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Hello TL Blog section! I have come to imbue some nonessential verbage to your day/evening/night/morning as well as focus my mental ramblings toward a more direct and clear path to walk upon for various features of my life. As you well know, after clicking on this link, the first part is focused on the trait of Professionalism tried into Personality.
![[image loading]](http://rickischultz.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/professionalism.jpg)
Professionally Dressed, but what does it actually say about you?
The suit and tie routine is essential to anyone who wants to come across as professional, but it can only go so far. There are certain personality traits companies want that may not be so obvious to reveal in an interview, especially in a company who doesn't strive to reveal the most underlying traits of their workforce (see: Non google/apple/microsoft/other major innovation based companies) These are a few things I know from reading books and from talks with my elders who know the ways of the world.
When you're a youngun like me, at the ripe age of eighteen, it is difficult to even be able to type yourself with the most intimate and perfect knowledge of yourself. To overcome age and experience deficits takes quite a bit of that extra spark to get taken seriously, a spark that is rather unknown to many who are currently seeking fulfilling and high-level work as well as the young and the inexperienced. This is where the first question comes to you, TL reader, what do you think makes a productive person worth more than their resume and skillset? I ask because I will be among more than a million peers seeking an internship or employment for the Summer at home as well as for the Winter at university. Nearly all of them have the same on-paper achievements, no matter how masterfully you spin them. Once the interview comes, I want to make myself standout.
![[image loading]](http://nowsourcing.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/left-brain-right-brain.jpg)
What combination of these images produces an attractive potential worker?
Another thing I want to ask is a few memoirs of my readers, if they would, about what it was like when they had their first major breakthrough as a teenager/20-something when finding work that didn't involve tearing tickets or flipping burgers. What made it happen for you? There are a lot of ways it can happen and all I am aware of is producing unique work that no one else among me has done. As a little information, I am studying CS and Math and am working on producing apps (using Objective C) but am truly intrigued by system efficiency at all levels. Most hardware enthusiasts are the same way, but I like to extend it to software. Why make BF3 look the way it does with X resources when it can be the exact same with quantifiably lower Y resources?
I am truly just asking for advice on where to take my first professional steps as a college freshman aspiring to be doing meaningful work as much as my life as possible. This is where I feel as if I need to grow up most at the moment, as I don't want to be left behind the professional train like I felt like I was left behind socially all those years ago and try so hard and long to just catch up to everyone else. I want to be above the standard, in this case.
Thank you for reading my musing and their inherent mindlessness. I'm sure the answers are right in front of me, but I haven't seen them in the correct context yet. Have a good evening, day....you get it 
 
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Getting a programming internship as a freshman is hard, because you most likely haven't learned anything relevant in school yet. Just hit up all the career fairs, talk to people, be upbeat, and give out a lot of resumes. Don't be disappointed if you don't get anything this year, though. I spent my freshman year summer doing an IT internship because nobody would take me for a software firm. I got a software internship the next year, and after graduating got a full-time position.
Also, if you care about system efficiency, drop the Objective-C. C++, C, and assembly are the only languages that produce efficient machine code. There is a reason all games are still written in C++. Hand-coding performance-crucial modules in assembly is something that used to be done to eke the most performance out of game engines, but has fallen by the wayside somewhat in recent times. It is apparent, too, because many modern games run like crap.
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On March 01 2012 06:49 Uranium wrote:
Getting a programming internship as a freshman is hard, because you most likely haven't learned anything relevant in school yet. Just hit up all the career fairs, talk to people, be upbeat, and give out a lot of resumes. Don't be disappointed if you don't get anything this year, though. I spent my freshman year summer doing an IT internship because nobody would take me for a software firm. I got a software internship the next year, and after graduating got a full-time position.
Also, if you care about system efficiency, drop the Objective-C. C++, C, and assembly are the only languages that produce efficient machine code. There is a reason all games are still written in C++. Hand-coding performance-crucial modules in assembly is something that used to be done to eke the most performance out of game engines, but has fallen by the wayside somewhat in recent times. It is apparent, too, because many modern games run like crap.
Thanks for the tips. Objective C is mainly for iOS app development to supplement the study in C++ and Java required by my actual CS classes at the moment. By far I like C++ most, but not because of its power. I don't want to code a game engine, per say, but it would be fun as hell!
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Apply to as many internships as you possibly can. With so many people going for the same jobs with similar resumes you'll be lucky to make it past the preliminary review process and actually get an in person interview strictly based on the numbers. Don't sweat getting ignored or rejected, it will happen. Basically all the cliche stuff you've read about how to interview is mostly true. Be on time, dressed professionally, speak professionally, be mannered (please, thank you, etc), and just be a nice, cheerful person. With a crop of similar resumes they will pick based on who they feel they will get along with the best. Don't try to be someone you're not, that's not what I'm saying. If for example you have an interest in football and they have a big poster of a football team in their office then even a small comment about your mutual interests can be huge.
Getting a chance usually comes down to who you know. I got my first real job out of college thanks to my gf who was interning at a company who happened to be looking for an IT guy. It sucks and I know you've heard it before but a lot of times, especially just starting out, it's all about who you know not what you know.
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Eh, i'm 18 and I have a job on the oil field. I work 28 days with 7 days off making 4.2k every two weeks. Oh, i'm a highschool dropout, but i'm very outgoing and I have many friends, these friends enabled me to get a job, and my hardwork ethic helps me to retain it, even though I am seen as "Junior" or "youngblood" being the youngest in the company.
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I'm 22 years old. I've done 2 internships in software dev, and had a short career with an innovative iOS/Ruby company that did 1 week agile sprints, TDD, continuous integration and all the good stuff, before it became an product manager vs developer warzone and I had to get out (unfortunately). I'm currently doing some high paid contract dev work because I am considering living in Japan and being a ruby dev there so I don't want to be locked in till I've decided.
There are a couple of things. Being that "go to" guy for a special topic I think is very important. I have a passion in continuous delivery, extreme programming, and test driven development, actually mostly advanced IT SDLC stuff. When I first went for the iOS job I did a presentation on continuous delivery in the first week, and it left a lasting impression. And its currently the reason I'm being contracted right now (even just teaching git), is to set up a testing framework and hopefully get some continuous integration going. Having a special ability others don't have will get you jobs.
The second thing is personality and this is what holds me back completely. I [had] a terrible "business personality", I can make friends easily and I'm quite an easy going person in general, but personality in business requires a completely different set of skills. You have to be seen as a hard worker, and I always gave the impression of the opposite, I'm so laidback (at work) even when I get the job done, people wonder whether I work at all.
Personality that will make managers like you is being a person that is always on the ball. Sometimes you will have an solution that nobody has and it can [possibly] get you a big promotion or at least keep you in the job for a long time. You gotta take small entrepreneurial (intrapreneurial) risks sometimes, speak out but don't be cocky and don't be persistent and annoying (that's the hardest part). Be a guy that makes money for the company or saves work for the manager.
I have changed quite a lot since the beginning and what inspired me was a intern that was a year older than me working in the same company. He was the hardest working and smartest guy I had ever met, even though he wasn't a very good programmer he was seen by the managers as a genius and they wanted to hire him straight out offering any salary they could afford. He got more work done than everybody else, but he also had some great ideas that saved the company for a lot problems.
First time I tried though I came off as cocky and annoying by trying to pass off my knowledge forcefully and try and change business processes, one problem was that it was a totally different style of company, but most managers just want to do their job get paid and not do any work. So you have to be careful, and maybe even have a chat to people higher up or hold presentations (what I did at the end). My biggest impression left was when I held presentations about the benefits of automated processes, and even developed an automated process for the company in my own time which I then implemented and did a presentation on. It was much more productive than what I did in the beginning which was nag the manager about how the current process sucks and it needs to change, all it did I think was annoy the crap out of him.
TLDR
Great technical skills and technical communication will get you +points with the devs (what I currently have)
Great communication and entrepreneurial skills will get you +points with executives (what I'm still working on)
Also if you are doing iOS stuff I highly recommend this book.
http://www.bignerdranch.com/book/iphone_programming_the_big_nerd_ranch_guide
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EPT
