Career

RealistSpy

Hi

This is not a programming question but a question regarding career as a Programmer. If this is not the right forum please feel free to move it.

I have a feeling its hard getting a job as a programmer especially when you don't have experience. The question is that "If I don't have work experience would making a portfolio be equivalent?" If I was to make a portfolio can someone give me advice with that.

Thanks in Advance

OE

JohnathanM

Getting a job in any field without experience is tough, unless you're straight out of uni. in which case it's pretty much the norm.

I don't know what other people might say, but were I starting out now I would put together a decent little blog. As somebody who has spent time wading through CVs, it was surprisingly rare to see a link but I really appreciated it when I did. The applicant showed me straight off the bat what he understood, how he thought about current topics, what literature he read and what he gleaned from it. I could see his level before I even picked up the phone, and had a good grounding for general discussion with him.

A straight portfolio of nifty little apps. with source is a great idea, but I would personally be mindful of the ideal conditions they were written in. Combine it with posts on how and why certain design and implementation decisions were made - not being shy to point out problems - as you're going about the work, and I think it would stand out.

My two cents.

firefly08

I have a feeling its hard getting a job as a programmer especially when you don't have experience

The best advice I can give you is: find an open source project that you're interested in, get the code, go to their ticket tracking site and start fixing bugs! (most projects provide some documentation to explain how you get involved, i.e. who to submit your fixes to, how to get accounts for their source repository etc.)

In all likelihood, this will be your first assignment if you get a job in the industry - to fix bugs in an unfamiliar codebase. It's a very good way to learn and get inside the heads of your fellow team members.

The blog is a good idea - working on bugs in an open source project gives you something interesting to talk about - something that's already relevant to a great many other people.

Also, as you get familiar with the project, make an effort to contribute to the public mailing list (every open source project has at least one).

If I got your CV and you said you worked on an open source project, I'd check these things out - the issue tracker, the mailing lists archives, and if possible the source control logs, so I could see your code. I would count what I see as being equivalent to industry experience, or better.

AnonymousPrime

I would agree with both posts leaning heavier on the apps side of things.
I remember 1 particular interview I had where 1 of the interviewers only wanted to hear about a small (simple) iPod organiser app I had written.

John_Mc

Yeah, you'll absolutely have to have commerical experience or a portfolio of some sort to discuss with them.

I had several websites developed in my spare time after I graduated and went looking for a job. I found being able to list these on my CV and discuss in an interview as a great asset.

+1 on everything above

Collumbo

Agreeing with everything above of course...

If the idea of getting stuck into an open source project and fixing bugs doesn't float your boat, consider what you'd like to end up programming in.... If it's web development stuff you are into, one really nifty area to get into writing plugins for jQuery. If it's mobile stuff, start messing with Android (or cocoa for the iPhone if that's what interests you) and publish your code - it proves understanding if nothing else and as JonathanM pointed out, whenever we get a few CVs in, the first ones I'd consider phoning are the guys who've stuck a bit of code and their degree project up on a website.

Good luck.

RealistSpy

Thanks guys. I just finished my 2nd year in college and I am taking a year out on my own project. I am not really into web development. I am interested in database and software programming in general.

After my first Project I will look into open source. I am the type of person that just want to be told what to do and I get it done. I am also passionate about my coding

um7y1h83ge06nx

A profile on LinkedIn wouldn't hurt either.

The_B_Man

I get some job emails every once in a while. I got one yesterday that said the recruiters have noticed more jobs these days in Spring, Hibernate, GWT, ESB, Mule and agile TDD environments.

Can anyone confirm/deny this?

Might be something to look into prior to applying for a job, if its true!

G-Money

Thinking about this too myself. I have a little programming experience but not a lot and most of it was sort of gained on an ad-hoc basis. I've never had any formal training and as a result, a lot of the main concepts pass me by.

I'm looking around for work at the moment and while I'd discounted the idea of doing any development, the job market is making me re-consider that decision.

I'm doing some development in my current job but I'm not particularly enjoying it. I think this is mostly because I simply don't understand the language I'm using and the development environment we have to work in and therefore find it hard to do anything. I'm wondering if I understood code better and the fundementals of programming, perhaps I would be more receptive to some kind of C# or Java role.

firefly08

I'm wondering if I understood code better and the fundementals of programming, perhaps I would be more receptive to some kind of C# or Java role.

If you think you've missed out on some of the fundamentals, I'd suggest reading "x: How To Program" by Deitel & Deitel, where 'x' can be Java, C, C++ and a few other languages I care even less about and therefore can't remember Not my favourite choice of languages but they are very good books in terms of teaching fundamentals. If you 'grok' everything in those books, you won't be missing any fundamentals of conventional languages.

Which language is giving you trouble now?

G-Money

firefly08 wrote: »

If you think you've missed out on some of the fundamentals, I'd suggest reading "x: How To Program" by Deitel & Deitel, where 'x' can be Java, C, C++ and a few other languages I care even less about and therefore can't remember Not my favourite choice of languages but they are very good books in terms of teaching fundamentals. If you 'grok' everything in those books, you won't be missing any fundamentals of conventional languages.

Which language is giving you trouble now?

Working on Perl at the moment and I hate it. I find it hard to read and understand and our dev environment in general I find difficult. Doing development is not my main job, just a part of it. However I have to say that I'd always been interested in doing development but this has really put me off it completely.

I've bought a few books over the years, like the for dummies books and some other books but I don't know if it's just me or what, but I find myself rapidly losing interest in them. Perhaps I don't have a great attention span, I don't know

randombar

Work with php mostly myself and I've had I dont know how many people asking me if I know of any more php devs out there. They seem to be as rare as hens teeth at the moment?

pwd

Hard to get a job with no experience? - yes.

Hard to get work with experience? - Depends largely on supply and demand for your skillset, as well as the quality of your experience. Try to always be in a job where you are developing your skills, and using technologies there is a market for.

Technologies change quickly enough that it's a bit like gambling. Established technologies are safe bets. Emergent ones are risky, but learning them early will put you in a strong position if they take off.

I agree with the people saying doing your own projects will help you a lot. It definitely helped me get at least one decent job.

I'm not sure about keeping a blog though. To me, a blog is something advanced developers use to share new/newish knowledge. I'm not sure what interest there would be in one by a beginner. A beginner with a blog puts me in mind of one of those people with a seriously deluded self-image. I'm sure if you presented it clearly as "this blog describes me starting to learn X" or something, it would be fine though.