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Advice for Older Entry-Level Programers?
jmorse asks: "My uncle recently shut down his manufacturing business and is considering entering the job market as an entry level programmer. He's done a lot of ad-hoc programming in several languages to fulfill his business' needs, but has never held a job as a programmer or software engineer. I know it's a tough time to be looking for a programming job, especially when there are so many unemployed younger people who would gladly put in long hours. What advice do slashdotters have for an older guy just getting started?"
CV's, job applications, it's all a question of marketing. Like all marketing you have to paint a picture. By saying that your uncle has shut down his manufacturing business and is now looking to work as a programmer... but I've not held a job in it before... but I've not had any formal training. See, it doesn't sound good.
Your uncle has some VAST advantages over a new graduate. New grads, entry level programmers: You're not going to like this so block your ears. For one he has real world experience in how businesses work, how financing a business (particularly cashflows) work, of dealing with customers, of what deadlines mean and the fact that they are important. These are hugely rare skills in the software engineering world and he would do well to bring them to the fore when talking to potential employers.
From a purely programming perspective you also have to remember that even if his projects were small and ad hoc, they: Shipped; Fulfilled the business requirements; Were on budget and on time. Again, all three of these are actually very rare. All three at once is virtually unheard of.
He's in a very good position, but I wouldn't be going for a coding job. Personally, I'd like to see him paint himself as a project lead or business analyst. If he approaches some outsourcing companies offering to be an interface between their clients and the coding teams, leveraging his real world (non IT industry) experience to his advantage, they'd be hard pressed to turn him down.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
I know it may sound unethical, but if he really does have talent and is a quick study, then there is no reason why having "official" expierence is any better than the expierence he has gained already. Just have him do some short-term contract work pretend that he has been programming all this time. All he needs is to get his foot in the door, and once he has some "official" expierence under his belt (assuming he does a good job, of course), then he'll be all set to take on the next big job.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
- maturity
- seniority, leadership
- variety of experience
- strong work ethic
This guy has his own business? Great, then he probably understands budgets, deadlines, resource management, and all kinds of other good stuff that any manager wishes his employees understood. He won't necessarily be *doing* those things when he wants an entry level spot, but he can appreciate what it means when his boss says "I understand that you want to do it this way, but you tell me that will take 8 weeks and I only have budget for 3 weeks, so do it the other way." Many of the hotshot young programmers who don't grok business will often shoot back "Then just change the budget" or something equally clueless. The experienced ones will say "You got it, boss" and make it happen in 3 weeks.Remember too, those young kids that will put in the long hours are also the ones that will leave your company in a heartbeat the day someone else comes along and promises to make them rich on stock options. The old timers are often the ones who remember what it's like to have loyalty to their career and the people around them, and not always the quick buck. Managers would kill for that.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Age discrimination in the software industry is more often caused by the notion (which I think is absurd) that older people "lose" creativity they had when they were younger. I have not heard of it ever being caused by managers wanting "someone they hope to retain for a long time, and dont have to start paying retirement benefits within a small number of years."
The other main factor fostering age discrimination is the fact that you can pay a young kid 1/4th to 1/2 what you would have to pay a competent, experienced engineer.
I do not know of any software house (well, maybe Microsoft) that genuinely expects to retain a software developer for five years. Most people have either grown out of software development by then, or at least branched out to *something* new (new language or new application realm or even a new industry) after 2 - 3 years.
"God is dead." - Frederik Nietzsche
Your Uncle has a very good chance if he concentrates on a couple of things. I have years of experience, but no formal CS qualifications, and I have found I can always get work by following these guidelines.
1) Don't be desperate. In fact, be a little aloof.
2) Pick your companies carefully.
3) People skills will take you ten times further than technical skills. I've seen companies hire 'virtual savants' who were coding geniuses, but who couldn't work with others, were poor communicators and poor listeners and as a result the project fails.
Your Uncle needs to bring all his people skills from half a lifetime of experience to bear in the interview. You would be amazed at the look of relief that software project managers show when they meet someone who will listen carefully to the problems the company is trying to solve.
4) When asked, always steer the conversation to projects you have successfully completed and not particular skills in particular areas. Believe it or not, most companies don't want a walking encyclopedia, they want someone who will work at getting the project completed on time.
5) Provide references of ability to learn quickly. Not only is the tech industry changing rapidly, thus requiring those who can self-teach themselves new technologies, but the company will be interested in how fast you grasp the problems faced in their specific industry/company. After all, the reason SME's develop software in the first place is to gain a competitive advantage through one of their industry's 'hard tasks'.
6) Do some research. Not on the company, but on the industry they are in. This will allow you to ask intelligent questions in the interview.
7) Become interested in the project during the interview. Act as if their problem/project is an interesting foreign land to be explored (and possibly plundered). Interviewers look for those who are first motivated by the technical challenge, with the money just being a measure of success.
8) DON'T PANIC! Focus on your experience, your proven ability, your communication skills and your proven ability to learn. Those are four things that companies (with exception of behomoths) are looking for in every candidate. If a company uses clueless HR staff who only hire those who look good on paper, then I can guarantee you, you do NOT want to work for those life sucking, soul destroying beauracrats.
9) Employment agents are 90% morons. As a rule, I don't deal with them. I network. I call people, who know people, who know people. Once I had been doing that for a few years, people started to call me, because they knew my work ethic and my reputation for getting projects completed.
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