Getting better in PHP - Developers

I've been coding PHP for a few years now but I haven't become so skilled and when I apply for a job and they ask for my previous work, I got nothing to show. I also don't got any experience with any frameworks or platforms so I thought I'd ask you guys what I can do to get some previous work as well as what platforms/frameworks to train on. Platforms? Wordpress, Drupal or what? Frameworks? CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Zend or what? And what can I do to get some "previous work" to show? I'm bad at coming up with ideas and I need something to show.

Why don't you say that you haven't had a job to write PHP, yet, but am familiar with/have used <frameworks,platforms,etc>? And you might want to review grammar.

[QUOTE=sc0ut;29196055]I've been coding PHP for a few years now but I haven't become so skilled and when I apply for a job and they ask for my previous work, I got nothing to show. I also don't got any experience with any frameworks or platforms so I thought I'd ask you guys what I can do to get some previous work as well as what platforms/frameworks to train on. Platforms? Wordpress, Drupal or what? Frameworks? CodeIgniter, CakePHP, Zend or what? And what can I do to get some "previous work" to show? I'm bad at coming up with ideas and I need something to show.[/QUOTE] If you want previous experience, I'd suggest doing your own projects. Make sample websites (for some made up company, etc etc), and when they ask for experience use those. They may not be real sites, but it's still something to show them that you know what you're doing. Platforms and frameworks is all up to you. The ones I've done and suggest are WordPress and CodeIgniter, but feel free to learn whatever you want. I've done drupal but have found that I don't really like it. If you can learn Zend that'd be a big plus. There's a lot of people out there looking for someone familiar with the whole Zend framework. My advice: Learn WordPress and CodeIgniter first. Feel free to learn anything you want after that such as Zend. For "previous work", do your own projects you make up. Some that come off the top of my head that would be a good sample are making your own MVC (there's a tutorial on Nettuts.com called tinymvc if you want to look it up that gives you a good starting place), ecommerce websites, shopping carts, paypal systems, and inventory management. Check out your local book store and read some of the php books to get some good ideas.

[QUOTE=pinesol;29198662]If you want previous experience, I'd suggest doing your own projects. Make sample websites (for some made up company, etc etc), and when they ask for experience use those. They may not be real sites, but it's still something to show them that you know what you're doing[/QUOTE] Should I lie to my customers and say that they are for real companies or just tell them the truth?

[QUOTE=sc0ut;29199892]Should I lie to my customers and say that they are for real companies or just tell them the truth?[/QUOTE] If you want customers, tell the truth. That should be obvious.