Trying to find a developers job

S

sjn78

Junior Contributor
Joined
May 4, 2003
Messages
255
Location
Australia
I don't know what it is like in other countries, but here in Australia, just about every developers job you see they ask for someone with at least 5 yrs experience in a certain language.

What is experience? Would they be looking for someone who has been working as a programmer for 5 years or someone who has been programming for 5 years like at home as something to do in their spare time.

Some jobs will just ask for 1 years experience and I have seriously thought about applying for them, just to see if I'm at a level where I could get a fulltime developing job. I have been using .Net for well over a year now and before that used vb5/6 for a couple of years. Along with that, I'm studying Software Engineering. So I'm not sure if that would be classed as experience to employers or not.

It just bothers me that most places require experienced commercial programmers for their positions. But how on earth do you get in the industry in the first place? Some jobs look for graduates, but honestly, I have looked further into the course I'm doing and there is only 1 subject that gives you exposure to .Net. And its VB for that matter. And it is very basic stuff (make an electronic diary)

So, where do I go from here. Stay at my currrent job and keep my eye out for programming jobs or what. I would dearly love to quit my job and program from home.

A year or 2 back I would look at software that is being developed at work and say, Wow thats pretty cool stuff, but now I look at it and think, Whats the big deal with that, its not so hard to do. No matter what I do there, I can't get my boss to say go ahead and write some sort of software that will make life easier. Maybe because all other software is written in Delphi and they don't realise .Net can do the same or even better.

I also realise that to become a professional programmer, I need to improve my programming abilities, but this is just something that you have to do yourself by either reading texts or just getting in there and exploring the language.


I know I have started to rave on a bit, but do any of these issues arise where you guys are and what is the best way to handle it.
 
I say apply for them anyways, like any other career they always ask for so much experience.They always ask for more experience than what they will rerally get. But don't be afraid to send your resume. You never know. I have sent resumes when they ask for more experience and have gotten a few interviews and have gotten a couple jobs. You just have to show intiative and show that what experience yuo do have will help you achieve the experience they want. If yuo show a positive attitude and the willingness to learn and grow, they look at that.

That is just my experience with the job hunt
 
Well, this is one of the best fields to do for yourself.

This isn't Aluminum Siding, Car Sales, Accounting, etc were you need to prove that you know your stuff to get a job, but can't prove your stuff until you get a job.

Screw it. Do it yourself.

I opened my own Web Design & Computer Programming buisiness.

I don't know the situation in Austrailia, but in the United States, it costs $35 to open a buisiness which can employ up to like 3 people, called a DBA (Doing Buisiness As), which is a fancy way of giving yourself a buisiness title.

Now, most everything computer related is a tax writeoff as a buisiness expense. Everything relating to my buisiness is a buisiness expense.

You don't even have to have buisiness lined up. Just open a buisiness, put your hat in the ring.

I have a full time day job. I have programming projects on the side. Maybe someday I'll be making enough to quit my day job. In the mean time, I have over 8 months of professional VB experience, 7 months of that VB.Net.

I'm hardly the most knowledgable, but I have the sourcecode and my applications saved on my porfolio disk. Most were when I worked at a bank, I had to interface random software that wasn't user friendly to make it "invisible".

Like backups. We want a backup of the email server to happen at midnite while nobody is at work. The software is designed to require you to open an app, phsycially type in the source and destination (it doesn't "remember it") and then click "Backup". So I made a program that opens the backup utility and feeds it keystrokes. I use the API to bring the process to focus, then send in Tabs to navigate and strings to enter Paths.

Its not a whole lot of code, but it was a to get started on. I could modify it to work with nearly any software.

You have ideas? Open a buisiness, open a website, start on your ideas. Give them out for free, but with your logo and name on them.

This is one of the few professions were you don't even need a client to do work and still show tangable results.

Even if you're just making a large "portfolio" of works, someone may take a look and say "This guy knows more than than the guys with more experience"

Also remember that .Net is nearly internet integrated in various ways. You can't have 10 years experience with .Net, and someone else with 10 years experience with Delphi isn't nessicarily the best candidate for a company looking to integrate PC Desktop and Internet Apps using .Net.

Sell yourself, sell what you can do. Sell what you want to do. But have some work to prove it. Whats the difference between 8 guys with their fancy resume's and me? I have proof that I can do the work.

A full third, if not half of my programming courses in college passed, but had no friggin clue. They floated on the final projects by leaching off of someone who could program. By scholastic transcripts, they're on even footing with me, or better. But I'm the one who knows how to do it, not them.

Give everything a shot, send Demonstration programs to people. Send in a disc as part of your resume (an 8/16meg jump drive if you want to be fancy) you want to stand out. You'll be rejected and you'll keep learning and gaining more experience.

One piece of advice. If you go into an interview and they have the cajones to turn you down in person (and not any "Well get back to you" B.S.), ask them why. What were you lacking. Don't argue or beg, but try to find out why you wern't the right candidate. Then you'll have someplace to work on.
 
I agree with techmanbd, apply for the jobs. The worse thing that can happen is they don't answer. I have seen time and time again where the job description and the experience they are requesting would take 2 or 3 people to fill thier need.

I know when it comes to programming, some companies will require you to show some code or they may give you a small project to complete as an interview. All depends on the company. The hardest part I have seen is getting an interview. They automate the HR/RESUME process so much that a real person does not always see the resumes. Or when they do, they look for keywords. If you don't score enough points on the keywords they file 13 your resume.

I got lucky with my current job, I had no programming experience at all. Maybe a little HTML or something. BUt I started reading books and got to help on a coldfusion project. From thier I started studying VB, which we happen to have one developer working on our internal software who was getting swampped. Next thing I know, I am now 1 of maybe 3 developers in this office and starting on VB.NET

So I guess after all my rammbling, I would say learn it, make side projects that you can throw on a CD like Denaes said, and so from there.
 
If you don't have a degree, get one, as its much easier to get a job once you do. When I graduated back in 2000 with a Computer Science degree in New Zealand, the economy wasn't looking too great, and evreyone seemed to want 2 years of experience.

I applied for enough jobs and was lucky enough to get a job after 6 months at a business that was looking for fresh graduates, where I learnt VB6 and ASP (at univeristy they taught as C & Pascal on Unix machines).

After nearly 3 years I've moved to the states, where everyone seemed to be looking for 5 years experience! And while the economy wasn't too flash here either (for different reasons), I managed to get another job here in Boston developing VB.NET and ASP.NET applications.

My only advice is to not give up, and keep applying for jobs, but without a university degree you're probably going to struggle to find work, unless you are lucky and can find an internship or something....

good luck!!!
 
Oh yes......University degrees. To me they seem pointless. You go to university to get a piece of paper, then you go to work to learn. I'm not saying uni is a total waste of time, but it gives you the basics of a lot of things.

You surely couldn't say that an employer would take someone with no experience but with a degree over someone without a degree and a few years experience. For me, I learn more from actually doing something, rather than reading about it, such as uni.

Out of curiosity, whats the cost of Uni in the US. It works out nearly $500AU per subject here. And studying software engineering, there are 24 subjects. Thats another issues I guess, you spend $12,000 on study, but it may lead you nowhere. Where I work, if I have a degree I will get a pat rise, but it will take about 10 years or more to cover those costs of uni.

But, after you guys comments, I think if I see a job being advertised, I will have a go and see what comes of it.
 
I think I was paying about $8,000US/year for a state (read: semi-taxpayer supported) university in the late 90's. I'd imagine that same school costs more like $10,000US/year now. And the best part is how they manage to make it virtually impossible to pass in 8 terms - almost everyone in my program went 9 terms (4.5 years) to get everything done.

My degree is purely in CS, so I feel like I learned a lot of the concepts I needed, but then I learned whatever languages I need now on the job - that's pretty much any kind of path from education to real-world though.

Now, was it worthless? I'd say definitely not for me. It's pretty hard to quantify, but I do know the "better" your school is considered, the more money you're probably going to make, at least from what I've seen from developers with pretty similar experience, just the university differing on the resume. Crazy stuff.
 
sjn78 said:
Oh yes......University degrees. To me they seem pointless.
Click to expand...
I couldn't agree more!
If the potential employer is of any value as employer he/she will realize that technology is changing so fast that there is no way the educational systems can keep up.
While an education is extremely important to cover the basics, there is no way for an underfunded, buried in red tape educational system to be dynamic enough to keep up with last year's tech let alone today's tech.
There can't be enough said for the school of hard knocks!

I was sitting in an airport bar one day carrying on casual conversation with another gentleman on technology. By the end of the conversation he offered me a position for more money than an "educated" coder. Why? He realized I didn't know everything, but as I did not spend a small fortune in both time and money to gain an education in old technology, I had a solid enough foundation to know the rules. I was uneducated enough to not worry about breaking the rules should the need arise.
Strange industry!!

I ended up turning the job down - it was in Minnesota (Brrrr......)

As long as you enjoy what your doing and give your best effort, the money will take care of itself.

Just my thoughts....
 
Code: 
Originally Posted by sjn78
Oh yes......University degrees. To me they seem pointless.

I disagree with this statement too. What is DBMS, what is normalization, what is AI, what is software project management, what is software metrics and etc...
In U, I could learn all these things which I never known it is so useful for me. I am glad I know all those stuff....

Back to the discussion:

sjn78, I think the suggestion from Denaes would be good. I had started my own business since I was studying in U. And now, my company have 4 years' histories. Wao... How many projects that my company had done and how big were them?
Honestly, quite a lot, but scopes are very small. Once I have done with my academy assignments or projects, I modified them and suiting them with certain customers.
I sold them with RM2k(about US500) each. Not much right? Cause this amount is just enough to cover all those transport costs and maintenance costs.
What happen nowadays, when I am presenting myself into any Interview, I could say whatever I had done, how many projects for how many companies. Since there are so many companies, do you think that they will ask one by one? DEFINATELY NO.
Tell them only certain Interested system that you had developed and you are proud with.

For learning new programming languages is an easy thing. Never affraid of it if you have enough experience in programming(Any language). Most of the time, to learn a new language is actually an investment of few days time. Trust me. You can catch up very fast if you have strong background in programming. (see.. if you don't have a degree/academy background, how are you able catching up so fast??? unless you are a genious)

Above-mentioned is only my personal view. It doesn't mean to offense anyone. :c)
 
Originally Posted by georgepatotk
I disagree with this statement too. What is DBMS, what is normalization, what is AI, what is software project management, what is software metrics and etc...
In U, I could learn all these things which I never known it is so useful for me. I am glad I know all those stuff....
Click to expand...

They may teach you how to do these things, but you are taught on a very basic example. What job doesn't have non-standard types of DB's. You aren't taught experience in Uni which is still what I believe outweighs a degree. If you were to learn all the fine details of DBMS from a course, then I don't think you would ever leave Uni.

Uni is still good for getting you started in a particular area, but if you were throw into a job with no one there to help, you wouldn't have a chance. For instance, at work, we get civil engineering students in for work experience. They may be taught how roads and bridges are built, but no 2 bridges are the same. Different soil types, room for underground services and so on. You need to be exposed to every possible situation to realy get to understand how things are done.

If you step into a job without this knowledge, you either should be able to show yourself as a good learner and pick it up quickly, or you get fired. Simple as that.
 
A note on a "uni". I actually just graduated from a 2yr community college. Hardly a university, though it did spend more time on practical and less on theory.

My friend is going to a university that offers BA, MA and Doctorates in computers. You don't even touch a computer in most of your first year classes. Database 1 you don't touch the computer. Programming 1, you don't touch the computer - though they do start you off learning C++, but again, without the computer. Its ALL theory.

When I first stepped into college like 7 years ago, I took a semister. A lame class on "generic PC stuff" (word, excel, access v3, etc). Then I dropped out. I had nothing going my way in terms of a career or good job. Just junk.

I went back to school two years ago. I wanted to do Networking and System Administrations. Again, no formal experience, but I ended up managing a jury rigged computer network with a server box sharing the internet for 5 computers in a house. So I figured I had a knack, I might like it.

I had to take Visual Basic 6. I got the book, loaded it on my computer and I was like ?? This is jibberish.

The class started and it was like one of those cut scenes in a movie were the music starts to play and it just shows people learning. I LOVED it. I learned it, I wanted to learn more. Just for fun. By the time I took the second semister of the course (a year later) I'd already surpassed the class (The book covers both halves of the class) by finishing the entire book on my own.

I took Systems Administrating and learned it was the most tedius boredom of my college career.

I'm far from a master computer programmer (or anything computer related), but college gave me a sampling of what is out there, so I can choose what I like and don't like. It also gave me a foundation to build on.

Once you learn a language properly, its really easy to apply to another language. I work in VB6, VB.Net, ActionScript (Flash internet programming) and I'm starting on C# and ASP.Net.

I'm confident that if I were required to learn Delphi or C/C++ or any other programming/scripting language, I'm only a book away from adapting my skills to that language.

I agree that you learn great theories and ideas in a Uni. You also learn in a "clean environment". The real world is far from that. Its trying to get it going. This is why I think other theories like Refactoring can be very important.

I think both count. If you happen to pick up all of your foundations on your own, by reading books and whatnot, and develop good practices I'd say the only thing a Uni guy has over you is a Uni degree showing that he has a more well rounded education, more drive, commitment and desire to do what he does. That may not be true, but thats the message that's conveyed.

It takes a LOT of character to balance job, family and school, and often times it just seems easier to take the easy way out and get a job doing what you can do.

I think at some point, a lot of experience will still outweigh a fresh face from a Uni.
 
sjn78, I think the suggestion from Denaes would be good. I had started my own business since I was studying in U. And now, my company have 4 years' histories. Wao... How many projects that my company had done and how big were them?
Honestly, quite a lot, but scopes are very small. Once I have done with my academy assignments or projects, I modified them and suiting them with certain customers.
I sold them with RM2k(about US500) each. Not much right? Cause this amount is just enough to cover all those transport costs and maintenance costs. :c)[/QUOTE]

I agree with pretty much everything that is being said.....I started my own company for side money. It was great. I would find an appilcation or task to perform, take a week off and code it, drop it off and test it....Nothing new there, my addition to the discussion is that I would write an application for one client and sell it to several. I would sell it by the seat (installed application) when possible. That way, it seems cheaper. For example, only $150 U.S.D. per install for eight installs....Since my overhead was low, I would get full life cycle development experience and sell the same product several times.
 
I was in your position about seven years ago

I programmed in (gasp) dBase 3.3+ in the Navy, I liked it, and I wanted to go back to programming. I was in sales at the time and making a LOT of money, but I hated the look of my own face every morning when I got up and looked in the mirror

Say what you want about programmers - we are free. If your mind is creative enough, you can dye your hair blue, stencil "I am Jebus" on your butt and wear flip-flops to a funeral, and the worst you will get is, "See how the creative mind works?"

So here is the DEFINITIVE method to get yourself into 'the business'. This isn't 'mighta/shoulda/coulda'. This is 'does.'

1. Identify your niche. You do NOT have the time or the ability to embrace every facet of programming. It is better to shine in your corner than to glow in full daylight. Pick the SPECIFIC thing about programming that gives you the passion to write code, and do that and only that.

In my case, it was the GoldMine program - I really liked it, I knew a lot about it, and no one else at the time was doing what I knew I could do with it. I used my ability to accent an already good program with add-ons to lay the foundation of my business model

2. Sit your butt down and write yourself a business plan - this is where most new developers will fail. You don't get to just start coding - it might work eventually but it takes a long time, and you don't get to tell your mortgage company and your stomach "I will feed you well next year, but not at all this year." Get a real pencil and a real piece of paper, and write things like:

I will write in this language
I will address these needs
I will appeal to these sorts of consumers
I will collect money this way
I will need these resources

etc. When you are done, post it on a wall where you can see it and where you can update it. Keep in mind that a business plan is not a suicide pact - as your industry changes, you have to change with it, or die.

3. Reach potential consumers by joining and posting to every single forum, newsgroup, board and blog on your niche. Read all of the posts, reply to all of the posts you can, in such a way as you are saying, "See what I know." This is where you can give away clever code snippets demonstrating that you are REALLY in it for the love of the product, and you are the guy with the answers.

This will get your name out to the people who are most likely to hire you on the spot: the ones who have already tried and screwed up. In every industry on the planet, these are the highest return. I learned this doing construction - the person with his hands in bandages, a sledge with a bloody handle and a 1/2 broken set of concrete steps in front of their house paid a LOT more than the guy who was bidding out his front walk to 15 different contractors

4. Promise work at about 110% of your ability or lower, meaning that you should take on jobs that you can either do, or which involves technology that you are very sure you can learn. Don't promise to write a program for $5,000 that involves interfacing with a phone switch, if you know nothing about phone switches but figure that, in the amount of time it will take you to spend $5,000, you can learn.

This is another common error among developers. We all learn on the customer's dime - there is a difference between having to learn a java routine for your ASP.Net page, where you've done very little java, and trying to address an industry you know nothing about.

5. Charge a LOT for your time. Hiring a consultant should be economically painful. No less than $125/hr, most now are doing more.

Why? No one wants a cheap consultant. Welcome to capitalism - things are worth what they cost, time and knowledge included. If you are making less than the guy who hires you, then you clearly aren't worth as much as he is, and then what is the point?

In fact, you get to buy those great weight-lifter addition books for $49.95, where you really need only seven pages of information from them. You get to pay $500 to go to a lecture or $1,250 to upgrade to version 1.0125 from version 1.0124 (which turns your microwave oven on every time you hit F4). If you can't afford to be current, you will be short lived.

6. This is the key: make yourself identifiable. Make sure your website doesn't look like anyone else's website, don't identify yourself by name. Be 'the VB Guy' or 'Magic Fingers' or something that sticks in a consumer's mind.

I chose 'the Wizard' because I liked Dungeons and Dragons as a kid and because that was my nick name when I used to repair nuclear reactors. This made it very easy for people to say, "You should contact The Wizard for help with that."

That sounds stupid, but if they don't easily remember who you are, you won't get calls. This leads to the final point:

7. Be easy to contact. I did a lot of business with Australia, and one of the reasons why was that I left my MSN messenger on 24/7 and they could message me with their questions, and I would wake up and give them answers. If it was a matter of needing to be 1:1, then I could always stay up late or get up early, or they could, all of this being arranged on Messenger. It is often the case that the person who gets the job is the person whom they can get in touch with

I am not the best programmer here.

I am not among the top programmers here.

Right now, I am working for someone else because I would rather right fantasy than program, and this pays the bills because I made enough in the seven years that I programmed as a consultant to retire. When my kid is out of school in 4 years, I am pretty much gone
 
Back
Top