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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?"
Exactly. Many companies get their talent through temp agencies, so submitter should consult the area temp agencies - they'll do much of the legwork for you and bolster your visibility if you don't have any existing connections. It's not as prestigious as waltzing into IBM's offices and walking out with a job offer, but we have to accept the reality that all new workers are basically temps anyway. You were lied to if you were told that you'd walk out of college with a 50K job offer. You may have to work for chump change in a lower-level position for a while just to prove your mettle to the company. In that case, it'll be up to you to take initiative and demonstrate that you can do more. Company bosses aren't going to magically see all of your skills and pick you out for promotion. You need to go above and beyond the job description. Examine whatever you can and reccomend bug fixes, or create programs that serve a purpose.
As an example, I wrote a small program to detect duplicate serial number entries so that nobody could print the same serial number for 2 machines without a warning. I also wrote a Rube Goldberg proof-of concept GUI program, based on the Java robot(in before noob, java sux), that simplified and made for safer data entry. Everybody on the floor thought that I was some kind of guru, and I'm only a lowly repair tech.
Timothy: please lift my Slashdot ban. I know i've been a bad boy, but I'm not going to e-mail you and beg for forgiveness.
-- Ethanol-fueled
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.
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
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.
do virtually anything public programming related
Example: build a race of giant robots and program them to seek out and destroy any HR manager who turns down your resume.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
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'm a prof., and I can attest to everything the parent said.
I can also attest to everything the OP said. I know, because I, like the submitter, screwed it all up. I thought my friends who were "working for free" at internships were crazy. They all got jobs--usually the same job they were doing for free--immediately after graduating. Me? No. I did not. I graduated in the top 10% of my class and am bilingual, but I couldn't get a job. This went on for years (I was working crap jobs), until I figured out that, although I think the business world is lazy as shit in that they refuse to train people anymore (I live in Japan; the companies here hire smart kids and turn them into whatever they need), that's the way it is. The problem was me, not them.
So I looked at my academic record and realized that the only people who cared about it were other academics, and that the way out was through. I went back to school, and here I am: a prof. at a very prestigious university. But I got here by paying a lot of money and working for free for years and years. --I just don't think there is any way around that anymore. The "entry level position" is a myth.
I tell all my students to get internships now. I tell them how I ended up standing before them. I like my job, don't get me wrong, but I ended up here because I didn't do the things I needed to do to go anywhere else.
There is a fundamental lie that we tell young people: Go to college and you will get a good job. That just is not true. I have a close friend who dropped out of high school and is a very successful developer. He's very, very smart, and wears that lack of even a diploma as a badge of honor. But he got where he is today by working a lot of terrible jobs--starting by building PCs at a Mom & Pop white box shop in a strip mall--and honing his skills. It took a long time. It always takes a long time.
I'd like to add something to the parent's point, though. The "go to college, get a good job" is a cum hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy (i.e. correlation does not imply causation). In the old days, only the idle rich could go to university, and they were largely finishing schools. That's why we still have total bullshit like literature degrees at 4 year institutions (I like books, but getting a 4-year degree in book reports is nuts). So those people didn't need jobs, or might be installed at the family business as some titular boss when they finished. However, if you were a really smart cookie from the lower classes, you might be able to go to university on scholarship. You might earn your way in. Once in, you were suddenly rubbing elbows with the ruling class, and one of your mates was virtually guaranteed to talk his dad into hiring you. Even if that didn't happen, when you graduated, someone would hire you because, "OMG you have a degree???" This is because they were rare. They are not rare anymore. It would be different if you went to an Ivy League school--that would at least get you an interview--but you didn't (that's the other thing I've learned since being "in the industry"--name value is everything; there's almost no point in going to a school that is not well-known--I work with a complete moron, but he went to the same Ivy League school as our boss, so he's in).
So here's what you're looking at: You have no experience, no name value, and you don't know anyone. You have a random bachelor's just like everybody else. You are not getting a "real" job anytime soon. You're not. It's not going to happen. The sooner you make peace with that, the better. You need to get some experience, and that is going to mean doing it for free, probably. I'm sorry, but it's true.
Good luck.