Posit: a fresh alum of Virginia Polytechnical University with a degree in Computer Science, with 8 years unrelated previous work experience, an ~3.5 college GPA , but very little actual practical experience. What kinds of computer-related jobs would I be eligable for, how difficult would it be for me to get them, and what kinds of jobs should I avoid?
Thee job market is bad. It’s very, very bad. There are no jobs for people with < 1 year of experience. I’m in a similar situation – good theoretical, academic background, but short on real-world practical skills. Jobs to avoid? Are you kidding? If you find one you don’t want, pass it on to me.
Not good. I’m a ME with a couple years related work experience and a shiny new Master’s, and in the last six month I’ve gotten a single callback, and that was from a family friend. What chafes me is that at this point I can’t even get work out of my field because it’s all flooded with other poor bastards.
Another vote for “very very bad”. My advice? Go back to school, get either a buisiness degree or go for you masters, and apply for internships while you’re doing it. There is 0 work for inexperienced programmers right now.
-lv
Or set yourself up as a consultant if that’s not an option. In a jobless economy, the only way out of the hole is to start your own business. Corporations are making money and will need services, but they’ll be very friendly to outsourcing if the “recovery” sustains.
I just got a job (start Monday!) after being out of work since Oct. I have 5 years experience with big names like Michelin, Milliken, Dunlop/Maxfli/Slazenger and Ahold.
I’m afraid it’s going to be very difficult. If I were you, I would move to a major metropolitan area if you want to find work.
I thought of some suggestions for you:
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Consider an internship. The market is picking up a little bit, and some companies are picking put interns for tax-write offs.
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Contact all the headhunters in your area. I haven’t had much luck with them, but it never hurts. The easiest way to find them all is to go to monster.com and careerbuilder.com and many of the “employees” will actually be headhunters.
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Consider contracting as well. Companies will pick these up before full-timers in a recovering economy.
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If you’re a really smart person, fib on your skills. Don’t go overboard, but if you’re confident you can pick up a technology pretty quick, say you have "some " experience in what they’re looking for. Employeers often think that unless you have years of experience in the certain solution you can’t do it. Dumbass.
Good luck!!
Make that, companies are picking up interns.
I don’t know what the hell that was.
Forgot to post my creds. I’m a senior programmer with one of the biggies who does phone screenings. In my current department (the only department that’s currently hiring) we typically have three levels of candidate, “intern” (which we haven’t bothered with for a while), “college hire” (freshly pressed degree, the ones who get interviews have interned for a year or two, usually with our department) or “experienced” (our last req we posted was for two openings, 10 years experience, and a bunch of skills that I don’t even have. We got 80+ resumes).
So, quite frankly, you have very little chance of catching on with one of the biggies without some professional programming experience. I’d say that your only hope was to catch on with a startup somewhere somehow and work long hours for low pay for 2-3 years, after which you’ll have the experience to go job hunting in a (hopefully) recovering market (or your startup will be bought by one of the biggies).
The key to the “going back for another degree” thing is it buys you time to live subsidized (by grants and such) without having to pay back loans while you do some internships and gain some experience.
-lv