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Best Way To Land Entry-Level Job?
chemicaldave writes "I'm graduating this May and have been seeking a programming position for months. It seems that the biggest hurdle to landing an interview is getting past the doorman that is HR. After reading this entry from Coding Horror describing the lack of programming candidates who can actually program, I can't help but scratch my head. I can program! (See how I put that link in?) If I can't land an interview, then even a short online evaluation of my coding skills would suffice. I just want a chance to prove myself. Alas, sending resumes to companies has rarely led to anything but an auto-confirmation email of my submission. I understand that sending resumes online is not the best method to landing an interview, but I come from a small rural school so job fairs rarely offer anything more than IT support positions let alone a programming position. It seems to me that developers are always looking for talented young programmers. We're out here looking for you too. Am I missing something?"
Find a company you want to work with, even if they are not advertising positions. Call your prospective boss, tell him you want to work with him. Done!
And stop expecting a big salary shiny salary to do what is essentially the work of a computer janitor.
As soon as you lower your expectations to reality you'll find 'entry level' jobs are almost as common as now-hiring signs at McDonalds.
Persistent Volume manager for Kubernetes - https://github.com/dwimsey/openshift-pvmanager
apply for the google summer of code project. looks great on the resume.
also, do virtually anything public programming related. write a small open source utility. or a new feature in an existing open source app. or a free app for a cell phone. (100k downloads isn't that hard, and looks good to business folk)
i've been on the hiring side of fresh meat devs several times now. literally anything that shows you can code in a reasonable, organized fashion will put you at the top of the list.
btw, i hope the html link reference was a joke. =P
http://kered.org
Can't stress it enough. Lets assume you do get to an interview. Ooze COMMON SENSE. Let it seep out your pores. You are going to be the guy that doesn't need to ask the stupid questions that should be assumed.
Secondly, show examples of your programming experience. Doesn't have to be used somewhere in industry, just have working, finished examples of your code available either online (if applicable) or somehow available for them to see. Be the candidate that they interview that might not have experience working in a firm, but can still finish projects.
I can't stress just how much those two simple points will help?
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Your best bet is to move to India and go to a job fair at the IIT (India Institute of Technology). You'll probably find someone to hire you there for about 1/10 of what you would hope to make. Oh, and it will be in Rupees.
The sad fact is GPA and the school you went to really matter a lot when getting past HR. If you have a sub 3.0-3.2 GPA and/or went to a low ranked school you should try to bypass HR.
I would consider traveling to another University's job fair if you don't have good local ones. Here, you can talk directly to engineers/programmers who can gauge your skills far more precisely than HR can glean from your resume.
Things have changed a lot, you can pretty much expect that most of the time you're just going to get an auto reply. If you do manage to get an interview they may very well think that silence is the same thing as telling somebody they didn't get the job.
Probably the best thing you can do is while searching try and get involved in some open source project. It's probably not going to put food on the table, but it will likely land you access to opportunities that you might not otherwise get. And give you something to put on your CV while maintaining your skills.
But just realize that the manners of people doing the hiring are typically lousy and remember that if you get turned down that you're likely not interested in working for a company that represents itself in such an embarrassing way.
Bad economy+no practical experience+little school no one has heard of=hard to get a job. Particularly if your college can't get together a real job fair. Applying to internet postings works more if you have experience on your resume, its a difficult way to get a first job. Especially since in this economy an experienced but out of work programmer may apply for a position normally below him. It was that way after the .com crash too.
I'd suggest using any people you know already in the industry or in companies that hire programmers. And consider taking an IT position if you can't get anything else- I know a lot of programmers from small schools that started out that way and then switched over. If nothing else it will pay the bills for a while.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Many points to consider:
-Do you have professional experience programming?
This can be gained through internships, FOSS development, and competitive programming.
Do you have resume fodder?
-Certifications
-Degrees
-Project Successes
Do you have references?
-Professional connections through school.
-People who have reputations in software-development.
Honestly, those are all solid ways to develop the credentials to get you into entry-level, and if you are motivated, well-spoken, and honest, it can be done. But sometimes you have to just bite the bullet and do some intern work for free, or some beta-testing before those connections can be made.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
Build up your skills and portfolio.
My first job interview was mostly just showing off the websites I built.
Elance will let you get paid and will give you a better sense of what real work might be like.
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
You may be better off finding an internship somewhere if you haven't already secured one. Barring that, I'd suggest developing your own software, or doing some contracting work.
Depending on your skill set and your career goals, you may not want an entry-level job.
On the other hand, working a shit job may very well get you the contacts you need to get a non-shit job.
Right now is a really hard time to try to get your foot in the door. As a manager, I posted for an entry level position and ended up with a ton of candidates with a strong background. I don't believe in the whole "overqualified" paradigm, so I ended up getting the best candidate -- over twelve years of experience pertinent to my business, glowing reviews from previous employers and excellent interpersonal skills.
I got a ton of resumes from college students. Several sounded promising, and I would have loved to give them a chance. But when I have someone with a proven track record who I KNOW will not require only minimal supervision and will bring more to the table... why should I waste my time and money?
Is it fair? Maybe not. When I was in this position almost 15 years ago it sucked. But with 10%+ unemployment it is very hard for the entry level candidate to get his foot in the door.
My solution.... if you are still in school... get a fricking internship. It may not put you at the same level as those I did end up interviewing... but it will help/
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
You don't say where you are located, which has an enormous effect on your ability to land a job. Some job markets are terrible, and others are wonderful. If you've moved from the former to the latter, your job prospects will improve greatly. In the current economy, "Labor mobility" is very important to finding a good job.
Also, "Programming" is a rather broad area. What kind of programming are you interested in? What industry do you want to work for? Figure out where those companies are located, and move there.
I'm in broadcast engineering, which includes some programming, but is not programming-specific. I'll let some of those folks address your concerns directly. But speaking in general and in no particular order:
1. Maybe you should have gone to a different school, even if it meant relocating. An internship would have given you some valuable experience, and if you're really good, would probably have resulted in permanent employment afterward.
2. Look at small companies instead of the big ones. Offer to work for beans and rice until you can demonstrate that you know what you're doing. It'll pay off in the long run.
3. While you look for a job, work on an open-source project. Having a recommendation from a well-known F/OSS guru can't hurt. :)
4. Once you get the chance, I can't emphasize this strongly enough: PROVE TO ME THAT YOU REALLY WANT THE JOB. Think outside the box. Be willing to go the extra mile. Don't sit in your chair playing Solitaire waiting for me to tell you what to do next. Show initiative.
Back when I was a teenager, I got my first job in radio by hanging around the station constantly. I took out the trash. I annoyed the engineer and asked a thousand questions. I was willing to do anything to prove that I wanted the job.
I'm not boasting; that's just common sense. But contrast that with an intern who tried out with me a couple of years ago. Unless I stayed on him, he did indeed sit and play Solitaire. When the HVAC went out in the studios, he got up from his job as a call screener for one of our talk shows and said, "it's just too hot. I'll be back tomorrow" -- which left us scrambling for someone to cover his slot.
He still calls from time to time and is amazed that we won't hire him. No, I'm not kidding.
Cogito, igitur comedam pizza.
...but about who you know. Referrals from friends are the best way to get your foot in the door for entry-level positions, then experience will get you in the door for future jobs.
When I was in school way back when, the school would work an internship program with local companies and the students would get course credit. Do they still offer those anymore for CS majors?
If you are submitting resumes, and not getting any responses whatsoever, then it's likely there is something wrong with your resume (I had this particular problem when I was entry-level; I kept rewriting my resume until I finally got responses).
If you are only applying to big companies, that could be your problem. There are lots of smaller companies around, and they are usually the ones that have trouble finding good programmers. If you really are good, then keep tweaking your presentation until the people where you are applying can actually see that you are good. If you are not actually good, then your roadblock is that you are not good, and you should fix that.
Qxe4
Have you asked your friends and family. And families friends...and so on.
That's were most of the jobs are. Which is a bit sad.
And remember, don't take just any job. You have a degree and you've spent a lot of money on it. The salary of your new job should reflect this.In Norway for instance starting salary for an uneducated is about 280'000,- kr. The cost of 5 years of study is 333000 in loans. 20 years from now your education will have cost you 1'400'000 (5 years of lost income) + 999'000 in down payments = 2'399'000. So if you are planning on paying that down you need to make close to 400'000,- kr a year.
Say NO to unpaid Internships!
I find that jobs are handed out in this order.
1) Kickback (If I Hire X will I be compensated?)
----
a) |----- Family (Am I related to individual [Small form of kickback, sometimes hiring children of political people falls under this catagorey, nothing cuts through red tape like]
b) |--------- Figurehead ( I've seen where people are hired just to be a figurehead ( Astronauts, Politicians, Former CEO's ect )
2) Circle of Friends (Nothing makes them feel better than hiring someone from their Alma mater, charity, ect.)
----
3) Indentured Servitude (Can I pay this kid to do the job what I spent filling up my yacht for my weekend getaway?)
----
4) The Shiny Turd ( I've got a double MBNA Frum Havard. I am Job. )
----
Lying lips sound the sweetest but when their kissing your ass its even better.
5) Needle In the Haystack ( This is you and me )
-----
I am probably one of the most awkward individuals in HR interview settings. I aimed for a job that I knew I could get, and I excelled at that job which allowed me to move on to better roles.
How are your other skills? Process Management, Configuration Management
You must emphasize all skills in addition to programming. I would say 30% of my time is dealing with QA aspects.
Step 1: When carping about not being able to find a job on slashdot, remember to tell people what programming languages you know.
Step 2: Make sure the name attached to your post links to something besides a couple of pages that haven't been updated in 2 years
Step 3: When fixing the above - start writing essays or blog entries on technology stuff that you know, so that when the quasi-decent HR rep googles your name, he'll be impressed with what he finds. In this day and age, that's one of the few ways you can "submit" a sample of your code.
Good advice was already stated about volunteering for OSS. Even if it doesn't help get you in the door somewhere, it'll at least hone your chops, which will help once you do get a job.
Social engineering. My last three jobs were obtained through knowing someone on the inside that help me in the door. Using only your resume will result in it landing on a pile along with the 300 others.
General Rule For Getting Hired: Don't forget to include a complete collection of your /. postings. I can't think of a better way to impress a future employer than to show them just how funny and clever you really are.
Getting a professional job isn't as simple as having the knowledge and certifications that make you eligible. Building a social network is equally important, if not more important. Having a professional that's already in the industry being able to vouch for you is a huge plus when it comes to finding jobs. Often, this can completely bypass HR and get you in touch with the management involved where your targeted position is.
HR is kinda stupid. Getting around them is the best way to get in, and doing that requires knowing the right people.
This is how I got my engineering job. I have no degrees, but I have substantial real world experience and knowledge, and was introduced to my job through a friend and former coworker who convinced my current manager to interview me. No HR was involved until hiring.
First, including a link doesn't make you a programmer.
Second, what are you graduating from (high school, technical college, university)? With what kind of degree?
To directly address your question, most entry level positions require two years experience. You need to figure out how to get that experience!
I graduated right before September 11, 2001 and wound up taking an IT support job where they needed some programing done as well. It was a long haul (almost eight years of more and more development), however I just started my first senior developer position. Everyone has to start somewhere!
I will not mourn that which I never had to lose. - Unknown
1. Pick a specialty or two. Maybe you're interested in computer graphics, great, learn OpenGL, or maybe you want to work with databases, fine, learn the API's.
2. Do one or more of the following:
a. Write a few small, relevant, open-source programs that you can show to prospective employers.
b. Work on a few relevant open-source projects to help build networking/contacts.
c. Do an internship and write a few small relevant programs that you can discuss during the interview, this is also good for networking
3. Have a backup plan if you can't get a job. Try to pick a specialty where, if worst comes to worse, you can sell the applications you write, maybe even starting your own business.
The above is the catch 22, no one wants to train people, especially in this economy. I got a job out of school because I learned the relevant knowledge (OpenGL) to my field, and had a portfolio of applications that I wrote outside of school. The kind of guy that is most likely to get a job is the guy that can laugh at job offers because he knows that he has all the skills necessary to write the application on his own and keep the profits for himself. Looking back on it, I think my biggest mistake was not pursuing my own business more seriously. You will always make more money if you can cut out the middle man (your employer), and run your own business. Sure, you take risks, but in this economy, EVERYTHING is risky, and it's also risky to be an expendable employee, with debt, in a low-paying entry level job.
When I hear about the lack of programmers, I can't help but think that the definition of "lack" is: "the candidate pool isn't 100,000x times the job pool, we still have to pay the bastards a fair wage".
No ivory backscratcher for you this week, Mr Burns.
If you post an anonymized version of your resume, I'll be happy to see if there's anything obviously wrong with it.
You haven't really discussed how you went about your approaches in any real detail, so excuse me if I give you a few pointers:
1. HR departments (particularly in big companies) are mostly there to keep outsiders out. They seldom accept speculative applications and forward them to the relevant department - yet at any given point in time, many departments within organisations are thinking "We could do with someone else here to help deal with XXX, but we need to get around to writing the job spec, get hiring authority sorted out, contact agents/advertise and ask HR to accept CVs with the following qualifications....". If you can find companies in that kind of position and speak to the person who's thinking that, you'll bypass much of the HR bullsh*t. For some odd reason, this process can actually be easier than going in the "accepted" way of writing to HR and a hell of a lot more productive.
2. Regardless of whether you're applying speculatively or for an advertised post, NEVER send out a standard CV/covering letter. I promise you no matter how much effort you put in they stand out a mile. Figure out what the company is looking for (and if you can't figure this out, why do you want to work there?) and write covering letter/tweak CV to suit.
3. Avoid agencies. This is my own personal experience, take it with as much salt as you feel it requires. But most employment agencies charge a small fortune, no employer wants to pay that if they can avoid it. Particularly not when they're taking on a graduate, who may or may not be any good in the real world. At the end of the day, the agent is being paid by the employer and they don't really care if you get the job or not, just so long as the person who gets the job is someone who they put forward. You'll waste hours talking to these people on the phone who insist they can find you work, that your best bet is to ask them to market you, that they're the solution to all the world's problems. It's complete fiction, but they're telling you what you want to hear.
4. Keep active in both your job hunting and (if it goes on a long time) something relevant to the job. Any potential employer will view how seriously you're taking a job hunt as a guide to how seriously you would take the job - if you have been scratching your bum since the last interview 3 weeks ago, they'll assume you'll do the same thing when they're paying you.
You think finding a job is hard now, when you have no experience. It can be as hard or harder once you DO have experience. Before I drone on about why it's hard to get a job with experience, here's my solution to both: Human Networking.
It's really surprisingly simple. The more people you talk to and get to know...
- the more people who may tell you when a position becomes (or is about to become) available
- the more people you can "seek advice" from about getting a job (thereby making them aware of your availability, skills, and interests)
- the more you can name-drop, or at least make reference to first hand
- the more you can hear and learn about what companies are like to work for, and whether you would really want to work there or not
I'm sure there are other benefits, but the first two listed are probably the most valuable.
So how do you meet these people? In the old days, pre-internet, people tended to congregate in different groups or clubs (Toastmasters being one of the popular ones). Now we have Meetup, which might have some active groups you can visit and get in with. There are also community groups, such as those focused on bringing and operating business within a community, volunteer groups, etc.
You can't really discount groups as not being applicable or beneficial until you get in and get to know people. Everyone knows someone, and people, in person, tend to be happy and willing to direct and guide others. So the guy you're volunteering with at Habitat for Humanity may have some great contacts in your field. At the very least he may have a contact that he knows has lots of tech contacts; and you're +1 already because you know this guy, and because you're doing meaningful volunteer work.
Lastly, seeing the internet as the primary tool for getting a job is a huge mistake. The internet, where jobs are concerned (and some other things), is a cesspool. Multiple posts for the same job, multiple "staffing firms" trying to fill the same spot (and using recruiters who previously were just somewhat non-technical, but now who are imported and often merely trained monkeys); positions which have been pulled or filled, but no updates/removals of the internet posts have been made; etc. etc.
Meanwhile, find something of interest, technical or otherwise (you never know where your good connection is going to come from), and get involved. If ballroom dancing is your fancy, go do that. Those people know people.
Now about the experienced seeking jobs... just be aware that so many jobs today are for positions that already existed. Bob did X, Y, and Z, and company is seeking someone with those exact skills. It's pretty unlikely that there are candidates with the exact skills required; thus it's very beneficial to know someone within the company, that way you can get the interview without being filtered out by a keyword-matching monkey.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
It appears that you missed some level of social networking during school. I volunteered to work for the sysadmin at the community college I go to...I graduate in may and will go to uni in the fall, in the meantime, he put in a good word for me and it helped me get an internship at a sizeable area hospital that will look *great* on my resume (if they dont hire me when i finish uni)
Why is the parent modded +5 insightful? Let me translate this from 'holier art than thou' to English
Way to be helpful, might as well utter that old adage, "You should have thought about it before."
As someone with a degree from a reasonably well known school and 2-ish years of employment who is looking for a job yet again, I can say that the prospects for entry-level positions are generally dim. Most of the so-called entry level positions that I see advertised -required- at least 3 years of experience. The job market is such that they can make these kind of demands, at least in my region of the world. In my admittedly limited experience, it is easier to land an interview with smaller companies. They tend to want someone long-term and are more willing to train or let someone grow into their job. The GE's and Time Warners of the world want someone with solid experience who can step into a development team today. Some larger companies, IBM for example, have some good entry-level positions but only if you're willing to move halfway across the country.
Nepotism. The nice word for this is "connections". Do you know anyone who knows anyone who knows anyone (etc.) who runs their own software company, or works at one in a high-enough position that hiring interns or entry-level, underpaid slaves falls under their authority? Find these people and get your foot in the door.
Le français vous intéresse?
I read a few responses to all this, and didn't see a significantly practical recommendation. Purposely focus on the municipal areas and industries where unemployment is low. For example, consider Washing DC jobs in the defense sector.
As an aside, you said your problem was that you couldn't land the interview. You must understand clearly that the purpose of sending your resume to the company is to not land a job, but land an interview. You need to rethink the structure and presentation of your resume specifically around this fact. "The interview is to land the job, not the resume." "The resume is to land the interview".
C//
To understand how to get hired, you have to understand how hiring works. Here's a simple 2-step generalization:
Part 1)
A great number of companies out there rely on their HR staff to do the hiring and applicant-seeking. The project lead or ~maybe~ even manager writes up a job description, and the HR staff formalizes it; breaks down each skill individually, adds 'years of' or 'proficiency level x-out-of-5' etc. This means that either a computer program that scans for buzzwords, or a person with no computer experience is going to be the first one to decide if your resume fits the bill.
They are not going to know that someone with 10 years experience with c++ can probably write pretty good c, or that J2EE is the same thing as Enterprise Java. They won't understand why no applicant has "MVC programming" on their resume. This is your first gauntlet.
Conclusion 1)
You need to conform to their specifications.
Rewrite your resume to tailor it for each position you're applying to. Make sure you include every single keyword listed in the job description, exactly as it's listed. Include easy-to-find "years of experience" for skills. When in doubt (say you're submitting without a job listing) investigate the company, make a best guess, and liberally sprinkle buzzwords.
(... and if you're submitting 100% blind, like on dice or monster, rewrite your resume every week or so to change up the buzzwords. It seems that the company searches are re-run upon resubmittal, generating new 'matching candidate found' indicators)
Step 2)
Now you've made it to a person. Hopefully a technical person, but sometimes it's an HR person with a 20 question programming quiz - really just an extension of the resume step (JMP step 1). They're going to do the technical and social evaluation.
Conclusion 2)
You need to be unique.
Everyone else who's made it to this stage is identical. They all have the same buzzwords, years of experience, etc. Assuming all of them have the actual technical capabilities, there's nothing to differentiate you from anyone else, which means that selection of a candidate is still pretty much random choice. So, you need to find a way to stand out.
One good way available to everyone - in life as well as interviews - is to ask a lot of questions. Get the interviewer talking about their most recent projects, engage their emotions by getting them to talk about customers (no one has a customer-neutral stance). If you can get them talking about themselves, they'll leave with the perception that you were really interested in what they do, and pretty impressed with them in general. It doesn't hurt in most cases to sideline the 'real' interview to talk about their hobbies. Then, the next time they see your name on the page, they remember your face, the discussion, and you're head and shoulders above everyone else.
One person I know had his girlfriend call three times during the interview. He did the check-the-number-frown-send-the-call-to-voicemail thing for the first two times, and then asked for a quick reprieve for the third. Embarassed, he explained it was his girlfriend, and they were meeting her parents for the first time tonight, etc, etc, don't forget this, can you pick up that. That sort of thing totally humanizes a person, turns them from a name on a paper to something more.
Of course, if you have some interesting resume fodder, like the google participation listed in a previous comment, that's good to bring up too. Still, people like to talk about themselves or their code, so usually asking THEM the questions instead of just responding or talking about yourself seems to be a better shot.
A biosciences company will hire a dude with a bio education AND a CS degree before they'll hire a CS guy.
A finance company will hire a dude with an accounting education AND a CS degree before they'll hire a CS guy.
You get the idea.
No need to go back for a 4-year degree... Boss will be impressed enough to hear you're enrolled at the local community college.
Also, in general, there are certain educational areas that "go well with programming".
For example, most big companies that have MIS developers also have a finance/accounting department. If you want a MIS developer position, its hard to go wrong by taking a couple accounting classes at the local CC, or a seminar.
Another example, many apps seem to involve databases. My CS degree only had an optional, superficial, theory oriented one semester class. Since so many apps involve DBs, maybe a quickie DBA class at the local CC would be good resume fodder.
The goal is to not be "the guy who programs" but to be "the guy who programs and also knows about our business"
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Are you Indian?
Are you willing to move to India? Are you willing to accept local Indian renumeration levels?
If you can say yes to the above, I see a great future for you.
Deleted
i had a fairly similar situation coming out of college. i have a few suggestions, but i'd like to see your resume first. my email address is posted at http://www.twinbridgeestates.com/design.php . send your resume along so i can guage what your background is, and we'll be in touch!
Every college and university I ever heard of had a placement center, that existed for the sole purpose of facilitating interviewing of students about to graduate, and getting them hired. They are generally very good people, and helping you get hired is their job.
More to the point, the companies that interview you through the college placement center know you're a fresh grad, and unlikely to have any real experience.
The social networking might be more of a problem for him. If the chemicaldave that submitted this story is the same one that posted this question on daniweb, then he is not getting a job in this market. Period. http://www.daniweb.com/forums/post600287.html#post600287
Why not apply to grad school? A master's degree plus the experience gained from doing even a little of your own research will look great in a few years.
I recently quit a company after just a few weeks, because I couldn't work with the programmers there. I tried to explain to the management what the difference is between their team, and the teams I'm used to working with, but I needed a lot of words. One of them then said "you see programming as a life style, the team here apparently sees it as a nine to five job". And that's the nail on its head.
If you're any good at programming, and you make software or maintain a linux server in your spare time, tell them. Then they'll know you're not just the average Joe (or Jane). Then they'll ask you for a piece of code, and then you're in - if you're any good.
no, I don't have a sig
I'm a manager for a large county (100,000 employees) and am in a medium department with 800 employees. I've hired nine programmers in the past two years. Seven of them were fresh out of college. Oddly enough, all had CS degrees, though none had a clue about assembly or circuit design.
:)
Of the seven 'beginning' programmers, all had done work on the side either as a self-held business or as contract work. I rejected every applicant who hadn't done some programming outside of class.
Two of my top programmers even had joined to enter a M$-sponsored contest for programming and had gone on to the finals.
In other words, show that you want to be a programmer and not just a student.
I noticed koreaman also mentioned nepotism - that works as well.
The Kai's Semi-Updated Website Thingy
Probably out of luck. I'm not sure the job market will ever recover, hopefully you have family you can rely on. In the meantime write up your own software and maybe you'll get lucky and write something people will buy.
You can't beat being really good at what you do for getting jobs. It's almost magic!
Also, it helps if you're not a dick and you don't smell bad. People don't like hiring or working with dicks or people who reek.
You are welcome on my lawn.
If your experience with programming is having a CS degree, you aren't a developer. You are, well, a computer scientist. The same thing you say? Not hardly. While both deal with programming, it is from different aspects. Computer Science is a theoretical field. It is based around the research of computers and algorithms, around the theory of how to program, how to make them better. Fine, but that isn't what most companies are hiring. They are hiring developers, which is the practical side. They are hiring people who will be told to solve real world problem X and do it quickly. They want people with practical knowledge of how to develop apps on today's systems, not theoretical knowledge of computers over all.
So if all you experience is in computer science, that's a disadvantage. Don't get me wrong, having a strong theory background can help, but it isn't what companies are after. If you feel a bit cheated by your university, well, ya, kinda happens that way.
The problem derives from the history of universities. They have historically been high level, theoretical institutions. Time was, that was really the only reason you went there. When Harvard first started, then called Oxford after the English school, you had to know Latin and Greek just to get admitted. It wasn't a place where you got practical training for a job, it was just the polish to an already fine education that included many purely academic pursuits. Few people got those sorts of degrees.
Ok well our current universities get their heritage from that system. So while we now have more complex jobs that want more training than high school gives, students still by and large go to theoretical institutions. The universities are trying to present more practical training, but aren't doing a great job over all.
Now please note, I say this as someone who works at a university. It is just something you need to be realistic about. Your degree can be helpful, but you need to get practical experience outside of it. The only time you tend to see an "All degree," field is if you are seeking to become a PhD and teach/research at a university. Anything else, you need to get practical experience as well as the degree.
Finding a job takes a lot of time if you don't already have the connections. You should be applying to hundreds or thousands of jobs.
Also, remember there are a lot of software engineering jobs at companies that do not sell software. If i were a student fresh out of school right now, I'd just go to a list of the fortune 1000 and apply to all of them.
You also want to go to every single career fair you can find within 50-100 miles, and meet people and give them your resume, and tell them how awesome it would be to help them succeed in business. Jobs fairs/career fairs are a great way to start building a network.
More data, damnit!
Thats one way to get an entry level job.
That posting was two years ago, and he says he's a student. The fact that a student was making elementary errors in C++ two years ago hardly means that's incompetent for an entry-level position now.
A B.S. alone doesn't mean you deserve an interview. Many many people have that degree PLUS experience. You are at a great disadvantage from the start, with the added restriction of being in a small town. Here is my advice to you:
1. Stop playing the victim, stop making excuses. Let the losers do that while you get yourself a job.
2. Network. Go to happy hours, talks, toastmasters, other networking meetings. Put yourself out there and let people know what you can do for them and how little they'll have to pay you. The best jobs to interview for are the ones that aren't posted and you don't land those interviews from behind a PC.
3. Find out where your classmates are getting jobs. Wait 2 and a half months and send that company your resume. Chances are someone isnt going to pass probation and they are going to need another developer.
4. Don't limit yourself geographically. Time goes quickly when you get out of school, you can move back once you get your experience.
5. Tell everyone you know that you are looking. Most companies give referral bonuses, and people will be eager to mention your name when the time is right.
I could go on but I think you get the idea. You need to separate yourself from the thousands of introverted unemployed programmers out there. Then when someone tells you were lucky to get the job you can tell them to piss off because "I earned it."
Yeah you could contribute to opensource projects and all that jazz but that will help you more in the interview than anything else. We can deal with that later, first you have to get a few interviews...
If the private sector wont hire, maybe the government will?
When you do get an interview, be prepared to answer questions about the shit on your resume. Very important. If you say you have SQL experience and can't answer me when I ask you what a left outer join is, I'm not going to call you back. Also actually listen to and think about the questions they ask you. When they ask you to design a function to do X, they're not really looking for you to write a function that does X. They're looking for you to ask more questions about what they really want (They always leave off some very important details,) draw what's going to happen in memory, you know, actually design something. And if they offer you a hint to get you moving in the right direction, for God's sake, take that hint. If I give you a hint and you keep writing code up on the white board, I'm not going to call you back.
Interview well and you can have any job you can get an interview for.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
General Rule For Getting Hired: Don't forget to include a complete collection of your /. postings. I can't think of a better way to impress a future employer than to show them just how funny and clever you really are.
Does this include postings with timestamps between 9-5 during your previous periods of employ?
You're thinking small. Why miniaturize the laser, when we could instead enlarge the sharks? -John Searle
Being a fresh graduate isn't as hard as people make it sound - if you've coded before, and you're good at it, you've got a way to sell yourself.
this is rude not insightfull
I guess I can count myself as one of the fortunate ones. I landed an internship with a great company that gave me the opportunity to learn. I gave 110+% on everything I had to do. Most of it was menial and sucked, but then again, programming for any large firm usually is. I had a full time position within 6 months of starting my internship. One of the first things I learned early on was, no matter how great of a coder I thought I was, I didn't know anything.
To be fair the guy might have been concentrating on his studies to the exclusion of social networking-type activities. It's a valid point that social networking can be useful in getting onto the employment ladder, although I do think organisations sometimes rely a bit too heavily on personal connections to really get the best out of their recruitment. Still, it's a useful tool to many people who are looking for work and enables you to find the right people to talk to in order to get proper consideration made of your CV (and in some cases to find out where openings are coming and where is good to look).
I can program!
And are you going for programming roles or software engineering/development roles? Make sure you understand the difference because the latter is far more involved.
It seems to me that developers are always looking for talented young programmers. We're out here looking for you too. Am I missing something?"
If you really are a talented programmer then you have loads of experience proving it - personal folio of projects, contributions to open source, volunteer or paid industry experience from throughout your course - these are the essential things. If you have no experience you'll forgive employers for not taking your claim as being a 'talented programmer' seriously.
A few things, yes. Probably most of those were answered already, but lets do it again:
- Find out what the companies are looking for. Do your research. Your post seems to indicate you might be missing this one
- No, most likely you can't program. Just because you think you can, doesn't mean that the companies will think the same way. Talk to some people who are already working in this business and see what they think
- School didn't teach you a trade. Deal with it. If you were dedicated and lucky, it thought you how to LEARN a trade. You do that after school. (Unless you were working while in college, and that doesn't seem to be the case)
- Ask yourself: why would a given company hire you, and not one of the other 9000 who applied.
In other words, make yourself into something they need. Sorry, no dream jobs out there, at least for people who are starting now. Find what they want, become that, and then, after you are inside, find ways to move into positions that will suit you better.
Notice: I am an IT business owner
morcego
Networking is the best way to go. But you can get an interview based solely on a good resume / cover letter. But you have to really sell yourself. Make sure your resume is formatted good, has no typos, highlights the right things (internships, big school projects), and doesn't duplicate the same buzz-word bullshit that everyone else applying for the job is saying about themselves ("self-starter", "team-player", etc). Good luck.
A tech recruiter friend gave me this advice. The best way to get a job is, find companies you would like to work for, and try to find someone on the inside. This has proved true, even before I met him and I wasn't trying to do it. Besides part-time jobs at restaurants, retail stores, etc., every single one of my jobs has been through knowing somebody. They were not the one hiring, but they introduced me to that person.
1. I got a job as a classroom speaker, even though I had no professional speaking experience, because a family member worked at the organization. Both the organization and I soon realized that I was an awful speaker. But they didn't fire me. They moved me into an office job, which I liked more anyway.
2. I then got a job as a graphic designer, through a friend of my roommates, even though I had zero portfolio samples. The boss and pay were awful, though, and I soon quit. But I learned (a) not to do art professionally because you will be told by unartistic people what fonts, colors, etc. to use, and (b) the importance of a good boss.
3. I then got a job as a technical writer for a major IT department, through a friend, even though it had never been my job title. I did have a few samples though from the last job.
4. In that same company, I became a web programmer, even though all I knew was HTML. That was four years ago. I still work there and now take care of several web apps on our intranet written in PHP, PostgreSQL, and JavaScript.
Correct. I don't know if lalena came out of the womb writing immaculate C++ code or something, but obviously (s)he does not understand the concept of "Education". Everyone has to start somewhere, and that somewhere is usually really basic stuff that years later you cannot believe you ever had a problem with.
If I was hiring for an entry level position and I saw that, I'd think "Hey, this guy knows how to go get answers when he doesn't know what to do." Yeah, sounds lame, but it is unbelievable how many IT guys/programmers that I have run into who don't seem to understand how to use the web (Search, Forums, etc.) to find answers. If they don't know an answer they ask a coworker. If the coworker doesn't know the answer the call a consultant or try some shitty workaround. After seeing this waaaay too often I consider knowing how to use resources to be a pretty decent "Soft Skill".
I hand HR my resume. I hand my prospective future boss the resume and the source code for it in the language the job is for with documentation.
The game.
First, any company bigger than 20 people is going to have an HR person who is screening resumes. That person has no technical background at all. They don't know a good programmer from a good accountant from a good coffeemaker. What they do have is a buzzword bingo card. And they run through your resume, looking for the right buzzwords, and the ones they find get a checkmark, they add up the checkmarks and put the resume into one short stack, to send on to the manager that's actually hiring, and the big stack of rejects.
So you need to get a buzzword compliant resume. If you know C# put that on there. If you know SQL Server, or Oracle, or whatever else, put that on there. Do you know how to program microcontrollers? Put that on there. Break every convention you were taught in writing classes, and put a big list of all of the technologies you know using all the industry jargon you can. This isn't to make you look like a smart insider. This isn't for anyone's benefit but the little buzzword bingo player. You should have a collection of a half dozen or so targeted resumes you can send out, each one tailored to a certain industry and technology set with appropriate buzzwords for each.
That sounds really really cynical. It isn't. It's absolute truth. You must have the skills they're looking for, but more importantly they must be clearly presented somewhere so a receptionist (that's who did it at my first job) can figure it out. When I was looking for a job getting out of school, I went fully buzzword compliant and that's what got me there. Managers do not have time to go through 300 resumes to find the 5 people they want to interview for 2 positions. They delegate that. Delegation is what managers do.
Second, if you don't have the buzzwords (C#, Java, .Net, SQL Server, etc) get them. Find an internship. If you're getting ready to graduate and you didn't do that, you screwed up. Internships are how you get jobs. Or summer jobs. Or part time jobs. Or something where you can learn something practical in a real office environment. You still have time. Go pick up a "Learn C# in 30 days" book and figure it out well enough to write some code and make sure it's prominently displayed on your resume.
Third, know your market. If you tried to apply for a java programming job here in Kansas City, you'd be out of luck because Sprint's been laying off Java programmers by the bucketload. But trying to get a job using C# or VB.Net or as an entry level systems person on Windows Server would be pretty easy.
Finally, just remember, it does get better. The first job is the hard one to find. The rest get easier as you meet people and develop contacts. That's the key really. After you do your first blind job hunt, you never have to do it again, because you'll know someone. That means you need to build a reputation as someone who's really good at doing what they do while being extremely easy to work with and get along with.
I know it sucks, but really it's pretty much the last thing that sucks.
Any moron can take programming classes and pass. Nobody knows that you're the A+ ace who ran through the textbooks in half the time as the other students and then built an AI to write your homework for you. On paper you just like like J. Random Fuckup who squeaked by with 61% because he managed to bribe you to do his final for him. Knowing that there are a lot more of Mr. Fuckup than of you, presuming you are not him, why on earth would you expect a company to hire you?
I'll tell you why: Somebody knows you're a genius, that somebody works for that company, or is friends with its decision makers, and this person goes to them and says "You've got to hire this kid, he's a genius and will be well worth the investment."
You may be the wiz-kid that's going to make Knuth like like a dope, but until you produce a few thousand lines of brilliant code no one is really going to know it. There are a few proven strategies to make it over this hurdle--becoming a valuable contributer to a high profile open source project is a good way--but most of them are hard, or time consuming, or both. Knowing someone who can recommend you is by far the easiest method.
Of course, maybe you don't know anyone. If that's the case your options narrow and my next best recommendation would be: Get any IT job. Be a phone answerer, or an on site technician. Yeah, it sucks, but it lets you (occasionally) rub elbows with people who have the potential to recognize your genius. It also lets you (occasionally) rub elbows with problems that could be solved by writing a brilliant piece of software. If one day you see one and you write one, then maybe you'll be able to see it adopted. You know what that is? That's something that looks good on a resume: I produced some software in my spare time which went on to be adopted by the whole fucking company and now saves thousands of dollars in productivity every month. That tells a prospective employer that /this/ resume may be worth a callback, and even though HR wont know what that shit means it lets you add a bullet under "Experience"--which is good, because they often take that "15 years of .NET development" crap seriously.
I want my Cowboyneal
This is a rough job market to be graduating into... that being said, these dips occur all the time so you have to be prepared for them. But the job market itself has changed. I graduated with a B.S.E.E. in 1990, and had some software development experience from a summer internship. However, I decided to attend grad school (personal goal to get a Masters), but kept an eye out for more summer work. By the time I got my Masters, I had a second internship as a software developer with another company, and also had networked and worked a contract position doing some PERL scripting for a local ISP.
Not that you have a time machine or anything, but you should have been trying to find a position getting any kind of software development experience, while you were still a student. Perhaps working for a professor as a research software developer, or in your college's IT bureaucracy somewhere. Do co-op positions still exist? My current employer has a summer program, but obviously that isn't something you can look into late March before a May graduation date. If none of that works out, improve some open-source software and at least be able to show something, as a leg up on the competition. Not to be an old fart talking about a bygone era, but back when I was entry level, getting experience on real software wasn't as easy (open source wasn't as visible) so companies didn't look for it to the extent they might these days.
Now I realize it just isn't always that simple... software dev positions are hyper-specialized these days. Companies wanted web programmers with years of experience on specific frameworks, C#/.NET positions with years of UI experience, Java with domain specific experience (simulation/modeling as it turned out) and preferably with a security clearance, C++ experience with X years doing Y, even companies wanting candidates with experience at working at other companies of the same size (startup to startup, small to small), etc. That second summer internship I had was at computer company needing a combo of Windows developer AND Novell Netware developer (this was back in the early-mid 90's). Not many (any?) people had that combo so they were willing to take on a generalist who they thought was fairly sharp and could learn. I really didn't have either coming out of school in that era. These days, I'm not sure many places do that anymore, which I think is really unfortunate. Especially now, with high unemployment, companies can filter for their exact requirements and still have too many resumes to sift through.
Lastly, I would say be realistic, you might have to take some other position just to have a job. That doesn't have to be the end of your career before it even starts, a lot of getting to where you want to go involves getting your foot in the door in order to prove yourself. Where I work now has a mix of software dev and systems engineering, along with the usual IT stuff anywhere - look for companies like that. It isn't perfect, but always think of the other side of the coin - a company isn't psychic and can't predict you might be a great developer, it is a rough call for them to stack you up against anybody else who does have some experience. Be willing to work near software development and the chance to transfer may come up. Work on something at home on your own time (balance that so you aren't totally burned out for your day job) so you keep learning and keep your skills up. This probably isn't what you want to hear but that's the reality of the current situation. If you go this route, be patient, and keep searching job openings to stay up on what is in demand. I was pigeon-holed a bit at my previous job and found out the hard way all about what skills were marketable in the previous geographic region.
And is there anything on it besides your grades in various college classes and a highschool GPA?
What work have you done (internships or open-source)? What have you actually accomplished? For self-motivated projects, why did you pick what you did? For public projects, where can the records of your involvement be found?
I can program! (See how I put that link in?)
If that's really your idea of "programming", then you are part of the problem Jeff is talking about in that post.
I hope you don't pay to much attention to this guy. The world is not nearly as dark as he's proclaiming.
I'm going to tell you a fact that you may or not find comforting.
9 out of 10 programmers who are applying for jobs suck. I'm probably being too generous here, but whatever. I've interviewed people at Microsoft, and I've interviewed people at small start ups. Doesn't matter, most interviewee's are just terrible. I don't blame this guy for being jaded. If you had to interview crappy programmer after crappy programmer, you would be too.
BUT if you're the 1 out of 10 who's actually good, than you have a very bright future ahead of you. Companies are always hiring, and if you're truely talented, they'll often hire you even if they weren't planning on it. No good company lets a great programmer get away when they find one.
Entry level jobs have a lot of advantages, in that you're still new, and have no idea what you're actually worth. People are inheritantly loyal to the first company they work for, so they tend to stick around for a lot longer. Plus you get to train them to your style of programming.
Now in terms of actually getting those jobs...
Luckily for you, HR is ridiculously easy to get around. They don't know technology, and you can use that to your advantage. School, GPA, hobbies, cover letter, prior non programming work experience, awards... none of that matters. The only thing they care about is the programming buzzwords you have in there.
Right now, the big one is FLEX, or AS3. Learn that. Put it on your resume. There's a big shortage there, because most people who learn Flash are graphic designers with a minimal programming skill set. If you're a programmer with a minimal graphic design skill set, they'll love you.
Find out what else is "hot" but becareful not to confuse programmer trendy, with what's actually in demand. (Nobody in HR cares about Ruby on Rails).
Just pretend HR is nothing but a search engine that scans your resumes for keywords, and you'll be fine.
Now as far as experience goes. Work on an open source project. There's really no excuse not to. Just think about all the programs you use that are open source, find something that you'd like to change, and than go about learning how to change it. Don't "apply" and ask "what can I do to help". Just jump in and have at it. It's way easier to work on a project when you're doing something you want done anyway.
Good luck!
These days it's the only way. If you send in a paper resume, it will get thrown in the trash. HR departments were scaled back during the major layoffs, and they receive a lot of resumes. This means your resume will only be chosen by computer! Time to show off your skills and figure out how to game the system.
I just landed a job after 9 months of unemployment this way. Load your resume up will lots of key words. When the computer ranks two resumes equally, it posts the most recent one first. Therefore, you need to repost your resume often.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Ive been trying for the past 6 weeks to land a job in a new city, I have 13 years experience and have only just recently started doing an online certification. Ive tried a few different approaches but I have been told endless times that you cant be 'different'. Bosses don't like different, but seeing as I have had no luck at all trying to fit myself into the mold of the masses I am left with no other option.
So no more wasting time with boring cover letters. I will simply state 'because I can do it better'. Forget attaching a resume! After a potential employer has read a hundred before yours there is NOTHING you can do by the book to leave an impression. Instead a doc file with a goatse pic should leave a permanent impression.
If this fails just walk in holding a kitten to a knife and demand to speak to the boss!
Lots of people are telling you to keep programming, and build a portfolio of interesting projects.
That's reasonable advice, but it misses the most important thing...
Get a job - any job
When an employer get's your resume, and sees that you are currently employed at Walmart, or McDonalds, or gardening for the local council, that will make a much better impression than "working at home on an Open Source project". This is also a good risk mitigation strategy - it keeps you busy, and earning money, in case it takes you a long time to get a programming job. It is also good for your self confidence, and health.
If you also do a code project while you are working, then you will really impress employers
I'm a software visionary. I don't code.
Way to be helpful, might as well utter that old adage, "You should have thought about it before."
That doesn't alter the fact that however the point was presented, or however unintentionally up-his-own-arse the person making the point may have seemed to take the more negative stance, it is a very valid point. Networking can help a lot in may cases.
Maybe it is the Sunday evening pub meal and drinks talking (as I'm not usually one to give the benefit of the doubt!) but I didn't read the post you replied to as "this is what I did but you are too late nyar nyar n nyar nyar", but more as "this is what I did and this is how it helped my plans". The OP could still try the technique - there may be opportunities locally for some sort of technical volunteer work that could be used as the same sort of "CV fodder" spring-board and/or to gain a good reference for future applications for paid work. While the relatively easy-to-access college volunteer work option has gone for the OP there are likely to be opportunities to look for at this later stage. There may well be departments/organisations related to the University or its student bodies or local charities that could use some technical help but can ill afford a trained/accredited resource. If you can get in contact with someone like that at an appropriate time it can be a win/win situation: they get the temporary technical help they need but can't actually afford and the OP gets some CV fodder and/or a useful reference, or at least some experience that could be talked about at interview. Having some real world "dealing with users" / "dealing with customers" / "dealing with management" / "real-world problem solving" experience to talk about critically in an interview can make a massive difference to your chances once you get as far as the interview - it can indicate to the interviewer that not only do you know some facts/techniques but you are also capable of applying them outside academic situations and are capable of dealing with the real people in the real world at the same time. (by "talk about critically" I don't mean just "having a go" about the things that were/went wrong, I mean "what went well and why, what could have been done better, how would you approach the same task again if you had the power of hindsight, how were other people/resources helpful or not" and so on - constructive critique of your progress and experience)
Ever if you don't even manage any of that the exposure, through volunteering, to work outside an academic environment might teach you some useful stuff - even if only "I don't actually like X" or "I more enjoy Y and I'm more proficient in it than Z" or "hmmm, I didn't realise I would need A so much, maybe evidence of reading around / practising / otherwise persuing that area will help me jump from the CV stage to the interview stage more easily".
If you have time and can find volunteer work it will rarely be a disadvantage to you - especially if you are otherwise completely unemployed because it isn't like there would be a lot else practical to fill your time with. This in itself helps a CV/application look more attractive - which would you rather interview from the choice of people who graduated six months ago: those who have sat on their hands for six months doing nothing more than scanning jobs adverts and similar, or the people who have done, or tried to do, something practical with some of the time they had available?
To cut a long story short: as pointed out by the responder above both networking and volunteering can help and the two techniques can be mutually supportive of each other. And if you are not lucky enough to find any good opportunities, what have you lost by trying?
I've been involved with hiring a lot of hi-tech companies, including Google & Yahoo, as well as smaller shops. The general advice I have you is: be exceptional.
The most common way to do that is to attend an exceptional school. That is, a place like Stanford, MIT, Caltech, etc. This isn't going to guarantee you a job, but it will greatly increase your chances of getting an interview because prior employees from good schools have done well on the job. The background they teach also increases your chances of getting through the interview process.
By definition, not everyone goes to an exceptional school, so a lot of people will resent this advice. Fine, but it's not going to change anything. For a new grad, this is probably one of the single most important factors. (If you've worked a while, it quickly falls in importance as you have real experience & skills that can be evaluated.)
Okay, so you didn't go to a top school. Now what?
Well, you're not screwed. Not by any means. A lot of the best engineers I know didn't go a top school.
But I'm going to be a lot less willing to take on as much risk. So help me (as the theoretical hiring manager) by mitigating it another way. That is, show me your awesome: contribute significantly to an open source project. That shows me you can write real code. It shows me you can get stuff done. It shows you can work with others. It shows initiative.
Last piece of advice, although you didn't ask about this: For you first few jobs, forget about money. Your goal is not to make the most money right now, but over the long haul of your career. Find a gig where there are experienced and better developers than you, ones you'll be able to learn from.
If you walk into a place & you're the hotshot with 1-3 years under your belt, leave. Find a place you grow & develop more, even if they back up the money truck. In ten years, you'll be very glad you did (and you'll laugh at what you considered the "big money" 10 years back).
But, I don't know any technical people who want to be known as the one who brought the bozo in, even if they stand to gain a $5000.00 bonus from HR for a hiring recommendation.
So, pem's law for getting a technical job:
so in perl something like--
perl -e 'if (shift(@argv) eq reverse){print "palindrome\n";}else {print "nope\n";}' level or something way off base of this?
There's no grizzled, cigar smoking boss behind the scenes, like in a boxing hero story. Nobody (especially?) - not even the "Director" who is (supposedly) "in charge" of things at your Dream Job (TM) is able to judge you like your professors have evaluated and coached you. That's their job.
They don't know what questions to ask to provoke the response you really want to give. The companies you're trying to get a job with are forever attempting to mitigate risk, often preempting other activities. Assure them you are a shoe-in, an absolute Perfect Fit (TM) beyond compare.
Your CV/Resume and cover letter are your key, and usually your only hope. If you have the benefit of recruiter calling you, even better, because they will Do Anything (TM) to get you in - all they care about is how well you stack up against the requirements of the opening.
Use the resume/cover letter process to your advantage: probe for any/all information (stock price, board of directors, etc.) put it all together, identify as many places you can apply individual attention to, and follow through. Simply knowing what will come up during an interview, people who will be mentioned, technologies in play, business model, locations, all will define the nature of the conversation.
If you are able to interview, and things go well, leave something behind for them to remember you by - some printed material that demonstrates your capabilities. Pretty-print some clean, well documented code, some charts, a CD-R with a descriptive label, something someone will look at on their desk and bring about internal dialog about your prowess and apparent "sureness" in capability and the minimal risk presented by selecting you.
Bottom line: nobody is going to come up and tap you on the shoulder.
He's graduating now, so that means at the end of his second year he couldn't figure out why a string named string was a problem,
You don't know what language he started out with.
and today he's not smart enough to create multiple online personalities so that these old posts don't trace back to him.
"I think employers trawling old web forums to dig up any dirt they can find is just peachy keen, and anyone who doesn't go along with the status quo by constant paranoid identity-hopping is an idiot!"
I agree with others who state that they only hire the best people they can find. If this is the only thing I know about the person (besides the resume), then he will end up in the reject list.
If you know this about him at all -- and if you think that it has anything at all to do with whether or not he's "one of the best people [you] can find" today, not two years ago -- then you are not someone who should be making hiring decisions.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm sure that part will get me flamed but what I do for a living is get people jobs. The most important thing you have to realize is it doesn't matter how great your skills are if people don't see your resume. Your resume is a marketing document. It is a tool to get you an interview. And just like all other marketing document it needs to be seen by as many relevant people as possible. Stop applying for jobs and start applying to companies. Emails get auto-responded to at almost all companies. Letters don't. It will cost you some postage but posting your CV to companies will get a lot further than email it ever will.
That said sending your CV around isn't the best way to go about getting a job. The best thing you can do is sit down and make a list of every single company you can think of that you think your skills would suit and then pick up the phone. Call every one of those companies and say "Could I speak to the person that looks after your IT department please?" - "Hello Mr IT Manager, My name is Job Blogs, I am a recent CS graduate with a major in java development and slashdot posting and Digg reading. I am currently seeking a role and I was wondering whether you would have a use with someone of my skills at the moment?" If yes WOOHOO. If no "Do you think you would use someone of my skills in the future? And would you know anyone who is looking for someone of my background at the moment?"
This is extremely hard to do. It takes a lot of self discipline and a strong mind to get past all the no you will receive. But this method is 100% the best way of landing yourself a job.
How good you are plays a part in getting a job, but FAR more important is making sure enough people know you are looking.
Good Luck.
For anyone starting out, coming from a veteran of job searching.
1) Experience. I have said this before, if you have to do some volunteer work for a non-controversial non-profit. E.g. doing websites and donor databases for your local no kill animal shelter. There are plenty of volunteer orgs. that need help. Find one that overlaps your interests and seems a high quality organization. You can get both experience and good references from this.
In addition, if you show up to help with fundraisers you will probably get to meet local business owners. One of which could give you an internship or entry level job to see how you work out. This is also the networking aspect.
2) More references and networking. Get a reference from instructors you "click" with. They may even have leads on potential employers, sometimes former students or colleagues of their. It helps if you have an interest and good grades, but if you show a keen interest that helps to offset any academic struggles.
3) Networking with peers. Form study groups, interests groups, or join one. People who graduated before you could give you leads or advice. Depending on the situation, you may end up doing business with a classmate or two for the rest of your life.
4) See if you can get a student position at your school's IT dept. or help desk. More opportunities for references and networking.
5) Put up adds on Craigs List etc. and do a little consulting on the side while in school. It beats washing dishes. Just make sure you know how the taxes work. More opportun ity for networking. Nothing speaks volume like satisfied customers.
In this economy if all you have done take classes, you are hosed. You lack both experience and social contacts, and will be starting from zero when you graduate which is when you need to money the most.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
As someone who's hired a lot of developers, I can tell you now that going down the Testing path is a terrible idea.
As all good Software Engineers go, Developers Make Bad Testers(tm), and the same goes for the reciprocal. Testing and developing require two completely different mindsets. When we advertise developer positions, we get swarms of testers applying. Unless they've got something else to show for it, their application goes straight in the bin.
The best advice I can give you: contribute to an open source project.
This tells us three things: You actually can cut code, you're motivated enough to see something through, and money isn't your primary motivator.
I keep reading these "I need a job, I'm a programmer" stories or slashdot and can't help but think... "yeah so what, I can do that".
I have a Mechanical Engineering degree. I honestly don't do much more than 'program' all day. But all my for loops and if statements have physical implications in the real world.
I took CS120 (Java) for kicks because I liked programming. I also took CS240 (C/C++) again just for fun, but I was depressed to find out that I graduated top of both classes. Those were my ELECTIVE classes.
If you have the ability to pick up concepts, why not try for a Mechanical or Electrical engineering degree. Your programming skills won't become useless, but you will be able to use them in other ways.
If you understand how a For Loop works and you can pick up ANY of the Mechanical Engineering concepts (Thermo, Fluids, Controls, or Mechanics) you're going to be non-unemployable. I write code to dig through TBs of field data looking for events. I even have quite a few submissions to Mathworks Central and Git Hub
Don't limit yourself to just Programming. There are other skills that require "programming" but are not just limited to being able to program.
Well...I'd say step one would be to stop publicly referring to putting a link in an HTML form as "programming".
The cake is a pie
I've interviewed 50-or-so people for PHP programming roles recently. Everyone starts with a one-hour technical interview, and there's no substitute for passing that.
But what I really want to know is: "Can you show me something cool that is *entirely your own work*?" Where's the pet project you can show off? The thing where you tried something new and solved all the problems that came up, and got something out the door?
Best way to land an entry level job? 1) Write resume 2) Apply for job 3) ???????? 4) PROFIT!
After all, most 20-year-old Indian Comp. Sci. students already have every certification available from Cisco, Microsoft, Sun, Oracle and Red Hat, or so they claim...
In defence of said Indian workers it might not be them making the outlandish claims - it is just as likely that their employers/agents are being economical/imaginative with the truth. In the same way that recruitment agents based over here (offering candidates from over here) have been know expand things like "Oct 2005 to Dec 2005, worked a testing/QA department testing a Java based application" into things like "Five years of Java programming experience".
Applying for jobs sucks and in many ways is a numbers game.
Making up some numbers, for any given job there will be 20 people who apply and think they have a chance. Three of those will be interviewed and one hired. So you have a 15% chance of getting an interview and a 5% chance of getting the job.
You can increase the odds of getting a perfect job by using two different tactics. If you see a job where you think "I could do that", do the selection criteria, fire in your CV and check it off the list. If you see a job where you think "I really want to do that" go the extra mile, call them, talk to anyone you know in a related field, do the selection criteria, rewrite your CV, call them again, rewrite the selection criteria etc. Going the extra mile will take a few days but it really helps for those truely awesome jobs, it's too much work to do every time though and you need those applications working through the system.
Looking for work should be considered a full time job. You would normally work over seven hours a day, try to use at least five hours a day to apply for jobs. Some time also needs to be devoted to remaining positive to try and fend of depression
At my university, the College of Engineering had a co-op and internship office. Anyone from the university could sign up with the office and have their resumes submitted to companies. This meant that you would be applying for positions with companies who were specifically looking for entry-level candidates. In addition to this, companies could post job openings, and anyone, even people who had never attended the university, could go in and browse those postings. Again, these posting are specifically for entry-level positions, so you're not competing against much more qualified people. I got my first two jobs through that program: the first an internship and the second a summer job. That summer job led to a full-time job that has led directly to all of the jobs I have had since. If you have any local colleges or universities, you might want to check and see if they have something similar.
"As a manager, I posted for an entry level position "
"I ended up getting the best candidate -- over twelve years of experience pertinent to my business, glowing reviews from previous employers and excellent interpersonal skills."
"Is it fair? Maybe not."
There, right there, is why I don't teach. I cannot, in good conscience, tell some poor kid to work hard, stay in school, study like a madman, fight for good grades, and work 80 hours a week to put himself through school like I did, knowing that there won't be a job for him.
We all know this economy HAS NO entry-level jobs. The same people who so cavalierly smirk "life ain't fair" will be the same people whining and gibbering the loudest when the young we've screwed over pass the "Mandatory Euthanasia/Nutrition Enhancement Act of 2025."
As the next generation straps me and the whiners into the gurneys so we can watch the pretty movie while the drugs start dripping down our IVs, I look forward to finding the fattest, loudest schmucks bawling the like Glenn Beck and telling them, "It's OK. Life ain't fair," before it all goes black.
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
I am hiring. Seriously. http://tbe.taleo.net/NA5/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=MTVNETWORKS&cws=1&rid=207 If you even come close to those sets of skills listed, you will get considered. Honestly, I need someone who can code, yes, but is also hard working and willing to be part of a team, not a lone gunman. If you have ego or attitude, don't apply. If you can at least do python/c++ or C# don't hesistate to apply. Is that entry level opportunity enough for you? Cheers.
People who wrestle with statistics need programmers that understand how to get answers out of data like they need their livers. See if you can't find a research assistanceship to support you for 2 years while you get an MS in Statistics. You will have a reference with 2 years of programming on it when you leave school and probably some personal contacts in the "REAL" world. This is a field that has job openings all over the world.
All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
As well as the options already mentioned (including in my own posts above), one extra thing you can try for CV/application "fodder" is to take part in sites like stackoverflow, superuser and serverfault. If you can earn a good "reputation" on one or more of those sites it could be worth mentioning that you are an active member and dropping your user name. I'm on page one of two of those sites user-listing-ordered-by-rep pages, though mainly because I'm a sad social inadequate with too much free time of an evening rather than because I'm trying to get my name out there (as I'm currently gainfully employed and "safe" for the foreseeable future) so I've not tested the "helpful to mention on a CV or in an interview" theory yet, but having a good rep on such sites shouldn't harm you (unless your post history makes it obvious you were browsing those sites helping others when you should have been concentrating on your current/previous employer's problems!) and may shine a beneficial light on you if the prospective employer bothers to check and likes the tone and technical quality of your participation.
I would not pursue this as a first line of course, but if you have some free time on your hands and nothing else practical to do with that time... If nothing else you might learn something useful yourself - I've have a few "oh, that's an interesting point/idea" moments from responses to questions that relate to my areas of interest.
Advertise a job similar to the field your trying to gain entry in. select the best cover letter + resume from the submissions and use them for yourself.
bad Networking? as some times it's better not to have any think on stuff like facebook and others. Also are some buzz words a red flag for non tech HR people as well?
I completely understand, because I felt the same way when I graduated college with a computer science degree. I had a part-time programming job during college, but that wasn't enough. No one was willing to take a chance on me.
So, what did I do? I lowered my expectations and started applying to any job that was remotely technical. I managed to land a technical support job at a local university. I thought to myself, "This is a dead-end job. I'm making $13 an hour, which isn't too bad for the work I'm doing. But I'm not using any of my programming skills. I'm just talking on the phone."
Three months later, however, I was able to land a job as an application engineer: A job where I would be talking to customers on the phone about problems that required C/C++ knowledge. So, the job that I thought was "dead-end" was actually crucial for my career path, because it gave me the technical support experience I needed to land the application engineering job. And after working as an application engineer for a couple of years, I was able to convince the managers that I had what it took to be a software engineer, which was the job I wanted in the first place.
So, what I'm saying is, start applying to any job that involves any kind of technical work, even if you won't be using your degree, because you never know what paths will open up.
agency suck and they try to push you into any job even it's just like a bit in your field just to last one day on the job just to be told your not fit for this job.
There are also ones that will have you work one day just to say we have to many people on the job.
couldn't figure out why a string named string was a problem
You know something? I ran that code through g++, and after adding an #include for cstdlib (to get "system()") it compiled just fine. Having a string named string is actually perfectly valid c++, compilers that can't handle it are just broken.
Move to a city with a lot of IT. Take ANY job, even if it's Geek Squad. Start networking like crazy, join a LUG, attend conferences and talks, put yourself out there. The vast majority of all jobs are not given to a resume on a stack. Meet people.
In Capitalist America, bank robs you!
Rude? No. It's the simple (if perhaps unpleasant) truth. The single most important thing that can happen during your course of study is your internships. When you graduate with your shiny new CompSci degree, you should already have experience. Your competition will.
I didn't do the all important social networking part while in college, and that set my career back by at least 3 years. You see, no one explained to me that the internships were the important thing. I was busy trying to learn what the professors were trying to teach (all of which is nearly irrelevent to getting a job), instead of getting work experience, and building a network of friends who would recommend me.
To answer the question from TFS: just about the only way to get your first job out of college is with the recommendation of someone already working for the hiring manager. Otherwise, you'll be playing HR roulette indefinitely.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Hey, pizza doesn't deliver itself.
US2B
well then you need to work on how you come across calling someone out for not having social skills by writing a fairly agressive post is not maybe the best way to help the OP.
I would suggest because you are not seeing people face to face, send out cd's that contain your portfolio, including resume, cover letter, work samples and demo's and any certificates, awards you have. At least having something you created on the cd, you have something to show the company that proves you have skills in the area they are looking for
We're located a couple miles from a 20k+ student University. We're one of the few software development shops around, but we have a simple formula. We hire 1 - 2 interns who Jr's in the fall. Fall semester we expect 10 hours week and it's an unpaid internship. Usually it is on some type of utility that can help us in the long run, but hasn't been important enough to take way from the full time people. But whatever it is, it's something that is going to be put out into production. It has to work. Sometimes we send them into the fire working on opensource projects that need to be tweaked for our needs. Again, whatever it is, is something that will be put into production.
If they are worth a grain of salt, they start working for us part time for a monthly stipend that's about twice what they could make working 15 - 20 hours a week on campus. During the spring, summer, and their senior year. Only rule is get the tasks done. If they've made it to this point, typically we don't have to look over their shoulders. Generally at the end of their Sr. year, they either have a job offer back home (because they have real experience), or we've hired them full-time because while they were working as an intern they were building our next product. By the time they finish school, we're out selling said product to customers and usually it's enough revenue to pay their salary + benefits.
We call it our "Code your way into a job" programme.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
The purpose of the HR department is to come up with bizarre and absurd reasons why mid-level supervisors can't get the human resources that they need to keep their division profitable.
All the other functions of a 'human resources' department could be done by computer or out-sourced to some distant third-world country. So the alleged humans in the HR department need to constantly come up with reasons to justify their salaries. So they specialize in coming up with weird and irrelevant reasons to prevent YOU from being hired.
My last job interview had a 22-year old ask me to explain a job termination that happened to me before she (always a she) was even born! How do you answer something like that?
staffing firms are clueless at time to point of pay people to sit a office to have little to no work to do (and stuff that they having you doing grunt stuff that is not the job they hired you for) as they are waiting on paper work to go though But there is a lot more to that story.
1st the boss (only in that office 1 day a week) things that the paper work was done and the recruiters says we are working on it so they say I can start on the job I was hired for but I can do some stuff and help out the people there a bit. But while doing that I was doing some stuff the wrong way but it takes a week for the boss to telling me that so I end up pissing off people for a week by doing stuff wrong but it's was only some people where pissed off and there may of been as I was from a staffing firm and not working there as a employee of that office.
2st there was a higher up boss that was only in the office 2 week a mouth and 2 week out of state and I did spent some time with him and one of thingd he told me to due was switch out a old hub with a switch and that pissed off some boss of a other part of office. But that was taken care of by him. (We also had a system for them in a storage room but other people in my team did not know about / what it was for some days as well I found it while clearing up the storage rooms) He also let keep a laptop in office with some training manuals on it but do poor team team communication I was not able to use it as we told the 1st boss but the team did not find out / was not told and I need to hide it in the storage room and only get to read them for a few min a day.
3st On day I left alone in office as the other team people when off site and later the 1st boss said I was not to be left alone like that the next week.
4st I was to look over what the other team members where doing as part of the job but there where pushing me off of them even after the 1st boss said to do that so I just ending doing more clearing up the storage rooms and taking boxes / other trash down to dumpster bins.
and after about a mouth of that the staffing contract has ended and they are working on a reup and after about 2 months of that it came back with a lot less people.
Listen carefully to all of the advice you get given by people on job hunting. Because that's what you should duly ignore.
I can't think how much conflicting advice I've had from know it alls on getting a job, but every time I've nailed a job interview I've done it with merely good enough resume and showing up on time in a shirt and tie. There are a couple of points that make the difference however:
1. I've actually been a good fit for the job, known that, and sincerely wanted it, but was not recklessly optimistic and bubbling self-deluded enthusiasm. You know what I mean, try not to be one of those twits who can't sing in Idol auditions, be one of the cool-headed polite folk who can actually hit a note.
2. I've not come accross as a stuck-up wuckfit in the job interview. Don't reherse, you'll sound rehersed. Don't over-prepare, you'll sound over-prepared. If you can't just sit there and naturally answer questions off the top of your head then you're probably not right for the job.
If you are being interviewed by people you are going to be working for, you need to get on with them comfortably. That's a huge one.
If your a cultural fit for the workplace you are likely to be hired. I believe this applies very strongly to IT. Infact ignore my advice too.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Do not expect the work to come to you. If the work is in Silicon Valley, go there. If it is in New York, go there. If it is fucking Calcutta, go there.
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
This is where you are showing your inexperience. In this economy, HR gets thousands of resumes for any opening, and yours will not be the best one. (You have no experience. That's something that HR will filter on, since they don't know who is "good").
It's about who you know. If you don't know many people, start working on it.
First, tell everyone you know you are looking for a job. Ask them to keep their eyes out for you. Ask them to ask their friends. Post it on facebook. Many people don't tell their friends/family when they are hunting for a job. The technical term for this kind of behavior is "unemployed".
Second, increase the number of people you know in your chosen field. Hit meetup.com, local ACM chapter, criagslist, local event site, etc, for any programming/tech related groups in your area. Go to them. Talk to people. I've gotten more jobs by this method, than all others combined.
Third, spend your time well. Work on an open source project, develop your own website. Hell, launch a commercial product. This is so you have something technical to talk about when you interview.
Fourth, have an interesting life, outside of programming. This is something else to talk about in the interview, and at the tech groups. Be interesting, and people will remember you and want to talk to you
If you get an interview:
Show your interests. If they ask what you like doing, tell them. I don't mean tell them who you vote for, or where you go to church, I mean technical areas you like playing in. Even if it doesn't match the job saying "I like physics simulations", beats the hell out of "anything, I don't care". Even if the job is accounting software.
Do research. You should know what the company does
Ask questions. No one wants to hire a lump. (Ok, some people do, but you don't want to work there. And they are in a minority)
Having just gone through this myself, career services events are the biggest help. I went to a larger university that had semi-annual career fairs, while the drones that go there for corporations can't really do much but point you to a website, if you make a good enough impression you can often get on-campus interviews. I had about 15 interviews between september '08 and february '09, just by using all the resources career services had to offer. Good luck!
Q.E.D.
You really need experience. Get an internship somewhere and hope they'll pay. You don't say what level degree you got, but my wife went for one year with no interviews after getting an MS in engineering. It's really tough and you will have to settle for what you can get. Good luck.
Seems that merit never is the most important qualification for actually getting your butt behind the desk.
That's only a problem for nitpicky bosses who look for reasons not to hire you.
And quite honestly, if an innocent mistake 'come learning opportunity in your past is enough to shut you out of a job opportunity, then chances are the boss in question is an asshole you don't want to work for anyway.
Especially since the true name of the type is actually std::string
The best thing you can do is produce your own code that you can show them. Something you have spent a lot of your own time on and shows a number of different concepts. A previous commenter said contribute to an open source project which should be just as good. My brother produced his own 3D engine (a few hundred hours of work), it got him a intermediate level job at a startup game developer. He is now a senior programmer just two years later. He never went through an agency either, just go straight to the company. I managed to get a graduate position myself, I offered to show code I produced in my own time, for that I got the job and they didn't even ask to see it.
This is addressed to people at least a year away from looking for a job:
Use /. and other technical and even non-technical internet presences as if they were your portfolio.
Think carefully about everything you post, everywhere. What you did 2 years ago may not hurt you but technical mistakes or off-putting comments made in the last few months may hurt you.
Have a "main" web site that's about yourself that includes links to the sites you want your employer to look at along with your handles on each site. Use the same handle if you can, and make is a reasonably professional one. Include links to work you've done that is relevant to the jobs you are seeking.
Then, when you meet recruiters at job fairs include a sample of your portfolio along with the URL or URL-shortener-shrunk URL on your resume. If you've had a few insightful /. posts that are relevant to the work you are looking for or better yet to the particular job the person is hiring for and others have made positive comments about them, include one of them along with your resume and cover letter. If you've ever had a Wikipedia article promoted to Featured status or spearheaded getting one promoted, consider mentioning this, just be aware that it will give your employer a reason to look at your entire Wikipedia history, so this could work in your favor or against you. What other people have said about open-source projects is good, but this also carries over to writing how-tos, explaining things to other programmers or to users, and generally anything that lets you shine as a person and as someone with relevant skills.
Now, having said all of that, don't overdo it. For a college grad, your cover letter should be one page, your resume should be 1 page, maybe two if there is something extraordinary on it, and your initial "portfolio" for programming jobs should be no more than a page or two unless there is something super about it, such as letters of recommendation from industry or other super-heavyweights or a project that won national industry recognition. Recommendations from The President of the United States or the CEO or CIO of a Fortune-50 company won't count against you no matter how many pages they take up. Everything else should go on your web site, not as part of the initial portfolio. For 99% of college grads, the recruiter probably won't spend more than 60 seconds looking at it, if you are lucky, and that's once he's made the decision to even look at it. In today's economy, most won't even get that far even if you hand them to the recruiter in person at a job fair.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You're totally right, HR people don't know anything when it comes to hiring programmers. I think this is because there's no real way to determine the quality of a programmer by simply interviewing them. One side will tell you to pad your resume with fabulous things like your ability to use Microsoft Word(tm), while the other side care about your "techs". I don't think either side is right. If a man knows how to code, it doesn't really matter what language they use because they'll be up to speed in a week or a month anyway.
It really is awful, if you ask for a low salary for something on your resume, they think you don't know how to code. If you ask for a high salary for your skill, they ask you for your experience(which you have none). Its the state of the union now, no one can get any jobs even though people are skilled. Either go back to school while looking for work, or start a business while looking for work. There is no guarantee you'll ever get a job no matter how much you know.
God spoke to me.
with an Open Source project? For example, KDE has a "bugsquad" and seek those interested in contributing. At least do that you can make a presence for yourself which may/or not lead to something. http://techbase.kde.org/Contribute/Bugsquad
My karma is not a Chameleon.
I have to second this statement. I'm also a student graduating in May. I have had four job offers. No matter what anyone says about a recession there are always opportunities in any economy. Three of my four offers came from social networking, the first two came from simply chatting up some guys I met at a conference, while the third came from a friend of one of my professors. The fourth offer is a government agency. If your having trouble finding people to meet, I would say try getting to any sort of industry conference you can. It can be pretty pricey but there are often student rates, and you almost always meet developers at conferences, not the HR staffers. Just talk to people, ask them about what they do, and see where it goes from there. It worked for me. Three times.
#include <iostream>
::Fnord(9);
class Fnord {
int x;
public:
Fnord(int x) : x(x) { }
int operator ()() const { return x; }
operator int() const { return 2*x; }
};
int x() {
Fnord Fnord(3);
return Fnord() *
}
bool Fnord(double x) {
return x > 5;
}
int main(int argc, char **argv) {
std::cout<<x()<<" "<<Fnord(4)<<"\n";
class Fnord Fnord(7);
std::cout<<Fnord<<" "<<Fnord()<<"\n";
return 0;
}
It's who you know.
The *best* way to get an entry-level job is have a friend on the inside that can recommend you for an opening.
The *best* way to get an executive-level job is to have an uncle on the inside that needs a yes man. Ask your parents why they're not looking out for you!
Good luck kid, and feel free to drop my name during an interview. Chances are they've heard from me.
Here's my story, for what it's worth...
I graduated from U of Illinois in Spring of '90 with a CS degree. Unfortunately, I kept my head down in school, so all I had was classwork, and I spent summers working in my dad's business. Both of those added up to zero experience.
I finally got an interview in October based on a newspaper ad, and borrowed my grandma's car to go to it (I wasn't sure mine would make it the 90 miles, and hers had air conditioning - I wanted to look decent.) The interview went OK, and I ended it telling the hiring manager something like this:
"So look, I need a job. Pay me enough to live on and I'll be happy. We can talk about what you're paying me in 6 months after you decide I'm good."
Fortunately, they hired me. 9 months later they gave me a raise from $22,000 to $29,000 a year. Biggest raise, as a percent, I've ever had.
You're leaving school and entering the real world. Being "able to program" in school and able to program in the real world are two completely different things. You don't know shit about shit right now. Colleget gives you a few basic tools and shows that you can get in-depth on a subject...in terms of what you can actually do for a company it's more or less meaningless.
You're also getting out of college and entering the job market during one of the worst economic downturns in recent history. Get used to applying for jobs and hearing nothing back. There are people with far more programming experience as well as just general work experience (the value of which you have probably not realized yet) who are getting the same replies...or lack of replies...from these companies. There are probably people with experience applying for the same entry level jobs you are because they are desperate. That's bad news for you.
Long story short: get used to getting nothing back. The problem isn't that the evil HR people are a barrier to you showing these companies how useful you could be to them, its that you have no experience at all and you're not worth hiring. Do anything you can to get noticed...apply online, send paper resumes, make sure you have a great cover letter, follow up with a phone call. If your communication skills are poor, you better get someone to help you with that. Your resume and cover letter should be ABSOLUTELY perfect...grammatically perfect, perfect formatting, and specifically targeted to each job you apply to. Persistence is your only weapon right now. If you have co-op/internship experience then that's great. If not, you're up against thousands of people who do have it. Remember, in times like this recruiters and HR people have a MASSIVE flood of resumes coming in. More than you can imagine. What makes yours so special? What makes you stand out from all those others? If the answer is nothing, better get used to flipping burgers until things get better.
If you're getting interviews with HR and then not getting callbacks, it might be time to brush up on your interviewing skills. In a job market like this NOTHING can be taken for granted. Remember that you are up against hundreds and hundreds of others for every single job. How well does that suit fit?
The winning strategy in the short term may be to take any damn job you can get...especially if its in the computer industry...no matter how shitty it may be.
Sorry to be so gloom and doom, but I'm just telling you the truth. I was out for a year when the tech bubble burst in 2001 so I have been there. I was a year out of school (i.e. I was cheap) with a year of experience that not many college grads would have, as well as co-op experience, and I couldn't get hired to save my life. My one final word of advice is not to believe ANYTHING a third party recruiter tells you. Confirm everything they say with the company directly before agreeing to anything. Those recruiters are sleazeballs of the worst kind and will lie to your face. Be very careful dealing with them.
Step 1: Have 2 years of experience...
UTF-8: There and Back Again
In this quickly changing world, the average career lasts about 6 years before a change to something completely different.You can check that info out if you don't believe it.
I m'self have worked several jobs in categories completely unrelated to my aspirations.Then a few years ago I realized I had learned enough to go into business for myself in my unrelated avocation. I have spent years building up to beginning my own business, tooling up, self educating, doing independent small related contractual jobs. Soon I will be out on my own doing what I want to do full time. I won't need a bank loan, investors,employees(at first) or anything from anyone else.
As you struggle to pay off your school loan, whether in your first programming job or a "get by till I find what I want job", consider a meta picture of life and your hopes and dreams from it. Will programming in a quickly changing fickle market be your goal or just a piece of your puzzle?
It used to be important to only choose a career, go to college and then spend your life clawing your way to the top of your choice.That was your grandfathers world. Now making goals 20 yrs. into the future is barely enough. Careers change faster than clothing styles. Look for that big picture of what you want out of life and consider programming a step whether you end up in a cubicle or not. Look at the job market. What's big out there? Medical related jobs take up most of the job boards I can see. I'd start looking in that area. Everything there is software and databases nowadays. Insurance and real estate are big now as well. Think laterally rather than linearly, the most obvious paths are usually crowded dead ends.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
The job market is shit right now. People with lots of very valuable experience are having great difficulty getting a foot in the door.
Do you know people who work for companies that are hiring? Recommendations from employees put you in a totally different (and much shorter) stack on the HR desk than unsolicited resumes. That's not because of rampant corruption, but rather the very real fact that no sane hiring process can come close to evaluating how effectively a software developer will work as well as actually working with the person, be it in industry or school. Work those contacts.
There's no failure quite as dissatisfying as a complete and total solution to the wrong problem.
Just because your shit glitters doesn't make it a gem.
Get a Java *Developer* certification, learn everything you can about Java, JSP, Javascript/AJAX, HTML, XML, SQL, Eclipse, Netbeans, Spring, Hibernate, and OOD/Design Patterns, then apply for contracting positions with recruiting firms in the major cities. You'll land a $50+ per hour gig in no time if you interview well and actually know your stuff. The Washington DC / Northern Virginia area is a hotbed for Java talent, also Charlotte or Raleigh NC, and of course LA or San Francisco. All of these are good places to live and to get a start as a professional programmer. Keep in mind that HR people are completely clueless about technology so their screening is generally canned or provided by technical management (who's also generally clueless about technology). When you get far enough into the process to go through a "tech screen", you MUST know your stuff well enough to either answer the questions correctly or explain that you know a little about the subject but aren't familiar with the details, though "you'd like to learn". Don't even try to get a programming job if you can't answer questions like "what is an interface?", or "what is the difference between the heap and the stack?", or "when would you use a flyweight and why?".
You aren't missing anything. The problem is HR. The people actually hiring don't evaluate resumes at companies of any size. They send a position summary to HR, who handle that. When you submit a resume, it goes to HR. HR then scans your resume for the keywords from the position summary. If your resume doesn't contain exactly the right keywords (which you don't know), then HR bins your resume and the people who know what to look for never even see it. Meanwhile the scam artists (whether the candidate themselves or the recruiter submitting their resume) know exactly how to put the right keywords in, so what does go through to the hiring manager is the people who aren't qualified. Which leaves both hiring managers and candidates griping.
Yes, I've been through this from the hiring side. After one particularly fruitless batch I got permission from my manager to go twist HR's arms until they coughed up the rejected resumes. And lo and behold, we found 5 interviewable candidates from the batch HR said weren't qualified. My manager was, needless to say, Not Amused, and made his lack of amusement felt.
people always give these same tips. Most companies tell you to "apply on the web site", where you upload your resume/cv and it is reformatted to fit their HR database, it is usually somewhat slaughtered in the process. It is not possible to make it look good. HR then does keyword searches, if yours doesn't pop up, your SOL. As much as I hate to admit it, connections still seem the best way to go.
It's either false dichotomies, or the terrorists win, you decide.
I swear these c*cks*ckers shred your resume as soon as they can when they find out you can't dance the Charleston.
Donald Knuth couldn't get a job nowadays cause he too old and Nicolas Wirth couldn't either because "he talks funny."
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
wow man, you're a genius. I can just see a sysadmin allowing someone with no experience to help with PROGRAMMING stuff. Remember, that was the job the OP was looking for? kind of doesn't work with the example you gave. Congrats on getting your internship btw, but probably not that helpful advice for this guy.
Yes, for sure, if you know the right people it can really help, but is it really his fault for not knowing the right people?
I'd agree with those who suggested contributing to an open source project. Just one - should be enough. Make it something you're interested in and even passionate about. And give it your best work.
Secondly, +1 for personal contact. Always follow up your resume with a phone call - as has been mentioned above. Make sure whoever is hiring for the job knows who you are. When they come to making a decision - you definitely want to be one of the people who they are thinking of.
Other than this, persist with it. With the right attitude, you will get a job eventually.
This seemed like a reasonable sig at the time.
I have come to the conclusion that finding a way past HR is part of the aptitude test. You need to have someone on the inside that will give your resume to the guy that needs you. He will then take your resume to HR and say 'hire this guy'. So, it all boils down to 'networking' and with that I don't mean Facebook...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
The solution is quite obviously a hash lookup, but you would be surprised how few "programmers" come up with that.
My company is hiring now, and it's very difficult to find anyone who can program (in Edmonton, Canada - I'm the programming manager, and as part of that I evaluate applicants programming skills).
There may be places where there's a glut of good experienced programmers, but it certainly isn't universal.
And if I have any complaint it certainly has nothing to do with "an education that is out of date". I'm not interested in what technologies, techniques, or methodologies a candidate is familiar with. I can help someone pick that stuff up, and there's no way to know everything an employer might need. I just want someone who can do basic problem solving and can work through the basic logic of programming - stuff that has never changed.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
A lot of good advice from what I can see! I have interviewed with my old internship's company for a business analyst position. It's hardly involves any coding of substance, but from what I can see from the comments relating to the job market, I may have no choice. Big thanks to the person who pointed out the April 26 eligibility date for Google's Summer of Code and the Open Source suggestions in general. Lastly, thanks to the rest of slashdot for giving me your time and advice. It's obvious that I won't be able to land my ideal job right away, so I'll just get my name out there and earn experience. P.S. The html link comment was a joke so don't get too riled up.
A lot of these suggestions are great (although some are a bit cruel), but why isn't grad school mentioned? You might have saved a decent chunk of money going to a small rural school, and it's understandable, but there's a reason why other people pay more to go to bigger name schools. Why not try and go to a masters program in a bigger name school that has job fairs if you can't find internships/jobs? Plus you can still build a portfolio working on open source software while getting your masters. Sure it'll cost you a good chunk of money, but if you actually are a talented computer scientist, it'll pay off in the long run. Also, besides summer of code I'm pretty sure there are other programming/computer science competitions that you can participate in. And finally, make sure you ask your professors and deans for advice. Seems obvious, but a lot of people I know don't do either or don't go to their professors. Some of them probably won't be of any use, but it only takes one good connection to get you that first job.
The original poster seems to be missing a fundamental aspect of the way organizations hire people.
Organizations do not actively examine all of the resumes that cross their desk, then cherry pick the particularly impressive ones.
At most times, an organization is not hiring, and they do not look at resumes at all. Every once in a while, an organization will decide that it needs more people. Getting approval to hire someone is difficult. (At the organization I work for (which has about 2000 employees), five layers of approval, including the CEO, are needed.) Once the decision to hire someone is made, the team that is hiring has what is known as an "Open Req" (Short for requisition, perhaps?)
Most organizations don't even begin looking at resumes or interviewing until there is an open req. Once there is an open req, the process speeds up signficantly. Most organizations tinker with their budgets every quarter, and what is the easiest item to remove from a budget? An open req. Because of this, most hiring managers are in a great hurry to make an offer before the req gets cancelled. They interview every reasonable candidate they can get their hands on before the end of the quarter, and hire the best of the lot.
The point is, if you aren't getting interviews, it is because either you are applying to companies that aren't hiring, or your resume is simply terrible. (If you are getting interviews but not offers, then you have different issues...)
I recommend the following:
1) Look at job postings on dice.com and craigslist. Companies post there because they are actively hiring. Submit your resume to anything that requires less than 3 years of experience.
2) Post your resume on dice.com. No employers look there, but recruiters do.
http://xkcd.com/756//
Because the person hiring you doesn't know shit from shit.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
I recently went through the same thing. The big thing is not to get discouraged. You're going to put out a ton of resumes and not hear anything. Consider that if you're replying to monster or even craigslist ads that they're typically looking at over 100 resumes for a single position. Consider also that the economy sucks and there are many people with YEARS of experience apply for the same "entry-level position". Given those conditions if your resume has the smallest tarnish on it the HR monster will toss it in the trash, it's unfortunate, but they can be that picky right now. Keep at it, don't get discouraged.
1. Network. Use your family, friends, people you've had classes with, people you've met at conferences, your neighbors, the people you play online games with, whoever you can think of to ask that is in the field. If you can hear about and apply to a position before a company posts it publicly, you just drastically reduced the amount of competition you'll have for that spot, plus hopefully have an insider recommendation.
2. Do whatever you can to bolster your resume/portfolio. While you're in school you can typically find a professor or department that needs some programming or IT work and will pay you for it (albeit in beans). After school, you can work on side projects or take an internship while you're looking for a job. OSS, develop some code for something in your community (church, school, NPO, whatever)...you won't get paid but it will give you something that's in production that you can brag about.
3. Look for small companies. Maybe it's not where you want to end up long term, but when you're just starting out you need to get a couple years of experience. Find small companies that post job openings on their website but not on monster, dice, etc. It can be tedious doing the research but you can dig up all sorts of public records regarding companies in a state who employ whatever profession you're interested in. Then go to those companies' websites and see if they're hiring.
4. Make sure you're familiar with version control software like CVS or SVN, whatever IDE is applicable to the languages you're familiar with, and build tools such as ant and make. Your school may not have taught you about them or required you to use these tools. When you get a job you're almost certainly going to be working with a team of programmers in some sort of standardized development process using these tools...you WILL be asked about them in your interview.
I was released from the army with 3 years of development and team leadership under my belt, but it was still not enough for most of the big companies since it isn't exactly experience in the industry.
By chance I managed to find a small (and now very successful) startup which were actually looking for a developer with a clean slate that doesn't have necessarily much knowledge, but has potential to be a good developer; so that they could help him and build him up the proper way.
Guess who nailed the position and is now super happy in his modest, yet uber-satisfying job :D
It is the universe that makes fun of us all.
When I started out, nobody was interested in interviewing or hiring me, either. After starting my own business writing software, however, this ceased to be a problem.
"I think employers trawling old web forums to dig up any dirt they can find is just peachy keen, and anyone who doesn't go along with the status quo by constant paranoid identity-hopping is an idiot!"
I'm not an employer, but personally I'd rather work with someone who will own up to their past mistakes rather than hide from them, especially if I'm in a situation where the cost of hiring is high.
"Oops. I added a huge bug to the last release, and it's going to need an emergency patch. I'll just quit, claim it's a family problem, and hope nobody notices before I get a new job."
An identity carries reputation. Sometimes, even a slightly-tarnished history is better than none at all. The employers are already taking a risk by hiring someone in the first place. Having less guesswork about the employee's history is a good thing.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
He's graduating now, so that means at the end of his second year he couldn't figure out why a string named string was a problem, ...
If you reject based on this, you will have carefully selected, at great expense to your company, a workforce consisting entirely of people who hide all their sophomore homework assignments.
A recruiting manager who inflicted this on me would not get a favorable performance review. In fact, I would consider it career limiting. You might as well measure how well they glued macaroni to construction paper at age 8.
I agree with others who state that they only hire the best people they can find.
In which case you will select people based on reliable, major positive measures of skills (loops, pointers, recursion), and ignore unreliable, minor negative measures of problems.
The challenge is to find the 0.5% of applicants who can solve the FizzBuzz problem at all. That means 200 applicants to consider per position on average (and a pool of 600 resumes if you need a guaranteed high-quality hire). If you weed out the half of applicants that don't have a squeaky clean Google image, you'll have weeded out about half of the most skilled, which means an extra 200 applicants (1200 resumes total for guaranteed hire). Either you pay horrifically inflated costs, or you are forced to compromise on quality -- probably by self-delusion.
If you have an inside recommendation from a fellow programmer you are ahead in the game. One way to get to hang around working programmers is to contribute to Linux and open source projects. Many of the people involved are well paid programmers and if they see your abilities and know you are looking you can hook up with their employer. Even after getting a job it pays to keep contributing to the Linux community as your contacts can grow and be kept current.
It is so easy to sue if you are disabled and not hired that you may have a better shot than other people if you express yourself as disappointed that they won't hire disabled workers. And if the work place is upstairs and you can not climb stairs you already have them cold.
Well thats a nice waste of resources...
Your initial vetting should only have left you with 10 people tops, after that, initial interview should have narrowed your list to a maximum of 5.
Second interview you can drill your hearts out, personally I spent 15-20 minuttes drilling to get my bearings and when I found my candidate he got another 30 minuttes worth of drilling to make sure I was right - and if you don't find anyone on round two, you invite a new batch from the initial set.
You already know people connected to the industry -- talk to them! Ask your profs if they know anybody in the industry. Ask your jobful friends to pass your resume along. Is there a famous prof at your uni? Did you take a class with them? Bring your chutzpah to their office and ask for a rec.
A referral from a trusted third party is thousands of times more likely to get your foot in the door than your resume, no matter how bloody sparkly the thing is.
Case in point, I graduated summa cum laude from an Ivy school, and no one really gave much of a shit. Until I knocked on my algo prof's door once during his office hours, asked him whether he knew someone in industry looking for a smart hard-working youngster. He gave me the name of his contact (the CEO of a tiny co). (I didn't even do that well in the Prof's class, slightly below median IIRC.)
Next thing I know the CEO's shaking my hand congratulating me on my new 50%-pay job. He's telling me "boy have you ever got a lot to learn, but Prof so-n-so says you're smart and you do seem to come off that way". Worked my arse off til it turned into a real job. And now there are *2* people out there who think I'm smart, so, you know, twice the network :)
If you don't have a network, make one. Think about doing an unpaid internship at a company that has a future. (Look into funding options from your uni for this kind of stuff.) Be careful with this one -- the network you create here must be valuable to justify the work and the resume gap.
I had the privilege once to speak with the former-CFO of Coke, and asked her (rather lamely) how one winds up being the CFO of Coke. She said, "If you really want a big-time job you gotta be aggressive and you gotta be charming."
Note that "qualified" is not a part of that sentence.
I can program!
Broken thinking. Getting hired isn't about being good at the job. It's about being good at getting hired, which is a largely orthogonal skill set.
Need new skill set = need to practice. Interviews are like first dates: they pretty much all suck, but get less nerve-wrecking with practice.
I should mention that once you have job 1, the network it creates (or doesn't create) will bear heavily on how your search for job 2 goes. So take good care of your network at job 1. I've seen a ton of smart people with amazing resumes, who are actually quite good programmers, who can't find jobs because they are huge pains in the ass. The days of the cranky-bitch-genius-programmer are limited (if not completely over), because there are plenty of pleasant-genius-programmers out there who need jobs too.
Approach your job like a pro: learn the politics and the people, be friendly, be polite but not stodgy. Choose very carefully which personal details to share with which people. Never express a negative emotion unless you've thought about it extremely thoroughly. Never write an email to/from a work account that you wouldn't want the CEO to read. Get people to like you: morally it shouldn't matter, but practically it makes a gigantic difference to how your career will go.
Finally and of course most importantly, work your ass off and get results. Nothing will make boss-man like you more than if you are generating two times the output as everyone else, with a smile and a joke handy at lunch time. It makes him look fabulous to his boss, and ten years from now when he's working at google (or whatever the "google" of 2020 will be, probably "google"), guess where you can ship an email and probably get a job.
The comments in that article were fun, especially the bit about 123456789 and adding nothing, +, or * operands between numbers to equal 2001. Good thing I thought you could subtract, or I would've gone nuts wondering why mine didn't work before seeing he really meant 2002.
If you are developing software you are still underpayed.
In Mississippi, one of the lowest cost of living states in America, I started at 38k.
Timothy probably does underestimate what he doesn't know. And his homepage is not what he wants potential employers to see. Enough people have jumped on him for this.
What no one seems to have mentioned - that the author refers to - is that 90% of so-called programmers are, in fact, not very good. It will be a shame when all IDEs automatically generate getters and setters, because there are a lot of programmers out there who really shouldn't be allowed to do anything much more difficult than that.
Maybe - hopefully - Timothy is one of the 10% who will be really good, once he gets some experience under his belt...
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
As a senior level developer that has in the past worked at major software firms on key projects, I often tend to find myself a bit annoyed when encountering a coding test. It has an unfortunate effect of tipping the negotiating scales in favor of the employer before an interview even happens. However for entry level positions, they are HIGHLY useful.
I regularly mentor "The New Guy", a guy who just finished a masters or Ph.D. in signal processing, mathematics, computer science, etc... and more often than not, they can't code anything more complex than a 50 line simulation which is barely readable. Of course, these are really bright guys and can be pushed gently in the right direction very easily, so I take the opportunity to get them started as quickly as possible, after all, the faster they learn, the more work I can send in their direction.
I applied for a position at Skype a few years back and everything went well up until they sent me a "coding test" which consisted of making a simple HTTP server which would handle database requests using the PostgreSQL API. It was a fun project, but most importantly, it said "we know you've been programming for 15 years as lead developer on major projects. But can you code?" Initially I was a bit annoyed by this and I decided not to bother with the position as I don't like negotiating terms of employment with an employer who takes the upper hand so early. But, for entry level positions this opportunity could really open up a great deal of positions to guys who CAN program but don't know how to get their foot in the door.
Because of this, when we're looking for new people for entry level positions, I recommend we provide a similar test. Something that can be accomplished in 1000 lines or less (an evening coding) and shows that the applicant has the skills necessary. Then when we call the guy in for an interview, we can tell them before we've even started that his abilities are NOT in question and we are interested in him/her. Therefore when it comes to negotiating salary and such, they have can feel confident asking for thing and can actually get their needs taken care of without accepting the first offer we make fearing we'll toss him/her out since they're unproven. It becomes an issue of personality and office compatibility instead and sometimes we might feel the candidate is just "so promising" that we're willing to try anyway.
I am of the ones that also believe higher education is completly useless when it comes to computer sciences.
Programming is a science that requires no physical tools besides a computer. Allowing anyone to be able to learn it, regardless of they are in school or not.
I am the owner of a software development company and we have had to hire quite some developers. I must say the best developers we've hired were the ones with no [relevant] degree(s).
But why is that? I believe its because programmers who are self taught have already proved to me that they are passionate about what they do.
No one would spend hours of their free time learning something they don't like.
I have started writing software way before I ever my first programming class, I have done half of a bachelor (4 year) degree and dropped out because I got bored out of my mind and realised almost everyone in that degree would never become a real developer.
Since then I have only had more than amazing jobs, and now am the owner of my own business.
It has been said by previous commenters and I will say it again:
THERE IS NO EASY ROAD!!
You cant just expect to sit in class for hours and that will be all you need to get a job and live the rest of your life. If you want something you must go and get it, do everything you can to get it.
T
Laws are horrible moral guides, moral guides make even worse laws.
Write a mobile app for a popular platform, or several and include free promo codes to prospecive employers.
Well, we (Mexicans) don't exactly have all your jobs, but mainly Chinese and Indian programmers.
Don't just take any job? Do you realize how many college graduates who spent a lot of money on their degrees he's up against right now? And how few jobs there are?
Indeed from what I've read and heard there are VERY few entry programming jobs in the USA, specially for big companies. This mainly due to the jobs being shipped overseas.
So either you get into a job which includes programming tasks in a small company (for example, back when I graduated from college a friend was working in a family run nuts&bolts seller, where he had the chance to develop and maintain a point of sell software. ).
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
General Rule For Getting Hired: Don't forget to include a complete collection of your /. postings. I can't think of a better way to impress a future employer than to show them just how funny and clever you really are and all this during work time!.
Here IFTFY.
Try a few simple strategies:
Above all, good luck.
1. Take any job you can get to get started. As soon as you land a job, ANY job, the clock starts ticking on your experience.
2. Work like mad and try to learn for the rest of your life.
3. Use recruiters to get jobs, and then once you have experience under your belt, start being more selective with recruiters.
4. Social network like crazy. Maintain relationships. Be great to work with and people will remember.
5. Be willing to do crap work.
6. Be willing to listen.
7. Understand that no matter how good you think your code is, three years from now it will look like junk.
I was a manager for a retail chain while going to school at the same time. My first 'computer' job came while still in school, using Photoshop to edit scanned images. It was crap work and the money wasn't much different than my manager job. Over a decade later I make six figures and get job offers weekly.
If you happen to live in Holland a are PHP developer, then contact me.
But I have some advice to anyone coming to a job interview with me. I am the senior developer and will be the one asking technical questions. And I expect you to know the basics of web development.
That is, you know what a join is and can explain it. You know some techinques that help with loading sites quicker. You can tell me how you debug your code and what tools you use for it. You can tell me the REAL reason to use OO. No, code re-use is not the answer.
What I have noticed is that a lot of web developers seem to lack what I think is basic knowledge, yet ask high salaries. Sorry, no thanks.
For me a junior should show a grasp of the basic skills you need as a web developer (or whatever your field happens to be). You do not need to know everything, but if you can't handle even the basics of SQL, well then just what did you learn in school?
Also, bring a sample of your work and make sure it is CLEAN. Errors you can learn to fix, but if you are a sloppy insecure coder, then I am not sure I am going to bother training you.
What I want to know from an interviewee is that you have potential to grow, that you can be productive for the right price (if you take twice as long to do something as me, but earn 2/3 the salary, then you are a LOT more expensive), and that I won't constantly be correcting the same mistakes.
So far it is proving very hard to find people who qualify. In Holland there is a real shortage of developers who can do more then just throw a site together. But that doesn't help a guy working in the US :/
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In case you hadn't noticed, there's a recession.
There are hundreds of applicants for every vacancy.
They can always say that another applicant was better qualified, whether he was or not.
My resume gets pre-selected into the circular file on the basis that I might cause other employees health insurance premiums to go up by people without any medical training.
Its easier not to hire me, despite the fact that I am utterly non-contagious and I put no one at risk (if anything they put me at risk.)
Now I'm looking at changing profession.
Hey, the guy who invented the Altair switched and became a doctor and had a happy life.
Don't feel too bad for me. I feel bad for you.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Lots of solid replies here, but yours provides the half of the problem I want to reply to.
There may be a way out, but it probably involves parts of about 5 posts on here.
1. Post above said Austin was starved for applicants. Submitter should then verify this and if true, move to Austin!
2. "Bypass HR" - but just calling the manager directly *pisses off HR*! You wouldn't like HR when they're angry.
3. Temp Agencies DO bypass HR! The manager calls in the temp, not HR, so he can cobble a few ultra-short little assignments. And you know what? Temp work tends to be easier, which I found as the perfect chance to shake off the Ivory Tower dust from college. Then in 6 months, he can fairly say experience > 0.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Oh, my ++ is really rusty on the conversion details to which this boils down to, but naturally this is an irresistible challenge, Fnord:
36 False Fnord
14 7 Fnord
Can't remember off the top of my head, but I'd imagine since we have a bool type, it'd render itself something sane such as "False" as a string, and stream:: would have the decency to prefer the string presentation to numeric; I could be miserably wrong and it could as well be either 0 or NULL (well, hopefully not that). Fnord.
I take it that truish to convention "class Fnord" would override the bool Fnord() in scope and create a Fnord by name Fnord. Fnord.
Then again, my eyes have to have been contaminated from some coding style guide, since they hurt from just looking at all those violations. Fnord.
Yes, I've completed my work at current customer and just biding my time. Fnord.
Now please tell me why I tend to land on non-programming jobs? Fnord.
This post contains no Fnords. Please keep the world safe for children and carefully dispose of any Fnord. Fnord.
I was the real korpiq until I woke up clowned.
When else do they get posted?
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
* Right now there are jobs for low skill levels and high skill levels. In the middle is tough.
* Review your resume. This is what they will look at before deciding to interview you. Ask friends to read it and critique it. Read web sites about effective resume writing.
* Work on open source side projects that interest you (and look good on a resume). You will gain experience and have something to show you aren't afraid of work and are interested in your profession. If you're off playing a game with a ball, wasting time on WOW, etc. you're doing nothing that will help your career.
* writing to slashdot was a good idea
-- Programming with boost is like building a house with lego. It's a cool but I wouldn't want to live in it
As it's probably been said already, the easiest way to get employed practically anywhere is by networking. This, of course, is much easier to do if you live in a larger city where business networking events happen more frequently. This actually works better than most other methods because you build rapport with people you might eventually work for, which, in turn, makes it easier to prove your skills and find a good place to be.
You can also try joining mailing lists. One list that I'm on, which is supposed to discuss C++ development and such, has been practically posting SOLELY job offers, all of which are pretty highly salaried. (The last posting I saw advertised a position that paid $200K/year in NYC for a senior C++ development position.) http://www.meetup.com/ makes it easy to find such lists, though you can also find similar lists on open-source projects you find interesting.
Yet another way to look for jobs is by joining forums that interest you. There are tons of forums that discuss programming, many of which are separated by language. Proving your salt on a forum and gaining some credibility can make it easier for you to find jobs, though they come by less often in my past experience.
If you must play the online resume game, play with the keywords, as most online resume systems filter solely by that criterion. I believe that is a reason why so many applicants who call themselves developers even get through the door; online resume submission is a fairly simple system to defeat once you play with them enough.
The last alternative that you can consider is using a headhunter to find a job for you. They usually tweak your resume to make it attractive, and use their network of contacts to get you interviews. I've met a few headhunters from events, and they spend a substantial amount of time just meeting people expressly for this purpose.
Hope this helps!
So I was in the same position as submitter in 2k4, the year with the largest number of CS graduates, and also a year with a bad economy (bubble was finishing up being burst).
It took me 18 months to finally find a job, and to get it, I had to go through a one month Java "training" class with Accenture (Accenture Techonology Solutions actually) where I was paid minimum wage. It sucked, and it was a hard way to figure out that the the promise of $50k+ the day I graduated was a lie. The idea behind the class was, they got to test everyone for a month, see if they could actually code, then hire who they wanted, to do whatever they wanted. Some of the people in my class had to go into testing, which IMO is a career killer, but at least one guy I knew made it out and is a developer now. The thing is, if you do go to a large consulting firm, unless you manage to get to a really good place, I say get some experience, then start talking to a job placement firm, and be willing to take a contract or contract to hire job. The large contracting firms try to make coding like assembly line work, and yeah, it creates a repeatable, deliverable product, but it also creates line workers. Being a line worker is no fun.
Above is the path I took, I'm now almost 5 years in to the industry, and went from a consulting firm, to a placement firm, then was placed a small company where I've been able to create some awesome software and I am fairly compensated. It's really rewarding, but it took time, and I had to eat some crow at the beginning.
We hire people to solve problems. Somebody who owns the problem figures out they need a warm body to solve it. They spec the position and ask HR for a few applicants.
HR does not hire - they reject. For the 5 candidates, they have about 50 to 500 resumes to go through. Thus they look for any reason to reject the resume. When they get down to about 20, they pick the best 10 and submit them to the manager. The manager selects 5 of the 10 that are of interest. The interview process begins. Thus sending resumes nets you a 2% - 0.2% chance. Does this match your experience?
But you can bypass the system. Find the company you want to work for. Learn what they do, and what problems they have. Identify a problem you can solve. Find the manager that owns that problem. Contact them (best in person) and show them that you know the company, the problem, and show how you can solve it. If you nail it, the manager takes you to HR and tells them to hire you.
I kid you not - this has worked for me several times. I never worry about getting a job, no matter how bad the economy is.
Read the book "What color is your Parachute" if you need a step-by-step guide.
Place nail here >+
I'm currently trying to hire an entry-level developer. There a lot of little things that separate school work from on the job work. Pick your favorite language and do a bunch of detailed research on the challenges corporate developers face. Speaking from a Java perspective, how are big projects built (Maven, Ant, Cruise Control, etc.), how are dependencies handled using those tools? How is automated testing handled (JUnit, Selenium, etc.) ? What other libraries are typically used? (Spring, Hibernate, Struts, etc. etc) You don't need to be an expert in all this stuff, but learn the basics and be able to describe what you've done with these tools, what you liked about them, disliked about them, pros and cons etc.
I think even a couple weeks of researching and using these tools would put you well above your peers the next time you go to an interview. In the interview, ask good questions: "How do you handle automated testing?" "Oh, you're using Hibernate, do you use it's query language?" Questions like this can demonstrate you understand (at least to some degree) the tools they are using.
Good luck.
Something the submitter forgets to mention is WHAT he just graduated from. If he just graduated high school, good luck landing an entry level "programming" job. There are too many 3+years experience people flooding the job market right now. I'm working with a mid sized company (6,000 employees) and we haven't hired a green hand in 2 years. If you just graduated from college, do what most intelligent people do and get an internship. It's experience, most of them pay at least more than McDonalds, and it gets your foot in the door.
Just use common sense. There is no way to compete with third world wages.
The few jobs that can not being offshored yet, are being filed with foreign guest workers, which will make the jobs easier to offshore in the near future.
Computing in the cloud will make it even easier to offshore US IT jobs.
Unless you can get top secret clearance, it would be best to forget about IT.
I realize I'm stating the obvious, but I cannot stress enough how much more valuable real-world work experience is than just shiny paperwork (degree, certs, etc). I'd imagine this is why you're not hearing back from folks most of the time you submit a resume for a dev job or complete the initial interview. Getting experience isn't hard. Start your own passion project. Sure you won't be paid for it (unless you manage to come up with something groundbreaking that's in high demand), but the experience and project management skills you pick up along the way are invaluable.
Pretty much all job positions are advertised on Craigslist these days. It's especially true of entry-level. If they're looking for someone who's entry level (i.e. cheap) then why would they be paying for an actual listing?
Maybe by '90 he meant 1890 and that was a PHAT paycheck. Of course, that would make him about 142 years old which means he should call Guinness.
Let's get this straight; you're finishing what I'm assuming is your associate's degree since it's at a community college, will soon be attending a university, and got your first internship. You think you are some sort of expert on social networking and job finding now? Best laugh of the day so far.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
I feel the exact same way. As a senior developer, it drives me crazy when I'm repeatedly asked simple questions that could easily be answered through research.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
(1) Show me not only your code but your interface. I need to know that you can look at a problem and determine what information you need and that you can present the results in a usable manner. It does not have to look great - that is why we have designers. They will made the info look good.
(2) Explain to me the real world problem that you solved with this code. I do not care that you can move discs from one peg to another in size order. I do care that you figured out that I was spending too much time verifying that the home page on my 15 web servers returned exactly the same code.
(3) Use full sentences. In all communications, be they on paper or in conversation with me. I do not ever want to see an emoticon or "u r" in a business communication.
(4) Turn your cell phone off during the interview. If there is a true potential for an emergency, explain it to me when the interview starts and I will make allowances, but during the interview I expect to have your full attention.
(5) DO NOT come to your interview with me in a suit. I showed up for my last interview in a t-shirt and jeans. I am now putting together a new department at that company. How did I know? I asked ahead of time. "What is the dress code there? Less than business casual? Would it be acceptable for me to dress that way for the interview? Not only acceptable but appreciated, great!"
(6) This is the really important one... Tell me about your home computers, what operating systems you have running, how you use them and what cool projects you experimented with lately. You have a Linux server and just set up a UPnP server to serve your home media? That is fantastic! On that alone I might hire you if the rest is borderline. That proves to me that you not only know how to learn, but you are excited to do so.
Good Luck!
Warren
For me it was easy. I got my degrees in philosophy and psychology. They're much more useful in job interviews that boring old technical information. My technical knowledge came from years of DIY projects, some open source when that became cool, using skills as lame as writing excel and access projects at jobs, taking dozens of classes on my own time for a CS degree that never materialized, etc.
Seriously, the amount of technical information you have, starting out, is pretty moot. There's not a huge difference you can tell from looking at your academic list of knowledge other than a basic skillset. Most grads are the same, unless you just finished your PhD from MIT and hold 12 patents.
Psychological jokes aside, I just focus on pacing, leading, and manipulating the interviewer to wanting to hire me. How long I've been working with what tool or language is irrelevent if I can convince them I can learn anything in two weeks. I don't need to be able to write the greatest data structure in the world if I can convince them of the business reason why you would or wouldn't want one and what the affect is on the bottom line.
Of course, good or bad, none of it matter if you can't even get a technical interview with a human in the first place. I don't know if it was mentioned by others, but I went through contracting companies originally. They do all the work of getting the interview, and I just need to get the suit, tie, 37 pieces of flair, and a winning smile.
After that point, most everything is word of mouth and "social networking" whatever the hell that is. IT seems to luckily constantly churn, so I just keep in touch with those who can give me a job (or recommend me to a boss) and return the favor.
I haven't had to apply or interview for a gig in years that I didn't already have the job going in.
I'm a satanic clam.
This is what Google is for. Pretend that everything you post online will live forever, and bear that in mind as you put it there... and you'll be close enough to reality to make no odds.
Sig broken, watch for
Show up, clean and quiet with a shirt and a tie. That's your advice to counter 400 posts?
Might as well tell the guy to shine his shoes, while you're at it - everyone knows shoes tell all there is to know about a person.
If you don't mind being military for at least four years, are an American, and don't mind getting payed considerably less than the average programmer, enlist as a programmer for the Air Force. Hell, you can even work on a Master's degree for free while you're in.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
It is difficult to get past the HR doorman indeed - because of "non-programming programmers" (CodingHorror). The answer to that are tools for automated verification of programming skills like Codility (http://codility.com/), which value fundamental coding skills over the school's brand and proficiency in CV writing!
1. Contribute to a free software project which interests you.
This will allow potential employers to verify that you can program before bringing you in for an interview, and hopefully you'll learn something about writing maintainable code so your first paying employer doesn't bear the burden of getting you over those hurdles.
2. Network.
Maybe a local group of geeks gather weekly for beer. Maybe there's an interesting user's group. Meeting people at such groups make access to un-advertised positions or to some one in engineering (not HR) that can be intelligent about who to bring in for interviews.
The best thing you can do is to try to find out a bit about companies you are interested in working for. each time i look for a new position, this is my first step---find out who is in HR, who their boss is, etc and email/call them to gauge their interest. you're basically doing some social engineering here---your goal is to get names and phone numbers of the people who would be interviewing you and/or hiring you. call/email them and politely state what you're looking for and feel them to see if they're interested...don't be pushy whatsoever, or claim that you know more than other people in the field. no one wants to work with a jerk. that linked in site is really good for things like this too---you can find out who works for what company, and see if you can get any sort of info from them about the hierarchy. and i'm sure it's been said previously, but you should definitely look outside your area for work---bigger cities always have openings, and they also have a lot more for temp agencies. my current gig, i actually didn't like my prospects where i was and ended up working through a temp agency in a major city before i was brought on full-time. above all, be patient and don't just blast out template letters with garbage that doesn't relate to the company you want to work for. it always works better when you target a specific company, and try to show them how you can help their business. and definitely be prepared for some "different" interview questions---like my favorite one "logically, how would you program a 50 floor elevator". good luck! it's not the best market out there right now---but as long as you keep looking you'll find something. and you could always hire a headhunter....
Over the last twelve years, I've worked in a variety of computing roles, from very early in the support process to "architecture" roles, as well as some software development roles. During that time, I have bemoaned my bad timing as a "late to the game", especially during the dot com bust. But the provided me with a smaller, more diverse set of opportunities that have ultimately led to better perspective and a more attractive resume. I finished the college degree that I started before the bust while I consulted for small businesses. During that time I acted as an 'IT Guy' while also pursuing problem solving opportunities that only a programmer could complete. I'll not trouble you with more, except to give you some bullet-form advice.
- Expect continuous learning, and be willing to do it on your off time.
- Differentiate yourself somehow. While having a perspective on a broad range of topics, be deep in some.
- Look to small-to-medium sized businesses, and don't be afraid of the approach. Play the numbers, 10 might not want you, but the 11th might.
I can't stress this enough. The small and medium sized companies can't always afford services from the Oracles and IBMs of the world. They are stuck buying off-the-shelf solutions that half fit their needs. Your niche, if you choose to take it, is the guy who can provide higher-end solutions for lower-end prices. They can spend 2-10k on you, but the licensing for software alone can eliminate the complex off-the-shelf products. The custom solutions are for your resume, the low-end pay will get you by, and in the long run, you'll have seen the entrepreneurial side of things. Also, understand that these companies are often run by individual owners who can make the decision without a committee or HR department. You play to their own feelings of value-for-the-dollar. Example: a customer of mine needed custom reports that his vendor wouldn't provide him. I reverse-engineered the database and built the reports. Build trust - I said it would take 2 weeks, it took 3. Charge for 2, comp one. I was first pick for the next service.
- Don't expect long-term employment right now, but make try to make the short-term work noteworthy.
- Value certifications, especially the college degree. Shrug off the naysayers. In easy job markets, they don't mean much, but in hard ones, they are what keeps you "in the running" against your competition. Accrue these any way you can.
- Know IP. IPv4, IPv6. Simply being able to subnet puts you in a higher tier. Do it.
- Get an idea of what's ahead. Convergence is a big deal. If you have free time, learn to build apps for iPhone, Android, etc. This is going to be a huge area with lots of opportunity. If you can build these inexpensively, there are companies that will pay for them. "I can build you a working app for $10k" looks like a great deal for many companies.
- Forget the discouraging responses to this thread. The truth is that competent technology folks are NOT everywhere. Be a good one and you'll have no problem, at least in the next economic cycle.
Best of luck!
Go to India. Wait at a bus stop. Some random person from an HR agency will recruit you for XYZMantra Software Solutions. For a pittance and stressful competition, you can have that dream coding/developing job. Indians are great at coding and very poor. Americans are smart. So they outsource. Even the Literature graduates and housewives. I live here so I know. My brother was an SCJP at the age of 11 and interned at Sun Micro at 12. He's now onto a UMich PhD in computer networks. I use coding(C) to predict what is most likely to happen in a manufacturing process before it is physically set up.
There are a lot of job listings in the classifieds who are either recruiters looking to build a resume database, or companies with no intention of hiring.
The first, recruiters, often advertise jobs in very general terms, and often short on specifics. Seldom do they specify the company. Sure, you can send your resume to them, but don't expect a reply anytime soon.
The second are a little harder to determine. Companies will often advertise that they are hiring not because they intend to fill positions, but ecause it gives the vendors the impression that they are growing so fast they can't hire enough people to keep up. Sometimes, they'll use these tactics to justify hiring H1B's instead of native talent. Don't feel about not getting a jobs that doesn't really exist.
Finally, an anecdote. A year after graduating, a friend of mine gets a call from a company. Excellent benefits, salary, etc... So she skips some *really important* family commitments to go to the interview, and what happens? She's huddled into a room with a bunch of other "candidates" and given a sales presentation. The job had nothing to do with either IS or IS management.
Officially, one of every 8 workers is unemployed in my state. That's not counting the ones who retired, no longer qualify for benefits, or just took a job flipping burgers. The economy is _really_ bad, and its no exaggeration to say it's the worst recession since the Great Depression. If you can swing it, now is the time to stay in school. You aren't going to gain any long term advantage by getting an entry level job now.
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