Recent Grads and Experience Beyond the Desktop? 574
over_exposed asks: "I'm a recent college grad (B.S. in C.S.) and have been on the job hunt for about 6 months. I've been playing around with tech toys as long as I can remember, but it all focuses around the desktop environment. Desktop-grade routers, switches and wireless as well as any/all desktop PC (and some Mac) hardware is what I could get my hands on with my limited budget. After looking through hundreds if not thousands of job postings, everyone is looking for 3+ years of network admin experience or 5+ years of C++ experience even for an entry level position. How is one expected to gain that kind of experience when no one will hire you without the experience? What kind of (part-time) work can you get as a college student to gain experience (Cisco, Exchange, SQL, etc) that will be marketable in the real world? Any suggestions from the Slashdot community will be of great benefit to myself and thousands of others who will enter the 'real world' in the next few years."
LUGs (Score:5, Insightful)
Aside from simply applying for such positions, I would suggest you attend a Linux User's Group [linux.org] in your area. Along with expanding your knowlege and skills, a LUG connects you with relationships that might be helpful in finding part-time work. You'll also get a better feel for the local job market.
Internships (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:LUGs (Score:2, Insightful)
Design and build a project of your own (Score:4, Insightful)
Too high too fast (Score:4, Insightful)
Once you get promoted you can then use that as leverage for external promotion. Remember all promotion is essentially internal in one way or another, it just seems like it is external because people change jobs so often.
Welcome to the present (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Start low, study hard (Score:3, Insightful)
Buy some good books and keep yourself studying and learning. At least you'll be able to tell a potential employee that you've studied the theory and are eager to get experience even if you don't already have any.
Fedex (Score:3, Insightful)
Turns out that Fedex only hires within its ranks. So there is essentially no way to get into the Fedex programming core without spending a year delivering packages. After that year, you would be free to transfer to a group that more naturally fit your skills.
Now back to your problem. What exactly, have you looked at? Software Developer postions? Well, no shit, it's fucking hard, asshole. There are a million of us, and a billion of you-unlearned, untrained, unskilled, greenthumbs who think they know what's what but couldn't tell their ass from a hole in the ground. Frankly, it's no wonder you didn't get a job. There's simply too many skilled engineers who are unemployed to waste any spare minutes on someone straight out of school.
My advice is to join ANY company and see where it takes you. Hell, even McD's needs engineers. Who do you think writes the software to calculate "hamburger+softdrink=happymeal"?
There are a million positions wide open and just because you closed your eyes to them doesn't mean they don't exist. Go out and get them, you budding programmer.
The magic word is "intern" (Score:5, Insightful)
Lots of companies have internships available because it's a good way for them to get cheap labor that will do grunt work and for the intern to get their foot in the door. After so much time if they like you they hire you.
Find a company you want to work for and call them up and ask if they have internships availablable. These are the kinds of jobs that college students are expected to take as a way to get started in their career.
Ben
Re:I could tell you... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your attitude displays an astonishing lack of maturity--if you are good at your job, you will want mentor others and pass along your knowledge and skills.
If you are weak, perhaps that explains your concern about being replaced?
Make sure that's what you want to do. (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and everyone else will say this, but most of the jobs I've gotten (from ice cream scooper at Baskin' Robbins to the current one), it wasn't what I knew but who I knew. The right references, and the right person speaking up for you when someone mentions an opening, make all the difference. If you aren't outgoing, then at least be pleasant towards those around you whenever possible.
For any man with half an eye... (Score:4, Insightful)
Get rid of the H1-B's (Score:1, Insightful)
I can empathize (Score:4, Insightful)
However, I suspect the way I got this job will end up being the same way I get my next one. I started in this position six years ago. I was in high school at the time. I did some tech work for one of my teachers, and he knew the person running the network here, and hooked me up. Networking is the key. It's not even a bad idea to pass up internship-style jobs. In those jobs, you'll get an incredible amount of experience, though pay is a bit lower than you might like.
Being qualified is equally as important as being known, but being known is what gets you a job. So, while you're waiting for a good job, do some work for people you know. Install cable modems and DSL service. Run antivirus scans. Do small little jobs like that. If you do some work for a small business owner, you might take a look at the systems they're running and say "ya know, I can write an application for you that will do that better." Give them some details, and quote them a price. If you impress them enough, they'll take you up on your offer. You'll find, after a while, that the people you help will say "Wow, you're really bright and talented. I should introduce you to some people." Then they'll point you in the direction of a job.
And in the meantime, you can charge them $30-60 an hour for your regular tech work, even more for your programming work (if you don't just hammer out a contract for the whole job), and have enough money to pay the bills.
internships!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
I interned at a software company for three years during college, which I believe put me on a completely different level than my peers who had no work experience - even though many of them had better grades
You mentioned "Cisco, Exchange, SQL, etc", IT type jobs are the ones getting washed out by grads. If you are serious about becoming a developer, you need to get experience - try making significant contributions to an open source project or going to grad school and landing some sort of internship like I just mentioned.
Around here there are tons of companies that hire CS students, many times with the hope of grooming them into a full time employee.
Pirate Software (Score:2, Insightful)
Testing (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One solution... (Score:5, Insightful)
1) opportunity to grow - at a small company everyone does some of everything. You get network, DBA, desktop and coding experience all rolled in to one.
2) you're efforts get noticed and you see results.
3) small companies tend to have close relationships with a few customers. You can get to know and impress your customers and maybe create a new opportunity with one of them.
4) small company may be purchased and you get to join a large company (or lose your job).
Also think about jobs that might not be tech specific. For example, did you minor in econ? Maybe look at business analyst positions or marketing for a tech company. Are you really good at explaining technology to non-tech people? Think about technical sales rep jobs.
If you have any skills and experience outside of the technology world leverage that to find positions you didn't consider before. I'd much rather have a software sales rep that knows technology than one who doesn't.
Best of luck to OP and everyone else looking.
Re:Network! Not data-networking, social networking (Score:5, Insightful)
--
11 Gmail invitations availiable [retailretreat.com]
Re:I could tell you... (Score:2, Insightful)
For those that fall into this category it is a cut-throat world, your boss only values you as far as he can't hire someone else to do the same job you do cheaper, and there's hundreds of people knocking on the door every day trying to take your place. It's exactly what the super rich and corporations of the USA want, a two tier class system with them on top, and us on the bottom as serfs to the US system.
Not that it's likely to be any better anywhere else in the world, but you have Ronald Regan and his union breaker mentality and social brainwashing to thank for that.
If you're not in that top 10% of wage earners then you'll learn first hand what I'm talking about one day.
(sorry to have to break it to you)
Set your expectations... (Score:5, Insightful)
After I graduated, I got a job as a "Remote support consultant" at a software house. I got it because I had UNIX experience (I knew a bit about it, but nothing significant) and showed an interest in learning new things.
That role enabled me to learn lots more about UNIX and then get involved in Cisco, Citrix and other tech that you only typically find in business.
Five years later I'm one of the senior techies and I get to play with all the new interesting things. My general rule of thumb, is that new people are generally only useful after about a year. It takes that long to learn the systems we use. If they show a particular interest in learning, I'll teach them as much as I can. It's the only way to grow decent techies.
Starting at the helpdesk is an excellent starting point, degree or not, because it give you a wide subject knowledge (I'm not referring to call center-type helpdesks). If you're good, you'll be noticed.
Re:Welcome to the present (Score:3, Insightful)
...and with them went our communities, neighborhoods, being able to sign a mortgage before starting to withdraw from the (probably non-existent) retirement fund, families, hope, joy, careers, the value of our educations, and everything else that makes working a 40 hour week important.
But that's alright. Don't complain too loud. There's cake in the conference room.
Re:Lie (Score:5, Insightful)
As times change, so must we (Score:3, Insightful)
There are times, like now, when the market is lean. I remember when I was 17, being unable to get a job at McDonalds, Taco Bell or any number of super markets due to insufficient experience. It so happened that all the jobs in entry positions were taken where I was. Merely being an honor student with club activities didn't demonstrate much. Perseverance paid off, and I finally found a job that taught me a variety of skills-- namely cooking, cleaning and running the register.
When the market is lean, you don't find the job you want, you find one that will let you dabble in what you like. Maybe you find a mom and pop or a startup that needs something you can do, but don't want to, and also needs something you want to do, but can't afford to pay someone full time to do. In three years, you'll have that part-time experience in the real world, which is better than someone fresh out of college with only what you had three years ago. Of course, if the economy picks up, or otherwise you find a good job before then, you've been able to pay the rent.
Networking also helps, be it through user groups or church or maybe your old college professors. Often a relationship that involves trust, demonstrating how dependable you are, one that prompts conversations that end with, "...[s]he really pulled me through that tough spot" can get you some interviews your resume wouldn't.
how to get started (Score:3, Insightful)
Out of more than a dozen tech jobs I've held, I only ever got ONE though job listings, and that was because I was living in a backwater place at the time and the company had few applicants. All the rest were by knowing someone at the company (directly or indirectly). You don't necessarily have to know them well; a casual acquaintance is enough to get your foot in the door.
The companies DON'T CARE whether you can find a job or not. There are too many IT people on the market, so they can afford to only hire people with a lot of experience even for an entry level position. They believe (correctly or not) that if they get someone with less experience it will cost them more money.
If you really want to stick with this career path, you need to find a company through friends, friends of friends, etc., that needs someone, possibly part time or as a consultant, and almost certainly for substandard pay. Work up from there.
Re:Network! Not data-networking, social networking (Score:3, Insightful)
This is easily said, but not easily done for many people. Imagine a person rowing up to New York City in a grass boat from a primitive island-nation having never seen such a city before. It is reasonable for me to say "Yeah, you just get on the subway, go to XYZ street, take a cab to QRS square, don't look homeless people in the eye, stay out of suspicous alleyways, etc." and actually expect that person to make it?!?
The people who are good at networking typically got that way over the course of their entire lifetimes, and the people who are not good at it have an uphill battle ahead of them.
Re:LUGs (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Design and build a project of your own (Score:2, Insightful)
It's too bad there are so many stigmas about porn, because it really is one of the most technically advanced industries out there. Everything from IT to high-tech injection molding, porn's got it.
Let This Guy Be an Example (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, it's not easy to find the right place to work. You need somewhere that's going to be willing to let you learn AND give you responsibility. I started off the summer before freshman year of high school working for a company doing fairly simple database stuff. That quickly progressed into a demanding database programming and design position from which I was able to gain much experience and client contacts I have used as references. That job morphed into networking, implementing things in very specific ways where there was a lot of on the job learning. I spent a solid four years there doing all of this. By the time I left there, my resume was so long that when I applied for another job, my age was actually questioned due to the wide variety of skills mentioned on my resume. And no, they didn't think I was lying on my resume, as they questioned me about the things on it and hired me.
Moral of the story: Work, work, work. It's just as, if not more, important as your formal school education.
Re:The magic word is "intern" (Score:3, Insightful)
You wasted four years of your career (Score:2, Insightful)
Companies are always looking for help these days that is cost effective to clean up problems. Most of our light weight web work has been done by students and interns.
If you cannot answer any of the following questions with a yes and preferably with how they apply to the job, I HAVE ZERO INTEREST IN YOU.
Did you consider working at CompUSA, an ISP, etc. during the summers/holidays?
Are you the "go to" guy for your friends, neighbors and relatives for computer problems?
What have you done to further your education beyond the rest of the crowd with a CS degree?
Have you built some example web sites or programs/systems for your porfolio?
Have you contributed to any open source projects? Linux, Apache, FreeBSD, etc. have not come from thin air spontaneously.
Have you completed (or at least begun) certifications useful for your career?
Did you teach children/seniors/handicapped computer skills?
Did you minor in accounting, hr, engineering, psychology or any other area that would distinguish you from the crowd?
Have you had any jobs that you can relate to this job? (PEOPLE SKILLS WILL BE A KILLER PLUS as you cannot work in a vacuum).
Did you attend any user groups or linux, *bsd, Oracle, SQL Server,
Did you attend vendor presentations from CISCO, Oracle, Microsoft?
I have met lot of people who hate their work simply because they got a degree without understanding whether they would like doing the work the degree was for. If you have not done work in your degree field, how do you know you will want to do this for any length of time?
Backhanded compliment (Score:4, Insightful)
Make a job (Score:3, Insightful)
Do you have hobbies? Try writing software that can be used in your hobby. Like building handmade birdhouses? Write a program to calculate how much wood you'll need for projects and how much it'll cost. That kind of thing. The software itself doesn't have to be very useful, but it will accomplish two things: it keeps you developing and improves your skills and it gives you something interesting to talk about when you finally get an interview and makes you look productive.
Employers hiring for entry level positions won't expect much in the way of experience, but they will want someone who can work in a team and is motivated and smart. You'll probably find it easier to improve in that area rather than getting useful development experience quickly.
Re:LUGs (Score:2, Insightful)
I also have friends that are investment bankers, physcists and medical doctors.
I can find elitist assholes if I want, but they aren't at the lug.
Re:Design and build a project of your own (Score:4, Insightful)
And heck, build it like your trying to start a business...you just might!
Apply anyway (Score:4, Insightful)
Volunteer at a non-profit (Score:2, Insightful)
Everything that you do for them you can put on your resume. It works. I know from experience... }:-)