Hi there you guys, I am a self taught developer in search of my first dev role. I recently did 3 interviews for companies that I was not to excited about. I still interviewed at any companies I could to improve my interviewing skills. I recently applied to a mid-size agency for a WordPress developer role, and Im truly excited to work there. I guess my question to you more experienced devs, how should I prepare for the interview. I am 10 months into my self taught journey, I code everyday. I am comfortable with html, css, css preprocessors, and react, react hooks ect. I am confident about my abilities to turn a design into into a UI with code.
I also have experience working with the wordpress content management system, I previously built a website for a client. I hosted the site designed it , and built it with a wp theme builder. The role specified they were looking for an experienced dev, and has php as a required skill. The resume I submitted was clear that I am a front end dev. I did not include any backend languages – (Although I have been currently learning common.js syntax and modules)
My guess it that that i will be building out WordPress custom themes, something I have no experience with. Which is why i am a bit worried, will I be questioned about my php knowledge? Im truly excited to learn any backend language, I know devs like to shit on php, but i don’t care i just want to learn and gain experience.
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I can’t really help about the hiring process much as I’m self employed, and have been for the past forever years. So I have never had to apply anywhere for a WordPress job. However I am also self-taught. I was doing front-end development with just basic HTML/CSS/JS and some basic ASP for our proprietary CMS at my last full-time job and just started learning WordPress on the side.
I went into WordPress with zero PHP knowledge. The good news is while WordPress is PHP based, many of the hooks/functions/etc are just things you “learn” about WordPress as they are proprietary and you can find everything you need on the codex. I had previous programming experience though, so even basic PHP stuff I struggled with at first because it was different than what I was use to. Thankfully I had friends who were PHP developers who I could ask and they’d answer in 2 seconds, “oh, yeah easy, just do: soandso”. Over time I learned more an more.
For me I am a hands-on learner. I could read every book on PHP/WordPress in the world, but the only way I’m truly going to learn and remember things is to just get in there and do it. I’d suggest looking for some online tutorials for like “building your first WordPress custom theme” or something. I’m sure they exist. It seems overwhelming at first, and frustrating (at least was for me), but eventually it just all starts to make sense.
I’ve been building custom WordPress sites for close to 15 years or so now and if you asked me to write an application or some sweet cool plugin in straight PHP I’d 100% fail. You need to learn PHP to code a theme in WordPress, but you can get by with just the basics for the most part. Learn yourself if/then statements, variables, functions, arrays as they come up you and should be well on your way. Now if the company is expecting you to write full-featured custom plugins for unique functionality, then you may have a bit of a problem as you’ll 100% need to know PHP AND WordPress extremely well.
I usually encourage people to step out of their comfort zones and learn things and strive for more. While I still would urge you to learn php if you are going to be sticking on the path as a WP dev, you might be overreaching on this one for the moment, especially if the role is WordPress dev with php as a prerequisite.
If the interview is carried out by someone who is not a dev you can probably fake your way through it but that’s going to quickly fall apart when they give you a project that needs custom scripts etc. This won’t work well in your favour especially if you want good references etc. moving forward.
If the interviewer is a developer themselves (which is more likely) they will see through any attempts of fakery.
Your best bet is to be honest and state that your CV stats front end but you are learning php and willing to learn whatever else that is required on the job.
As a side note I’m personally not sure how I feel about this as there are many good, experienced devs desperate for work these days.
Get plenty of rest and a solid breakfast. Stay hydrated.
Freelancer here. Never worked for an agency but have done few interviews in my life.
Always bring your own laptop and make sure you can use your phone’s hot spot function. Most companies have a guest wifi for outsiders but if there isn’t, they won’t give access (or shouldn’t) to a stranger.
If doing it online via Zoom or Meets, make sure you’re comfortable with sharing your screen on command (to show your portfolio/work).
Have your portfolio ready to present and know all the key functions of site you’re showing (theme, extra codes, plugin, graphics and so on).
If you don’t understand a question, ask them to repeat or rephrase it as you understand. They will correct you if you didn’t understand the question.
Stay fresh. You know what I mean.
Good luck!