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Recent Grads and Experience Beyond the Desktop?
over_exposed asks: "I'm a recent college grad (B.S. in C.S.) and have been on the job hunt for about 6 months. I've been playing around with tech toys as long as I can remember, but it all focuses around the desktop environment. Desktop-grade routers, switches and wireless as well as any/all desktop PC (and some Mac) hardware is what I could get my hands on with my limited budget. After looking through hundreds if not thousands of job postings, everyone is looking for 3+ years of network admin experience or 5+ years of C++ experience even for an entry level position. How is one expected to gain that kind of experience when no one will hire you without the experience? What kind of (part-time) work can you get as a college student to gain experience (Cisco, Exchange, SQL, etc) that will be marketable in the real world? Any suggestions from the Slashdot community will be of great benefit to myself and thousands of others who will enter the 'real world' in the next few years."
What kind of (part-time) work can you get as a college student to gain experience
Aside from simply applying for such positions, I would suggest you attend a Linux User's Group in your area. Along with expanding your knowlege and skills, a LUG connects you with relationships that might be helpful in finding part-time work. You'll also get a better feel for the local job market.
Sigs cause cancer.
The best way to do it is an internship. The best way to get a job is NETWORK, NETWORK, and NETWORK. All the jobs I've gotten has always been through someone I knew, who knew someone. So work your friends, friend of friends, and socialize more. Best advice.
Best Community for Gaming and Gadgets!
Internships are a great way to get practical work experience while you're still in school. They look great on a resume, and they can also be an excellent venue for you to get practical work experience after you get your degree. The theory being, you're already a known quantity to them and so they'd be much more willing to bring you on full-time after school.
Lie...
What could possibly go wrong?
I've taught myself quite a bit working with my own Linux server, writing web pages and databases for my music and pictures using PHP/MySQL, and playing with new technology. If you create something you can show a prospective employer, not only are you gaining experience but it goes a long way towards showing you're a self-starter and eager to learn.
12:50 - press return.
You will never get the job you want right after you leave University, you need to look for lower-position that do not require experience and then get your self moved up internally.
Once you get promoted you can then use that as leverage for external promotion. Remember all promotion is essentially internal in one way or another, it just seems like it is external because people change jobs so often.
I think it is time we all faced the facts. The times when one could walk out of University with nothing more than a shiny new diploma and into a well paying job are gone. They probably aren't comming back. I particularily don't understand this mentality in CS when there are so many ways to get involved. Open Source software is more than a great way to use great software for free, it is also a great way to get your name out there. Attach it to some projects, big or small and actually contribute. No it isnt regular office experiance, but it is coding, and will seperate you from the rest of your classmates who have dont nothing more than school projects. Pick any project you use, phpBB, Apache, PHP, *nuke, whatever and get involved and get noticed. Even helping out with documentation shows some initive, and can help you stand out from the crowd.
paul reinheimer
Get a crappy help desk job and work your way up. Or do phone support. Or be a telemarketer for a computer company if that's all you can get.
You need to work to succeed. No one is going to hand you an IT job based on certifications or college. Well, they might, but you'll be working for an idiot, and probably not for long.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
When I went to some "back of the kitchen" job fair, I met a Fedex recruiter there. Obviously, they were looking for someone who would be happy spending the next twenty years delivering potential terrorist packages, but I was there looking for a job programming.
Turns out that Fedex only hires within its ranks. So there is essentially no way to get into the Fedex programming core without spending a year delivering packages. After that year, you would be free to transfer to a group that more naturally fit your skills.
Now back to your problem. What exactly, have you looked at? Software Developer postions? Well, no shit, it's fucking hard, asshole. There are a million of us, and a billion of you-unlearned, untrained, unskilled, greenthumbs who think they know what's what but couldn't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. Frankly, it's no wonder you didn't get a job. There's simply too many skilled engineers who are unemployed to waste any spare minutes on someone straight out of school.
My advice is to join ANY company and see where it takes you. Hell, even McD's needs engineers. Who do you think writes the software to calculate "hamburger+softdrink=happymeal"?
There are a million positions wide open and just because you closed your eyes to them doesn't mean they don't exist. Go out and get them, you budding programmer.
I have been pwned because my
Seriously. Many of those requirements are written by people who have no idea what they're talking about. Now, in many companies, your resume will just get thrown out because you don't match some HR monkey's checklist -- but with luck, at a few places, your resume will get to someone with some technical knowledge who is willing to at least give you a chance in an interview.
I mean, apply everywhere. Any job you think you might possibly be able to do. If you get one nibble for every hundred resumes -- well, these days, in the post-.bomb world, that's not bad.
Also, I don't know if you're still eligible for this since you've graduated, but most schools' CS departments do have lists of available interniships. The money usually isn't great, but it's real experience, and can lead to a full-time position. (Mine did, though I didn't get it through the school.) They may have some formal job placement services for grads, too.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
You're looking for an internship. Preferably paid.
Lots of companies have internships available because it's a good way for them to get cheap labor that will do grunt work and for the intern to get their foot in the door. After so much time if they like you they hire you.
Find a company you want to work for and call them up and ask if they have internships availablable. These are the kinds of jobs that college students are expected to take as a way to get started in their career.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
My answer was, I took a job with a smaller company where they understood my position but gave me responsibility and room to grow. Of course.. less salary, but it is a good starting position. I once met the "first CIO" in the United States, Duwayne Peterson - his advice was simply to "get your foot in the door" somewhere!
Good luck to you! -6d
helping you (and "thousands of others") out with advice is, in my opinion, just as bad
Your attitude displays an astonishing lack of maturity--if you are good at your job, you will want mentor others and pass along your knowledge and skills.
If you are weak, perhaps that explains your concern about being replaced?
Sigs cause cancer.
You should either be a GOD in CS with a PhD or too many impressive qualifications to find a 'good job' in CS these days.
If you have only minimum quals, you might end up as a sysadmin somewhere for a small network.
If you're not a GOD, and want a good job, then try not to be a pure CS guy. Take up a minor that you like while you're still in school and try to think about how your CS skills can be used in that minor. Eg Civil engineering needs lot of programmers who know some civil engineering. There is a surfiet of programmers in the market who know nothing other than programming lanugages.
If you lost your job today, don't despair. You may die tomorrow anyway.
Register with your local temp or employment agencies and take whatever they have.
Once you're in the door start looking around for positions inside the company you're working at.
You're in, you can prove that you have the ability and not just the shiny new piece of paper that says you sat through 4 years of classes which probably taught you nothing that you didn't already know, and then you can see about moving up in the world.
When I graduated from college, there was no way I'd get a job in my particular field. Competition was on the lines of one opening for every 40-50 applicants, and if I had to put in the effort it would've taken to land that job, it would've made my life suck completely. So I did something else. I kept working at a bicycle shop and was fortunate to get enough of a raise to keep going... and earlier this year I got a career started with a distributor. Result? I make a bit less money than I would otherwise, but weekends piss me off because I like being at work so much. I've got an IRA, good health/dental/vision, and I pay about a third to half of what folks on the street do for bike parts, which makes me grin. Expand your horizons a bit, maybe make a hobby into a career - it worked for me!
Oh, and everyone else will say this, but most of the jobs I've gotten (from ice cream scooper at Baskin' Robbins to the current one), it wasn't what I knew but who I knew. The right references, and the right person speaking up for you when someone mentions an opening, make all the difference. If you aren't outgoing, then at least be pleasant towards those around you whenever possible.
The pain was excruciating and the scarring is likely permanent, but that just means it's working.
One bit of good advice I've heard is to look at companies that aren't focused on what you're doing. Every graduate with a CS degree is going to apply to work at IBM and Microsoft, but other industries need software too! Send your resume to companies that specialize in automobiles, food service, medical equipment, aerospace...you name it, they'll probably need software.
Visit the
I can really empathize with you. I'm about to finish my undergrad, and I've been having trouble finding a full-time job. I've worked part-time in a netadmin position for several years, but whenever I call or email an employer, they want someone with 2-3+ years experience in a full-time job. It's such a pain.
However, I suspect the way I got this job will end up being the same way I get my next one. I started in this position six years ago. I was in high school at the time. I did some tech work for one of my teachers, and he knew the person running the network here, and hooked me up. Networking is the key. It's not even a bad idea to pass up internship-style jobs. In those jobs, you'll get an incredible amount of experience, though pay is a bit lower than you might like.
Being qualified is equally as important as being known, but being known is what gets you a job. So, while you're waiting for a good job, do some work for people you know. Install cable modems and DSL service. Run antivirus scans. Do small little jobs like that. If you do some work for a small business owner, you might take a look at the systems they're running and say "ya know, I can write an application for you that will do that better." Give them some details, and quote them a price. If you impress them enough, they'll take you up on your offer. You'll find, after a while, that the people you help will say "Wow, you're really bright and talented. I should introduce you to some people." Then they'll point you in the direction of a job.
And in the meantime, you can charge them $30-60 an hour for your regular tech work, even more for your programming work (if you don't just hammer out a contract for the whole job), and have enough money to pay the bills.
I'm currently hiring about a dozen high level network security engineers. One of the biggest headaches I've had to deal with in the last month has been people who think "resume true" is what I care about.
.. take this guy's advice if you want to. But don't end up on my doorstep.
When I schedule a technical interview for a candidate, and they arrive, and two minutes into the interview session I realize that this candidate has never done half of the items on their resume (heck, some haven't even bothered to read their resume) I do three things.
1) I end the interview abruptly, inform the candidate that I'm sorry for wasting his time, and send them packing.
2) I throw out every resume I received from whatever source provided me with that resume, call that head-hunter, and let them know that they wasted my time, and the time of my team members who I pulled in for the interview. I not-so-politely let them know that they are black-listed from my group and that I really would appreciate them never contacting me again.
3) I let the other managers I work with in the international, 200k employee company I am part of know both the name of the recruiter and the name of the lying applicant so that they won't be bothered wasting their time in the near future either.
So
For real advice I'd do the following -- by your junior year, find a part-time job someplace doing anything related to your field. Work your ass off, get good grades, apply for a fellowship or research position and get it. Find local contractors who do short-term and part-time work for large companies. Get on a team and get some experience. It really doesn't matter what you do -- make connections with people of influence in your field. Those connections will be your lifeline to meaningful positions as you advance.
Yep, I can't find the article now, but I read that most job openings are filled by referrals from existing employees. You might be able to find openings online or in the paper, but they will give you a tougher interview process. A recommendation from a friend on the inside will get you a step ahead of the other random applicants.
--
11 Gmail invitations availiable
How is one expected to gain that kind of experience when no one will hire you without the experience?
Because companies don't want to hire people unless they absolutely have to. HR departments are in the business of disqualifying people, not hiring people.
Most of it is due to middle management's inability to understand the concept of hiring entry-level employees and then teaching them the business so they can become valuable members of the company.
Entry-level means:
NO EXPERIENCE.
ZIP.
ZILCH.
NADA.
NULL SET.
ZERO.
NONE.
SPELL IT:
N-O-N-E.
Advertising for an entry-level employee with five years experience is an exercise in flagrant cynicism. It is part of an overall goal of making the workplace a joyless shithole.
Business isn't willing to pay for products, innovation and careers, so we get brands, mortgage commercials and layoffs.
But then you'd take my job.
Ha, I wish - I'd welcome the help - it seems impossible to find quality unix admins who know linux well - usually we get some joker in here who plasters his resume with buzzwords, but in reality never uses anything but windows - we quickly find out he's a phony and show him the door. There are some real linux savvy folks out there, but they are hard to find among all the posers...
Don't expect to necessarily complete your degree and walk straight into an interesting role.
After I graduated, I got a job as a "Remote support consultant" at a software house. I got it because I had UNIX experience (I knew a bit about it, but nothing significant) and showed an interest in learning new things.
That role enabled me to learn lots more about UNIX and then get involved in Cisco, Citrix and other tech that you only typically find in business.
Five years later I'm one of the senior techies and I get to play with all the new interesting things. My general rule of thumb, is that new people are generally only useful after about a year. It takes that long to learn the systems we use. If they show a particular interest in learning, I'll teach them as much as I can. It's the only way to grow decent techies.
Starting at the helpdesk is an excellent starting point, degree or not, because it give you a wide subject knowledge (I'm not referring to call center-type helpdesks). If you're good, you'll be noticed.
Charity organizations or non-profits are always in need of people but don't have the funds. Volunteer as many hours a week you can offering your computer skills for free. Many of these organizations have in house networks that need occasional work.
If you are highly recommended by one of these organizations after a year or two of volunteering, you can bet that puts you up the ladder of resumes. It doesn't mean you worked 8 hours a day every day fo the week. While not working there, work wherever you can to make ends meet.
The father of my freshman year roommate was a professor at the University I went to. He was a mathmatician and he had written a C program to do mathmatical modeling. My roommate told me he was looking for someome to make some modifications to the program. I worked on modifying the program to run under both UNIX and windows. I got some good experience from it, and I was able to help the professor. I also got paid some for the work, so it worked out pretty well for everyone.
If I hadn't ended up traveling the China to study abroad, the professor was also planning to give me a system admin job for the department he managed.
The main thing is to keep your eyes open and talk to people. Talk to some professors you know and like, ask them if they could hire you to do some work (paid work looks better than volunteer on a resume I think, because it shows that the work you were doing was really valuable to someone.) Or if they don't have the money or need, ask them if any of their coworkers do. Don't just ask the comp. sci. department either, talk to all of your professors.
If no one you know needs help, go talk to your schools job search assistance center. They can help you look for something on campus that will help you fill out your resume before you graduate.
And of course, look for something that you will like, that is really important. If you are interested in the work, you will do better work, and then when your first post-graduation employer calls for a reference you will be remembered as a happy active employee.
--David
NETWORK, NETWORK, and NETWORK
This is easily said, but not easily done for many people. Imagine a person rowing up to New York City in a grass boat from a primitive island-nation having never seen such a city before. It is reasonable for me to say "Yeah, you just get on the subway, go to XYZ street, take a cab to QRS square, don't look homeless people in the eye, stay out of suspicous alleyways, etc." and actually expect that person to make it?!?
The people who are good at networking typically got that way over the course of their entire lifetimes, and the people who are not good at it have an uphill battle ahead of them.
-- "Makes Little Debbie look like a pile of puke!" - Moe Szyslak
Not to mention the 3Gb worth of e-books stashed on my harddrive . Anyway , i do think Microsoft is actually happy with you pirating MSSQL for learning it . It may not be that good for buissness , but it shure beats you using open-source db's . Cause in the long run , they'll still get their money . If not from you , from your employer .
To all those of you who have yet to go to college or are still in it, let this guy's mistakes be your guide. If you do not work (for a real company, doing real work associated with your desired job placement), you will have EXTREME DIFFICULTY getting a job later on. Really, the only way to avoid the Catch-22 associated with getting your foot in the door is to work during school. School is only a part of your education. Do not be one of the people who thinks it's the only part. You will regret it. Fortunately, I took my own advice, and when I graduate, I will actually be able to honestly say I have 5+ years experience with stuff most small time network admins only dream of touching (Cisco 12000, Cisco 6500, Cisco 6000, etc.).
Now, it's not easy to find the right place to work. You need somewhere that's going to be willing to let you learn AND give you responsibility. I started off the summer before freshman year of high school working for a company doing fairly simple database stuff. That quickly progressed into a demanding database programming and design position from which I was able to gain much experience and client contacts I have used as references. That job morphed into networking, implementing things in very specific ways where there was a lot of on the job learning. I spent a solid four years there doing all of this. By the time I left there, my resume was so long that when I applied for another job, my age was actually questioned due to the wide variety of skills mentioned on my resume. And no, they didn't think I was lying on my resume, as they questioned me about the things on it and hired me.
Moral of the story: Work, work, work. It's just as, if not more, important as your formal school education.
"Nature doesn't care how smart you are. You can still be wrong." - Richard Feynman
So nobody wants to listen to you drone on for 2 hours about how you know so much more than them? Why am I not surprised. If you want people to take you seriously, you had better have some constructive, practical ideas. Better yet, form your own company, treat developers the way you think they should be treated, and see how it works out. If it turns out to be a success story, write a book about it. It will sell, I guarantee you. If it fails but you learn a lot of valuable lessons along the way, write a book anyway. You'll have some interesting insights to provide to people. What won't get you anywhere is bitching about a problem that you made no attempt to solve and insisting people use your suggestions even though you have no experience in the area. Once you see things from the owner's side, you'll have a lot more insight to offer.
God I love doing this - mostly because it lets me be a prick from behind the thinly veiled pretense of being helpful. I'm going to critique your online resume and I'm going to be honest. Someone did it for (to) me a dozen years ago and I cried during the process, but I took their advice to heart and about a month later had a job.
:
1. Lose the picture. Getting past the first HR screening means letting them be able to prove lack of prejudice, so being a 'while male in his early 20's', while putting you in the 'good' bucket, means that HR can't say that they picked your resume on its merits without regard to race, color, creed, age, or sex. If they know, what are the odds they skip over you because they couldn't show lack of preferential treatment?
2. Double ditto on the horse picture. How do you know that the interviewer isn't a big Christopher Reeve fan?
3. Lose the personal stats, Title (Mr.), Date of Birth, and Marital Status. If the reason isn't blatantly obvious, see #1 above.
4. The personal stuff at the bottom, specifically the bit about being an avid four-wheeler and gun freak wouldn't go over too well in the People's Democratic Republic of California or the Communist Federation Commonwealth of Massachusetts (where Boston is.) I'm a bigger gun freak than you are, but I don't admit it on my resume or during an interview.
The good stuff
MCSE, CCNA, CCDA, and BS/CS (cum laude, in three years - good job.) Oh wait, that's not a degree in software engineering, it's a degree in multimedia on the computer (also known as Flash / Macromedia.) Hmm. That one could go either way, depending on how well you interview. If you were seeking a spot in America I would drop the classes / certs on equine behavior and being a certified murderer (that's how some people view firearms in the two states that hire the most tech guys, CA and MA - but in Texas that might be ok.)
Last thing - if you are going to post your resume, do it on a domain that doesn't have anything else on it. Nothing like finding a resume in www.yourdomain.com/resume and when the HR folks go up a level and find a blog talking about sex with a different college chick every night. Your main page is pretty tame, but I didn't probe too deep.
That wasn't too harsh - but not for lack of trying. Good luck on the hunt.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
I've graduated a year ago, and I hope my experience can help you and other recent graduates, even a little bit, in this tough market.
I got my Bachelor's in CS in May 2003. I didn't graduate a Top 10 Ivy League school, or have a particularly good GPA, so I knew it was going to be very hard. I looked around for jobs for a while, went on a few interviews, but I had no clue on how to pass interviews, or how to write a resume. So, money was very scarce and I needed some kind of job.
So I got a job - I don't even want to say what it was, it wasn't programming for sure. I worked there for 8 hours a day, and then I went to my friend's office to help him set up his business - both software and hardware, and then I came home, practiced programming and sent out resumes. I read programming books on the train everywhere, as well.
After a while, I got really lucky - a family friend agreed to help me with my resume, and I realized how much it sucked. There's way too little space here and I don't have the time to say everything I want to say about the resume, but here's a few basic pointers.
Make it absolutely clear what kind of job you are looking for. Don't put there things that would indicate that basically, you would agree to any job in an IT field.
Put concrete things on your resume, that show that you know what the hell you're talking about. So instead of 'Programmed a Java', write 'Used Java to design and develop an inventory management application, utilizing Swing for front-end and JDBC to interact with Sybase database.' People that search through resumes on Monster.com or Dice.com don't look for 'Java', they look for Swing, JSP, JDBC - etc.
Don't lie. At least, don't flat out lie - everyone expects your resume to paint a little better picture than you actually are, but don't put blatant lies like 4 years of Unix experience while your Unix experience has been limited to checking your college mail at campus network (guilty).
Keep track of where you send your resume, what position, and what version of your resume. Nothing fancy, simple Notepad file will do. But it saves you a lot of valuale time while searching for a job.
Interviews - again, there are tomes written on this subject, but basic pointers again: SHOW YOUR ENTHUSIASM. Ask questions that show that you understend and are genuinely interested in the subject. The word "no" should NOT come out of your mouth. Of course, again, you shouldn't flat out lie - but if someone ask's you if you know skill X, instead of 'No', you should say "I've heard about it, but didn't have the opportunity to work with it professionally.. however, I'm a very fast learner and will pick up very fast"
The money question. The correct response to 'How much money do you want?' is "Money is really not that important to me, if the job is interesting and challenging, I would be happy with any reasonable offer." If they ask you to name a number, name a range. DON'T UNDERVALUE YOURSELF. If the job pays $40K and you say you'll be willing to do it for $25K, the alarm bell immediately rings in your interviewer's head - if this guy is so desperate to do this job for $25K, he must be a loser. Next!
So, in conclusion, looking for a job is a VERY HARD job in itself. You have to pay attention to every small detail and work very hard to succeed. In my case, after 10 months it finally paid off - I was offered a full time position and now happily working for a major financial company, with a salary almost twice as large as an average entry-level CS graduate.
The key is once you get into these roles work yourself out of them and into better positions. If you try to whine, complain, or brag yourself out of them it won't work.
It's also important these be small companies or small departments -- large companies usually don't care if Junior Support Technician #2679 is performing in the 98th percentile this week.
You'd be surprised how much that doesn't work.
I recently filled 3 of 4 open positions in my section and will be interviewing people for the fourth one next week. When I go through a stack of resumes, I triage them like this:
- Yes, contact these people. They get a first interview.
- Maybe. If the best people in the Yes group have already taken jobs or othewise don't work out, this is the stand-by group. So far, we have never had to call anyone in the Maybe group.
- No. People in this group are one or more of: way over-qualified, way under-qualified, totally unqualified, way too expensive, are in some other way unqualified (sometimes we relocate people, other times we want to make a local hire, for example), or they were caught in some lie on their resumes.
Among the members of the No group for this round of hiring is a person who was pretty well qualified (possibly over-qualified, but I would have put him in the Yes group) but was caught with BS on his resume. He is in the No group not just because that one part was a lie, but because at that point I instantly lost all confidence in all of his claims of experience. Anyone who has been looking at resumes for a while can recognize the BS pretty easily. If I see BS on your resume, you go into the No group. Do us both a favor and be honest. If you're honest, the worst thing that can happen is you won't get that position, but if your resume seems OK but just wasn't right for that position, I'll hang onto it. You never know what might come up in six months. If I catch you lying, your resume goes into a file of people who will never be contacted for a job with us.
Also, we do background checks before extending job offers. If you succeeded in BS on the resume and again at the interview, but get caught in the background check, not only will you not get the offer, you will never interview with us again. If you get by all that and get an offer and get hired and it becomes obvious the you just lied really well and got hired anyway, you will be fired. So far, no one has gotten past us.
I look at all the resumes I receive. It's true, triage takes out most of them. That's just a hard fact of life that comes from the fact that there are far more applicants than there are positions. I usually wind up with two (and sometimes three) resumes in the Yes pile for each open position. We interviewed six people for the three positions filled so far, and on of the other three was referred to another section where we knew they had an opening and her skillset matched what they needed a lot better than it matched what we needed. We still interviewed her, but we invited that section's manager to the interview and that manager asked most of the questions. The applicant is now a finalist for that position. If she had given us BS on her resume or in the interview, that would never have happened.
Bottom line: honesty on your resume and throughout the interview process is really the best policy, even if it sometimes looks like BS could be a good shortcut. The best people to work with and for, at the best places to work (and I think we are pretty good in both of those respects) will hire you as much for honesty and personality fit with the team as for technical ability. So much of effective management and team-building comes from recognizing people who don't *need* to be managed and who fit in well with each other and easily form a cohesive team, that if you don't meet those criteria then we don't care about your technical skills. I want people on my team who are honest, self-motivated, get along well together, and have no "issues" that I need to deal with. If you don't meet those criteria, I have no use for you. So don't lie on your resume or in the interview.
Be honest. It won't always get you the job, sometimes it might cost you the job, but if you sling BS either on your resume or in person, I guarantee it will cost you the best jobs out there.
It was an obvious lie involving an impossible number of years of experience for the technology in question. Even if he had invented it , he couldn't have had that many years.
You think you can't be caught? Fine, just go on thinking that. I'll never have to compete with you for a job.
Keep thinking that about background checks, too. There are agencies that specialize in getting exactly that kind of information, and it's a lot easier than you think.
Screwing over entry-level workers? Who? When? Where? You obviously have no idea what being screwed over even is.
When, exactly, did all these nameless companies tell people that if they got CS degrees they would get jobs? No one ever told me that. If you said a lot of people assumed that if they got a CS degree they would practically have lifetime employment, you'd be right. But that is very far from companies telling them that. No company every tells anyone anything like that. Sure, the jobs dried up. That isn't the fault of any of the companies who are hiring (or not) CS graduates today. Indeed, the companies that are hiring (or not) today are the ones that survived. If you want to find someone to blame for the jobs that dried up, you have to look first to the people that ran all the companies that *didn't* make it. The ones who burned through huge piles of VC cash on luxurious parties, foosball tables, video games, any sort of corporate extravagance you could name, astonishing salaries even for people with no experience and less skill, the whole dot-bomb nine yards.
I remained gainfully employed through the burst of the dot-com bubble. The only period I was unemployed was from June to September of last years, and that could be termed voluntary, since I relocated and resigned from my old job to do so. Now, of course, I'm working again. Those three positions I wrote about were newly created. The one I still have to fill is an existing one to replace someone who got an offer he couldn't refuse. I hated to see him leave, but it's a great opportunity and I'm glad it went to a deserving person. If he ever wants to come back here, the door is wide open.
Do you know why I remained gainfully employed through the jobs massacre that was the aftermath of the dot-com era despite the fact that I don't even have a CS degree? Contributing reasons are that I'm careful about choosing who I work for, and also probably a bit of plain old luck.
Another is that while I did not do my degree in CS, I do have a brain and skill, and I use both. But the capstone of all that is that I never misrepresented myself in any way to any employer, so what they saw was what they got, and I could fully deliver on everything I claimed.
If you talk the talk, but don't walk the walk, you'll be the first to go if there is belt-tightening.
Also, please keep this in mind: pretty much every employer has a clause in their personnel policy which says that if they ever discover that you lied about anything on your resume or application, references, anything at all, you can be fired. Now, read this very carefully and be sure it sinks in: there is no one in my section who is so good that, if I found that they had lied to me on their resume and been hired on that basis, he or she could expect to have me not want them fired. No one.
Now, I'm not looking for skeletons in their closets, because they all have been checked out, they all are honest people, and they are walking the walk. But just imagine a situation where someone takes a dislike to you and *does* want to find a skeleton in your closet. There had better not be one on your resume, because that resume is still on file and they could go through it with a fine-toothed comb looking for problems. If they find out you never worked at company XYZ, or you never really took course ABC, that's all they need to fire you with cause.
You seem very young, possibly even an unemployed CS graduate yourself, with very little experience in the working world, and not much in th
Sometimes the requirements on these jobs are atypical. It's a wish list. They KNOW they probably are not going to get that particular combination. They put that out there in hopes that they do get that combo. When theyh go through the resumes and job apps and find noone meets the criteria, the look at the next best ones and bring those ones in for a interview. Also, don't be afraid to work in academia for a while. It may pay less, bnut it's real work.
Gorkman