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After College, What Type of Jobs Should One Seek?
Sushant Bhatia asks: "I'm coming to the end of my Masters degree, and I'm on the prowl for jobs. However, there are so many types out there it's just overwhelming for someone who's never had to go through the job-hunting process before. So, what should I do? Should I go for a full-time, contract, half-time, or something else? Also, what kind of position should a person with a Master's in Computer Science be looking for (other than dish washer)? I've been looking at senior software developer positions, but is that too high up the ladder for someone 'fresh' to cope with? My current manager (research lab) says that 'You should always find a job that is above your skill level so that you can learn and be challenged.' I think he's right, but is that something Slashdot readers agree with? What was your job coming out of university?"
I hear Wal-Mart is always looking for shelf stockers
Or learn "would you like fries with that?"
UTF-8: There and Back Again
I'm trolling. Use your imagination for christ sakes.
Straight goods:
There's always a need for network people and sysadmins. With the shift from Windows/Proprietary Unix to Linux/*BSD you should concentrate on jobs in those areas, they're booming (I get at least 2 offers a month). If you stick to the Windows side of things you're going to be in a rut of helping users reboot and install patches. If you stick to proprietary Unix you can still do well in some high end research or data center work but cheap clusters are eating the bottom end out of some of that market.
Don't expect a senior position. Frankly too many hot-shot grads think they're The Goods; NONE are. If you can't translate your book smarts to real world work then you're destined to a life at a help desk.
That's how it is around here (I'm based in SoCal with work in 8 data centers around the country and 4 internationally) and I've been in the field since 1988.
I think CEO is a nice place to start. If you can't get that then maybe settle for COO or Vice President. You've spent too long in school to settle for anything less. Remember always get a job that is above your skill level, it makes life more fun!
Don't worry if your competent or not, your boss will be the judge of that.
However if you would like to be not in an uncertain position you better find out your interest and competents.
Perhaps getting in contact with a good headhunter is not that bad of an idea, but hey who am I telling if get a Msc. CS you could figure that out by yourself.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I hear a P.h.D is nice this time of year. Put off entering the "real world" as long as possible.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Stay in school. It's much nicer there.
you need to start entry level. otherwise how do you know what the folks you're managing are supposed to be doing?
The less you actually DO to get product out the door, the more they pay you ....
-GenTimJS
Go self-employed! It's the best. :) All you need is a great idea and motivation.
I've never worked for anyone in my life. Got a flexible schedule and can do whatever I want.
not stock options
Most people here are kids working at McDonald's or aging, overweight geeks living in their parents basement.
My advice, listen to all the +5 comments, and do the exact opposite.
Apparently one which does not require much decision making.
Shotgun mouthwash.
you think slashdot readers have degrees?
you think slashdot readers have interesting jobs?!
why do you think they're reading slashdot?
[10 marks]
I think you should be very careful - I can't imagine many companies wanting to hire a fresh graduate into a Senior position, there are a lot of experienced professionals out there looking for work, and all the graduates are generally looking to step into a junior software developer positions.
If you aim for unrealistic goals, then you must be prepared to fail, if you do want to go for the senior positions on the off-chance you hit lucky, make sure you also apply for the junior positions elsewhere.
To be honest, just working in a corporate environment should be a challenging learning experience for most graduates, it's completely different to how you will have worked in college. Once you have mastered the basic work-place skills and proven your worth then you will be in a position to move on to more challenging roles.
I would agree that it is best to find a job that you will learn in and be challenged, but the way to do this is to have a lot of applications out there, a number of offers in the bag after interviews, then you choose the most interesting/challenging one. Don't be afraid of accepting positions as they come in, and then "resigning" them before starting if you get a better offer from another company. the companies are pretty strict on making sure they have the right candidate out of many, and if you get the opportunity then you should make sure you pick the best company out of many.
Get your first foot on the ladder, then set your own pace for progression - be on the lookout for stagnation though, if you find yourself getting bogged down in a position, bored and unchallenged, go shopping for a new job.
Hope that helps!
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
From someone who is in the industry, stay away from games. You are only signing yourself up for long hours for lackluster compensation.
--P
What's a sig? Pete Brubaker
Find a job you think sounds interesting. If they don't want you there, tell them you can work for free for a while. That way you can show you can handle it and if they like your skills you might aswell get a job with a real salary. It also shows you really want the job, and that's a motivator for them to hire you.
Perhaps it's just recent, but I was willing to do just about anything when I left school. I certainly wasn't going to be aiming upward at something beyond my skills. I knew that was a cheat for me (more work; less pay) and my employer, who would get someone with the barest competence.
Your diploma means little; you've proved you can learn. You have yet to prove you can work.
Make sure you don't undersell yourself. I came out of University with a couple of degrees and three years research, but thought that everyone in the real world was much more experienced than me. I took a job with a small company for around £20K pa, but soon realised that I was carrying the company as I had more experience and better practice. I left there, and two years and three jobs later I was in a senior post with more than twice the salary.
Any fool can talk, but it takes a wise man to listen.
Whatever you do, you need a cupstacker biz card before you die.
Also, piloting those forklifts at Home Depot that make that nice beeping sound gets you bonus points.
That's the key, and a degree doesn't help you much. A degree gives an employer a fair indication that you have a decent level of knowledge and can work reasonably hard. But it doesn't tell them that you'll be able to plan a software project or write code that's easy to maintain.
If you apply for a job and they have a choice between you and someone with more real world experience, odds are pretty good they won't choose you. So, fresh out of college, your choices are limited. Basically, check the job listings and apply for anything which isn't asking for more experience than you've got. There are other things to consider, of course, but that's the major one. They pretty much have to be looking for a fresh graduate.
It's "Master's," not "Masters." See wikipedia entry.
It doesn't look particularly impressive on a resume if you can't even write your educational credentials correctly. Yes, these are small things, but we are nerds, and for nerds small things like this matter. If we weren't obsessive about details, our programs wouldn't compile, and we wouldn't be who we are.
suicide is an option
You may be lucky to find a company that is willing to hire you into a more senior position simply on the merits of your Masters degree, but I wouldn't count on it.
You are probably going to have to develop some experience and workplace accomplishments in your field to be able to move up into the more senior development positions. Your Masters should help you from being brought in at the lowest of development positions, though.
Hope this helps.
Our soon-to-be ex-student friend here is very naive. I should know, I was the same when I left university, proud and all, with my degree and a nice letter from the school stating that I had the best grades in the region.
But there's a big difference between him and me: I started working during the bubble, and I had the luxury of actually shopping for a job. That is over now, as he'll soon realize.
Good luck buddy, you'll need it. Trust me...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
This December will be my 7-year mark at the Fortune 500 company I work for.
Eight months after that, I should finish my bachelor's degree. I guess I will tell you then.
--something witty
Also, what kind of position should a person with a Master's in Computer Science be looking for (other than dish washer)?
Burger flipper.
At least if you live in a place unappreciative of academic achievement.
Start working at McDo, sell burgers!
Of course, Slashdot moderation being what it is, the parent will probably end up with a +5 moderation, and then what do you do?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
It never ceases to amaze me that people try and figure out what job they should look for AFTER they've done their years of schooling.
Personally, I always looked at school as a means to an end... I want this kind of a job, so I'll take this in school.
$0.02 (CDN)
Get a job for a company that does something you are interested in. Don't aim too high. The biggest mistake grads make when they come for interviews where I work is they are too cocky, they think they know it all when they don't. Most CS grads know the theory but can't actually use anything they know in a real world situation. Also they can't handle not having loads of time to plan and having to get it done by the dead line. In the real world you don't get extensions to when your work is due in (well you do but then you don't get any more work!).
Get a job as just a general worker in an IT company. Don't be too cocky, listen and learn. Suggest ideas and if they are not the right idea ask why not. Try not to piss too many people off who don't have a degree or masters, etc. If they have been at the company/industry longer than you chances are they know shit loads more than you and you can learn a great deal from them.
An education is a great thing but it isn't the only thing you need to survive in life. Don't become a victim to the cocky graduate stereotype that all IT companies have these days.
Best of luck to you!
If it were me I'd make sure, no matter how "high up" the position was, that it was something I found interesting and fufilling. Even if the job is less than challenging, but is part of a field you find interesting and enjoy, I think you will have a better chance of sticking with it. You will, most likely, have the ability to work up to something better (aka more challenging) in that field once you're already there.
:)
What I'm saying is, don't go for a harder job just because its harder. Choose something that you can see yourself doing 5-10 years from now and begin where you have to.
Of course, I've yet to even graduate with my B.S. in computer science
Pimpin da ho's.
Good luck in the real world! =)
the only permanence in existence, is the impermanence of existence.
If you're coming straight from university, you can do much worse than a few years of full time employment. Pay off those depts, gain some valuable experience so that people will take you seriously, it'll help you with what ever you may want to do later in life.
As for what sort of employment, I'm biased because I work in it, but I think the Mobile Phone software industry is very up and coming right now, its where all the excitment is going to be in the next few years.
It's a bit tougher to get your foot in the door now then when I started, but there are a lot of high paying gigs out there in health IT (at least in the US anyway). Learning the workflow of the various clinical departments balanced with a solid tech background is a very valuable skill set at this time.
My advice would be to try and go that route if you are looking for steady employment. If you do go that route and happen to get hired by a hospital or company specializing in health IT, then I would recommend some side courses at the local community college to learn medicare/medicaid processing, HIPAA, patient management and patient accounting overview classes.
4 years of college, and I'm now sweeping floors there.
Since you won't have much(if any) experience, you need to shoot for the 'I am enthusiastic and very willing to learn' angle. I am an IT manager in the financial industry(not help desk...in house dev), and I am constantly looking for good people, with little luck. I would rather hire someone that can pick things up and have some 'fire in the belly' then someone that thinks he knows everything. It is amazing how many people put 'Java'(or other 'skills') on their resume because they took one Java class but only remember how to do the 'hello world'. I think the best thing I learned in college was how to solve problems. Make sure you send along a cover letter. If you have any personal side projects you are working on,put those down. Recruiters are ok, but they don't give that personal touch. I worked in dot coms for 4 years before going to the financial industry, and surprisingly, I like it. It is much more stable(if you are looking for that). Best of luck.
"I'm making gravy without the lumps baby!" -- Mad Bomber Which Bombs at Midnight -- The Tick
List down a set of choices:
1 - What are your strong points? Agreed, you can do whatever you have to. But, what are you best at?
2 - Search for the jobs that interest you, or as your Research Lab professor said, challenge you.
3 - Make sure that you specify whether you are willing to relocate
4 - Highlight your Masters degree in your resume. No matter what anyone tells you, an advanced / graduate degree will still land you a better job
5 - Be Patient. Shoot for a challenging job (either in a Senior or Entry-level position). When you land the job you "WANTED", you'll be glad for your patience.
Finally, remember that with your Masters, the job opportunities available have reduced due to your qualifications. So, be flexible without compromising on your interests.
I'm still in high school you insensitive clod!
You must think you're original or something.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
That's one way to prove yourself and learn all the parts of a business directly. Or rotate through divisions of a larger company that involve marketing, product design, business development, channel relations, advertising, tech support, etc. If you take this approach, one thing is for sure: you won't wind up a tax-and-spend Democrat. (!)
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
One you think you can manage/are skilled for.. . .
One where the people are friendly( managment and co-workers)
One with good benefits
One with prospects.
All else failing , take what's going and find your head as you go
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
You're asking the wrong question. You should first sit down and ask yourself what interests you and what you would enjoy doing for a living. Maybe you dig airplanes so you want to get a job working on the computer systems on new planes from Boeing. Or maybe you like security software so go find a job at Symantec. You get the point.
After you've figured out what interests you, go talk to alumni from your school who work in the industry you're heading into. Ask them how they like their job, what salary expectatios you should have with your experience etc.
Whatever you end up doing, make sure you enjoy it. Good luck job hunting! I hope you land somewhere interesting and enjoyable.
I got a good Bsc Comp Sci from a good university, and couldnt get a IT job for a year, bare in mind this was just before 9/11 when I graduated I guess which might alter things..
I then went back and got an MSc in Internet Systems Development but when I was 'learning' I landed a part time development roll where I was hideously over worked and under paid, now 12 months after graduating I've packed in that job and as well as a BSc and an MSc (that noone cares about) I have 3 years of industry experience that counts.
At the moment I'm unemployed but job seeking and am getting interviews left right and center. Noone cares about my degrees, it's all do you have x years commercial experience in y language and z environment, which I do \o/
I guess IT positions are now like the media industry nowadays, where you have to start working for peanuts to get that much needed commercial experience and go on to better things later. Sucks.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
If you're interested in branching out of CS, look into finance- they will pay very well for quantitative analyists, and if you have any economics background - all the better (but not neccessary). Most of the big one's prefer Phd's, but they will hire Masters at 6 figures or close to it (at least).
Practically impossible to get that that kind of job unless you get into politics, law or economics; and you probably end up beeing to good at it right at the start :)
How about the Supreme Court? Bush needs help, and those Enron lads too... then you to be in all positions at once.
'nuff said.
I'm not really a web designer, I just play one on the Internet.
You take any job you can get and look what for you want later :)
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
If you have masters and are asking those questions you might want to get some common sense and some drive and motivation while you are at it. Seriously, if you got a Masters, you surely had a concentration and would have had contacts through your research?
Don't you kids have guidance counselors or advisors or anything? Find a job you think would be fun! Or find a job that will allow you to save up to switching to something fun.
[o]_O
Senior level positions are reserved for individuals who have commensurate experience and education, only one of which you have (and, even though you say you have a masters degree, I don't know if its a masters in culinary arts from the Wassamatta U, or a Comp Sci degree from MIT.)
If you shoot for a Senior level anything position, you better know, and I mean KNOW your shit, because by that point, they are looking for people to get things done, rather than learning things. You might do well to start at a I or II level position, and work (and I do mean WORK) your way up. I started at a I and in less than a year, got promoted (with a consider raise) to a II level by proving myself beyond just doing what was necessary.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
My /. is such a nice place, isn't it? I'm guessing you'd start jumping for joy if India fell into the ocean or something like that.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
MOD PARENT UP!!
I think the key point to remember is that you may not find the job that you want right away (if you do find one you want, then all the power to you!). The following suggestion assumes that you actually want to be challenged in your job, not just being complacent.
I personally think the best way is to find a set of jobs that you may qualify for (say, if a job requires 7 years of experience and you have 5, then go for it...but if you only have 2, then forget it) and in a field you wouldn't mind being in, from both online and offline sources (especially online, since you're a CS person). Then look at the companies these jobs fall under and pick the ones you think has potential for you and the company to grow. Go for those positions.
Remember that a lot of the "juicier" jobs come from internal postings. Those are the ones that you don't see unless you have connections. So the point is to get yourself in the door, and then consider transferring after a few months or so.
As for the senior position, I think you can probably forget about it. No one will hire a fresh Master's student for that position. Of course, if you're someone who's been developing for some large corporation or open source project, then you might land the job.
Nothing to see here. We're all fine and there aren't any spare jobs. Move along please...
Seriously though, I would never hire a newbie graduate (well, not never). From past experience, I've tended to find that the best IT people are those who love what they do and drop out because they see the weaknesses in the learning system associated with IT or spend so much time actually doing it, rather than people who view IT as a 'here and now' easy money route that it just like any other profession.
The latter I despise, and you can usually catch them out simply by asking why they're in IT. Normally you get a very honest "I thought there was money in it" answer. Normally they're of the opinion "I've been trained in it, so I must be good" and fail to realise that some of the key qualities come simply through a love of the subject.
Harsh I know, but graduates nowadays expect it on a plate as soon as they're out.
http://www.goarmy.com/flindex.jsp
You are guarenteed international responsibility and incredible excitement.
If you want my advice, you should immediately get a computer of your own and start hacking. Write something. Anything. Just code code code. Release something and provide support. Doesn't matter what! Write a checkers program, or a web browser from scratch. Or implement a garbage collector for C++, we could use one of those. Anything that challenges you.
well the thing is that long term it jobs are hard to come by. your best bet for that is in fortune 500 companies it teams... but don't expect autonomy. while looking I suggest doing some consulting jobs and side programming projects. that willl keep you busy and xashflow positive while you look. fyi I staryed my own consulting firm and that has dine well but the competition is fierce. as a result I'm here at a recital but I have to be accessible 24 7... hencw the treo 650 which is awesome btw
------------
Sase
"It's the opposite of that."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
what type of person do you want to be? what type of person do you think will have better job prospects in the future? what do you think will make you a more interesting candidate in a future job hunt? these are serious questions, and i obviously have my own opinions, but you've got to figure out what your personal tolerance for risk is, and how far outside the box you're willing to think.
daniel
By working on a Master's, you've obviously had to do research in some specific field. That should be the first clue to where you want to work. If you are doing graphics research, don't go work for Symantec. Your research should get you good work, and then just let them decide what position you are.
I don't think most MSCS graduates are ready for a senior software engineer position. To be a competent senior software engineer, one of the things you need is experience at completing projects. You need to be able to plan your time, estimate how long programming tasks will take, determine when things are going wrong and what to do about it (what things to cut, whether to ditch some of your code and take a different tack). You may have gotten some experience at this in school, but honestly it's hard to get really good at this stuff without having been involved in some projects that failed and some that succeeded. And that kind of experience is what makes someone valuable enough to be a senior software engineer, in most cases. (The other thing that makes a senior software engineer is an expert level of knowledge with some of the specific industry tools that the project is using. For instance, if you are doing J2EE stuff, the senior engineer is going to know the Java development environment and all the server support stuff like the back of his hand and will be highly productive in that particular environment.)
So, what does your Master's degree buy you if it doesn't qualify you to be a senior engineer? It basically buys you the ability to start out at the same level (organizationally) as someone with a BSCS, but working on some kind of project that's more technical and more fun. When a company has a task that requires an extra level of technical skill, like working on a compiler, or doing DSP code, or optimizing operating systems, they generally prefer someone who has an MSCS for that kind of thing.
The good news is, I think an MSCS will actually get you a better (more interesting and somewhat high paying) job than a BSCS will. It's not a ticket that enables you to jump past the first few steps. It doesn't substitute for experience. But, it does open up opportunities to be involved with certain technical work that those without an MSCS will have a harder time getting into.
I've recently started a website dedicated to people who love their jobs sharing their stories and details of what they do. I don't have many contributions yet, so if anyone out there wants to send me their story, we can get this thing off the ground and help with questions like this. Check it out http://www.fiveoclockfriday.org/ I look forward to hearing about those tech jobs!
Amen to that!
If you actually want to find a wife that doesn't look like she could tie for second at the Maryland Ox and Hefer road show I suggest getting out the the industry entirely.
Learning how to carve bongs out of common household appliances on your "time off" is about as constructive as actually using them.
-John Tesh
Not trying to be rude, but your academic achievements may not count as much as you think. Practical experience counts far more. My past experience tells me that I cannot judge someone by their education. Many of the best and brightest people I have worked with did not have any, or very little, college education. Also I have worked with many people with Masters degrees who are complete idiots.
And vice-versa.
I am not knocking you or your education, just trying to prepare you for what you may find.
Slashdot - Where the slash is most definitely to the left.
Networking is key. The tried and true book Winning Friends and Influencing others completely changed the way I talked to people and I saw an immediate improvement. It basically boils down to just asking people questions and being genuinely interested. Try it sometime.
By the way does anyone have recommendations for books that are similar over even better?
how much money you want to earn / how much time you want to work = hourly wage
A guy walks into a bar... well, I forgot the joke, but the punchline is that he's an alcoholic.
I've been looking at senior software developer positions, but is that too high up the ladder for someone 'fresh' to cope with?
People starting at my company (defense contractor) with a MSCS start at software engineer level 2. One step above those without the masters. Basically the 2 year masters is the same as 2 years of work. Forget trying to be a senior level.
I hear there are plenty of jobs over in India...
Health care is definitely the most up-and-coming thing there is, I think, especially with the massive wave of aging baby boomers who tend to have quite a bit to spend. You can either look at it as potentially lucrative or potentially altruistic, but in any case I think the parent suggestion is great.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
I just got my Master of Science in Computer Science; and am thinking it might not be a bad idea to walk right back into that Ivory Tower.
You should have been preparing to get a job during your college years, rather than after, because then you'd graduate with some experience, which would put you ahead of a lot of people. At least from what I've been able to infer, interviewers tend to have the attitude that graudates don't know anything because they haven't been in "the real world" long enough, and some experience will help dispel that. They also seem to pay an inordinate amount of attention to your GPA when you're fresh out of school, so if it's good, put it on there.
Don't assume that only "challenging" positions are good. Start at the bottom and work your way up, even if it means doing something trivial, because sooner or later the opportunity is going to arise to demonstrate your skills to your employer, and then they'll (hopefully) start treating you like the valuable asset to the company you just demonstrated that you are.
Your job must be irreplaceable. and essential to the world order and the economy. If you cannot find an essential job then you'll just lose it eventually and be working at Walmart.
Suicide is preferable to talking to Cletus and Jerlene at lunch for a week, much less a career.
-Charlie
I see this question or its variant posted on Slashdot about once a month it seems.
;-)
If you're going to college to get a job and that's your goal, then get your MBA. Study nursing. Education. Hell, even political science.
Those all offer promising careers and there's quite a demand right now in the job market for people with training in these areas.
Obviously, you're going to want to avoid solely obtaining CS or any IT-related degrees. If you are to believe most of what's on Slahdot, the market for these jobs sucks right now and, even when you get a job, you're probably going to be dissatisfied because 1) you have to work with MS poducts or 2) you have to work with people who are obviously morons. And all technology workers eventually become bitter cynics.
Now, if you are going to college because you are trying to learn something of interest, that's another story - though, with a few exceptions, I find that investing 10% of what it would cost for tuition in a few good books and a few hours of your time each week to be a much better investment in real education.
But I'm just a bitter cynic.
If you know C++, willing to code military embedded software, and are a U.S. Citizen with ability to get secret clearance, apply at Boeing for Embedded Software Engineer II, both the "College" and "Experienced" levels. I got a job there while I was in the middle of my MS, and my friends all got jobs there too. An advantage of Boeing is they pay overtime (Thanks to SPEEA) - which means add about $20k to your base salary and that's your real salary. Good luck.
The first question you may need to answer is whether learning is your favorite hobby. If so, then go get a challenging job and join the corporate rat race. Keep in mind that the larger your company and division, the more backstabbing and politics you'll deal with.
If learning isn't your favorite hobby, then put together a list of all the stuff you like to do. Do you like to travel? Mountain bike? Scuba dive? If that's what you enjoy, then go work in that field. Believe it or not, you can find good-paying tech jobs (or just about anything else) in each of those areas. If you like to travel, look on Lonely Planet's web site for jobs. If you like to ride bikes, then check out the website of a bike manufacturer to see if they're hiring.
I worked for a small company for about 3 years and had a lot of fun doing sys admin work. It was a great learning experience and at that point in my life I enjoyed learning just about more than anything.
Then I decided I'd go skiing. Now I get paid to work for a ski resort doing IT work. In the winter I get anywhere between 40 - 100 days of skiing in. I'm actually sort of getting bored of skiing now, so I'm thinking sitting on a beach in Thailand is what I'll do. I just need to get paid for it.
You'll also need to weigh whether the greed of $$$ will override where you want to live. Ideally you'll live and work exactly where you want to. However, you might be tempted to move across the country to a place you hate just to make money.
----- obSig
Start living. Make mistakes & cope with them.
I've been looking at senior software developer positions, but is that too high up the ladder for someone 'fresh' to cope with?
Depends on where you work. I worked for several years after college and then went back to school full time for an advanced degree. At least in my experience, there's a world of difference between what the senior software engineers did and the kind of development that I do in grad school.
Most academic types don't have to worry about making their code bulletproof, "productizing" it, requirements documents, tech specs, working with UI folks, working with QA folks and bug DBs, or coding to a schedule as part of team. Then there's talking to customers, putting out fires and doing damage control when something breaks. And depending on how senior you are, there may be managing a budget and managing devs under you. (Then you may get to deal with HR for hiring, firing and performance evaluations.) It's much more rigorous and often very different from the sort of speculative, independant exploratory development that takes place at grad school.
I'm not trying to put down grad school (I wouldn't be back if I didn't think it had value), but someone who's never worked in the commercial sector will lack a lot of the real-life experience that senior engineers there need. And an advanced degree is not a substitute.
How about relocate to India. May b China?
Had you asked me a couple of years ago my advice would have been to follow up your Bachelors in Computer Science with an MBA rather than a Master's in Computer Science. Too many business managers do not understand Information Technology. Too many IT guys do not understand business. If you want to get rich and have a challenging career, be the guy who understand BOTH.
Congratulations!
I've been looking at senior software developer positions, but is that too high up the ladder for someone 'fresh' to cope with?
Of course, each business is different in terms of "titles" and labor grades. A senior position in one place might be easy for the average employee to obtain - while a senior position at a different employer may be next to impossible to land unless you're the world's expert at something.
I have 12 people reporting to me. Two of them are "senior developers", with 4 and 8 years experience post college. One has an MS in CS, the other does not. Both were promoted into their senior position. I fully trust these senior guys with almost anything.
The other ten people are "software developers". They have between 2 and 12 years of full time experience. Two have an MS in CS, the others do not.
It'd be very unusual for me to hire you over these experienced, trusted, and predictable employees. Can you climb the ladder quickly? Yes, if you prove yourself - but you have to EARN a senior developer position by proving yourself in all sorts of circumstances.
Unless you have proven high caliber on-the-job experience, I would not hire you into a senior position. It is important to "aim high", but it's dumb to "aim so high" that you miss the job market.
Ask not what your employer can do for you, but what you can do for him.
Seriously, with no job experience you will be not able to provide your employer much value in a senior developer position.
Look at your skills and decide if they are worth your desired salary to a given employer. Looking in the terms of "what value can I offer my employer?" is a useful perspective. Would you hire yourself for that position when you could instead hire developers with years of experience?
Don't get too hung up on how high of a position you take. Look for jobs that will build your skills. They will provide you with the most benefit in the long run.
One of the first things I learned when I graduated from college and entered the software world, was that they didn't really teach you how to code well. I was lucky and got a job at a small company that enforced good coding practices ( Unit testing, peer code review, etc). My first task was a small program to automate importing data into a database. While it worked as designed, the one hour spent on my code review taught me more about code quality, portability, and planning for the future changes than any class. I'd recommend getting a staff position and working your way up, but that's just my story.
What I usually try to do is find the one job in the department or company that no one wants, and performed that job so well that managment will want to promote me to a better job. The trick is make sure people know that you want to move on to better things or you can end being stuck in the job that no one wants except you.
At one company that I worked for, I volunteered to create an inventory system, inventoried all the hardware and software, maintain the storage cabinets, and know where everything went. This was something that no one really wanted to do and it was never done until I came along. When I left that position to become a project leader, management had to have three people do my old job since no one else could handle it by themselves.
About 6 years ago, I graduated with a MS in CS and I was really disappointed in the job situation. I wanted to get into a position where I can be challenged and use my skills to their maximum potential. Instead, most senior jobs in industry require lots of experience in specific technologies and most jobs in research require Ph.D.'s
I ended up taking a teaching position at a community college teaching first and second year CS. At the same time, I try to improve my own technology related skills by taking up some contracts.
After teaching for a while, I switched to work for a large software company where they value academic skills. The company is really nice but since I wasn't at the research end of things, the projects were uninteresting at best.
I am currently back at my teaching position and take on only interesting projects in my spare time. I found this to be most satisifying as I get to do different things all the time (dealing with students, developing courses, experiment with technology, etc.)
Hope this helps
KEEP AS FAR AWAY FROM IT AS YOU POSSIBLY CAN!
Take a job in a kindergarden, or the like. You might have to change diapers or wipe noses on little anoying kids, but its nothing compared to a day with crappy software, and people that cant understand why the printer doesn't work and don't even appologize when you tell them to turn on the printer.
There isn't much like the scent of a fresh harddisk
as a 'senior' person who has done hiring before there are jobs like this. as other people have said, dont look at the 'senior' jobs. they really are looking with people who have experience in the area, can set direction, who know how to deal with large projects, etc.
every place i have been we hired people out of school. while its hard to interview these people, the primary thing i've always been interested in is projects they have done, either outside of school or research projects at school. emphasize your contribution rather than the project itself. you will almost certainly be doing coding questions. the tools you learned in school (algorithms, complexity, analysis) aren't useless in the real world. trot them out.
you will be expected to contribute, but will be giving you smaller projects that are less critical path, tracking your progress more closely, and hopefully be giving you tactical advice. the worst places for entry level are places where no one has time to deal with you, they stick you in a cube, give you some vauge description of your job and ignore you, then lay you off because you aren't performing well. if that happens, demand attention. ask them often what you should be doing and tell them where you are stuck.
look for and apply for things you have some experience or interest in. its easier to get a job doing something you've done, so without some effort once you become a (sysytems, ui, tools, whatever) it will stick with you. in that vein dont beleive the 'we really need qa right now, help us out and we'll put you in development later' line. they will always need qa, and you will be a qa person forever (unless you want to be qa, in which case you can just get a qa job at the place of your choosing and stop bothering slashdot).
while everyone wants the best assurance someone is going to be productive by asking for 'senior' people, the smart groups mix in some junior people as well. the good ones are far more energentic, they are more ignorant and eager to prove themselves, you can get alot out of them. they aren't as closed-minded, they are cheaper, and in a year or two worth just as much. its an investment of management time with a certain associated risk and a good payoff. of course the company needs to be healthy enough to vent the accumulated deadwood on occasion.
Generally, a Master's degree is worth 2 years of experience by most recruiters. You will not get a senior level job now- noone with less than 4 years will. Aim for jobs asking for 0-2 years experience and you'll be on course. I'd make heavy use of any school resources, like job fairs, interview sessions, placement programs, etc.
Doesn't sound like much for a master's? It isn't. A graduate degree in CS is for research. It doesn't help you land a better job unless the job is doing research. If you aren't interested in getting a phd, a masters of CS isn't worth it from a job perspective. Its something you do only if you love school and learning.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
To put things into perspective: I've just recently quit grad school and taken up a senior-level position at a major software company.
As long as you know your stuff, you'll be just fine. Work hard during your probation and do your best to fit in and make lots of friends around the office. Just as you did in grad school, befriend the administrative assistants. Keep sharp on your scholarly research area and try to keep publishing through your job. Try not to take on more that you can accomplish, no matter how eager you are.
Most importantly: Enjoy reaping the fruits of your labour!
I think your advisor phrased his advice incorrectly. It's not that you want to be above your skill level (out of your depth and making expensive mistakes), but more that it is best to have a position that challenges you. This can happen in quite junior posiitons, in the right organization.
You won't get a job as a senior anything with no experience. As a fresh graduate, it is very likely that you don't yet realise what you don't know. That is one of the things that makes someone 'senior' as opposed to a more junior developer.
Also, having a Master's degree isn't really a big deal these days, so don't be surprised if there isn't much of a salary premium to go with it. In my experience, people with Master's degrees aren't necessarily any better developers than those with a Bachelor's degree. It all comes down to the individual's ability.
To me the term "senior" developer suggests someone who is a seasoned software engineer with proven experience of real-world development.
A senior developer is someone with experience in the full software-development life-cycle. Requirements analysis, design and architecture of large systems, including version control issues, bug-tracking, release management etc. Also someone with a broad knowledge of the programming technologies being employed. I doubt this label would really apply to most recent college graduates, who are likely to have a strong knowledge of theoretical computer science, but less knowledge of how software projects happen in the real world.
At Taco Hell, if they don't ask you for a drink, you get a free one (and the order-taker gets a one-way ticket to fired-land).
Transcend Humanity. Please.
As for what type of employment to pursue that really depends on you. How much money do you need? How much freedom do you desire? What type of work schedule do you want? Do you want to buy your own benefits or let an employer buy them for you? Keep in mind that 401k matches and group health insurance are benefits you can only get from an employer... Personally I like a little stability so I went full time. A lot of people go contract.
Also, what kind of position should a person with a Master's in Computer Science be looking for (other than dish washer)? I've been looking at senior software developer positions
Forget the senior software developer positions. A Master's in Comp Sci is nice but it doesn't show an employer that you've got what it takes to develop software; it shows an employer you've got what it takes to memorize facts about computers and demonstrate basic competency in programming labs, all of which are likely completely out of date w.r.t. the real world needs of today's employers, because the people that create the labs have in all likelihood left the real world employment environment long ago (if they were ever there at all)
Focus on getting a job doing what you want to do. Forget this whole "work above your skill level" bullshit. It's Computer Science! The field changes every six months ANYWAYS. You'll always be challenged to learn regardless of what it might say on your business card under your name.
I am disrespectful to dirt! Can you see that I am serious?!
I've been looking at senior software developer positions, but is that too high up the ladder for someone 'fresh' to cope with?
I hope you don't get a "senior" level position. Those should be only available to people who actually have experience in the real world... Doesn't matter how much you studied... there are certain aspects of engineering (software as well) that can only be taught through experience.
Advice? Sure you could try it, but I doubt you'd want that high level of responsibility fresh out of the water anyway.
Because i know someone with just a regular degree in computer science who started pretty high in EDS database administration.
Go to the w3.org and put Slashdot.org through the validator.
If you've never been on the job market before, any kind of job related to computers will be ample "new", trust me. Dealing with people, your boss, your coworkers, your ideas, their ideas, meetings, marketing, arg... it's not easy! And it's something you need to _learn_.
Go to work at a big company first. That way you will be exposed to plenty of negative examples.
For instance: The coder who wouldn't check-in for five weeks at a time, and then say their hard drive crashed. When the source control admin would go to reconstruct their work, they found there had only been 10 lines of code completed during that period. After this happened three times running, the company wised up and fired his ass.
Then there's the guy we called "PhD" -- which stood for "personal hygiene deficit". A good example of why some people shouldn't eat at their desks.
At a large bank in Charlotte, there was the eternal project -- every time a new Senior Vice President got hired, the project got reincarnated as his personal vision of how the code should work. I expect they still haven't delivered anything, 12 years later.
Chip H.
Experience is king in the software world. The majority of people in the field don't have degrees, or don't have degrees in the field (i.e. Medieval history, anthropology, etc.). Amass as much experience as possible, that is your best bet.
Or, get a job outside of ICT.
You have the luxury of selecting either full-time or part-time?! I wish I was so lucky. Obviously cash isn't a huge issue for you - follow your heart and take the job that seems best but you'll learn a lot faster as full-time rather part-time.
be honest to yourself about your skill level, then go for something that needs something a bit more... you'll be able to get away with "faking it" long enough for you to actually learn it.
software producers are primarily looking for experiece so education will get you only so far... i too have a masters, but the focus of all interviews i've ever had was always what i did in previous jobs.
I've done a lot of hiring, and have some thoughts on this. Unless you've spent a LOT of time solving problems and designing software, you probably won't be right for a senior position. So, some of the options for junior ones: First, you probably won't have much luck with contract work. Contract folks are looking for demonstrated expertise with specific technologies. Unless they can put you into a C++, or java, or Oracle, or .NET position the next day, you probably won't get many bites.
Big companies (Microsoft, google, etc.) are more likely to take a chance on someone unproven but with evidence of smarts, assuming that you'll learn to eventually view abuse as reward if that's all you're ever exposed to. :) It's not for everybody.
If you're in an area with a lot of software work going on, then you might want to look at intern positions. They can pay fairly well, considering (we pay $20 an hour where I am), and if you prove yourself over the summer, it can often lead to a junior position; or at least a letter of recommendation which will go along way for the next job.
Let me just go slightly off topic for a second and warn you about the #1 thing that makes me reject unexperienced candidates -- no interest. Whether I'm interviewing for a junior position or a senior one, I always ask what projects they are working on at home...maybe it's an extension of your masters work, maybe you're teaching yourself PHP by writing an online poker game. I don't care what it is, but if you're at this point and you don't have something you're excited about working on, you're probably in the wrong field :)
A lot depends on what skills you're bringing to the table. If you put yourself through university working as a network guy and you wnat to break into development, then often applying to an internet company as a 'build engineer' or something similar can lead to a transfer into development. (This just happened where I am, and the guy is amazing, he knows our code better than we do).
Small local companies can be a godsend, especially if you're in a small college town...but they can also sometimes trap inexperienced devs and really mistreat them. I was with a military contractor who had some great international guys, and treated them like crap, thinking "we're in the middle of nowhere, and these guys need work visas, where are they going to go?" If this is your situation, talk to some of your professors, they might know of local startups (in college towns, they're often involved).
There's a lot of options, but a lot depends on your specific situation. Hope this helps.
V.
I think you're asking the wrong question here. When you're just getting out into the "real world," you need to focus on finding a position that's going to make you the happiest, not the one that looks the best on paper.
Look at the type of culture, the location, the history of the company, the people they hire, their strategy for success, even their reputation among their competitors. Are these the types of people you want to work with or for? Do you love working in the boonies, or is a downtown location more enjoyable? Does your excite you? Would you rather work for Porsche or Ford? Microsoft or Mozilla? Wal-Mart or Nordstroms?
When you're young you have the luxury of relatively little excess baggage. You probably don't have a mortgage, wife, children, or outrageous car payments (yet). You can move, change careers, and take risks that may not be as easy when you are committed.
This is arguably the last time you will ever be able to truly consider a variety of positions and select the one that best fits you. The next time you start looking, you'll have other concerns that will impact your decision.
If you like to tinker or play with fun new technology, then a boutique shop (smaller shops focused on one particular area/technology) or a commercial research lab might be a good choice. If you like to travel and wear expensive shoes, then you might look into consulting. If you just want to program, then try to find a company whose story you can really dig into. Don't rule anything out until you really know, because some of the best jobs are lying in unexpected places.
I've seen many people go 12-18 months in a job and absolutely hate it. Maybe you will too, but chances are there's a company looking for people just like you. A company that will meet all of your requirements and keep you happy too. That's where you want to work.
Your search might not be easy. You may have to relocate far away. You'll have to find the balance of incentives that suits you best (location, hours, benefits, compensation, etc). Digits on a paycheck can only cure a handful of ailments, none of them fatal.
Technicalities like tax (which is the driving factor behind W2 vs 1099) should only play a factor when trying to decide between two equally attractive positions or if you have extenuating circumstances (insurance, for example). If you let them guide you to a position, you'll likely end up somewhere you'd rather not be.
-R
As a manager, unless that Master of Science comes with experience, I'm not going to offer a senior position.
There's just too much extra to a senior role that has nothing to do with level of traditional education.
I need my senior developers to be able to run a small team and make accurate project plans and time estimates. My experience of the other people at university - and myself, to be fair - was a bunch of people bitching about how unfair it was to get saddled with a team of incompetents followed by one person shouldering all the load. A couple of years in the working world where you can bitch all you like about things being unfair - but you're going to get fired rather than a bad grade if you don't get on and sort it - leads to a totally different approach to screwed up situations.
My experience of student life was sleeping in as late as possible and then crunching through the nights with a few friends to pull off insane tasks. In the working world, people start complaining they're not overtime exempt, wanting time and a half for anything out of their normal 9-to-6 and have a legally protected hard limit of 70 hours if they don't want to go over that. Besides, for the odd college project that may work - in the real world, managers who try crunching all the time churn out crap from exhausted and pissed off coders.
Those are just two examples. There are many more I could give. The point is that college experience, while providing a lot, doesn't replace the bottom rungs. It does two things: It accelerates promotions from those bottom rungs (that you still have to start on); It opens doors that would otherwise be closed, further down the line. You still start at the bottom. You just get away from there faster.
If you really want to skip the bottom rungs, there was a great article here a few weeks back about how to do that:
Start a start up.
As a student, you're used to living on ramen and crashing on your parents' couch so there's no better time than now to take the risk.
Costs of getting started in IT disappear in to background noise (if you can do the above rather than buying expensive chairs and setting up coporate offices you don't really need ala dotcom stupidity). If you know how to code, have your own PC etc. you can build a server, develop on it, etc. It's only when you're ready to release your product that you need to bring money in - and, by that point, you have a demonstrable product.
If you succeed, your company gets bought out, you cash a nice big check and parlay your CTO position or whatever you've given yourself in to a VP Of Development, Director, or whatever in the new company.
If you fail, that year of running your own company will still look better on most resumes than five years of intern/junior crap at no-name firms. Even from a failed company, you can parlay that experience in to a senior role.
So: University education doesn't let you skip the bottom of the ladder - it opens the top up and gets you up it a little faster. If you really want to skip the bottom rungs, found your own company - you'll learn more, likely skip rungs and, if you're lucky, sell your share in the next online-casino equivalent for $2b like the guy in India just did and get to play MMOs for the rest of your days while starting up toy companies just to harass CEOs for the hell of it.
First off, this depends heavily on your class focus and what you would like to do. Do you want to design software, write code, manage projects, etc? Look for jobs in those areas that interest you and that you have some experience in. Think of where that career will take you, and if you want to end up going that direction.
If you don't have industry experience, you will have to take a more entry level job and work up. If you have done projects that showcase your abilities, then try for more senior level. If you have little or no management experience, you will have a harder time getting senior level work. The same is likely if you have no design experience.
If you are motivated and can handle everything involved *and* have demonstratable skills and some charisma, then you will make more doing contract and consulting work. You will be in a good position to start your own business, as well. It will give you a chance to build contacts and network for a while. If this does not sound like you, then look for full-time work.
The Master's degree does not immediately make you qualified for anything. It tends to mean that you will command a higher salary, which is not exactly a good thing for someone with entry level experience. That's why a lot of people work for a while and go for their MS degree at the same time, or work and then take leave to do school full-time.
Your manager is wise to say to look for work that is above your skill. If you get bored in your work, you'll eventually stop caring about your job. This not only hurts your productivity, but will hurt your career.
Find 5 or so of your best friends (good programmers) and start a company. The company will either fail or become profitable and you can sell it and get "real" jobs or if it fails you will still be young (assuming that you already are) and have plenty of experience to be a senior developer.
Alternately, if you aren't really in for all the risk (which seems kind of silly) then find the job descriptions for the job you want and spend a few years in a lower level position, building those skills.
I have a friend who got his Master's in CS while I spent the entire time he was in school working technical support and IT work. He got out of school and he couldn't even get a testing job. 3 years after getting his Master's he finaly recently got a job as a junior java programer. Meanwhile I have been in the field the entire time getting constant experience doing what I want to do and I am making more money than he is with no college education at all. Keep that in mind when looking for work. For every one of you with a Master's in CS there are 100's of us that have the real world experience to fill the same exact position. The only way you will get the same job over me is if you are willing to take less money than I am.
However, there are so many types out there it's just overwhelming for someone who's never had to go through the job-hunting process before. So, what should I do?
Learn how to make a fortune.
N3P is a two year, government financed (free as in beer) college level training in how to become a successful Project Entrepreneur in Open Source.
N3P
If you don't know what you want to do why the hell did you get a master's degree to begin with?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Why did you waste your time with a master's degree if you were going to work a normal job?! I have plenty of college drop-out friends have have good "normal" IT jobs. If you take a "normal" IT job with your master's degree it will have been a waste. Go get your Ph.D.
your degree counts for far less than any experience you may have. put yourself in the shoes of your prospective employer; all the candidates have degrees, what differentiates degrees is only the school and the epithet. what differentiates candidates is the rest of the package - e.g. did you work for Dr. Jimmy Supercoder? while in his employ did you develop SuperApp v2.1? or did you just put in your time at university and get the paper they give to you at the end?
The devaluation of the collegiate experience has all but ruined the once-impressive status that a degree carried, now that every high school graduate is herded into an undergraduate program so that they may continue to live on their parent's dime an undergraduate degree has become less of a trading token, and more of an industry standard. The master's degree you have just earned is both a step above the standard, and the next standard to fall. Experience -- documentable developments for which you are directly responsible -- are all that matters, without them you are just another schmuck with an exorbitant debt-to-income ratio.
That said, Good Luck!
Eheheheh...
hehehehhhehh
EHEHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAA!!!
*cough*
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
The mere notion of commercial code being (or trying to) be bulletproof is too absurd!
Dude, you've got a Master's degree but have _never_ had to look for a job before? Even in the summer?
That is so messed up. Unless you go to Asia (try Taiwan or China), just having a degree doesn't cut it.
Don't listen to your supervisor, you'll have to start low. There's going to be _plenty_ for you to learn when you get into your first real job. There may not be anything programming related, but it'll be just as important.
Take whatever development position will give you experience that looks good on your resume. You may not want to take a position coding in a dinosaur language. Search dice.com for languages and skillsets you're interested in and see what the demand for them is.
Once you get some real experience on your resume, then take your mentor's good advice and always pitch yourself at positions a little beyond your comfort zone.
I'm 35 and I've been through the "what job..." thing a few times now. Different people are suited to different types of job and I don't know much about you. But here are my suggestions anyway.
Perhaps the most important thing is to find a company whose products excite, or at least interest, you. You want to feel that you're working on something that will make a difference and that everyone will be talking about, perhaps.
Find a company where you'll like the people and fit in with their "culture". Are they all family men with kids to go home to, or are they all under 25 age and go to the pub after work? Do they work 35 or 80 hours a week?
Decide if you have any particular skills that would make you more valuable to some employers than others - even if you only "think you'd be good at it", rather than having any real experience. In particular, things like embedded systems and safety-critical skills are very sellable. At big places you're more likely to be building a little part of something were writing good documentation and understanding the specification are most important, while in a smaller company it's more likely that you'll be working on something alone or as part of a small team.
As for the actual job title - whether it calls you a "senior software engineer" or "member of technical staff" really doesn't matter; these are just labels. The salary is the best guide. If you are looking at a job and are unsure if they want a recent graduate, pick up the phone and ask them! It can't do any harm. Also, very very many job adverts are only "wish lists"; maybe they wanted an experienced person, but if a smart recent graduate turns up they might give them a job too! If you like the look of their products and people, just apply anyway.
Yeah, nothing much ever comes of grad-school dev...
Right Larry? Right Sergey?
Remember, getting a job has two pretty distinct parts: the resume, and the interview. HR people screen resumes, and they may not know Java from mocha. They're also the people who ask for ten years of experience in a language that has only existed for five, so take any skill and experience requirements in a job posting with a pinch of salt. Don't lie (or exaggerate) to any geeks about your technical skills, though.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
Everything else is secondary you take what you can get, as long as you get paid.
--- www.f-theocean.com
...believe it or not, real-world experience is very different than academic experience.
I have a great deal of real-world experience now, and a degree as well. When I graduated, I started at entry-level positions and worked my way up. It works.
Recently, I worked with a guy who had a masters in computer science from a well-known accredited state college. And he wasn't an idiot. However, he also wasn't ready for the real world. His troubleshooting thought process needed a great deal of refinement, and his ability to deliver the kind of requirements necessary in the kinds of time-frames necessary just wasn't up to par (yet). During the year that I worked with him, I saw his skills improve (as one would expect). In another several years, he may be senior-position material. But not until he has the experience under his belt.
I am not saying college is easy, nor that the education is valueless. I AM saying that graduates, precisely because of their lack of experience, have an unrealistically high opinion of their own abilities, and often make the sorts of costly (and embarrassing) mistakes that more experienced programmers don't make.
So there's my opinion.
Your first priority should be to pay off all credit card debts and students loans. Consider such debts a threat hanging over your head until they are gone. Don't be enticed into paying the minimum on any fixed-rate student loans in expectation that interest rates will rise. If things turn worse for you, it's a payment you still have to make.
I think that the no-debt goal would dictate that you take a normal full-time job, and after a few months of aclimitization start doing small contract jobs on weekends, through Rentacoder.com if you can't find them yourself. (They pay on those is low, so concentrate on finding the ones that will educate you as you do them.)
Long term, once you are out of debt, the full-time permanent position is not the way to go. In this age you can't depend on big institutions as you used to; all the big companies will renege on their pension obligations if they can. The steady pace of promotions and raises for the dedicated at places such as IBM has been replaced with no-notice layoffs of those earning above average, so they can be replaced with cheaper fresh kids or even H1-Bs.
I think that many other big institutions in America are similarly falling apart, if not being outright looted -- I would not consider any long-term career plan involving government employment and pensions, an academic track and tenure, working your way up into middle management, etc, to be foolish.
If you want to be successful, you have to control your own work and your own money as much as possible. This leads to giving up the full time job once you are out of debt, and going into consulting, starting your own business, farming or ranching, or something like that.
You aren't going to get a senior developer position straight out of a Masters with no job experience. Senior positions usually require 5 years job experience at least. I'd be wary of any company that would place you as a senior anything.
Aim for an entry level developer position, and be happy that you masters will gain you probably a 10-20% higher starting salary. A job is as challenging as you make it, so if you really are a smart guy you'll rise the ranks fairly quickly. But don't expect to get leadership positions without proving your self first.
And don't go into interviews with a chip on your shoulder about your Masters. I have a CS Masters, so do many of the people I work with, and while it made my job search a little easier, I still had to go through tough interviews for the dev position I'm in now.
n-t
Reality is all that stuff that doesn't care if you believe in it or not.--Solomon Short
In many cases, before the manager ever gets to see a candidate, they are screened by either a recruiter, or an in-house HR department. This probably isn't true for smaller companies, but for the larger ones, "Skills" is the only way they know how to evaluate a prospective candidate.
Any job is better than no job when you are looking for another job. When I am making a hiring decision, I will give some weight to a demonstrable willingness to work even if the work is "beneath you".
I am dishwasher you insensitive clod!
(It pays for college, computer science major, now I'm not offtopic.)
If you are going for a real job, then go where you will learn the most. At this point in your career, money should be secondary. Dollars will only last a short time. Experience lasts forever. Get a job with the smartest people you can find. On the other hand, there is no better time to have a fling at a life-long dream job that pays crap. You will give up less pay now than later. Some suggestions: anything with the circus, live on an island, or my dream - coach a Swedish female basketball team .
Seriously, its an important field and you get to work with cutting edge gear. If you are intrested at all I recomend you bit your lip, walk into a trade school, and obtain a certificate in biotechnology. That plus a Master's is sure to impress. Boning up on your perl skills is also a must...
3 degrees of separation from Vladimir Putin
I am a dishwasher, you insensitive clod!
(it pays for me to go to college where I'm a computer science major. There, back on topic.)
You want to challenge yourself on your Second job, not your first!
,never ever, ever learn in school... you establish yourself in the hearts and minds of both your supervisors and co-workers as someone who cares, who they can depend on... and the payoff is glowing references for that second job, where you start expnding your horizons and taking risks.
On your FIRST job, you will be learning everything that nobody ever taught you in school...
about dealing with accountants, HR people, deadbeat bosses, loafing co-workers, who fucks who, coffee time etiquette, dress codes, sex codes, language codes, body peircing codes... (breathe)
You don't want to challenge yourself, believe me, because you are going to be challenged quite well enough with the adjustment from the academic world to the corporate.
Here's the strategy. If you can swing the finances, take a part time job... but consider it a full time job. If you must have full time, pick one that gives you room to breathe.
Do the job you're given, but use whatever other hours you can spare, to promote yourself.
Show up early, leave late. Take out the trash. Make the coffee, deliver it to busy people. Find out birthdays and arrange stupid little celebrations (DONT fail to include your supervisor).
Responsibility for your supervision was likely given to a low level person. Scope out who the 'Kingmakers' are in the organization, and try to make their lives easier, without making your supervisors life any harder.
This way you have a chance to gain skills you will never
On the flip side, your personal life, there are so many things to do. Like, you need to establish credit. Man, you can't rent a car without credit, so how in the hell are you going to get around when you're sent to Chicago or La??
You need to score a pad, you need to find new friends, often you need to scope out your new town... why stretch yourself on that first job when there is so much to do. Man, your life is changing so completely like you can't even begin to fathom.
Put yourself in a position where you're good to score, man. Don't depend on your brainpower to get ahead, cause the corporate world is chock full of people who will target you.
And if none of what I have said so far registers with you, then remember this above all all else...
There are two kinds of people in the world.
There are those who make themselves look good, by doing a great job.
And there are those who make themselves look good, by making others look bad.
Nuff said
1. Look for a job that interests you, not necessarily the best paying job. The money comes over time.
2. Ask your network of friends and family if they know of any openings where they work.
3. If you do not find a position that's in your field, look for one in a tangentally related field.
4. Don't feel that any company "owes" you a job just because of your degree.
When you get a job:
1. Be willing to learn new things and don't say "I only do X". Companies want people that are flexible.
2. Hone your interpersonal skills. If you can't work and play well with others, you won't be there long.
3. Learn how your positions fits within the project you are working on and understand how the other positions interact with your's. It will make you better able to spot problems in a project and fix them.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
You after you finished you BA/BS in computer science you should have taken some time out and got a real job for a while. So you know what is out there plus you have some experience under your belt so you can have something to show for. Then while you are working get your MS part time. The problem with Master's level education with no experience, is that you don't have enough experience to get a high level job because in this job experience is key, education only counts for a little bit. And you have too much education to enter a starters position. Hiring a Masters to do entry level work just seems overkill. The only good option you have is to get your PhD. And get some sweet research job at GE or something. Right now you are in a nebulas zone where you can't find to much.
As for type of work I would say it depends on your pain threshold. If you a contractor you will normally get paid more, but you will have no benefits, and when your job is done you will need to find a new one until you can get an other paycheck. Full Time Employee you will have to get use to the humdrum every day work bit with someone else choosing your jobs. Less exciting and less pay but you get consistent pay, benefits and you are not always looking for new work. State/Government jobs Even less pay (when you start) and very boring jobs, But you have a great benefit package and after the first years it is near impossible to fire you unless you are to close to the political party and it changes. You can also join the military they are always looking for some bright men and with a college degree you usually can become and officer. Same pays and most the same benefits of State/Government but you get to see the world, and perhaps go into war. Then there is the seminary(Or whatever method of religious training for your beliefs if you have any) where for most religions as a priest you get all your living expenses paid for and a modest income. You wont become rich but you wont be on the streets as well.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Stanford? DeVry? We can't help you unless you fess up.
see http://www.bls.gov/search/ooh.asp?ct=OOH
You may see on monster.com or careerbuilder that there are alot of jobs....but guess what you and thousands of other people applying for the same job... Find a way to make yourself stand out otherwise you'll have the same qualifications as the other hundreds(thousands) of MSCS graduates each year.
Also apply for lots of job...go on as many interview as you can even for companies you would never work for becaue it gives you experience and makes you more comfortable giving interviews in the future...
ohh yea...dress professional...(after you get the job you'll have more freedom) but first impressions are important.
http://news-service.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/ jobs-061505
pick one.
I finished my masters in spring '04, and my experience has been the following. I started work at a Fortune 500 company, one of the biggest companies in the U.S.. My position is a Software Engineer level 1. Mind you folks with a B.S. in Engineering or Computer Science at this level as well. So this is a junior position basically.
I get paid more than a fresh out with a B.S., but I was expected to basically perform like I don't know what I'm doing, just like someone fresh with a B.S. is. So far I've been able to adapt to the work environment quickly. I studied TQM, software processes, PSP/TSP, CMM as an undergrad. I know UML, actually designed applications using patterns in the past. I've been a linux and CS geek for a while, and had varied experiences with languages and platforms. So I had good past experiences that helped me a lot with my job.
I was able to perform above what they expect me to. I was lucky enough that I worked on a project that is brand spanking new, that runs on Linux, uses all this new technology and software development methodologies, that I was able to accel quickly and show folks I was capable. At the same time I was learning, and focused on learning how to operate in this corporate culture. I'm fortunate I work with good people too, that are willing to teach me.
Bottom line, every fresh-out, no matter what the degree, has learning to do. Chances are, you will work with shit people in a corporate culture, and there's plenty of them. Just because you have a masters, doesn't mean you know everything, there's always learning to do, but knowing more than you should doesn't hurt. Don't expect to go to a company, attempt to learn these corporate-culture-skills and *then* go get the senior job within a year. If you manage to pull this off, you're no longer a fresh out, and if you didn't learn your life lessons you're screwed. No one will respect you, unless you are the super-nice guy who delegates everything! Try to find a place where you can grow, and try to grow as much as possible in skills (people, corporate, political, technical). Then go the for senior position.
If you work at a good company, you will be rewarded if you deserve it. I stepped up a few times, and got more responsibility and more visiblity. I got a a nice raise after 4 months, and I think if I can keep this up and maybe manage to participate in more tasks, I can get a promotion in another year.
Yeah, I would like more money, I'd like move out of my parents house and buy a new car, and switching to a new job by claiming "real world" experience may help me attain this but I'm not ready for it, and its almost a year I've been working there.
Good luck dude, just don't think you're entitled anything. I felt entitled to shit when I finished my B.S., when I saw how sour the job market was in '03, I went back to school, learned more lessons in life before I went back out there. There's more to a job than working, I've learned this much so far.
Computer science grads often make poor software engineers. Computer science students are taught how to write code, but the truth is, developing software takes a lot more than good coding. Software development is engineering and must be approached from an engineering standpoint. Look at how much time a software engineer spends writing code, and I think you'll find that it's a small fraction of the development process.
My advice? Learn software engineering, and look for a software engineering job. With a bachelors, I nailed 60k out of school. Then again, I'm a software engineer, not a computer scientist.
trying to avoid the draft ( 1969). Seriously, your first job after college is a throw-away. You have no clue what you want to do and what a career is. So, grab anything that is in your field. After you work a while, you may develope an interest in some field. But dont sweat your first job - remember you will probably change jobs many times in your work-life.
Of course, Im one to give advice - I have been in computers since 1969 and am burnt-out. I am a charred hull of a man. A greeter at WalMart looks like something I can sink my teeth into.
Not what someone else tells you to do. What are you interested in? Computer Science can be an end in itself but usually not. Are you interested in using your knowledge to help others? Then go in to teaching. For High School you might have to get a teaching certificate. Are you interested in the sciences or Mathematics? I.e., applied Computer Science. Then maybe go to work for the government. In the corporate world, they are always looking for management oriented people. After 10 or 15 years of working you will have to put away your technical skills and start helping the younger people to do the job. Just jump into anything. If you don't have any responsibilities (I.e., children) and you don't like it then do something else.
Any reasons for not wanting to go full time??
I would agree with this, but you'll have to convince the interviewer that you can handle it. Easier said than done. It's a lot easier to look for better jobs when you already have one paying the bills than it is when you're desparate for any job.
A lesson on humility, it was...
I hope your masters degree in CS treats you better than my bachelors degree (in MIS) treated me. I'm sure it will, but just don't give up!
PS, Best Buy sucks.
I won't repeat the advice already given about the level job you can aim at: it's pretty well covered by now by other posts.
As a engineer coming to his 6th year (I'm no longer fresh, then not really a "pro" neither) I can give you this advice: forget absolutly everything you have learned to date:
- you were not supposed to work with others, share or even reuse their work... now you _must-!
- you were working for an assignment, then moving to the next. Now you have to take responsability in your work. Always work as if you'll have to support the software you write or design for the next 10 years: it will be easier this way
- to date, ethics was at best a nice thought, at worst a boring class. Now, it's should be your way of life: work with proud, and be proud of your work. If you feel uneasy with what you're doing (like, oh, I don't know, maybe writing a quick hack when the customer has been promised a well thought solution?), then tell it to your supervisor, and if his answer doesn't please you, leave the job.
Or ignore all of this, and become a PHB.
Good luck anyhow, nice to see new face in the trade!
--
Arkan
Northrop Grumman is hiring engineering and CS grads like there is no tomorrow. Check out their Horizons career website for available positions. They are also starting to hire lots of folks for NASA's CEV.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
End result: you'll be lonely in your project management office, but your salary will make up for the loneliness. Money can't buy love but it can buy security. Buy a nice Indian/Pakistani wife to comfort you. Settle down in California. Get rich. While the rest of us are racing to the bottom, you'll be riding the elevator to the top.
Seriously.
I entered the tech job market at the worst possible time (early 2000), and once I signed up with an agency I was never out of work for more than a week or so, total, per year.
Yeah, I got a few really crap manual labor jobs, but I always showed up on time and did my best. Once I proved myself (and it didn't take long), the staff at the office I worked out of started going out of their way to find the kind of work I wanted. In fact, I even ended up with the exact job (same company and everything) that inspired me to study the topics I did, and eventually ended up with a permenant position there.
Anyway, IIRC if you know VB, SQL, and some web stuff there will be no end of work for you. The big thing I discovered in those first few years was that even though nobody was hiring, the work still needed to get done.
Don't let anyone tell you there's no work for you out there. There may not be permenant positions, with benefits, retirement, etc, but there is certainly enough work for you to earn a decent living.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
McDonald's is always hiring.
"How may I help you?"
Seriously, if you are asking this and you're about to graduate, you've already missed 3-4 summers of internship possibilities.
Or, you didn't work while you were in school, either in a job related to where you want to end up, or in a research group.
So, check the ads and look for want ads asking for "dancers over 18 yrs old".
the only good way to determine if a person is a good programmer/engineer isn't by the degree. There are people with advanced degrees that are great programmers and there are many with PHd that suck.
in terms of work and what to expect, you can find a job, but it will take time to and experience to find a great job. The market is tough these days. There is a demand in the NorthEast, but it's for people with solid experience. The entry level positions in many cases are already farmed out to off shore locations.
You won't get a senior position at a software company unless you have years of real world experience.
I wouldn't worry too much about the full-time vs. contract vs. whatever else part of the job.
I suggest you first, ask yourself what you are interested in, and excited by. Your masters thesis might be a good hint, or maybe you're sick of that subject by now.
Then you do research (you should know how to do that by now).
Find out which companies do that. Find out which companies are the best in that field. Find out what makes those companies better than the competition.
Then research that specific company, finding out the kind of people who work there (social networking). Find out if the work env. is something you'd like. Find out if the people are people you'd like.
Then you start trying to get noticed by recruiters and hiring managers at that company, to get an interview.
As a person who interviews, I really care about passion. Even though I'm doing a "technical" interview, I always ask "why do you want to work here?". Often (from new grads) I get an answer that boils down to "one job is as good as another, and I've heard you're hiring." Those people don't get my recommendation.
On the other hand, I have been quite impressed by people who can talk about our products and can even say what they'd like to do to improve our products. Even when their suggestions won't work, the fact that they thought enough about it to have suggestions impresses me.
An important part of the interview is to convince the interviewer that you really can and want to make a difference at the company. And in order to do that, you first need to convince yourself of that. And doing that will really help you decide where you want to work.
Oh, and I wouldn't expect a senior position. Almost all new grads (ba, masters, even Phd) come in at the bottom (the starting salary is slightly higher for the more educated ones, but that's the only difference). It is real-world experience that gets you the promotion to more senior positions.
In theory, we expect the more educated people to be smarter, and therefore impress us sooner, and therefore get promoted faster. In reality, I don't often see any correlation between the letters after people's names and the quality of the work they do, so sometimes we have a person with a BSc leading people with a phd.
I hate it when I make a joke and I get modded "+5 insightful". Mod the stupid comments "funny", not "insightful", pleas
Go get a job where you can work on a software package that gets developed under source code control on multiple OSes. It should have a QA department and work off specifications from sales and marketing. Start in writing software and working with QA, the bug tracking system and the source code control system. When everything is said and done there should be a box of software sitting on store shelves. It doesn't even have to be bought by anyone, the process of doing this is the same for crappy software nobody wants as well as great software everyone wants.
Work your way up in this company as high as you want, then start changing jobs up the job rung as fast as you can. Remember, it's like wing walking, don't let go of what you have ahold of until you are sure you have ahold of something else.
Okay, y'all are creeping me out. I JUST STARTED a masters program in CS (I'm a CPA now) and reading the comments, it seems that just about everyone here is down on the job scene in CS. Now, perhaps I am missing a crucial distinction here, but every survey I read indicates that IT and CS jobs are actually hard to fill - hence all the visas for foreign workers. Is this not so? Seriously, is the IT/CS job marked hosed? Or, is this just the sunny /. psyche shining through... :)
I cannot believe that with a masters in comp sci that you have no practical experience at all! I was an intern before I went to my UNDERGRAD. I'm inteviewing a lot of interns right now with stellar GPA's but with no practical experience. I'd rather take a guy with a 2.5 but with a huge portfolio and projects whether professionally or for fun. It's the hobby people who do projects on the side for fun because they are intellectually stimulating and not because they wanted a sum laude designation on their diploma that seem to do well. What you should be doing right now is picking up some kind of PASSION for god sakes.
I graduated last May with a B.S. in Information Science & Technology with minors in Electronics and Management Information Systems. I worked as a Computer Support Assistant at my college for 2 years, and I worked at a friend's computer shop for 1 year. Working at the college, I realized that I want to be a Computer Support Specialist (at least for a few years), then eventually move into a sysadmin position.
Here's my problem though: I graduated from a small state college in Nebraska, where I currently reside, and can't find work (obviously). I've been sending resumes to companies in Portland, OR, where I can stay with my sister until I get on my feet. However, I have heard *NOTHING* back from anyone I've sent resumes to. What am I doing wrong? Are employers passing me over because I'm in Nebraska and still have to move? Is it because I graduated from a small college that no one has heard of? Not enough experience?
I've found (through personal experience) that Corporate Leadership programs are the best way to get your foot in the door and start climbing the ladder. Many large corps. such as GE, Citibank, Johnson and Johnson, etc have very similar programs. I was fortunate to get a job as an IMLP (information management leadership program) for GE Healthcare. The company is great and there are a ton of opportunities within the company.
Usually these programs are a few years in length with varied positions/experiences within the company to give you valuble experience.
I highly encourage new graduates to check out these programs. There are positions available for all different majors, from Sales, HR, Engineering, Finance and I.T. Check it out!
All of my friends that didn't attend programs like these are all in their same jobs.. the only way they get promoted is when someone dies or leaves the company..
The only thing dumber than asking a question like this is answering it.
My friend, you know absolutely nothing about holding a position in a company and programming for a living. Go get a job as a developer, preferebly for some startup if possible. (Your not ready for the politics of larger firms) Work there for a while and learn how to be a programmer. Your degree just gives you the technical background, but you have no skill. Earn that and then start looking at senior positions or contracting.
there are actually jobs?
I mean ones that pay something?
more than mcd's or wal-mart?
really?
no way!
You can ease the transition to the real world by getting a job in your department. Once you realize how lowly a masters holder is in the U environment, you will be ready to enter the business world.
I made the mistake of pursuing a career I thought was practical and lucrative. The problem is I'm not that interested in it and it's hard to excel in something when you aren't interested in it. Find out what you want to do specifically, then go after it.
Well, maybe you work for Microsoft or something, but commercial code generally needs to be pretty damn good. You don't want your program to crash or corrupt data, and you need it to do what the customer wants, when the customer wants it. If you write bad software, you will quickly run out of customers. That's unlike a lot of CS assignments, some of which place more priority on having the right preconditions and invariants than having well-structured code.
Computer science is certainly useful for software engineers (which is what 99% of non-academic positions require), but it's a bit like hiring people with an MS in physics to do electrical engineering. They will know all the theory really well but probably won't be able to do the job without some additional training. Unless you have some kind of external experience (open-source software, part-time programming position, co-op/internship experience), you probably won't be able to get anything other than an entry-level position.
You don't know what you like to do? Better not tell them!
... at google : http://www.google.com/jobs/lunar_job.html
Once there you could truly claim : "All your bases are belong to us !"
Be smart don't seek what you should. You're thinking career and money. For the next 3 years or so get a job in something you love. You'll never again have this opportunity. Life will get in the way and you're career will ge in the way. Sure you have to deal with debt but for the next 3 years the banks can wait. A big part of life is work and it would be great if you can enjoy every minute of it. You've got 40+ years, imagine if you trully find what you love to do. Your life will never be the same. Be smart! Ask the 60+ year olds you know and take their advice on what they should have done.
Academic qualifications do not automatically translate into an ability to do real world work. Even if you got the job (you wouldn't at my company, my boss looks upon qualifications as a tie-breaker when two people are equally experienced) you would be overwhelmed by the combination of a difficult job and the task of learning to work in a totally different environment.
My first bit of advice is to immediately try and shrug off any pride you have in your degree. I graduated last year with an MS in CS and NO ONE cares that you have one. At first I thought it was me, but I started hearing it from other fresh grads. I mean, you are right to have pride in your efforts -- my MS was a lot of work. But, I can't tell you how many frustrating times I have seen: "BS or HS degree or equivalent. Will substitute appropriate experience for education". Also, if you are trying to get a Intel grade security clearance, make sure none of your friends are foriegn nationals; if they are, stop talking to them. My GF is Polish and I was denied a clearance AND lost my job 'cause of it.
I was in the same situation as yourself a year ago and I took a position as a consultant and I haven't looked back since. It is a great opportunity to experience different aspects of the industry and diverse enough to keep you from becoming bored with your job. I have found that most consultants find the industry that they are interested in and already have the experience required to get hired into that field when they are tired of consulting. Warning: If you don't like to travel, then this might not be a good position for you.
I think that's my best possible advice. Look around at the people who are working where you interview. What kind of houses do they have? Are they happy? If you're like 99% of employees, then you'll end up just like everyone else who works there.
Don't go chasing after the healthcare industry cause its currently hot, or going after the defense industry and stuff like that if you really would hate it, or hate promoting that field. Simply get a job in the area that would make you happiest. To me, it is more valuable being a happy broke person, than to be miserable the rest of your life.
In the Corps you will develop cool applications under enemy fire. The Corps only needs a few good develpers so it won't be easy and its gauranteed to be above your "skill" level. You will learn a lot.
The first thing you need to ask yourself is:
Do I have actual experience to support my expensive education?
In order to answer YES, you need to have held at least a part time job in an IT department during your education tenure. That job needs to be related to what you want to be doing, not just something to pay the bills. If you can answer yes to this, then go for a position that interests you... not just what pays well. All the money in the world won't amount to squat if you hate your job and have to deal with life like "Office Space".
Otherwise, you need to answer NO. If you answer NO, then quite frankly, you're going to be sorely disappointed in a lot of situations. Here's why:
Businesses hire based on education and experience, but more focused on experience in the tech world unless you are going to be an analyst or a helpdesk support agent (then they do want knowledgeable thinkers). If you lack experience, they're going to consider you over-qualified for entry-level, but under-qualified for upper-level.
During the Tech Bubble Pre-Y2K, that kind of education would have done you well and then you'd have landed a high-level job and had a lot of fun learning REAL stuff rather than just book theory. A master's degree would have been like MCSE or Cisco Cert. However, these days companies see right through that and are more interested in the experience unless it's a lower-level job.
If you have no experience and try to apply for a lower-level job, you'll be quickly discounted as over-qualified (who hires a master's degree student for an entry-level position).
The better idea would have been to pursue a bachelor's, worked a few years in your area of interest, and then gone back for the master's. Then you'd have experience and education to match, and you'd be a top-notch candidate anywhere.
What I would suggest is that you look for jobs that involve a technical "test" of some sorts as part of the interview process.... this way you can show them your education IS all that and a bag of chips... prove that you know your stuff.
The alternative is to go into an interview and present yourself as someone who has the education, doesn't have experience, but is capable of learning quickly as much as is thrown at you.
The other alternative is to start low-to-mid-level position and take a blow with a low pay scale... impress the hell out of them... and let that boost you up to the higher levels.
Is this a harsh reality check? Yeah, sorry about that... but best of luck to you.
I started work as a systems administrator, then became a systems analyst a couple months down the road.
The main point, however, was that I already worked at that company in a student job, doing much of the same things.
Whatever contacts you made during your university years, now's the time to dig them out. If you made a good impression at that place you designed the website or configured the firewalls for, talk to them. They might have an opening for you, and they already know you.
Hiring is a major risk for a company. All costs considered, finding someone for a non-trivial position can easily cost on the order of $10k. Now you know why you're out if there's so much as doubt in your abilities.
Try to view yourself from the position of the guy who is deciding whether to hire you or not, it'll make your life much easier.
I'm in my 3rd company now. In all three cases, it was me leaving the old job and the new company I started with was the first and only I had applied to.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
If you're good, my best advice is: start in a small company. Startup-size. 50-100 people tops. If they're rapidly expanding, that's better.
As a very small company grows, "gaps" appear. The sysadmin position is really "sysadmin, network security admin, network admin"; over time it splits into 3 as the company grows. This gives you a chance to grow your skills in a wide variety of tasks, learn a lot of real world skills, and then specialize as it suits you. If management is your thing, you might be more easily able to work that in with the expansion.
Alternately: Go out on your own. If you can come up with an idea, now is the time to try and make it work, because if you fail utterly, you're just back where you started: college degree and broke; pretty much where you are now. Give yourself 10 years in a career, and you'll probably have a cushy job and a larger savings account, and be more reluctant to take big risks.
Don't put the masters in your resume.
The masters (as resume fodder) is only useful if you are aiming for a middle-to-senior level position, and the degree can be a tie-breaker between you and other applicants. If you are looking for entry level jobs the masters will actually hurt you.
If you do get hired, you will have plenty of time to update your employee records with the masters degree and HR won't even bother telling your department boss. Once you're in, that's it. Nobody gives a crap unless it is a very specialized field that demands that degree as condition for employment.
When prospective employers scan resumes (I got a lot of experience doing this while trying to recruit my own employees), most like to compare years of actual work experience against formal education. A guy that has been working for 5 years and has a bachelors degree will weigh in more than a guy that a guy with a masters (or worse, a PhD) with zero to two years of practical experience.
Of course, we make sure to check for people that kept working and going to school at the same time. Anyone that manages to finish a masters or a doctorate and kept the same job deserves to be hired!
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
IMO, yes, that is too high up the ladder to be looking. Regardless of your degree, you do not qualify as "Senior". You may qualify as "Junior" until you have proven real-world experience that would elevate you to "Senior", but more likely, you will have to take an "Entry-Level" position (perhaps washing dishes) and work your way up from there.
They call us sheeple, I wonder why?
Seriously. Work for IBM, or maybe Microsoft. Those companies reputations are a boon to your resume for the rest of your life. It says "this person coded for a quality company, they must know how to code". Avoid small shops, then you'll have to actually /prove/ you're compotent on future jobs. People just hire IBM guys reflexively, in my experience.
:)
(Yeah, we may have our doubts about those companies here in the hacker world, but personell departments have no doubts.
You mean to say that you've managed to earn a master's degree without gaining any practical experience in the field?
Good luck.
-
A: Steve.
~jeff
Whatever floats your boat. I got my first programming job with an engineering Co in London in 1963. Qualifications? a B.A. in math and two years with another engineering Co. in the States. (they weren't computerized yet) and oh yes I knocked on their door. Furthur training? Two weeks paid by the Co. at the Computer place learning autocode. My kid was incubated in that air conditioned computer room . Now he is a Senior Systems Engineer. He teethed on a TRS-80.He doesn't even have the B. A. (Lots of Courses though) His best education? Probably at a Hamburger College learning to manage a restaurant. (The customers can be nastier than in any I.T. Department) If you want the job you will get it. The best if not the only education is on the job. Lots of luck.
Oldladygeek
After graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Computer Science, I was very fortunate to have been noticed by a recruiter of a large software company and through him, I was hired into a software development job that I love so far and that I will stick with as long as I can. However, I do know very well that things don't often turn out as nicely. I have many friends, most about as qualified as I am, that did not have it so easy and spent a very long time going through interviews and much frustration to find a respectable job. What I have learned from what they went through and from being in a demanding software development job for a couple of years can be summed up in the following- never give up and never sell yourself short. Job searching is a very difficult and trying process, and it requires lots of self-confidence and patience. Aim for the highest position and try to get into the exact field you are most interested in (since you will probably be most successful there anyway) and be very forward and direct about it. Someone in a previous post mentioned that employers' decisions are most affected by the image you portray of yourself, and nothing portrays a stronger image than a high level of self-confidence and a strong love and enthusiasm for what you do. If you truly love what you do, try to maintain this attitude for as long as possible and try very hard not to be discouraged by initial failure. By following this, and by using anyone you may know in any capacity who is in any position to help you, your chances of landing a great job will dramatically increase. Things are tough right now, but keep your chin up!
Your posts are often laced with excellent irony, sarcasm and insightfulness. Do you have a newsletter to which I could subscribe?
On the other hand, I strongly believe it is possible to land in a senior position. Solution: Do summer internships when you are in college. I am currenly an incoming Junior at College, and I am enjoying my second internship very much. The position that I have is really not senior position, but I feel like I am a manager because the company is so small. Keep up your work, do not be afraid to do better than others, and then you can ask all the people whom you have impressed to write a recommendation for the senior position. After you graduate from college, BAM, you can start off as a senior program manager because you would already have 3-4 summers of experience. I know many people from my college who will be seniors in the fall, and they are working as program managers at Microsoft. Not bad!
Really, as a master of computer science, a good place to go is into R&D at national labs. They're almost always hiring. (Or Google.)
Don't search for jobs at all. Incorporate yourself and find a business mentor, by asking around at your school's small business office - most good schools should have one. Call your alum affice and ask if any alum has offered to be a mentor in their field.
Make yourself up some business cards, and have at it! Starting a business is pretty easy, and if you work hard at it one can be a lot more successful than simply working for someone else.
Get an HSA (health savings account) with a small business association, and start a Roth IRA immediately.
In an interview in Inc. 500 a few years back, many hiring managers said that prior ownership of a tech business (even if it failed miserably) immediately put someone at the top of the list for a lead technical position or management.
Good luck!
'Be always mindful, even when ditch-digging.' --D. T. Suzuki
If you want to get the most bang for your buck with that Master's degree - go to an "old school" type of engineering company. Most smaller shops and leading edge places put little value in a master's degree - because for 95% of the work out there it doesn't mean jack.
But, the slower moving places will give you an initial bump in salary just for having the degree. Places like government contractors and the really big corps like HP and IBM.
Don't fool yourself though, no matter how much "book larnin'" you got, it is real-world experience that matters. If you are a smart fellow, you should be able to get more value out of the real world experience that comes your way than others do. But until you at have at least some of it under your belt, you aren't going to be any more productive than the kid next to you fresh from college with a BS.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
I've been looking at senior software developer positions, but is that too high up the ladder for someone 'fresh' to cope with?
You have how many tens of thousands of dollars in education over how many years and you don't understand the meaning of the word "senior"?
After College, What Type of Jobs Should One Seek?
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Go to work for Blizzard. It's a good temp job 'till you figure out what you should do.
After College, What Type of Jobs Should One Seek?
One should always consider Philip Greenspun's tried and true Career Guide for Engineers and Computer Scientists, written at the beginnning of the dot-con, er, dot-com boom. It has a wealth of information that is as timeless then as it was before the boom, during the boom, during the bust, and after. The question you should be asking yourself, nay, the question you should be practicing is: "Would you like fries with that?"
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
... is that you are not an expert in your field. You are simply educated in it. Many times I've had someone with a masters hired along side me and immediately try to boss me around and tell me how to do my job.
Wherever you land, please do not get a big head because of your masters degree. Be humble, listen to those with experience in your field and follow their advice. You can only accel in IT if your peers admit that you're the right one for that new job opening.
"The need to build the internet comes from something inside us, something programmed... something we can't resist."
I came out of school with very little commitment to other people other than my student loans (~50k) and started working at a startup company. There is a huge risk working with a startup company, but I have my stock, I have my salary, and I have my seniority (I'm employee #4). 2 years later and now we do a couple million a year in business, and have 18 employees. (And as a side note I am typing this from my new private office in the new facility we just had built and moved into today.)
I hold a patent on sigs...
It takes discipline to do that. Also, it helps to have some experience working for somebody else, especially if you need to get capital to start something (bank loan, investments).
Irene KHAAAAAAN!
I was in the same boat as you when I graduated 6 years ago. The situation then was different than it is now. However, some elements are universal.
First, Decide if you want to do PhD or not. Do it only if you are *genuinely* interested in doing so. Do not concern yourselves with relative monetary benifits of MS vs. PhD. In the long run, it will not matter that much.
Then if you do want to start working, always find this about your career path and/or the company you want to work for.
1. The salary of your first job is important. Even if you don't need the money now, it is a "trend-setter" for your professional career.
2. Decide the segment of the computer industry you want to work on. Consider the short-term and long-term potentials of your choice of segments both in terms of job availability and potential for job growth.
3. If you think that you are likely to follow a technical career path (rather than switch to managerial one later on) then find out what is the average #of years of experience for someone on technical career path in the segment/company you are interested in. This can be a good indication of how viable that career path is.
4. Do not narrow your scope too much. Coming fresh out of school, keep your choices of platforms, technical skills wide open.
5. If you are thinking about doing MBA after a few years of experience, try to get a job that requires a lot of interaction with people of different personality, preferably direct interaction with customers of your company.
6. In the early parts of one's career, most motivated geeks work their heart out to impress their boss/earn more money/get a good job-satisfaction. If you plan to do that make sure that the work you signed up for is something that you find challenging.
7. It is relatively easy to become too narrow-focused and get your skills out-dated when you leave school and start doing real work. Whatever you do, always look for gathering new and emerging skills. That is the only way to not lose against your competition (the kids who are in their freshmen years now).
Osho
It's "master's", not "masters".
(You do, however, say that you have a Master of Science degree, for example.)
"Max, come over here. French-Canadian bean soup. I want to pay. Let them leave me alone." - Dutch Schultz
okay, so the regular vs. contract is a good question. But full-time vs. part time? If you can live on part-time and want to goof-off the rest of the time or if part-time is all you can get then knock yourself out.
Also be aware that part-time work, regardless of how much it pays, can affect your ability to get credit.
A good one.
I was offered a software engineering position with Google just one semester before graduating with a BS in Computer Science. I think that should speak for itself...I had some part-time experience, but mostly they were impressed with the interview and my academic accomplishments. I was NOT one of those honors students, I didn't do undergrad research, I was just one of those normal people who liked to be challenged. I bsaically took the comp sci courses that other people wouldn't touch with a 50 foot pole, and I came out smiling.
If I hadn't blown all my moderation points on the top of this discussion, I would moderate you as insightful.
And I would also add, even if you do find your dream job, and are able to keep your skills up to date during the day and evening, you still have to watch out that some director doesn't suddenly push you out the way to make way for one of his relatives, or students from his old university.
And the last thing you ever want to do is to tell management that there is a new language/API/OS that is coming out, that you haven't already learnt. Otherwise, they may just decide to push out of the way and give it so someone else
(and this applies to PhD's as well as industry).
I'm sorry but a "Master's In Computer Science from an accredited university" tell me nothing about you. I mean if you want advice on what you should do, maybe you should tell us what you're specialty is or atleast what you are interested in. Graphics? Networking? Security? OS? DB? C'MON MAN! give us something! CS is too broad of a field to not have a specialty/interest. And YOU ARE a master's student! CS grads without an idea of what they want to do with it, become web-monkeys ($50k for college to get a job writing PHP scripts hehehe ) or they get crappy IT jobs.
Maybe you should have thought about what you wanted to do BEFORE you got a Masters!!
I have two university degrees, and now earn my living driving a truck. It's an entry-level position, but pays better than a mid-level IT position. I'm also a bit bored with computers right now, so it's a good break from the IT industry.
:) I'll just drive a bigger truck if I need more money.
I'm quite aware of the fact that I may never be able to get a job in IT after this, since employers will look at my resume and wonder why I'd drive a truck when I have degrees, but I really don't care.
Dude, this is your life. Your fucking life! You only get one, then you rot and turn to dust and everybody forgets you ever existed.
Didn't you get that master's for a reason? I mean, spending all that money and time on school, was a calculated step toward some particular goal, no? And now you don't even know whether you want to be an employee or contractor?!? D'oh!
Quit asking people what to do, and ask yourself: "What do I want?" And meanwhile, as you figure that out: tick, tock, you're a little bit deader.
You'd think so, but no. I guess the market's kinda saturated right now; in a few months of dropping out resumes every week, I've gotten one interview, and while I was their second choice out of a hundred applicants, I got just as much job as the hundredth.
I'm working a call center helpdesk which I'm way overqualified for right now (most of my coworkers have high school diplomas; they're retrained welders and soldiers), and while it leaves me plenty of time to surf Slashdot, do distributed proofreading and edit Wikipedia, the pay leaves something to be desired, and the bennies are nonexistent. My troubleshooting skills have measurably improved, but I'd rather be working as a sysadmin.
I suppose that leaves the 'complete moron' possibility. Ho, ho.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
..carrying them.
Oh, don't be a dick, just tell them how much your time costs and see if they still want your help.
I worked for a department sysadmin for more than a year as I was getting my MS, and we wound up diagnosing and fixing hardware, just as part of the job.
Yes, we learn a lot than how to "fix your computer", but it almost always comes in handy at some point.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Is Computing the career you want. If you have been on a good course then you have had some placement experience and have decided that you want a career in industry and not further education.
If this is the case then you need to decide the industry. Are you a system admin, in the win-world or *NIX? Are you a system programmer, do you like the idea of banking or maybe you feel that you would like to work in a F1 team.
You need to decide whether you are ready for work. Most likely you are a good programmer with a Master's degree, most likely you can pick and choose a job - the single most important thing is to get a job with a company you are happy with. It can take time to get the right position but if you are motivated and know what part of computing you want to work in, it is likely you will get it.
If you are not ready for work then take some time out. This will do you the world of good. Get to see some of the world, as this will help you for the rest of your like.
In the experience I have in employing graduates, I find that there are people who are ready for work and those that are not. Those that are not might work for a short period of time but in the end they always move on.
Why, Steve Jobs, of course.
Mr. T pitied this fool on 27 July 1992.
Thank you for posting that. It's goddamned brilliant.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Assuming you don't have any other relevant work experience, you should be looking for a full-time, entry level development position. I'm not going to tell you what software field to go into, you'll have to work that out on your own based on what you find interesting, and what the job market is like nearby.
Your Master's is unlikely to give you a leg up, especially if your BS is in an unrelated field. Personally, I'm more inclined to take a BSCS over a MSCS. At most schools, you can get a Master's faster (~1 yr vs 4,) with fewer CS classes (~30 semester units vs 80+), and with less breadth than is required in the Bachelor's. I've seen enough people that couldn't program their way out of a paper bag pick up a CS MS after getting their History degree to be wary. I'm not saying this applies to you, but those are the people you're lumped against.
You're not ready for a Senior position. You can't really learn at least half of the job without doing it. Extracting specifications, working in large teams, scheduling, testing methodologies, version control and branching, release cycles, build mechanisms, dealing with marketing and sales, making reliable estimates, those are among the skills you'll be challenged to learn in an entry-level position. A senior position will expect you to fully understand those, have defensible, reasoned opinions on them, be able to explain them to others, and be able to put structures to accomplish them in place. Ideally, a senior person has been at at least two places long enough to compare and contrast these development processes. It's a vital learning curve, and can't be skipped.
You'll want a full time position, ideally at a moderate-large sized company, on your resume. If you can do some contracting on the side, go for it. You need a position that shows you working as part of a team, in a structured development environment, with exposure to release cycles, etc. If you become a contractor, every company you contract for will have these processes (and pressures) in place, and you'll need to understand them. If you go on to another company, hopefully you've internalized enough to go for a senior position there. And, of course, you can get promoted to those positions at the company you start with as well.
I wouldn't recommend starting with a QA or IT position, unless you know you want to do test automation development. You're likely to start building up a skillset that puts you further and further from transfering into design/development, if that's what you want.
A few pieces of advice:
Prepare for your job interview by writing simple C/Java/perl programs, going over basic data structures, and investigating the company's market. You're going to have to pass the "can this guy write a basic program" test before anyone starts asking you about ACID dbs, concurrency, OOP, MVC, TCP/IP, or whatever. Enough people are going to fail there that getting through that part smoothly and comfortably puts you ahead of the game.
Once you get a job, focus on learning and understanding the development process. That's where your skills are lacking. Investing time in learning about your company's test cases, build structure, release process, and project/product management is as valuable as time invested in learning new technology.
Again, when you have a job, keep track of, and follow up on, little side projects. Do a bit of research and send around a short e-mail, talk with the person who mentioned the idea, or see if someone who's assigned to work on it can use some help. Don't let this cut into your scheduled work, but in most places, getting your task done a few weeks ahead of the estimated schedule doesn't gain you much. But as those little projects start to grow, having a half dozen project managers asking your manager for a bit of your time is pure gold, even if he can't give it to them. Also, those small side projects are usually the sort of thing you can take the initiative on, and see through to fruition as a de-facto project leade
I've got a Bachelor of Science in System Information from last year
I am working with Corporate Governance and Fraud investigation... Pays ALOT better, and is more interesting, and also - The future is bright since this is a new subject
Get into IT auditing and Sarbanes Oxley, and I promise you... your future will be green!
This is blinging
You could always manually masturbate caged animals for science.
Just sayin'...
This is serious advice. Don't put your dreams on hold until your career has been well established. If you do, you'll wake up one morning years or decades down the road and it will be too late.
After I finished in college, I became a musician - something I always wanted to do. This evolved into running a recording studio. I also worked in the theatre - because I always wanted to act too! The skills I learned in these professions have stood me well to this day. About 5 years out of college, I got my first "conventional" job.
Now, in my early forties, my career is where I want it to be. I'm still trying new things but staying within the ball park of my qualifications and experience.
Some of my peer group who left school and immersed themselves immediately and deeply into their career paths are now hitting their mid-life crises with varying consequences.
So, find a comfortable place along the spectrum which has career/salary/prospects at one end and reckless abandon at the other.
Good luck to you and remember - don't rely on the advice of strangers...
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
but unless you have prior work experience- SENIOR might be way beyond your abilities. Also unless you're interested in working for a govt. research lab or as an RA in a University, your job will have little to do with computer science and more to do with code implementation, design and project management. So in summary you should be looking for an entry level position in the above. good luck
Really.... Wall Street is looking for people with CompSc degree .. as a Qunat or Tech. If you are talented you can become a VP in 3 years flat. I know people who joined banks right out of school and are, after 9 years, global heads of technology.
;-)
Posting AC becouse am laZY...
You have completed your master's so that shows you can achieve a goal. Set your next goal to be the job you want regardless of the Myth's floating around. I graduated from a state school and immediately started applying to research facilities within the federal government. I now work for a National Laboratory doing Computer Science research. They paid for me to finish my master's. Its all about setting a goal and achieving it. Do not listen to all the negativity found through out these posts. That is why they do not get the jobs they want. Good Luck! I am sure you will get your dream job.
So, what should I do? I think you should enlist in one of the military branches. They have a serious shortage right now , they offer awesome benefits. It would be a great learning experience with challenges to overcome and travel opportunities. Also after your tour of service is over you get Veterans preference for other jobs.
Like the old song says, you can be self-employed and "work at nothing all day".
Great ideas aren't that easy to come by and they're not enough anyway. Neither is hard work and motivation. You also have to be a skillful salesman and/or very lucky to be self-employed your entire career.
Although I have now reached adulthood I still need people to tell me what to do as I haven't developed any kind of values for myself that would allow me to decide for myself whether one course of action is better than another. From reading the posts I've seen on Slashdot I've decided that the readers are a very intelligent collection of people who could function as a surrogate mother to tell me what to do. Anyway, it's not like the one life I have is precious or anything, so why should I spend any time thinking about what to do with it when I can get others to do that for me. So please, Slashdot readers, what should I do with my life?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
...Steve Jobs, of course ;)
Seriously, if you're graduating with a M Comp Sci, surely you've thought about what you want to do and had some specific targets in mind. Asking for advice on Slashdot seems a little absurd. But I will say one thing: if you wanted to just get into programming, you just wasted five or six years.
With your background and education, you might want to look towards something like research and development - things like user interface design or AI or something that will draw upon talents you have already demonstrated. Heck, I was only kidding when I mentioned Steve Jobs - check out companies like Apple, or Microsoft or Google, all of which are on the leading edge of many different technologies. This is not a dig against Open Source, by the way: I'm just not as familiar with where the opportunities and money are in that realm. Perhaps someone else can help out here.
If you truly want to become a senior developer, you will have to be content to grind through a few lower-tier jobs (for hopefully only a short while) until you develop some practical experience and demonstrate your capabilities.
Did you have any particular major or speciality? Perhaps you could indicate it - it would help towards determining a direction.
Depends what you want to do. I have only ever wanted to be a developer, and to write "off the shelf" software. I started off out of college at a enormous, well-known defense contractor. It's not the most exciting programing, but the benefits are this:
- If you have 1/3 of a brain, you will likely be one of the best programmers there. There are lot Wallys in a place like that.
- Good pay, benefits and travel. I got deployed overseas for a while, which is "mad money": in 4 months, I saved an amount almost equal my entire yearly salary. That bought my house.
- You will meet a lot of people, and a lot of them will quit. If you network right and are smart, it's a great asset. People will remember you and try to pull you along to their new company. If I got canned today there are probably 50 people I could email or call for an "in" somewhere else.
- You'll gain experience.
I quit after a few years, and wound up doing exactly what I want - programming at a small ISV.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Yes, you're right, it's true but unfortunate that you need the buzzwords to get past HR. I was trying to say "when you're looking through job openings, any skills requirements should be taken with a pinch of salt since they're often made up by a recruiter" -- but my brain misfired.
Unlimited growth == Cancer.
The rule of thumb is that each year of tertiary education is equivalent to 3 years of industry experience. So with a Masters in Comp-Sci, you are slightly better off than a fresh graduate, but not by much. Certainly not good enough for a senior position, requiring 10 plus years of experience!
Oh well, what the hell...
The only reason I looked in this discussion was to make sure that someone had made this statement. Now, I'll second it. All college does is to prepare you to learn. In your first few years in the real world, you should prepare yourself to learn several times as fast as you did in college because now you don't have the hindrance of mass education and can learn as an individual.
I've heard it said that we should count someone with a Masters as having a BS+2 years of experience. That would still not place one as a senior. And, frankly, I don't see the 2 years of experience aspect. I think those that got out with the BS and worked for 2 years probably learned the equivalent of at least 4 years at a college pace as long as they truly dove into a development job.
You should always find a job that is above your skill level so that you can learn and be challenged.
Be careful here. Yes, you should seek a job that strives beyond what you've done before. That means seeking a position for which you don't have all the background, all the experience.
But don't seek a job too close to the edge of your abilities. I've seen more people miserable in their jobs and eventually fired because they accepted a position that was beyond their skill. They routinely fail to rise to the jobs' demands. Would-be Cisco engineers but who find they have to reference a chart to figure out a netmask. Software developers who are only proficient in one language. They do a poor job and they know it. It eats them a little more every day.
I'm not saying you choose to be a garbage hauler because you know you can do it. Working below your abilities is also unfulfilling. Just don't set yourself up to fail is all.
The only thing worse than wondering if you could have been good enough is finding out for certain that you aren't.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I got my first job in IT during the .com e-anything years, with no completed degree. I quickly found myself in a senior position, but it was because I already knew the business fairly well, and because I had been programming for a few years then, so I was knowledgeable in both the technical and business sides of the job. Nowadays, things aren't that easy, unfortunately. Still, being familar with the business and being able to provide sound and relevant technical expertise is the way to go on the fast track.
Initially, it might be worth it to learn how to work on a company, how corporate work is done, and to focus your skills either on some technologies or on some problematics. Don't be afraid to try different companies, different work environments, different businesses. Build a professional network, meet people and learn, always learn. Computer science, in the business world, is a tool. Like any tool it has almost no value by itself, it only gets value when applied. So don't be afraid, go out of your shell, make mistakes, find where your affinities are, and apply your skills there. The position you are in don't mean a thing in itself, it is what you do that counts, the experience you get and where you can go from there.
Most senior software engineers have at least 3 years working experience. As far as I know in my company, no recruit without working experience has ever been given a senior software engineer position. I am a senior software engineer in a team of a dozen individuals, most of whom have a Master's, and some with a PhD.
a sp), which slams execs with "poor initial design concepts and constant feature creep". Face it - that is the reality of most software projects, not so much because of the exec lacking programming skills, but because software design is hard, and constant feature creep is often inevitable because businesses have to keep up with their competitors and listen to their customers. One eweek reader who responded (print edition of eweek) that also disagreed with the article, pointed out the only constant in software development is change, and stipulated that engineers should know about design patterns, which in turn should allow us to have flexible designs that are amendable to change. I will further add that while design patterns do in fact help us build better programs, they do not actually tell us how to manage those changes. That is where refactoring comes in - a systematic process to modify stinky code sections.
Only work experience can tell you what it is like to design a software product, be part of its implementation, finally have the product released (after a lengthy delay), and the upkeep of hundreds of thousands of lines of code over several years, catering for new features, and bug fixes.
Experience also tells you how to correctly apply design patterns, and why refactoring is indispensible. Technical skills aside, experience also teaches you how to deal with product managers, program managers, quality engineers, as well as to appreciate their roles. Experience also teaches you how to prioritize tasks when you're swamped.
It also changes the way you think, I'd like to say from that of petulance and naivete, to a professional with an appreciation for processes. A good example of what I mean by petulant or naive is this article in eweek entitled "IT Execs Should Learn More About Coding" (http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1814485,00.
Work experience teaches you to be pragmatic, and makes you look for processes to solve your problems, imperfect as they may be.
Even with a masters degree, sonsider yourself a student for at least a year or two after you get out of school. Even if you have every ability to be a senior programmer (I doubt it) you don't want to be one. The absolute most important thing you want from a job is to have people around you who are willing and able to teach.
I consider much of my first year out of school to have been a waste. Sure, I was given my own (important) projects and learned three languages I hadn't used before. That's great. But as some of my projects progressed it started to become apparent to me that while I could make this stuff happen and my boss was happy, I just didn't know my shit enough and needed mentoring. I wasn't getting that at that job and so I bailed out and found work elsewhere.
Where I ended up was perfect. My first month or two was kinda miserable as I learned that not only did I need mentoring, I was way behind where I thought I was. But I learned a lot and had every line of code I wrote reviewed and critiqued. On my first solo project there, I ended up rewriting the thing about three times. You learn a lot from that.
Your goal is to find a teacher who will appreciate the talents you've picked up in your masters program. I've been doing a lot of consulting and been in a number of companies. My heartfelt recommendation is that you get into a small company where the people are passionate.
1.) Look for a job at a mid-sized, not huge company. They tend to offer better job security (fewer crazy political ripples); you're closer organizationally to upper management and you generally get to do a wider variety of tasks (since IT departments are smaller) which helps keep things interesting.
1.1.) The pay may not be as good, but if you have a decent repore with management then also "having a life" is easier.
1.1.1.) Have a life; find hobbies/activities you love, find a great woman, etc... Both for sanity sake and the fact that these things WILL make you better on the job as well (happy people are WAY more productive).
1.2.) Don't expect, or try to, jump to the top of the IT food-chain just because you have some scrap of paper (however valuable you think it may be). People beneath you will resent it, management will expect more (usually unreasonably), and you will be setup for high-stress at best, or worse - failure.
1.2.1.) Stress is a drag; the meat-sack you live in is only good for so long, don't waste that time sweating about silly crap like some companies accounts recievables workflow.
Using "Common Sense" is being either to arrogant or to ignorant to ask people who know more about something than you.
You say that you should get a job that is going to challenge you. I definitely agree. I had 2 semesters left to have a degree in CS from Montana State. One fine Montana spring day (high of 2 degrees), I realized I was going to be stuck inside arguing with a machine for the rest of my life.
At the end of the semester, I left college, went to paramedic school and the fire academy, and became a career firefighter. I work 10 days a month, 24 hour shifts, play with fire, work is exciting, and I get to run red lights.
Best decision I ever made...walking down the path to happiness.
I did my masters in Computer Vision where I built an ASIC that simulated parts of the interface between the retina and the visual cortex. I ended up working as an ASIC designer at a big, well-known Canadian-based graphics chip company. It's fun work, but not at all related to the theoretical part of my research. I still enjoy it, and the pay is good, but I don't see myself doing this for a long time. Of course, I've been saying this for a while, and it's been 7 years already.
I wish I can find a job related to my research, but that's very very hard.
First, you should have stopped at a Bachelor's in CS. You got sold a level education that you clearly do not need. Don't feel bad, that's their (the University's) job, to sell you education, but you probably should have done more research on whether or not you needed the degree. An MS in Comp Sci teaches you about algorithms and focuses more on the scientific aspect of computing, which is fine if that's what you want your career to be, but if what you want to do is write software, then a BS is more practical. So, go out, take an entry level position somwhere where they will allow you to advance quickly and then set to learn how to write software. Eventually you will get enough experience in software design that you will be able to advance and that extra piece of paper will probably help.
I would not try interviewing for a senior level position. You'll simply display your lack of understanding by attempting it. I highly doubt that you have the experience necessary for such a position. Computer science and software engineering are as far apart as theoretical physics and civil engineering. Sure, they both have the same foundations, but one is theoretical and research oriented, and the other is practical and design oriented. Just because you can handle advanced physics doesnt mean you can build bridges. Just because you have a detailed knowledge of algorithms doesn't mean that you can handle large software projects. Don't assume that you can take your Masters and go out and take the place of someone who has written hundreds of thousands of lines of code, it just doesn't work that way.
Get a 1099 sales job for a year. PHD!! Cheaper than a Master's. Good Luck
Seriouslly. I was an Army Officer from 1996-2000 after I finished college with a BS in CS. This experience put me miles ahead of my peers in terms of understanding what is important, leadership and maturity. Do not do anything technical in the military instead do something really challenging like flying Apache helicopters or be and Infantry platoon leader. I had not trouble getting a development job after being in the Army. I studied for the final 6 months I was in the Army and really crammed for each interview. In addition to being prepared, many veterans in management respect military service. The down side to this is that you might get killed, but as they say in the Army - whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger.
Yes, yes. A Liberal Arts degree is horrible. You'll never get a job with one, you'll never get anywhere. However, in my group of college friends, only one of the six of us obtained a CS degree, another a biology degree, and the remaining four obtained degrees in Archeology, Political Science + Economics, International Relations, and Business. Fifteen years later three of us work in the computer industry (in a technical capacity, not as marketers), one is a doctor, one runs a construction business, and one is a real estate agent. None of us has ever beeen involuntarily out of work for more than a month or two.
Your mileage may of course vary, but the idea that a Liberal Arts degree instantly leads to a job at the Golden Arches is a bit overdone in my opinion.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Contrary to popular Slashdot believe, the place I'm working is hiring like crazy!
A lot of interesting work (Intelligent Transportation, Space Science, Applied Physics, Automotive Research, Signal Exploitation, etc.)
Salary is very good, benefits are great (full tuition reimbursement, contributes 9% to 401k, none matching...they don't care how much I contribute!)
All you need to do is have at least a 3.5 GPA and convince all the interviewees (I interviewed with 12 people on the first day, another 3 later) that you are intelligent and nice to work with. They figure if you can meet those two requirements, you can quickly learn the skill set needed on projects.
Just contact me at slashdotatmickeyargo.com
you might consider joining a startup. They will be more willing to take a chance on someone who is bright and hard working but inexperienced. In the early phases, there will not be the notion of "junior" and "senior" engineers. There will be more than enough work to keep everyone challenged. If you are looking to make an impact, a startup is the place to do it.
On the other hand, you need to be willing to work your ass off and accept the possiblity that things might not work out. There is no automatic reward for showing up and doing your best every day.
You might find this way of life a viable alternative to the corporate rat race. Get in when things are small, bail for the next startup when things get too corporate.
My first job out of college was working in retail. I did stock and helped customers when the salespeople were busy. I didn't really learn anything about IT, but I did learn how to work with a lot of different kinds of people. I think that it was a good experience.
To paraphase Bill Cosby: It doesn't matter what degree you have, on your first job you're going to be getting coffee for somebody.
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Ready to be a master Jedi not are you. Much work needed is.
I have a Programmer-Analyst and a Senior Systems Analyst postion open... I'm a manager for a Fortune 50 company with its IT operations in the NC mountains. If you're a Java programmer or know Lotus and you want to live in a rural area with some of the best opounities for outdoor activity in the country, plus a state university in town to boot, let me know at ncmtnitjob@gmail.com.
/. how bad a manager could I be? Wait, don't answer that...
Hey, I read
So ... you've got through 18 years of school without, apparently, spending more than a few idle minutes on what kind of job you are actually working towards?
Unbelievable.
I blogged this:
http://www.gilgamesh.ca/?p=302
At the very least, I would expect that you would spend a few days before entering a master's program, thinking about what it would do for your job prospects, and finding out what doing a masters does for you.
What the heck were u thinking when u took up College. Didnt you have any Goals or Statement of Purpose when u took up ur Masters Degree. If you had one, then you wudnt be asking such ignorant questions. From your post it appears that you had absolutely no aim in doing MS but just wanted to get the degree beside ur name.
When you work in the government sector, the first question you will be asked is "How many projects have you worked on that were actually fielded?"
Until you can say yes to that question, you are not senior, and you will not be seen as senior. But your involvement does not have to be any more than as a low-level coder to qualify.
When you work in the commercial sector, you will be asked if you have ever done full-life cycle (that means design to bug reports from customers). If you don't have that, then you are not senior. The easiest way to get involved in all of the aspects is to offer to take the notes in the meetings.
How could you possibly have a masters in CS, and not have any idea what you want to do? It sounds to me like you were going to school, not to gain a career. But to avoid having to work sooner. Obviously there's nothing specific that you loved to do, or you would know what to do now. I would say planning is not your strong suit either, so management is probably not a realistic expectation. You should probably become a teacher. I'm not sure the real world is what you're looking for.
Clearly you are a rookie and kid
because you don't know what the difference between knowledge and experience is.
Go out there and learn it by yourself!
Your ego is Matrix!
You'll make less money in the beginning, but start any business that interests you. Do this before you settle down and have a mortgage and a family to feed. Once you get the corprate shackles on you, they're hard to get off.
You'll thank me in 20 years...
Preferably supporting a Unix product, you'll see stuff broken in ways you never imagined. It's also something else, dealing with people, huge numbers of them. It's a great foundation and only takes a year.
I once took a look at a job posting board at CS deparment at my University and became really worried about my lack of skills. It seemed that all the employers wanted people that have knowledge of and experience in just about every modern programming language and operating system. And a lot of these job postings were aimed at students and were offering peanuts as wages. My professor pointed out that employers often ask for more than they know they can reasonably get (especially for the money they're offering). So finding a job is like bartering at the market. Their asking price (in terms of skillset and experience) is too high and you have to negotiate them down. The only reason this will work is because you know, and they know, that nobody with the qualifications they're asking for will work for the salary they're offering. If they 2 years of experience then they'll ask for 5 years of experience. Just like when you sell a car or a house, you ask for a little more than you think you'll get because you want to create the illusion in your buyer that s/he is a great bargainer.
Unless your MS is from MIT or Carnige Mellon, your not going to get a senior position. Even with a top school like that you could only get a senior position in a small market area. If you know your stuff with an MS you should be able to work up the line quickly. I was good in college but you got to learn from expierence. Even if you understand everything flawlessly about computer design, you don't have the understanding of politics in large organizations or how to handle the project requestors(who may be top level mangement) who constantly change what they want.
I have a buddy, over 50 I have to add, that was about ready to head over to Sandia for a job, but then a new guy took over and decided that he'd hire 4.0s out of college instead of seasoned veterans. I guess he's going to get what he paid for... he may as well have outsourced his development for the hassle he's going to have with the kids.
Another buddy said of the current crop of kids, "bright, cannot program, big egos." Only good if they can put in the 80 hours that I hear kids out of school and without families can do.
If I were a hiring manager, and I've been there before but not for this job, and told to hire codemonkeys out of school, I'd ask them if they ever took a projects (software engineering) course, and what they thought about it as far as it being something that they'd like to do, say, for the rest of their professional lives.
DT
Is this thing on? Hello?
Banking. Safe, yet interesting and well paid work for the honest and hardworking. Young friend of mine has just been invited to interview for a permanent job in Zurich at 110,000 Swiss Francs about 4 years after batchelor's graduation. ( He's a near genius though )
I trash any resumes with spelling mistakes on them. If you don't care enough to polish your resume, then you can work for someone else.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Remember 'Office Space'?
What would you do if you had a Million Dollars? Between not knowing, and two chicks at the same time, the protagonist didn't know.
In my opinion, the question should be posed slightly differently: how do you envision your lifestyle if money were not important? For example in my case, I want to get a euro-wife, learn some more languages and live in a european capital. I don't need a lot of money to do that, just some sort of electrical engineering job that pays the bills. If I get bored I can always start a company.
Or, how about just sodomizing yourself with a rusty rake whilst your dead grandmother takes a Polorid!
The military must be super desperate if its recurters are trolling slashdot. Seriously, the symmetric difference is larger than the intersection between the requirements of what is needed by the military and the Slashdotiquoi. Anyway, most would prefer killing babies by working for defence contractors than by killing babies themselves (the pay is better).
If you have to ask and haven't much of a clue then you definitely aren't senior software developer material unless you have done just tons of major design and implementation. But if you had you wouldn't need to ask. I like Paul Graham's advice. Forget the job. Be poor for a while more and do a startup with some like minded folks. There is no real security just getting a job these days anyhow. And you will have a lot more fun and learn more. It will also look better if you ever do go out job hunting. And who knows. The startup might make it leaving you independently wealthy in say 4-5 years. If I was just getting out of school it is exactly what I would do.
What the hell do you like doing? What kind of project gets you excited? If you do go after a job in a non-startup then the upside is generally only the salary and bennies. So if you don't lke what you are working on then you are just killing what talent you might possess and turning yourself into a whoring drone. Be honest with yourself.
Any company that will take a fresh graduate with no real world experience for a senior position is not a company you want to work for.
What's far more important than how much they pay you is the environment. Find somewhere with incredibly smart, motivated people and you'll find that your work doesn't seem so much like work. Look for something that you find interesting that makes money as a side effect, not the other way around.
I find it funny that I call my local wal mart to find out if they've got "An Evening with Kevin Smith" only to be told they don't have a way to search for what movies they have.
A call to blockbuster and best buy right after and they are able to tell me immediatly if they've got any copies.
That's a hell of an inventory system...
Check out the advantages of each(google it!) and think about what fits your lifestlye. My personal is on-site about 5hrs a week, offsite about 50 hrs a week(i.e. at home) and that works for me. Some people wish they could do it, but never get the work done, and there is nothing wrong with that! Figure out what you want, what fits your personality(be realistic, if you have to work towards it then it isn't you yet!), and go from there. They all have benefits/advantages and disadvantage/pain in the asses.
I've never done any contracting, but my impression is that if you were truly cut out for contracting, you'd probably know already (by having an extensive network of contacts that you could tap for jobs). Otherwise, start with a regular job and develop that network.
No university degree as such qualifies you for a senior software engineering position. However, you may have done quite a bit of extracurricular programming on the side that WOULD qualify you for such a position. If you've done that, be sure to mention that on your resume.
If you're seriously short on experience, find yourself an open source project you like and start contributing to it. It's good experience, initial barriers to entry are low (though you'll still have to deliver quality work) and I for one would respect OSS work as a resume entry.
I've recently had occasion to read a stack of resumes for a senior engineering position. One of the resumes did not list any programming experience at all and one engineering graduate listed that he'd implemented QuickSort for a programming class. Somehow, neither of the two struck me as promising candidates.
Would be cool to work for a company that develops open source solution and software.
I can't believe you went through at least six years of higher education and have never held a paying job. Sad.
I know it has nothing to do with skills, experience, etc. but 2.5? At the very least that says something about your work ethic.
for employment with a fresh Masters in CS. For
instance:
(1) want to travel abroad, learn new cultures,
meet new people, and kill them -- join the
military.
(2) want to travel abroad, learn new cultures,
meet new people, and learn how they live on
$200 per week -- get recruited by our new
offshore outsourcing overlords.
(3) develop good people skills, some dexterity,
and excellent short term memory -- and find
a better paying job as a waiter in a good
restaurant.
(4) for long term onshore employment, select from
either (a) or (b)
(a) go to law school, get your degree, pass
the bar exam and work as an IP lawyer
(b) find job in the construction trades, learn
Spanish, become a journeyman tradesman
(5) for short term onshore employment, take your
fresh Masters degree to any (pick one) major
employer. Count on being replaced (L1-A or
H1-B visa holder) as soon as you have learned
enough to qualify for mid-level salary. Then
find new entry level job, rinse, repeat.
(6) if you are not burdeoned with massive student
aid debt, go for the "manager trainee" job
at Mickey Dees -- it is stable employment.
I'm in the same situation. I have just finished a degree course and I don't know what I want to do. There are just too many possibilities at the moment. I'd like to try out lots of different things to see what I like. I know that I don't want to code for a living, I did that for my industrial placement and I didn't like it because takes the fun out of it.
Any ideas on good ways to sample different jobs and work environments?
...so many Slashdotters commenting about how a masters degree does or does not make you more qualified for a job. Oh yes, and we can't forget the numerous comments about "would you like fries with that?" And we can't leave India out of the mix. Yet, for all of their experience and education, nary a one of them took the time to actually answer your question. So, to review, the individual asked the following questions:
1) So, what should I do?
2) Should I go for a full-time, contract, half-time, or something else?
3) Also, what kind of position should a person with a Master's in Computer Science be looking for (other than dish washer)?
4) I've been looking at senior software developer positions, but is that too high up the ladder for someone 'fresh' to cope with?
5) My current manager (research lab) says that 'You should always find a job that is above your skill level so that you can learn and be challenged.' I think he's right, but is that something Slashdot readers agree with?
4) What was your job coming out of university?"
So, here is my opinion:
1) So, what should I do?
You mention that you are coming to the end of your masters degree, which suggests that you are not out of school yet. You also mention working for a research lab. The first thing I would suggest is to network! network! network! Many professors, because they must pursue outside funding, have many contacts in industry, with the government, in major research labs, with science foundations, etc. You should consider not only showing them how hard of a worker you are before you leave, you should also become very friendly with them, and very direct about what you want to do in case one of them comes across your opportunity of a life time. When those opportunities present themself, you should be the first name that comes to their mind.
Next, after laying that foundation, if you still have time before graduation, try to find an internship with a local company. Don't be blinded by big names. A quick road to learning about office politics, micromanagement, etc. is to go into a smaller company and simply observe. Internships will set you apart from your graduating peers, and you will get a chance to see what it's like in the "real world" while having the benefit of the intern safety net.
Next, start working on your resume. Now, some camps will tell you that you should only have a one page resume, while other will tell you to have a longer one. Frankly, it is often up to the company. Don't ever leave out research experience for the sake of brevity. However, that said, I do suggest that you list every research project (even in-class ones that were of significance) and give a brief explanation of each. Too long, and they won't read them. Too short, and you might have as well not "describe" at all. You see, you are coming out of college with thousands of other equally-qualified students with 4.0s, and there is really very little to set you apart. Your research experience is a very good bet. Tend to focus on your positive contributions in the description, especially if you managed to perform under a budget and had any sort of project management experience at all.
Next, do not send out one general resume to every company out there. Do some research on the companies and tailor your resume, especially the "Objectives" line to them. Also keep in mind that many larger companies use an automated scanning system to sort resumes, so sometimes you will want to creatively place "key words" if you know this to be the case.
Do NOT send out resumes to every single place you can think of up front. This sounds odd, but it is so for several reasons:
1) Many of these places have old boy networks and it might seem impersonal to them (although, in actuality, it really is) if they discover you're applying anywhere and everywhere.
2) Next, it always sucks to find out after the fact that your resume had a glaring error or embarassing faux pas in it.
Send out r
You're Human Resources. You walk into the office, and have about a day to select candidates to advance to the next stage of screening to hire a junior programmer position that needed to be filled last month (but you were only tasked with last week).
...but then he or she will bolt upright in the dark of night with a cold sweat, realizing the truth to the quote, "There are lies, damn lies, and statistics."
You have a thousand resumés on your desk, and some quick mental math suggests that you have about 60 interviews you can do within your deadline.
This is a crazy, crazy theory I have about the situation of the person reviewing my resumé. I'm thinking to myself that if, in a one second glance over of the stack they can remove 400 resumés that have glaring mistakes (misaligned elements or typos, for example) - 60 seconds into 1000 resumés being about 17 = 17 minutes for this theoretical pile, they're going to pitch without a second thought.
Hey, they've already halved their workload, and there isn't an unreasonable argument that it was an effective sieve: anyone too lazy to get their most important pitch sufficently right that it'd pass a glance is most likely too lazy to get putting all those pesky semi-colons in for that slightly more relaxed deadline of five minutes ago their future company finances code will require.
If this HR person has taken a statistics course and DOES have a second thought, they will assuredly pat him or herself on the pat and say, "The population sample is still sufficently large to allow for a reasonable distribution."
Avoid Steve.
Redundant? Off-topic? I don't really care. If it hasn't been said by now, then it needed to be said.
or just dive right in and do what's fun.
Life's not about money or cars or a big old house.
Unless you want all the headaches that go with it.
Find yourself a hot babe who likes to boink.
Do some fishing.
Travel the planet.
Read a lot and invent some stuff...
All one needs to be happy is a warm place to sleep, enough to eat, and good friends.
It helps if you step away from the mass media and corporate self service brainwashing that you've already been subjected to for most of your life....
A few years in a some remote village without TeeVee, electricity, and consumer goods will put things n perspective if you can't see already.
my boss is a complete incompetent, but because he has kissed the right asses over the last 7 years, he was recently promoted to general manager of our entire division. I've yet to decide if I will quit with the others who are leaving, or wait to watch him crash and burn first person.
Bottom line -- "hard work pays off" is a lie the rich use to keep us down.
All college does is to prepare you to learn.
precisely. sure, the material you're taught is not irrelevant, but the most important thing current students don't recognize is that college is about learning how to learn. speaking as someone who teaches philosophy and religion, many of the students in my classes would benefit from the realization that the simple fact that my class is not in "real-world" knowledge or skills (like jsp or burger-flipping) doesn't mean they have nothing useful to learn in it. if they can adapt to learn what i'm trying to teach them, then they can adapt and learn anything. and isn't that the single most useful job skill anywhere and at any time? surely no one who hires you out of college expects you to know everything you will need to know, but they do expect you to be able to learn it . . . and fast.
"I've come to the conclusion that revolutions aren't profitable." -kevin kelly
In 1992-1993 I applied for 99 jobs in electrical & electronic engineering, and also in Computer Science.
.
:)
I would read each relevant job and decide if I could grow into that job and like it. I applied and forgot about it until they contacted me, All permanent positions.
I got about 10 first round interviews and 3-4 second round interviews and eventually 3 jobs over one weekend, and no job offers over the previous year.
I ended up with a job in Dublin, Ireland doing porting work (making the product work on different unix vendors boxs (boxen?)).
That is my 2 cent.
What do people suggest someone with 11 years experience should do?
In Short:.
Everyone tries to plan, but chance makes fools of our plans, look for the best next step. The next step is dictated by commercial realities, i.e. what jobs are currently available, check out http://www.dice.com/
Free/open source may help your CV/Resume, it is nice if your company contract allows work on Free/Open souce on your own time, even better if it is part of your work.
Network and look for cross functional opportunities, as there can only be one person who is best at something, and they are probably over specialised.
I guess that is 4 cent
Be Free: Free Software Tuition
I'd agree with all of that, but (IME, and at the risk of over-generalising) those two groups are almost mutually exclusive, and most non-degreed professionals fall pretty clearly into one camp or other.
The capable guys without degrees are usually people who are interested and somewhat talented in their field. They tend to make the effort to learn on their own in some form that works for them, and to respect the efforts of others to learn in ways that work for them, too. Having made that effort, they tend to know their stuff and have some confidence in their abilities, so they don't need to put other people down.
OTOH, if you encounter someone whose first action when meeting new people is to put them down, someone touchy about the value of some qualification or level of experience they don't have, then you're often talking to someone who knows they aren't as good as the person they're attacking. They feel the need to tell everyone how important and worthy they are, because they aren't confident that their results will speak for themselves.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
That's very true, but I don't think it's a bad thing.
I came to this conclusion a while back, a few months into my second job working with an office full of software developers: most of the guys I've worked with, despite being pretty smart and often very well qualified (I'm unusual at my current employer because I don't have a PhD), program as their day job. They come in and write code, and then go home content that they've done a decent job and been paid a decent wage for it. This works for them, and it works for their employer, too. This isn't to say that they don't take pride in their work, or that they make no effort to improve their skills and learn new things, but they're basically happy to do the grunt work and have few aspirations beyond that.
A few of the guys I've worked with -- there's no point quibbling over percentages, so let's take cduffy's implied 5% figure -- are good, and I mean really good. There are a few tell-tale signs of this kind of person. For example, they tend to know the little details of their tools, not because they remembered them all by rote or read an extra chapter in the manual, but because they understand in depth how the tools are put together and why they work the way they do. They tend to read around their subjects more than the other guys -- these are the ones who identify which books are worth buying in the first place, not just the ones who make an effort to read some of the stuff in the office library. They'll be the people who get asked the difficult questions when the rest of the office doesn't know, because they'll develop a reputation for being the "guy who knows why".
It can be unfortunate that the latter group of people tend to find grunt work pretty dull, because grunt work goes with the territory. If you're going to be in this business, you'd better accept that sometimes you just have to get on with the dull and boring stuff no matter how good you may be! However, thanks to their higher skill levels and greater repertoire of technique, they can often dispense with grunt work much faster than regular guys when they need to do it.
However, any unavoidable grunt work is basically a waste of their ability, and since these guys tend to expect higher pay, it's usually not a great idea for management to hire this type of person for a job that's mostly grunt work. Software projects usually consist of three things:
- grunt work (mostly)
- devious technical hackery (underlying all the grunt work -- for example, writing the libraries/tools the grunts use to build their code)
- high-level design/architecture work (pulling all the grunt work together to make complete systems you can sell).
The first category can obviously be done by grunts, but the latter two categories really benefit from the presence of wizards.As luck would have it, the ratio of grunt work to wizard work seems to correspond pretty well to the ratio of grunts to wizards in the software development world. A smart employer will recognise this, and hire/allocate responsibilities accordingly. If a more people understood this balance and how to make best use of different people's abilities and desires, we might actually get somewhere with this software engineering idea...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
When we hire somebody we need that person to start working.
... gime me a fluffy break.
We are not an academy.
Neither are a group of cheerleaders.
Enthusiastic.... who cares about the skills
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The bubble burst for the oportunists.
For people with preparation all carried out pretty much as usual.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I stunned my immigrant co-workers, especially the Asian ones, telling them that I had work to pay much of my education, and some of these were menial jobs. The feel its required to pay for a kid's education through graduate school. I heard that only about a quarter of suburban teenagers do traditional summer jobs, half of used to do so 20 years ago. I just read a column on how neighborhood kids dont cut lawns anymore (their or for pay).
Your average federal agency has a mish-mash of 30 year-old fortran, 20 year old COBOL, 10 year old C++, 5 year old Java, and at least a dozen system architectures from old VAX to WinXP or Solaris. You will be asked to do difficult things with insufficient resources. It forces you to either be creative and know what you're doing before you do it.
You will come out of a federal IT job as either
1) a master of the universe of technology
2)a burned out heap of cynicism.or
3)Retired with good benefits and reasonable pay.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
Hi,
It is possible to get a job building on your MCS thesis with a company that is in a related field. For example a thesis titled "On the Discrete Quantum Factors of High-Dimensional Tori," could get you a position with a crypto company.
Put the tltle of your thesis in your resume and mention that it is available on demand. This will catch someone'a eye and then you are in.
I'm still in school but I've been wondering that myself. I'm studying for Web Design, which may be a little more specific than Computer Science.
Here's my advice:
-Make a list of skills you have (you'll need this for your resume anyway)
-Make a list of positions you think you want
-Make a list of companies you want to work for
-Talk to people at said companies, profs, and people you may know in the industry and find out what they do and what their title is, and what they think you would do best at. Maybe they can even get you a position or internship somewhere.
Next, I would reccomend doing some things on your own. What I mean by that is, build a small portfolio basically. If you know how to code websites, make one for yourself (you can even use this as your resume or as an addendum to the actual paper copy). Know some graphics? Make some business cards or something. Know Java? Throw together some Konfabulator or Dashboard widgets (if you use OS X). Basically, do some things that demonstrate your skills and that you can show to prospective employers. This will give you and them a better idea of what you can do. You can even maybe make some shareware apps and earn a little dough for yourself. I've already got a few companies I would like to work for once I'm out of school, as well as a list of what I can do (with some examples) and a list of skills I expect to have upon graduation. A friend of mine did this setting up the network at a new Navy office here in Cleveland and even though it only lasted for about two months it looks great on his resume.
Finally, I would suggest searching for a position either at or a level below your current skill level. I know this is counter to what you've been told, but it'll give you an idea of how you personally perform in an actual work environment, and if you're over-skilled for the position it'll give you a chance to really shine and show whoever your working for that they can move you up the ladder a rung or two. Maybe if you've already got a gig that pays enough to support your lifestyle, find some contract or comission work to build some experience.
"Quick! Run to your chocolate huts!" -Meatwad, Aqua Teen Hunger Force
You can be damned sure there are no spelling or grammatical errors on my resume. Fuck if I care how I spell or write on some website, though.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
In fact, I did just the opposite of criticizing those who make errors in slashdot posts when I said:
My original comment did not mention agreeing with anybody. Not the original poster, not anyone. I simply said that I receive a lot of resumes with errors in them, and that I found this to be pathetic. If you are preparing a marketing piece on yourself, don't put in any errors. That was, is, and will continue to be my point. You get extra laughs from me if your resume has errors in it and you also claim to have "Excellent communication skills.""Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Better yet, cut right to the chase, kill yourself.
This will save the US government from having to fly your body & all your personal weapons of personal destrcution to Iraq, where, huh, let me get this straight, you will destroy other persons, until they destroy you, as they have to 100k+ Iraqis, and just shy of 2k other gullible persons, then the expense to fly your corpse home again in secret, all the while lying about the whole thing.
Often graduates coming fresh out of the ivory tower, especially those with little commerical software experience, assume that who you know is all that matters when it comes to getting and keeping a job. What you know is often just as important.
Transcend Humanity. Please.
...your frist step should be to go back home where all tjhe jobs have gone to anway..........
i'm mainly talking about the grunt high-tech worker. for research, it's probably different.
i wish i would have pursued some other career. something that has a demand not only in a few overpriced locales, something more recession proof, and something that has a benefit to being local.