Can You Get a Job Just Knowing HTML
Many beginner developers find JavaScript and even CSS too hard. Wouldn’t it be great if you could simply spend 50 hours in front of the computer screen learning HTML on your own and get a job? Well, sadly, this isn’t the case.
You can’t get a job just knowing HTML. To get an entry job in web development, you will need to know at least HTML and CSS. But to increase the pool of jobs, you can apply to, you should know JavaScript as well.
When should you learn HTML?
Learning HTML is a stepping stone into web development. It doesn’t take long to learn, and anyone can learn HTML for free from the comfort of your chair at home.
It is best to start learning HTML at the beginning of your web developer learning path.
If you want to become a full-stack or front-end web developer, the best way is to learn the skills in the following order:
1. Git (version control)
2. HTML
3. CSS
4. JavaScript
If you want to be a WordPress developer, you might get away with not knowing JavaScript well, but then you can’t call yourself a web developer. You are a WordPress developer at best.
Git – version control is an integral part of web development. You don’t need to be great at it before learning HTML.
Speaking from my own experience, don’t spend more than a few hours at most learning Git. After you know the basics of Git, you are ready to start learning HTML. But you need to learn HTML before you learn CSS.
You can learn JavaScript (JS) before learning HTML, but I advise you not to do that. JS is a coding language that works on its own, but if you want to make any changes to a website, you will need to use it together with HTML.
If you stick to the order of skills I mentioned above, you will have the best chances of getting a job as a front-end web developer. If you want to become a full-stack web developer, then when you know the four skills above, you can start learning the back end.
Is knowing HTML useful?
If you want to become a web developer, knowing HTML is useful and mandatory. Knowing HTML is one of the fundamental skills you need to know to become a web developer. Among others, you also need to know CSS and some javaScript.
Go to this link to find out how much JavaScript you need to know for web development.
You will need to use HTML for any edit to the text you want to do to a website that is not built with WordPress. Therefore knowing HTML is extremely useful for getting a job as a web developer.
If you want to be a back-end web developer, you would be excused for not knowing HTML. But even back-end web devs know at least some HTML to understand better how the data they prepare on the back-end gets displayed on the website.
How difficult is Git?
Git is not hard to learn. It is also not hard to understand. After a few hours of using its basic commands, you will get a pretty good idea of how it works.
Don’t worry if you don’t master it. You don’t need to. More detailed things about it you can learn after you land the first job.
The commands that are important and you should learn before learning HTML, in my opinion, are:
- Git init
- Git add
- Git commit
- Git merge
- Git rebase
- Git log
- Git branch
- Git pull
- Git push
If you understand only these, it should be enough to convince your interviewer that you have some idea of how Git works.
At first, it might be hard to remember these nine commands, but remember that you will be using them throughout your HTML, CSS, and JS projects anyway. And after you do it for the 30th time, you will memorize these commands without any problems.
Here is a YouTube video of Git crash course:
Can you get a job knowing just HTML and CSS?
You can get a job knowing only HTML and CSS, but you will be limited to the number of jobs you can apply to.
I know that a work colleague of a friend of mine knows only HTML and CSS, and the company is happy to have him. He is a master of those two skills, and you would be surprised by the things he can build.
I would advise you to learn JavaScript also, as generally, a front-end developer that doesn’t know JS will earn less, so it will be harder to get to 6 figures per year.
If you are okay with lower pay and taking longer to land the first job, then HTML and CSS are enough. But why not learn JavaScript with it? You will leave hundreds of thousands on the table during your coding career for not spending extra 2 or 3 months learning JavaScript.
Can you get a job with knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript?
Now we are talking :). You can get a job with knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Many entry jobs don’t require you to know any frameworks, and knowing these three skills is enough for you to land the first job.
I finished a full-stack web development bootcamp, but I got my first job as a front-end developer. The only three skills I needed to know were HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
The company used React framework for the front-end, but this is something I learned when I was working at the company already.
But you need to show at the job interviews that you know HTML, CSS, and JS well. That you understand the fundamental concepts, that you know how all three work together, how to manipulate the DOM with the use of JavaScript, etc.
It also matters that a company sees that you will be able to get along with your potential coworkers, so some soft skills are also needed.
