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Craton
United States17281 Posts
Getting hired almost always wants a degree and/or experience (preferably both, experience being in the form of internships for recent grads). Consider what you would say if you were an employer and you got a resume from someone where all they said was "I've gone through a text book and done an example project." | ||
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RoyGBiv_13
United States1275 Posts
On December 14 2012 08:18 xavra41 wrote: Okay, so I Went through a giant 1500 page java book and did a big project involving 2k lines of code with gui and sql connection to a server to store/retrieve information. Does anyone know what the next step is in finding a job? Hah! Have a family member or friend in the industry of your choice. Send them resume. ????. Profit! | ||
tofucake
Hyrule19200 Posts
On December 14 2012 09:07 Craton wrote: You can apply with anything or with nothing. You'd have a much better chance going after a paid internship if all you've done is gone through a single book and written a basic CRUD app. Getting hired almost always wants a degree and/or experience (preferably both, experience being in the form of internships for recent grads). Consider what you would say if you were an employer and you got a resume from someone where all they said was "I've gone through a text book and done an example project." not necessarily true start writing programs just like whatever stuff contribute to some open source projects show that you like programming enough that you do it for free and then companies will be like "i like his attitude, i bet if we pay him we can crush his soul and he won't even object!" and that's how to be a programmer | ||
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Phunkapotamus
United States496 Posts
On December 14 2012 09:20 tofucake wrote: not necessarily true start writing programs just like whatever stuff contribute to some open source projects show that you like programming enough that you do it for free and then companies will be like "i like his attitude, i bet if we pay him we can crush his soul and he won't even object!" and that's how to be a programmer This +1. I'll turn away an Ivy League CS degree any day for someone who has proven they can code. School/degree doesn't matter at all. If it matters to the place you're applying at, then you don't want to work there. It probably means they have stupid 1950's business politics, a dress code, and a bunch of useless people you can't fire. | ||
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Craton
United States17281 Posts
No job wants someone with no experience and no education. The act of "proving" you can code is illustrating your experience and/or education. It doesn't matter if it's working on open source projects, an app you wrote and sold, or at a 9-5; it's still experience. Programming jobs almost always want code samples to review because they show how well you approach problems (efficiency, readability, maintainability, scalability, etc.). When you're looking at resumes blind (i.e. you don't know the person, like with this guy) you damn sure are looking at both and looking for candidates with the best showings. Extremely frequently, blind applicants are required to have X number of years of experience and/or X level of education. The job openings for where I interned 3 or so years ago look like this: Required Experience: Must have 1-2 years of experience as an applications or web programmer and [ability to work well with people] .NET experience desired. Considerable JAVA experience can be substituted Minimum Education: B.S. from an accredited college or university. With 2+ years of programming experience, a degree is not required. Note that while both is preferred, either is acceptable. This is a beginner position. Another opening is 4+ years as app / web programmer and B.S.+ or 6+ years of experience. However, being someone that didn't have 1-2 years of development experience, the opening was nonetheless available for me because I was a known entity. Networking is important and internships are very valuable for any job seeker (and are probably the simplest way to get experience). If you're capable of writing the next big app, go nuts. You'll have plenty of companies wanting to hire you. For the average programmer, be realistic; get an education and make extensive use of your school's career services to place you into internships and find businesses hiring when you graduate / are near graduation. Finally, this gem exists in some form for nearly every company: Salary commensurate with ability. | ||
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Slithe
United States985 Posts
On December 14 2012 11:02 Phunkapotamus wrote: This +1. I'll turn away an Ivy League CS degree any day for someone who has proven they can code. School/degree doesn't matter at all. If it matters to the place you're applying at, then you don't want to work there. It probably means they have stupid 1950's business politics, a dress code, and a bunch of useless people you can't fire. I'm rather curious about what companies you know that don't care about the degree, because frankly I don't know of any. Most companies simply don't have the time to shuffle through hundreds of garbage applications, just for the off-chance that they find the one self-motivated guy that taught himself properly. There's simply not enough time to interview them all. | ||
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Craton
United States17281 Posts
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Phunkapotamus
United States496 Posts
On December 14 2012 11:37 Slithe wrote: I'm rather curious about what companies you know that don't care about the degree, because frankly I don't know of any. Most companies simply don't have the time to shuffle through hundreds of garbage applications, just for the off-chance that they find the one self-motivated guy that taught himself properly. There's simply not enough time to interview them all. Video game companies, mostly. Also Google and Facebook. I'm in silicon valley so there is less chance people will get hung up on that "little piece of paper". It's hard to find good help even WITH that piece of paper, so as long as you can do the work, an employer out here will ask "when can you start?" A badass tech resume has education/gpa as merely a footnote. If you've been working long enough and have a big list of completed projects and tasks, then nobody is going to spend time looking for the place you went to school. If you're applying for your first job, school will most likely be the first thing you talk about and display. I would recommend doing projects on the side and contributing to open source initiatives so that schooling shows up secondary where it belongs. | ||
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mcc
Czech Republic4646 Posts
On December 14 2012 11:02 Phunkapotamus wrote: This +1. I'll turn away an Ivy League CS degree any day for someone who has proven they can code. School/degree doesn't matter at all. If it matters to the place you're applying at, then you don't want to work there. It probably means they have stupid 1950's business politics, a dress code, and a bunch of useless people you can't fire. Companies requiring degrees are the most interesting in the business. They want degrees, not because they need to know that you can code, a lot of people can do that. They need to know you understand and can do high level math (analysis, algebra, discrete math, set theory,...). That you know computability, complexity,.... . Good degree gives them some guarantee that you can actually do that since testing it in interview is not enough. | ||
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Deleted User 101379
4849 Posts
However, experience is hard to prove while degrees are easy to show. Unless you worked in another company before or have some big contribution to something you can show employers, getting a job without a degree will always be tough and you most likely will earn you less because it's a bigger risk for the employer. Internships are usually the way to go in that case since they have lower risk for the employer, so he is more likely to give you a chance. It's a simple risk-benefit calculation for the employer: Does he have a degree? No. Could i get someone with a degree? Yes (it's always 'Yes'). Well, better go for the one with degree then. | ||
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xavra41
United States220 Posts
On December 14 2012 09:07 Craton wrote: You can apply with anything or with nothing. You'd have a much better chance going after a paid internship if all you've done is gone through a single book and written a basic CRUD app. Getting hired almost always wants a degree and/or experience (preferably both, experience being in the form of internships for recent grads). Consider what you would say if you were an employer and you got a resume from someone where all they said was "I've gone through a text book and done an example project." Yay only useful advice so far! Where do I get a paid internship at? If I can't find one should I settle for an unpaid internship? | ||
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Craton
United States17281 Posts
As to how, well that depends. Normally your college could hook you up with contacts and it's normally college students that companies want as interns. I got mine basically through my mom seeing an article about the company having an internship program (it was a little 2-3 paragraph blurb on their program they'd been doing for a few years) and then contacting them directly. I corresponded with them for a year (~10 months) and I was still 3rd on the list for 2 spots despite having top marks (the more known the positions are, the more competition there tends to be), though one of those 2 declined the offer so I ultimately got the position. Failing a college's career service department and manually contacting any company you can find out about that has a program, I'm not really sure. I suppose there are some company's that advertise the positions in the classifieds, but I find that to be unlikely. | ||
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Blisse
Canada3710 Posts
LinkedIn works-ish. Not so much for tech. Look on HackerNews for random companies hiring every once in a while. Doesn't hurt to email lots of startups randomly either. | ||
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carlfish
Australia57 Posts
On December 14 2012 08:18 xavra41 wrote: Okay, so I Went through a giant 1500 page java book and did a big project involving 2k lines of code with gui and sql connection to a server to store/retrieve information. Does anyone know what the next step is in finding a job? Sorry to be Mr Bad News Bear, but "finding a job" is probably still a long way in your future. Whatever position you go for, whether it be an introductory position or an internship, paid or unpaid, you're going to be competing against freshly minted college grads and people who have been coding as a hobby since they were thirteen. Many of the candidates will be both. Unless you can take advantage of some kind of personal 'in' with a company that will get you an internship, your resume isn't going to make the first cut right now. My advice for your next step: learn more stuff. Build more stuff. Use your Java to write an online tool that people can use to schedule and run Starcraft tournaments or promote custom maps. Teach yourself enough Python to build a website for your friends to plan parties on. Teach yourself enough C to build a desktop app that can browse and embed streams from all the different streaming sites. Keep learning stuff. Keep building stuff. Code for the sheer fun of coding, because writing awesome code is the most satisfaction you can have alone in a room with your pants on. Eventually you will amass a big enough body of work that you can go to a company and say “I have no formal qualifications, but look, I've made stuff that people use!” That might not get you a job at a boring company that just ticks off boxes on a recruitment checklist, but it will get you noticed at the kind of interesting company that values people who have proven they can deliver real, working software. | ||
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Stratos.FEAR
Canada706 Posts
So my question is: do I enroll next semester if I don't get an internship despite feeling burnt out? Prior to my final exams I was on the verge of failing two courses simply because I could not absorb the material anymore and lost all interest and motivation. My other plan was to just relax, work part time and learn some useful things I never had the chance to learn in school such as C#, .NET frameworks, Android development etc... | ||
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adwodon
United Kingdom592 Posts
If that's not an option -
On December 14 2012 21:24 Stratos.FEAR wrote: Ok so I transferred into computing science in my university last year after attempting business for 3 and not liking it at all (going to use those credits towards a minor degree so time was not wasted). So during the past year I have been catching up on all my math and computing course and to be honest I feel like I need a break from academia in general. So knowing experience in this field is valuable I looked towards applying for an internship. However I applied late and got the OK from the school later than my peers and missed out on the hiring frenzy at the beginning of the term and have had trouble in the past 2 months even getting interviews. My advisors say my cover letters and resumes are good but I feel like I am under qualfied for most of the job postings and that is the reason why I have not been placed in an internship yet. So my question is: do I enroll next semester if I don't get an internship despite feeling burnt out? Prior to my final exams I was on the verge of failing two courses simply because I could not absorb the material anymore and lost all interest and motivation. My other plan was to just relax, work part time and learn some useful things I never had the chance to learn in school such as C#, .NET frameworks, Android development etc... The absolute last thing you want to do is burn out, I'd say give yourself a break but do some light work. There's no rush, but pushing yourself too hard can cause you to collapse, whether through illness or mental fatigue, and that will do more harm in the long run than a little bit of relaxation. Plus employers look favourably on personal projects and jobs of any description, if you take it easy and work on a few android / metro apps in your spare time you'll not be at a disadvantage unless you have a very specific company in mind and have the opportunity to get a placement with them. | ||
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froseph
United States12 Posts
I was wondering if you guys could give me feedback on my app as I would like to create more in the future. I really enjoyed the experience, but before I venture into the app world, I would like feedback from some more experienced programmers. I don't believe a direct link is allowed, but if you search "Catch The Fruit" on Google Play (with quotes) my groups app is second on the list (Double Entendre). I would really appreciate it. | ||
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Stratos.FEAR
Canada706 Posts
On December 14 2012 22:16 adwodon wrote: The best advice for getting a job: Get a physics / maths / engineering degree and code in your spare time, employers will prefer you over CS students in my experience as you will have better maths / problem solving skills (words I've heard from many different people, both employers and postgrads). If that's not an option -
The absolute last thing you want to do is burn out, I'd say give yourself a break but do some light work. There's no rush, but pushing yourself too hard can cause you to collapse, whether through illness or mental fatigue, and that will do more harm in the long run than a little bit of relaxation. Plus employers look favourably on personal projects and jobs of any description, if you take it easy and work on a few android / metro apps in your spare time you'll not be at a disadvantage unless you have a very specific company in mind and have the opportunity to get a placement with them. awesome advice! really appreciate it | ||
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Craton
United States17281 Posts
There may be some companies who "prefer" non-programmers over programmers for programming (stop and think how this sounds), but that would be the exception and not the rule. You are certainly free to take courses in the maths and sciences to bolster your analytical and problem solving abilities while a CIS/CS major. Whether it is useful is entirely dependent on what you're doing and the kind of project you're working on. In many cases it won't be, though it's quite subjective to the person at hand. Now, if you have both a CIS/CS (i.e. a programming-centric) degree AND proof of strong scientific / mathematic literacy, you certainly stand out to those with just CIS/CS. However, CS tracks typically have a lot of math built in already. FWIW there's technically a distinction (largely semantic, imo) between a programmer and a software developer, with the latter being the kind of person who goes through the planning and design phase as well as the coding, while the programmer just takes the marching orders and writes some code. Final note: colleges generally allow up to 18 credits per semester at a fixed rate, meaning you pay the same for 12 credits as you do 18. You can often get exemptions and go as high as 21 credits in a semester at that rate (or a slightly higher rate). Take advantage of this. A typical B.S. is 120 credits or roughly 40 classes. Maxing out each semester can net you an extra 24 credits / 8 courses at the rate you're already paying. Alternatively, you could finish a semester early and save that money. Don't half-ass your core courses. The more you go above and beyond, the more you'll actually learn. It's trivial to follow instructions from a professor or do a tutorial, but it's an entirely different thing to do it all from scratch with no help. | ||
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Recognizable
Netherlands1552 Posts
The best advice for getting a job: Get a physics / maths / engineering degree and code in your spare time, employers will prefer you over CS students in my experience as you will have better maths / problem solving skills (words I've heard from many different people, both employers and postgrads). This is what I am planning to do! Anyway, I quit Codeacedemy because I felt it was bad, courses were structured weirdly and I didn't feel I was learning much, and now I'm halfway through "Learnpythonthehardway"; learned some cli aswell. I still have zero clue on how to do anything for my first simple program I am planning to make once I am done with "LPTHW". We have this website in my school where you can look at your grades and such, but it doesn't work too well for mobile phones because it's kinda slow, which annoys me :p. I just want to speed up the process of being able to look at your grades. So I figured I want to make a simple app that accomplishes this by changing some things, like bringing you automatically to the right section of the website, making the GUI less image heavy, etc. Hopefully when I finish LPTHW I have a better idea of how to begin. For some reason I enjoy learning to code. I outgrew videogames probably because after SC2 I just couldn't find a fun game that challenged me, this obviously resulted into me having a ton of free time and for the past few weeks programming has filled that hole ^.^ It's actually quite addicting and eats up all my free time now haha. Just the prospects of being able to create something excite me. | ||
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