From an Unrelated Career To IT/Programming?

An anonymous reader writes "I hate my career of the past few years. For a long time I've wondered what I'd do after I broke even and could get into something new, and I keep coming back to computers. I'd like to get into software, since I always enjoyed coding. I have some background with C++ so I'm not starting entirely from scratch. My problem is my degrees and past employment have no practical application to the field. Where should I start? I have friends in both IT and software development who might be able to pull some strings and get me an interview or two for entry-level positions, but what can I do to make myself hireable in a short period of time? Is it possible to pick up enough of what I'd need within a couple months? If so, what and how?"

Comments

no relevant background, no problem

[mtrachtenberg]

"no practical application to the field"

Try management.

You could just lie and go for it.

[tjstork]

Make it all up.... the worst that could happen is that you would get fired after a few months. But, believe me, there's a lot of shoddy programmers out there, so, you'd be hard pressed to do worse than some of the "pros" that are out there.

Are you sure you wanna do that?

[drdanny_orig]

Speaking as someone who's been involved in IT for 30+ years, allow me to shout at you...."You're going the wrong way!!!"