So what do you do about jobs asking for Angular/React experience? Just tell them you have none because you haven't needed to use them yet? Or avoid those jobs? (There are a lot)
I've hired multiple people onto team using React when they have no prior React experience.
The learning curve for React is pretty smooth, so I'd mostly check if they had experience of building the types of apps we were doing with other approaches - and whether they'd seen any ill effects from those choices.
I'm not the person you replied to, but I'd recommend learning them well enough to know their strengths, and then telling the interviewer that's what you did.
If you have any experience in other front end frameworks, that'll usually be enough to get you through that part of the interview anyhow.
That's if you get the interview. This is my problem with most of this kind of advice. All the learning in the world won't help if they ignore your resume because your last job didn't us the same technologies they do.
You're presuming that's why they ignored your resume; it might not be. A good recruiter will help you improve your CV and will also ask the employer why you were rejected. It is also worth while including a covering letter that you can use to make some statements up front. Make it relevant to the job description and keep it to the point.
Finally, you may not be ready for the skill level you are targeting and you may need to work out what areas you need to improve in order to be able to progress.
Just tell them you have none because you haven't needed to use them yet, and tell them why you haven't needed them yet. It may be because you haven't built complex apps or it may be because you have found your own way of dealing with that complexity that didn't require those libraries. Use it as an opportunity to discuss what you can do. If they ask you for an interview anyway then you know that it's not a deal breaker.
Also realise that a lot of the time the requirements are really just a wish list. I was recently sent a job spec that "required" a year of Angular 2 experience. Rather unlikely, given that Angular 2 is still in beta.
I don't really agree. I think people make a lot of assumptions on the "losing" side of the interview table. If you don't get the position and feel like you aced the interview, you search for some justification that has nothing to do with your performance. The fact is, there are 10 people vying for a single position. All else equal, If we use angular, I'll take the angular person over the jQuery person (emphasis on all else equal). That person will likely chalk it up to jQuery instead of the simple fact that there was an equally qualified candidate with a more specific skill set.
The learning curve for React is pretty smooth, so I'd mostly check if they had experience of building the types of apps we were doing with other approaches - and whether they'd seen any ill effects from those choices.