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Ask Slashdot: Re-Entering the Job Market As a Software Engineer?
First time accepted submitter martypantsROK writes "It's been over 15 years since my main job was a software engineer. Since then I have held positions as a Sales Engineer, then spent a few years actually doing sales as a sales rep (and found I hated it) and then got into teaching. I am still a teacher but I want to really get back into writing code for a living. In the past couple of years I've done a great deal of Javascript, PHP, Ajax, and Java, including some Android apps. So here's the question: How likely would I be to actually get a job writing code? Is continual experience in the field a must, or can a job candidate demonstrate enough current relevance and experience (minus an actual job) with a multi-year hiatus from software development jobs? I'll add, if you haven't already done the math, that I'm over 50 years old."
As someone who just went through this, it is going to be tough
A sales "engineer"? Much like a "sanitation engineer"?
Save the engineering titles for people that actually do engineering. You were a glorified sales rep-- that's it.
There are sales positions that require enough specific knowledge of the systems involved that they actually do require a person with an engineering degree and/or experience.
Get over yourself.
In the UK (and most places in the EU I guess ) asking your age is illegal, and screening old timers out would be suicide.
To top it all, you can request to see in which basis they didn't give you a job.
I know, I know, evil socialist Europe.
I went through this as well, and as macs4all above mentioned, if it hadn't been for a job offer at a place I used to work, where the people knew me and trusted I could do the job (as I'd already had), I'd still be out of work. Don't put your age down on your resume, that might help. I stopped putting my graduation date, and only put jobs 10 years old or newer. Before that, I lumped everything together, if I put it down at all.
Of course, it didn't really work for me, so who knows if it's even good advice.
Everything you know is wrong, Just forget the words and sing along.
If you apply for an entry level position, they won't hire you because they expect you will will keep looking for a higher-paying mid or senior level position, and that you will jump ship as soon as you find it.
If you apply for a mid or senior level position, your resume will be outclassed by others who don't have a large experience gap.
Also, because of rampant agism in the industry, potential employers will prefer people 20 years younger than you who are also applying for mid or senior level positions. Employers will (perhaps wrongly) expect that your old brain isn't as effective at learning new technologies like their young brains are, and that they are therefore more valuable. Also, they are less likely to suddenly die of a heart attack.
So do yourself a favor, and don't bother entering an already over-crowded and competitive labor market that no longer wants you.
We were younger and stupider then. Now, unless there's serious equity involved, forget it, Charlie Brown. There are too many places that "assume" you'll do the extra hours at no extra cost. Let them hire extra bodies instead. That management, after all these decades, STILL hasn't got a clue as to how to allocate manpower is indicative of how badly we need a union.