and tack on a 100% discount if that doesn’t cause tax implications or similar for you or them.
posted by J.R. Hartley at 10:37 PM on March 4, 2019

It would be a big red flag if this person were trying to get you do do freebie work "for exposure" or something - that's a whole lotta nope.

But it sounds like they're trying to suggest a way to beef up your portfolio so you can show off to prospective employers? That doesn't sound like horrible advice, though it's not a guarantee, either.

Volunteering with a major open source project to help with web dev & a11y work might be a good way to make contacts and have advocates to hire you with those companies when they're looking for new folks.

One nice thing about doing work with open source communities and/or as a volunteer is that you may have an opportunity to have more say over the final product. As a freelancer or employee, if the client/employer wants the job done a certain way, then that's that. If you can scope the project and do it the way you think is best, you have the opportunity to do it your way and show prospective employers your thinking from start to finish of the project.

OTOH, more mature projects may already have web teams that will happily accept more hands and be very welcoming to someone who wants to pitch in and help with accessibility or any other projects that need doing.

It looks like you're close to a major tech hub, so maybe consider going to a web dev meetup and finding folks who can give more specific career advice in person?
posted by jzb at 5:31 AM on March 5, 2019

You’re right to be concerned about the value of your time. Also consider the value of a fresh portfolio that you can attach numbers to.

This web dev project might boost conversion or increase time spent on page or increase number of email addresses collected for the organization. With access to those before and after numbers, the project could be very helpful.

For broader tech advice, I’m unclear if the following is helpful for your specific location but I want to stress the importance of attending meetups (and conferences). Talk to the speakers, get their contact information and keep the conversation going. Keep it focused on what you’re working on and what you’re excitiled about. Build your portfolio. Volunteers at conferences often receive tickets to attend sessions. For the future, conference travel may possibly (only possibly) be helped by national open source orgs if they have diversity scholarships that you meet criteria for.

Also be helpful on any mailing lists that are geared toward the open source products you use. Being helpful and friendly and a known name goes quite far when hiring decisions are made. If nothing else you can put your activity on a cover letter and maybe attract new readers and users to the boards.

Keep your GitHub active.
posted by bilabial at 5:34 AM on March 5, 2019

I've done a bit of volunteer web development for organizations whose missions I care about, and who wouldn't be able to afford me otherwise. It's a legit thing to do so long as you don't let it shade into being taken advantage of (I'll echo the comment above about if you hear the phrase "this'll be good exposure for you!" it's time to run) -- but if you're new to the field it may be difficult to find someone who needs what you have to offer but who doesn't also need a whole lot of other stuff you're not [capable of yet / interested in doing].

A better alternative might be to find an open source project to contribute to -- this is a form of volunteer work, it definitely will help beef up your resume (and unlike "regular" volunteering actually could get you more exposure), and to get started all you have to do is start submitting patches. Accessibility is a great niche for this, plenty of OSS code lags in this area.
posted by ook at 5:40 AM on March 5, 2019 [1 favorite]

I am a web developer and I am also a huge fan of right-to-left planning. In your case, right-to-left planning means looking at real jobs in your area that you want to be able to apply to, identifying skill gaps, and gaining experience with those specific areas through ANY work you can find, paid or unpaid. If you can find unpaid or low paid work that fills those gaps then by all means do it - just think of it as an internship! All the usual internship rules would apply, most importantly making sure the company doesn't think of you as unlimited free labor which means you want to set some rules upfront, for example: you will work on their database but you won't do data entry, you will do web development to client requirements but someone else will do the client requirement gathering, you will be available 30 hours per week for 3 months, and so on.

In your shoes, I would specifically avoid volunteering for companies based on their mission. I've done it many times myself but in your case what you are trying to do is get a career going, so that should be your sole focus. Likewise, working on open source projects is great but I am not sure what you can offer them at this stage in your career, OS maintainers are already stretched thin and it would be an unfair burden for them to be a free code tutor on top of everything else. However I might be wrong on this one if you specifically offer accessibility work.

Something else you might want to look into: online marketplaces for developers. For example you could underbid everybody on Upwork just to get some projects on your resume.

Good luck!
posted by rada at 11:35 AM on March 5, 2019 [3 favorites]